A fever!

I actually had a fever last night. :/ I haven't had a fever in.. 4 years.

I felt worse and worse yesterday as the day went on. My entire stomach region, cramping and aching, the pain radiating around my sides and over my entire back. NO idea what it is. Extremely dehydrated, too. I'm guessing some kind of weird bug going around. I even cried yesterday plenty because the pain was just so bad. I could barely stand by the end of the day. Before bed I took 3 tylenol, I was slightly warm, but was chilling quite badly. I broke my fever during the night, and I have felt a little better today so far. We'll see how the rest of the day goes! Today it is more the back pain that is bothering me. I'm still light headed and dizzy though.

:/ So I hope it goes away quickly so I can properly look after Leia tomorrow, and study for my test that I have on Monday. :/

We did receive the camera yesterday! :) Fredrik played with it a little.. I'm anxious to figure out how to use it.

More later..

From Leia.

Here is "Leia's" Christmas present to her teachers. :) The two teachers and the substitute that has been filling in for one of the teachers on mommy-leave, their names are Anna-Karin, Ann and Anna. :D I wanted to do a little something for them. I told Fredrik that if we were in the US I would have fixed something for them, so just because I am in Sweden, I don't want to not do it just because it isn't the norm here. I refuse to compromise myself. :P Anna, the sub, was the one I gave them to, and she was very surprised and grateful. :) I love the holiday season. :))

Leia is still sick; she was coughing a lot this morning. But it was a loose cough, so hopefully she is coughing up plenty of stuff and she will soon get better. Fredrik is getting better, I think. And I was doing fine, but this morning I woke up very sick to my stomach and dizzy. Maybe I slept very poorly last night. :/

I have been studying for my SPCS test. I will take it next Monday. Fredrik will be home from work, so no problem with Leia being home from daycare that day.

Fredrik had to work in Ed today, so he left early this morning and drove there to work before heading into the office.

Leia is doing so well at daycare. :) She hasn't cried or complained at all the last 2 days that I've left here there. So Fredrik and I are very pleased and content. We really like the women, they are very nice and you can tell they really care about Leia. :) We always have liked them, it was just the time when they kept wanting us to pick her up early that we were a little unsure of some things.

The camera is still unhappy. Fredrik ordered the new camera.. on.. Monday. :) So it might even show up today! :) Definitely by Friday, because it had shipped yesterday. So I'm looking forward to it showing up. :)

Christmas pictures.

Okay so here are the pictures from Leia's "photo shoot." :) She wasn't very happy during the whole thing. :) We were lucky to have one decent picture. We had waited to change her clothes when we got there, and as soon as we took her clothes off, she was angry (thought she was at the doctor's maybe?).

I really didn't want to be in any of the pictures. I hadn't planned on being in any of the pictures, which is why my hair is wet and pulled back. I'm not very thrilled about how I look in the pictures..... but I wanted to share them anyways.. :)


Here are the rest of the pictures! (There is one missing that the photographer still has.)

YouTube : Deck the Lawn.

10 year anniversary.

Fredrik and I met (on the Internet) 10 years ago today! :) I'm not sure if it feels like we've been together for 40 years or for 1 year. :) I think it goes back and forth. :) Although time goes by a lot faster now that Leia is here. :))

We didn't do anything special. :) We both kept forgetting and remembering. Fredrik is ordering our new camera tonight, so that can be our anniversary present. :)

Fredrik's Christmas present from me showed up today. The delivery guy (that I see about once a week because of all the boxes we get......) carried it into the hall for me, it is a bit heavy. So no wrapping that and no moving it. :)) So Fredrik has seen it and I'm sure he was expecting it anyways.. :)

Leia and I were both sick over the weekend, but I'm much better now (almost perfectly better, besides some sneezing). Leia still has a runny nose and is coughing a bit. She was cranky today. The first time in a looong time. And it was nice to remember that she isn't cranky every day. I don't know how I dealt with her being cranky and whiny every day. :/ That was rough. I'm just thankful now that she is fine and happy. :) Of course she will have cranky days.. but it was unbearable before because there were only cranky days.

On Sunday we put up the Christmas tree! We haven't put anything on it yet.. :D But at least the tree is there. :)) We'll try to finish it this week. :)









It was difficult to find a place to put the tree. :/ We didn't want it in the living room or dining room, to keep little baby fingers away from it.... So that she is only with the tree when we can watch her like a hawk. :)

We baked some gingerbread yesterday. The recipe for the dough makes 300 cookies. :D So we will have gingerbread for quiet awhile. :)) I also fixed fudge and buckeyes. I think that will be plenty for awhile. But we'll be making Swedish chocolate balls when it gets a little closer to Christmas.

And a couple of other cute pictures of Leia (of course):

Mac + cheese.

Leia's first taste of real American mac + cheese!! :)
She really liked it. :)

Lussekatt.

Some without raisins for Fredrik...

Completely dead.

The camera is completely dead.. :/
I took this picture outside today. The sun happened to be out (the first time in a month?) and.. this is what happened.

Today, while out, we looked in town for a camera, but they didn't have the one we wanted. We hope to get a Canon, since that is my favorite brand.. :P And we refuse to get a silver or pink camera, since that is what everyone else has. We are leaning towards chocolate (brown).

But I suppose we'll have to get one before Christmas now. :/ The camera is just dead. Not really surprising though. I've almost reached picture 10 000. :D Say we've had it 3 years. That is about.. an average of 10 pictures every day for the last 3 years.. :D

Photo mishap 04.

Daah-dee.

Leia has been saying "Daah-dee" (daddy) for the last 2 days. :D It is sooo cute. :) And I secretly think Fredrik is super-stoked about it.. ;)

I realized it had been awhile since making brownies, Fredrik's favorite. So today Leia and I made a batch!


My cluttered kitchen.... :T


She was very helpful. ;) She was in charge of the wooden spoon, although you can't see it in this picture. (She is hitting it against the counter.)

I've gotten in the holiday mood today, so I'm trying to prepare and plan some Christmas baking. Most all of my baking is American cookies and candy, and Swedish gingerbread. But I hope to make some Lussekatt this weekend. Last year, when we were in the US, we only made fudge (and we sent a whole bunch to my Uncle Shirley in Hawaii). I usually make fudge, sugar cookies, brownies, gingerbread, buckeyes, and I hope to add a couple new ones this year, including peppermint bark that I've been making here and there. Very easy and cheap to make (much cheaper than buying it). Sometimes I make chocolate chip cookies, I just get annoyed when doing cookies, it just takes so long.. especially while running after Leia. :) Oooh.. and we always make Fredrik's favorite: Swedish chocolate balls. So I guess I usually do fix a couple of Swedish candies at the holidays.

We've had our first Christmas invitation! :)
We're going to meet up with the American woman in Ed, Sandy, and her family after Christmas. I took SFI (Svenska för invandare (Swedish for immigrants)) with her daughter when I first moved to Sweden 6 years ago. The daughter, 5 years younger than me, moved back to the US and now she has a daughter of her own, a year or so older than Leia, so it will be lots of fun to meet up with all of them!

Fredrik will have 3 weeks off for Christmas! From the 22nd of December until January 7th! (Maybe that is 2½ weeks.) So we will have lots of time off. We do have a few other get togethers in the making, but nothing definitely fixed yet. We hope to take plenty of day trips to some shopping towns in the area (Trollhättan, Karlstad, and maybe Uddevalla - haven't been there in forever). We hope to meet up with some other Americans in the area. We won't be meeting any family for the holidays, so our friends are definitely the next best thing!