vickan & dave

Ice skating

2012-02-01T21:17:00.003+01:00

Sorry for going on about it but it's so nice to finally have some winter. And Elias loves it too. Alice hasn't quite embraced this season though...

We've been ice skating with Elias twice and his progress is quite good I think. The first time he wouldn't let go of us at all but the second time he was quite happy to try on his own and managed to walk around on the skates. He doesn't skate yet, but I'm sure we'll get there in the end!

On Sunday the weather was amazing and we had a lovely morning down at Långsjön (together with pretty much everyone else..)

The kids liked the hot chocolate!David pulled them on the bob while I skated one lap around the lake. I must get skates of my own asap!

Dave didn't mind the HC either ;-)

Finally snow!

2012-01-23T13:38:00.001+01:00

Yesterday it snowed pretty much the whole day. Yippie!!

Dreaming of snow

2012-01-10T07:35:00.004+01:00

On Sunday we made a trip to a skiing slope nearby. Mainly to check they place out and to see if we can sign Elias up for some skiing lessons. We couldn't because the office wasn't open. The slope wasn't open yet due to lack of snow, but quite many familys were there tobogganing. We felt like the meanest parents for not thinking of bringing ours. Oh well. Elias still loved spending some time in the slope and tried his very best to have fun without the toboggan. Bless him..

2 years

2012-01-04T23:25:00.001+01:00

2 years... Such a long time and at the same time just the blink of an eye.

2 years ago you entered our world with the impatience and drama that is so significant for you.

1 year ago you were busy discovering the world and learning to walk.

In the last year so much has happened. You've learned to walk, talk and sing. You love playing with dolls, to take socks off and shoes and hats on . You're extremely cheeky and will give your parents many grey hairs. You love ice cream and sweets but hate potatoes (chips are ok though). You bully your brother from time to time, but he is you biggest hero, we know!

Alice, you rock our world and we love you tons! Happy Birthday!

Last week of the year

2012-01-04T20:35:00.004+01:00

Anki and her lot left on the 25th and mum and dad stayed until the 28th. We had a few fairly quiet days playing with all the new stuff. David and I made a trip to IKEA to get some more storage for the playroom and a bed for Alice. She is now sleeping in a proper bed instead of the cot. She's such a big girl.Elias loves the Lightning McQueen "laptop" he got for Christmas. It is a toy laptop with a tiny display and a few educational games. He's really into his letters so I think it is a good thing...

On New Year's Eve we were supposed to have guests but they didn't want to come when we discovered the kids had head lice. As it turned out our supposed guests came down with a stomach bug as well so I guess it wasn't supposed to happen. We ended up having a quiet night in but dressed up and had some nice food and lit some sparklers at least. David and I just about managed to stay up until midnight.

And now it's 2012... What will this year bring?

Christmas

2012-01-04T20:14:00.004+01:00

Christmas was lovely (even thought the little snow we had melted on the 23rd). My parents came on the 20th and my sister and Felicia on the 21st (Per joined on the 22nd). We had a few lovely days leading up to Christmas preparing some of the food, decorating the tree and just hanging out.

On Christmas Eve we managed to squeeze "everyone" in and we were 11 adaults, 4 kids and one dog. Crazy but fun! While mum, dad and I prepared the food the others mingled with some glögg. My cousin Therese had the baby on the 31st so we were lucky they could join us!

At dinner the kids had a table of their own which I think they quite liked. After lunch Father Christmas came (Elias said straight away "it's granddad" so we had to come up with some explanation for that later). Alice borrowed a dress from Felicia and she looked absolutely adorable.

Baking

2011-12-11T20:22:00.002+01:00

Today we had some friends over for some "pepparkaks-"baking. We made both cookies and a house each (although, the house was pre-made and only needed assembling and decorating)

Let the baking begin!

Fredrik decorating their house

Our house. Did I mention that our friends are professional designers? Both of them!

Elias loved decorating the cookies. (He didn't mind tasting them either)

Family day out

2011-12-09T20:28:00.004+01:00

The nursery was shut today and both David and I took the day off work and we had a family outing. We started by going to look at the Christmas window display at NK - a very posh department store in Stockholm. Their Christmas display is always really hyped and many people has made it a tradition to go and look at it. This was our first time and Elias especially seemed to really like it.

All the letters sent to Father Christmas is "uploaded" to his memory

Father Christmas as an octopus making all the toys.
To see the whole display, click this link

After looking at the window display we went to Rum för barn at Kulturhuset. This time it was open! I think all of us really liked it. I wish I had been able to film Alice's reaction when we got in, she was so excited and happy.

They had a live advent calendar and door no 9 was opened today. It was done really well, I think. The woman in the box was painting to music and the other one got the children watching involved. Elias was mesmerized but Alice got bored after a little while. Her attention span is not quite as good as his yet..

After the advent calendar and some play and reading we went in to the art studio where both kids did some paining.

Obstacle course

2011-12-06T08:33:00.003+01:00

When Joyce visited us we wanted to go to a place in Stockholm called "Rum för barn", but it was unexpectadly closed. Outside of it there was an obstacle course though that Alice loved and we ended up spending quite a long time there after all.

Alice and Sonja

2011-12-04T20:39:00.000+01:00

Alice is really into her (2) dolls at the moment. She loves dressing and undressing them, putting them to bed, changing nappies and so forth. The other day she was taking Sonja for a walk and it was nice to see that she made sure Sonja was wrapped up properly!

Forest group final

2011-12-04T20:29:00.002+01:00

Two weekends ago it was the last gathering of the semester for the two forest groups. The weather wasn't great but it was still a really nice day (yet again at Lida).

Letter to Father Christmas

2011-12-04T20:26:00.000+01:00

A while back we got a bunch of junk mail in our letterbox even though we have a sign saying we don't want it. In this lot was a catalogue from Toys'R'Us which Elias quite enjoys to flick through (for some reason). After reading it carefully he wanted to write a letter to Father Christmas and here is the result.

"Hello Father Christmas. I want a Ligtning (McQueen) computer /from Elias"

Family visit III

2011-12-04T20:17:00.002+01:00

After my sister's family was here we had the honor to be hosts to both my dad and Joyce. Dad had returned from his visit to China and stopped by for a few days. While he was here we celebrated father's day (different day than in England) and me and Elias baked cup cakes to celebrate. Don't they look yummy. We also made a trip to Lida which has become a bit of a favourite place for us...

Family visit II

2011-11-15T21:32:00.003+01:00

After the Hills' went home my dad came for a few days before taking off to China, and the day after he left my sister's family came round. Did you not know our house also doubles as the Webber Inn?)

It was really great to see them and especially Felicia. It is so interesting to "compare" her and Alice. It feels like she is so much ahead especially when it comes to language, but Alice is on the other hand learning loads of words very fast now, so in two months time she might actually be at the same level... Anyway, here's a few pics:

October

2011-11-15T21:12:00.002+01:00

In October Elias liked to make crowns, and he also got into making very advanced stuff with strings. It made it a bit difficult to access the kitchen though... Elias finally had a haircut too and looked very smashing going to a birthday party. Alice experienced her first autumn party at the nursery

Then the Hills came which was lovely, but unfortunately we (I) hardly took any pictures :(

Dancing queen

2011-09-30T20:41:00.002+02:00

Jedward / Delias

2011-09-30T20:25:00.005+02:00

A few weekends ago Elias got to see Jedward perform live in a shoppingmall here in Stockholm. I missed it because I was walking a sleeping Alice around in the pram. Mind you, who needs them when I have these two in my living room?

Breakfast..

2011-09-19T22:07:00.000+02:00

.. and then off to the coal mine?

Heavy feet

2011-09-08T16:39:00.000+02:00

Nursery

2011-09-05T12:13:00.000+02:00

Alice has started nursery as you all know. This is a pic from the first morning. Elias was quite excited about her starting too.

David was with her there for 3 days but all of last week she was there on her own and it all went really well. Now she's ill though and at home..

Sweden's got talent?

2011-08-26T09:57:00.000+02:00

These pictures have been in my phone for a while but I thought I should share them anyway. Early July Elias went to a birthday party and loved playing with the microphone that boy had... I think it was mainly 'Lipstick' being sung.

Sailing

2011-08-15T09:55:00.001+02:00

On Wednesday and Thursday Elias and I went sailing with my cousin's family.
The weather wasn't great but it was still very very nice.

On the first day Elias and I took a ferry out into the archipelago where Therese & co picked us up. We had lunch and then went to a little island where we "parked". Soon after we started to hear thunder and it started to rain. At first there was 15 seconds between the lightning and the thunder but that distance quickly shrunk down to 2 seconds! It didn't last long though and we could then go to the sauna on the island and enjoy a bit of swimming and "saunaing".

The next day we actually sailed a bit which I personally love. Elias thought it was quite exciting too with the tilting boat and all. The views were spectacular as always and I just enjoyed it so much. We sailed to a port where David and Alice met us and we had a bit of fika with Therese & co and then they went off to sea again and we took the car home...

England

2011-08-14T21:17:00.000+02:00

On a slow boat to England

Celebrating Joseph's birthday

Misc...

France!

2011-08-14T20:56:00.002+02:00

Here's a collection of pictures from our time in France:

The lovely plave we stayed in (we occupied the big house in the top right)

We went on a few excursions

And we went swimming
And the musketeers fought with swords
And we had croissants
As you do in France...

And apart from that we ate a lot of french bread and cheese and the odd chip...

Oops

2011-07-18T22:23:00.003+02:00

Just realised that I haven't really been updating the blog lately. Anyway, here's a short recap of our 1½ week in Luleå.

The weather was amazing pretty much the whole time so we

paddled in the pool

had ice cream

did more swimming

had a bath outdoor

and had fika in Siknäs

Midsummer

2011-06-25T22:02:00.001+02:00

For once we had some solid plans for Midsummer's and we were really looking forward to it. We were going with Anna and Patrik to "the island". Unfortunately I got ill last Saturday and this nasty virus still holds me in its grip so we had to cancel. Instead we went to a celebration in Hågelby park and it was really nice..

First came the fiddlers

Then people helped raise the pole

Tada!
Then the singing and dancing round the pole started but Elias didn't want to join in.

Instead he drove a red lorry.

And he did a really good job!

Fence

2011-06-17T20:10:00.000+02:00

Haircut

2011-06-17T20:07:00.001+02:00

Birthday boy

2011-06-08T08:02:00.002+02:00

On Saturday Elias turned 4 as you all probably know. I can't believe how big he is!!

In the morning he got most of his presents and the girls were very keen to help. He got a bike helmet from Auntie Anki.

But then of course he needed something to go with the helmet so the hunt began. He was pretty pleased with what he found...

Late in the evening it was finally time for the cake. One stubborn candle didn't want to be blown out but in the end that one went out too and we could dig in.

Bean bag bonanza

2011-05-30T15:18:00.002+02:00

Indian

2011-05-30T15:17:00.004+02:00

(Or: What to do with Easter feathers once Easter is over...)

Parent-fika at dagis

2011-05-20T08:54:00.003+02:00

Yesterday it was "parent-fika" at nursery so we all went for the cake bonanza.

Elias in the cage with friend Z

Alice made some friends too

Elias climbing

Elias starred as the lion in the play

Growl!

Random pics

2011-05-20T08:52:00.001+02:00

Snack time

Alice and the family

Artists at work

Marshmallow and motorbike

2011-05-10T22:29:00.000+02:00

Box play

2011-05-01T20:27:00.002+02:00

New album

2011-04-27T22:04:00.003+02:00

I've added a new photo album, so put your reading glasses on and have a look!

More pics

2011-04-24T17:50:00.004+02:00

Friday ice cream has turned to every day ice cream this week. Elias doesn't mind...

At the plough for a spot of lunch

Decorating fairy cakes with auntie Lizzie and Owen

A slightly insane amount of cakes...

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T11:05:00.001+02:00

Cheerio everyone!

Alice having her first ice cream

Elias loves "his" bike

Lovely weekend

2011-04-17T20:27:00.002+02:00

On Saturday we went to the opening of the Waterfront Congress Centre in Stockholm. We don't go into town very often and it was very nice to go for once. They guided tours with the architects of the building but we couldn't really join and instead we focused on the activities they had for kids like bouncy castles and face painting.

Today Therese and Leonard came for a visit and we also babysat Leonard for a few hours while she did some work on their boat. The boys seemed to really enjoy each others company and it was really lovely to see.

Here they are building a house for a cat that kept walking through our garden.

The weather has been really nice this weekend and today we acutally ate dinner outdoors for the first time. So lovely!!

The sweetest thing

2011-04-10T19:24:00.002+02:00

happened this afternoon. After a very nice day with forest groups and a whole afternoon in the garden, Elias and Alice relaxed watching Charlie and Lola. Guess how much my heart melted when I saw this:

AND after dinner they had a lovely time playing together in the bean bag. I don't know what they did exactly but Alice was laughing her head off it sounded like. Of course it was all ruined when I went in to see what they were doing...

Grandma's little helpers

2011-04-02T20:24:00.003+02:00

Last weekend Grandma Joyce was visiting and we were priviliged enough to have her around for her birthday.

The kids thought it was excellent to help with opening presents

We were all really sad to see her go back home on Tuesday, but luckily it's not long until Easter and we'll get to see her and everyone in England again...

It's (finally) official

2011-04-02T20:17:00.003+02:00

Alice can walk!

We don't have a baby anymore, we have a toddler...
While Grandma Joyce was here Alice changed her main form of transportation from shuffling to walking. She still wants our support when she's outdoors walking, which is quite understandable. Indoors she is doing really well though but towards the end of the day she is happy for us to help her by holding one hand.

Fancy dressing

2011-03-20T20:00:00.003+01:00

Today Elias went to the birthday party for a girl in his group at nursery. It said on the invitation that the children could wear fancy dress if they wanted to. Elias immediately said he wanted to be Mr Benn. So this week me and Dave had to try to find stuff for him to wear and here is the result:

Elias was very pleased with his outfit. The fact that no-one here knows who Mr Benn is doesn't really matter...

Yesterday we went round my cousin's since she has had her birthday too recently. There Alice tried on Leonard's tiger costume.

Roar

Leonard is very fond of Alice and likes to hug her as often as he can. It is really sweet!

2011-03-07T07:58:00.002+01:00

(It seems like Alice is quite a lot tougher/braver than Elias was at the same age. He would never have gone on this slide on his own without us holding his hand whereas she just shuffles along with no worries. )

Weekend video 2

2011-03-07T07:51:00.002+01:00

Weekend video 1

2011-03-07T07:48:00.001+01:00

Table manners

2011-03-06T20:19:00.002+01:00

Alice has always had quite a good apetite but lately she has become increasingly fussy and difficult to feed. When we were up north she refused loads of food but then I realised that she tends to eat a bit better if she can feed herself. It's just a shame she hasn't quite mastered the spoon-technique yet...

Almost there

2011-03-06T20:11:00.003+01:00

Alice is getting pretty close to walking now. I keep meaning to film it but as soon as I get a camera out she stops walking and wants to play with the camera instead. The only clip I have is one week old and of course she crashes this time. It's a small miracle that children survive learning to walk I think.

Anyway, since this was filmed she has progressed a lot. On Friday when I was at work she made a "jump" and could all of a sudden walk much further and with more balance. She still shuffles along as her main form of transport but we think it won't be much longer until she has mastered the art of walking.

Seeing family

2011-03-06T20:05:00.002+01:00

Since the last entry (it's been a while I know) the kids and I have been up to Luleå one weekend. We managed to go the weekend it was -25 degrees so we spent pretty much all of the time indoors. Correction, on Sunday it was only -15 and then one could see people being out for walks enjoying the warmer weather!

Angelika and Felicia was up there too, but David stayed at home. All in all we had a really nice, relaxing weekend.

One week after we went up north, mum and dad came here. They left this morning to go to Angelika's. We've had a really nice time and the kids loved having them here.

Itchy feet

2011-02-17T08:31:00.005+01:00

Last weekend we visited my sister's family in Skåne. We went there by train and of course we managed to time it with a snow storm (it hasn't snowed for ages). When I went out in the morning it was about 20 cm snow and we only just made it out of the driveway and then we almost got stuck on the road. But in the end we got to the train station and were only 40 minutes late when we got to Lund.

We had a great but short weekend together. On Saturday we had amazing weather and went to an outdoor area and grilled hot dogs and played football.

Tomorrow me and the kids are going up north for the weekend. It looks like it will be -25 there. Brr

More pictures in the January&February album

Rocking moose

2011-02-01T09:12:00.004+01:00

On Saturday we went swimming. It was great fun and both of the kids loved it. It is obviously quite tiring though...
On Sunday we saw my cousins and Alice got a belated birthday present.

On Sunday Alice walked on her own with the push cart for the first time. Very nice for my back! She still prefers to use poor mummy for support but maybe she will soon use the push cart more...

Driving miss Alice

2011-01-25T22:06:00.002+01:00

Film from the weekend

2011-01-16T20:58:00.003+01:00

Pictures from the weekend

2011-01-16T20:50:00.001+01:00

We have bought Elias a helmet so he can toboggan at nursery. He LOVES his helmet. I think he would wear it to bed if he was allowed.

Yesterday the weather was great (-4) and we did loads of tobogganing while Alice was watching from the pram

Today the weather was crap (+1 and rain) so we struggled a bit with coming up with things to do. After a while we decided to go and buy a bean bag which we've planned to do for a while. Grandma and granddad Blom gave us some money for the kids for Christmas and this is where they went. First we got a normal bean bag but then we (I) changed our mind and we went for the HUGE one.

This is how we spend most of the day with Alice at the moment. Fun but hard work (for us)

Birthday girl

2011-01-11T22:10:00.000+01:00

New favourite game

2011-01-11T21:51:00.001+01:00

The November & December album has been updated with pictures from our England trip...

Sticky-gooey-cake

2011-01-06T22:14:00.003+01:00

2 eggs
2,5 dl caster sugar
4 tbsp cacao
2 tsp vanilla sugar
100 gr butter
1 dl plain flour
½ tsp salt

Heat oven to 175 degree Celsius
Melt butter and leave to cool
Grease and bread/flour a baking tin, roughly 24 cm
Whisk eggs and sugar until white and fluffy
Mix the rest of the ingredients with the egg and sugar
Pour mix in baking tin
Bake for 15-20 mins
Let cool, serve with cream or ice cream

Lucia

2010-12-14T20:58:00.000+01:00

Manboy

2010-12-13T09:35:00.003+01:00

The song Manboy (don't ask!) almost became the Swedish Eurovision entry last year. It is now a huge hit amongst kids in nurseries all over the country..

The best bit comes after about 40 sec so don't give up too soon...

Poorly boys

2010-12-06T21:21:00.000+01:00

My boys have been a bit poorly.

First Elias got conjunctivitis poor lamb. He's a lot better now though and can go to nursery tomorrow.

Then David did his back in while pulling Elias on the snow racer. For a few hours he was in loads of pain and couldn't stand up.

He was pretty comfortable lying on the pouffe and could even eat his porridge.

And at least he had some company...

Dave's back is better now and he will be able to take care of Alice tomorrow on his own while I'm at work.

Winter wonderland

2010-12-06T21:14:00.001+01:00

Wehee II

2010-11-30T21:43:00.002+01:00

Advent 1st weekend

2010-11-30T21:42:00.000+01:00

First we decorated the "tree"

Then we went tobogganing

Then Anna and the kids came for the traditional Chrtistmas baking

Result!

Wehee

2010-11-21T20:21:00.003+01:00

Sorry about the poor blogging at the moment. Just can't seem to find the time or inspiration. So here is something to keep you going...

Skills II

2010-11-10T11:40:00.002+01:00

Big brother has also learnt some new tricks...

Skills

2010-11-09T11:30:00.003+01:00

Alice still can do all the stuff she could do before the Fall. Phew! Here she demonstrates her wave. She can also clap her hands but she didn't want to show that this time...

The Klingon baby

2010-10-31T19:58:00.004+01:00

On Saturday mum and I went out for a meal with "the girls". We went to gamla stan and sat in the basement of a really nice restaurant. At about 9 pm my mum's cousin Maria got a phone call and told me to call my dad. It turned out I had no signal down there and they had tried to get hold of me for ages.

I went up wondering what could have happened. Elias had complained about a tummy ache at dinner so I thought that he had started to be sick or something. Dad said "don't worry but... " (yeah right), "david is in the E.R..." (hmm, strange I thought) "..with Alice..." (what???) "... she fell down the stairs..." (nooooo!). Crying my eyes out I hopped in a taxi and went to the hospital. She was in quite a state when I got there, a huge bruised bump and really upset (she had just been woken up and was hungry as well), but it was of course a great relief to be there with her. The doctor was really positive and said she didn't think she had any injuries from the fall but they wanted to x-ray the head just to be sure there was no fractures and we had to stay until midnight for observation.

So it seems she/we have been extremely lucky and she got away from the horrible fall with (just) a nasty bruise.

Last night in the hospital

Today at dinner

Not quite the profile we're used to...

On the move

2010-10-13T09:43:00.003+02:00

I was going to film Alice waving, but she just went for the camera so instead you get to see how Alice moves about. Traditional hands and knees crawling just isn't her thing...

New hobby

2010-10-09T20:23:00.000+02:00

This is Elias new hobby: beads. At nursery he mainly makes necklaces but we don't have the string at home so here we just do flat things. This is today's production (I made a few...). It's fascinating to watch the concentration when he's working on this stuff. Earlier today Dave said he has the "attention span of a mosquito", usually correct but not in this case...

Tooth

2010-10-08T10:07:00.004+02:00

Forgot to say that Alice now has one tooth! Before I went to Luleå we could see that something was trying to break through and on the weekend we felt one sharp little corner of a tooth. In the beginning she kept investigating it with her tongue, very cute!

No picture of it yet though I'm afraid...

Luleå

2010-10-06T20:06:00.008+02:00

On Thursday I went to Luleå with the kids for a few days. It was a late spur-of-the-moment decision and we had a really nice time (even though I came down with a temperature). David also came up for a bit more than 24 hrs. He took the over-night train on Friday and went back Sunday evening.

On Friday we went up to Långberget and grilled sausages and stickbread.

On Saturday mum and dad cooked us a 3-course dinner

We played some kubb and croquet in the garden

Autumn has definitely arrived to Luleå! It's beautiful!

More pictures and some video in the September&October album

Bounce!

2010-09-26T20:14:00.002+02:00

We've taken the trampoline down this weekend and Elias had a final bounce

In training

2010-09-24T21:53:00.002+02:00

Bye bye nappy!

2010-09-22T19:59:00.002+02:00

Last night Elias went to sleep without his nappy for the first time. He has been asking for it for a bit more than a week so we've felt a bit bad for not letting him do it sooner but we had to stock up on sheets and pyjamas first. ;-)

A very excited BIG boy!

(He did pretty well by the way. In the night he alerted us and David took him to the potty but in the morning we had an accident...)

BFF

2010-09-21T20:44:00.004+02:00

travel

2010-09-17T11:31:00.000+02:00

alice on the train to auntie anki and cousin felicia!

On the move

2010-09-13T20:43:00.001+02:00

Alice doesn't crawl yet but she can definitely go places when she wants to.

Happy girl!

Elias is proud of his digger / crane...

Go Sweden!

2010-09-03T20:07:00.001+02:00

Hm

2010-08-31T16:37:00.001+02:00

Not quite where she wanted to go..

Birthday dinner

2010-08-30T21:24:00.001+02:00

Yum!

Playing

2010-08-27T18:29:00.001+02:00

For some reason alice is very happy to sit in this very spot and play on her own.

28 degrees and sunshine

2010-08-14T21:54:00.000+02:00

Off again

2010-07-30T22:59:00.002+02:00

Tomorrow we head off for vacation no 2. This time we're going to Skåne with friends, more specifically to Haväng. Really looking forward to getting there but not really to the drive there. 7 hrs at least..

Photos

2010-07-29T21:17:00.000+02:00

of our trip to England can now be found here

Almost over

2010-07-27T09:03:00.003+02:00

Since last time we have been taking it a bit easier but still managed to do a few things.

We've celebrated Juliet and Oliver's 15th anniversary.

We had a lovely day at the beach one day. Elias loved playing with the stones and running around in the water. David and I actually did have a little swim as well!

We've also been back to see grandad John one more time and we went to the miniature railway in Eastbourne with Juliet and Finley. On the weekend David and I went to a Sikh wedding and left the children with Auntie Juliet and Grandma. The wedding was spectacular and we really enjoyed our first night off together since the arrival of Elias.

We've borrowed a "bouncer" which Alice really likes a lot.

Yesterday we went to the Seven Sister's country park. David lived in the park for 7 years when he was a little boy.

First we had a picnick in the Friston forest...

... and then we walked down to the beach. Elias did really well and almost walked the whole way there (on the way back he got to sit in the pram)

And now we need to start packing because tomorrow evening we're flying back. Sad but true...

And what about the kids?

2010-07-16T20:20:00.004+02:00

Alice has been very easy and sunny while we've been here and a few people have said they will take her with them if they get the chance ;-) She is very strong on her front and this week she has started to try to get up on her hands and knees. It is amazing to watch her try. She is so focused and can do it for quite a while before she gets annoyed.

In center Parks she really enjoyed swimming in the pools. I did a few "baby swimming" exercises that we learned with Elias and she loved it (he hated it at the same age). I felt a bit guilty when I realized how much she loved swimming because I didn't really know. I guess it is a "second baby thing"; not quite taking the time to find out all these things. Oh well, at least we know now!

On Tuesday Alice got a bit snotty and yesterday she had a pretty bad evening. Hopefully it was because of the slight cold she has or else her sunny phase has come to an end and "storm clouds are gathering"... (David thinks she has entered the stage of relationships)

Elias has started to speak more and more English this week and I just feel proud and amazed at what he can do. He is really trying hard, bless him. He has seemed very tired in the evenings and maybe that has to do with the language (I remember being exhausted in the evenings when I was in Germany). I think he has enjoyed most of the trip so far but he does talk about the "pink house" now and again so maybe he is a bit homesick sometimes. Both here at grandma Joyce and in Center Parks he has fallen out of bed a few times but without waking up. That's one good thing about carpets I guess; it softens the fall a little bit...

In Center Parks Elias loved the swimming pools and especially going down one of the slides. I think both Dave and I were a bit surprised that he did it. It took him a while to build up the courage but once he did it we could hardly drag him away from it.

Half time

2010-07-15T22:46:00.005+02:00

We can't believe we've already been here for 2 weeks. Only 2 weeks left! Up until now we have been pretty busy though so no wonder time has flown.

We arrived pretty late Wednesday night after a pretty ok flight. Alice was a bit upset for a while but there were plenty of other kids screaming more ;-)

On Thursday we went round to Auntie Juliet's for lunch.
On Friday we went down to the beach (unfortunatelly we didn't take any pics)On Saturday we drove to Cardiff and went to a Christening on Sunday. Don't we all look nice!
Monday was spent driving back from Cardiff and in the evening I was allowed to go to a Pilates class with Joyce.
We saw grandad John, Jennie, Jo, Lizzie and Owen on Tuesday. Elias did a grand job watering their flowers!
On Wednesday we went to Drusillas Zoo. It was really good! Elias especially liked to go on a ride with Thomas the tank engine...
Elias has enjoyed breakfast in the garden.

Friday-Monday we spent in Center Parks with 3 other families. It was great fun. Elias went to a soccer school class which he thought was ok. He was probably a bit on the young side especially since his English isn't really as good as his Swedish yet. But we had fun watching them all. Quite a few drama queens in the making! Elias (and Alice) loved the pools and loved going down the slide.
Tuesday we went to Middle Farm which Elias loved!

Busy busy

2010-06-29T21:26:00.003+02:00

It feels like it's been a wee bit crazy lately. But it is probably just me getting stressed for no reason as usual. Anyway. Since last we've celebrated Midsummer with my cousin and her family. For once the weather was pretty good and we had a great day with them. Elias especially enjoyed telling Leonard off for various things. He is such a little police at the moment. "No Leonard, don't throw sand outside the sandbox. Now I will get angry!"

On Sunday we made a trip to the beach. It was beautiful and I think Elias really enjoyed it. Yesterday I had another appointment with the chiropractor and tomorrow morning Alice is having her ears checked up. Somehow we (I) have also managed to do loads of washing and hopefully we will manage to pack everything tomorrow. I think there might be one or two shops where we're going and I might just have to make a visit there. Not that I want to, oh no, but if we have forgotten something I just might have to go. Poor me. And who knows, maybe some jeans will find me in the process too...

Alice is sitting fairly well at the moment but not well enough to be left on her own.

More pictures are in the May&June album.

Eating

2010-06-22T21:30:00.004+02:00

It's not always that easy to feed Alice...

Often she just wants to practise flying instead,

toys taste better than food,

and it's difficult to find the mouth

Lucky grandma Inger was here to get the job done properly!

(At the moment she usually eats a bit of solid food for lunch. It's quite funny to watch her reaction to the first spoonful, she usually look very disgusted. In the evening she has a portion of porridge as well, which, apart from fruit, is her favourite.)

Roll over

2010-06-13T22:09:00.002+02:00

On Tuesday Alice turned over from back to front twice and since then she has mastered this new skill completely. When we put her down on her back it usually only takes a few seconds and then she has turned over to her front. She has rolled from front to back once but I think that was more of an accident because she was on a slope...

Sideways

2010-06-07T22:12:00.000+02:00

Today Alice turned over to her side for the first time...

Party report

2010-06-07T22:00:00.000+02:00

On Saturday we held the party for Elias. In all 5 of his friends were invited and that was more than enough ;-)

These two girls are in the same group as Elias at nursery. The girl in red is Elias "best friend" at the moment. Every day when I pick him up they play together. It is very sweet.

Fishing for party bags was popular...

The party lasted two hours and Elias was pretty exhausted at the end. I guess it didn't really help that he woke up at 3.30 am in the morning. He had a 2 hour sleep mid day but still...

5 months

2010-06-06T21:55:00.000+02:00

I can't believe how fast time is going. Elias is 3 years old and Alice 5 months already. It looks like she is getting close to turning over from back to front and she likes to sit up (supported). We started giving her a bit of solid food and it went pretty well, but after she started taking the antibiotics her stomach has bin a bit upset and she doesn't want anything but her milk.

3 years

2010-06-06T21:41:00.002+02:00

On Friday morning we waited for Elias to finish singing and then we went in singing Happy Birthday. He wasn't quite as thrilled as I had hoped... After getting a muffin he cheered up though..

After breakfast he got some presents which he of course liked. While he was at nursery David (off sick form work) started building the car park we got for Elias.

I was a bit worried for a while but we actually managed to get it together. And he seems to love it!

I'm gonna do bad bad things to you

2010-05-29T18:46:00.002+02:00

(see here if you don't get it!)

Exhausted

2010-05-28T21:44:00.002+02:00

Alice has had a bit of a cold lately but nothing too bad. She has had a bit of a chesty cough but that is sort of normal for her now so I haven't been too worried. Last night she was very tired in the evening and slept quite bad in the night. We checked her temperature in the night and it was 38.4 so no wonder she was a bit restless.

This morning she was very grumpy and it was a bit tricky to keep her happy and also tend to Elias getting ready for nursery (in the end he had an accident, totally my fault of course because I was so focused on Alice).

As the day progressed she seemed worse and worse. Didn't really want to eat much, didn't want to play and was mainly tired and grumpy. In the end we decided I should take her to the hospital and David pick up Elias (the nursery kindly let us pick him up later than normal).

The ER was very busy of course and it took 4.5 hrs before we were done. Luckily she was very easy going the whole time. Probably because she was quite off colour... They gave her paracetamol when we got in to take down her temperature (it was now 38.7) and later the doctor examined her and saw that she has an ear infection. She also got to inhale medicine twice to address the chesty cough.

Now we need to give her antibiotics for 10 days along with some medicines for her rattly chest. It's not so much fun being Alice at the moment...

Better late than never

2010-05-23T20:44:00.003+02:00

I've finally uploaded pictures from Easter to the March&April album.

I have also created a new one; May&June.

Enjoy!

Long weekend

2010-05-16T21:49:00.000+02:00

We've had a nice 4-day weekend together thanks to a bank holiday on Thursday.

Little Alice is growing up. Now she can sit up with support...

New data and flavours

2010-05-09T20:26:00.004+02:00

On Wednesday we went for Alice's 4-month check up. She now weighs 6920 grams and is 63,5 cm tall.

Today she had a "taster" for the first time. Potato. Some went in at least...

vickan & dave

Ice skating

Finally snow!

Dreaming of snow

2 years

Last week of the year

Christmas

Baking

Family day out

Obstacle course

Alice and Sonja

Forest group final

Letter to Father Christmas

Family visit III

Family visit II

October

Dancing queen

Jedward / Delias

Breakfast..

Heavy feet

Nursery

Sweden's got talent?

Sailing

England

France!

Oops

Midsummer

Fence

Haircut

Birthday boy

Bean bag bonanza

Indian

Parent-fika at dagis

Random pics

Marshmallow and motorbike

Box play

New album

More pics

Happy Easter!

Popular

Lovely weekend

The sweetest thing

Grandma's little helpers

It's (finally) official

Fancy dressing

Weekend video 2

Weekend video 1

Table manners

Almost there

Seeing family

Itchy feet

Rocking moose

Driving miss Alice

Film from the weekend

Pictures from the weekend

Birthday girl

New favourite game

Sticky-gooey-cake

Lucia

Manboy

Poorly boys

Winter wonderland

Wehee II

Advent 1st weekend

Wehee

Skills II

Skills

The Klingon baby

On the move

New hobby

Tooth

Luleå

Bounce!

In training

Bye bye nappy!

BFF

travel

On the move

Go Sweden!

Hm