Day with Mickie and Friends...

Elly M. with Sofia...

Elly M. teething...

This is Elly M. and Sofia... Sofia is a very cool Swedish girl...

We went to Sofia's house yesterday to hang out. She is a very fun girl. She had a couple little rubber duckies that Elly M..couldn't get enough of and the coolest sunglasses that she really enjoyed wearing. I found out that there are pretty normal friendly people here in Sweden, too bad so sad that we only have 2 weeks left. hopefully those really nice people will come to Memphis to visit us......

elly m.'s model shots

here is our beautiful baby doing some modeling shots.... for diapers of course.

havin' fun...

Just a few pics. of us havin' fun with little elly m. I imagine that she will only become more fun with age. she is such a hoot now though!

Crazy hair...

crazy haired lady!!! what in the world am i going to do with this hair.... somedays... i mean it is just wild when she gets up!

the stupid picture poster is out of sorts today.

Elly M. and Elly J. so happy together!!! We are really going to miss Mormor when we leave here, she has made our time here much easier often times. She is a very very special woman! We all love her.

captions included

Teeth, teeth and more teeth. elly m. woke up this morning with two more popping up.... i guess they don't stop until they are finished!!! Ta-da!

the house

This is the house that we are probably going to move into in memphis. this man that is renting it out is so great. he sent us pictures over email. It seems really nice and perfect for what we need... Yeah!!!! A place to live.

This morning....

after we ate some snow, elly m.'s hands were pretty cold, and okay, she hadn't had a bath in a couple days, decided it was time for some new bath tub shots. Jonathan would probably say that it looks as though i am posting the same picture over and over again, but i feel as though each one shows a different angle of our babies extreme cuteness. anyways... i hope you enjoy.

Update on life in general: I am corresponding with a guy in memphis about a house that our friends might have found us. it sounds almost too good to be true. a washer, dryer, dishwasher, hardwood floors, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, a deck for all those wild parties that we don't have, but maybe we could save up some cash and buy a grill to cook hotdogs on this summer, that might be all we can afford...anyways... this guy wrote me and is going to send me some pics. sometime, so maybe i will post those on the blog when he sends them. i really hope it works out. it would be nice to have an extra bedroom for guests to stay in like my mom, sister and elijah, because i know that they want to come see me and the fam. in memphis. maybe someday we could even have a foreign exchange student. i always thought that would be fun. maybe even one from sweden. hmmm..maybe not.

Just bring it in.....

Well, it snowed a lot yesterday and it was too cold for us to go out and play, but why not bring the snow inside to eat. okay, i won't lie, i have went outside every day since it has snowed and brought in a big thing for me to eat, but today i shared it with elly m. i don't think she appreciated it quite as much as i did though.

Our vampire baby!!!

Jonathan took these photos about 2 weeks ago, but i forgot to post them. Elly M. is getting her teeth a little out of order, so we currently have a vampire child.

Silly Me, I forgot my camera last night and we went to see a friend Rebecka D. She is one of Bella's best friends and she is so much fun. I think i will harrass her until she sends me the pics. that she took, so hopefully i can get a hold of those soon. it was very fun to hang out with her and her family, they are always so much fun. The trip home was exciting, I guess Winter has officially started here, it was a blizzard on the way home. We we're following Rocky up a hill, but he was too busy on the phone to pay attention, so we slid backwards down a hill into someone's bushes, but we decided it didn't do enough damage to actually go to their house and tell them. Anyhow, we made it home safe and sound..... only 18 days left........yipeee... and speaking of memphis, our friends might of found us a house to rent..... we are in the process now of finding out all the details. yeah for friends finding houses.

Snow, Sledding and Skiing

It finally snowed enough to do some fun outdoor activities. We went sledding, jonathan went skiing, and we all had a good ol' time. It was a lot of fun to take elly m. down the hill sledding. She tipped over a few times face first into the snow, but she never cried and she seemed to enjoy it!!!

finally some sunshine!

Elly M. got to play outside for a few minutes on Sunday because it was warm enough to do so. i am not quite sure what she thinks of the sunshine... something so new.... but today it is snowing, harder than it has all winter. gotta love weather.

The next picture is of Jonathan's cousin Marcus teaching elly m. how to play piano. I hope our kids have the schmit family musical talent... oh i do hope so.

the last pics are taken in the only tourist shop we could find in southern sweden... at the airport. a little viking shot of elly m. when she gets older so she can know where she was born...

What they did...

This is what elly m. did the whole time sharla was here. stare at her in amazement! I think she was either amazed that i had a friend or just surprised every time she woke up in the morning that there was someone else here, but anyways, we definitely have a little baby that gets a little overstimulated when people are around. She is catching up on her sleep right now. She went to bed around 11 p.m. every night sharla was here and would not go down without a fight. How dare i put her in bed when she has a friend over. She will probably play catch up the next couple days... i mean it is 8 in the morning now and she usually wakes up at 7, I am a little in shock.

The second picture is what sharla felt like she did the whole time she was here.... EAT! She ate well while she was here, what else is there to do in a cold dark climate????

The third one is of elly m. crawling through rocky and elizabeth's table over and over and over again... how many times can she do the same thing and not get bored.

Jonathan's great feat!!

While Sharla was here we went to the polkapig town where the town is filled with factories that make things called "polkagrisar", which translates into polka-pigs. It is the hard candy that you suck on like candy canes, but all different flavors. we went there with jonathan's uncle peter, aunt helen and their daughter vendela. i am not sure why i fail every time i am with them to take pictures, but i do. We have spent a lot of time with this family too. silly me. anyways.... afterwards we went for a walk to this old place and jonathan posed for these pictures in front of a beautiful windmill. We had a nice sunny day, it was wonderful......

A visitor to Sweden!

I realize it has taken me a little more time this time to update the blog, but i actually had some things to do. I had a friend here in Tidaholm. My friend Sharla, that I met in high school youth group, went to Ireland with on a missions trip and have kept in touch with, but haven't seen for about 4 years came to visit. She is now married to a french man, serving beside him as a missionary to help the people of france. Hats off to her for liking europe, it is a very hard place, I think for an american to live. Anways, i am most thankful for her visit. I tried to take some pics, but they are mostly from her camera... hey sharla, when you read this, thank you so much for coming, it was so nice to have someone to talk to and hang out with!!! I loved your time here, even though, we didn't do much, it meant the world to me. Could you send me your pics, or put them on facebook, so that i can steal them for the blog????thanks.

The first pic. is of sharla eating her first dose, and only mind you of princess cake. She enjoyed her many "fikas" here I am sure. the next one is of a birch tree that is in the Hjo town square, I think that sharla and i were both pretty confused about cutting down huge trees to attach feathers to it for the sake of what???? easter i guess. so that is why i look so confused.

the last one is a good ol' family photo, we don't get those so often for the viewing pleasure of our audience, but here it is. more to come soon, i promise. elly m. and i are readjusting to life all by ourselves all day again, it might be hard, but i do believe, we only have a little over three weeks left. hmmmmm... that isn't very long is it?