Dinosaur eggs for breakfast!!

I found oatmeal with dinosaur eggs in it yesterday!! The boys had it for breakfast today and it was exiting g even for me :-)

Now everyone but Pappa are at the beach where we are going to have a pic nic. NICE weather today!!

It just hit me...

It just hit me today that I have three kids. THREE kids! How did that happen and when did I get mature enough to be a mum? I still like to go on adventures, climb trees and explore. I just don't have that much time to do it anymore. But I hope to pass those interests on to my boys and that we can do all that together once they are big enough. Well, we hope to go to Wet n wild while mormor and morfar are here and then I get the chance to be a kid again and have great fun with my lovely, wonderful, adventures boys!! They are awesome! ❤️❤️❤️

P.S. Today me and Alex went to see a movie together, and alone, ie. only the two of us, no kids. Second time since Marlee was born and first time we left Gabriel with "babysitters" (mormor and morfar). So nice!

Cold and beautiful weather!

It has been several windy and chili days lately but today we got a blear blue sky at least! I have tried to update the blog from my phone since it is easier when I just do short posts but it has not worked very good. The upload normally fails about 5-10 times before it actually uploads and the post is online, which is quite annoying. Now I am finally using my computer again and here is what we have done the past two days...

It has been several windy and chili days and yesterday was no exception - gray and rainy. We stayed inside most of the day and had a Swedish "Christmas tree plundering" (just google it :-) and we "danced out the Christmas" (I love direct translation!!) which is all according to Swedish tradition. Some of the activities that the plundering involves is dancing around the Christmas tree, doing "the Rocket", take off all the ornaments (leave one), through out the tree, have a fish pond (where the kids catch a candy bag) and play some games such as "hide the key". Now you know all about it! Next year we will invite our Swedish friends around here :-)



Gabriel has found his feet, only for grabbing so far

Our Christmas tree, so beautiful we kept it until February!

Doing "the Rocket" with mormor

Today we finally had a clear wonderfully blue sky!! Still windy, still cold, but so refreshing and beautiful! We ended up walking home from pre school on the beach (it was their first day since mormor and morfar came since they have been sick). It was cold but still nice and I had brought some snacks as bribes :-) Marlee and Noah did very good and made it all the way home.

 

Gabriel all wrapped up!

Such blue sky!!!

It was cold!

Noah got a little tired for a sec and needed to be carried

But was soon happy again!

Well at home again we had some lunch outside in the sun. It was so nice!!! We stayed out most of the afternoon and did some garden work and other fixing outside. I found a turtle in the bushes and we were all amazed about what they look like when they are hiding in their shell. You cannot even the where the openings are! I am glad that mr Turtle dared to come out again after our inspection!

Gabriel enjoyed being outside too!

Gabriel, mormor and morfar

Hiding turtle

Relaxing day

Marlee woke up with a fever today so we have taken it very easy today. Watched Swedish cartoons, walked on the beach, baked (banana bread and dark bread) and played games. He had less fever when he went to bed so that was a good sign.

I also "started" my mushroom farm that I got for Christmas. It was a perfect gift for a seed like me who misses going mushroom picking in the forest. Maybe I should ask the boys to hide them in the back yard so that I have to go look for them like in the forest in Sweden :-) I'll give you an update in a couple of weeks!

Mormor and morfar are coming tomorrow!!

Gabriel is finally getting better and his cough is almost gone. He woke up really happy at 5:30 this morning!! He better not become a morning person. It simply does not fit in this family, period!

And tomorrow.... Mormor sand morfar are coming!!! Marlee has been counting down the days for a while now :-)

Yesterday Marlee, Noah and I had a cleaning day (Alex was working) and we all had different responsibilities. Noah, for example, had to clean up all the toys and take out thing to the recycle box, Marlee vacuumed almost the whole house and I did laundry, dishes, trash etc. Since I want four children I better start making them useful ;-) Both Marlee and Noah did a really good job. On our to do list was also finish watching the Lego movie and eat pop corn :-D 

Marlee cleaning the couch :-)

Sickos

(This was supposed to be posted Saturday Jan 31)

We have continued  being sick, just taking turns the past week. Marlee is probably the one who has been the least sick. Noah has pretty much recovered completely. Gabriel has had a very bad cold since Wednesday and we almost took him to the urgent care doctor but when it was closed and ER felt a little to drastic we decided to wait. He is happy in between the coughing but they still sound bad. I have lost my voice and sound like a teenage boy :-) 

Despite our sicknesses we still enjoyed the beach for a while today in the gorgeous weather. It was not as warm on the beach as we expected but the boys had a lot of fun!

When I thought the worst part was over

It has been a few days without updates.
It has been a few tough days (primarily nights I guess) and updating the blog has not been a priority.
Surviving, has.
However, it is far from as bad, miserable and desperate as it might sound.

Alex left Friday for a hunting trip with a friend. Just for the weekend. I was looking forward to being "home alone", which I really enjoy every now and then. I obviously know that I'm far from being alone (with my three little boogers in the house) but it is a different feeling when you are the only adult at home and the kids still sleep more than I do (who doesn't! ;-) so I do get some alone time at night. Little did I know what was waiting me.



Playing Timber Friday night. Marlee won!

Gabriel slept very bad both nights and woke up every or every other hour. In addition to that I had one leaking diaper in our bed the first  night and one incident of throwing up in our bed the second night. We have very clean sheets now... 

Noah has been a little under the weather lately and it got really bad on Sunday when his ears started hurting very badly. He was crying and complaining and the only thing I could do was to sit on the couch holding him. Painkillers did not seem to help and he really did not want me to touch the ears or put something warm on etcetera. He finally went to sleep on the couch and I sat there with him until he woke up. It was a totally different Noah who woke up! He still had a pretty bad cold but was playing, running and laughing! What a relief!!



Hurting ears!

You might think that it was a bad weekend for Alex to be gone, and I guess it was in a way, but I was still happy to get my alone time and we had so many good moments too - fish for dinner Friday (Alex does not like fish) and Marlee loved it! He even had the left overs for lunch the day after. Marlee worked on a Lego "creature" the whole day Saturday and did so good!! Noah was happy organizing cars :-) The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed some good time outside walking and biking. When things got so bad with Noah's ears Marlee was at a friend's house (who's mum had already offered to help me out and picked up Marlee earlier) and Gabriel was sleeping good so I could really focus on Noah. It was like things worked out pretty good in the middle of all the sorrows :-)



Building lego



Marlee's lego "creature"



Car organizing



Blowing bubbles





So did Alex come home and save me? Well not really, he was feeling really sick, too, and last night (Monday) was the worst. So was Gabriel. Just when I thought he was getting better and the worst part was over! He kept crying and crying at night and could not go to sleep. I ended up sitting on the couch with him all night, some times sleeping, sometimes crying from pain. When it was time to get up and get Marlee ready for school I just could not convince myself that school was more important than me trying to get some more rest before everyone woke up, so I texted his teacher and explained our situation. Also, I really did not want to put Gabriel in the car seat screaming even more. He does not like to go in the car! We all ended up staying home until the afternoon when we went to a park to see a friend and her boys. We had a great time with clear blue sky and strong winds.



Considering this was the first time I had to actually just sit and hold one of my children because he was feeling so bad and that it was actually the first night where I had to spend the whole night sitting (not lying) on the couch, I still feel very lucky! Some parents do that A LOT more! BUT it is still very hard when you are in the middle of it. 

Now I'm lying in bed anxiously waiting to see what this night will be like...