Halloween Party

Saga and I hosted a Halloween Party this afternoon. We invited four friends and their mothers. Many activities were planned and fun was had by all. Pumpkin painting and cookie decorating were just a few of the exciting events.




The pirate Magdalena and her little kitten Klara.


Saga enjoying her candy, not so into the cookies.



Ulrika the witch (not really, she is the best) and her little princess Elin.

Minna the bear and her little Tiger Vilgot. Spiderman is little Axel.

My little cat fairy .

The sweet girls

Axel boiling his moose skull. He shot this one a few weekends ago. He boils it to clean off all the dirt and yuck so he can hang it on the wall, o boy.

Saga and Elin at Elin's birthday party.

Klara has baby chickens, and Saga got to hold them and actually get in the cage with them, fun.

Axel took a trip to the tannery to pick up animal skins he had taken there a year ago. Here is Saga playing in a pile of fox furs.

We've been dealing with the normal fall sicknesses here. Tomorrow Axel and I are going to a 30th birthday party, and Saga is staying the night at farmors. Have a great weekend!

September Pictures

September has been BUSY!!! We've been so busy that I haven't even taken that many pictures.



Saga wanted to practice for Halloween, so here she is as a fairy cat.


Last Sunday we helped out some friends of the family pick potatoes. I think it's really fun, and this year it was made much easier due to a new sort of machine which dug up the potatoes. We just had to follow after the tractor and pick them up. Saga had fun as well.



Elin looking for the ones left behind.

We have had some pretty amazing mushrooms this Fall. These are a few of the many red and white mushrooms we've found around our house.

Axel walked down the road to shoot a bird he saw when coming home that day. Saga and I followed and we're happily surprised when he emerged from the woods with this bird in hand.

We spent a few days at Helena's parents' house a few hours south of Luleå. They have this statue in their front room. Of course Saga tried to ride on it but she was quickly taken off.



Papa the prince Saga the princess

Here we are at Klara's Princess Party. She turned 3 at the beginning of Sept. We've been spending lots of time with Klara this month. We go swimming together once a week and try to find other ways to play throughout the week.

New Videos

>p>

Cars, cars, cars from Kate Nordmark on Vimeo.

The Wrestler from Kate Nordmark on Vimeo.

Finally!!!

I'm finally finding time to update the blog. The last three weeks have been spent focusing on getting my Swedish Driver's License. I was allowed to drive for one year on my American license (four years later) I've finally got it! Anyway, I now feel like I can get back to my regular evening jobs (blog, reading, internet browsing).

Here are a few late sunmmer pictures. The middle of August brings crawfish season. It has become a tradition to spend an evening with family friends catching some crawfish, and then eating them the next night. I was in charge of bringing dessert, so I slipped a picture of my yummy pie/cake. More pictures to come of Axel's birthday, but I somehow got sucked into reading the Twilight Series and just need to head over to the couch and finish book two (waiting for Edward to come back!!!).



Saga's playhouse

Our yummy peas we grew in the garden.


The crawfish

The Crawfish Party (Not sure why we all have to wear goofy hats but...)





It was a great night. Everyone went home very very full!

Norway

We had an awesome time on our road trip to Norway. I highly recommend taking a drive on the islands called Lofoten in northern Norway. The cabins were cozy and the weather beautiful. The best part was spending quality time with my two favorites.







Sunday (the day we left) was spend celebrating Alina's birthday.

Texas was in position and ready to go! He rode up there the whole time. We left Sunday night around 10 PM. We wanted Saga to sleep and she did until we stopped to sleep as well. She crawled in back with me and we finally fell asleep.

Our first night was spent in the car.

Axel slept outside in his sleeping bed. We woke him up because we were HUNGRY and wanted to go get some breakfast!!

Cabin #1

Trying to stay cool in our first cabin of the trip. Loving the bunk beds!

Beach in Narvik, it was so HOT!

These shoes were wore while, in the carseat, for about 75 % of the trip.

Saga really wanted Texas to wear her hat.

Trolls trolls everywhere. It seems to be a very Scandinavian Thing.

A little down time was needed while watching a movie.

The view from cabin #2.

Dinner on the patio. What a wonderful place to be!

Our cabin is the one right behind us with the grass roof.

The theme of the trip was "bunkbeds". Saga loves bunk beds and three out of four cabins we stayed in had them. She was THRILLED to say the least, up down up down. This is probably classified as a bunk bed but whatever it was fun!

My girl!!

We found a great beach just two minutes from our cabin. Hours were spend looking for glass and shells. It doesn't go to capture the beauty in a picture.

Saga really wanted to go up on that rock.

Papa was more then willing to find a way to get her up.

Enjoying the outdoor faucet.

A cup of coffee while waiting for the ferry to show up.

We took a 4 hour ferry ride to our last destination.

A very tired little girl on the ferry

We head outside to get some fresh air and wake up a bit.

Axel having a snack before bed. Our last stop was at Jenny and Andrea's cabin on our way back home.

Home Sweet Home.

Saga is into face painting right now. We're cats, can't you tell???

Celebrations

Our internet is back. I really don't spend much time on the computer everyday, usually just look at a few things daily. But when one is without it seems really strange. Life has been busy as usual here. Birthdays, visitors, trips to the beach, what fun we have!! On Sunday we head off to Norway for a little road trip. We'll be gone a week. I'm sure I'll be back with lots of pictures to share. Everyone we've talked to about northern Norway says it's extremely beautiful. We are ready for a family trip. Axel has been working all summer, most Swedes take 5 weeks off in the summer. So this will be his first week off in a long time, YEAH!!

These pictures are for my mom. She asks about the flowers she planted all the time so I thought I'd show her a few pictures.

They look beautiful mom, thanks!

Axel's Dad celebrated his 61st birthday on Wednesday. BBQ and cake out on their new deck, yum.

We had playgroup at our house this week. Every Tuesday a few of us get together and let the kids play while we chat. We look forward to Tuesdays every week. The weather has been beautiful the last few days, many a meal has been eaten outside.

Axel's cousin (Matilda) and her new baby(Henning, I love that name), 3 months old, came for a visit this week. Saga loves when babies come to visit. She is so loving and sweet with them.

Saga and Baby Henning, yes he's only three months old and BIG!

Axel and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary on Monday. We headed to town for an after dinner treat and some quality time to just talk. Love being married to Axel, we live such a great life together.

It's all about babies now a days. She plays with them , acts like she is one, Axel and I are the babies and she's the mama. She LOVES BABIES!!!


Here she is nursing her baby.

A rare family shot. Of course Saga is looking away.

My little princess.

No, she didn't climb up there by herself but really wanted to. She talks about climbing trees all the time. I just can't seem to find one where she can actually get to climb up it.
We've been without internet for a few days due to a thunderstorm which blew up our modem. Been busy hanging with family and friends all week long. Arvid and Helena were here visiting this weekend. Summer is flying by, but we can't say we aren't enjoying every second of it.