All happy days...

...not really. Today was a bad one. Both girls have a cold, we had a terrible night and on top of that we were stuck at home due to heavy rains. Not a very good combo. I. was really cranky and crying most of the day, S. was bored and nothing was good enough and I was super tired. We did not do much except for getting on each others nerves, putting together an IKEA cupboard, doing some arts and crafts with salt-dough, making a Tiramisu and getting a bit more on each others nerves.

Doing the cupboard was probably most fun. I. was sleeping while S. and I put it together. She was actually a really good little helper, I was quite impressed. She knew where daddy had the tool kit, she put the different screws right and she handled the hammer like a professional. Must have gotten her practical talent after her dad.
While we were in the middle of our handy work I. woke up and there was no way to get her back to sleep. I decided to take her back to the kids rooms with me and what a surprise when we got there. S. had managed to reduce the polystyrene that came with the IKEA boxes into tiny pellets and was all excited. "Mummy, it looks like it is snowing!!!". "Oh, yes Darling, so exciting - NOT" ;) The whole room looked like winter wonderland and I had to hurry before I. got here fingers on it and her stomach full with it.

All right, gotta go. It is girls night at my friends house tonight. Lets hope things improve. :)

Reflections

Recently I was asked what I think about living in England. First of all, I really like life here. To be honest, it is much better than I expected. People over here are incredibly friendly and it is easy to feel at home. However, there are of course things that I find "different":

1.) it is common to have kids on "leashes/harnesses" - I see at least one a day
2.) there are shopping carts with seats for 2 kids - one infant one toddler - aweseome
3) most grocery stores have only their own brands for a wide range of goods - not only boring but I also wonder how that influences the quality given that competition goes towards 0.
4) I cannot find baby jars containing fish
5) Breast feeding in public is almost a no go - every one seems to transfer the milk to bottles before they leave the house
6) Chips/crisps for lunch
7) Carpet in the bathroom. Who came up with that?
8) Loads of charity stores and events - great
9) Kids get to eat sweets every day, it is almost impossible to avoid it
10) Super nice playgrounds

Mhh, guess my list reflects my mum-life but maybe my other half can come up with more things that have nothing to do with kids. ;)

...and talking about kids: Ida took her first step yesterday!!!

November

As much as I was disappointed by the English summer as much am I excited about the beautiful fall. It has been lovely outside and we had some really sunny days. Temperatures are around 10°C in average and I love the fact that you don´t need a billion layers of clothes when leaving the house.

We have been quite busy since I finished my PhD and "Hotel" N. was fully booked until now. :)
First our friends from Sweden came to visit for a long weekend, then my dad came by for a week and after that 3 of M. friends stayed with us for a weekend. It´s been really fun and we did loads of excursions, including Alton towers (englands biggest amusement park), Birmingham, Dovedale and Macclesfield forest.

Last weekend was the first weekend that we were "alone" and we decided to use it for some grand shopping. I had been told by a friend that there is a great Outlet mall close to Liverpool called Cheshire Oaks.
It was brilliant. They have great shops and M. and I felt like we had reached heaven. ;) It was also nice for the kids as there are two nice play areas where they can run around. We shopped till we dropped and after just a few days we are already longing to go back.

On Sunday we went to another magnificent estate belonging to the National trust. Its called Lyme Park and it is located on the edge of the Peak District, nestling within sweeping moorland. It is also the backdrop to where Darcy meets Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. We loved it but we wore the wrong clothes. People came in Wellies and outdoor clothing while we wore "city" outfits, which got rather muddy after a while. It was well worth it though and I recommend anyone who has the chance to go - go. We will probably be back in a couple of weeks because we heard that Santa is going to pay the place a visit as well.

Finally, we also went to a Halloween party at a friends house. It was great fun and S. even won a price for best costume. She was a little witch and cute as a button if you ask me. ;)

All right, S. get annoyed by me sitting here and writing. Need to go back to mum-duty and figure out what to do today.

Long time no see

Oh dear, time is flying and no updates from me. Sorry for that. It´s been quite busy around here for weeks and I just did not get around to write. It was worth it though because now, tatttatttaaaa I am finally a PhD!!! My defense was on Monday and it went really well but I was a complete mess the day before.

I had given a trial presentation to my boss and it was my worst performance ever. At one point I totally lost it and couldn´t even remember what I wanted to say.

After that I decided to go through it a couple more times by myself but before I even got to do it once I managed to lock myself out. I was stuck in the hallway between the different departments with nowhere to go except up and downstairs. By then it was Sunday evening and nobody was working. The friend that I stayed with had left her entrance card in her office so it was no idea to call her. I had only one other number of a collegue in my mobile and she turned out to be my guardian angel. I called her, she left her dinner on the stove and biked to work to help me out. What a fantastic girl!

After she had saved my life I did some more work on my presentation and finally returned to my friends house at 9:30 pm, convinced that I would fail. Things just didn´t improve and I was sure that both the committee members and my opponent would eat me alive once they got to meet me.

As I did not want to worry my friends I decided to pretend things are all right but as soon as I entered the door and they asked how things were going I had a complete meltdown and told them I was NOT going to do this... After 2 glasses of wine thinks started to look better and they asked me to hold the presentation one more time and oh joy it went ok. To celebrate they baked us some apple cake. It was midnight by then and the best apple cake I had for a long time. :)

Next morning I was quite calm, got ready, went to buy some snacks for after the defence and went to work. My friend H. was with me all the time and distracted me, which was great.

The defence started at 10 am and I sailed through it. It was actually quite nice to discuss my work and even though I did not have all the answers nobody ripped off my head. Monsters turned into humans and things were just fine.

Afterwards we had a get together in the lunchroom and app. 30 min after my viva the committee, the opponent and my boss came in to announce that I made it. WOWOWOWWOWOWWW! I got a really nice clock as a present from people at work and everybody came to congratulate.

The rest of the day went by really quickly and at night we went out for dinner at a Greek restaurant and barhopping after that. H. and I were home by 3:30 am and sat until 4:30 am to chat. I had such a good time.

Next day I flew home again and almost missed the flight due to an accident on the highway. Had 6 min to run from the buss to the gate. At the gate the lady made me weigh my suitcase and it was too heavy. She told me to check it in. By then I had 3 min left before the gate would close. No way I had time to go to check everything in. She did not care. I ended up throwing away clothes, my copy of my thesis and magazines to get the weight down. The lady was really hard on me, and 10.9 kg was still to heavy for her (had a 10 kg allowance). Once I had slimmed it down to 10 kg she still couldn´t leave it and made me put my luggage into the basket to see it had the right seize. By then I was almost ready to hit her.
Finally I got to get in, stressed, sweaty but superglad that I had made it.

M. and the kids picked me up at Stansted airport. S. came running towards me and said over and over again: "Mommy, I have you back, ohhh, mommy I have you back!"
Could you get a better welcome?

Since then more than a week has gone by, I am back to being a mommy and it slowly starts to sink in that I am also a PhD. Life is great! :)

Sweden

Vi are finally in Sweden after leaving England Friday evening. Everything went really smooth and we were lucky with our hotel choices. The trip couldn´t have been better and I am glad that our kids are such good little travelers.
I also LOVED our decision to take the ferry from Kiel to Göteborg. It made everything so much easier and S. was the happiest little kid when she got to meet, play and dance with Nicke Nyfiken. Time on the ship just flew by and once we arrived in Sweden we had only 3 more hours in the car to get to grandpas, aka mormors, house. If we ever take the car back to Sweden again, traveling by ferry is going to be a given, even if it is a bit more expensive.

We are also glad the weather is so much better than in England so that we finally get our portion of sunshine. The plan is to be prevalently in the summerhouse so you wont hear much from us during our stay there as we don´t have internet.

Before I say good bye for today, here are new S. comments that we found quite amusing:

S. and M are taking a bath and S. looks at his body hair and says: Wow, Daddy, you have nearly as much hair as teddy, except he does have hair "under" his feet as well. What a compliment. ;)

And also this:
S. is talking quite a lot about the fact that dinosaurs have gone extinct but nowadays she is also including her farmor, who died in 2004, into that group. So now it is the dinosaurs AND farmor who have gone extinct.

Vaccation

The date for our trip has finally arrived. Only a couple more hours and we will be on the road. We are taking the car back to Sweden, which means that we won´t reach our destination before Tuesday (if I manage to keep track of all the bookings for the 2348907 million ferries we have to take).
The packing is all done and it amazes me every time how much more stuff you need once kids come into the picture. It looks more like we are moving then anything else.

All right, time to get the final preparations done. Wish us nice weather. It is raining cats and dogs over here...

Kisses

Sleepy sunday

I had sleep in morning today, while M. was put on kids duty. At 10 o´clock he woke me up with a hot cup of Nespresso coffee and steamed milk. A perfect way to start the morning if you ask me.
Now, after going through a large pile of pancakes with syrup, we are on our way to go to Lichfield. I don´t know much about the city but we heard it is worth a visit. Will let you know if it is true.

Yesterday we went to Nottingham, which I love. It´s perfect for shopping and we discovered this store with super bargains on sports and outdoor equipment the first time we where there. I think by now, we are one of their best customers as it is impossible for us to leave the store without buying something. This time we found new "running" shoes for S. for 7 pounds, crocs for Mattias for 8 pounds and nice hiking socks for a tenner.*

At LUSH you could get your face painted and S. walked around as a little cat for the rest of the day. While the lady was doing S. face a guy came in and ask if she could turn him into Tom Cruise. Guess I would have stayed a bit longer had she said yes. ;)

We ate Lunch/dinner at Wakamama and S. loved the chopping sticks so much that she decided to ask whether she could take some home. She took a handful and bravely went over to the lady that served us and said in german: "WOMAN, can I take them home?"
It cracks me up every time she says woman (Frau), not only because it is a funny way to address a person but also because she can´t pronounce it correctly and says "Sau" instead, meaning sow. Luckily, the waitress did not get a word. ;)

After Nottingham City we went to IKEA so that M. could get some swedish food. He is happy like a child every time he gets to buy Swedish buns, sausages, beer and candy. :)
Before we went inside we had S. play at the playground for a bit, where she had an encounter with a chubby girl. She looked at the girl and then shouted quite amazed: "Mommy, the girl must have eaten LOTS of candy. She is chubby". Luckily, she said it in german this time as well...

Oh, and if you wondered why I did not buy anything in Nottingham then let me tell you that I had already done my part of shopping in Ashbourne in the morning. They have a HUGE sale at Saks and I bought clothes (Odd Molly!!!) for 1/3 of the regular price. Guess if I was happy.

That is it for now. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn´t start raining, the sky does not look very promising...

Get your aprons on

It was my neighbors birthday yesterday and he had wished for some of my home made buns as a present. AS it was still rainy (surprise!) I thought it would be a nice stay in activity and decided to do the baking together with S.
We put I. down to sleep, got our aprons on, put flour on the table and just started to get "dirty" when I. woke up again. After several unsuccessful attempts to get her back into sleeping mode, we finally took her with us into the kitchen. BIG mistake!!! She was screaming bloody murder, which stressed me a bit as I realized that I would be running out of time if we did not get the buns baked very soon. That resulted in that I was rolling the dough, while I was singing and piling up toys in front of her to calm her down. Luckily it worked for a bit and I managed to get my first tray put in the oven. But, oh no, when I turned around I see S. with the "dough flattening thing" rolling over the dough that I had just filled with poppy seeds. All the filling ran out on the table...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I tried to rescue the remainder when I hear "pffffffttttttt" from I. Shitty diaper alarm. I take her to the bathroom, change diaper and come back into a kitchen covered with kitchen paper. S. thought it looked nice. By then I was really close to a meltdown and my idea to make it a nice little S. and mommy baking thing did not seem that appealing any more. Anyhow, we made it through the end, all of us are still alive and the buns turned out ok even though they don´t look like they are supposed to. Given that the English don´t know that it doesn´t really matter. Let´s just archive it under mission accomplished. :)

The party in the evening was lovely and we got to meet a couple of really nice new people.

Chickenrun

Just got home from the playground and wanted to see how our little garden is doing, when I found a broken egg, chicken shit and a lot of feathers in our outside area. Next I see a chicken staring at me. It almost feels like farmville has become reality.

Lost Animal. Mayday, mayday! After giving it a bit of thought I realize that it must be the neighbors hen Phoebe (or Daisy or Carry...it changes name every week), which they got quite recently and after sending an alarm text message to them L. promises to send someone to come and catch it. I am too much of a chicken myself to do that and I never really liked to be picked on. L. tells me they had a fox in the garden this morning which led the chicken to take a hike. Understandable and it also explains all the feathers.

Concerning my "garden", things are really improving. We have heaps of squash (that more or less grow over everything else) and I am now trying to find good receipes to turn them into something eatable. Other than that it is carrots and salad that grow as they are supposed to I am looking forward to harvest everything very soon!!! My very first homegrown vegetables, yummy.

What goes around comes around

I have been trying to explain the concept of sharing to S. for quite a while now and today she actually used it against me. I needed to get a few things done for work and had some of my notes on the table, when she came and wanted to draw pictures on them. When I told her that I did not want her to color on my papers, she looked at me with her most serious face and told me: "Mommy (yes, she actually calls me mommy nowadays), we have to share things!!!"
It really cracked me up and therefore I thought we should continue sharing by sharing this story with you.

Also in Wales. :)
Portmeirion in Wales. If you have a chance to go, go!!! It was fantastic. I never thought Wales would be that beautiful, it was a really nice surprise.
A trip to the northern Peak district with the other grandpa. The person who is missing in the pic did not take the picture, in case you were wondering. ;)
The girls got really nice swimming costumes from a friend in America. Bring on the summer, we are so ready!
I. loves being carried around by grandpa!

Rainy days

We got the word that the weather is beautiful all over Europe but it seems like Mr Sun forget a little spot in England. For the last 3 weeks there was no sign of it being summer and instead we had to put up with thick clouds, thin clouds, gray clouds, white clouds..., you name a type and we have certainly seen it.
It´s getting a bit hard to entertain the kids when you are stuck at home. So far we made plaster handprints, masks, a lantern, had a birthday party for S. and colored heaps and heaps of pictures. I am thankful for the internet because I could download Peppa Pig "coloring books" which kept her entertained for quite a while. She LOVES coloring. Another favorite is dress up. We got her a dress up box for her birthday and first thing in the morning is to get dressed as a princess. If I´d let her she would even skip breakfast over it.
We also went to dancing class but I am not sure it really is S´s thing. Yesterday she was laying on the floor with her Teddy and almost dozing off. How could you express BOOOOoooring any better. Poor lady who held the class. ;)
I. is developing very well also. She has been "scootching" through our appartment for nearly 2 month now (on her back) and since last week she figured out how to do it on her tummy as well. We had to rescue her from under the table, under the soffa und the tv board. The signal is a very distinct high pitched squeak (translated into "Damn, I am stuck, come and rescue me" by us) and once you here it you know she is in trouble.
I have also started her on solids for 2 weeks now. You could tell she was ready. Whenever we had dinner she would almost crawl into our bowl, looking at us with begging eyes to share the food with her. It was so funny.
She is still a rather terrible sleeper and all of you who told me that my first child was not a "real" baby because she always slept, now I do know what it is like to have one. I could live without it though.

Time flies...

and it makes me realize that I suck at writing blogs. Please bare with me, I´ll try to get better! :)

For today, I will just add in a few pics so that you can follow our latest adventures. We have been quite busy with people visiting us (awesome!!!!) and traveling during "guest-free" weekends and time went by really quickly. I think our year is over before we know it.

In the Yorkshire Moores. It was really cold outside and we just left the car for a quick pic.

S. is tired of walking and I. was tired of being in the stroller. Perfect! ;)

Mom and the girls in York

S. in front of the remains of an Abbey. :)

York minster, it´s beautiful.

Little sister again. She is now 12 weeks in this picture

Trip to Carsington Waters, which is about 15 minutes from our house. It´s a really big park with a lake and a really nice playground.

S. and I meeting the Viking at Carsington Water. It took us 6 shots until we managed to have us both looking towards the camera. :)

Picnic at the park in Derby after playing at the playground.

Feeding the ducks!

Little sis likes our stay at the Hillcrest house

19 hours on the boat, no problem for S. , who even got to meet a magician

Now we have been here for over a month and we really like it. People are very friendly and helpful and even the weather is great. We already had a few days with 20°C. NICEEE!

One drawback with living over here is that you need utility bills or a credit history to get phone contracts, tv, internet and all the like. So far we are without both tv and internet and the few minutes a week that I get in the library (most often with the kids) are not sufficient to get things done. I just read emails and pay bills so bear with me if you won´t get any personal mails for a while. Mattias ook the girls to the park today so that I get to spend a few more minutes to finally give you all an update of what is going on.

We arrived here a month ago after visiting with friends in Danmark. The first 2 nights we spend in a really nice bed and breakfast in Dovedale since we did not have the keys for our apartment yet. It was a little house placed in a wonderful landscape (http://www.hillcresthousedovedale.co.uk/breakfast.html). We used those few days for a bit of touristy stuff to get acquainted with the area.
Tuesday after easter we finally got the keys for the apartment and it was not really love at first sight from my perspective but the longer we live here the more I like it. The apartment is really big which is great but makes logistics a bit difficult with the kids. It is almost like a tunnel with a really loooong hallway (mattias measured 50 m from our bedroom (last room) to the kitchen (first room)) and requires a lot of running back and forth. Mattias needs 16 seconds to sprint from the bedroom to the kitchen to fetch something to drink. ;)
However, as I said, now that I am used to it it just gets better and better. Also, in the beginning we had some serious jealousy issues with S.. I guess there were too many changes for her within the last couple month which made her act out. The first sunday here we actually spend at the hospital because we thought she had cracked little sis nose by sculling her. Now, after getting some more routines again, things are much better and she is actually very loving and caring at this point (with some exceptions every here and then).
We also started to attend to playgroups and S. really likes that though she is still a bit shy when it comes to talking to other kids. One playgroup is at the local church in the "ding dong house" as S. calls it, the other one is in a school and they have loads of toys, arts and crafts things and coffee for the moms and snicky snacks for the kids. It´s really a good thing to meet people and we have already a little network, which is nice.
They have really nice playgrounds over here as well and we are at one of them almost every day. Rainy days are prevalently playdoo days, S. new favorite activity.

All right folks, as my time here is limited I will just put a few pictures so that you can get an impression of our life over here. I will try and write new posts every here and then to keep you updated.

Only a few more weeks...

...and we are off to the land of gardening, freckled, tea drinking people and bacon, eggs and black beans. Am I predjudiced? I don´t know. Ask me again in a year or follow my blog. I will try and keep you all updated on our experiences with "the English" and possibly I will also have news concerning the men in tights. ;)

Many people have asked me how I feel about moving. Mhh, I really can´t tell. Mixed feelings describes it best, I suppose. One day I am utterly excited and can´t wait to move and other days I go around wondering what the f* we are doing. It´s an up and down journey, really but I am sure in the end I will not regret this turn in our lives at all. Adventure here we come!

It´ll be interesting to see how the kids take it. I guess our "mini-I" won´t really feel a difference whereas big-sister S might need more time to adjust, especially since she will be confronted with yet another language. I will have both kids at home until, at least august, which will be a wee bit of a challenge but at the same time, when will I ever get to spend so much time with them again?
If you have any great tips on things to do with the kids on e.g. rainy days (remember we are going to England!!!) just post them, you might save me some gray hairs. ;)