First Advent

So dear friends, yesterday was the First of Advent. Only 3 more sundays to go before the big fat man in a red suit squeezes down your chimney or uses his magic key to get in!  Or, in the case of swedes, Father Christmas actually comes an gives you your presents personally. Yea, that's right. Swedish kids are bestest buds with Santa, and so well behaved, that he feels he must visit each and everyone in turn. What a nice guy, eh?

The reality is- and here comes a spoiler for all you believers;  a grandfather, daddy, or infact, any old male relative,  usually ''forgets'' something from the shop and absolutely must go out and get it. Dinner might be ruined else. Can't have that now, can we. Christmas dinner is the most important meal of the year, no?
 Now the thing is, that going to the shop is a lie. Scandalous really. Parents lying to their kids, tut tut. But anyhoo, when said family member leaves the house, they head straight for the stash of gifts and change into their costume, pillow to pad the belly included as is the traditional fake fluff that is supposed to resemble a beard.

Here is Miss Maia's first meeting wih santa last year. She wasnt all that impressed and didnt recognise grandad in his get-up. Maybe it was because she had a sky-high temperature and was full of the cold, but here's hoping she likes santa this year! Might have to do a practice run or two, and stand in a mile long queue to visit Santa in a grotto somewhere in town. The first of many times I daresay.

We have really been getting into the festive spirit this weekend, being the first of Advent and all. After a dreadful night (again) on friday, all plans for saturday were cancelled and we packed up and relocated to mums house for the afternoon to snooze and bake lussebullar. These are rather delicious saffron buns, traditionally eaten on and around the 13th December when we here in nordic country celebrate St. Lucia, a bringer of light in these darkened winter days. Truly, it now gets light by around 8.30am-ish and is dark again by 14.30pm. 

Yesterday we made gingerbread, and Mark and Alex got all creative, trying to out-do eachother in their spontaneous bake-off. Funny little fellas them two. I think Maia had more fun covering herself all in flour and darling little Lily spent most of the time snoozing out on the patio, bless her.Next year is going to be fun with a 3year old and 15month old <3

I think the highlight for me was when I finally got to put some christmas decs up. I have after all, been playing christmas songs for about 2weeks, maybe 3, now....

I am going to wait until we get the tree to get out all the rest, sometimes I need a bit of extra inpiration by doing the tree first so as to get proper in the mood. Think I shall even get some glögg (mulled wine) on the go and try an coax dear hubster into some festive fun with me. He is more than happy for me to just get on with it, which I ought to be grateful for, but then I'm feeling a bit soft and fluffy at the moment and am envisioning us dressing the tree, drinking glögg, kiddies sleeping soundly and snow falling outside and listening to christmas compilations on spotify. Oh, and the fake fireplace ''on'' on the tv...bliss!

<3 kim

Domestication becomes me...sometimes ;)

You know, it's amazing the difference to my mood now that Lily has been more settled! Go figure lower stress levels equals better moods. But still, I am genuinely suprised at how chirpy and pro-active I have been today lol =) Hence the second post. I just feel so chuffed with myself having made it through the day with a tidier house than when I woke up- that never happens unless my dear husband gets involved with his super fast super efficient cleaning ;)

I have also meal planned, which some of you know was on my to do list from last week...getting proper domesticated now haha =) For dinner today, we had falukorv done in the oven with red onions,peppars, cheese, bacon and mustard with mash potato

Miss Maia was ofcourse eager to help me set the table as always, and Marko very much liked his suprise of cosy candle lit dinner after a hard days graft =)

 

So my flash of inspiration and energy burst has led me to come up meals for the rest of week which are:

Thursday: turkey sausage casserole done in claypot in oven (still havent pinched mothers slowcooker )
Friday: Tacos or more substantial lunch as we have been invited out for late afternoon fika
Saturday and Sunday are free days...see where fancy takes us
Monday: Lasagne
Tuesday: Chicken, baked potato and salad
Wednesday: korvstroganoff (typical swedish dish)
Thursday:Chicken Curry
Friday: Spagbol

The babas are now tucked up in bed snoozing, and hopefully Maia will sleep that little bit longer again tomorrow- we seem to be getting atleast 10mins extra in the mornings now that she isnt sleeping through the day. Poor thing,  I do feel sorry for her. Im hoping that once (if!) we can get back to a normal waking time, that we can go back to her maybe having 30/45min nap without it affecting her too much again as she really could still do with it I think. Trial and error and all that =)


I think its now about time to get tea making and enjoy some cuddles on the sofa with my one and only <3...even if it is his turn to make the brews ;)

Hope you're all havin a nice evening ,what ever you are up to =)
<3 Kim xx

hump-day

Happy Hump-day! Wednesday's are the best as you are on top of the weeks curve and its now an easy ride down until the weekend- wooohooo!

I am feeling rather proud of myself, I have done the majority of the housework and I still have time to enjoy a cuppa before Lily wakes up. Hopefully I wont have jinxed that now...

It feels like I am slowly but surely getting the hang of Lily's routine, or lack thereof. Funnily, she seems to follow a somewhat irratic pattern, over a number of days. I am 99.99% sure that is because she is so unsettled during the day, but I am delighted that she is acutally improving! ?Yesterday was an excellent day, with no prolonged spells of upset, and just the normal stuff; crying for food, wet nappy , tired. Yessss! Did I feel like  kick-ass mum or what!? 

Really, the whole day was rather successfull. Out of the house for a walk at 8am, when Lily fell asleep until 11.10am. Quick trip to the shops to buy more formula and then to Camilla's to meet her and sweet Helena to go to the park, where we stayed for almost 1.5 hours- now if we'd only been smart and brought some fika with us, we probably would have stayed there much longer =)

We went and had lunch with grandad and uncle Alex and Skyedog, which is always nice, and then when we got back home I cooked dinner, tidied up and waited for dear hubster to get home so I could go out for my date with Mr Cullen et al <3 Go Team Edward Go! I'm sure I dont need to tell you how awesome the film was. You all know it is!

On monday we had another trip to the hospital to check up on Maia's knee. It's now 7 weeks since she hurt herself and her knee is just as swollen  and the limp is still there... =(  Now they want us to do a soft tissue Xray and possible MRI to see if there is anything that they missed with the original Xrays and Ultrasounds they did. We also spoke to the Rheumatic Dr...Maia's bloodtest for Juvenile Arthritis are good, meaning she doesnt have it. Huge relief. But atleast that would have given us some answers. I am so pleased though, that we have such a fantastic doctor who really really wantt get to the bottom of this. And the fact that Maia likes her makes things soooo much easier lol =)

<3 kim

hormones!

To quote Ronan Keating - '' Life is a rollercoaster just gotta ride it '' . Yea,well Ronan, the thing is - I dont like this rollercoaster! Please, make it stop. Thanks.

I suppose the hormonies are useful and all, making you forget the pain you go through giving birth,and making you broody to want to go through it again...But really, why do we of the fairer sex need to suffer from them monthly too?

I am fed up of being on this emotional rollercoaster. I cant remember if it ever felt this bad after having Maia. Maybe its a bit circumstancial now too, its not just one baba that has needs and wants, but two. Difficult. I am putting these moodswings down now to deliberately plying myself with more, of the preventative kind. We are in no way interested in any further siblings!

I guess it doesnt help either, that Lily is more demanding than what Maia was as a small baby. We most certainly had an easy ride first time lol; and it is only now that we are truly appreciating that. We are always learning I guess,  just because we've got previous experience we are no experts and we are still getting to know our dear sweet little Lily. She really is a gem <3

On a lighter note, this weekend (apart from my mood swings) is turning out to be rather pleasant.  Its great having gotten Lily into a nice evening routine, so now for the last month, both girls have been going to bed at 7pm. Heaven! mucho appreciated ladies, that mamma and daddio are gettin some alone time. Even if it is just crashing on one corner of the sofa each and staring at the idiotbox. I have actually just had to send Marko to bed as he was snoring away on the sofa bless him. I shall take advantage of this extra peaceful time by goin downstair to do the laundry. Mighty fun. Then perhaps I shall join my husband in bed as we have fun filled afternoon tomorrow, and it always pays being one step ahead when it comes to sleep.

Oh how the mighty have fallen! Being in bed before 21.30pm on a saturday evening? Who'd have thought it lol. Here's a pic from way back in 2008, Damo's birthday...happy drunken care free nights then! But would I want to go back? Change it? No. Not ever. Our family is our life <3

Happy weekend guys! Hope u are all having a good one =)

<3 Kim

a new start

Well Hello there!

Whatcha think of the fancy new blog lol? Was a bit peeved, that on the other site, I had to pay £50 annually if I wanted to be able to have anything a bit more personal....here , its free! woop woop =)
Now I dont know about you, but I seem to get these phases where I want to make over everything-the house, myself, the wardrobe. the world...y'know, go into politics or something,  maybe try and make a REAL difference to something?

Ultimately, I never quite seem to have the motivation or drive to do anything about something. It's a bit of a bummer really.

Take my wardrobe. It is filled to bursting, mostly by things that I hardly ever wear. But you know, they are the good old comfort go-to's when all else fails. Which, suprisingly, doesn't happen so often any more, so therefore they are a waste of space. It seems I have grown more into a particular style rather than having lots of different ones like I used to, which depended on my ever fleeting mood. I cant remember the last time I wore a pair of jeans and a standard length top.

Hmmm I think the only solution is a ruthless clear out session. And on the brightside of that, when I have gotten rid of the last 8kgs of babyweight I can go shopping for new things. So I best get saving my pennies .
To be honest, a total clear out of junk is in order too. There are two rather large cupboards where everything that didn't fit anywhere else, ended up when we moved in 15 months ago.

So there you have two things on my to do list. Another, is making christmas decorations. Its the First of Advent next sunday, and I had hoped to be atleast half way done. So far, 2 down -15 to go...optimistic much? and they arent even for our tree, haha.

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year. Our first as a family of four <3
Perhaps we are rather spoiled at Christmas, as we have always had two lots of chritmases,; the swedish one and the english one. Twice the yummy scrummy food, but sadly not, twice the amount of pressies ;)  After a quieter christmas last year, with just me, Mark, Maia & mum, dad and Alex, its going to be super nice to have Michelle & Frederik and Nana here too. And Lily of course! The same gathering as what we had for Maia's first christmas =) Hopefully next year we will be back in the Uk to celebrate with all our nieces (and ofcourse their mummies and daddies ) We definately miss you all more this time of year!