For this little hand....

....I feel more love than I've ever felt for anything!! It's the most powerful, purest kind of love. For this hand, I would do ANYTHING....anything and everything! I will happily spend my life trying to make it feel safe, happy, warm, comfortable and loved....unconditionally! I would protect this hand with my life....sacrifice anything and everything without hesitation.... 

....now can you imagine how much love I feel for the rest of her?  ♥

xo

Incredibly unbelievably happily, head-over-heels, above the clouds in love -

December and all of that....

December and only some rare spots of snow here and there remain up here on the hills of Essertines. Winter Wonderland has again turned into a few hundred shades of grey and green and unfortunately, the weather forecasts, if accurate, reveal that this will NOT be a white Christmas. 

For (hopefully) explainable reasons, I am behind with absolutely everything! Lately, I have managed to miss no less than 4 important birthdays (I'm so sorry!) and practically forgot that Christmas is just around the corner and am just realizing exactly how close it is now that presents keep arriving at our place and the few presents we have managed to buy are not even wrapped yet and still have to be sent off! Oh well....at least the Christmas tree is in place and decorated since a week. Hope you guys are more on schedule for Christmas than I am?

Today was such a great day! It started with the postman bringing up two packages filled with christmas gifts from Sweden and so many beautiful Christmas cards from our friends and family.... Afterwards, a "baby-date" with lovely "Piretta" and her adorable baby girl, Charlotte, who is just a few days younger than Allison. After they left, Allison and I spent the afternoon playing, singing and reading stories together and she was in her best sunshiny-kind-of-mood the whooooole day, smiling, "talking" (No really! Like whole sentences in baby language, not just gurgling!! ;)) and being very cuddly. She has started to really listen to what I'm reading to her and, in a big-eyed way, watching the illustrations as the stories unravel. I can't wait for her to start understanding what all these words really mean, as for now, I'm sure my reading sounds to her just like her baby language sounds to me. She also started to play around with trying to put the pacifier back in her mouth without my help when she looses it. This cracks me up as of course, being only 2 months, this works maybe 2 times out of 10, so I end up assisting her lots more than normally as she also now spits it out on purpose just so she can practice her new moves and she gets VERY frustrated when she can't manage ;))

"Piretta", during our country side walk.....

At least there is still snow a bit higher up ;))

On top of this, she fell asleep effortlessly, a little after 8pm (Yep! In her own bed....) and since then, I managed to enhance and speed up the Christmas feeling with a cup of Swedish Glögg, in bed, in my cosy flannel pajama while blogging.....and if I'm lucky, she'll sleep through the night, like she's done most nights since about three weeks now. A happy HAPPY day.

Since my previous post, I have decided to keep blogging, but to re-launch the blog once we move to Sweden under a different name (still to be decided), as obviously by then, I'll be neither lost nor in Switzerland anymore.... I hope you'll follow me there.  
I'd like to thank everyone who sent me amazingly kind feedbacks regarding the blogging! I will try to reply as soon as I find some spare time (yep...I'm behind on this as well ;)).

....and one more thing before I close this laptop down to join Allison in the land of dreams. Who's watching Homeland?? OMG what an amazing season finale!! Best series since Dexter =p

xox

To go or not to go......

...that is the question I've been asking myself now for the past three days! To go or not to go for a walk that is....defying this HORRENDOUS weather! It was so beautifully snowy here a few days ago, but then it started to rain and the result is an ugly, wet and windy 500 shades of grey. For the past three days, I have been on my way out but then changed my mind at the last minute as the weather got increasingly worse......but today I did it!! ...and well, I am happy now that I went - but trust me, I did not enjoy it! In fact, after about 500 meters of walking, the sky opened up and the wet snow came down on us as if to tell me "You idiot! Turn around!". Some sample photos below ;))

Doesn't it look appealing?! Not!

....and then the wet snow came down and it was freeeezing!!

Please note that these pants are supposed to have a very light grey color (some centimeters of the pants are still dry here in this photo ;))....and btw, not so clever of me to go for a walk in this weather in sweat pants 8o) The only clever choice in my outfit were my "Canada snow" boots (which I LOVE!) - so at least my feet stayed dry!

Luckily, our buggy came with rain protection ;))

My unglamorous, un-made and rosy-cheeked faced after having been out in the cold!

One of the best ways to defrost ;)))

Mommies/daddies! Do you take your babies out for strolls in this weather or not?! I feel so incredibly lazy the days when I don't =o/

Now we are back in the warmth of our home and I will use this opportunity of Allison sleeping after the walk to start watching season 2 of "New girl" (loved season 1!) with a very hot cup of coffee. Enjoy your afternoons.......

xox

From white to yellow....

....and with this I am referring to belts! I do believe I have earned an upgrade from the "Motherhood beginners white belt" to the "Motherhood less of a beginner yellow belt" ;))

Recently Allison and I have managed the first pediatricians visit, a 3 hour visit to the office (that, by the way,  included both nappy change and a feeding session), a trip to a fellow blogger mom in Lausanne, the visit of a friend in Geneva including a short walk to/in the city and a trip to the emergency room (no worries - false alarm ;))! Incredible how these easy things now seem like such adventures that require confidence and courage! Simple questions like "Oh my! Should I take the buggy or the baby carrier for this trip"!? or "Am I allowed to bring the buggy into this cafe" arise and feel too silly to even ask someone about without feeling a bit embarrassed about the level I'm at....but what can I say? Everyone was a beginner once.

Anyhow, things are progressing and now we are going for the orange belt..... Question is what that will entail? Grocery shopping maybe? Or traveling somewhere by public transport (brrrrr!!!)?! Yep! Babies change your life for sure....not all for the better, c'mon! That would be a lie (for instance, whoever says that sleeping works better now is either a lier or a VERY lucky mom ;)) ....but it adds soooo much to life that make all those things seem so trivial and unimportant and I'm loving our "new life" more than I could possible describe in words! 

xox

Finally, we are parents!

I am incredibly happy to finally announce the birth of our baby girl, Allison.

She was born at Nyon hospital on Saturday, October 20th. That makes her 6 days old today.... Everything went incredibly well and we are all doing great. She is the most amazing little person and she is filling our lives and hearts with so much love and joy already! 

I am completely overwhelmed with love! I literally can not stop staring at her....listening to her breathing.....smelling her.....holding her...... She is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on and when she looks right at me, everything else fades away in a heartbeat. 

I am now going to completely focus on spending this precious time with our family, so I won't be updating this blog as frequently as before.....at least not until we have established some routines. Please bare with me and I hope to see you here again when I'm back ;))

Oh and btw.....all the parents out there were absolutely right: There is no feeling in the world more powerful and genuine as the love you feel for your child. We are so blessed.....

xox

Ps. I will still be uploading to/updating my Instagram: http://web.stagram.com/n/anderssonlinda/