Friday, December 30, 2011

Changes

The new year is bringing a new look (and somewhat new content) to the blog so it might look a little funny for a while. Happy New Year to all of you!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas

Christmas is over and it's warm and green like a spring day here. We had a nice Christmas Eve at my uncle's house and spent Christmas Day at our house. After a short family quarrel, Inara got to open presents both days and enjoyed the wrapping paper every time. She also briefly noted the contents.




Bo and Inara (wearing a new hat grandma made for her)

Using all he baby might to open a gift from Cajsa
Cajsa and Inara
After Christmas Eve dinner we went for a walk around town which was completely deserted and very beautiful, just wish we would have had snow.






I also want to brag a little about how I made almost all of our Christmas gifts this year. Turns out that everybody else in my family had been spending their evenings crafting away as well and our gift exchange turned into a great cavalcade of socks, hats and goodies.


The other night when Andrew was feeding Inara, she all of a sudden did this:


Happy as a clam
Inara keeping me on the straight and narrow around the house

Ready for battle

Andrew made a peppercake house. I'm pretty sure it wasn't up to code.

New dress from grandma K. A girl can never have too many animal prints.
And lastly, the long awaited apartment pictures. I probably should just have posted them right away instead of building up some sort of anticipation.

Bedroom

Living room

Living room

Kitchen
I guess I do have one more thing to add. I was checking the stats for the blog (I have a thing for stats) and noticed that Russia places second after the U.S. for number of visitors, followed by several eastern European countries where we don't really know anybody. I thought this was very exciting and would love to see a comment from one of these areas. I actually love comments in general. It makes me feel all special and fuzzy inside.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Bababa

I took Inara in for her 6 month check up on Thursday and everything was fine and on track, but they did ask if she had started vocalizing, saying ba, ga, da, ma etc. Nope, I said. Just high-pitch screams, raspberries, squeaky door imitations and the occasional fake cough. Then, that very night she began saying "daidaidai" and "bababa" and hasn't stopped since. When she didn't want to go down for a nap, she laid in her bed whining "bababa" which I thought might be a call for daddy (pappa in Swedish) to come save her. These two videos are sort of a before and after:








Inara seems really pleased by the independence being able to sit up brings. She is now able to play contentedly on her own for long periods of time, also giving her parents a break. I often wonder what goes through her mind as she seems completely engrossed in a little piece of cardboard or a rubber giraffe for 10 minutes. 



She also keeps us entertained when her bedtime rolls around, rarely crying, but often making a ton of noise. She drags her pacifier along the bars of her crib (like a little prisoner), laughs, blows raspberries, kicks her legs, and now also yells "daidaidai." 

Another thing that warms my little motherly heart is that she has started reaching for us. When Andrew was blending her food up and the noise scared her she immediately furrowed her brow and reached for me. 

Andrew is off from school for three weeks but will need to work on some papers and his thesis. It's hard to believe that he's already half ways through his program. Other than that, we've just been to a few Christmas and Lucia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy%27s_Day) parties where Inara has of course been the center of attention. She has no problem what so ever spending time with strangers and doesn't cry no matter who holds her and doesn't seem to worry about where her parents are. She probably gets to hear more languages than the average baby, considering we hang out with a very international crowd. Just the other evening she spent an hour being watched by three Latvian girls and a couple of Greeks are her biggest fans. 

I'm guessing we like tigers in this house.

Snuggling with grandma

  Enjoying her new toy given to us by one of Andrew's classmates!
 

People always talk about how much Inara looks like Andrew, but I have to say I think she looks a little bit like me here:





I also have to say that we're enjoying Inara more and more each day, she's a ton of fun to play with and there is not a dull moment when she's around.




Lastly, we're now pretty much settled in the apartment and I really was going to post pictures today, but since the sun rises at 8.30 am (when I'm generally asleep) and sets around 3.00 pm, I never seem to have enough daylight to take them.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Inara's First Christmas Present

Which turns out was the wrapping paper.  The contents of said wrapping paper, less important.  Here is a movie of Inara "opening" her first present of the season from Grandma K:

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Learning and Growing

We're now moved into our apartment although there's still some work to do to get everything in order. I do promise some pictures next time though! Inara has learned a ton of new things this past week and is growing like a weed. All of the sudden I could barely squeeze her into her car seat and yesterday I noticed that her toes were trying to poke out of the coverall that was two sizes too big just a little while ago. She had a bit of a rough one the first night in the new place, but seems to have adjusted now. She's still very quiet (as in not talking, not as in not screaming), but seems to know her name. Other than that she's eating everything we're feeding her and gets really upset when she can't have more. Here are some pictures to get caught up: 


Story time

She loves playing peekaboo. In this case it isn't working out too well since the paper isn't covering her face, but she usually holds stuff up over her face and then pulls it back, smiling big when we say "peekaboo."

Grandma is visiting





Sitting!




Sunday, December 4, 2011

Inara Swinging!

Took Inara to the park and put her in a babyish swing.  Inara had fun but based on the sounds we had more fun than her.  This is just a quick post as we just moved into a new apartment.  Maria will probably post another, longer one with more stuff in a couple of days.

Enjoy: