Baking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jedward / Delias

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..

.. and then off to the coal mine?

Heavy feet

Nursery

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?

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

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

On a slow boat to England

Celebrating Joseph's birthday

Misc...

France!

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

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

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!