Christmas and a New Family Member

I hope that you have all had a lovely Christmas, whether it has been one celebrated with lots of family of friends or a more quiet one. We have had the latter and given the complete chaos at work the week running up to Christmas, I am soo thankful that it was only me, O and the kids who celebrated Christmas. A long weekend with zero "has to do's" and only enjoying good food and our family.

This evening (New Year's Eve), C is allowed to be up until midnight and he is so excited. He has ben counting the hours since he woke up this morning and asking us what happens at midnight, what do we say when the new year begins etc.

We also have a new little family member with us this evening. No, I have not managed to be pregnant for 9 months without mentioning it, we happened to visit some puppies the other day. Well, it didn't really just happen, as I have been thinking about it for a while now.

Meet our new baby


Ebba the puppy

Update: 1 Jan 2009 00.45 C made it until Midnight and he and O excitedly went out in the garden to watch fire works, when the tiredness hit him a bit hard and he got all scared and only wanted to climb into bed with mummy and go to sleep. O was left pottytraining with Ebba and now we are hitting bed as well.

Happy New Year!!!

Frost on the Lawn

Every Thursday, 3barnsmamman is holding a weekly reflection challenge. I really like the concept of thinking back at your week and pick a photo that reflects that week.

This week has, as all weeks before Christmas, been filled with work, but one thing that has stayed with me throughout the week is the feeling I managed to catch when we went on our Sunday trip. It was such a high for me to feel the crisp air, see ice (I am still excited about this fact!), it was just like a winter walk in my native town in Sweden.

The whole week, has all been about blue skies and frost on the lawn.

Swan

No way, that I can come up with a "snow animal", like Akson. However, on our Sunday trip I was going to take a photo of the icy lake (with a beautiful mist), which was beautifully frambed by an old tree, when this guy came walking by...

So, I have ice and I have animal, not too bad for a photo from my part of the world, I think! ;)

For more OO, please check in with Akson.

Attention

This photo is taken, using two different shades in my garden. The sun was just rising so the whole sky was lit up, however this leaf was in the shadow. It was also growing by the garden wall, so the background was even shadier and by closing in on the leaf and making sure all the focus points in the lens covered just the leaf, the camera gave it just the right contrast thanks to the frost and the shadow.

In January this year, I bought myself a camera. This was truly the beginning of a different way to look at my life. I was in a lot of pain, unwell at the time and my husband was away during the weeks and life was pretty hard. Rather than spilling out all my pain and anger here, I used my camera to turn quite a rotten day into a beautiful moment. I remember days when I just walked around the flat trying to find a little detail that I could use to turn my day into something beautiful. I tried to take photos of my children laughing or just a beautiful detail of our house. During spring, my health improved immensely thanks to my low carb life, which I started in april, but I still have my "daily urge" to view my life through the lens.

The camera has tought me to pay attention to the little details around me. I get truly happy by catching a beautiful little moment of the world around me and if the light outside is just right, I just have to go out and just stand still and look around me if I can find something that makes my heart leap a little extra. It's therapeutic.

I hope that you are having a great Tuesday. The weather here is cold, crisp and there is another day of blue skies and sun shine, so I am going to take the camera and children outside this afternoon and just enjoy them.

To view more attention (uppmärksamhet) contributions, click here.

Sunday trip

Ice on the lake!

Yesterday we went to one of the city's national trust homes. I was soo excited because they were holding a Christmas open house for a couple of hours. The weather was so crisp and beautiful, there was ice (!!) on the little lake and absolutely stunning weather.

My disappointment didn't know any end to it when it turned out that I wasn't allowed to take any photos whatsoever in the house. It's all copyright... To be perfectly honest, I still don't get it, they keep a house in fantastic condition *noone is living there* and then open it up for 4 days and no photography is allowed. I would understand if no flash photography wasn't allowed, but no photography at all. I was soo disppointed. Desperately googling the rest of the day, I realized that ALL houses around my city has the same policy. *gaah*

But, it was a beautiful day and we had great fun playing orangutangs in the park instead. I also had my own little photo stroll around the lake when O had the kids, so it was all very worth the while going there.

So now I am puzzled with what to do with my Holiday Home Tour challenge. There is simply no houses open here. Shall I decorate my own house, go to a fancy department store or maybe a museeum? I am still figuring this out at the moment.

Numbers (Fototriss: Siffror)

The Fototriss theme today is siffor, which means numbers. The only numbers in my archive, is house numbers, so that's what I contribute with today.

To see more number contritubions, please click here.

December Walk

Yesterday, I had such a lovely little outing with J. We took a long stroll together. The weather was beautiful and she picked leaves, constantly chatting to me "look mummy, there is a pretty house" and then she stopped, so I could take a photo.

We spent 30 minutes just sitting on "my bench" and then we had coffe and hot chocolate at a nearby cafe.

Happy girl, but still with a little bit of a cold..

My baby is starting to grow up, we had a great girls' afternoon!

Yellow and Black

Yellow and Black

The Friday colours of today are yellow and black. Just as I thought "I don't have anything yellow and black, maybe I'll pass this week!", I started to look through my little archive and saw a photo from July. I cropped out a part of the photo and *voila*: yellow and black!

Can anyone guess what this is? It is quite fun to "expore" a photo to see what details the camera has picked up. When taking this photo, I was going to take a photo of my son. We were at a cafeteria in Sweden (Lysekil) in July and we were waiting at the table for O to buy us some sandwiches and while waiting, I was taking some pictures of C, when I ended up taking some pictures with the focus on what he was holding in his hand instead of himself. So the picture above is just "cut out" (cropped) from the photo below.

To view more Yellow and Black contributions, click here.

Reflection: Beginning of December

366 challenge: 111 Ball

This week, the days have been quite busy and chaotic. But all days have had one thing in common. Every evening, we have lit lots of candles in the living room and enjoyed some quiet time as a family with the few Christmas decorations that we have taken out (I think there will be more this weekend). Above i one of two pretty topiary trees that I bought last year.

To see more weekly reflections, please click here.

Frosted Ivy

Frosted Ivy

*We had frost this morning!*

To view more Wordless Wednesday contributions, check in with Akson.

Close

366 challenge: 247 Tradition

Today the Tuesday theme is nära, which means near or close. Christmas is near and celebrating Christmas with my family is very close to my heart, so here is a close-up of my advent light holder, decorated with coffee beans, cinnamon sticks and dried mango (the last ingredient is new to me, but works very well).

Advent is celebrated on the 4 Sundays before Christmas, where one candle is lit every Sunday up to Christmas. It is a mix of the start of the church year, where advent means arrival (symbolising the arrival of Christ), but since it sounds so similar to the Swedish word vänta as in wait, it nowadays symbolizise the wait for Christmas, or the day that Christ was born.

In Sweden the advent candle holder with 4 candles was only introduced in the late 1900th century, even though advent is much older than that being a fasting period to prepare for Christmas, however as most Christian traditions, it has evolved from a pagan tradition when people celebrated the Mid Winter Solstice, Yule, by lighting candles. The Swedish word for Christmas is also Jul..

To see more nära contributions, click here.

Fototriss - Trappor (Trio of photos: Stairs)

366 challenge: Climbing

This is one of my favorite photos from this autumn. I had such a lovely day out with the children in October. C was helping J up these stairs and just as I took this shot, she looked back to check that I was also coming.

And a close up.

Snow in March in Sweden.

If you want to view more Fototriss contributions, please click here.

Advent Preparations

366 challenge: 14 Wooden (bouquet)

Today our household is a busy one. I wish I had my advent candle holder ready to show you, but it is still to be decorated later today. We have started putting out some Christmas decorations in the house, though and it must be the earliest ever in our household *and I am a little proud of myself*!

No santas are spread around the house yet, just some glimmering items and candles, lots of candles. I put the electric advent lights out in the windows yesterday, but not all windows, I will take a shot when it's all done.

This, little cone bouquet has made it out of my Christmas Boxes and with the day light gone by 3, I hurried out in the garden and I managed to borrow some of the last light of the day to take this shot.

The rest of the family is out buying ingredients for some baking I indend to do this afternoon.

I long for tonight, when the house will smell of soft gingerbread cookies, mulled wine and we have decorated our Avent candle holder.

I wish you a wonderful 1st of Advent.

Pink and White

366 challenge: 363 delicate

Pink & White

To view more contributions, please click here.

Christmas Gifts Preparations

To write about Christmas preparations in November is almost hilarious, if you know me. We usually miss 1st of Advent (in Sweden we light one candle every Sunday (4 Sundays) before Christmas). It is a beautifull tradition, I'll tell you more about it this coming Sunday.

For years, we have moved house in December, so the whole Christmas decorating part naturally has been delayed. But this year I am all set!

A tradition that I started when J was newborn is to give my children a pretty Christmas decor each year. The first year, I bought them a snow globe each. J was just 2.5years last Christmas and had not seen her snowglobe since January that year, when we packed away all our Christmas things, and she started jumping up and down shouting "hnö, hnö!" (which menas snö/snow)

Last Christmas I gave them a pretty Christmas bauble for the tree and this year, I think I am going to get them Christmas cups. It's great having little traditions, that build up over the years, I think.

To read other Show and Tell contributions this week, look at the following blogs: Nilla,Simone,Anna,Desiree,Annika, Anne,Petra ,Anna-Saltis ,Millan, AuroraBuddha, Anki, Lullun, Marianne,Victoria, Susanne, Lia, Cecilia, Leopardia, Anne-Marie, Marina, Marie, Strandmamman, M.K.B , Ulrika, Jemaya, Nina, Kicki, Barbamorsan, Emma,MiaD, Tätorts-Anna, Maisuoi, Inga-Britt
Ny fredagsbloggare:
Lena

In Bed

Yesterday, when I was doing my wordless wednesday blog-round, I found a challenge that really appealed to me. 3barnsmamman has started a new photo challenge called Torsdagsreflektion (Thursday's Reflection), which means that you reflect on your week and post a photo that represents your week. It can be something personal, an event or something that has been going on all week.

My week has really all been about being in bed. I caught a really bad cold together with my daughter and husband (C has thankfully breezed through the week!), so we have pretty much done everything in bed. Having yogurt, watching tv, reading books etc. Today my daughter is better, so she is playing with her brother who has taken such good care of us over the past 3 days.

My thoughts today go out to 3barnsmamman, who has taken her daughter to hospital with mononukleos (körtelfeber). I hope they can help Big J to get better!

Wordless Wednesday: Lavender Gate

366 challenge: 46 Iron works

One last flash back from a lovely summer's day. To view more Wordless Wednesday contributions, please check in with Akson and Nejma.

7 things about me

I have been challenged by iki. Thank you for picking me, I love challenges!

The Rules:
- Link to the person that have challenged you and add these rules to you blog.
- Reveal seven things about yourself, both ordinary or/and crazy.
- Challenge seven new people by adding their name and links in the end of the post.
- Let the challenged people know that they have been challenged, by posting a comment on their blog.

7 things about me:

1. I love the colour purple. Really dark purple and if it is also made from velvet, I completely melt.

2. My hair is blond and my eyes are brown-greenish.

3. I always "tie" my shopping bags into a little knot, so that they fit neatly into our cupboard, which makes my husband crazy having to struggle with a knot everytime he needs a shopping bag.

4. One would think from no 3, that I am a tidy person, but I am not. If I enter a room, odds are that it will be chaos in there any time soon.

5. My weakest characteristcs of all is waiting, especially if I am waiting for someone else to make up their mind about something that I want. It is literally destroying me.

6. My "obsessive-compulsive thing" *you know like having to close a closet door 4 times before it's properly closed or counting something* is the feeling that I am attached to an elastic band. If I go to the store, I have to walk on "the same side" of a lamp post both on my way to the store as well as back from the store, otherwise the rubber band get's tangled...

7. I am really good at making pancakes.

I challenge: Cissi, Dossis, Amelia, Annika, Luxlatte, Anette, Barbamorsan

Do you want to see our guest room?

During my EFIT-post on Saturday, I promised you photos of how our guest room turned out. To start with it looked like this:

Quite a horrible room. Ugly curtains, a lamp that had seen better days... This far, we have only used it to store boxes.

With a light grey blind from IKEA instead of the curtains, the room feels brighter with cleaner lines. The table, was rescued from O's parent's basement when we moved in together 13 years ago. The table lamp is from IKEA as well as the ceiling lamp *a bargain at £14.99*! The bed is IKEA as well..

IKEA Hemnes mirror and IKEA vases makes the Magnolia walls look cleaner and brighter.

We also put one of our sofas in here as we have ordered a Kramfors Fräsig Brun *giggle, it's a very corny Swedish description, sort of how you said cool in the 60s..* leather sofa for our living room. It feel almost a bit weird having "grown out of" our first leather suit. This is the only expensive piece of furniture that we have bought together, and hearing myself say to C: "Mum and Dad bought these chairs when we first lived together." made me feel very grown up. Anyway, we'll see if I can live with my Fräsiga brown leathersofa or if I will be sneaking into our guest room when I need a good relaxed moment...

oh, and the pillow, quilt and lamp is IKEA as well...

Tuesday Theme - Golden

366 challenge: 261 Gold

Today's Tuesday Theme is golden. And what is more golden than autumn leaves? This is a beautiful autumn day in the park. The fact that this photo is taken on my birthday and I got to spend it with my family, makes it even more golden.

If you want to me more golden contributions, have a look here.

EFIT (One Photo Per Hour)

This is my EFIT for Monday November 12. I was just going to post this when I realized that today is the next EFIT (which I completely missed), so I hope you are ok to view my last EFIT day instead. Today I am going out to the countryside to meet with an agent *work* and what better day to bring my camera along?

7.45 A last touching up of my clothes with the iron.

8.45 I am on my way out of city, sitting in a traffic jam, but not really bothered, I am enjoying the off-kids time, singing along to the radio and enjoying the beautiful weather...

9.45 I arrive (amazingly enough, I found my way here!) 15 minutes early and I take a little stroll around the house. There is a pretty church opposite the hall, so I decide to go to the church yard afterwards with my camera.

10.45 Still in my meeting in this house.

12.00 Meeting is finished and I take a stroll around the village church. I took lots of pictures, but this was one of the first. It's a bit overexposed, because I stood under this massive tree, but I still think it's a pretty photo.

13.00 On my way back to the city, on small winding roads in the English countryside. Snapped in a hurry.

14.00 Living a low-carb (LCHF) life since April this year, I stopped at a petrol station and bought my lunch. A fruit corner without the fruit corner *ie just the yogurt*, full milk and Cathedral City cheesesticks without the dip.

15.20 Coming out of the hospital entrence, been to my ENT consultant (Ear Nose and Throat), discussing the results of the CT scan of my sinuses. (Looks OK, he thinks that I have an inflammed nerve)

16.20 Back home and I we turn our attention to the store room that is now going to be turned into a nice guest room. Not a pretty sight to begin with, but I will take some photos tomorrow to show you how it turned out.

19.00 The rest of the day and evening, we work on clearing the guest room, so not much more happening. Part from O finding my mobile phone! He found it in a removal box, from our last move...I haven't seen it since July 2007 and now it turns up in November 2008! *Sofia, I can receive SMS again!!*

I hope you have enjoyed my EFIT, if you want to view more EFIT contributions, please click here. Välkommen att skriva en kommentar på svenska om du vill! :)

Show and Tell: Jewellery

This week's theme on the Show and Tell is jewellery. I am recycling my ring photo from early summer, as these are almost the only pieces of jewellery that I have.

It's not that I don't like jewellery, I love it! I think it's more the "baby years" that makes anything that a baby can pull or get hooked on, is more a nuisance than necessarily something that enhances your life.

My sister in law (to be) asked me the other week when they were visiting why I didn't use earrings and I replied, because of the baby..she looked at my 3year-old sitting with hair-clips in her hair putting a jigsaw of 24 pieces together...and we had quite a good laugh.

I realize that I am starting to have more interest in clothes nowadays and I realize that maybe it's time to have some jewellery in my life again. *nudge, nudge to O if he reads this...*

The rings on the photo are my engagement ring and my wedding ring. We did the english way, when getting rings, so I got the one with the stone for our engagement and we exchanged the more plain, textured rings when we got married.

To read other Show and Tell contributions this week, look at the following blogs: Nilla,Simone,Anna,Desiree,Annika, Anne,Petra ,Anna-Saltis ,Millan ,AuroraBuddha,Anki,Lullun, Marianne,Victoria,Susanne,Lia,Cecilia,Leopardia, Anne-Marie, Marina, Marie, Strandmamman, M.K.B , Ulrika, Jemaya, Nina, Kicki, Barbamorsan, Emma,MiaD, Tätorts-Anna, Maisuoi, Inga-Britt
Ny fredagsbloggare:
Lena

The Park

It's been a rainy day here today and I've been locked in the house with all our removal boxes. We have finally *after 2 months of trying to figure this out* managed to decide how we want to use our rooms. The master bedroom has a very strange layout, there is not wall where a bed wider than 90cm can fit. So we have been thinking and thinking some more on how to solve our layout. It was such a relief and I can finally start ordering wardrobes and some smarter boxes for all our storage stuff.

I am hoping for some clear crisp weather tomorrow, I long for a walk in the park, it is so beautiful with all the colours. Here we are, the first autumn-looking day in mid October. It was actually a really hot day with 25degrees, but with some lovely leaves on the ground.

Bench

366 challenge: 40 Bench

I've had quite a hard day, so I am not going to pour all the details over you. This bench is however standing on a favorite spot of mine. I love sitting on this bench, and several years ago, when we were newlyweds, we drew up all our plans and goals *ie, we were sitting on this spot figuring out what things in life was most important to us*, and I would go so far as to say that without this spot in our lives, we wouldn't live the life we are living today.

In early October, I took my children to this spot. They brought some toys and they had a good 2 hours play by the trees and I sat on "my bench" and just enjoyed the view. When I stood up, I turned around and noticed the wording on the bench. I don't know why I haven't done so before.

I wonder who Cornelia was. Maybe she came to her decision to go to San Francisco, sitting on this very bench?

Enjoying Halloween

J looking a bit like "Lisabeth" in Madicken *Swedish series*

We had a great Halloween. Our street turned into Trick or Treat Lane! We weren't sure that the children really wanted to go out trick or treating. C, loving everything scary, have had night mares lately and the closer to Halloween we came, the less he talked about going out in the dark...

It all turned out really well, because children was constantly ringing our door bell and my scary cat princess and pirate was fully occupied with opening our front door and offering candy and balloons to the scary creatures outside.

Cat Princess and Fierce Pirate


Dear Brother

Preparations

366 Challenge: 16 Handmade

Brother and fiance arrived safely last night and this morning we all had a long breakfast together. The children received two jigsaw puzzles, C a world map and J a prinsess. Both were extatic and I know a certain uncle and antie, who probably will spend a substantial amount of this weekend doing jigsaw puzzles.

After a relaxed morning, I found myself alone in the house for a while. My brother visiting some friends of his and me sending my soon to be sister-in-law into the city with direction on how she would find a friend, she was going to have lunch with. O went with the children to gym class, so I had a blissful little hour in the middle of the day. All to myself. *nice*

Now, we are preparing for our much anticipated Halloween party tonight. It's "just" us 6, but if you are 3 and 6years old, getting the undivided attention of 4 grown-ups for a full evening with games, competition and dressing up, is heaven. At least for my two, so we are all looking forward to our Halloween evening.

C is decorating halloween biscuits beside me this very moment, and I thought *ok, they might not be completely handmade, since I bought a kit*, but I like the photo, so it will be in my 366.

Happy Halloween!

Anticipation

Today our house is buzzing. We are washing, shopping, cleaning and organizing for my brother and his fiance who are arriving tonight. Their flight arrives at 11pm, so the children thinks it's a bit magic. They will go to sleep in the evening and out of nowhere, uncle and auntie, will be here in the morning!

C and J has turned into a little welcome committee. They are making little presents for our guests and little hands are busy making welcome cards.

Exotic

366 challenge: 62 Exotic

This morning, I woke up to news headlines like "the city suffers arctic blast". Being Swedish I can't help but being a little bit amuzed by all the drama every time there is a cold spell around. I remember the first time I heard about these arctic conditions that was about to hit our city. It was in year 2000 and both O, my brother and I, switched on the news to hear about the terrible snowfall, only to be greeted by a News presenter standing at a supermarket parking lot surrounded with ca 1/2 inch (1.5cm) of snow, completely overexcited!

I realize that in a country where "winter wheels" (mandatory special wheels for your car, to be used during the coldest months) hardly exist, any degrees below zero is not to be taken lightly, but still. I can't help but giggle a little bit.

We didn't even notice this arctic blast. Apparently our city had it's first October snow in 74 years. I would have loved to see that, but we went to bed early to watch tv and slept with our window open all night *without noticing these arctic conditions* and this morning, I did my usual bare foot tip-toeing around our little garden patch.

Degrees below zero might be exotic to my fellow city residents, but to me, my garden palm tree is exotic.