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.