syskonkärlek

Freya loves her little baby brother and always want to hold him and hug him. Sometimes she's a little too intense for Oscar... :-)

boo at the zoo

Freya loves the Zoo so the whole family when to "Boo at the Zoo" last Saturday on Halloween. Freya had a lot of fun with her little friend Kat, while Oscar slept almost the whole time. :-)

Oscar 1 month

Time flies...our little boy is already 1 month old.

Oscar 1 month

Oscar 1 month, sleeping.

Freya and I celebrated that Oscar is 1 month by making some scones. Freya is a great helper in the kitchen as you can see below.

till mamma

Älskade mamma....om du visste hur mycket jag saknar dig. I dag den 13e Augusti skulle du ha fyllt 65 år. Du gick bort så hastigt för snart 6 år sedan och fick aldrig upleva din 60 årsdag, mitt bröllop eller träffa dina barnbarn. Vilket oerhört tomrum du lämnade efter dig...men det är skönt att veta att du slipper smärta, sjukdom och oro mer.

Jag har suttit och tittat på foton, så många minnen...

Saknar dig.
E

backyard

Our backyard is almost done and we are enjoying it every day! After our garage was built last summer we started planning and working on our backyard. We tore out the old useless back porch. We dug trenches for an irrigation system. We built a deck, planted grass and flowers, and finally updated our furniture for our new outdoor space.

Below you can see the result of our efforts.

the zoo

Part of the reason we love to live down-town is that we are close to museums, the zoo, city park, restaurants and coffee shops. On the weekends we usually take our bikes to the zoo or to the large playground in city park.

Freya on her way to the zoo last weekend.

Freya loves the carousel at the zoo.

välkommen till världen Oscar!

Den 15e Juli föddes vår lille son Oscar. Han var 49,5 cm lång och vägde 3,2 kg. Jag njuter av att bara vara hemma med familjen och gosa med mina små skatter, Freya och Oscar.

Freya är en mycket stolt storasyster som älskar att hjälpa till och ta hand om sin lillebror.

counting 1 to 10

Yesterday was the first day we heard Freya count from 1 to 10. She is learning more and more everyday and her vocabulary in both English and Swedish is increasing.

Below is a picture of Freya with her favorite doll, in our backyard. We're getting ready to build a new deck. We already removed the old deck and did some repair work on the brick wall (as you can see in the picture). Can't wait to have the deck built, repair the stucco on the wall and have it painted, and get some landscaping, so we can start enjoying our backyard again. Looking forward to having friends and family over for barbecue this summer.

Freya in the backyard

twinkle, twinkle, little star

Freya loves to sing and so far her favorite songs are twinkle, twinkle little star and itzy, bitzy spider. She doesn't quite know the words yet, but she imitates the sounds the best she can. Sometimes she sings in English and sometimes in Swedish. Very cute.

Freya after her bath, practising her sumo pose

new chimney!

Who would have thought that we could get the chimney rebuilt in the middle of the winter?
It has been fairly mild for a few days and the mason could get it all done in one day, so why not? We are very happy with the result! Now, we only need the wood-burning stove...

Our new chimney

work in progress...

happy halloween

Wooohahahaha…

We’re going to carve our jack-o’-lanterns and go trick-or-treating tonight. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Isn’t Freya cute dressed up as a little bear?

chimney

The dream of having a fireplace in the living room this winter continues...

The first step will be to rebuild our existing chimney. We have scheduled to have masonry workers here in November. Hopefully it won't be a snowy November. :-)

Found a picture of an old brick chimney. Beautiful. Ours would probably be less ornate, but I would love to have some detail in the brickwork.

INSPIRATION - CHIMNEY

OUR CURRENT CHIMNEY...READY TO FALL OVER

freya's first fourteener

When my dad was here earlier this summer we drove up to Mount Evans - the highest paved road in North America and the only mountain over 14,000 feet that you can drive to. The view from the summit is stunning and we were lucky to see some big horn sheep up there as well.

100 visitors

I've reached 100 visitors since September 9th this year! Thank you everyone that visit my blog!!!

cast iron stove

The weather is still beautiful here in Colorado with warm sunny days, but soon enough there will be snow and cold days. Since our house is old and not insulated well it tends to get very cold in the winter time. Therefore I'm dreaming of getting one of these stoves for our living room. I picture us sitting in our living room in front of the fire place with hot cocoa after a full day skiing in the mountains...

The stove is from the Danish company, Morsø Jernstøberi A/S, and they have both traditional and more contemporary styles of cast iron stoves. I like the Morsø 7110 (pictured above) that has a very large glass panel without any interfering bars for an unobstructed view of the fire.

This is how Morsø Jernstøberi decribes this product: "Designed with Scandinavian simplicity, the Morsø 7110 sharp edges and straight lines are combined with classical American elements such as the horizontal design and distinct profiles in the top and bottom plates...On each side of the Morsø 7110 is engraved a symbol from the Viking era. In Scandinavia the symbol is known as “Saint Johannes Shield,” and it is believed to offer the household protection from all evil. This symbol appears on numerous finds from around 1,000 AD, such as the Runic Stones in Jelling that were erected around 960 AD and refers to King Harald Bluetooth, the king who brought Christianity into Denmark."

Perfect with elements from both Scandinavia and America...fits our family! :-)

pumpkin harvest festival

Over the weekend Rick, Freya and I went to the pumpkin harvest festival at Four Mile Historic Park in Denver. This 12 acre park features Denver’s oldest standing structure, built in 1859. It was a gorgeous fall day and we enjoyed the beautiful park. Freya had fun in the pumpkin patch and was thrilled seeing the horses, chickens and a cat in the park.

irrigation and french drains

We are moving on to the next project - trenching the backyard for irrigation and french drains. Since we're planning on building the deck along the entire back wall of the house, we need to make sure we plan ahead and put in the irrigation system for our lawn before we build the deck.

Rick and Darlene working hard...

fall is here

We have had some beautiful, warm and sunny fall days here in Denver. It's been perfect weather for us to finish the paint job and we're finally done (except for some minor touch-ups...)

The apples on our apple tree are getting ripe. I made a yummy apple pie (using the apples from our apple tree) a few days ago. I used a recipe from Leila Lindholm's cookbook "A piece of cake". I'm so glad my dad brought that cookbook for me when he came to visit earlier this year. All recipes I've tried so far have been great!

Freya loves to pick up the apples that fall on the ground and throw them in a bucket we keep in the back yard.

almost done painting

We have been trying to paint as much as we can on the garage to finish the job. Tomorrow I'll post some new pictures, so you can see the progress.

Of course we do other things than work on the house as well. Rick and I went to a wedding on Friday evening, while Freya spent the evening with our friends. Rick went rock climbing on Saturday with a friend, while Freya and I played all day. I actually got sick with fever on Saturday evening/night, but recovered on Sunday. On Sunday evening we got together with some friends for dinner. Any time in between, we painted. :-)

Below are some pictures of Freya from midsummer this year.

ikea coming to denver

Finally, I've been waiting for this for a while...

IKEA announced last week that they are opening up a store in Denver (or a suburb of Denver). Jippie! I cannot wait - I'm so excited! It's actually going to be located right across the street from where I used to work. IKEA didn't announce the opening date of the new store. Hopefully it won't take several years...

raining...

It has been raining today, so we haven't been able to paint. Hopefully it will clear up during the weekend so we can finish this project.

Publishing a recent photo of Freya instead. :-)

painting...

Rick continued painting the garage today. If the weather holds up we will probably be able to finish the paint job this week. It goes pretty fast since we are spray painting the larger areas. However, since the days are getting shorter we don't have as much time in the evening to paint. Fall is definitely coming...

See the progress below.

The creamy yellow paint and olive fish scale. The next step is the trim and accent colors.


Rick also had to cut down some branches of our apple tree, since they were hanging over our phone line...


The garage from the back alley.


Close up of our color choices. The thin trim around the roof line will be painted brick red.


While Rick was out painting the house, Freya and I were inside drawing on a piece of paper...


Freya is sitting at her IKEA table she got from her grandma Darlene.