Christmas 2010

Our Christmas tree this year - Stefan's dad got it for us. It is about 270 cm tall after we trimmed it some. Good thing we have a high ceiling. This was on the 22nd when we put it up.

Here was Haylie on Christmas Eve morning, after breakfast and ready to open presents.

After presents, Haylie, Grandma and Grandpa went out and played in the snow.

Then we got ready, and after the traditional cartoons at 3 PM went to Stefan's sister's house for Christmas Eve dinner.

This is what 39 weeks pregnant looks like. And probably the most put-together I have been for over a month.

Here we are with my parents at Camilla's house.

My ankles swelled horrendously so I had to sit with my feet up. Fortunately, they decided to put the candy table right next to me. Stefan had made knäck and kola, and I made Grasshopper squares.

Here are the cousins, being forced to pose for pictures before getting to open presents. They played really nicely all evening and didn't even nag to open gifts. We started to wonder what was wrong with them. Henrik found out that night that the baby will be a girl, but I think he is beyond being disappointed at this point and has resigned himself to the fact that he is perpetually surrounded by girls at family gatherings.

Haylie and Cornelia

Tindra and Emely

Henrik

Emely read the tags and the other girls passed out gifts.

Here is Haylie with her pile of loot.

She was hugging whoever the presents were from after each one she opened this year.

Here was today, December 30th, after an afternoon in Visby doing a little shopping.

Stefan had won the grand prize of a 32 inch flat-screen LED TV in an online drawing on Christmas Eve. It came today, so he and my dad went to pick it up.

Now he has some reading material anyway - he always has to read the instructions everytime we get something new. Good thing someone does.

Birthday party weekend #2

On Saturday, Haylie had her birthday party with friends from school.

Present opening - it is always hard to tell who is most excited, the kid getting the presents or the rest of them living vicariously.

There I am, looking heavy, pale and anemic. Which I am. Or in other words, 36 1/2 weeks pregnant in December. Stefan had to do all the work. Good thing he is good at taking directions.

The girls played quite nicely, for the most part. Haylie is in the pink bean bag on the left, under her guitar. I only know this because those are her pink socks with white spots. I didn't venture into her room during the party. They weren't too quiet or screaming bloody murder, so no need to intervene.

At the end of the party, we made ice cream sundaes, which were very popular. Then we sent them home, hyperactive and full of sugar, with a little bag of candy each to keep them hyperactive for the rest of the day.

We even managed to clean up the sticky mess on the table and the crumby mess under the table before all the parents came to pick them up. The house didn't look that much worse for the wear afterwards.

6 years old!

We woke up Haylie this morning by singing to her, and bringing her cake and presents in bed. This was the outfit she got from us today, so she wanted to have her picture taken in it on her birthday. We also gave her books and some Littlest Pet Shop animals.

I went with her to school from 8-10 this morning and hung out.

Birthday party weekend #1

Haylie and Stefan had put up our recently purchased birdfeeder and suet balls this week, so as I was eating breakfast on Saturday I got to watch all sorts of little birds coming and going. As I was eating breakfast, Stefan went out to shovel and Haylie went out to play in the snow in her new snowsuit that she is quite fond of. She flopped around all over the yard, and ended up getting stuck in a big pile of snow at one point. We have one sledding hill (i.e. pile of dirt) left in the backyard, so she had her snow racer out and took a ride down it.

This was my view from the breakfast table, but the little birds made themselves scarce when Haylie was out there.

Today was Haylie's family birthday party, with her cousins, Stefan's parents and siblings, and her friend Hilda. She had a really good time.

Haylie and her youngest cousin Elina, who is 17 months.

Isabelle, Cornelia, Tindra, Elina, and Haylie.

Haylie ordered a purple marzipan-topped cake with a pink rose from one of the local bakeries, plus picked out purple glitter candles. This kind of cake is called a Princesstårta, a princess cake, and is usually green.

Tuesday is her actual birthday. She turns 6, and I am going to go with her to school for a while, plus she has decided we are going out for pizza that night. Next Saturday is her birthday party with her friends from school. Now I am on vacation until the baby shows up, and then start my year or so of maternity leave. It will be nice to have a few weeks to take it easy.

Julmarknad på Västerhejde skola - Haylie's school Christmas fair

Today, we went to Haylie's school for the Christmas fair. I had baked 2 kinds of spritz cookies, iced gingerbread cookies, and peanut butter cookies for the bake sale. Stefan made knäck, which are like caramels with little almond bits in them. His candy sold fast, and the gingerbread cookies. I think the Swedes were afraid of my American cookies though. Hope somebody buys them. The proceeds from the fair go to a field trip they have every fall for the whole school, and to charity. They are sponsoring orphans and abandoned children in Columbia, so they have studied Columbia and drawn its flag and stuff like that. All the kids got free hot dogs, and we bought a wreath, candles the kids had decorated, a Christmas popper of the non-explosive variety, some cookies and candy, glögg, and did the pony ride.

For once, Stefan had a coat on, but of course no hat or gloves.

Haylie went on a pony ride.


Here she is, working the money box. All the kids had a 20 minute shift to work, selling what they had made and what the families had donated.

She had an idea in the car on the way home about "double-selling". She explained that you can buy stuff at a Christmas fair, then go and sell it again at another Christmas fair for more money. I had to laugh at that one.

Here is Haylie, all dressed up in her new dress. Today she is at her cousin Isabelle's friend birthday party. We will go to the family birthday party on Tuesday as well. They are 7 days apart, so we have a few weekends of partying in a row here for the six-year olds.

32 weeks

Here we were on Saturday on our way out the door to a birthday party. Haylie is posing with her Little Mermaid pen and diary. We have to spell everything she wants to write, but she writes it down.

Haylie was practicing her photography skills. We both have heads and it is relatively in focus, so I guess she did a good job.

She lost her tooth (finally) after weeks of it dangling by a thread.

Finally...

We finally bought lighting for over our kitchen table. It is getting dark early now, and we have been eating by candlelight for a few weeks now. We went to the lighting store on Saturday and picked this one out surprisingly fast. It was about our fifth visit to the store, but they hadn't had this one before. It is sort of three-leaf clover shaped.

Stefan and I looked for studs in the ceiling to hang it from while Haylie was at the movies with her friend Hilda. Hilda thought the light looked weird, and Haylie was more impressed by the spotlights we bought for her closet and installed while she was gone.

29 weeks

Our cactus at home flowered for the first time. All of a sudden this long, weird appendage started growing out of it.

The flower was pretty spectacular, but only lasted 2 days, of which it was only really fully in bloom for one.

On Sunday, we went to the baptism of Stefan's childhood friend Tomas' daughter, Sally. It was at the church in Havdhem, farther south on the island. There was a luncheon and coffee afterwards and Haylie got to play with two of her friends from her old daycare that she doesn't see so often anymore, so she had lots of hyperactive fun.

Tonight we bought a stroller. It is an Emmaljunga Edge Duo Combi with sport chassis.

Enormous, but good for bouncing around in the woods, and we will be getting a infant car seat that can snap onto the chassis as a travel system. You can remove the bassinet part to use as a cradle on the floor - it is rockable (and has handles in the zippered sides). Lots of finesses.

Today I bought a "babygym" from a woman at work. I don't even know what they are called in English. Haylie seems to think I bought it for her. Right now she is playing farm in it. I was going to buy one anyway, so it felt like a bargain to get it used in good condition for half the price of new. I have a ton of stuff to buy in the next 3 months, it is starting to feel a bit stressful. One thing is crossed off the list now, at least.

This was last week. Haylie and Stefan found a big toad. She played with it for the longest time before it "escaped" while she wasn't looking. We start to feel sorry for them after about 30 min-1hour of being cuddled, kissed, forced to hop, and bedded down in a bucket.

She was very proud of it.

Foxy Loxy was taking a nap at the base of the dirt pile.

Third ultrasound today

Today we had the official regular ultrasound. I had one in week 7 when I was puking my guts out to check how far and how many, then one week 13 because the midwife had a brainfart and totally scheduled me wrong. So today we had the regular one. I liked the technician - she showed us a lot and narrated as she was doing it what she was looking at. Plus she printed 5 photos where you usually get 1 view. The measurements set my official due date now at January 3rd. The placenta is low, so I have to have another ultrasound November 11th to determine if it is Placenta Previa.

Haylie said "Det ser ut som en dödskalle" - It looks like a skull. Hard to explain ultrasound to a five-year-old. I think she liked the computer animations of fetuses that I showed her on Babycenter better.

A good shot of the arm, hand, scapula and ribs.

This one isn't as active as Haylie was. She was doing flips in the womb, and it felt like it constantly. They had trouble getting measurements with her because she was moving constantly. With this one I have just been feeling some gentle jostling - and that is about all it has been on the ultrasounds too. Not much action. At one point it turned its back to us, and at one point the knees were up by its forehead and then they went down. No flips, in other words.

Here you can see both hands in front of the head.

Here was a good profile where you can see the soft tissues of the face. With Haylie, you could see on the ultrasound that she had Stefan's head shape and profile. This one I am not so sure - might be my forehead.

Haylie and her little friend

Tonight, as Stefan and I were gathering rocks for fill under sidewalks in one of our big dirt piles, we uncovered yet another toad. Haylie got her hands on it and played with it for at least an hour until I was able to convince her to let it go free. She made a sleeping bag for it out of hosta leaves and had it in a bucket with moist dirt, but mostly was playing with it.

And of course, all animals that are caught must be kissed. Including sow beetles.

Here is how far we have come in the front. And when I say we, I mean Stefan. I am the one with the vision, and he implements it.

Mostly done paving the patio in the front. The step will also be clad with limestone. We need more stone for the back, so we will have to keep an eye out for some pieces for the little spots that need to be filled out here as we work on that. Later, we will fill the cracks between with cement.