I don't care what anybody says, snow is beautiful! It started snowing this evening and it's still going outside. The flakes are a little bit bigger than they were a couple of days ago, and right now everything outside has a blanket of snow on it (except for the bit of sidewalk where the next door neighbor spread salt earlier today). I can't wait until tomorrow morning, when I can take a walk outside and look at the Brauweiler church from the field. It's going to be so awesome in the snow. I have to buy new boots tomorrow, though, because I don't have any that will keep my feet dry and warm.

Yesterday was the Christmas party at Maria's (it was supposed to be last Thursday but she had to postpone it because a friend of hers passed away and she had to go out of town) and it was a blast. I made more of those muffins from the other day, and a whole bunch of yams because Esther cannot get enough of them, and she keeps talking about them. Luckily this time I wasn't the only one eating them; Jorg and his wife Barbara particularly enjoyed them.

The best thing about the party, though, was of course the children. There were 8 kids there total: Gustav and Pauline; Fabio and David; Zaynep, whose about the same age as Pauline; Luis, whose a little younger than Pauline; and Zoe and Anastasia, both around a year old or so. They were all so freaking cute. I think that all of the kids that Maria currently takes care of were there, except for one little girl about Pauline's age named Lena. I got to meet little Luis and Anastasia for the first time, and it was also the first time that I met most of the parents.

Luis attached himself to me fairly early, and at one point I had to trick him into going to the play room so that he would leave the bathroom and I could pee. He had followed me into the restroom before I had the chance to lock the door, and I could not convince him to take the doll buggy outside and wait for me there. I told him that we were going to go to the play room to see his mama, and then about halfway there I turned around and snuck back to the bathroom. At one point I noticed Fabio was dancing around holding himself, so I had him walk to the bathroom with me to go pee. He set up the little child seat, sat down, opened a picture book and that's where he stayed. I asked him if he needed any more help or if he could finish by himself, and he told me that it was ok for me to leave.

Anastisia I think must've been really tired, and she seems to have a little bit of anxiety around a lot of people (particularly strangers). The whole evening she would wander a little way away from her mom, and then pretty soon she'd start crying and running back to her. Although she didn't ever come over to me, there were a few times when, after running back to her mom, she would sit on the floor under the chair and look at me, occasionally with a little smile. At the end of the evening Luis was carrying around a stuffed moose that played jingle bells when you squeezed it's hoof, and when it started playing he would run over to Anastasia (who was sitting in her mom's lap) and hold her hand and start dancing. Then when it stopped he would run over to his dad to ask him to turn it back on and he'd say, "Auf," which actually means off. Every time his dad would correct him and say, "An. An, Luis. Sag mal an." I was laughing so hard, because it was just so cute. The way that he would run over to dance with her was freaking precious, and the whole night she would ask for him or call to him when she didn't know where he was. I was really sad when the party was over, because I could've stayed there with those kids forever.

Today Pauline and I went to the market in Frechen again, but this time for lamb instead of fish. Esther had asked me to buy some lamb in Koenigsdorf yesterday, but she wanted 4 lambhox and they only had 2. So today I went to Frechen because the same people were going to be at the market there today, and I bought 2 more. Pauline wanted me to carry her most of the time, which was really difficult because not only does she weigh like 20 pounds more with all of her heavy winter clothes on, but I was also carrying a pastry and a cup of apple juice that I had bought for her because she was hungry. She was so cute, though. She kept asking me where the fish was and saying that we needed to find the fish. I told her, "We're not buying fish today, Pauline. No fish." She thought she was repeating me when she said, "Ja, nur Fische," which actually means only fish, not no fish.

This evening while I was talking to Lee on Skype both of the kids came running into my room to play and say hi. This was the first time that Gustav has actually come up to sit on my lap while I was on the computer. Both of the kids were sitting on my lap and looking at the little video of themselves in the corner, and they both said hi to Lee. It was really cute because Lee asked a few questions and Gustav actually understood and responded to them. He's picking up on English so fast! They are both so smart and so adorable, I just can't get enough of them.