Anna and Isabelle

It was nice for Anna and Isabelle to spend some time together over the holidays. The girls had to learn to share not only their toys, but also their mormor and morfar.

Happy Birthday Toby!

Toby is turning 6 on December 31 - 6 already, can you believe it!? - and we took the chance to celebrate while all the family was still together on the 28th. Thanks for sharing your very yummy dinosaur icecream cake with us, Toby, and we'll be thinking of you on Thursday. Have a fantastic day!

Mt. Washington

On Boxing Day, Patrik, pappa Nisse, Tim and I headed up to Mt. Washington to go skiing for the day. Anna stayed behind with mormor. What a fantastic day! The weather couldn't have been better, with the mountain well above the fog that hung around Nanaimo and other low-lying areas for the entire day. We basked in sunshine and enjoyed good conditions too.


The only downside was that Tim had a pretty bad fall on the last run of the day, in some pretty tough terrain. He hit a couple of trees, and he was injured bad enough that he had to spend the night in the hospital, but thankfully came home in the morning with a diagnosis of nothing worse than very bad internal bruising. He will be walking crooked for the next few days and on some pretty powerful pain killers, but the good news is that he is walking at all...

Christmas Day

We woke up Christmas morning with bellies still full, but with crisp, cold and clear weather knocking on the door and asking us to come outside. And it did not take much to twist our arms. A nice walk down to the water was the perfect way to start the day, and help to make room for the next big meal waiting for us.


Christina and Kjell, and Maria, Randy and the girls joined us for the afternoon, taking the places of Josefin, Tim, Marcus, Suzi and the kids, who were all off to the in-laws. I love spending time with 'my girls', and Anna loved having them to play with too.



Anna and mormor have gotten some nice quality time together over the holidays. There were even times when Patrik and I could have sworn that she preferred mormor over either one of us...

Christmas Eve

It's hard to believe that Christmas has already come and gone for another year... This year, we spent Christmas Eve at Josefin and Tim's and then later at mom and dad's. We were lucky to have all of the Johansson's together this year and we have grown by one since last year. Anna and Isabelle were 3 and 5 months last year, and this year, Annika was 1 month old at Christmas. 'twas so nice to have a wee babe to hold.


The kids opened up their gifts at Josefin and Tim's, and both Anna and Isabelle were given doll cradles, handmade by morfar. So beautiful. Anna has put her little doll to bed dozens of times already in that cradle. First she wakes the baby up and gives it a hug and kiss, then drops the baby back into the cradle (usually in some very misshapen way), tosses the blanket over the baby, and then puts her finger over her mouth in a 'ssshhhhh' gesture. Then the cycle starts all over again just moments later.




We ended the night at mom and dad's, barely able to move because we were too full, but managing to cap the night off with some santa porridge anyhow.

Sweet Annika

A couple of weeks ago we hopped on the ferry to Gibsons to meet and cuddle with our little niece Annika. She was delicious to hold, and we're looking forward to getting to hold her again tomorrow, when we head over to Nanaimo for Christmas. Annika is a mix of Toby, Lukas, Suzi, Marcus, Anna, farmor Monica - you see them all at different times. Her big brothers are, oh, so proud :)

Santa!

Anna was introduced to santa yesterday, and let's just say that it didn't look like they were going to hit it off at first. Poor little thing - he gave her a bit of a fright. That's my boss in a santa suit for the Port's kids Christmas party.


It didn't take too long for her to warm up to him a little, though, especially when she realized that she was safe in mama's arms and he was offering up gifts!


He gave her a telephone, which she carefully guarded from anyone who showed interest in it. We're hoping that now that she has her own phone, she'll stop hanging up on people when we're talking on the phone :)



Anna is such a little explorer. She ran around the room waving to just about everyone she met.


After meeting santa and spending some time with the other kids, we headed over to the north shore for some glogg and fika at Monica and Jorgen's place. Anna ran laps around the house, and was tuckered out by the end of the day...

See that gorgeous coat she's wearing? A gift from mormor - lovingly hand made.

Momma!

Mormor came for a visit this weekend - the excuse being our need for a babysitter while we headed out to Patrik's Christmas party - but it was a case of twisting her rubber arm. We (and especially Anna) had such a nice visit with her. We sprung a surprise cross country ski trip on her on Saturday morning - a late birthday present. How did we luck out with the one sunny day all week? Good times...

Second Advent

It's fourth advent today, and we have definitely already taken the opportunity to eat more Christmas baking as the holidays demand. But a couple of weeks ago we had some help emptying out the freezer of the holiday treats, when we had an open house. It was a great chance to meet with friends and ring in the holidays. We've been a little lax in taking photos lately, so all we have from that day are a before picture and the little gingerbread Eliasson family that Rene gifted us with.

Thursday at the Park

We finally had some sunshine this week, and after just a few minutes out in it, the rain of the previous month was almost forgotten. Anna and I headed out to the park on my day off of work, with her wearing her winter coat that mormor bought her at 'loppis' a couple of weeks ago. It's a size or so too big, and turns her into a bit of a michelin baby, but she was toasty warm and happy as can be to be out in the sun.

Canuck Family

Although we may not yet be canucks (my application is finally in, though!), we are definitely a Canuck family.


We think it might be good luck when we all wear our jerseys - they win when we do!

Mormor and Morfar

Mormor and morfar came for a visit recently, on the happy occasion of the birth of their latest granddaughter, and our niece, Annika. She was born on the 17th, and mom and dad hopped on the ferry on their first day off and headed to Gibson for a visit and a cuddle. We have only seen pictures so far because Anna is still fighting a cold, and we can hardly wait to meet her.


After their visit in Gibsons, mom and dad headed over to us for a visit, much to Anna's delight.

Stochmal Visit

We had the pleasure of hosting the Stochmals, in entirety, a couple of weeks ago. They were in town for a rugby game that Mattias was to play in, but made a weekend of it and stayed at Hotel Eliasson while in town. The accommodations were a little rustic perhaps (all the boys, other than the big one, had to sleep on the floor), but that seemed to suit everyone just fine. We had a great visit, and Anna was very well entertained...