Photo challenge 366 – week 21

Some strange time slip/time delay phenomenon seems to have occurred this past week. I cannot believe that the pictures I took last week were only a week ago. It seems like an age has passed since and I don’t really know why. Maybe it is because summer has finally arrived in Stockholm. Perhaps that change of season over the past few days makes last week part of last season and just so far away? I don’t know. But most of this week’s pictures do reflect the better weather than we are now enjoying.

Day 142:

Like crack for toddlers

Here in Sweden, Välling is the bedtime drink of choice for babies from 6 months and toddlers. It’s a milk-based drink with various grains in it that you typically give them as a bedtime drink. We give Little O the one without yoghurt, fruit or extra flavours as I don’t really want him having those just before bed. However, even without those, his excitement when he sees the bottle come out of the cupboard (he knows what to expect as this is the only time that he does not use a zippy cup) is unbelievable. He hops from foot to foot and calls out “Vee, vee, vee!” – his name for välling.God only knows what they are putting in the stuff to cause this kind of reaction. So, I decided to make this a week of change; not only would we attempt to cut back Little O’s dummy (pacifier) use to just nap and nighttime (more on this later, as it deserves a post of its own…), but we’d also start to mix the välling with warm milk to try and reduce his dependency on the välling. So far, this is going well. Cutting back on the dummy use, on the other hand, is a different story…

Day 143:

Dare to bare

Woo hoo, summer has arrived! Yes, I let out the toes for the first time this year.

Day 144:

Holding hands

Little O’s very cute new habit is holding hands with Baby E – this picture makes my heart melt.

Day 145:

Crack den chic

From the crack-like properties of välling on Monday, to crack den chic on Thursday. Much as I love the sunshine of a Stockholm summer, I do not love being woken by a playful baby at 4.25am because it is board daylight in the room. Yes, I could buy blinds, but seeing as we’ll be moving out in a few months, I decided to take the cheap way out and tape newspaper to the window panes. And if newspaper doesn’t cut the sunlight out, then I am quite happy to go the whole crack den route and resort to tin foil on the windows instead.

Day 146:

Birthday wish list

Husband, take note! I would very much like this book (A Guide to Stockholm’s Architecture: 400 buildings from 800 years) for my birthday next month!

Day 147:

Heja, heja, Sverige!

So, Saturday night, I settled down in front of the Eurovision Song Contest with the iPad in one hand to keep in contact with the CPH girls who used to attend my annual Eurovision parties and a glass of rose in the other. I have to admit that I was not a huge fan of Sweden’s entry, Euphoria by Loreen, but it was beginning to grow on me as I had heard it repeatedly over the previous few days…

Day 148:

“The world and Zlatan congratulate Loreen”

…and then she bloody well won the contest. Woo hoo! And apparently even Zlatan joined in with the rest of the world to congratulate her. Now Husband is just hoping that Loreen will have something to congratulate Zlatan for in just over a month’s time. We shall see…

The Gallery – Picture postcard

Picture postcard Phuket

This week’s Gallery theme is “picture postcard” and when I read it, I just knew that this picture would be perfect. I took it last January when Husband, Little O and I were on holiday on Phuket. We had a fantastic time on the holiday. Little O was just beginning to use furniture to pull himself up to standing and was trying to crawl. He spent every day in the pool and demolished a fair few Thai meals.

I would go back at the drop of a hat.

Photo challenge 366 – week 20

Week 20 – woo hoo! I cannot believe that with some cheating last week I have reached week 20. This week we’ve had a public holiday here in Sweden. Yep, that’s right, Sweden, a country that has completely separated church and state, gives us a day off for Ascension Day (known as Kristi Himmelfärdsdag here). If I were going to make one complaint about it (but, of course, I wouldn’t quibble with a day off), it would be that it falls on a Thursday, but really, a day off is a day off if it means that Husband is home.

Day 135:

A quiet evening’s entertainment

I took this photo to show what I was planning to do next: paint my nails and then read while waiting for them to dry. Of course, best laid plans and all that, and so I ended up pottering about on the internet for too long to start on my nails and I still went to bed too late. Fail.

Day 136:

A head full of measurements and grand schemes

Another spent on the computer for far too long; however, this one was actually spent doing something that Husband would approve of. I had taken down quite a few measurements when we went over to our new apartment during the day, so I started to annotate the floorplan and start thinking about what we should actually be putting onto the walls come July when we get the keys.

Day 137:

My little star

Baby E seems to be continuing with his good growth. We’re not due back with the nurse for another weigh-in until the beginning of June but he really is piling it on. I love this picture because he looks like a little elfin, but actually when he doesn’t have a hood on, his face has chubbed up nicely!

Day 138:

Pappa and Baby E

You see what I mean about Baby E – getting nicely chubby!

Day 139:

Mamma and her boys

Husband managed to get this shot before Little O was on the move again. Seriously, sometimes it just exhausts me watching him on the go.

Day 140:

Going through a Wonder Week?

We had another few unsettled days with Baby E this week. We attribute it partly to Wonder Week 19 and partly to us forgetting his Biogaia probiotic drops. I had not been convinced before that these actually worked, but now I really believe in their magic. Luckily, my brother-in-law was able to take Husband out for a trawl around the villages and towns of Skåne to find a large enough pharmacy to buy the drops. I doubt either of them minded, given that they were in a Ferrari borrowed from a friend of my brother-in-law.

Day 141:

Sleeping beauties

Two of my three favourite boys, snapped early this morning after Baby E’s first feed of the day – and he allowed us a lie-in until 6.15am today. Thank you, Baby E! Typically, after feeding him, I was wide awake, while the boys went back to sleep. Oh well, I guess my early start means I should really get off the computer now and get to bed…

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While I catch up on my zzzzzzz’s, head over to The Boy and Me and check out what everyone else has been up to this past week.

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Photo challenge 366 – weeks 17, 18 and 19

Urgh, I am so very behind with showing you my photos, aren’t I?

Yep, I really am. So, starting over – next Sunday I will write up a proper blog post, but until then, here’s what we’ve been up to for the past few weeks…

Thumbnails for April

Thumbnails for May

In brief: we’ve sold our apartment (hooray!), enjoyed some good weather, hidden from the rain, discovered some new parts of the city, enjoyed Baby E’s latest weigh-in, brought out the Bumbo, celebrated Little O’s second birthday (time flies!) and eaten cake.

Photo 366 challenge – week 16

Right, so now I am finally going to get back and start writing again, rather than just scrambling every Sunday evening to get my 366 post written.

The beginning part of this week, I was still down in southern Sweden with the boys, staying with my mother-in-law. Husband flew down on Wednesday morning and then we all flew back up to Stockholm that evening. It feels like we’ve been back far longer than just a few days, but that is because of all the drama since we’ve returned…

Day 107:

The only way to travel

We took a trip with my mother-in-law to the large supermarket in a bigger town on Monday evening and the boys were transported around in style!

Day 108:

Aviator cool

I managed quickly to snap this photo before Little O took these sunglasses off, but doesn’t he look cool? (Okay, yes, I am biased…)

Day 109:

Mummy's boy

This trip had turned Little O into a total Mummy’s boy, but that is already starting to fade now that we’re back with Pappa!

Day 110:

Automat

I spotted this vending machine at Kulturhuset. Little O had been at their Rum För Barn children’s area running off some steam before bedtime. However, best laid plans and all that… We spent the following 25 minutes walking around and around in the garage underneath our building, waiting for the real estate agent to let us know that he had left with some prospective buyers. They spent 40 minutes looking at our apartment!

Day 111:

"Night night, Baby E"

After a very long day with a visit to the doctors’ surgery for Baby E to be weighed and receive his first batch of injections, two additional viewings on our apartment, a day-long rainstorm and a whole load of nail-biting “will they, won’t they” real estate drama, we ended up back at square one with the sale of the apartment and facing another two weeks of keeping the place looking immaculate. I could cry – in fact, I did… The only bright spot in the day was when Little O kissed his baby brother goodnight.

Day 112:

Three months old

My gorgeous baby one celebrated a quarter of a year on Friday. He can look so serious and intense, so I just love it when he sees me or his Pappa or his big brother and bursts into a smile like this.

Day 113:

A rare portrait with Mamma

Husband managed to persuade me to have my photo taken with the boys. I really think that a) I should not wear that t-shirt again and that b) the mamma boot camp session that I have signed up for tomorrow cannot come soon enough! I had thought that I had managed to shed most of my baby weight, but this picture tells a different story… Little O also decided to dress up for the occasion, insisting on wearing his beloved “nee-nah” vest over the top of this pajamas!

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Photo 366 challenge – week 15

So again I am playing catch-up on my blog. I really should get my act together a bit better. Maybe if the lovely spring weather were to return hat might help? Unlikely? Well, I’ll just have to be stricter with myself once we have the apartment sold. I cannot wait for that moment, so that we don’t have to live in a super minimalist, echoey white box any longer! I want to be able to have things out on surfaces and not have to wipe down and polish everything every time one of us touches it. Hrrumph…

Enough of the moaning. Photos instead.

Day 100:

Easter Monday best

Little O all dressed up smartly on Easter Monday. It was a little challenging to take this picture as often now when he sees me with the iPhone poised to take a picture, Little O will run up to me and try and see what is on the screen.To snap this one, involved me running backwards with him running towards me. This is the point where he had me cornered in the kitchen and I just managed to snap this before he tried again to take the iPhone from me.

Day 101:

Swinging

We met up with a friend at the playground, where she and Little O shared the basket swing.

Day 102:

In memoriam

We flew down to southern Sweden on Tuesday night and then the next day we went to my father-in-law’s funeral. These were the flowers that we had chosen for him. The service was beautiful – very fitting and a good memorial to him. You might just be able to make them out in the picture but the small blue flowers woven into the display are Forget-me-nots – a flower from a Hungarian song (Kék Nefelejcs).

Day 103:

A future Little Buddha meets Buddha?

Little O (a future Little Buddha?) checking out a Buddha fountain in a furniture store.

Day 104:

Wedding day memories

I took Little O and Baby E a couple of kilometers down the road from Husband’s childhood home to visit the castle (Häckeberga Slott) where we held our wedding reception. Unfortunately, Baby E slept through the visit, but Little O had fun exploring.

Day 105:

King of the castle

The next day we visited another castle – the one that had been our second wedding venue option – Svaneholms Slott.

Day 106:

Brotherly cuddles

Little O, Baby E and I had stayed on with my mother-in-law after the funeral on Wednesday while Husband flew back up to Stockholm to tidy up and prepare for the open house sessions for the apartment sale. These days really helped Little O to become more loving towards Baby E and on Sunday he asked two or three times to hold his baby brother. It filled my heart with pride.

Photo 366 challenge – weeks 13 and 14

It has just been so busy here that I simply have not had the time to grab more than half a cold cup of tea most days, let alone sit down and write any blog posts. I feel I have really been neglecting my little blog but I hope to get back on track shortly.

I’m afraid that the photos may have very little info with them in this post, simply because two weeks ago seems like a very long time and I can barely remember what we did yesterday. (Seriously, Husband and I had a conversation yesterday about what we had done on Saturday afternoon and it was three hours before one of us remembered.)

Day 86:

Spring shoots

Spring finally comes to our balcony as my tulip bulbs sprout.

Day 87:

Our little daredevil at the playground

Little O is getting more and more adventurous (or should that be devil may care?) at the playground. Luckily, this was done with Husband’s guiding hand behind him but he now wants to do all these same things when it is me and him at the playground too, and I’m too much of a scaredy cat (on behalf of both of us) to allow it, I’m afraid.

Day 88:

Little O's new Sigg bottle

We bought a Sigg bottle for Little O to use at preschool. He just loves it and wants to carry it around with him all the time.

Day 89:

Little O at Playland STHLM

We visited Playland STHLM for the first time and Little O was in his element, running in and out of the soft play area, scooting around on this model Volvo and throwing himself head first into the ball pool. We’ll definitely be going back.

Day 90:

And now hail - following the brilliant sunshine, torrential rain and snow

Okay, this was just the craziest day weather -wise. We had it all: sunshine, blue skies, black clouds, downpours, snow and then hail. I forget each year that late March and April can be crazy on the weather front. Every time, I am lulled into a false sense of security by the lovely spring weather during March, and then, boom! The cold weather returns. Brrrr!

Day 91:

Little O's first child's portion

Maybe not the biggest rite of passage for a toddler (I guess pretty much most things are actually a rite of passage for them really, if I think about it…), but we ordered a child’s portion for the first time for Little O: Swedish meatballs at Ikea!

Day 92:

And relax...

A well-deserved moment to relax after another hectic day of packing up boxes and cleaning up the apartment, ready for the photographer to arrive on Tuesday and take pictures for the real estate agent’s website. I felt at this point that I never wanted to move home again. You can imagine how I actually felt the hour before the photographer turned up, when we were still doing last-minute work on the place. (Disclaimer: my legs are just blotchy and mottled in this light, rather than in need of a shave! Actually, that doesn’t sound that great either. Well, it is winter and they’ve not seen the sun for many months…)

Day 93:

Clean surfaces

It felt so good going to bed on Monday night knowing that we had cleaned off at least one surface in the apartment. Unfortunately, we still had a lot more working waiting on us the next day (that was about the only surface that was free from clutter at that point…).

Day 94:

Another rite of passage: schnitzel!

Little O and I headed off for a schnitzel dinner on Tuesday evening while the photographer worked his magic in the apartment. I’m pleased to report that Little O is another schnitzel fan. I am not sure how pleased I really am… He managed to polish off quite a lot of mine! The boy has an appetite.

Day 95:

"Ni! Ni! Ni!"

Aaah, the cold weather returned (again!) after the lovely couple of days that we had at the beginning of the week, hence me dressing Baby E up as one of the Knights Who Say Ni…

Day 96:

McMuffin breakfast - the ideal cold remedy?

I decided to try and conquer the cold and sore throat that I’d developed by exposing it to a Sausage & Egg McMuffin breakfast. I’m not sure if it helped the cold but it made me feeling (temporarily) better. And luckily Baby E slept throughout, so he won’t have been influenced by my bad eating habit.

Day 97:

Washy tape wishes come true

The washy tape that I had ordered from easy arrived, making me very happy.

Day 98:

293 hits in 2 days

After being on the market for two days, our apartment’s page had had 293 hits on the home search website. Husband, being the analyst that he is, spent most of the subsequent days checking out the numbers and trying to analyse what they meant, had enough people been looking, did it mean we’ll get a good turnout for the open day, etc etc. I’m not sure what it really means. I am just crossing my fingers and toes.

Day 99:

The taste of Easter

I love Swedish Easter food. I know many people complain that it is too similar to Swedish Christmas food, but we do a mixture of Swedish and Hungarian food for Christmas when we’re in Sweden, so Easter is different for us. And this is my favourite: Mustard herring and eggs on (Danish!) rye bread. Delicious.

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Photo 366 challenge – week 12

We’ve just arrived back from a very last-minute trip down to southern Sweden, which has been totally draining. So I am afraid that this week’s photos are accompanied by very brief captions only.

Day 79:

Little O demonstrates the new way to wear a bib

Day 80:

Reading nook

Day 81:

Wedding day memories found in a magazine

Day 82:

Look, no boots!

Day 83:

Just before attempting "the transfer"

Day 84: No photo this day, I’m afraid.

Day 85:

Now boarding at gate 2

So that has been this week… Head on over to The Boy & Me to check out what others have been up to this week

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