Första Advent

In Sweden the four Sundays prior to Christmas are celebrated by lighting candles. A candlestick with four holders= Adventstake. The first Sunday, you light the first candle and let it burn for a little while, then the second Sunday you light the first one and the one right next to it. And so on and so on until all four candles are lit on the last sunday before Christmas. The fourth Sunday before Christmas is called "Första Advent". This Sunday is usually looked forward to more than the others as this one is kind of an official welcome of Christmas. (Kind of like the day after Thanksgiving, minus the shopping frenzy) It is often celebrated with church services, and mass. I was asked to play in a little quartet at one of the big churches down town, Gustav Adolfskyrkan. So of course I said yes. I didn't get a whole lot of good pics since it was already dark at 5 p.m. when it started. And I didn't have any family or friends with me to play camera dude/dudette. So here's what I got. I also included a pic of our little "Adventstake" that the girls and I lit Sunday night while eating ginger snapp cookies and dipping them in milk.

I'm not sure, but I think it's supposed be Moses,
I just thought it was kind of cool with a face sticking out of the wall :)

This was a picture carved out of wood

Some pretty paintings at the front of the church

This is the back of the Church where the big Organ is

The Four musicians :)

Here's a little clip of the girls downing their treat. Sorry, it's all in Swedish ;)
Here's a little Advents poem

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TAGGED

I've been Tagged
(I love being tagged)

4 RANDOM THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY HUSBAND:
1- He's a lover not a fighter
2- He is tall (I never thought I'd get a tall one ;)
3- He is great at making dinner
4- He knows just how to handle me

4 JOBS I'VE HAD
1- Life guard
2- Locker room attendant
3- Personal assistant
4- Home health care

4 TV SHOWS I WATCH:
1- Bolibompa? (It's a kids program)
2- Crimes shows (sometimes)
3- The news
4- I'm struggling with this one........I REALLY don't watch much T.V. at all

4 PEOPLE WHO EMAIL ME REGULARLY:
1- Stacie (What are friends for huh? LOVE you babe)
2- ?
3- ?
4- ?

4 OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
1- Salmon, just about any way
2- Mediterranean foods (Especially Greek....tzatziki...OOOh I'm drooling)
3- Spicy stuff, Mexican
4- Salty licorice shots (does that count as a food) ?

4 PLACES I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT:
1- Italy
2- London
3- New York (been there, but it was too short and fast of a visit)
4- Grand Canary Islands

4 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THE COMING YEAR:
1- Just being at home w. my family (I stole that one from you Stacie)
2- Going Sledding (Stole that one too)
3- Moving to the states!
4- Seeing lots and lots of family and friends that I haven't seen for a long time.

4 PEOPLE I TAG:
1- Chelsey
2- Sara
3- Jodie
4- Kellie
(and anyone else who wants to play)

-Michaela-

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We love to play

Can you imagine; it's raining today...again! I have the day off so we decided to do something fun indoors. We went to Lekborgen to hang out and play with great friends. Ida and her two kids met up with us to play. It was a blast! We just love Lekborgen, and it sure doesn't hurt that it is just about next door. Boy are we going to miss the Horvatic family when we move :(
Thanks for a great play day.

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The paper work has been started!

So we took another (some of you know what I mean) trip to Stockholm to get our paper work started for my green card. Lucky for us, our girls are really nice on road trips. All they needed was a few coloring books and a barbie doll to keep them happy (and some candy).

We decided to make this trip an over-night-er. We were able to see Mathilda perform with her guitar on Friday. She is quite the talented woman. For those who don't know, Mathilda is my half sibling on my dad's side. She is fourteen and is really good at playing the guitar.

We squoze in a fast visit at the Bautista's new place. They are some friends that used to live in Borås. Elsa played a lot with their daughter and Elsa still talks about her ALL the time. (Sorry Anja, we would have dropped by your place as well if we had had more time) We spent Friday night at a really cheap motel place called Formule 1 in Stockholm. We had a tiny room with a double bed and then a single bed which was above (bunker style) the double one. The girls slept with me in the double bed. Need I say, I hardly got any sleep at all. I kept waking up every other hour cause the blankets were all over the place and the room was freezing.

Saturday we went to the castle and just hung out. We walked around and tried to gather some pics so that the girls can look at them when they're a little older and perhaps don't remember being in Stockholm. It was a super windy day (like usual) and rainy and gray (like usual) but we had a good time anyway. Then we went to the mall and met up with Mathilda and her family. We walked around there for a while. I didn't buy anything. Amazing! We were quite short on money this month since this was our 2nd trip to Stockholm in one week and my paperwork had a hefty fine that accompanied the filing process. Then we went home with the Holsts and "fikade". Kajsa manged to drop a glass bowl on the floor and it shattered into a thousand pieces. Oh, the joys of children. Elsa told us that she wants to live with Mathilda and we had to bribe the kids with more candy to get them to come with us home. We made it home in one piece and honestly I'm looking forward to the next Stockholm trip. We should be doing another one here shortly for my interview. But for now, we should be busy busy with lots of paperwork.

Here are a bunch of random pictures from our little trip and a little video.

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Kajsa Cutie!

Here is an adorable picture of my baby.
I'm not going to post the other ones......We're saving them for some Holiday fun :)

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Lookie Sara, I did it!

Okay, this is my VERY first attempt at playing with photo shop stuff. I didn't really do much to the picture. I Just kind of made it "softer" But it was lots of fun. It took me FOREVER just to get this little pic done. What I am most proud of is that I did it COMPLETELY on my own. (From opening the paint program to doing this post......Thad is sleeping. He's going to be so proud of me) I am not good at computer stuff, and the fact that I figured out how to change this picture into a jpeg format must be the coolest thing I've done in weeks. I ALWAYS, ALWAYS get Thad do to stuff for me on the computer that I don't know how to do. Well, there ya have it. This is a picture of Elsa that I took today just for fun. I got the girls all dressed up and bribed them with candy if they'd cooperate with me. I got a TON of good pics of both the girls. Due to the late hour and because I'm super slow at this stuff I'll have to post a cute pic of Kajsa later.

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We support Barack Obama!
(Ja, Jag snodde bilden från dig Anja)

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Halloween Party...again!

On Saturday evening we were invited to go to a friends Halloween party. Since Kajsa was sick with a fever, Thaddeus volunteered to stay home with her. So Elsa and I went alone. Elsa borrowed Kajsa's Ariel costume....and Kajsa borrowed Elsa's Belle costume here at home :) It was lots of fun. I didn't get a whole lot of pic and instead tried to kife some from from someone else....but my technology skills are lacking, so I only ended up with these few.

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Halloween Party!

Well, we finally had our little Halloween Bash. It seemed as though all of the kids had lots of fun so I'm going to claim it as a success :) Like always Thad did most of the work (I mostly delegate) Lucky for us he had friday off. He carved THE perfect pumpkin and made a great dessert (no pic of it..we ate it to quickly) He also made sugar cookies for the kids to decorate. We had a few different games/activites. The most fun activity we did was have a scavenger hunt, but sadly it was sooooooo exciting that we forgot to take pictures! I guess that can be a good thing too :) Here are some cute pics of the evening. If Kajsa looks a little tired and worn out it's because when the night was finally over we noticed she was quite warm, when we took her temperature she had a pretty high fever.
39.3 C Poor kid

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