Big sister to be – and a deadline

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I put Ronja to bed a while ago. She stopped using her soother 10 days ago, and the last three days she has been sleeping like a baby when we’ve put her to bed. So except for the first week, it really wasn’t so hard. She doesn’t ask for the soother anymore, so I think we can safely call that project a success!

We have a few changes coming up in the house on Lille Stationsvej, since Ronja is going to start kindergarten in the middle of June (which she is looking sooooo much forward to) – and furthermore – the big change – for those who don’t know yet, she is going to be a big sister at the end of October! (The t-shirt she is wearing in the picture to the right says “Jeg skal være storesøster”, or in English “I’m going to be a big sister”) Very exciting! We went to a scan at Roskilde Hospital in the middle of April, and at that time everything looked fine. I’ll try to remember to post pictures from the scan sometime soon.

We’re all excited to add one more member to the family, and Ronja is showing a great interest in the event. She doesn’t seem impatient at all, as you might expect, but rather well understanding, that the baby needs to grow before it enters the world.

As a natural consequence, Mads and I have become very aware, that we need to make something happen upstairs, so that our bathroom – as well as the other rooms – will be finished before my little passenger arrives. The last month has been rather slow on the rebuilding, to say the least. Mads has been very busy at work, he has been to Los Angeles for a week, and we have had several other doings. When you’re working on the house in your spare time, you really need to ensure that you have some – at least in order to see a progress. So now we’re trying to get focused again. You will find the almost updated photo album from upstairs here.

This past weekend we had Jolanda and Jakob visiting from Amsterdam, which was really nice, since we haven’t seen each other for quite a while. We relaxed and had a good time in which, among other things, we went to Bakken and Holmegaard Glassworks.

More 2nd floor – less scrap yard

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It’s too late in the evening for me to write a novel, but I can tell you that a lot is happening upstairs at the moment.

Today Mads and one of our friends made the concrete floor for the bathroom, and the walls are also shaping up now. The next steps are the walls in the bathroom and the electrical wiring. There’s still lots of work to do!

Check out the new pictures here.

Spring really came today, so we spent quite a lot of time outside and went for a walk with Ronja ahead on her tricycle. The sun definitely does magic!

That’s it for now!

January – and progress upstairs

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No, you’re right – the picture is almost cheating. We’ve had one day like that this past Saturday, and I just had to post a real winter picture. The rest of January has been all about beating records on high temperatures and rain. Saturday we got out the sled, and Sunday the snow was gone, leaving the sled a sad sight, the way it stood there in the rainy yard, filled with water.

As opposed to December when we took a break from working on the 2nd floor, Mads has been making some great progress upstairs these past weeks, finishing the insulation and mounting the first layer of wallboards – the last part with much appreciated help from our friend Martin.

It now looks like a room, the insulation keeps the place fairly warm, even though it’s not heated yet – and it’s definitely getting easier to see the end of it. We have a long way to go before it’s finished, but it’s a great feeling to be this far ahead in the process. As always, pictures can be seen here.

Ronja is getting so big – you’ll find a video of her singing “Bro Bro Brille” here. Have patience – it takes a few minutes for it to load, and the quality is not that great – however, the important thing is what’s on it.

Insulation – and off to Las Vegas and Shanghai

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So it all ended well with the roof windows. Mads was very tired that evening, when the work was finished, but it looks fine, it doesn’t rain through the roof and there are only a few minor cosmetic adjustments to be made – sometime. Since he finished the roof windows, Mads has started insulating upstairs. This part of the process is great, because you can really see the walls shaping up.

It does take some time, though. And time is something we don’t have too much of at the moment, since December is approaching quickly, and I have to make decorations, advent wreath, Christmas calendar with little gifts for each day for Ronja (no – not true – I don’t really have to do that, but I love doing it) and all that stuff.
Furthermore, Monday Mads is leaving for Las Vegas for a conference, and Thursday I’m going to Shanghai on a study trip, so some December-preparations have to be ready before we leave. Then it’s up to my mother (who comes here to take care of Ronja while we’re gone) to have a few nice “beginning-of-December”-days with Ronja. I’m sure it’s going to work out fine!

As usual, I uploaded some new photos here – you can also see Mads and Ronja building a bird feeding house.

A big hole in the roof!

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Today has been a really busy day for Mads. We had the best weather forecast we’ve had for a while, so we decided to hope for the best and make today the day, when Mads would make a biiiiig hole in the roof in order to put the new roof windows in place. Mads has been working all day without breaks, knowing that it would start getting dark early, and he had to be finished before that. I do believe, since this is the first time he tried this, he had quite a bit of adrenaline going.

Meanwhile, Ronja and I went to a farm called “Højgaard” where it’s possible to see scottish highland cattle and pigs. The cattle was rather impressive looking, and Ronja didn’t want to stand too close to them – clever young woman. We couldn’t see the pigs, though. We weren’t allowed to enter the pigsty, and the windows were too muddy to look through, so that was a bit of a disappointment. Ronja kept saying “Where are the pigs?”. Well, well – we will have to find some pigs some other day.

Mads almost finished his work with the windows today. The windows are in place, the roof plates are back, except for a few that need some adjusting. It’s really exciting to see tomorrow how it looks in daylight! I uploaded some new photos here.

New job, birthday, and pumpkin man

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October 1st I started my new work at VIA Travel. Since then I have been going through a well planned learning program, well aware that I have no knowledge up front about business travel. Now, three weeks later, I know a whole lot more, even though I still have a long way to go. My first time with the company has been very positive, and I’m looking forward to get going on my own – even though, I guess it’ll be a while yet. Everybody has been very kind and forthcoming – not to mention patient! ;o)

Last weekend I celebrated my 31st birthday, starting Saturday night with a girls’ dinner. We had a cosy evening with lots of girl talk and good laughs! I have never had a tradition of doing something special for my birthday, but I think I’ll keep doing the girl dinner-thing – and it’s also a nice opportunity for some great girls to get to know each other. Sunday morning Mads and Ronja woke me up with a birthday song, gifts, and breakfast. Mads got me tickets for the show “Gasolin“, which I’m looking so much forward to seeing. I’ll have to wait until December, but then we’ll make a long evening out of it. The weather was really good (of course), so we spent the day in the garden building the swing set that Ronja got for her birthday. In the evening we went to a small restaurant – nothing fancy, but we had a really nice evening.

 

Today Ronja and I made a pumpkin man, since Halloween is coming up. We had lots of fun doing it, and I think he even turned out quite handsome! Later, some of our friends came over for coffee, and in the afternoon Ronja and I went to Vallø Castle, just walking in the park, kicking the fallen leaves and talking to the ducks. Great day! Mads of course has been working upstairs – I’ll include more about that next time! ;o)

The first window in place – and some catching up…

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Ronja in the garden

So I guess I left a few things out the last time I wrote. To catch up, I’m going to mention the most important things that have happened. We had a very busy month of August. ;o)

One of the more important things was that my brother Jakob got married to his Jolanda. The wedding took place in Amsterdam on the 12th of August, and Mads, Ronja, and I had a very nice weekend there. The wedding was great, Jakob and Jolanda both looked fantastic, and there were so many wonderful people attending the wedding and taking part in the evening – definitely a day to be remembered! Monday after the wedding they left for Thailand where they spent three weeks – images can be found here (I’m not the least bit envious…).

Ronja turned 2 years old the 23rd of August! On her birthday the nursery came to visit for rolls, icecream, and hot chocolate and the kids were so sweet to have here. On the following Saturday Ronja’s grandmothers as well as aunt Marie came to celebrate her – and by that time she knew excactly what a birthday is all about. She loves getting presents! Mads and I gave her a Remo Kids Floor Tom – a very nice kids drum, which we have all had fun with so far. Besides that she had a tricycle (BIG hit!), a kids stove, a swing set (which we haven’t bought yet), a blackboard, jigsaw puzzles and some other things. All of the gifts have actually been really good, and I believe she has enjoyed her birthday a lot! Pictures from her birthday can be found here.

 

Mounting the window frames

The next fantastic thing is, that today we have mounted (Yes, I know – Mads has…) the first of the new windows for the house. It makes a huge difference inside the living room with the new window, and we can’t wait to have the rest in as well. The dream house is not quite here yet, but it’s definitely on its’ way. ;o) Pictures from the rebuilding are frequently updated here.

Yippieee! The new windows arrived yesterday!

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The new windows arrived

It was a great feeling to come home yesterday to find the new windows for the entire house in the driveway. They look really good – Mads and I have been going over each and every window to see if everything is as it should be – and they are just perfect. Excactly the way we wanted. Now I can’t wait to see what the house will look like once the new windows have replaced the old ones.

We want to install them as soon as possible – however, there is still some work that needs to be done upstairs, before we can start with that project. The first priority right now is to get ready for making the floor upstairs, which is really important since part of that process is the floor insulation. It is starting to get a little bit chilly in the house now, but we would rather not turn on the heat before we have the floor insulation upstairs in place – that would be a waste of heat.

Mads is working upstairs at the moment – I should probably get him to come down and have a cup of tea before bedtime! ;o)