Cosycactus

the long weekend

We had a fantastic long weekend celebrating the national day. I baked and baked with baby in wrap all morning to get the cakes going.

 

The weather was fantastic all weekend. We hit 22 degrees on the the 17th of may, the warmest place in the whole of Norway according to the weather guy, incredible! I dusted out the skirts and no-sock-shoes. However the temperatures dropped again to about 5 degrees today, but I am happy we got lots of time outside without the many layers we usually need. 

There were quite a few cakes made this long weekend. Olive oil cake, pavlova, chocolate almond cake. We celebrated Norway, and the arrival of yet another little boy to the world. I think 2012 is a boy year, at least in my circle of friends and family!

And at the end of each day the boys have been listening to their bird book. It is so sweet to see them look at the photos of birds and then press the button to listen to the sound they make.

And now we start yet another week. Time is flying by and summer is just around the corner!

Oh and my random number generator (aka my husband) picked: Sylvía and Ibabe. Send me your addresses to my email (cosycactus@gmail.com) and will post them this week :)

seeing the everyday, for you

The flow of the days. I feel the days are over in a second. Suddenly we are eating breakfast and so suddenly we are putting babes to bed. We are spending lots of time outside now that the midnight sun is here. No darkness for the next 4.5 months, a little weird, but something I have gotten used to by now. Specially in days like today when the Sun is shining with all its will and we can walk around in short sleeve t-shirt. Its feels like a taste of summer. 

I am mostly taking photos with my iphone camera, therefore the grainy pics. It seems I don't have enough hands right now to carry babies, hold toddler hands and a big camera. But I have noticed I have taken few photos recently, I suppose there is just to much going on right now to remeber to take photos of it all. I hope it picks up again soon.

I recently got some extra copies by mistake of the lovely magazine Seeing the everyday. I have been a follower of the magazine for several years now, nearly from the very start. I love receiving it in the post and reading the carefully written stories about the everday life of people like you and me. So I asked if it was ok for me to give away the two extra copies I received in my blog. So here they are for you. Just leave me a comment if you are interested in having a copy and I will pick two people next monday and mail them each a magazine. It feels nice to spread the love!

And now we are getting ready for the 17th of may, Norway's constitution day. Its a big day over here with lots of celebration and cake baking! We are also waiting the arrival of a good friend and neighbour's little baby anytime today, so we are all excited and waiting for the happy news. 

So much going on right now in our little corner of the world.

one month

It seems like yesterday when this babe of ours decided to arrive, a week ahead of schedule. But babies have their own timeline and he was ready to discover this wonderful world. Its been a full month. A month of adjusting, of little sleep, of soothing belly aches, of brother love over and over again, of huge piles of laundry, of cosy moments and above all of welcoming this sweet baby boy into our lives. 

I think we will make happy-one-month-old cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea on this sunny wednesday!

letting go

You would think that being this the third time around I would have learned something by now. But again, I am needing to slow down and let go. I have caught myself waking up in the mornings and already making lists of what I want to achieve today, specially what I want to do while the baby naps. Laundry, vaccuming, dinner prep, submitting my manuscript (which no, I didn't manage to submit before little Stian arrived!frustrating!), field work preparation (which others will do this year for me), more laundry, get rid of the layer of something unknown growing in our shower, pick up that old pizza slice from under the sofa, more laundry, wash and brush my hair before it turns into dreadlocks, oh and more laundry.

And while I am carrying this little baby of mine waiting for him to fall asleep, I realize that he is already showing us a glimpse of a smile, that he is actually awake and looking at us instead of doazing of to sleep all day, that he knows when his brothers are close and looks for them. So I have a choice, I either can get irritated by the long list I want to accomplish while he sleeps or I can let go.  It is not always easy to let go, specially with three little boys. The housework has to be done at some point or we will all be engulfed by dirty diapers and cat hair (thanks to our long haired molting cat), and probably break a leg while falling over all the toys on the floor. But for a little while it is ok to just be and enjoy tiny baby toes. I have also come to notice that the time the baby naps should be used to be with my big boys as well. They are in much need of some mama time and after the last months of pregnancy and the first weeks after birth when I have hardly played with them, I feel like I have forgotten how to! So we are slowly adapting to life as a family of five.

The next two days I will be alone with the boys as my husband has to travel. It will be interesting to see how we survive. And it will be more interesting to find out how my first trip to the store alone with three children goes, although I might wait a little bit for that and we will stay at home and out in the garden!

On the brighter gardening side. Our rhubarb is starting to grow and the snow has finally melted from our garden. We have now the ugly yellow/brown grass which we can't wait to see go green. I even dared to go out with no tights/legwarmers today to hang the washing on the line. It was not that bad actually, our temperature is finally above 0 degrees and more like 5 or 6 degrees during the day. We are hoping for good weather for the 17th of May, Norways constitution day. I have already planned the cake I will bake. 

Until the next time!

this is where i am

There are two ways to live your life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is as though everything is a miracle 

~ Albert Einstein ~

This is how I spend most of my day, holding this newborn babe close to me since this is the place he likes to sleep best. Always amazed at how tiny he is and that he is finally here.

I think I choose miracles.

Happy weekend!

hello May

It's spring fever.

That is what the name of it is.

And when you've got it,

you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want,

but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! 

                                                                    ~Mark Twain~

 

We can finally see some grass and our raised beds and potato field. The snow is finally melting and being replaced by huge water puddles. So huge that we have a pair of ducks swimming in one at the end of the garden! The river is still frozen so I suppose they found a nice temporal replacement in our garden.

T

The weather has been a little dull so I have been spending most of my time inside with baby Stian. I am happy I did not have this baby in the winter because I think I would go mad by staying indoors for weeks on end until the temperatures were suited for taking a baby outdoors. I know soon the temperatures will be a little warmer and we will spend some more time outside. I am taking it easy this time around and spending lots of time doing not much more than house chores. There will be time in the summer to spend outside with little Stian, but for now we are cosying up inside while the big(ger) boys are outside exploring. I had forgotten the huge amount of laundry that a newborn brings with him. Lots of burp cloths, cloth diapers and tiny clothes to wash nearly everyday. Not to mention two other boys who love to bathe in mud and who go through their clothes really fast. 

He is already three weeks, time is flying by and I am soaking up all his newborn smell and little noises. I am starting to get the grip of this new family life with three tiny boys to attend to and noticing how patient Matias is when I tell him he has to wait a little for me to join in the game until I am finished nursing/diaper changing/burping. I do feel sometimes I do not reach to everything/everyone but my dear husband is doing a great job at spending lots of time with the boys so they don't feel left out. They both have become eager pappa-boys and miss him while he is at work. I remember this feeling of loosing the connection with Matias when Erik was born. I was a bit worried about this and wondered if my relationship with him would ever be as before. Then I realized it would not be as before, it would be different since now there was another sibling in the house, but that it wouldn't be a worse relationship for that. This time around I know that I will reconnect with my big boys once we get out of this newborn bubble. And this time around there is two siblings to play and take care of each other while I sit and nurse.

The knitting front is going slowly as well. I have four big projects going on, one for myself and one for each of the boys. I started already knitting their christmas sweaters, because this time I have three (!) to knit and Matias is already using the 6 year old size so it takes forever to knit. And I have chosen a pattern with 3.5 mm needles so this is going to take a while!

mid-week

Nice and easy days we are having thanks in many ways to the wonders of babywearing. The weather is getting milder which is leaving behind lots of huge water puddles after snow melt. The boys must be covered from head to toe in waterproofs since the first thing they do is run to splash in the water. You can imagine the state my front entrance is everyday with lots of soggy (and muddy!) clothes and boots waiting to dry. I tried to put away the snow sledges but the boys wanted to glide over the mud now that the snow is gone.

We are spending time outside also in the afternoons which are nice and light now. We usually eat dinner early at about 15.30-16.00 and then spend some time outside until about 18.30 when we come inside and have some evening snack/supper before going to bed. It is an afternoon rhythm that has worked very very fine for us and which I have used since Matias was small. The afternoons usually glide really nicely.

Lots of seedlings are growing as well! This year we are adding tomatoes and onions to last years veggies which were lettuce, spinach, carrots and potatoes. There is not much more we can grow up here in the north due to the cold summers. But I will be very pleased if we get a little taste of all those greens.

Happy wednesday!

weekending

We have been up to quite a bit this weekend...

... making huge but yumi birthday cakes...

... remembering the art of doing everything (including the cake eating) with one hand, while holding babe in the other ...

... patiently waiting for five minutes with two free hands to wind up the lovely yarn I received in the post in order to start even more projects...

... failing miserably at taking photos of my latest completed knitting project which has been waiting around for the pregnant belly to disappear... hope to take some good pics soon once I get some good light!

... watching the boys play outside while I stay indoors with baby Stian hoping for the snow to disappear soon and for the temperatures to rise a little more...

Have a great week!

how we are doing, the third time around

 

How we are doing this time around. Baby Stian, is one week old now and being very much loved by his older brothers. He sleeps very much, as all newborns do, and is satisfied with being carried around and held while life goes on. Because life does actually go on and one has to jump right back in to it again! We are taking it easy anyway. I decided I will try to leave our house and its surroundings for as little as possible for the first weeks. No driving to town (which is an hour drive away), no big supermarket shopping, no visiting anyone and receiving visits one at a time. Welcoming a little less complicated meals into our days and actually buying store bread once the homemade reservoir in our freezer is used up. Giving in to some extra ipad playing and dvd watching by the older brothers while we get used to being outnumbered by the children. I have also put my 366 project on stand by and might just pick it up again in a little while. The time it takes to upload the photos to a blog with our slooooow internet connection is just too much right now.

Its incredible how much time one can spend just sitting and staring at a newborn. The wonder that he is finally here, the little noises he makes, the smiles while he is falling asleep and the lovely thought of all that life ahead of him. 

Otherwise, the snow seems to be finally melting although we still have about a month to go til it dissapears completely. We have been taking trips along the snowscooter tracks in the forest and over the frozen river that separates Norway from Russia.We cannot wait to get out the trampoline and start spending some more time outside in the afternoons. At least the temperatures are swinging around 0 degrees so it is not really that cold anymore and I can wrap little Stian in my baby carrier and go out for a walk with the other boys. The days are getting longer and in only three weeks the midnight sun will be here.

April is a full month for us. We have three birthdays with only a few days a part. Erik turned 2 just two days after Stian was born, and at the end of the week I will turn 31. Our wedding aniversary is also this month.

And now I am getting used to being a mama of three, of three lovely little boys and all the busyness that they bring!

 

An easter boy

Just wanted to share with you that he is finally here. The third little boy that completes our family! It was a long and intense birth, but he came out just perfect.
And now we are waiting for the two older brothers to arrive and greet their tiny sibling. And then we will rest!