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!!!

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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.

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

Happy Valentine!

Today was proof that a long marriage is the way to happiness *well, we haven't been married for that long, but it is almost 13years since the night, we became an item. *I have to tell you about this some other day, it's a little magic involved*. Anyway, my husband has never been known for being the most romantic, but today, well let me just say: "You should never say never."

Gorgeous roses from O and pretty chocolate from the children *even though C wished for slightly longer sentense..*

I tried to do some rose shooting for the 366 challenge, but I will wait until I have my macro. *I even manged to smack myself on the nose with the automated flash while trying to snap some magic shots of the roses, you know the kind that keeps popping up!, much to my family's amusement...*

Feeling almost a bit bad here, having *peacefully* been left alone with work all day, O taking care of children, shopping, cooking and the roses..

C was quite Mr Valentine today, being home with a very sore throat, he felt better in the afternoon, producing no more than 7 Valentine cards for his friends at school. *Where has he learned to put the rose in his mouth? Does Robin Hood do that?...* J is not too impressed.

Two beautiful roses.

Happy New 2008

We sure have missed most of the happenings since moving to our new town. I only heard the Big Show in the end of summer, we have not been to the Winter wonderland only minutes away, neither have we heard much of the renouned street party going on a couple of streets away for the past evenings.

But we did catch a glimpse of these fireworks last night from our kitchen window. I tried to wake up C as promised, but it didn't work, so O carried him to the kitchen and he looked with big eyes at the fantastic fireworks while we whispered "Happy New Year" to him.

We might just as well have shouted like everybody else, because J soon realized something odd was going on, so the first 30 minutes of 2008, we both spent with a child each, singing and soothing. I joined the people outside and sang Auld Lang Syne for C as he went back to sleep.

We then went to bed and made some giggling new year resolutions. *They are seriously so booring that I thought they would do perfectly well as a post on its own on the blog, but O had me promise not to tell..*

We then fell asleep to the sound of a celebrating city, there was an open air concert with someone singing Pink Floydish music.

I actually felt really good. A good start to a new year.

PS. I am feeling a little stupid not having seen some of your comment earlier, I had mistakenly switched on "moderate comments". Here I was thinking I was moaning into outer space with noone listening and I have had very caring and kind comments. Thank you, guys!

Dan fore dan fore dopparedan..

A Swedish say, which means the day before the day before Christmas Eve *which is the main day of Christmas. "Dopparedan", the "dipping day" comes from older traditions when you dipped bread in the gravy from the cooked Christmas ham *the Swedish eat ham instead of Turkey for Christmas*

So..on the day before the day before Christmas Eve, I've been all around the town, in and out of stores and

*I found my herring at Harvey Nichols *actually we more or less cleared their shelf*
*Have bought all Christmas food, both Christmas ham for Christmas Eve and turkey for Christmas day.
*I have cooked dinner for my family, who has arrived.
*AND I am hardly even tired and this is only after 1 tablet of antibiotics (GP thought I might have some since blood tests showed an infection and this must have been why I've been so terribly tired and down the past 3 months..

Biggest news of all, C has lost his first tooth! He was adamant to stay up all night to meet the tooth fairy and when I checked on him 5 minutes after bedtime he was excitedly staring at the ceiling to try to stay awake, but a further 5 minutes later he was fast asleep.

Will post pictures tomorrow!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas..

Not my picture, our neigboring and later favorite park while living in the Big City. C was so used to seeing these deers when he was a toddler, that when he went to Sweden he was astounded by..cows!

I am seriously dreaming of a White Christmas now, yesterday we had (at itsy bitsy bit) snow and today the frost has not disappeared at all. It is beautiful outside, but all outside experience I have had today is sliding my way to the parking meter and then back up again with the children watching in the window..

O arrives any minute and I have made my brother's bed, which is waiting for him in the study.

Christmas is seriously beginning now.. *ignoring super long list of todo's before Monday, at the moment the house is quiet and I am dreaming..*

PS. Have realized that Harvey Nichols is situated just a couple of minutes from home. They have a food hall, maybe I can find my herring there, for our Christmas Eve dinner. *hoping* Will go there tomorrow.

The Arrival of the Tree

O and C went out to get a Christmas tree today. O said during lunch, he thought they might have picked a bit to small a tree, but when it was delivered and he had to carry it up the stairs, I think he thought otherwise. The arrival of the tree was seriously the beginning of Christmas for me. I was jumping up and down with joy and then we played Wham's "Last Christmas", whilst decorating it. *It's nice to approach the 40s as you nowadays can rock to any old music with ease and no embarrasment what so ever* and packed up our Christmas boxes.

It was a close fit

I particularly liked the base of the tree as "getting the tree straight" with a Swedish Julgransfot *a cup with 3 screws, which you spend a couple of annoying hours adjusting to get the tree standing straight* is usually one of the pet hates of the Christmas. A time at the holidays where we always end up cross with each other. Me for B not listening when I am instructing him and he for me giving him to many instructions..

J overcame her fear of the vacum cleaner today..

The result, knowing myself, I will make my own adjustments when the children are not looking, like the santa and angel party C arranged on one of the branches..
I also sneaked outside to see how it looked and it was a very cold and crisp night outside. I felt a little bit smug when I noticed that our tree was bigger than fancy lady's downstairs.., but I am not going to feel guilty about that, because the last time I met her, I was really nice to her, I was just coming back from my hair dresser and I told her so. She looked at my hair, made a face and said: "Well, the wind probably blew it around a bit.." *oh, she's pure joy to be around...*

Love is in the air..

So the future mother and father in laws are now up to date, so here are the official pictures.

The beautiful couple,
I am very impressed with this picture as it is taken with a self timer, balancing on a rock..
and my future sister-in-law is looking fit for a glossy magazine.

*obviously I think brother looks equally handsome..*

The ball is rolling

Today we had the official confirmation about Cs school, he is starting on Tuesday! *iih*

We went there to speed up some paperwork and J and I hid in our car spying on all the children coming out of the building at the end of the school day, the reason being: The admission secretary did a super speedy description of the uniform we needed and I didn't really follow on the phone, so I sat in the car to take notes on what the little one's were wearing, but there was no need for note scribbling, because they all looked the same and we are now going to the school costume store tomorrow to buy the whole kit. *C is very excited about the prospect of wearing a tie, I am not so sure, but he is very proud*

I will have to do a crash course this weekend in tie-tying. Never ever done it before and O will be away 3days a week. Maybe I shall get 5 of them, having O making them before he leaves...?

After that we went shopping for my next try at being a cooking mum. Today I did *again Nigella..* Rapid Ragu, i skipped the crushed tomatoes *I just can't stand the taste of it, I don't know why, I just don't like hot tomatoes* and bought a gorgeous slow cook tomato sauce which I added instead. And I just used a tiny bit of lentils, we had pasta with the ragu. I must admit it tasted lovely, and was easy to cook.

*iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiihhh*

I suddenly feel as if I have had 3 glasses of red wine. A bit warm, happy and a little bit overwhelmed.

We just had a phone call via Skype. It was my brother and girlfriend, who called. They showed us this:


I am so happy for them!! *iiih, my little brother* They also sent some beautiful pictures, *I will wait with posting them until everyone is updated*

I am so happy for my wonderful brother and his beautiful and wonderful girlfriend.

*Ah, this is a good day, we are so happy for you guys, LOVE YOU!!!*

Comment of the day: When O and I had stopped creaming with joy, my brother explained to C what an engagement means. C, very sensitive to the whole wedding scenario since realizing I am not his future bride, fell into a heap, eyes rolling as if he was completely embarrassed. Now, just as I was posting this, he came asking me when the wedding was going to take place. I said, they hadn't decided. He said: "I hope it's not too soon, then I have to faint again!"

*hepp*

Upon seeing the result, I curiously asked C what "that" was, pointing at the purple thing he had stuck to his pumpkin *thinking it might be a sort of beard or similar*.

He replied: "It's a pen, mum."

One year on

I just realized that we didn't carve the pumpkins this year. The children have been playing with them, rolling on them, carrying them and..dropping them, so one of them cracked and with the whole steam train thing, it must have slipped my mind.

Maybe we should have a go at the remaining one today, C loved doing this last year.

Comment of the day: Yesterday I took a look around the living room, especially all the toys on the floor and gave C a look which meant *boy are your toys everywhere* and said: "Ok, we definitely have to have a tidy up day today!"
C looked away, thinking, then he fixed my gaze and said: "Shall we go and have a look if mum and dad's room is messy?.." *we sleep in a storage come laundry room*

*Suits me right..*

The family strings

..the strings that only your own family can pull. The buttons that are pushed because they always has been pushed.

O once bought me this book
It is absolutely brilliant and it really changed my life a couple of years back. I have a terrible relationship with my mother and I managed to stand tall in front of her after learning a thing or two about the dynamic of family life *or should I say the "static group psychology phenomena" that is sometimes is."

It's not a "hate your family-book", which one might think, looking at the title, no completely the opposite it explains very logically about the natural evolvment of characteristics within a family.

Oliver James talks a lot about the "niche" that you fill in your childhood family. "The good girl, the joking brother, the laid back little brother, the irresponsible one etc etc.

*So, why am I writing about this, this particular evening? Well it is exactly 56 days left til Christmas and I have booked tickets for my dad and grandmother to come here over the holidays.*

*Back to the book*, All this follows you throughout your life and is also the reason how you can be a high flying business person only to realize that as soon as you go through the door to your parents house, *whump* you are the forgetful silly blond sister, or you can be the most devoted junior school teacher with a world of patience only to be thrown back into the "whining little sister" state again".

And this is why: The more you change, the more your people around you will fight for you to keep the characteristics given to you.

I am the one who doesn't know things in my family. It doesn't matter if I have done 4y at university, been working as a project manager on multi million projects, started my own company from scratch, whilst nursing babies, it never seems to stop amuse my family if I get one little thing wrong in a sentence, when telling a story or similar. Also it is perfectly fine to laugh at my expense day in and day out. I am also the one with the bad temper. My dad can be so ticked off if someone interrupts him when talking, he can sit there and refuse to say a word at a family gathering, just to make a point and because he is fuming. My brother is an aggressive sports player *both in hockey and in golf, but that is sports, right? So he for sure is not bad tempered*. My mother hits the roof if she doesn't get her ways, but I am the one with the bad temper in my family.

Funnily enough, it is always I who help everyone out, so I can't be that stupid? O has never thought of me as someone having a bad temper, he never says: "Well, you know what Mia is like..", so consequently he has never treated me like one and *surprise, surprise* I am very patient when I am with him.

Don't get me wrong, I love my family *well most of it anyway*. It's just the strings they can pull. It completely exhausts me.

Like recently: We have a house in Sweden. Several times we have had to ask the electricity company to send the bills to our address abroad. It works once and then they get sent to the Swedish address again. Nevertheless, we have managed to pay the bills. Until some weeks ago, my dad told me they had cut off the electricity, because of an unpaid bill. This bill was from January or February and we have paid the following bills, but this one we missed.

My dad, who during his 27years of marriage to my mother, never bothered about bills has now joined the squad of perfect bill paying citizens and he was horrified by this.

Consequently, he has been phoning me about this bill, me promising to take care of it. Even though it wasn't a huge amount of money, I didn't have it available on our account to send off immediately. My dad really pressed on about the danger of keeping a house without heating. I would have understood the urgency if it was in the middle of the winter, but in October, and an unusually warm one?

So, I told my dad it would have to wait a week or so for me to sort out the money. I even stopped answering the phone at one point, because all he wanted was to let me know how bad this was and that I really should freak out about it.

Last weekend he called me and told me he had driven to the house *3h drive back and forth* to check if the heating was on *well, I was going to CALL HIM WHEN IT WAS SORTED, WASN'T I??!" And once again, I was told how terrible this was, all the terrible scenarios that was going to happen the to the pipes and the house.

To MY house.

So after a week, I really felt this whole lack-of-electricity-in-a-house-in-which-noone-is-living issue was burning a whole in my stomach, I put all resources into fixing it (O and brother, since I was at school with C). There were money transactions, phone inquiries and numerous phone calls to banks and electricity company, just to get the electricity switched on before the weekend. When it was on again, I emailed dad *who also had an email on Thursday evening from me telling him we will have it switched on before the weekend.*

Then on Saturday evening, I spoke to my dad about the tickets for Christmas (which in itself is a completely new post on its own..) and mentioned the electricity issue again and asked him if he had been there switching it on (since he switched the whole thing off, even though it was off *To be on the safe side..*)

"Well, I'll see when I have time to go there, I might go up on Tuesday"

Tuesday?, TUESDAY??!!! What about the freezing pipes, the whole house molding away? What about the e_m_e_r_g_e_n_c_y?

*gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah*

Happy Halloween!

To celebrate Halloween, we went on a ghost steam train ride today. I was a really nice outing. The children loved to dress up in their new costumes. C came running with my eye liner this morning, remembering I painted his face last year. J also wanted to have a go:

C was a fierce one-legged bat (man)

J had a very good idea of how she was going to be dressed. She was a "bat sess", that is a Bat princess, with horns on her head, heart on her back and a golden hand bag.

At the railway station and facing the actual steam train, J wasn't to sure *to put it mildly. She screamed "J inte tycka om chew chew!" (J don't like chew chew!), but she eventually calmed down. It was a lovely little station with all the oldy worldy looks intact.

On board the train we were all very excited. The train was filled with dressed up children, so it was a real adventure. I don't know if O or C was the most excited.

My rock.

There wasn't the most of scenic of tours, but just before we pulled into the station again, I managed to take this picture *through the window*.

Back home we had a Halloween party with treasure hunt.

Way to beat to tell you anything about that at this point. Now, the children are asleep and I intend to plonk on the sofa and continue watching 24.

O excelled himself

Not only did he make my birthday cake himself, he made two!!

The first one was made whilst I had a good sleep in.

*thank you, thank you, thank you*!!

Just as the singing by the bedside was finished a beautiful bouquet arrived from Sweden:

Then the day got a bit disorganized..

We had planned before hand to have a beach party, but it started raining, so we decided to go to the Sea World center instead. Just as we were about to leave I had the brilliant idea of popping by the outlet center to get new shoes to C *don't ask from where I get these genius ideas*

J fell asleep in the car so C and I headed for the shoe shop. After trying on *walking, jumping, admiring* a pair of shoes we paid for them and went outside where C changed into his new pair of shoes. After 50m he decided they were to small..

After that we headed for the Sea World Center and ran into our first traffic jam in this city. *I have heard of a street on the traffic news on the radio, that is usually jammed and we have been making jokes about this street being the only congested one in this city*

Not so funny when you get find it during the Saturday afternoon rush hour with excited children in the car.

30 min later they were not so excited, so we decided to go the the city zoo instead. We took the next exit off the motorway *which took another 30min* and then it all started. Completely lost among field upon field of cows were drove around for ages.

Having driven off the page of our map and me being a map fanatic, I completely lost it and we all sat there in the car laughing, the children going "faster, faster!", it was quite a good ride!

When we finally arrived at the zoo, it was 15 min before they closed and we spent a hectic 15min buying half the souvenir shop to prevent a huge tearful disaster.


Back home again we had art and crafts hour with our jungle and shark sticker books while O made the second cake.

(O went to the Zoo with the children on Sunday morning whilst I was working, they had a lovely time)