A Fig in Sweden Portland

where's sophie?

first birthday invite

Sophie was invited to her first birthday party on Sunday. Her best friend, Lucas, turned one. It was a really nice party – the first Swedish birthday party for me and Lewis too. I have to admit it made me wonder what we're going to do for Sophie's 1st birthday, which is only two months away. Anna, Lucas' mom, is my only mommy friend in Älmhult, and we have no family here. Lewis suggested we get party hats for the dog and cat.

By the way, I forgot to post that Sophie was admitted to our #1 choice of preschool – the Montessori School. And Lucas will be one of her classmates, which we are obviously thrilled about. She starts February 2.

white trash of älmhult

We are always the first to put our advent star in the window (well before advent, I might add) and the last to take it down. It's my favorite Swedish christmas tradition. That and St. Lucia. And glögg. :)

first friends

When Sophie grows up, she'll look back at these pictures and remember (well, probably not) her little Swedish friends. This is Liam, a little boy who was born the day after she was. Sophie and Liam went to baby massage together and now meet up at baby cafe. Not only is he stylish, he's also very sweet. :)

threes

They say things come in threes. And, I must say, the number 3 is feeling very familiar right now.

FIRST, I recently celebrated my 3-year anniversary of being in Sweden. Three years! And my Swedish still pretty much sucks.

THEN,  I added an extra day to my work schedule starting this week, so I am up to 3 days a week (6 hours a day). Lewis is doing a great job as Mr. Mom and seems to really enjoy spending time with the girl. The best part is seeing her scream with joy when I walk in the door. Can I bottle that?

AND THEN, I was promoted! Nothing to do with the number 3 really, but it does mean we'll be staying here a few more years. I start in my new role as a creative leader after New Year's.

I've already warned Lewis about what this means: a shopping spree in Paris when we're there during the holidays. :)

shhhhh...

I'm sitting in the dark with a few candles lit, sipping a hot chai and eating popcorn. The baby is sleeping to my right and the dog to my left. Lewis went to the rec center to work out, and I have the house to myself. It's the closest thing to a retreat that I'm going to get.

s is for...

Smooth baby food only.
I gave Sophie some lumpy risotto yesterday. She gagged so bad it took 5 years off my life. No more lumps for a while.

Sewing.
Seriously, when am I going to get back to being crafty?

Second-hand baby stores.
We went to one yesterday that a lady has in her basement on Saturday mornings. It made me think that we should  do something similar with the workshop out back, which the old woman who lived here used as a sewing store. Hmmmm...

Sleeping in.
What's that? Ever since election night the little stinker has been waking up at 5 a.m.

Silly Sophie.
Hearing Sophie laugh hysterically has to be the best sound in the world. She likes standing on the couch, using the pillows for balance, and provoking us to chase her. She also loves when I make fart sounds on her feet.

raking and celebrating

When you live in the forest, it makes for a busy leaf-raking season. Today I had a little help from Sophie. :)

But who cares about our miscellaneous house chores. Obama is our next president!!

Tuesday night was quite a night, huh? Or Wednesday morning, for us out here in Europe. We decided to go to bed early on election night and wake up by 3 a.m. At 2:40 a.m., I was up and dying to know what was happening. I turned on the TV to see that McCain had won Georgia, and Virginia was leaning toward McCain. For a moment, I had an awful case of deja vu from 2000 and 2004. At 3:30 a.m., my friend (and fellow American) Colleen came over. By then, things were looking very good.

At around 4:50 a.m., Sophie woke up and joined the action. I brought her into the living room just as Barack Obama was declared our next president. She had a big grin on her face, just like the rest of us.

And by "us" I mean the whole world. It's really interesting living abroad and seeing how closely everyone followed the election. At work yesterday, people kept congratulating me. At first, I thought, "What did I do?" Then I realized they were talking about the election results. My friend Mulle  said she was excited to see that the U.S. would be the good guys again. If McCain had won, I really do think the world would have given up on us. Mulle agreed.

Even if we're very far away, it feels darn good to be an American.

yep, looks like fall

My tan skin has faded back to white already, and Lewis' back is sore from stacking firewood every day since we've been back from vacation. Fall has always been my favorite season. I love the coziness of oversized wool sweaters, hot cocoa and warm fires. Today it was just above freezing when I took Sophie and Tilly for our morning walk. The leaves on the ground were covered with frost, and the town was dead quiet. It was really beautiful. Still, fall has lost a lot of its appeal since we moved here. I find myself longing for spring as soon as summer ends.

Lately, we've been scrambling to get enough firewood to make it through the winter. It should be a spring/summer chore, but we end up having a hard time finding wood that can be delivered to our house. We've also learned the hard way that it pays to get good wood... in other words, no pine. We got 5 cubic meters of "leaf wood" (birch, oak, beech) from a guy in the neighboring town, who delivered it by tractor. Unfortunately, it poured cats and dogs that day, so the wood was drenched when he dropped it off. It then sat for three weeks in our garage like a pile of wet clothes while we were on vacation and became a pretty moldy pile of wood.

Luckily we found a forestry student selling a bunch of leaf wood this week and bought another 8 cubic meters. The woodburning stove has been going nonstop ever since. And Lewis is STILL trying to stack it all.

Oh, and our most exciting update of the season is that we had three little trick-or-treaters for Halloween. That's three more than last year. Sophie didn't have a costume this year, but she's been looking like our little wookiee in her winter outfit.