Sorry its been forever but I do have lots of updates!

Hello blog friends!  How are you all?  I am doing very well!  I'm sorry I've let this blog slip a bit but I have a good excuse and I have still been stitching! 

Yesterday we FINALLY received our first snow in Oslo!!  I love snow even though it is difficult to push my stroller and little girl around in it.  Here is a picture I took today of the 6 + inches that we received yesterday and this morning!

Also, last Saturday I visited the wonderful Christmas Market at the Norwegian Folk Museum with a very good crafty friend and took some cute pictures of all of the booths and wares and got some very nice gifts, but I will share more about that later.  For now I'll just show a little teaser that will reveal my big announcement and why I have been too tired to blog lately...

I was able to find a beautiful relatively inexpensive (for Norway) Bunad (Norway's National Costume) for my daughter to wear to celebrate on the Norwegian Holiday of May 17th even though we won't be in Norway anymore by then :(   AND I was able to find one for my little BABY BOY who is due in March!!!  I am so excited to have another little one join our family even though sometimes the thought of taking care of two children makes me feel overwhelmed at times.  

Also I have been busy as we are getting ready to pack up and leave Norway after 3 wonderful years here in about a month.  So with being tired carrying my second baby and the stress of moving I haven't been that motivated to blog but I have been stitching little by little!

Here is my progress on "Birds" by Angie Designer.  I was doing this in a SAL but I knew I wasn't going to finish it in time so I finally purchased it in September.    

I am so close to finishing it I can almost taste it!  Actually I have the second set of leaves now completed and I'm halfway done with the second rose in this section.  I am hoping to have this finished by the end of the year so that I can take it home with us to Michigan to my favorite framer.

I have also completed I think my 7th Finish for the year!  This is a freebie from Kincavel Krosses, and I stitched it for a local gift exchange I am taking part of with the expat community here.  I absolutely LOVE these designs and am so grateful to the designer for creating them!  My plans are to make one for each of the countries we get to live in.  I already stitched the DRC one and now I need to make a Norway one for myself and then I have to do some figuring out for how to make one for our next exotic home but that is a secret for now!

Here are my finished stitched pieces.  I was a bit nervous about finishing them into the ornament since I have never actually done anything but frame my finished pieces...but below is my first attempt at ornament finishing.

P.S. It is hanging from the handle of my little girl's rocking horse :)  I am not 100% satisfied with how it turned out.  Adding the stuffing and the depth made the design turn out much smaller than I had expected, and my finishing technique is far from perfect but I think it is passable for a handmade gift for the gift exchange this week.  Plus it was the first time I had ever tried my hand at finishing!

Thank you for reading this!  I have been a bad blogger but I have been reading the blogs just not commenting very much when I'm tired (which seems to be most of the time).  Thank you all for sticking with me on my journey of crafting and living in foreign lands!  Cheers to you!