Lucia...

13:th of december it's time for Lucia! I will tell you all about the tradition later... We started the day very early and the two girls had a cozy and wild Lucia morning Before we head to Natalie's preschool for their real celebration. Both girls were so excited about their White dresses and were dancing around in the livingroom while we watched the Lucia celebration on tv...

 At the preschool I must admit that it was hard not to cry when all kids were singing as pretty as it can be with 4-5 yera olds. My heart melted completely!

 

A week in Gothenburg...

From 14th of december...

We had a really nice time in Gothenburg together with my Dad, his wife and their son Hugo! My big brother also joined us for half the week. It felt good to live alittle "city life" for a while. I lived in Gbg a year and it is definately my favourite city in Sweden. Very pretty now before Christmas!  Since this friendly city is located right by the ocean it can be windy and also quite rainy. We had a little bit of both..
The plan was to do alot of kid friendly activities during the week. And since I had "babysitters" I also planned to actually spend some time without the kids in the evenings..just be me again.. not only a mama!

We went on a two-day trip to a  waterpark resort "TheReef", in Denmark. I can highly recommend it to families! We started with a
3.5 h trip with the ferry to Fredrikshavn. Already on the boat Hugo and Natalie had a lot of things to do and Curious George also came and played for a while. The resort is a theme "Pirate hotel" with an inbuild waterpark. So you take the elevators from your room to the pools! Very good for kids of all ages!

We also visited Universeum (universeum.se) , and had a fun half day there with oncle Mikael...
And I got to go out and had a few drinks with my loved friend Carolina!  So nice to catch up on our lives!♡♡♡

Except from a few planned things that a storm and sickness unfortunately put an end to, our week was memorable and fun.. And we will definately be back soon!

Once again..only pics from my phone.

  

 

Almost Christmas. ..

Time just fly by..and Christmas is getting closer...

We had hope of spending the Holidays together overseas, but that's not gonna happen so this year we will have a Swedish Christmas. It seems like it takes forever to get my visa done, and its very hard to understand how the process is so slow when we got my approval already in June... Right before we left for Gothenburg I finally heard something from national visa center (after several emails...)
(NVC dep. that handles the visa processing after US immigration , USCIS,has approved the application) NVC also book interviews at the embassies all over the world...unfortunately US embassy in Stockholm has nothing to do with it until they get all my documents from NVC... Anyway before the final stage of my process I have to send in a few more documents again from Skatteverket, that we already sent to USCIS last winter.. and also Criminal records from the police (utdrag ur belastningsregistret). I dont know why we didn't get this request earlier!!  Luckily I am "clean" at least that I am aware of...I got a speeding ticket once, but that shouldn't be in there or make a difference. It takes quite few days to get this so before NVC get all documents it will be a few more weeks.. so my guess now is that it will be done mid january..We hope. .dont dare to plan anything right now! I guess the girls have to put on their nice christmas clothes and get the gifts later that we have in Montana...a second Christmas!

Lets hope for snow then, here its just green, gray and foggy not so much Christmas feeling over that...
Well, we are trying to get in right mood for the Holidays and afterall it's gonna be nice to celebrate with my family here. The girls made some decoration with things we found in the woods- very appreciated activity for Natalie. I'll show the result later.. We also baked some and yesterday we got this year's Christmas Tree. Natalie loved decorate it and she did a good job even though it might not be picture perfect... but it's more important they have fun making it. In the future I think the girls will have their own in each room so they can get exactly what they want in the tree...

Here are some pics from my phone.

Over and out...

  

Jamie 1 year...

From 16th of nov..

I can't believe it's already been a year since we got our little girl! Time is running so fast this time. I guess it has something to do with the bigger sister... With the first child you can be totally drawn into the magical time with a baby but when you already have another one its so different... but still magical♡..

Anyway we had a small birthday party for Jamie and she got to eat chocolate cake for the first time! It wasn't the prettiest cake in history, but at least I put my heart in it and made everything from scratch...Jamie liked the rasberries on top most!

To open presents was very enjoyable and I can say that big sister was very helpful. Surprisingly not as jealous as I imagined. The reason for that might have been that she also got a few late birtdaygifts by herself.
I think its very important for the girls to get the best from both "worlds" USA and Sweden, so I encuraged family to get swedish design, books, movies and so for gifts, and I also try to buy that as much as possible while we are here. Alot if BRIO, Astrid Lindgren, and danish LEGO! Good and sustainable toys!

( Longing for a computer so I can put up real pics not just from my phone...will post more later but this is better than nothing though!)

Cold day..

From 27th of nov..

So far we have had nice and relaxing two weeks in Sweden. November has been alot warmer than usual, and also more green. Moms neighbor mowed his yard yesterday... But it will be cooler.

It's really nice to see all friends and family again, I wish all people were of work though so we could just hangaround..but thats not how the real world works...Only when you are parentfree with your extremely wild 1year old..
One of my best friends, Annika, is also home with her little daughter right now so we can admire our girls together!  It's truly a unique and such a big advantage swedish parents have overhere. Parents can stay home with their baby for a long time without worries for losing their job or not pay the bills. The swedish law give you rights to stay home 480 days ( each parent must at least take 60 days, the rest you can split however you wish between the mom and dad). For 390 days you will get almost 80% of your salary ( depending on your average salary the last 240 days before the birth). The rest 90 days you get 180 sek minus tax (so only like 20 usd/ day). And you can plan to "take" as many days a week you need to save days for future until the child is 8. All in all unbeatable benefits for swedish parents...

I put up some pictures from my cellphone...All taken in Hörvik, where we stay right now.

Love..

Today I was planning to take some pictures in beautiful Hörvik, but its too cold by the ocean...

Christmas gift...

I just ordered this absolutely gorgeous kitchen from Kidkraft... I think it'll be a very appreciated gift for Christmas!  I wanted this one because it's a little taller than many others, made in wood and seems to be good quality! I've seen some swedish websites that sell KidKraft so its possible to get in Sweden to!

New in...

A few new things that will fit our house...Two pillows, two blankets and a basket for fruit or so...all from swedish HM HOME (hm.com)..

Back in Sweden...

Me and the girls are back in Sweden! I'm going to finish the long process of get a visa issued... For allowance to stay in USA longer then 90 days in a row you must have a valid visa. There are many kinds to apply for but we are going through the very long process of getting a so called immediate family related visa. Its a visa you can apply for if you are a spouse of an american citizen. I'll tell you all about that another day! 

Anyway this time we flew Bozeman- Chicago-Copenhagen with SAS.  It was a challenge to fy alone with Jamie and Natalie, but all (except 15 min while boarding the night flight to Cph...) of the door-to-door 26 h trip went really well. 

The only hard time we had was right before the long flight from Chicago. I booked a late evening flight with hope of the two girls beeing a sleep most of the trip... and they more or less did that. But when we were about to board at 10 I had to wake a deep sleeping 4- year old and make her walk by herself into the plane...unfortunately I couldn't carry a sleeping J and my big girl by myself. It was very hard and scary to wake up in a strange place and forced to do that..I even asked the crew members for help already in advance but when the time came for us as last passengers to board, they were not allowed to hold a child even if I insisted...the situation didnt get better until a female (the others were men and obviously not parents...) helped me carry Jamie so I could calm N down.I felt so helpless right there all alone! And the whole situation could so easily been avoided if someone just would have carried one of the sleeping girls! Anyway we made it home and all in all the trip was not too bad! I dont mind travelling alone with them again... ( still preferable overnight flight.)

This day after we were very sleepy and just relaxed down in Hörvik. Now the challenge to get the girls back to swedish time and sleeping routines starts!

Just an evening...

It's been a little windy in the evenings for a while, but last night we all of a sudden decided to light a fire. The plan was to just grill some hot dogs but then I remembered how fun it was to grill "bread on a stick" or campfire bread , " pinnbrod" when I was younger ( and how good it tasted..) so I made some dough for that.
Super easy recipe for campfire bread:
( make at home and split to 10 small portions at the fire)
2 cups ( 5 dl) unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Cold water..
Mix together then add water and mix with your fingers till an even and nonsticky dough.

Nice sunset but it got cold quick with darkness!

Natalie's birthday...

Soon..

Snow on the ground...

Last night we had a storm rolling over... and also got some snow! So this morning we played a little outside in the nice clear weather... a little cold for me, I have to buy better shoes!  Both girls seemed to enjoy the snow. Hopefully we still have sunshine this afternoon so we can grill outside...Natalie has talked abour making smore's for a while so I guess we better try it now in the snow.. It' s like a "graham cracker sandwich" with chocolate bars and marshmallows in between, you put it on the grill. I'm gonna take some pics and give a resume' tomorrow..
Oh tomorrow it's Natalies birthday so tonight it's time for baking and wrap the last presents! It feels like she's getting alot of pink and soft gifts this time... We are going to celebrate her a little this weekend and then have a birthday party later. ( and one for the swedish friends and family at home...) I found pretty paper for some of the present...unfortunately I didn't read on the paper and when I came home it was only enough for a few... In sweden you always get 5-10 m when you buy a roll, this was only 1,5 m...so I learned that I have to pay more attention next time!

Shipping!

Soon...

Harvest fest and shopping in Billings...

Saturday we drove to Billigs for some shopping to the girls and a visit to a Harvest Festival downtown. It was pretty nice and some fun things to look at for the girls. There were some locally grown veggies, pumpkins apples and also some crafts and foodstands. The food area had a little New Orleans smell and mood..( or at least how I imagine MardiGras...) with good bbq chicken and cajun cuisine among the streetfoods.. we ate Carribean chicken. Tasty!

As always in places like festivals its interesting to study people and their styles. I can say that the
' cool' girls in Billings ( age students and up) were wearing bling bling jeans with some kind of kneeboots leather or suede and were really maked up and curled their hair..since it was saturday
I assume that they were all going out later... I felt little unfixed with just mascara on..but didn't plan to go anywhere else than an afternoon harvest fest for kids...hihi..

Anyway, we also bought some presents for Natalie at the rimrock mall. 
It's a good shoppingcenter! 
They have a playarea for children so one parent can sit there and let the kids play.
For kids clothes you have children's place, gap, gymboree, crazy 8 and a big store, scheels, for all sports and outdoors.I hope I get to go there and just look for myself oneday, but that usually doesn't happen with the kids..there are a whole lot for me to buy so maybe next time...

I bought some clothes for Natalie at
Place and gap kids and a winterjacket with pants for jamie.
It seems like there are 4 major quality brands that people buy to their kids in this area, the north face, colombia, 
Spyder and canadian jupa. 
All 4 are supposed to be really good, and parents here are used to real winters so they know what keeps you warm anddry.
We picked colombia to our little wild girl. 
I like that they have adjustable size so you get 2 sizes in one. 
She got gloves from jupa because they were easiest to put on and fit her best..hopefully she'll stay dry and warm over the winter...

Spyder have really cool gear, and 
I think we wil try them for 
Natalie, but this time she refused to try anything on....

Spyder will make all clothes for the us olympic ski team to next winter games. so that's gonna make them extremely popular...and the reputation i already very good overhere.

Sorry for the weird looking text..don't know what happened to make the lines go crazy..

Indian Summer...

The other day, me and the girls took our regular afternoon walk or bike ride and almost got really hot! It was a beautiful day, probably the last with t-shirts on... sunny and almost 25 degrees.. so a real Indian Summer here ( like Brittsommar). And such a big contrast to all snow by Crystal Lake last week!

I've been told it was getting colder quick and that was surely right. After that day it's been cooler, a few mornings icy and today snow on the ground. So from now on we'll probably have more "Downsouth Swedish winter" until winter starts here..And we are going to have a real winter here..Today I told Natalie  that she'll see more snow then she has ever seen before. So we are preparing for that!  But first we hope for some more fallish days to come...

I took some pictures and as usual Natalie posed in all weird ways you can imagine!