Fall in our new home

Wow, time sure does fly by. I can't believe it is almost November. This whole time I have been thinking that I have to update my blog for the autumn and this morning I woke up to -1 Celsius and frost on the grass. Before I know it, it will be time for blogging about the winter.

So these last couple of months have been spent trying to settle in and adjust to our new surroundings. And it has been a blast exploring our town, looking for tagsales, taking walks, and just driving around. It really is beautiful here.

Here is our backyard from the time we moved in to just a couple days ago.










As we have moved further into autumn, Noah has become more and more comfortable with his surroundings. He has had a blast learning how to ride his big wheel down the drive way. When we moved in he would just go 1/4 of the way up. Now he starts from the top and rides screaming down the driveway onto the grass and then continues down the lawn into the trees. He and the neighbor kids play almost every day, so his English is getting better and better. It is pretty funny though, since he is using English while playing with friends he is most comfortable with play English. So right now his English vocabulary consists of "watch this" "guys, come on" "ok! Ready, set, go!"

So a conversation will go something like this.

Mamma - Noah dags att äta lunch nu.
Noah - Ok mamma. Men vänta, mamma, mamma, watch this, ok, här är min bil. Mamma, mammma, watch this, watch this, här är min bil och den kör jätte jätte fast!

Pappa - Thanks Noah for being a good boy and meeting my friends.
Noah - tack pappa. Det var jätte great att träffa dina friends.

On his bigwheel when we first moved in...





Today...



Playing with the neighborhood children:





Noah and Elias



Theo is a delight to all of us. He loves his big brother and no matter what his mood, if I can get him outside to where the action is he is as happy as can be. He is also super social. I need to give myself extra time at the grocery store for people engaging with Theo as he smiles, gurgles, winks and giggles to everybody around him. He rolls over now, and can almost sit up. We have started giving him some solids and if I time it right, ie not during a time when he is actually hungry, he seems to eat and enjoy it. However I am not allowed to even think about replacing one of his 'real' meals with solids. Then he just looks at me with terror in his eyes and lets out a big long wail that can only be satisfied with one thing.







So you may all be wondering where we live. Well, we live in a very small New England town, called Belchertown. It is the quintessential New England town with a large grassy area in the middle of the town, , the town greens, an irish pub on one side and town hall on the other. There is a beautiful library within walking distance,



Noah, Theo and I have spent a lot of time there already. It's a bit easier on the wallet than constantly having to buy new books. Here are some pictures from one of our walks to the library, through the center of town.





Notice how we pass by a rooster on our walk,







and a farm.



So real country living for us. Everybody here calls the area semi-rural, but jensen and I agree, this is about as rural as we can handle. So we've replaced walks in the new Vällingby Centrum, with walks down to the Quabbin Resevoir






Next, I'll write about what we have been up to in our new surroundings! So long.