Bounce!

I bet you are wondering why these photos are all random. Well let me tell you a little story...

We received Ethan's Birthday Box from Aunty Nini - it was filled with Ethan balloons, Ethan candles, Ethan confetti, party hats, cake mix, sprinkles, streamers, a star cake tin, and hats!

This afternoon we received our bubble stick and showed Ethan his first bubbles

As it was another beautiful day outside, Ethan, Jen, Lesley and I went to the Prince's St gardens to hang. Ethan was very brave and crawled to various people around us and made them laugh.
Sunday, Peter, Ethan and I went for brunch with Alyssa, Alistair and Esme at our local. It is so nice to finally get the hubbies out to meet and see the kiddies interact.
Meanwhile at home, Ethan is a shoe demon.
...
And finally some more photos of our fun family! Enjoy!!

Just dance!

'Mouse Man' and his sidekick Mo

Happy 1st Father’s Day!

...on June 11th... Or is it?

Funny story! So I was talking to Shaena on the phone on my way home from work today, as per usual. I mentioned that it had been a long day with a marathon meeting from 9.15am all the way up until 5.15pm so I was zonked. Shaena then said: “I’ll make you a nice cup of coffee for you when you come home.” When I got home, she did exactly that. Shaena came down from the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee in a brand new cup! The cup had our family photos printed on it and said “Happy 1st Father’s Day June 11th 2010!”.

That was of course so nice and ‘so Shaena’ to surprise me like that!

Now you are thinking: “Sure, cute, but what was so funny about that?” Well let me tell you:

1. As Shaena already mentioned (when she hastily posted the last entry to beat me to the punch) she literally cannot stop herself from handing over a gift directly after the purchase or at least well in advance before the actual occasion. In other words, Shaena is a pathological pre-occasion-gift-giver. Yep, that is a medical condition, in case you did not know. If for some reason Shaena can manage to hide the gift from herself and resist the temptation of handing it over, she will subconsciously continue to give away so many hints and clues as to what is hidden under the gift wrapping and where the gift is hidden, so you can fairly easily piece the puzzle together.

2. Father’s Day is not on the 11th of June in any country in the civilized world. It is on the 20th of June here in the UK and on November 8th in Sweden.

From now on however, June 11th will be our official Father’s Day. Thank you baby, the cup is lovely!

I've invented the Harrison-Helin Father's Day

That's right - Father's Day in this house is the 11th of June EVERY YEAR! And...as we all know the tradition, presents are given when they are purchased. Peter is the happy new owner of a coffee mug splashed with 15 photos of his loving family. :)

Ethan and his girls

Another beautiful day in the Burgh!

+25 and not a cloud in the sky, we decided to head out to get some breakfast grub and go to Princes St gardens for some fun in the sun. We ventured to Wannaburger where they had delicious American style pancakes drizzled in maple syrup and a side of bacon. Can we say mmmmmm? Ethan devoured every bite that didn't hit the ground and so did Daddy!

We settled the bill and waltzed down to the gardens and picked a lovely spot in the shade. Ethan was a bit tired so he passed out and we proceeded to take photos of him and the surroundings (as per usual).

Once he awoke we took a stroll around and dipped our feet in the big statue in the middle of the park and danced around to some celidgh music being played by violinists. This city really is amazing all year round!

Ethan is a natural comic though. He likes to do things to make people around him laugh...and he does!

Thanks boys for a lovely day out!

Poor Ethan is feeling a bit under the weather

Our little Ethan is not his normal happy self today; he is snotty, tired and a bit cranky. He got to play with his new colourful balls this morning and that seemed to cheer him up though. He figured out that he could smack the balls so that they rolled across the room, chase after them and then repeat the procedure. That kept him busy for a while. He just downed a bottle of formula and has gone down for a nap. When he wakes up he’ll notice that there is a little bit less room in his playpen.

The reason for this is that I have dumped all 100 balls in his playpen, and hopefully he’ll appreciate it. If not, we’ll most likely have to pick the balls off the floor after he has tossed them out of his domains. Actually, it is fairly likely we’ll have to pick them up from the floor either way.

Ethan and I also had a bit of a magical moment this morning. His nose was snotty and he was whining so I picked him up and put him on my chest so he could rest his head on my housecoat. I then gave him my mobile phone, which I know he likes to play with, and we played Jason Mraz’ “I’m yours” on repeat. Ethan then calmed down and just laid still and hugged me for a while. What a fantastic feeling to know that your child has such faith in you and can instantly feel safe and secure just by being close.

"So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure
There's no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours"

Booya!

The visitor counter on this humble blog of ours just flipped over to 5 digits!

Thank you very much to all of you for continuing to follow
our little family's antics here on 'The Chronicles'!

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoy living it! :)

Party on a school night

This week has been a bit of a weird one at work as we have had so many international visitors coming and going in the office. All in all, we have seen 1 CEO, 2 VPs, 1 MD, 1 Director, and 3 Finance Managers pass through the turnstiles. Having all of these leaders in one place is a rare occasion for us so the in the weeks leading up to this one we have been planning and inviting everyone to an informal shindig, which finally went down last night.

We had reserved a room at The Three Sisters bar, had a buffet organized, had nice drink vouchers printed, had achievement awards organized for the team and we had even been ambitious enough to fly in an entertainer from down south in England! All in!

The party was a blast and Martin the entertainer was just amazing! He did pub quiz games, a hula competition, a limbo competition (which I made it to the top 4 in!) and he did a game called ‘Suck My Balls’ where each participant had to move ball pool balls from one bucket to another by only using mouth suction!

I made my way home around 1am and was up with E-man at 6 so could definitely use a couple of winks right about now.

What a glorious day!

Ethan and I were going to nip out of the house for a wee while to get some things from Boots but when we stepped outside we realised that it was a beautiful hot sunny day so instead we phoned up a recent addition to our friend crew (Alyssa originally from Kelowna and little Esme) and went to their local private gardens.

Today was my first time ever in a keyed garden and they are sure well looked after. The park had slides, swings, sandboxes and tons of extra toys! Ethan was in heaven and it was only the 4 of us which was nice.

Yesterday we went to Monkey Bizness, which is a larger than life scale version of a McDonald's play place. Unfortunately it was a school holiday which we were unaware of so it was jammed packed. Guess that is what we have to look forward to as Ethan gets older! Aaah.

It has been so nice getting to know some local moms and watching the kids interact. Ethan loves all his girlfriends and doesn't really have any competition in the boy sector. Must have been a popular year for girls last year!!

Tomorrow we may go swimming with some moms and babies...unless the day was like today and we'll have to spend it in the park again!

Oh and not to worry, we were wearing SPF 50!

What a difference three quarters of an hour makes!

After several sleepless nights and very early mornings because of our little buddy’s new summer morning schedule and utter lack of understanding of his parents severe need for beauty sleep, we now have a temporary solution in place.

Shaena, crafty as she is, pulled out our old moving boxes and packing tape from the storage closet and covered the windows in Ethan’s room. It's not pretty but a genius move as it turns out as Ethan is now getting what seems to be a deep sleep again and is not waking up as early. Believe me when I say that 45 minutes makes a world of a difference in the morning! Ethan is still expecting playtime and fun and games at 5.30am, but that is definitely the preferred option to 4.45am!

Next up is to actually measure our windows and purchase real blackout blinds, hopefully in the next couple of days and definitely before the summer.

Speaking of which; I am very curious and anxious to see how we will all react to the (in)famous Swedish midnight sun! For those of you who have not heard of the midnight sun: Up north in Sweden the sun basically never goes down at the height of summer, which of course is fantastic and really cool as it makes your days so much longer, but it also makes it very difficult to sleep unless you are either used to it or you have covered your windows very carefully.

When I was younger and lived up there the midnight sun did not bother me at all as I was so used to it, but now that I haven’t been up there for such a long time, I have a feeling it will take a few days to reacquaint myself to this phenomenon again. For Shaena and Ethan, adjustments will definitely have to be made as the midnight sun is nothing like anything they have ever seen before.

Suggested alternative solutions to bridge this include but are not limited to:

- Blacked out ski/swim style sleep-goggles for everyone
- To cover a big cardboard box in garbage bags and simply put the box over Ethan's cot overnight

Oh well, I guess time will tell.

Harrison-Helin goes local newspaper

A couple of weeks ago, NSD, the largest newspaper in northern Sweden where I am from was looking for a ‘dad-blogger’ to write for their online edition, www.nsd.se. I sent them an email and suggested that that blogger could be me and also included a link to this blog. The other day they emailed me back and said “You are welcome to contribute as our new dad-blogger!” and yesterday my new blog was set up. I struggled a little bit with finding a catchy name for the blog but Grandma Michelle came to the rescue and suggested “Daddy knows best!” or “Pappa vet bäst!” in Swedish. "Catchy, memorable and short. So be it!", I thought and got the blog-show on the road.

Last night I wrote and posted my first Swedish blog entry ever and I am now curious to find out how this new blog will be received. You can check it out here if you like.

Wish me luck!

5am is the new 9am

Springtime in Edinburgh and the sun is rising earlier than before, as expected. As first time parents we have learned another important parenting lesson in the last couple of days and weeks that we would like to share with those of you who haven't had the pleasure yet: Get blackout blinds as fast as you possibly can or suffer the consequences!

Ethan is now waking up at the crack of dawn around 5am and is playful as ever. We are not as enthusiastic over the dawn of day but don't really have a choice but to wake up and play along. On top of that; last night/this morning was extra draining as we had to listen to another street fight in the middle of the night. Wonder why our street is so prone to street fighting in the wee hours of the morning? Must be that dodgy Cuban nightclub across the street...

So, dear wife... sorry about the 5am grumpyness. Let's get those blinds sorted! ;)

A typical Saturday out

Ethan laughing at daddy's mad air-drumming skills

Who knew IKEA could be so much fun?

Yesterday afternoon we took a drive out to IKEA with Piers and Lesley. Shaena and I were on the prowl for some more flat packed cheap-o furniture to fill our little household with and Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd-Agunnaryd is of course the Mecca for this. So off we went. Some might think that bringing a baby to a furniture supermarket would be tedious, exhausting work but actually, it is a tons of fun!

Ethan was great and we had him jumping in beds, he got to roll around in a case containing 4 million cushions, he got to stand in a big tin bin while people were walking by thinking "what is that cute baby doing in that bucket?" and once we got to the kids furniture and toys section, that's when the fun started!

They had all these masks and hats to try on and who would ever miss an opportunity for public humiliation like that? We wouldn't, that's for sure. Poses were made and pictures were taken. Unfortunately the pictures are currently held hostage on Shaena's phone (Well, I am not technical enough to bluetooth them to her Mac) but I bet they will be posted here very shortly.

To round things off, Ethan and I were running all over the self-service area, 'Tokyo-drifting' with his stroller and having a total blast! Babies sure are fun!

We are in business! PeterHelin.com is officially live!

Exciting times! My website, PeterHelin.com, for my freelance web design stuff was finalized today and now it is available for public admiration on, stating the obvious here, www.peterhelin.com. I really hope you all get a chance to check it out and bask in its glory cause it was hard work figuring out what would work best for this type of business. There is still work to do of course and the Swedish section of the page is not nearly there but definitely 'one step for man'.

FOR SALE! Calling all people to tell a friend of a friend of a friend. Let's get this house sold!

Nini has packed up and is now selling her house in Grand Forks, North Dakota. She moved there a few years back and picked up this beauty of a historical home that was damaged by the 1997 flood. She took her time to restore it to its natural beauty and is sad to leave it as it is much loved but never the less, it is for sale.
So calling all people whom know of someone looking for a new home for an amazing price! - please pass on the good word! It is being sold through Crary Real Estate and the link is here http://www.craryrealestate.com/search.cfm?func=details&ID=11729

Description: Great historic home with character! 4+ bedrooms, 2.5 baths, double garage, fenced yard, patio, front & back porches, a lot of new windows, 4-stain glass windows, newer appliances, 2 staircases to 2nd floor, refinished hardwood floors. New light fixtures, paint, ext doors, central air to the 2nd floor. Beautiful rail & spindle staircase. New gutters, shingles '02

Here are a few photos.