I am a child of God

Michael loves to just sing and sing and sing. He has Rob's ability to pick up on lyrics quickly. I think it is especially cute when he sings "I am a child of God" (a quintessential song for mormon kids) because he mixes up the lyrics "has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear" to "has given me an ugly home, with parents *kind of* dear".
Maybe one day I will find out it wasn't really a mistake.

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Massage

The massage table remains one of my favorite things we own. Every now and then the kids and I have been surprising Rob by having it out for him when he gets home from work. I think this pic is from V-day. Michael is obsessed with lotions so he is stoked about getting unlimited access and applies it exuberantly. He also thinks it is great fun to feed us grapes through the little head hole. 

The highlight of today was that the table happened to be left out, and Michael really wanted to give me a massage. He needs to work on his technique and pressure, but overall, I'd still rate it as a pretty fabulous morning activity. One of the very few times since his birth that I have been able to lay down and relax in his waking hours. He stuffs grapes into my mouth through the head hole as fast as he can get them in there, which leads to pretty chipmunked cheeks. I tried to tell him to wait but then juices spilled out of my mouth, which was pretty hilarious, and had us both cracking up.


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A Blog a Day

I decided to post a blog a day for the next month. I think I need to exercise the part of my brain that deals with things simply and briefly and then lets go. So, I am going to just capture a couple random bits each day and see if I can just leave it at that. I just deleted an entire long paragraph detailing this goal along with a long chunk of self-analysis. It was a long complex ramble about simplicity. Nice.

So, here's to the start of a month of simple, concise (but still pretty random) daily thoughts. 

Michael is constantly making me realize how ancient I am getting. He sees play telephones and has no idea what it even is! Then, today he heard an ice-cream truck and he proclaimed "that's a loud cell phone, mommy." (And, btw, I can't believe they are selling ice-cream when there is still snow and ice on the ground!)

Not so fun yesterday was going to our big storage freezer downstairs and finding that Michael must've found the switch and turned it off several days ago. Probably a good couple hundred bucks worth of food got thawed and had to be trashed. Sad.

Doesn't Ella look just like her dad? I'm still wondering if I actually contributed any DNA. They both happened to be wearing orange yesterday, so of course I couldn't resist a quick snap. I think they make a pretty gorgeous pair.


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Winter Saturday

Yesterday was nothing special, just a pretty average Saturday that felt nice and I happened to get the camera out.
We went ice-skating with our friends the Endlers who loaned us skates and a nice pink helmet for sir Smalls. He totally works the pink.
The bar contraption is to hold on to to learn balance. But he thought it was more fun to fall. So he kept slipping and falling, on purpose, over and over and over again. I didn't think it was as much fun so I sat him on it instead and we skated around like this.

Beautiful snowy day for xc skiing. I usually prefer to do the hills in the forest, but yesterday was cold enough to go out on the frozen-over Baltic Sea.

And finally, some indoor time playing with the Lego Duplo train set I got Smalls for Christmas. It took multiple orders off of ebay to amass this awesome collection, and each time we got more tracks and legos, Rob would be like - Oh, I guess we can save this one for Michael's birthday. And I would be like - No, actually, it's for me. I actually really enjoy doing this toy with him and have fun getting creative with new configurations. But thank you, thank you Ebay, or I would have had to get a side job to pay for all of this (who knew Lego is so ridiculously expensive, particularly the train sets?). 
p.s. Smalls does not have on pants because he is now officially potty trained. Hurray! Yes, most potty trained kids wear pants, but we went with this method and it worked out so, so great for us. Could do a whole other post on this. Thanks, Andrea, for posting the method on your blog - it sealed the deal for us.
 This sledding pic is from last week, but we've been doing lots of it so I had to throw it in.


We've both decided that Swedish winters are actually not so bad*. (Compared to other places with cold winter climates, that is, and not compared to California.) Because as long as it is going to be fairly cold, it's actually sort of nice to have the snow stick and be white and beautiful. It hasn't gotten above freezing for over two weeks and we've enjoyed it a lot - it's easier to run and bike on soft snow than stuff that melts and then refreezes and is icy and sloshy, not to mention all the fun of sledding and xc skiing right out the door. I even invented this awesome running contraption for the sled using a resistance band and a rope - I can go running and drag Michael in the sled behind me, even while using my arms and keeping decent running form. He loooves it and I get in a great workout. It's pretty awesome and I've gotten some looks from people, surely envious of my genius contraption.
*that's a lie I tell myself till June. It could be true if the coldness was confined to three winter months, instead of, like, half the year.

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