After having a long day on Wednesday, I basically slept most of the day on Thursday. I had set my self an alarm so that I could get up and be ready to go before Emma got here at 8, but I ended up sleeping through Emma's visit and got out of bed at around 12. I don't think Emma minded, though, because it's just one less room she had to clean.

When I picked up the kids at around 3:30 I took them back to that hill again to go sledding. Gustav wasn't happy at first, and he kept asking why we have to go sledding every day. I explained to him that soon the snow would be gone (and I was right, because it's raining outside right now) and then we wouldn't be able to use the sled anymore so we were going to have fun with the snow while we still could. That was a good enough answer for him. It turns out that we actually couldn't do any sledding, though, because the snow was too wet and the sled kept getting stuck. At first we were all kinda bummed, until I remembered that although the snow sucked for sledding, it would've been perfect for building a snowman. So that's what we did instead. It was my first real snowman, and it was a lot of fun. Gustav and Pauline cannibalized some coffee beans and a carrot from another snowman that they decided to destroy as soon as they had gotten out of the car and we made him a hat out of snow. Gustav wanted me to put the snowman on the sled when we left so that we could take it home and no one else could come by and ruin it, but obviously that didn't happen. We were going to build another one in the back yard when we got home but the kids were too tired and cold, so that never happened.

Yesterday I took Pauline to the market in Frechen again. Esther needed me to buy some stuff for dinner this weekend. Right now Esther and Olaf are downstairs having dinner with Domenic's parents to celebrate Claudia's birthday, and yesterday Esther still didn't have all the stuff she needed.

I also bought stuff I needed to make my pumpkin pies, though I ended up not making them yesterday. I couldn't find a normal pie dish anywhere. All Esther has is a dish to make tortes and a free form pan for cakes and cheesecake and stuff. That's the one I ended up having to use when I finally baked the pie today. I'll have to make the second one tomorrow, since there's only one pan. We still haven't tasted the pie, so I have no idea how it turned out. I kept having to add more and more spices to it because the filling tasted so bland. Then I realized that it was bland because I forgot to put the salt in it, and once I did that it was delicious. For the crust I had to use a recipe that uses butter instead of shortening because Esther says that shortening doesn't really exist here. I've never used butter to make a crust before, and when I was rolling it out I wasn't a huge fan, so we'll have to see what happens with it tomorrow when we try the pie.

The package I sent to my parents for Christmas finally arrived yesterday, too. It got to their house literally right after I got off the phone with my mom, so she immediately called me back. Luckily everything made it in good condition, including the artwork that I made for Mom for her birthday. I had collected a whole bunch of leaves from the woods and in the city and I glued them to a canvas to make a little picture for her, since she loves fall leaves so much. It actually turned out pretty cool, and now my mom has a little piece of Germany to display in her house. Now she just has to send my gifts to my sister in Seattle and my brother in Hawaii. It's a really extended Christmas for the Bush family this year.

Today was a pretty uneventful day. I went into Cologne this afternoon to get my hair cut by the woman who cuts the family's hair. I think she did a really good job, and I'm happy with it. It had been a while since I got my hair trimmed so it definitely needed it. I also went back to Tally Weijl (that's the clothing company that Olaf works for, and they have a bunch of stores around here) in Neumarkt to buy a few more shirts, because they fit well and they're really comfortable, not to mention the fact that they're half price right now. After that I came home to help feed the kids, put them to bed and help Esther finish preparing their dinner. I had originally intended to go back into Cologne to hang out for the evening, but Pauline's sick and has a fever so I stayed a little longer to make sure she fell asleep ok. Then it started raining, and it was after 8, and that's just too late for me to start my evening. So I'm at home right now, just kind of hanging out for the rest of the night. It's not such a bad thing because I'm tired. And at least the kids are sleeping, so I can definitely relax before I go to bed.