Minimonster is on holiday

For updates - check out Swedish blog Rott ar sott. (with dots over the o's).
Will be back up and running at end of Janurai!!
See you then!

Potato man

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10 9 8 7 abort abort abort

With only a couple of days left before we hop on the plane Katie has pulled a sickie. We got a call from one of the teachers at Kindy today saying that Katie had fever and wouldn't stop crying. She hasn't been too bad since we got her home but she is still hot. Better today than Wednesday though I guess...

Santa Claus Dreams

Katie fell asleep on our bed a couple of nights ago. When it was time for me to hit the sack I went in and lifted Katie over to her bed. She half woke up, looked at me and asked "Is that you Santa"? Im not sure if she was disappointed or relieved when she realised that it was just me! A bit of both I think!

Taking Lillan for a walk

Re-wrapping the presents

Sometimes temptation is simply too large...

Reading for the dolls.

Ooops...

I am not so good at counting yet..was it one or five a day did you say?

Home "sick" after vaccination

They called from kindergarten to pick her up, cause she was crying and saying she was sick... Hypokondriac?

We get to go to a wedding! :)

(And without having to madly memorise vows at the very last minute behind the hedge.. ;) )Jill and Jacob, guess you know we're coming! :) and we are so looking forward to it!! (Very clever to get married before you have children too, why didn't we think of that? ;-) )
All the best and see you soon! And lovely invite!

Totally wild

Auntie Carin picked Katie up from kindy today. Came home to find this crazy girl. (Every baby sitter's night mare? :) ) Cute and crazy... :)

Long day.

We should have bought the reclining bike seat...

Feeding the birds

Scary, those doves. Ducks are nicer.

At IKEA

A lot of square meters to chase Katie around. Getting onto christmas now. :)ate gingerbread.

One sock McG

Chilling with her cuddly friends in front of the TV.

Night Owl

Katie is finally asleep. It is 2130...

After playing all day at daycare you would think that she would be a little bit tired at night time. Not likely. She has been in a great mood all night playing happily. At 2000 Sara started to get her ready for bed. The only problem is that when she gets into bed the only thing she wants to do is go through the days events. She can lie there and go through every little thing that has happened - several times (you start off repeating yourself, grow out of it, and then grow back into it when you hit the later years of middle-age). After a awhile we usually leave her to it, letting the dolls take our place. Otherwise she can carry on indefintly. Tonight she wasnt having any of it. When I said that I was going out she kicked up a fuss and started complaining that then she wouldn't have anybody to talk to. "The dolls cann't talk to me".

Fast food generation

Christmas shopping break at burger king. :)cant shop on empty stomachs.

Just like subway.

The big bus trip

Katie was looking forward to going on the bus all day. This is what she saw of it! She has been really moody the last couple of days. Really pushing the boundaries and driving us insane! I hope this is just a phase and not something that is here to stay...

Ooops

Poor Katie is home sick today. I was sitting on the couch and she was on the floor watching pippi longstocking. I looked down and she was out.

Finally asleep...

Katie and I went to the swimming pool today. Up and down the hydroslide non-stop with some intermittent laxing out in the hot pools. Halfway through our hydro slide episode Katie let go of my legs and slipped away from me with about half the slide left. I decided that it was better that she carry on by herself than to try and catch up and either a) bowl her over or b) come crashing down on her in the pool at the bottom. She carried on like nothing happened and splashed into the pool and bobbed around waiting for me. She looked at me quizzically and asked "What happened to you Dad"? Then it was straight back to the top for another run.
After thrashing around for an hour and a half in the pool you think that she would be tired... No

Katie and I made bread when we got home. It was well past 2030 when we were done. You would assume that by this stage she would be getting tired... No.

After half an hour of singing in bed the mischief started "Im thirsty", "I need to do poos", "I want some bread", Telephone rings; "I want to talk to Randi" and then finally, "I need my dolls". After stacking them up in her bed she turned to me and asked quite seriously "But where will I sleep now?" Based on current form, you probably won't!

Baking with Dad

Happy halloween!

Dress up at kindy.
Dean wanted Katie to go as the grim reaper. I said that was not going to happen before she turns 18. So she went as a mouse. Some people actually find them scary too. :)

The minimonster is exhausted...

...and in bed by ten past seven. I am not sure that has ever happened before.
I don't know what to think. She'll probably wake up again, around ten, wanting to get back up.
(I am glad we didn't take a chance and went to the mall to buy her gum boots. Would have been a disaster. )

Halloween at Kindy on Friday. Katie is going to be a mouse with cute brown and pink ears.. (Some people actually do find them scary so it counts. ) Have to figure out how to make a tail though.

Rainy day in Uppsala

What better way to spend a rainy saturday morning than playing at nicke's play land. Heaps of stuff to climb, swing, hang on and a maze to crawl through. After crawling through the maze trying to keep up with Katie we came to a 'water' hazard that another little girl had created... I went to get a staff member but 100's of kids had wiped it up with their knees by the time I had gotten out!

Katie and her girl gang

The weather may be crap but at least there are lots of puddles to play in!

Parent meeting at Kindy

Conversation at the breakfast table - Dean to Katie:
"Mum and dad are going to Katie's kindergarten to talk to the teachers about Katie today. Do you think they are going to say that Katie is a good girl or that she is a little brat?"
Katie: "A little brat."

Wee Oddball

Right, picked her up from Kindy today, and her gloves were all gone, her hat inside out and her shoes were on the wrong feet. Good God, are they actually letting this little crazy person dress herself...?

Sitting here watching Nana on TV. It was a demand from this morning - "I want to watch Nana on TV!!" So we said we'd do it straight after Kindy. She likes to watch "when Katie was little" on TV.

We are trying to speak only English at home now the next few weeks before departure, in order to get her to speak more English. before going to NewZealand. Currently she works a bit like translator service:
"Katie, can you say Can I have some rice please?"
"Kan jag få lite ris, tack?" (Or "Jurgen urgen burgen". You know, that sort of stuff.)
Worst case scenario - she understands everything said in NZ, but all you guys over there hear is jurgen urgen burgen. But we have good hopes on getting her on track. She does speak some English, usually in mixed sentences. For example "It is a bit dark outside" is in Katie tongue: "Det är lite dark outside". So we are halfway there. ;)

Couch jumping

Phases

Grubs is definitely going through a phase now. (We hope it is a phase anyway, or we are looking forward to a very tough teenage-period.)

It is best described as not wanting to do what we want her to do, most of the time.
And she is very confrontational. (She does not have that from any of her parents, I think. At least not her Dad.) It makes our daily life rather full of friction, to say the least.

On the brighter side, she is doing really really well with her toilet training. On average, one accident a day. Usually when we are outside. I think that is awesome, since the equivalent amount of successes equals at least 25. Including a few false alarms. All in all, not bad for a beginner.

Katie has put Dean's wedding ring somewhere in the bed room. Noone knows where, inclusing Katie. So currently, two out of three rings are lost, however we are counting on recovering this one. I am under strict orders not to vacuum the bedroom. Not that I needed such orders anyway. The ring lies safe, whereever it is. :)

Santa phobia

Katie is often very talkative at night, going through the days highlights in detail. Tonight however she had santa on her mind. Katie has declared that she wants presents but that santa gets to leave them on the porch outside. Katie is sacred of santa!
She has decided that she wants 'scrollan'(a talking doll), a book that isn't ripped, and a doll that hasn't done poos!

Maten på bordet

Och händerna i knät. Och varsågod och ät! :)

Hungry bugger :)

Katie eating ice cream

I think I will need a bath after this. :)

Katie baking

Apple cake. Yum!
However, I think she slightly overdosed the icing sugar..

Inspecting Dad's cooking

Vegetarian shepherd's pie. Mum and Katie are mighty impressed!

Flea market treasures

Sara went to the flea market today, waited in a 200m long que and came home with some home scores. This bead set was one of them.

Monkey girl

Strawberries in september!

From one rabbit to another

Little green patch

We have a tiny balcony garden. We grow tomatoes and strawberries. Most of them never reach the age of being red. Someone picks them first, especielly the strawberries...
(These must have ripened sneakily. While she was at kindy.)

"Mum, Dad, it is a bit green, but it is very very yummy!"

Conversation in front of the TV

Watching a british TV show on different body types. (About the perfect man)
Dean: I wonder what my bodytype is?
Me: Well, your quite tall and...what do you call it? Slender? Yes, you're slender. Both you and Jill are quite slender. And Gracious.
Dean (bursts out laughing): Noone ever called me gracious before.
Me: Ok. So, what have they called you?
Dean: More like...Clutz.
Me: What's a clut?
Dean: Sort of clumsy. You know.

Guess we have a lot in common then.

Speaking of clumsy, Katie had her photo taken at Kindy today. We dressed her up really cute, in her turqoise dress and jeans. There was however no hiding the scrapes in her face. Wonder if you can ask them to photoshop it away? (Don't worry, it was not as bad as the wedding scab on her nose... :) She will no doubt look gorgeous. That's our girl. Gorgeous clutz.)

Flying kites

Going for an unvoluntary swim...

Poor Katie. She has fallen into the loo twice in the last few days. A truly traumatic experience.
See, she's got one of those rings for small bums. And she is really really good at the potty training. But every now and then, me or Dean have to use the toilet, and then we move the small seat away. And when Katie comes to go, she is most likely in a bit of a hurry, and doesn't check to see if her ring is there. And then she falls in when she sits down. Poor poor Katie. "Mum, Dad, there was no swimming ring there" she sobs...
We will make sure to leave her ring on from now on!

Passing the dam at lunch time

Spilling water and a rainbow

Not quite a bird yet

More like a chicken... ;)

Remembering our wedding in songs

Remembering our wedding - it has almost been two years now.

Here are the Songs from our wedding:


Loyal, Dave Dobbyn (entering and afterwards)




Bic Runga - When I see you smile (signing the marriage certificate)


First dance - The Pogues - Fairytale in New York (at the wedding brilliantly performed by Little Green Men - Chris and Brad - can't thank you enough! :) )


And the most beautiful girl in the world was there.

Playing soccer in the last days of summer

Dare devil

Steering is for babies

Family photo :)

Notice the cute ice cream moustache.
We don't end up together in very many photos, so I had to put one up where we do. :)

Picnic today in the sun

Sorry about the blurred shots, i put them up anyway because they were cute. And to illustrate the difference between a clean camera lense a a not so clean.. And to show why it is wise to be restrictive with letting small people with sticky hands watch Curious George on the phone.. :)

Future soccer star...

But with the way she is picking it up and running with it, it could be all rugby in the future.

Long road home

Katie wanted to in for a swim this morning. Not a problem. When we got down the stairs she decided that she would ride her trike there. We live close but not that close I thought. We weren't in a hurry though so I thought why not.
Going there went really well. Getting good is taking a month of sundays. We have to stop and sick up any sticks in the way all of the time...

Fun at Furuvik

These pics are a few weeks old now. We went up to Furuvik for the day with some of our friends and had a good look around. Wound up a good day out with a blast on the roller coaster.

Poor Katie

We got a call from day care today saying that Katie was sick with fever and needed to come home. Sara got her at lunch time and put her on the bed. It is now 2100 and she hasn't moved - except when she came staggering out with a bleeding nose. Poor Katie!

Early Easter bunny?

Katie's choice of outfit for going to kindergarten today...

Sick bunny..

Despite the funny bunny shots in the morning, poor weebugger got picked up from Kindy at noon totally wasted. She has bad fever and has slept most of the day, only drinking blackcurrant juice (and definetely not drinking the medicine concoction I tried to sneakily give her. No tricking her. ).

Poor thing.

On the way home from kindergarten.

Crazy Katie

Mum and dad have different ideas about how high is ok. Katie and dad's idea of what is ok is light years from mums!

Saturday lollies

We have started (slowly) with saturday lollies now. It works fairly well however whenever you ask her what day it is now the answer is always the same... 'it is saturday. Can we have non-stop (m&ms) please?'

Katie's new scooter

After mastering the trike it was time for a new challenge...

Chasing goats around

No new films from today, but this is from a week ago at the zoo. Katie scaring goats at the petting zoo..

Summer santa

We told Katie that it is getting colder outside now. And that she had to put on a bit more clothes than before. This is her very fashionable interpretation of that. She has a good sense of style, our daughter!

Out for a drive with Dad

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We are back!

As Sara pointed out earlier we are finally back from being on holiday and are deeply depressed about having to go back to work again tomorrow!!! :) On the plus side for all you loyal readers out there it means that we now have plenty of time to blog! I havent really had time to go through the photos and sort stuff out to put up (and our computer crashes every time we browse to photo folders) but we are working on it.

We will return to the computers!!

Sorry about the dryspell, we had to stay away from computers for a while over the holidays to get a proper rest. But now we are back. So new posts abolut the minimonster are not far away.
Hopefully you will recognise her. She has a new haircut. Sort of Cleopatra-inspired. You'll see.
Hope you appreciate all the hard work behind it. Making a minimonster sit still for more than a millisecond requires advanced manipulation and all our strength. So if you see certain discrepancies in hair length, do not judge us. We did the best we could.

Happy birthday pippi!

Happy birthday grandad. For those of you who don't know, grandad's nickname is bigbird. For Katie he will always be pippi - bird in swedish!

More reindeer hunting

Idre troll (on the left)

Reindeer hunting in Idre

Here we see the big brave hunter sneaking up on a reindeer for a pat.

More from Skansen

Skansen

It was a horrible day in Uppsala so we headed off to stockholm for the day. Here is Katie trying to pat the monkeys (not allowed!) Shortly after patting a snake and a big hairy spider! Most people were reluctant to touch the spider but Katie got told off for touching everything when you where only allowed to stroke the legs!