Bluegrass + G N' R = Cool redneck rock

What do you get if you cross redneck banjo and fiddle tunes with classic Guns N' Roses rock songs? Well, a workmate of mine introduced me to this weird and wonderful combo and I kinda dig it!

Royal wedding frenzy around the world...

...and this is how Ethan felt about the whole thing:

Easter – Check!

Easter long weekend was a hoot! A great combination of r’n’r, playtime and getting stuff done around the house. On Thursday afternoon pretty much everyone in Sweden had a half day as, after all, you need a bit of time off work to mentally prepare yourself for time off work. Makes perfect sense. So around noon, Shaena and Ethan came to pick me up from the office and Shaena had prepared a picnic that was had in Humlegården; a huge park in Stockholm city centre. The weather was fantastic and Ethan was running around like a madman in the park! Great way to start the long weekend!

On Good Friday we decided to go for a drive and check out the sights around Stockholm so the Harrison Ford took us out to Vaxholm, a well-known summer destination for ‘Stockholmians’. Vaxholm as a place to live is a bit on the posh side and there are lots of sizeable, gorgeous houses right by the water out there so we had look around there and then enjoyed another picnic in a park and playground. Once again, E ran around like a madman at the playground and was happier than a tornado in a trailer park!

The rest of the weekend was basically spent at IKEA, thinking about IKEA or putting stuff from IKEA together. Well, that didn’t sound too exciting did it? But actually, it was and we got a lot of stuff done and even managed to… wait for it… close off the last item on the ‘wish list’ once and for all! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the wish list; Shaena had a rider-type list of a few things she absolutely wanted when we moved to Sweden, like an iPhone, a car and a dishwasher. The iPhone and the car you already know about and now we’ve also secured a brand new dishwasher! Very exciting times and this shiny new puppy is getting installed on Monday.

Oh, and we managed to squeeze in and host a pancake breakfast for 10 on Easter Monday as well! You can’t go wrong with Canadian-style pancakes and what a great way to round off a fabulous weekend!

Next up: A visit from Winnipeggers Lauren and Art!

Schleeep! Night night choo choo!

Sleep has been something that has lacked in our household since Master Ethan was born. He never really got the hang of sleeping through the night until we moved to Sweden and now we still get the occasional nightly call to his room...well things have changed! This past weekend we bought him his first big boy bed at Ikea and rather than him trying to lead us to our room for night night, he actually wanted to get into his own bed tonight! Hurrah! Major successful milestone!

Hard to believe we only have roughly 8 weeks though till the sleepless nights start again with H2! Ha! Ah, we're prepared and ready for him and feel much better the 2nd time round as we sort of know what to expect (let's hope!)

Inside El Flaterino - Part II

Ethan's new sleeping quarters/play place

Our balcony kitted out with a new set of table and chairs

Lights and reflections

Shaena's bedside orchid

The projector finally made it up on the wall

Just pure vanity

Ethan 22 months

Various signs of Swedish summer

Diggin' for gold...

Doing "1, 2, 3...wheee!" with mommy and Uncle Henry...

First time ever on a tricyle...

Shopping outdoor furniture at IKEA...

...and finally; our first barbeque dinner on our balcony.

All good signs of the approaching Swedish summer. It is going to be awesome!

Ethan's Easter concoction

Nothing screams 'Happy Easter everyone!' more than a bright yellow orange juice drink with added crayons.

Like son...like father!

Yesterday was our first "red day" preparation. Here in Sweden, most companies allow their staff the afternoon off before the official holiday the following day. How awesome is that?

Ethan and I decided that we would meet Daddy at work and bring a picnic and go to the park. It was a glorious day outside reaching a high of +20 and the sun could not stop shinning. Poor Ethan didn't have a hat he would wear so we greased him up with tons of sunscreen and his hair looked mighty awesome to say the least.

After lunch, we took a walk around Stockholm and ended up going to Kulturhuset - Rum for Barn, which is a library with hidden nooks and crannies for kids to crawl about. I took Ethan there when we first moved to Stockholm and took this lovely picture of him:

Mind you, Peter wanted to have a go at this as well:

What a fun filled weekend we have in store. More to follow!

E-man got spoilt. Again!

Once again we’ve had family visiting and once again Ethan has been showered in gifts!

Aunty Isabel and Uncle Henry came to visit and both of them brought Ethan really cool gifts.

Aunty Isabel’s been prowling the more rockish shops up north and brought Ethan a couple of awesome t-shirts and a couple of pairs of converse-type skate shoes so

Ethan is now strutting around in a badass Rolling Stones shirt and has a policeman and a fireman t-shirt lined up for when he is a wee bit older.

Isabel also brought a few things with her that Grandpa Stefan had bought. Things with more of a cultural reference to Lapland: A near-live size stuffed reindeer and a reindeer keeper’s hat! I guess you just never know when a reindeer keeper's hat will come in handy down here in Stockholm! ;)

Henry on the other hand, being a bit more traditional, brought Ethan a Duplo Lego tiger and zookeeper. Ethan and the zookeeper had a bath together last night. As you do.

Thank you very much guys!

Shopping Cart Ethan

(patience sold separately)

“Ethan, it’s bedtime!”

Us: ”Ethan, it is time to go to bed”
Ethan: “Maamush!”

Us: “No Monsters, it’s bedtime”
Ethan: “Carsch!”

Us: “No Cars, it’s bedtime”
Ethan: “Toysch!”

Us: "No Toys, it's bedtime"
Ethan: "Paper!"

Us: "No paper, it's bedtime"
Ethan: "Yimmy!"

Us: "No Timmy, it's bedtime!"
Ethan: "Choo-choo!"

Us: "No Choo-choo, it's bedtime!"
Ethan: "Bappo!"

Us: "No bottle, it's bedtime!!!"

Ethan: "Night night cars, night night yimmy, night night maamush..."

Strong Man!

A rare occurrence: A Helin sibling dinner

I can’t even remember the last time we all sat down for a meal together. It has literally been years and years! All the Helin kids gathered around the table. Tonight; Uncle John, Aunty Isabel, Uncle Henry and myself (and Shaena, Mikaela, Ethan and Elias of course) met up at ours and enjoyed a good ‘ol home cooked meal.

Ethan and Elias on the other hand had a total blast running around chasing each other around the house, to the point where both of them were completely exhausted and asked to either go to bed or go home!

Thanks for a good evening peeps!

A shiny new country...a shiny new car!

As Peter has mentioned, I had my list of "must haves" for our relocation to Sweden. Well low and behold we started car shopping recently and what an interesting experience it has been. First off, if you know us, you know how much we like to research before committing to anything concrete. So blocket and bytbil have been on our internet histories the last few weeks for a daily visit. We thought, while in Sweden, in an Ikea built house, how perfect would it be for us to have a Swedish made car...like a Volvo!?

This past sunday we thought we found one that ticked all the boxes we were looking for...were we so very wrong. Since coming to Sweden, I haven't had a moment where I was nervous but this area we drove into did give me the heebie jeebies. The gentleman we spoke to told us that his Volvo was a 1997 model with 16000-ish miles and had all his service records. Turns out the car was an import, meaning no service records (or even accurate ones if he actually had them), 30k miles and was actually a 1996 model! What a load of crap!

We took Peter's brother John with us just to be on the safe side as he knows cars and how to haggle. At the end, the guy knew we weren't very impressed with his sale and asked the boys "so how much would you offer" and John politely gave a figure that was more accurate to the car this guy was selling. At this point he turned sour and said "Go home!"...and so we did.

Later that night, I was perusing the market and happened across this wonderful looking Ford Focus. Although it wasn't one of our original ideas, the ad said it was a great family vehicle and I thought it would be worth taking a look. So Peter phoned the owner who was more than happy to talk shop and agreed to meet us the following night near both our houses. Turned out this car was also in our Kommun! How perfect eh?

The following night we met with one of the owners and she was fantastic and so was the car. This couple were in the exact same position when they bought it 4 years prior. One child with one on the way so that was reassuring that they knew what we were looking for. Now it was time to talk price and when it came to haggling, she said she better involve her husband and took us over to their house.

We thought we'd be in for a tough sale and bartering though when we offered our amount to the husband he said "perfect"! Car sold! Ethan played around the house with their kids while we signed some last minute papers. Happy Shaena and off we drove into the sunset!

'The Harrison Ford'

...next up, a dishwasher!

Nini's creation!

You all remember Aunty Nini - the amazing seamstress behind Ethan's quilt? Well she has outdone herself again! This past Christmas, her gift to me was to fashion my very own designer diaper bag! So to the quilt store in Appleton we went, and I had some colours in mind. When we got there though, once perusing around the store, what was to take 20 minutes took about an hour as we kept changing the fabrics and re-matching them and finding something else we liked. Mind you, we only had 4 colours to choose!

Well yesterday I received a very excited call to say that the bag of my dreams was complete! Check out these photos.

Think we should start our own webshop!

Thank you Aunty Nini! Can't wait to get my mitts on it and start filling it full of stuff!

21 things at 21 months

Oh Ethan, how funny you are!

1. For any meal time you call it "Bapeecht", this includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks...


2. When going night night you must say goodbye to the choo choo, car, daddy, mommy, and anything else you can think of to avoid going night night.


3. When we say "all done" for bath time, you splash around like a maniac and get us soaked! thankfully the bathroom is a wet room and it doesn't matter what gets soaked.


4. You like to say "God!" and stick your hands straight up in the air


5. Anytime after a meal time your hair becomes styled with whatever you were eating.


6. You love saying "Daddy" to random men on the street so I get weird looks from people standing around.


7. You call all of your stuffed animals "woof woofs" and give them great hugs and kisses.


8. You love to chase around the neighbourhood cat and yell "cat" while scurrying after it.


9. When I say we are going for a walk, you diligently walk to the front door and bring me back my shoes and then yours.


10. You are obsessed with "Timmy Time" and I think you might be taking a bit after him and his devilish ways cause you saw him knock over a sandcastle and then this week you did that to a poor unsuspecting kid in the park.


11. You now have a new show other than Timmy, thank god! You yell "lowla" around the house until we put "Charlie and Lola" on for you.


12. You are a party animal! Anytime we have guests over you love being the centre of attention. You are too cute!


13. When I ask you to wink and click click you shut both your eyes and click your tongue while pointing your fingers like guns.


14. You are a daredevil in the pool. You do not want any assistance when jumping into the pool and you still have no idea how to not swallow pool water! Silly


15. You are very independent. A little too much for our liking at times but we are sure you'll come around.


16. You prefer to run around in a diaper for hours at a time and when I try to get you dressed you run away and hide in your tent.


17. You must push around any broom you see. Even if it is far across the room and isn't even ours.


18. You can spot balls from miles away and you yell "ball" when you see them. I think your vision far outdoes Supermans!


19. When Daddy comes home from work everyday you get so excited and run to the door giving him a big hug! What a way to be greeted!


20. You love counting. When I say "one" you say "TWOOO" then I say "three", you say "TWOO" and so on.


21. You are a great at using Skype. You like to feed Grandma/Grandpa/Farmor/Farfar and try to stick food into my computer.

To think that you are not even 2 yet. What fun things you have in store for us!

Love you butterball!

Weekend to Åland - Relaxing at the hotel

Weekend to Åland - Around Mariehamn

Weekend to Åland - Ethan's new "No!" face

Weekend to Åland - Cruisin'