Sunday afternoon.

This afternoon we had some friends, Maria, Mattias and theri son Felix coming over to play and have dinner. Maria and I have known each other since we were about 10 and started hanging out at the riding club. Felix gave Jakob a really nice present -a blue car!

Jakob just loves shoveling snow and playing with the snow. Felix showed him how to make cakes out of snow.

Adam and I are a bit worried about what Jakob is going to play with once all the snow is gone so today we bought him a basket ball ring. Since I took him to a basket ball game a while ago he has been talking a lot about playing basket ball and seems really interested in the sport. Of course he loved his new game and spent a lot of time playing today. We need to buy him some proper basket balls though since he only has Aussie footballs to play with.

First bbq in Sweden!

Adam bought a new gas bottle for our bbq that we brought over from Australia and today we used it for the first time. It was great! we look forward to many more bbq's in the next few months.

It is still not warm enough to sit outside and eat so we had dinner inside.

At the end of the day Jakob and Felix played so well. When jumping on the trampolin they took turns and were so patient with each other.

Åke 60!

Yesterday we went to Ale to celebrate Åke's 60th birthday. Jakob loves going there and as soon as I mention that we are going to Ale he starts talking about everyone that we are going to meet. Maggi, Åke, Åsa, Mikael, the sheep and so on. When we got there Jakob walked up to Åke on his own, handed over a present and said Grattis Åke, which means Happy Birthday in Swedish.

First of all we went for a walk to see the sheep and when Jakob saw the first ones he started getting really excited and shouted There they are!

Andreas and Jakob gave them some hay.

Jakob bonding with one of the lambs. Last time we went to see the sheep he was a bit scared but this time he just walked in to the sheep house with great confidence.

Jakob focusing on helping Åsa to give the sheep some water.

Sheep house and party

The sheep and the lambs are just so gorgeous!

Jakob and Åke having a chat about sheep on the way back to the house.

Anybody wants a coffee?

All the relatives were there to celebrate Åke and of course Jakob was in the middle of it all.

Jakob and mormor.

Cute boy

It is hard to believe that Jakob is only just over 2 years old. Before I had him I would never have thought that a 2 year old could know so much. I think he is not far from being smarter than both me and Adam.

At the riding club

Saturday morning Jakob woke up at 5.15, I don't know what has happened to him but it is not good in any way to have to get up with him that early. He is so cute though when he comes in to our bedroom saying that he wants to sleep on my pillow and climbs up to our bed. Unfortunatley he only lies there for about 5 seconds before he says Finished and wants to do something else.
Luckily the riding club opens early in the morning so we went to see the horses, cleaned Robban's stable, filled up some water buckets and shoveled some mud outside. He is such a good helper and is getting more and more confident around the horses.

Jakob riding his bike!

This week Jakob got to ride his little bike for the first time outisde for the season. He was so excited and did really well on his own, even though I had to help him at times. There are so many kids on our street playing and riding around on their bikes and Jakob loves watching them. The other day he met another girl on a three wheeler and she got of her bike and came up to Jakob and wanted to hug him. Really cute.

Playing with Alice

Friday after child care I took Jakob to Alice place and the kids played outside for a couple of hourse.

Adam changing tyres

Earlier this week Adam changed the tyres on both cars from winter tyres to summer tyres.

Sleep

Jakob has always gone to sleep very easily in the evenings and we have never had to sit with him when he goes to sleep. He has been quite happy laying there on his own talking and singing until he goes to sleep. That has now changed. About a month ago we moved him from his cot to a matress on the floor and the first few weeks went extremly well. He used to run in, jump in to bed and tell us got go out after only one or two songs. About 2 weeks he started wanting us to stay in there and the last week we have had to stay with him for over an hour before he goes to sleep. It is really nice and cosy because he keeps his arms wrapped around my neck and wants to be so close, but at the same time it doesn't feel good to have to be in there for a long time every evening. Today I tried a new method to change this habit. I prepared him during the day that I was going to sing 2 songs and then leave and he seemed ok with it. Of course when I did it tonight he started crying and didn't want me to leave. I went in and out about 10 times giving him a kiss and a hug and talked to him every time. After ten times I told him that I was going to the toilet but would come back. That was no problem and he was happy when I came in again. Then I kept leaving and coming back about 5 times, extending the time I stayed outside the room every time. He had no problem with me leaving the room when I said I was coming back, and I made sure that I went in there again to show him that he can trust me. All up it took about an hour tonight but at least he fell asleep happily when I wasn't in the room. We will keep doing this for a while and see if it works. If not we will try something else or just take a few weeks or months to be in there with him until he goes to sleep.

A new toy!

The other day Adam found some second hand toys on a website. We decided to buy them and one of the things we bought was this slide! Jakob got SO excited when he saw it and went up and down about 20 times.

Playing with mormor

This afternoon Jakob spent a few hours at mormor and morfars place. He had a bath, some dinner and played a lot before they brought him back to our place. Jakob loves playing with pool table that we have upstairs in our house. He puts the balls in the holes and runs to the other end to pick them up again. Today he wanted mormor to play with him.

Meatball lunch

Today Maria and Andreas took a walk over to our place with the kids (Alice and Melvin) in their new double pram. The kids played and have fun, and we all had a very simple lunch together.

Active boy

Jakob is a very active little boy and he doesn't sit still very often. He loves running, jumping, climbing, chasing, hiding and playing with balls. In the pictures he is playing innebandy with daddy.

Stina and Martin

Saturday night we finally had Stina and Martin over for dinner. I have known Stina since I was about 10 years old from the riding club and I have known Martin for almost as long. We had a really nice night together with lots of nice wine for all of us, apart from Stina who is pregnant and due in October.

Shoveling snow

Jakob is still obsessed with shoveling snow. He just loves it. He does it all the time at child care and he does it at home with daddy (and sometimes with me, but he prefers daddy) as often as he can.

Feeding Robban

Jakob has talked a lot lately about going to see the horses so Saturday morning we took a trip out to the riding club. First we spent some time inside the stables sweeping the floors and cleaning out Robbans stable. Jakob worked really hard, and even though he didn't really understand what was supposed to stay on the floor and what to clean out, the end result was pretty good with my help.

When we moved to Sweden I started to ride a horse called Scott once a week. It has been great fun to ride and be around horses again, but on the weekend Scott got sold to someone in Finland. From now on I will start looking after Robban, the horse in the picture, sometimes. Bettan who owns Robban is a friend of mine and I used to ride her horse Tarkan for many years before I moved to Australia. We used to be a very good team and I look forward to helping her again, even though it won't be as often as before. Robban is turning 5 this year and he is a beautiful horse.

After all the hard work we had a break with a sandwich and some water.

Stina's birthday

This afternoon we were invited to Stina's and Martin's cabin to celebrate Stina's birthday. They have a really great cabin on the water and we had a great time seeing Stina's and Martin's families and eating lots of cakes. Jakob also played a bit with Stina's sisters two kids.

Jakob is very interested in snow mobiles and he talks a lot about them and how he wants to have a ride. As soon as we get close to one he gets really scared though, and the closest we got today was to just give it a littel quick pat. He refused to sit on it.

Adam took the snow mobile for a drive on the ice but I just posed for the camera.

On the way home we stopped at mormor and morfar's place for a quick dinner (meatballs and pasta!).

Easter Monday morning

The weather over Easter has been quite average but today we woke up to a beautiful sunny and warm day. Since we went to our friends Marie and Paul for dinner last night Jakob stayed at mormor and morfars and Adam and I had the house to ourselves this morning. Adam got up early and got rid of the rest of the snow from our decking outside and after we sat outside for a while and enjoyed the warm sun that we haven't seen so much the last few months. It was so beautiful!!

Easter Sunday

Sunday afternoon Jakob went to stay with mormor and morfar but in the morning I took Jakob to see Alice and the rest of her family. Jakob is crazy about babies at the moment and spent a lot of time patting Melvin in between playing with Alice.

Andreas is a great play friend and in the picture Andreas is checking so that Jakob's teeth have been cleaned properly.

Walking around in shoes that are too big is a great game.

It is nice to have a friend like Alice who helps Jakob to get dressed when we are about to leave.

Jakob 2 years and 2 months

Jakob is now over 2 years and has a really fun but strong personality. He laughs a lot and talks a lot and he loves throwing things (not only balls unfortunatley...). He understands pretty much everything we say to him and he can speak really well back to us. It is great to be able to communicate with him through words. He is amazing at remembering names and knows all our friends names, and of course everyone at childcare. He is still in nappies and we are not really trying to toilet train him, we will probably just wait until starts showing a bit more interest in using the potty. We use our washing machine as a changing table and as you can see in the picture he doesn't really fit there very well anymore.

Jakob is obesessed with shoveling snow and he just loves doing it with daddy. When daddy throws the snow on him he can't stop laughing. Not sure what we are going to do when the snow has disappeared... Summer is nearly here now and all snow will hopefully be gone in a few weeks.

Easter Saturday

Friday afternoon we had some friends coming over who lives in the south of Sweden and were here on holidays. I used to ride with Annika before we both moved and we have known each other since we were about 12 even though it was when we were a bit older we started haning out a bit more. We both love jumping and used to train a lot together with the horses. Annika and her husband Johan have a boy Theo who is only a few months older than Jakob.

When they first arrived the kids played on their own and were not so interested in each other, but after a while they started to make contact and play together.

Especially Jakob had a lot of energy as always and he showed Theo all his tricks.

Jakob who normally goes to bed between 7-8 got to stay up until nearly 10!! both kids did really well and only had a short break on the couch watching tv.