Tuesday 23 December 2014

Merry Christmas! God Jul! Joyeux Noël!

Christmasgifts wrapped, candies done, Christmas tree decorated, bags are packed - Värmland here we come!




And I'm almost symmetrical again! Merry Christmas to all of You!







Tuesday 9 December 2014

We want to emigrate!

It's no wonder Sweden was populated kind of late if you compare to other parts of the world were you don't spend 6 months in darkness. Sweden is wonderful, have great nature, a marvelous system for parental leave and wonderful daycare system. But Sweden is bloody awful between October and March. I have no other way of saying this but this time of the year we are always on the edge of emigrating. November month had 5 sun hours. 5 sun hours. It's nowhere near enough. So after a dark depressing November came December that could have started better. No snow to light up the darkness. Just an appointment to operate out my wisdom tooth that's been bugging me for over a year (why do you get wisdom teeth anyway, what's the freakin' point?). Well, to do a long story short here is just after the operation when I was full with sedative and local anesthesia and thought what this wasn't to bad:



And here's 2 days later, filled with pain, cheek swollen like a tennis ball and on sick-leave:


What a terrible make-over!

After being home from work one week I finally managed to work one day and then it was time for the children to get sick. Well, at least to sick to go to daycare but healthy enough to turn our house up side down, here's our living room after the girls redecorating:


What keeps me going is the thought of that we will, in less than one month, be tanning on a beach in Dubai. Let nothing get in our way...

Sunday 30 November 2014

Happy 1st of Advent!

Finally we got some light in our depressing November darkness. Despite a chaotic house, sick girls (they're well now but they both had a fever and cold earlier this week) and tired parents first of Advent arrived and was celebrated with homemade gingerbread and saffronbread.























Happy first of Advent to you all!

Sunday 23 November 2014

Highlights on a dark November Sunday.

It's been a dark and unusually hard November in many ways. Now it's more important than ever to notice the small but so important highlights from every day life. Like today's thoughts from Lovisa: "what!? Princesses really do exist? But then dinosaurs also have to exist since both princesses and dinosaurs are from ancient times...". And later when Andréa was standing to close to the TV "don't stand so close to the TV Andréa, your eyes can turn into triangles"... You light up my life darling girls...



Friday 7 November 2014

Here we go again...

The first snow arrived and it was a bit of a chock considering it was 17 degrees just a couple of weeks back...


At least we don't need to worry about mosquitos... 

Wednesday 5 November 2014

The picture I take with me.

This past weekend was Halloween and Facebook and Instagram overflowed with pictures of children going trick or treating. My girls also dressed out but these are the pictures I take with me from Halloween 2014:



Two of my favorite girls chatting away, my dear 86-year-old grandmother and my sweet 3-year-old daughter. Love is ageless.

Sunday 19 October 2014

A new era...

Wednesday evening we opened the door to a new era in our lives: the evening activities. First out is our five-year-old, she started swimming school and she was so excited she could hardly eat before we finally left the house to go to the swimming pool. Two guys are the swimming school teachers and they were very professional and good with the kids. Lovisa had a big smile on her lips through the whole lesson and declared after that her new favorite day of the week is Wednesday! Here she is after the first lesson in the car, so proud and happy:


Monday 6 October 2014

Lördagsgodis for the first time ever...

Despite the ongoing discussion about sugar being the sorce of the most evil and unhealthy things in our western world there has to be a first time for "lördagsgodis". Of course the girls had candy before but not in this organized, decided way. 10 sek each, with a promise that the maximal amount of candies was 10 (10 is a good number, it's easy to remember and they can both count to 10) they thoroghly choose their sweets and placed them carefully in their goodie bags. We weighed the bags and they payed for them themselves, I don't think I ever saw the girls so proud as when they held out that golden coin to the lady behind the counter. Andrea got 2 SEK back and Lovisa got 1 SEK back, I told them it's your money to keep but they decided to give it to the begging girl outside the store... Saturdays will never be the same again...


Sunday 5 October 2014

August and September check-up!

I haven't been running for over 1 month... The 31th of August I went for my "last" run and the week after my physiotherapist forbid me from running... And the reason is that my right leg started to feel numb and I lost a bit of sensation in my thigh. The diagnosis is fairly clear now, I most lightly have a vertebral compression that gives me all these problems. The good news in this misery is that it's probably not the running itself that gave me this because the triggering incident was my pregnancies when I had exactly the same symptoms. When I increased my running more and further I've also triggered my vertebral compression again.
I've been cycling to and from work like usual and doing the exercise that my physiotherapist gave me but I have to say that I find it BORING. So boring that I didn't feel any joy to exercise and that's dangerous... I know the routine, when something is boring you eventually stop doing it. So to prevent this I joined a gym. It's close to home, they have babysitters and it's not the most expensive one in Stockholm (but I do admit I find it expensive anyway). 


And it is more fun to exercise at the gym, the classes are really good and even if I thought I would break my back during a Bikram yoga class last week it's fun to exercise again!


Now I'm allowed to run 1 minute and walk 1 minute times 5. Even if it sounds terribly insignificant in comparison to a marathon it's better than nothing... And my physiotherapist says I'm slowly making progress!



Wednesday 1 October 2014

New colleagues at work

I was a bit surprised when I, yesterday morning at work, searched around for my agenda in my backpack and instead found two dinosaurs... Well we do need more colleagues at work, that's a fact...



Monday 29 September 2014

A week in pictures...

I started the week at my hairdresser, it's few things that feels more luxurious than spending a few hours here on a Tuesday evening...


Cycling to work this time of the year means struggling through storms, rains, winds but also beautiful mornings, like this Wednesday...


Already weekend and the girls got ready for a birthday party!


And while the girls attended the party their parents got a date. A nice "fika" and a walk in the sun at Hornstull...


Suddenly Sunday and we spent it the best way we know, together with good friends.







Sunday 21 September 2014

Her first skull...

Lovisa drew her first skull. A happy one. Dedicated to her parents.


Thursday 18 September 2014

Andréas time at "the wild strawberry"

Andréa joined another group at her daycare after the summer. She left the toddler group with the smallest children and is now in a group with children between the age 3-6. So from being the oldest one she's now one of the smallest one. The wonderful pedagogues at "smultronet" gave me tons of pictures they took of Andréa during her fist year at the daycare. It feels good to get a glimpse of what my child's been up to during the last year, even though I love my work it's with mixed feeling that I spend so much time away from the ones I love the most...













From a small 2-year-old that just finished diapers she's now a big girls that dresses herself and is awake with the big kids...

Monday 15 September 2014

My five year old...

Friday we went for Lovisas 5 year check up. She is a little, big girl 118,5 cm and 23 kg. Healthy, stubborn, funny and with an amazing imagination. When she blew out the candles on her cake I told her to make a wish and even if I said she should keep it a secret she told me what she wished for (of course, what fun is it to keep a secret only to yourself?). It was raining that last Monday and she wished it would rain chocolate cakes instead of water from the sky...


She also wanted a cake that looked like the number 5 for her party and who am I to argue with a 5 year old? She got so many nice gifts; a scooter, books, dolls, clothes... Her favorite thing of them all is a pink princess dress. She lives in that dress and cried tonight when I forced her to put it in the laundry instead of wearing it as a PJ... 


A very happy girl riding her new scooter in her favorite outfit while her mother is thinking: stop time right here and now - I can't keep up!

Monday 8 September 2014

Happy birthday Lovisa!

It's unbelievable that Lovisa is 5 years old. It feels like only yesterday when I took her in my arms for the very first time that beautiful September day 2009. Thank you Lovisa for enriching my life and teaching me what it's all about. Again and again. 





Saturday 30 August 2014

Anything that works...

To get your three year old to brush her teeth can be challenging... Good thing a three year old monster is more cooperative...



Sunday 24 August 2014

And suddenly it's autumn...

The summer came to a fast end. The heat and the endless, bright nights turned into windy, chilly, rainy ones. The girls grew enormously during the summer and it seems more like they're a year older than only a few months since spring...

 My big girls playing "mamma, pappa, barn" (mum, dad, child)

Andréa started a new group for older children at the daycare and this means we don't need to bring her stroller every day and it's so nice to be able to cycle with the girls to and from daycare. Lovisa has a new big bike and she's been practicing to start and stop on her own and now she's getting the hang of it...

 Andréa on Lovisa's old bike...

 A happy soon to be 5-year-old!

One thing that is a sure sign that autumn has arrived is the yearly "surströmmingsskiva" at dads place that took place yesterday. "Surströmming" is the very special fermented herring that smells so bad that I can't take it in my mouth. But a party is always nice and the girls played with their cousin, I took a nice sauna and did my best to stay away from the party tent that smelled of that fermented herring...

 Three party girls at dad's place...

Another sign of autumn are the daycare infections... This time Lovisa came down with a cold so instead of going to a wedding Lovisa and me are home today. To comfort ourselves we made a mug-cake in the microwave. Good, fast and very chocolaty! And hopefully very effective against nasty colds...



Monday 18 August 2014

June and July check-up or how to lose your marathon shape in less than 2 months...

We've really had the most amazing summer. Hot, warm and beautiful. Imaging all the kilometers I could have run if my body didn't fail me... For so it did. I thought everything was fine after the marathon.  I felt a bit worn of course, my body aching here and there but that's normal after your first marathon. Then about a week after the marathon I ran to work one early morning and felt pretty OK. But during the day a weird pain in my right hip started to make it entrance and little did I know that that pain was here to stay. It increased during the day and finally it hurt for every step I took. Stupid and impatient me didn't want to realize that this probably had something to do with all my running so instead of resting I went running again a couple of days later. Just 17 km... And then the pain increased again. So the vacation has been a lot about resting from running, doing lot's of strength training (a lot and a lot but more than usual anyway) focusing on my core and trying to run little, a little bit more and being disappointed again when the pain keeps coming back...

I finally went to see a physiotherapist and now I have a plan. I do exercise to strengthen my core and my hip everyday, I cycle to work every day to keep up my shape but I have to admit I really miss running. So much that I think I'm a little bit depressed. Because it's hard to go from marathon shape to limping from one day to the other... The upside of this misery is that I've come to realize that running is so much more than just running. You have to be really strong from the inside and out and there's no shortcuts. So now I'm working on becoming so strong that I'm going to be able to run again. Without pain and with that great feeling that I could just keep on running forever... Here's my training in June and July:

January: 104 km
February: 139,2 km
March: 204,2 km, cycling 14,9 km
April: 178,1 km, cycling 267,6 km
May: 244 km, cycling 237,3 km
June: 67,6 km, cycling 327 km
July: 42,9 km, cycling 149,9 km
Total running during 2014: 979,9 km. Cycling: 996,5 km

It's boring to be injured, not being able to do what you love. It sucks to feel that your body is not capable enough. The day I can run without no pain I'm going to be so grateful. I keep these pictures from Stockholm marathon, that beautiful day in May, close to my heart:

With an amazing feeling somewhere during the first half of the marathon...

The last meters with the goal in sight on Stockholm stadion

Thursday 24 July 2014

Our vacation in pictures...

We arrived in Montreal the 28th of June and the flight went fine. OK, I admit it's not fun to spend 14 hours with a 3 and a 4-year-old on a flight but we survived... In Montreal we stayed in our old house and got to spend some quality time with one of H:s sisters and her daughter and I had time to see my old friends from my maternity leave time in Montreal...

 Montreal was hot!

Dear old friends. The youngest one sleeping in the stroller...

After 5 days in Montreal we hit the road towards Sept-Iles. A trip that would be more adventurous than we could ever imaging...

 Breakkie in the car!

 Our idea to take a detour to check out the magnificant Percé rock could have costed us a lot. We got stuck in the storm "Arthur" but luckily got out of it still in one piece...

Stuck in "Arthur" I'm trying to sing louder than the ocean... Hard task...

Once safe in Sept-Iles we were reunited with H:s mother and siblings. The weather was once again amazing and we enjoyed seeing our big, lovely family... Sorry for all the beach pictures, we just couldn't get enough!

 Dad snuggles

Beach hang-out with parts of H:s family...

 Sisters on the beach...


 Fixing desert with aunt Lynda...


And just like that 1,5 weeks past and it was time to say goodbye and travel back to Montreal. With tears in our eyes we kissed, hugged and waved au revoir...

 Looking for whales in Les Escoumins on our way back to Montreal

 Indian art among the rocks...

 Girlpower!

Holding hands...

We finally arrived in Sweden the 21st of July. Exhausted, jet-lagged and with a lot of emotions and new experiences (especially for the girls)... Quebec you're forever in our hearts. Au revoir.