Cosycactus

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.

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!

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!

weekending

The weather was so fantastic this weekend we spent most of our mornings outside in the snow. Don't be fooled by the shining sun since it was about -20 degrees Celsius while we were outside, but the absence of wind makes it totally bearable to be outside for some hours.

We drank hot chocolate fast fast since it becomes stone cold after only a couple of minutes. We (well, read the boys since this mamma and her belly just sit while the fun is going on) also made snow angels, sledged down hills and tried to run as fast as we could on the pristine and untouched snow. It is not possible to build snow men or any kind of structure where we live due to the very low temperatures we have. The snow is just like powder and does not stick together at all. We also managed to clean snow from the veranda at the back of the house leaving a nice and sunny spot to sit and knit (with many layers of clothes on of course!), to sit and drink coffee or just to sit and play with buckets and spades.

Have a great start of the week!

 

weekending

Ah, the weekend! Our weekends usually stretch fromThursdays to Sundays since the boys are only at the kindergarden three days a week. Its so nice to have a stretch of many days together just hanging about and doing what we want.

We enjoyed the outdoors a little less these days since it has been very cold, close to -20 degrees and so we are only out a for bit while taking trucks for a walk and to see the Sun once again.

Otherwise lots of indoor time but now that the light is back we do not feel it as heavy as when the darkness was constant. Crafting, painting, building and even some football camps in our long living room.

I am leaving next Wednesday to Tromsø for a course and will be away for ten days. The Mr. will be in charge of house and children. It will be strange to be away for so long but I must take this course before I go on maternity leave. I must admit it will also be nice to be alone for some days in spite of the course going on every day from 9 am to 4 pm. I am hoping on catching up on some needed sleep and to shop some clothes for the boys in the "big" city. In our town there is only one shop to buy clothes and it is not very good.

Not sure I will pop in here until I am back, I don't think I will have anything exciting to report during my trip except hopefully lots of knitting and boring new concepts on the philosophy of ethics in science.

Until the next time....

halloween

What a lovely lovely halloween evening we had! The boys were very fascinated by the pumpkins and how they glowed in the evening. We spent the afternoon with friends. We at dinner together and then gathered around the fire with face paints to try to make some simple face art.

It was raining for some part of the afternoon but stopped right in time for us to go outside trick or treating in the dark.

At the end of the evening we sat on the floor enjoying the treats collected from our neighbours. The boys ate some sweets (and then mamma and pappa ate some too!), but they were so exhausted that it was easy to put them to bed in spite of all the excitement. 

I apologize for the terrible photo quality. The light is really not the best and my small point and shoot camera is starting to struggle already. I am hoping Santa will bring me a new SLR this Christmas cause I really miss it!

Anyway, today we woke up to snow! Finally! Not sure how long it will last but the temperatures are pretty low already so I am hoping the rainy days are over.

frost

I just wanted to share some pictures from our weekend. The temperatures seem to be a little confused these days. One day we are below 0 degrees Celsius and the next day it is +7 degrees.

We have had a lot of rain. Day after day of grey rainy days. There is nothing worse that +2 degrees and rain, no one feels like going out to cold rain! We are looking forward to the snow! The days are getting shorter, already pitch black by 5 p.m. Last years snow arrived on the 22nd of october. It does not seem it will be as early this year. Time will show I suppose.

And thank you all for your good wishes! We are excited about this new addition to our family!

crisp

Autumn is most certainly here up in the far north! We arrived home after two days of traveling to lots of yellow, orange and mostly bare trees.

We have been outside very much these past days enjoying the autumn sun together with the crisp air that comes with it. Nothing can beat a chilly sunny autumn morning. We have been exploring the surroundings and finding how the forest has changed since we left. We are finding lemmings everywhere these days as this is a peak lemming year, the boys are having great fun looking for them and the trying to catch them.

The woollens are out, hats, mittens and thick(er) coats. We had the first frost night of the season a couple of days ago. We were waiting for this time to come to harvest our potatoes. We wanted the potatoes to grow as big and strong as possible and so we left them in the ground until the aboveground green part withered away (by frost). And let me tell you we have alot of potatoes, seriously, a lot. Just try to make the math, we planted about 150 potatoes of which all of them made it through the summer. Each one of those plants has given between 5 and 8 potatoes each. That is a lot of potatoes!!

We are harvesting and harvesting, drying and storing in the cold cellar with hope that most of them will make it through the winter. I will not need to buy a single potato for the next months and that makes me very happy! Needless to say we are having everything with potatoes, mashed, boiled, fried.... you name it. I even had some mashed potatoes in my carrot and tomato soup today!

Anyway, the seasons change fast up here and by the time the rest of the world is celebrating autumn we will have winter upon us. Last year it snowed on the 22nd of october and the snow never left until may. I wonder when it will come this year. I have already been planning lots of warm meals, lots of soups (with potatoes of course!) and lots of yumi desserts with the red and black currants we have also harvested. I am eagerly waiting for the norwegian apples to appear in the market since I want to try to make apple sauce for the first time, and of course many many many apple pies and apple crumbles!

I will be spending some more time at work from next week working with my PhD. Erik will start some days in the kindergarden, Matias is looking forward to taking care of his little brother while they are at the kindergarden. It will be nice to get back to work knowing I will just be working three days a week.
 

nearly back

We have now been in Spain for about two weeks and will be leaving this saturday. Time has gone by really fast and we have enjoyed the sometimes too hot weather. When we get back home after 4 planes and two days traveling, autumn will be nearly over and winter will be on its way. I´m hoping to get a glimpse of the gorgeous autumn colors before they disappear. Last year the first snow arrived in october and did not leave until may.

Here are a few glimpses of our time here in the south.

We attended a beautiful wedding. My friend got married in a lovely and small wedding. It rained all day but we really did not notice. The last time I was together with my old time girlfriends was four years ago, it was about time to meet them again!

We visited a medieval market in town. Sheep, handspun wool, tea, spices, wooden items.... everything sold was handmade. I even found something I have been looking for for a while, a “vuelve tortillas” plate!

And of course we enjoyed once again the very (very!) many playgrounds that are found all over the place here. We have not a single playground were we live, only at the kindergarden, so the boys enjoyed really a lot all the slides, swings, see saw, climbing walls and strange bridges to cross.

On the knitting front, I have done a total of 4 rows on a hat for the last month. For some reason I am a little slow and it probably has to do with that I am completing all my half done projects and not starting anything new. I have however pre ordered this book with lots of yumi patterns waiting for some inspiration. I hope to show some of my finished projects soon, although they are not really new as most of them I started over a year ago!

I hope to post more often once I get back home and everyday life kicks inn. Until then, stay well!

 

a splendid view

What a wonderfull feeling going down to the garden to gather some food for dinner. We have not planted very much this year, but one can make delicious meals with spinach, carrots and some salad.

A splendid view to see my basket full. We are still waiting to harvest the potatoes until the leaves wither and the potatoes are big and sturdy to survive the winter in the cellar.

Otherwise the boys have been enjoying the good weather we are having these days. Maybe summer is not really over? Although everything below 15 degrees is not really summer is it now. Erik is not feeling very well and is growing all four molars at the same time, what is making him a very unhappy toddler for most of the day. He will be joining me for field work again. We are leaving this sunday to Tromsø, but this time my mother is coming with us to help out. 

I just thought to show a little peek of my newly (well a month ago) completed cardigan for myself. It is the soljakke from the pickles girls  and I am totally in love with it. It is a mix of wool and cotton, the perfect companion to chilly evenings or summer days. I hope to show you a few more photos of it soon. And the colors are just fantastic!