I'm turning 29....

Time to have another B-day...seriously, after 29, there is not point to celebrate... but Hannah & Matilde were super excited so I guess it was worth it for them :)

Breakfast in bed, Danish fodseldagsboller, gifts, cake... everything that are supposed to be there for a B-day were present, lovely!

Spent first part of the day at Siloso Beach, Santosa. The weather was gorgeous, finally the rain seems to be on a break, halleluja!!

In the evening, we went to the Night Safari. It was fun but since the rest of S'pore also thought the Zoo would be a great idea, we didn't even get to go on the tram ride, so did the walking tour followed but dinner and then decided that was it for now... The queue in the the zoo was insane, thank Godness I still have some negotiation skills in fresh memory, despite being on maternity leave, and managed to get us in some sort of 'express lane'... !

TACK Lina & Fredrik who spent my B-day with me and my family!!

Merry X-mas!!

X-mas celebration with the Dahlstroms & the Whelans, what a great success!! Under the controlled chaos with three 3-year-olds, two 1-year olds, and two newborns, we managed to get through a three course meal, including 'glogg', a visit from the Australian Santa Claus, dance around the X-mas tree.... simply a perfect X-mas celebration! (and wow will all those kids sleep well tonight!)

Some pictures....

X-mas morning before all the guests... Matilde is teething so not the happiest girl on the planet... thank Godness for Tylenol!!

Playtime before lunch... I wasn't really trusted in the kitchen (except for garnishing with the tomatoes) so enjoyed the view through my kamera :-)

Lunch time!!

Christmas Gifts!!



To wind down, we took a dip in the pool after everyone had left. Thought it would be refreshing but my gosh was it cold!!

If Morten wants to have his traditional Danish X-mas dinner after all the Swedish food?!? Well, first he declared 'no way' but indeed he, together with Nady,  prepared the duck, the suger glaced potatoes, red cabbage... guess we are going for a run tomorrow :-) On a sidenote, the food was delicious and we managed to squeeze down some Ris a la Malta for the 2nd time today...

Finally, if the kids did fall asleep early? Matilde was down at 7.30pm where we had to keep her awake from 5pm onwards, Hannah at 10pm. She was way to excited about the X-mas gifts and ended up sitting chatting with us until she passed out... X-mas is exciting...! :-)

Gingerbread House in the making....!

Buying a gingerbread house kit at IKEA gotta be the easiest way of making the house... well, it would if not every single piece was broken and I had to glue them together with melted sugar... adding to that, the humidity in S'pore makes the gingerbread all soggy and the entire house looks really sad... Won't give up, I glue the house together and put it in the fridge!

Step 2: decoration of the house. Hannah, Matilde & friend Devyani get to put M&Ms on the house. I was puting icing on and again, due to humidity, it melted and started to drip... well, the girls followed the instructions to be fast on sticking the M&Ms to the house, except Matilde who couldn't for the world understand WHY she would put the candies in front of her on the house and not in her mouth, haha :-)

The result of the house? Well, I must say I have seen nicer... but the girls were very proud of themselves and that's what counts! And no, we cannot have the house outside the fridge as it would collapse :-)

The disasterous house in the making...

X-mas Porridge at Church & Playdate with Olivia

We went for a X-mas Porridge lunch (risgrynsgrot) at the Swedish Church today, together with Ketti & Lea and Sofie & the twins - and about 100 Norwegians! The mums were all excited over the 'risgrynsgrot' and Swedish gossip magazines! while the kiddos didn't really fancy the meal. Good for the girls the mums didn't want to negotiate today, and Hannah & Lea could go wild on 'Lussebullar' (Saffron rolls) instead, to their own surprise :-)
It was a nice event, increased the X-mas spirit and Mr. Santa Claus came by with gifts to the girls, a great hit!

And a video from the morning activities....

Afternoon was spent together with Olivia playing picnic and feeding the dolls!

Caught some interesting discussions between the girls over the picnic table and while swinging their dolls :-)

Sealing the day with a Burger-and-Icecream date with Morten, yum yum! Not so yum though coming back to our car having a parking ticket in the front window... and reading on it it happened exactly the same time I got my ice cream (which Morten objected to...) - ohps, my bad! (but it was definitely worth it with that ice crem, hehe)

4th week of Advent weekend

Last day of school for Hannah before X-mas break and all parents were invited to see a video of the kids singing X-mas songs, followed by lunch.

Hannah got to choose one X-mas gift under the tree after the cermony at school, she was of course thrilled :-) And yes, Matilde got to choose one as well.

I'm not really a Master Chef, so thought maybe we should start early with the girls to be involved in the kitchen :-) Fruit sallad was on the snack menu, very advanced...!

The project of the weekend, getting the star up in the X-mas tree!! Sounds easy, and I'm sure it would have been IF we had a real X-mas tree... well, we don't as I thought it would die after a week in the tropical Singapore weather. The top is really really weak and would maximum hold for a tiny paper star... Morten never takes no for an answer and have with chop sticks and strips managed to get the star up, yiehoo :-)
(He did cut of the strips though so you can't really see them, hehe)

Sunday fun at the zoo! It was raining majority of the time but as long as we stayed in the waterland, only happy faces :-) And we started the day with opening another X-mas gift... a week to early but if they open all the gifts on X-mas Eve, they won't see what they actually get so better to spread it out a little! Today, we opened gifts from grandma & granddad in Denmark :)

SNOW in S'pore...

Well, not really but in attempt to get the right X-mas spirit, Tanglin Mall arrange million of 'bubbles' to at least provide a snowy feeling... if it worked... well, it was quite a sight to see all kids jumping around in the bubbles, and most were wearing swim outfits :-)

Hannah, mummy and daddy had dinner together before hitting the 'snow' and of course had to have a ride in the Barney car.... Hannah was quite reserved seeing the 'snow' and didn't want to jump around in the bubbles, hence I had to walk around in the not to pleasant bubbles with her in my arms... oh well, was fun, and wet!, regardless!!

Lucia in Swedish Seamen Church for the youngest children

We had a small Lucia celebration with the youngest kids today, where we did our outmost to sing X-mas songs and get them to pose for a Lucia picture. The latter was quite disasterous as you can see from the pics, but we tried :-)

The chaotic move with jumping children.... :-)

I didn't manage to get Hannah to wear her 'lucia dress' but we did it Singapore Style with a sun dress and a red band around the waist :-)

Lucia

The big lucia celebration was held in St George Church here in Singapore. I was part of the choir and it was definitely a warm experience in the tropics!

Morten attended with Hannah who was very excited and sang 'Lusse Lelle' the entire way home in the car :-)

Excited Hannah on her way to her first Swedish Lucia celebration!

Swinging makes you sleeeeeeepy.....!!

To Minja & Anie from Hannah :-)

Hannah is very excited about X-mas and all the gifts under the X-mas tree coming from family in Europe. One gift is from cousins Minja & Anie and today she realized she has nothing to them!! (mummy did give them gifts but Hannah doesn't know...!) Anyway, she decides she want to draw them a gift and send it - hence off we go!

Baking for X-mas...

I'm sure it is great to bake with the kids and let them be all creative and go wild.... well, I seriously don't want all my 'lussebullar' and gingerbread cookies looking like snakes, snails, balls, sticks, monsters... But to be a good mom, I did let my girls enjoy the gingerbread dough and 'go wild' within mummies comfort zone :-)

Lussebullar made the other night.... Hannah did get to help out with a few snakes, promise!! :-)

Feeling like a gecko....!

I went rock-climbing tonight, wow was that an excitement over the usual!!! My Canadian friend Michelle have rockclimbed A LOT and found an indoor place we could try it out at. I have tried it 10 years ago while back-packing/vessel touring with Lina (Riley Beach), and I loved it at that time. Half way up the wall, I got the same adrenaline kick and just wanted to go on and on.... until my arms and legs were so sore I thought they'd fall off..... Anyhow, great evening with excellent company and activity!

If any of my S'pore friends read this and wanna join me next time I wanna feel like a gecko - let me know!

Dora Live!!!!

I pulled Hannah out from school a bit early today to go to a minishow with Dora the Explorer. Might not be a legitimate reason to leave early from school, but seeing the smile on her face, it was definitely worth it!!

Step two of the show, meet and greet with Dora and have your picture taken with her and her buddies... not so much of a smile on Hannah's face... mummy had to do the 'high five' with Dora while Hannah wearing sun glasses so they couldn't see her eyes, while hiding under mummies hair.... oh well, she was happy as soon as we left the stage and she could observe Dora a few meters away :-)

Danish Seaman Church Kids Group

Every Thursday morning, Matilde and I attend the Danish Church Kids Group. It's been fun and I have learn sooo many children's songs in Danish, yiehoo ;-)

Below is a collection of pics from the fall semester, and a video from the latest session. Hence next time when the girls want me to sing Danish songs (not really my strongest side...), I can simply show her this video :-)

Zoo in the rain...

Friday morning at 9am - playdate at the zoo, and the rain kept falling down... but with some rain jackets, umbrellas and lots of positive energy, we managed to get a nice start of the day :-)

Sweden part 3...and 'advent X-mas'!

We have a tradition on my dad's side of the family celebrating an 'advent Christmas'. Basically, X-mas eve is normally very busy and therefore, we have a relaxing family get-together a few weeks before X-mas. For 2 years in a row, we have managed to get all the siblings with families to get together in Gothenburg (unfortunately minus Hanah & Morten this year.)

Cousins Minja & Anie with Matilde (the older girls were very disappointed Hannah wasn't coming as they had so much fun during the summer, but seemed to be ok playing with Matilde despite all!)

Advent Eve included Christmas food, 'aggost', gifts and of course a Santa Claus, this time a cool one with shades :-)

My sister Johanna got the gift of the year, a drill, to her excitement! :-)

...still in Sweden... part 2...

One day was spent shopping in Stenungsund...

Another taking a walk on Kladesholmen visiting 'Svalan' and Matilde got to try the forklift...

...some cruising on Knarreberget 14 :-)

Rounding up the Tjorn and Skarhamn stay with a visit in Stenungsund to Linnea & Vilgot!

Matilde & mummy in COLD Sweden!!

Matilde & I left Friday midnight to Skärhamn, Sweden for 10 days. It was quite nice only to fly with one child, and especially since she slept 6 hrs straight on the flight, halleluja :-)

We had a layover in Munich where we met up with an old collegue and friend, Lars Tylen, who was flying in from Hong Kong, and was heading to Gothenburg on the same flight as Matilde & I. The world is rather small....!

Tack tack Lars for all the help I got with Matilde!!

Big mistake during the flight: not to bring a stroller... carrying a sleeping 10 kg baby with handluggage off the plane, through customs, to next gate is quite tiring....

It is COLD in Sweden and a thankfully we got to borrow warm clothes of a friend, Sofie. TACK Sofie!! So where did we go for our walk in Skärhamn... ICA Nordevik of course with its playground :-)

Jetlag...hm... well, I must say Matilde was amazing as she didn't fall asleep until 5pm, and managed to sleep until 4am. So guess I shouldn't complain to much.... :-)

Sunday, we got visitors to Skärhamn, thanks for the visit Annelie & Pernilla!!

Wrapping up the weekend with 'fika' at great grandmother Irma's house, where Matilde fell asleep and didn't moved until next morning at 4.30....zzzzzz....!

Sentosa Beach play Tue am :-)

Dropping Hannah off at school and off we go to Sentosa for a morning playdate. 3 moms, 1 dad and 4 toddlers at Coastes by Silosa Beach, great start of a regular Tuesday :-)

Hannah has playdate with Naomi after school

This one is for the grandmas in Sweden :-)

I have started to prepare Hannah that Matilde and I are going to Sweden on Friday and Hannah will stay in Singapore with daddy and Nady. After putting some thought into this, she wanted to call grandma (my mom) and talk to her. Grandma suggested that she draw a picture to grandma Irma and Thomas and Hannah follows instruction....

After some drawing, she asks if I think that grandma Irma likes snails on her painting :-) so I suggest her to call grandma and ask, and she does. It is the first time she calls by herself and also finishing up by herself, it was great fun watching her... :)

Swedish Church's playgroup

Every Wednesday, the Swedish Church hosts a playgroup for our young ones. Cinnamon buns, waffles, coffee, lemonade and most importantly - circle time with Swedish songs :-)

Playdate at the Zoo

Sunday was spent at the zoo with Theresa, Greg and their daughter Olivia, whom Hannah goes to school with. We managed to squeeze in two shows (Sea Lion & Elephants) and playing at the water park and play ground. Very tired girls afterwards :-)

Rawa Island!!!

5 days vacation on Rawa Island, a paradise outside the East Coast of Malaysia :-) The sand was white, the water crystal clear, the resport extremely child friendly, great friends around us - couldn't have asked for more!! (except a few amenities in the bungalows....!)

We travelled together with Soren, Anna-Maria and their kids Eva & Sofia. You can choose whether to drive by yourself or get a bus to pick you up, where we went for the latter. It was a very smooth trip to Rawa, except that Hannah got fever the night before we left and she threw up in the bus... last three! vacations and one of the kids are sick (Matilde in Borneo, Hannah in Hong Kong last week) but luckily enough, they get well within 24-36 hrs (in HK, Hannah got well after 4 hrs and a visit to the the emergency room!!!)

Well there, we ended up having loads of Scandiniavian families from Singapore, couldn't have been better!!
Funnily enough, at one time, we were 5 families were everyone had daughters - hence 11 girls playing at the beach at the same time :-)

The waterslide was definitely a hit, Hannah loved it!! As the tide was about 2 meters, you had to make sure you used it in the morning, otherwise it was a 2 meter drop down on the sand....not so comfy... :-)

Almost all adults and older kids decided to jump of the pier, was really exciting for kids and non-jumping moms....!

If someone is thinking about going to Rawa, I think it is good to know that it is definitely not a luxury trip. The nature and suroundings are amazing, but the bungalows/rooms are nothing but fancy. You eat all your meals at the same restaurang, and the food is ok, but after a few days, you crave other foods. There are snacks to purchase but would recommend to bring your own, especially for the kiddos, if you don't want them to eat chips & icecream every day...

It was mostly families with young kids so if you have kids, great place for 3-4 days getaway! Going there simply as a couple...maybe not. Or maybe, we only managed to go there at the right time :-)

Family pics :-)