December Last

Thursday is bullet point day and since I haven't done one for a while I thought I'd restart this Thursday theme today.  I haven't blogged about our two weeks in Sweden over the holidays yet, nor about the weeks leading up to Christmas.  It is perhaps a bit overdue and not in anyone's interest to read about Advent and Christmas now, but for my own record here are some pics from December.

• My mum visited in early December (that weekend I got stuck in Copenhagen Thursday to Friday) and she performed her grandmother duties very well and baked both ginger cookies and saffron buns with Isolde (and I helped a little too). 

 

I brought some of the saffrons bun to work for the Christmas drink and another colleague made very delicious salmon and caviar treats = the Swedish contribution

 

• I think I mentioned this in a previous Thursday post but without any photos, so here is one of perhaps the cosiest holidays/celebrations of them all, Saint Lucia.  In Sweden we very rarely every go to church, except for weddings, christenings and funerals, and the occasional Advent or Christmas service, but when living abroad the church becomes a very important meeting place, and something that provides a sense of community and contributes to continuity of Swedish customs and cultural habits, whether or not you are a faithful believer or not.  Peter has started going to the church's playgroups, mainly with Harald on Tuesdays but sometimes also on Wednesdays with both children.

Saint Lucia with the children's choir at the Swedish Church in Brussels

• I participated in Emma's Christmas Gift Exchange again this year, and this year my Secret Santa was Petchie!  I don't know if Emma planned it this way, since she knows we are neighbours here in Brussels, or if it was just a happy coincidence :)  And I sent my gift to Emma - and it wasn't that secret for natural reasons since she organises the draw.  Well, the gift was a secret but she knew it would be from me :)  I hope she liked her present (this reminds me that I have to double-check that she received it)!

Petchie-Santa brought me a note book and a range of different cards.  She had read my letter to Santa carefully!  (Sorry about the feet in the picture!)

• In Sweden the tradition is to decorate the Christmas tree on the 23rd of December, just the day before Christmas (Christmas Eve being the most important day of Christmas in Sweden), but since we knew we were not going to stay in Belgium over the holidays, we got a tree already the second week of December so we could get into the Christmas mood (the anticipation of Christmas is the best part after all). I'm quite minimalist in terms of Christmas ornaments (the opposite of Annika haha), and we didn't bring all our Christmas stuff to Belgium anyway (though Peter brought a few additional baubles for the tree when he went home that same weekend my mum was here) so in addition to the tree we only had a few other decorations, mainly made by Isolde at school.
  

  

  A bit funny-looking, at least the top part, but it was good enough for us.

 

I really like this little Russian doll nativity set!

 

We received a handful of Christmas cards.  I wish more people would send them, but on the other hand it is better for the environment if they don't I guess.  We still send a real card, with pictures of the children.

One of Isolde's creations.  Harald was rather fascinated by it, maybe because it was even bigger than him!

Another of Isolde's creations from school, a Saint Nicholas and a mushroom (I need to google why toadstools are typical Christmas ornaments, it can't be only because they are red and white??)

And the prettiest Christmas ornaments signed Isolde, though this one I think we can use throughout the year as it is more pink than red.

• We also tried to take some Christmas portraits of the children but it was a bit difficult... In the end we opted for a Christmas card with photos from throughout the year instead.

Take 1

Take 2

Another day

Christmas card 2013

Wallpaper

For those of you curious about our newly redecorated flat, here's a sneak peak at Isolde's wallpaper* on my friend's blog.  I promise I will post more photos once the contractors have finished some bits and pieces and we have tidied up after them.

* We're painting Isolde's crib this week so soon she won't have to sleep in a travel bed anymore!

Advent

A little update. We're now 1 1/2 weeks into our kitchen+ renovation and yesterday we moved to Peter's parents after having stayed with my parents until now. We'll stay here for a week and then see if we can move back. At the moment it's just too dusty. The liveable part of the flat, i.e. Isolde's room, is fine (except we discovered last Monday that they had turned off the electricity the previous Friday and we had to throw out everything in the fridge and freezer...) but we'd have to go into the dusty part to access the shower (there's only a toilet adjacent to Isolde's room, for now; that's our next renovation project) so that's not an option right now.

It's been a busy weekend (the preceding week was "just" work and a looong commute). Friday we had a little family birthday dinner for my dad who turned 60 today (we had a bigger celebration in the summer) and Saturday we ran some renovation related errands and went to Wera's 2nd birthday party, in addition to "moved" from my parents to Peter's. And today we had an Advent get-together at our friends Maria and Daniel together with two friends of theirs and their two children. One of the children is just three days older than Isolde and we've been planning to get together for ages but it took 10+ months!

Happy first Advent!

Tedious

Not much time to reflect on the first day of work / parental leave for either of us... Sold our cooker (and with 15 interested I probably priced it too low but I just think it's good it doesn't end up on a dump) today and a friend is taking the dishwasher. We'll keep the fridge and microwave for now so that we can stay here on and off during the renovation. Peter finished the last touches on Isolde's room (except for wallpapering which the contractors will do for us later) so we have somewhere to sleep (as we're not just having the kitchen redone but also the rest of the flat painted and wallpapered). Can't wait for Christmas when it's all supposed to be finished!

Father's Time & More

Today, the day before Peter starts his parental leave (and I go back to work) was very appropriately Father's Day.  We didn't celebrate much (not Mother's Day in May either) this year*, as we were busy packing all our kitchen stuff ahead of Wednesday, the big day, when our complete kitchen renovation starts.  We also need to pack all loose items in our bedroom, living room and hallway, and move some furniture around, as the same company will paint and wallpaper those rooms too, but that's for tomorrow and Tuesday night.  I don't understand how we have so much stuff, even though we left some stuff in the attic when we moved in, as we knew we were going to do some work later on in the year... Wish us luck for the next couple of days, we need it!

* I suspect these days will become more of a big deal as Isolde grows up and comes home with Mother's/Father's Day drawings from pre-school :)

Happy Easter!

Peter, Isolde and I went out to the summer house to chill yesterday. It's just us here as his parents are spending Easter in Nice but Peter's sister and her husband are coming out tonight. Tomorrow we'll change our Easter location to my parents.




So far we haven't done any typical Easter stuff except for eating sweets and drinking must but I expect (I hope) lots of eggs and herring at my parents. Peter and I usually don't give each other any Easter presents and I don't decorate for Easter either (except for some tulips and tussilago) but I suspect this will change as Isolde gets older. Then she will want to do little Easter crafts in the shape of chickens and dress up as an Easter witch, but most importantly, get her egg with candy and/or some other treat (we want to wait as long as possible with giving her sweets so it will be a toy or similar the first couple of years I suspect).




Via Anna's iPhone

Show & Tell: Advent

Short post today just to give you a flavour of what is gradually making its way from the basement up to the flat. Unfortunately I couldn't go to church today due to helping a friend with a home refurbishment project, otherwise Advent is my favourite time of the year churchwise. It feels like Advent came so quickly this year. Can't believe Christmas is less than a month away! I think it has to do with the relatively mild weather we've been having. I want snow! Well, not snow from now on to Christmas but at least one proper snowfall so that it starts feeling like winter and the holiday season!

Me Want!

But why does it have to cost so much (€120 for a pillow through Inreda)?!

Show & Tell: Find of the Month

As Petra also writes today this week's theme "månadens fynd" (the Show & Tell theme host this month has been Strandmamman) can be translated in two ways from Swedish to English; either as the bargain or the find of the month. I have chosen to interpret it as the find of the month because I want to show you the lamp we bought last weekend.

We've been looking for a ceiling lamp for our living room for quite a while and haven't been able to make up our mind (well, especially Peter as he's the most wavering person in the world!), but last Saturday we finally made a decision! And it wasn't necessarily a bargain so unfortunately I can't call it that. It's a pretty lamp - in my view - in goldish brown organza!

P.S. I'm still planning to write about my grandfather (last week's Show & Tell theme) as there is definitely a story to tell there, but not today!

My Balcony

Summer

Autumn

Show & Tell: Walls

This week's - and Petra's last - theme is walls: "it could be anything from a beautiful wall, to what you have ON the wall(s), or what the wall say about you".

I want to write something political about brick walls and glass ceilings but I had such a nice, care-free weekend at the country house in such sunny, beautiful autumn weather that I don't feel like being that serious. So I will just post - re-post actually - a picture of my favourite wall in our flat. It appears that I don't really have anymore pictures of it since it came about back in early 2007 - a bit strange since it is such a favourite but so it is - so I will have to use the same wallpapering photo again.

My Home - Best and Worst

I found a fun challenge over at Anne's: show what's best and worst in your home.

B E S T
Must be our wallpaper in the bedroom (a "fondvägg", in our case on the wall behind the bed). We put it up a year or so ago and we still love it! It's an English make called Osborne & Little if anyone is tempted!

It was quite tricky to put it up - luckily my mum is quite the wallpaper guru!

Another thing on the "best" list is the balcony - this picture is from Peter's birthday in mid-April last year when we had our friends Maria and Daniel over for dinner and it was such a warm evening that we could eat outside.

Peter and Maria posing on our 7sqm balcony

W O R S T
Difficult to photograph, but the worst thing is definitely the cigarette smoke that sometimes seeps through from our nextdoor neighbours. What's weird is that you cannot smell it through their door (believe me, I have tried!), instead it only smells in the kitchen (which is next to their kitchen) and it's worst around 6pm and 11pm and INSIDE the cabinets! They must be keeping all their cigarette butts under the sink or something.

Any advice on what to do? Both how to get rid of the smell and how to bring this up with nextdoor (as they are probably not going to read this)?

Passing on the challenge to Skolfröken, Johanna and Anna!

Countdown to Christmas

My blog has been given an early Christmas present! A new dress for advent and Christmas! What do you think?!