Our New Year’s Eve was a sleepover adventure at Sofie’s and Hans’ place. The kids were happy playing while the grown ups ate and drank – same procedure as last year, James
We had a great time the whole evening. The only exception was that Joanna became really frightened when Mik and Hans lit a few rockets as the clock struck midnight and 2012 arrived.
After being told that we wouldn’t all catch fire or explode she could finally enjoy the firecrackers – from inside, through the window.

Today we were all tired, in a nice way. A good reason to meet with more good friends, eat cookies and just sit around. Carro and Jocke came by with Jocke’s kids Jacob and Gustaf. They are so big nowadays, more or less grownups. I remember them both around ten year’s old pushing baby Joanna around in a stroller …

After all those festivities, the tinyest one was just down for the count. Happy 2012 everyone

Today we visited Vasaparken, the park where Joanna once learnt how to skate. Felix got to take on skates for the first time. Not that he could stand on them or anything. But he really enjoyed to be dragged around on the ice trying to balance, assisted by Grandpa Harald or by me (dad was out hunting).

I felt a bit nostalgic when I realized that it’s been four years since this picture was taken. Joanna had the same green overall and the same skates that Felix was wearing today, and she was three years and three months (11 months older than he is today). And now she was dancing around on the ice as if she had known how to do it forever …

You can read the whole post here:

http://stierfamiljen.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/finding-balance/

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you’re having a lazy holiday, wherever you all are.
Finally, we have some time to breathe after all the baking, cooking, eating and present opening ceremonies…

Grandma Ulla came a few days before Christmas. A big change from her last visit during summertime was that Felix now calls her “Mamo” instead of “Aya”. Much closer to “Farmor”(Grandma) and a big development

One part of the preparations consisted of creating little snowmen and tomte figures that were put in the windows. Thanks, Henny and Oliver!
A few days before Christmas Eve we thought this was going to be a white Christmas. But on the 24:th most of it had melted away. And today it’s 11 degrees plus. Not that Christmassy, but comfortable in a way, not having to shovel snow everyday.

While Ulla and the kids were playing they found a cardboard box from the old family house in Washington, full of dad’s and his brother’s old toys. One of them was this wonderful, huge teddybear called Max. The kids are taking really good care of him until you will finally be able to hug him again this summer, Oliver

On the 24:th it was time for the traditionally enormous Christmas meal. Grandma Anne was here, as was of course Ulla and Grandpa Harald and my brother Per.

The lengthy eating feast isn’t that child friendly, as you know. So while we were singing our drinking songs, Felix just fell asleep in Grandma Anne’s lap.

And Joanna thought our singing needed some variety. So she took out a song book and entertained us with some Christmas songs…

And then she rested a while with Uncle Per, eagerly waiting for Santa. Whom she doesn’t believe in, but still… she did believe in the Christmas presents she saw under the Christmas tree.

When dad finally lit the candles in the tree it was a long awaited moment for her, at least. While I thought more about the fire risk.

And then, suddenly, we heard a knock on the door. Santa had arrived! Felix wasn’t too scared. Joanna was inquisitively studying Santa’s boots and voice and later on commented on the fact that his boots were very similar to Uncle Per’s. And his voice too. So sad her uncle had to runt to the store and buy lemonade at exactly that moment …

The month of December rushes by surprisingly quickly, just as always. (Was that a contradiction, perhaps?).
Anyway, we have celebrated Lucia (see Joanna comforting the sad tomte Felix when I started taking pictures and didn’t allow him to take the shots himself).

We have been baking ginger cookies, two kinds even, saffron buns and candy. Most of it has been eaten already since we organized a little “glögg” party the other weekend. But we will be back with more! I never miss a chance to bake sweet stuff, no matter how tired I am.
On the other hand, I will buy most of my Christmas presents on Wednesday. Last day shopping, that’s another of my Christmas traditions.

Yesterday we witnessed a big moment for Joanna. Her first loose tooth finally fell off, after having been loose for a looong time. She had been waiting over a year to be able to show that little gap between her teeth, just like most of her friends.
When she finally managed to twist the tooth out of its place, dad took her in his arms and she had this very, very proud look on her face. Lovely!

Joanna doesn’t believe in Santa anymore. She has figured it out on her own, calling Santa “Harald” several years ago
On top of that, I felt obliged to answer truthfully when she asked.
Since she knows about Santa, she knows that there is no tooth fairy either. But both she and we pretend to believe it. We don’t want her to miss the happy discovery of a coin in the glass in the morning!

Tonight we had a whole bunch of visitors. Joanna is having a “pyjama party” (sleep over party) for three of her old daycare friends. An interesting experiment!
I picked the girls up in town this afternoon. They were all excited to see each other and said grown up stuff to each other like “oh you have really grown”!
They went to daycare together from the age of 1,5 to 6. And now, one and a half years after daycare they all go to different schools.
But as soon as we got home they played as if time had stood still. Very impressive.

Joanna had asked for tacos for dinner, so that we had. After that we took them for a little walk in the cellar (no lights on) with flashlights, searching for a secret treasure. The treasure (a candy bag) was found in the washing machine pretty quickly, and then they just played.

By the way we noticed something. Just a coincidence, but anyway. We realized that all of these three favourite friends from daycare are bilingual. Felicia and Matilda both speak Swedish and Polish at home while Angelina speaks Bulgarian with her mom. And even if Joanna isn’t truly bilingual yet, she is a Swedish-American and has a strong connection to the English language.

Isn’t that funny?

After candy and playing the girls did a joint effort to clean their teeth and then went to bed. Now they’re all sleeping like angels upstairs.

I found this note on Joanna’s desk. After her birthday party and her not really behaving like a hostess (instead getting as upset as the other kids about things and thereby not helping out with creating a good ambiance) we have talked to her about the importance of making your guests feel comfortable and welcome. Perhaps this note was inspired by her feelings of responsibility, or not. Anyway it’s cute.

This Sunday, the first of Advent, Felix celebrated by wearing his hair Pippi style. He was inspired by Joanna’s hairdo that morning.

We had glögg, saffron buns (last years, from the freezer), ginger cookies and knäck, a toffee thing similar to brittle. Joanna said “Finally it smells like Christmas!”.

Felix is very much into counting and he likes to emphasize when there’s a lot of anything. “Mycket! Många!” (“A lot! Many!”) he screams in a happy voice. We definitely had “mycket” of candy and cookies on the table.

Joanna asked if she could light the first Advent candle. She could (with some assistance).

On Saturday, Joanna took part in her first gymnastics competition. Her whole group competed in a class called “micro”. They performed flips and cartwheels and they did just great!

But she wasn’t all that satisfied when three other groups got the gold, silver and bronze medals.
“I think it was because I moved around when we sat and waited in the line” she said. “Oh no,” I corrected her, “you were not the only one!”

As you can see in the picture the girls didn’t sit perfectly upright or anything. I find it more charming that way.

Check out Joanna’s cartwheel caught in the motion.

Mik is the handier parent in this family. That’s why he took on the task of cutting the pumpkin so that we would get the right Halloween ambiance here at home.

On Joanna’s birthday last Sunday, she woke up really early, of course. I noticed that and crawled out of bed even if it was only around 6 in the morning. We had just turned our clocks back to winter time that night, so she woke up even earlier, so to speak.

After opening a heap of lovely presents, she and dad sat down to make some sand art that Uncle Oliver and Aunt Henny had brought from Australia.

Later on, Grandpa Harald, Grandma Anne and Uncle Per with Jenny and Elmer came to visit.

Felix and Grandpa looked so sweet together, both in light blue shirts. Joanna made them a napkin each out of toilet paper, to put in the chest pockets… Looks elegant, doesn’t it?

Per can finally relax a little after two pressing film productions this year. The film Jägarna 2 has been seen by 500.000 Swedes so far, a really good number for a production in a language that is only spoken by around 9 million people. Congratulations!

And here’s what Joanna looked like this morning, going to school after three days off. She and I had a luxury stay at a hotel in town the night between Monday and Tuesday. We went shopping on Monday, had take-out-thai-food for dinner and ate huge amounts of candy. On Tuesday we enjoyed the hotel breakfast buffé and watched Monet’s water lilies and other art works at the Museum of Modern Art.

Thanks for the wonderful dress and the leggings, Grandma Ulla! I didn’t expect Joanna to mix the pink-grey dotted and striped dress with the black-and-white-striped leggings, but it looked kind of cool.

Imagine that seven years have already passed since our little Joanna came. Today she threw the big birthday party for all the school mates. 14 kids jumped around here at home, eating hot dogs and ice cream, playing games and once in a while arguing a little, too.

I know that kids are kids. But it still surprises me how rude and thoughtless they can be. Saying stuff like “if I can’t have a red ballon I’m going home” or “is there really only chocolate sauce for the dessert, no fudge sauce?” Most of them are still very self centred even if they are seven years old. Imagine a party with grown ups acting like that. Haha, it would be disastrous!

All in all, the party was still a good one. Since Joanna has her birthday around Halloween, that’s usually the theme for her parties. This one was no exception and there were many black witch hats and spider web paintings on little cheeks. Joanna, already a pale redhead, looked like she hadn’t had much sleep with black make-up around her eyes. But I think she was satisfied with the turnout. And now she’s sleeping like an angel, while we’re wrapping presents. Tomorrow is the big day and we’ll wake her up with happy-birthday-songs!

Felix talks a lot these days. Here he just discovered a “ninni”(snigel/snail), one of his favorite animals. His way of saying the word for another appreciated garden fellow, “mash” (mask/worm), sounds very much like his way of saying “bash” (bajs/poo).

But he makes himself understood more and more. He has learnt most colors and can pronounce them quite well. Every day when we walk to daycare he points to cars and says “biii” (bil/car). Then I ask “what color is it then?” and he answers “rööö” (röd/red) or “bååå” (blå/blue). It means great progress. Just a few weeks ago I told him all colors, now he is the one telling me

He also knows the concept of counting and can say “tå” (två/two) even if it sounds just like his word for tåg/train.

He loves songs and rhymes. Apart from all songs they do at daycare we started doing “Head, shoulder, knees and toes” at home and he really likes it, even if he can’t always follow and sometimes points at the wrong body parts.

Meanwhile Joanna’s first loose tooth is still there in her mouth in that annoying way I guess we all remember. My memory is that I just couldn’t stop wiggle the loose teeth with my tongue, a constant distraction.

She has reminded us that there is no tooth fairy, and that parents have to make sure to change teeth put in water glasses for money over night. Just so she makes sure we are properly prepared.

The kids love to play with our ipads and iphones. I am happy there are restriction settings and I use them now, after having had Felix deleting a few apps.

Felix even said “böd” the other day as he pointed to the phone. Yes indeed, he also plays Angry Birds, even if he shoots the birds backwards most of the time. But he enjoys it just as much anyway!