Happy Anniversary to Marcus and Suzi!

A big shout out to Marcus and Suzi on their wedding anniversary. Hope you are enjoying yourselves in Vancouver...

The streets of Vancouver are interesting right now. There is so much snow on the sides of the street that people have to dig out their cars. Once they've dug them out, they want the spot to be there when they get home, and so they have placed chairs and boxes and buckets on the sides of the street to save their spots. We can kind of understand why people are doing it as we have had to dig out four spots because everytime we head out, someone has taken the spot by the time we have gotten home...

It's early to bed for the Eliasson household tonight, though Anna seems to have charged her batteries as she just keeps on tickin'.

We've eaten too much, and we can't get up...

It's been an entire week since we updated this blog, so be warned, Anna may have changed so much that you won't recognize her...

Seriously, though, you notice so many little changes in her in one short week. For example, today she had her first real-for-sure-no-mistaking-it-full-on laugh, and her hand-eye coordination is much better, and, of course, she has now had her first Christmas.




Speaking of which, the holidays have been great. Mom has been cooking up a storm and we are all so full that you would think we wouldn't need to eat for at least a full week. Surprisingly though, we were really hungry for lunch by the time we got home from the island today. Go figure...




Like most of you, we spent the holidays with family, ate a lot, played games, went out for walks, and unlike most of you in Sweden, we had our first white Christmas since immigrating to Canada in 1977! Now we're back home, and we have all vowed to stay off of sweets (at least for the rest of the day)...

Anna's First Ski Day

It's very very rare to see the city of Vancouver under such a beautiful cover of snow. Lot's of people seem to be enjoying complaining about the snow, but here in our house we are loving it. Today we headed up to Cypress for a bit of a cross country ski. It was Anna's first day "on" skis, and although she thought it was great, she's looking forward to being able to be on her own feet rather than catching a lift with dad.

Here's to Anna

Bengt and Patrik are out on the patio in record low temperatures, enjoying a wee whiskey and cigar in celebration of Anna's arrival. I think the cold is only making it more enjoyable for them.



Earlier today Anna and I went for a visit to Ann and Graeme's. Graeme pulled Anna's feet and became a little frustrated when they didn't come off. They are also heading to Nanaimo for the holidays, but we likely won't have time to see them over there.



Anna's development with her hands is amazing - every day we notice how much better she is getting at grabbing things and hanging on.

Weather Swap

It seems that when Solweig and Bengt arrived here on the left coast, they brought Sweden's weather along with them, and their home town is left with the temperature back up and hovering around zero. We love it - the snow completely transforms the city. Today we took a walk over to Commercial Drive and went for fika at one of my favourite cafes, and back home we baked some cinnamon buns and Solweig made some cookies whose name literally translates to "incomparable". Needless to say, they're very yummy...

Lights, Camera, Action

We went out for a walk tonight on Trinity Street, a street not too far from us where there is a Christmas light competition on about six blocks. It's unbelievable the amount of lights and figurines that people put out. I don't have a good picture, but suffice it to say that there were some pretty tacky houses. Made for an interesting walk though.

Earlier today we also dropped by the midwives office to drop off a picture of Anna, which we owed them. While we were there we threw Anna on the scale, and it turns out that she now weighs 13 pounds, 13 ounces. She's still on track for pretty much exactly an ounce a day.

Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Farfar is getting Anna started on the reading anyway. Tonight they read a book on mountains and trekking together - pretty good combo, get her interested in books and in mountains at the same time!

Weekend Wrap-up

The past couple of days have found us out and about a little bit too much to take time to write this blog. But, Sunday evening is a bit quieter - Anna is in the living room hanging out with farmor and farfar and is almost asleep, some smoothe jazz is playing through the tv, Patrik is out at a hockey game, and I find myself sitting here in front of the computer.

Yesterday was a beautifully sunny and cold day, and we went out for a walk during the day and then stopped at our local cafe for a warm drink. In the evening, we headed over to the Scandinavian Community Centre for the Lucia Fest. Great food (a little of everything you might find on a Swedish julbord), and a nice show by all the girls (and a couple of boys). You never know, Anna may perform at that event sometime down the road...



Today Patrik and I have managed to get a whole bunch of little errands done, both in the house and out on the town, with farmor and farfar taking care of Anna. Patrik headed out to a hockey game tonight with some folks from work (they get a box with all of the fixings), and the rest of us are taking it easy at home.

I Have So Much to Tell You, Farmor!

Anna has been talking and talking today, telling farmor and farfar all about what's been happening for the past few months, and what it's like to live with mom and dad. And they have been telling her about her cousins Hugo, Viggo and Frans. Anna wants to thank her cousins for all of the nice clothes that she was given tonight, and she wants them to know that her daddy now has a picture of them in his wallet, right next to her own picture...

Oops!

We knew we had made a bit of a scheduling error when Patrik picked up the phone tonight to hear his mom say hello. It took a bit longer before we realized what had happened, and Patrik asked if she was calling from the air. Nope. They were in Vancouver, waiting for us at the airport. We thought they were coming tomorrow! We threw ourselves in the car to pick them up and felt oh so bad that we hadn't been there to meet them... But the good news is that we get a whole extra day with them overall.

Patrik's momma had a little old sewing machine that she got for her 5th birthday, in the 1920s. She had always said that she wanted to pass it on to her first great granddaughter, which turned out to be Anna. Momma died last Christmas eve, and so Anna and she never got to meet each other, but Solweig brought that sewing machine with her and gave it to Anna tonight. We will make sure she knows who she got it from...

And finally, happy names day to uncle Daniel :)

Grattis På Namnsdagen Malin!

Yesterday was Anna's names day, and today it's her aunty Malin's. Happy names day to you, Malin :)

Only two more sleeps until farmor and farfar are here, and we're all getting pretty excited. Tonight we're putting some last minute touches on the guest room to make it nice and cozy for them while they're here. Can't wait!

Hands

A couple of weeks ago, Anna started discovering her hands. She has mainly just stared at them since then, but over the past few days she has quickly been learning that she can hold on to things and get them to her mouth. Of course, she misses her mouth more often than not and gives herself the odd bonk in the head, but it's so fun to watch her start to be able to play with toys!

Grattis Mormor!

Happy 60th birthday mormor/mom/mom-in-law! We wish we could be there celebrating with you today, but we'll have to make it a postponed celebration around Christmas time instead. We hope that you had a fantastic day, and we love you very much!

We had a surprise visit from Marcus today, which was very nice. Anna has put on a good 5 pounds or so since he last saw her, so he definitely noticed a few changes in her :)

Where did the weekend go?

This has been such a busy weekend, that I haven't found time to sit down in front of the computer for more than a few minutes. I can't believe the weekend is already over! On Friday night we went out to the Banff Mountain Film Festival and we took Anna with us. She was fantastic, sitting in my lap the whole time, happy as a clam. I did have to take her out for one of the short films because there was a whistle used in it alot, and it scared her into crying when she heard it...

Yesterday was my office Christmas party and we had a babysitter for Anna for the first time. It went very well and I only called home once to check on her... Today we went over to Monica and Jörgen's house for an afternoon Christmas open house. Very nice :)

Yes, that's the stroller in the bathroom...

Anna was sooooo tired this evening, which was making her a little cranky and she was not letting me get more than a foot away from her without protesting. I didn't have time to take her out for a walk - a sure fire way of getting her to sleep - so I tried something new. I turned on the bathroom fan, put her in the stroller and then rolled her in. She was out in less than 5 minutes. Afterwards, she kept me company from her stroller while I worked on a few things.

A Couple of Firsts

It was a big day for Anna today as she had her passport photos taken and she had to have her first round of vaccination shots. She did very well - cried for no more than a minute. I think it might have been harder on me than it was on her. So tonight she's relaxing by helping her daddy mount a cabinet in the bathroom...

B.Y.O.F.

Lesli and Robert came for dinner tonight, only I wasn't the one to make dinner - they brought the food with them. What a deal! They're in the middle of renoing their kitchen right now and wanted to have us over but, having nowhere to seat us, they provided the food and we provided the seats...