When mommies dress little girls...

Photo mishap 05.

New favorite "hiding" place.

In-love.

I am so in-love with my family. :) Not something that I have discovered today, but days like today are when you realize just how lucky you are. :)

We had a lovely weekend. Just the 3 of us.. 4 of us, can't forget Caesar. :) Yesterday we did some shopping around town and today we had a very lazy day. Doing things around the house and watched some Twin Peaks episodes.

Work will get more back to normal for Fredrik tomorrow and Leia and I will have a day to ourselves. This week I will start putting together lesson plans for my classes. Should be fun to figure out. :) Like I said, I am more anxious for the children's class. To teach them everything from the beginning. I think I'll be a great teacher! Let's hope the students think the same (and the children's parents as well)!! :)))

Leia has a check-up on Tuesday, from her pooping. But that has been much better now. Fredrik has a meeting in Trollhättan for work on Wednesday, but that is the middle of the day. So far I don't think I have anything special planned this week.

So nothing too special in this post. :)
But some pictures, of course.

Pictures from October.

A bit late, but here are the pictures from October.

Feels like Spring.

The weather was very beautiful today. Unbelievably nice. :) It has been so cold lately that it was nice to have a little Spring weather. It has been a completely mild Winter though.. not very typical Swedish weather.

Leia has been doing great at daycare. :) She hasn't been taking naps for them, but they say she is very happy and content. She walks around laughing all the time and she eats very, very well. :)

At night now, she goes to bed easily. Just give her a kiss and hold her a few seconds in the dark in her room. Lay her in bed, put her kitty beside her and cover her up - and that is that. She goes to sleep on her own, without complaining or making a peep. :) I don't think we could have it better than that. She has been sleeping 12 hours at night (at least). So she is sleeping usually from at least 7-7.

Fredrik was alone at work this week, for the 3 days he was there. Wednesday it was completely empty, and the last 2 days, his workmate that recently had a baby, Owe, actually showed up for awhile. Fredrik does enjoy having it empty at work, though, because he gets much more accomplished when it is quiet. He probably wouldn't have worked the rest of the week, but he had plenty to do for the sanitation project that he is still working on. At least Fredrik got to chat plenty with the Owe, and they (he, his girlfriend and baby) hope to stop by the house some time in the near future.

I had my meeting last night in Säffle. It started at 17.30 and was supposed to end at 21.00. Which was okay because the only evening/night bus showed up at 21.25. Well, the class ended up finishing around 19.40, but luckily we talked for awhile and we were done at 20.00. It was a 10 minute walk to the bus/train stop, and then I had to wait outside for the bus to show up. I was FREEZING by the time the bus came. :/ :) I tried to move around but it wasn't a very exciting place to be.

The trip from Säffle to Åmål only took 20 minutes but the bus only stops at the train station, which is a very cold 30 minute walk home. :/ There is a train that I could take, but it goes infrequently. The train trip only takes 10 minutes.

To waste time, I took pictures around the bus/train station. :)














The "class" was fun last night! It was an informational meeting about different stuff and just some tips with teaching and some history about the school. She also went over some administrational things. There were two other girls there with me, also in the "class." One was 15½ and the other 17.. :D I felt so OLD!! One will have a dance class and the other an art class, but with children. The "teacher" was very excited to be expanding the classes into Åmål. :) We are also able to continue our education education.. hmm.. We can continue getting training for teaching, a formal education. They offer it in a few cities in the country, and it lasts for a weekend. They pay for transportation, hotel and all food. So that is something that I am going to look into! Since I have a language class, I will get special instruction for languages, while others have a general course they take together. Definitely something to look into for the future.

I did find out that there are a few children already signed up for the Åmål class. :) The children's class is the one I am most looking forward to. Hopefully I'll have all 3 classes. :) (Just depends on if enough people sign up for them.)

So I ended up getting home at 22.30 last night and I was pretty tired and very, very cold.

Today I spent the day cleaning. This week I've made lots of quiche and bread for the freezer. Today I made some banana-nut bread, did lots of laundry and scrubed the kitchen. I did miss Leia a lot today though. :/ :(

Growing up.

Leia is growing up, that is for sure. She's getting taller and smarter every day. Her vocabulary is finally increasing! She has added new words to her vocabulary.

Older words:
- Tack / tack tack (thank you)
- Goo guu (good girl)
- Mamma
- Dadd-dee (daddy)

New words:
- Titta (look)
- Va? (Vad = what)
- Baabaa (bada = bathe)

Her vocabulary is mostly Swedish, which is to be expected. Especially since she has started daycare. That is a pretty good vocabulary I think, at this point, for a bilingual child.

Ticklish.

When daddies dress little girls...

Up and down.

Very cold today. When we left, after 10.00, it was -13 degC or 8.6 degF. :) During our 75 minute drive, it did get to -16 degC (3.2 degF). Not sure how cold it is now, but it has been a very cold Winter thus far.

Leia was very cranky this morning. We've discovered that her new diet is not supplementing her hunger.. at all. She is eating constantly, but who wouldn't if you were only eating: toast, yoghurt, apples and peas?

Today she has eaten:
- 3 yoghurt cups
- 4 pieces of toast
- 1 apple
- ½ cup boiled peas
- 1 portion (200 mL / 1 cup) majsvälling (corn based thick formula) (supposed to help her stomach)

Those of you that know Leia, she is not a light eater. Since she was 10 months old, she's been eating 2 portions of 15 month old gröt (breakfast, oatmeal mixture) and a banana for breakfast. Two hours later and she is ready for a snack. So this allotted food is not acceptable to her. :/ :) The nurse never said how long to continue this restricting diet, but since Leia is seeming much more herself (when her belly is full); we hope to implement some normal foods tomorrow.

She screamed the whole 75 minute drive to Trollhättan. :( Not very fun for any of us. After we got there, and after she had more food, she was very pleasant. :)

We enjoyed looking around in the few stores that applied to us. :P I bought Leia a Metallica shirt. :) Also more of her favorite pacifiers. We also found a couple of cheap movies to buy. There were some sales, but we were not looking for anything specific to buy, but keeping our eyes open. We are going to soon need a new DVD player, ours is about to die, so we kept our eyes open for good deals but nothing was appealing.















Leia is on the mend, and Fredrik and I are feeling ill. Typical.
We both have most of the same symptoms: hard bellies, pain/discomfort in the stomach/abdominal region, but I have some back pain as well. We are assuming we have some kind of bug.

Tomorrow is a holiday in Sweden, "trettondagen."
"Thirteenth day."
It is a holiday because it is the 13th day after Christmas, the day the wise men visited the baby Jesus. In English, I believe it is called "Epiphany." The celebration of the night before Epiphany is called "Twelth Night," which probably sounds more familiar to my English speakers.
After January 6th, in Sweden, you are then allowed to remove Christmas decorations. (I'm sure the tradition exists in other countries as well.) We all know how many Swedish traditions Fredrik and I follow.. ;) .. We took down our Christmas decorations.. on Saturday I believe.. :D

On Wednesday, Fredrik returns to work....... :( and Leia will return to daycare. I will be at home by myself, cleaning from our 2½ weeks of vacation. :)

Yesterday I made 4 quiche and 2 loaves of bread; I hope to do the same tomorrow.

That is enough for tonight! More soon. :)