The frogs are croaking...

in the woods behind us and that apparently means only one thing here in Massachusetts: Spring has finally arrived. And it sure has. The sun is shining, there is a warmth in the air and the kids have replaced mittens and beanies with caps and sunglasses and sometimes even umbrellas.



The kids have been out exploring their backyard after the wintery wonderland has melted away. And look what they discovered:


- taken by Noah, March 25, 2009



- taken by Eva, March 25, 2009

Krokuses. Yay! there is no turning back now. And from what I've heard the weather is like back in Stockholm, I am pretty happy to be here. Hopefully we don't have a nasty snowstorm waiting around the corner to put a damper on our spring. But as i write the frogs croak happily away and well I am putting my trust in them.

What we have been up to:

Theo is completely into cars, trucks, anything with wheels. He pushes, he pulls, he hammers, whatever he does with them, he loves them. He is actually a lot more into toys in general then I remember noah ever being. Probably because with big brother around the amount of toys is more than twice whatever Noah grew up with. Theo is also working very hard on standing up and taking those first tentative steps. Whenever he gets a chance he pulls himself up and locks his knees. Sometimes he gets stuck and cries out frustrated before he goes toppling over. He is a furniture mover. Any chair, cart, easel that allows for movement will be slowly pushed or tugged over to another part of the room. He loves crawling under things. So more often or not I will hear a cry, run into the kitchen and find theo tangled into a chair, one leg over the lower cross support, one leg under. Head butted up against the seat of the chair and arms sort of bracing his weight somehow. I untangle him from the chair and before i have even put him down his little legs are moving just rearing to get in under that chair again. What he wants to accomplish exactly is completely beyond me.











He is our little social butterfly. He loves people. No matter how crabby he is, as soon as our neighbor April comes over, he shines up and puts on his best behaviour. Though this is a blessing, it is sometimes frustrating as nobody ever gives me the least amount of sympathy if he and i are having a bad day. All i get is "theo? No! He is so sweet. He is like the nicest baby I have ever met!" Argh!







Noah is our big boy. He is now a real bonafide little boy. He is completely enthralled with dinosaurs. He loves reading books about dinosaurs and talk about dinosaurs, where they might live, what they eat, how and why did they become extinct. He also plays dinosaurs with Theo, which is pretty funny to watch. Theo is either a t rex hunting noah or it is vice versa. Theo just sits in the middle of the floor bouncing up and down with a goofy smile on his face while noah is either running towards him or from him, making argh or help help noises. Great to see the boys enjoying each other, each in his own way.





Speaking of roleplaying, this is all that noah does now. If we watch a movie about penguins and a seal happens to hunt one (we were watching March of the Penguins on one of our sick days) noah is a seal hunting penguins for the next week. The next movie we watch might be a japanese anime movie with giant cat that is a bus and now we can't do anything without noah asking if we want to ride on his back as he is a cat-bus. It is truly wonderful to be part of this great imaginary world that blooms up wherever we may be.

He is also hard at work learning his letters and his numbers. He loves using his etcha-sketch to write his T's and O's. Which he has pretty much down. He also practices drawing a eights, which is two circles somewhere in the vicinity of each other. I of course am so proud of him.





Jensen is busy at school. Working, doing workshops and independent studies. He has met a lot of great people, both poets and fiction writers. When at home he is usually holed up in his office, typing away. I am really proud of him, his ambition and his discipline. I know it can't be easy get anything done hearing us down stairs having both good days and bad days. His work seems to be really appreciated by both his peers and his professors which is very encouraging.

I am whole heartedly enjoying this new phase of our life. I have now mastered the sourdough starter and starting to become curious about how to go about making your own buttermilk, filmjölk, ricotta, mozarella. We will see which of these crafts come into fruition. Well I am definetly going to try and make buttermilk and filmjölk. Especially as now it seems as though Theo does not have the same aversion to dairy as Noah does.

By the way, theo is my little eater. He LOVES everything I make. Ahhh, the 12 month old and their appetites. Poor Noah, he just doesn't stand a chance. Of course he is still going through the preschool age fobia of food. One day he loves fish sticks the next hates it. He likes mammas bacon but not pappas (there is absolutely no difference, but shhh don't tell him that). Desperately trying to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a short order cook, I am trying not to worry, but of course it is hard. If he only wasn't so slender to begin with.




- taken by Noah



Well that is our update for now. I will be posting again soon with photos from Grandma and Grandpa Beach's recent visit.

A day in February

Whew! So another tuesday has gone by. And I have still not updated my blog. And it is February. You may be wondering what the heck i have been up to and how I can neglect the blog updates. Well, today is a perfect example of what the last days have looked like and perhaps you will understand why it is that the blog has been slipping.

It all began at 6:30. Well, I was up at 6 and took a brisk walk but Noah and Theo woke up at 6:30 and the day officially began.



First breakfast, Tuesday is pancake day. I also had some vanilla yogurt from last week, so Noah and I made blueberry/banana smoothies. Noah thought they were ok, perhaps a little too sour for him, I'll add honey next time. Jensen and I thought they were pretty yummy. Theo ate his first pancake, which he enjoyed very much. He really loves to eat the same food we are eating and gets very frustrated when his looks different.










8:00 - everybody upstairs to get ready. Gate in place, theo doesn't crawl yet, he is doing some weird inchworm thing, which is very cute. He doesn't move super fast but we don't want to risk it. Before we know it he will be jamming and our staircase is pretty steep. So gate in place, trying not to wake jensen, i'm getting theo, noah and oh yeah myself cleaned, dressed and presentable. Noah is pretty much bouncing on the bed asking Jensen for this and that, telling him about the gate, theo, smoothies and pancakes.



9:00 the three of us come downstairs. Time to get ready for the family center. At 9:30 we are in our snow gear and the car is warmed up and ready to go.

9:45-12:15 we are at the family center. A really cute place that has lots of toys for the boys, other children to play with and most importantly other moms for me to socialize with. After playing with trains, cars, doing a valentines craft and reading stories we are ready to go home.

12:30 We get home. Jensen is working from home today so we all get to have lunch together. Fishsticks and rice for Noah. Sandwiches for jensen and I. Theo had some rice and carrots. He wasn't pleased.

1:30 I take Theo up for a nap. Jensen goes back to work after starting the Curious George DVD (Noahs new favorite) for Noah.

2pm - 5 pm Theo is asleep, so I have two hours to clean. I get the kitchen cleaned after lunch. Throw chicken in the slowcooker for chicken tacos. Vacuum the downstairs and do some laundry. Iron while watching swedish news on the internet. Gotta love SVT. And it is nice to be reminded that in Sweden, it is newsworthy when an old lady gets left by the swedish senior shuttle service on a very icy road.

Noah gets his afternoon snack. Theo wakes up at 3:20, since I am right in the middle of working, the babycarrier comes in handy and he sits on my back while I finish up. Ok so looking back I am wondering how come this took 3 hours Oh yeah I was entertaining my 3.5 year old at the same time. Answering questions, explaining how the world works, etc.

4-5:30 Noah goes out to play in the snow. Jensen finishes working and comes downstairs to help out with theo.














5-6:30 Make dinner, spanish rice, flour tortillas, sauteed onions and bell peppers for tacos. I also prep pizza dough for family movie night on fridays (fredagsmys).

6:30 We all sit down for dinner. It was a late one today.

7:15 Dinner is finished. Jensen takes theo up for a bath. I get started on the kitchen again.
7:30 I go upstairs and put theo down. Noahs turn for a bath and once Theo is nursed, read to and put to bed I go downstairs to finish the kitchen. I prep bread dough to rise in the fridge overnight (we are seriously cutting costs wherever we can).




Noah helped me bake the bread the next day:







8:30 Hang up the last load of laundry to dry. Put away clothes. Both boys are sleeping soundly


8:45 My day is done! I lay on the couch for five minutes and then realize I should update my blog.
Don't ever remember logging 14 hour days for my other jobs. But what i really want to know is how did I manage to do this AND work at the same time!

What we've been doing

So now that you've seen where we live, you might be wondering what we've been up to. well we've engaged in a lot of family fun autumn activities. Primarily to sell this place to Noah, who is proving to be quite the hard-sell. Just hte other day, talking to Mimi, who asked him if he'd met any friends he responded laconically that he had friends at daycare in Vallingby. Oh well, we've had a lot of fun engaging in autumny activities.

So in true New England tradition we went apple picking. It was a crisp and clear autumn day. I was initially worried that Noah would have to climb trees to get at the apples, I didn't realize that they would be so low down.







Noah nonetheless got bored after a while and decided to go off and make some new friends. Not surprisingly he found one true friend that would prove to be very entertaining the rest of the apple-picking day.







The setting was gorgeous. Here are a few attempts in trying to capture the surroundings.







We also went up to Berkshires and took an old fashioned train from Lenox to Stockbrige. Pretty slow going. It took us about 30 minutes train ride there and 30 minutes back. We drove the same distance later and it was about 10 minutes with car. This area is pretty amazing. It had its hey day during the Gilded Age, when a lot of rich families built there summer 'cottages' here. Driving around we were able to catch small glimpses of these estates and they were anything but cottages. After the train ride we were able to have a picnic outside. Perfect autumn day.




















We have also been to not one but two pumpkin patches! It was great to actually go out into a pumpkin field and pick the pumpkin from the vine. Let me tell you, pumpkins are kinda weird. They are just huge, and orange, and some are small and green and they just grow out there, on the fields. It is just bizarre. But fun. Both pumpkin patches featured hay rides. We went to the first one on Columbus weekend and Noah, Theo and I went to the second one the week after together with the Belchertown Family Center. It was a really neat experience.









The second one featured a great play area for Noah with giant pumpkins. It was kinda creepy in a little shop of horrors kinda way.









The highlight of this season though must be the scarecrow batman than Noah and Jensen stuffed at our local library!





From our Batman headquarters to yours, goodbye and Happy Halloween!