happy christmas & merry new year!

this christmas season was quite festive! we enjoyed many swedish traditions such as preparing ham to eat with hardbread & mustard while wrapping gifts & composing rhymes, we celebrated on christmas eve morning [which is something never done in the US], and we read tomten aloud to darling little jade. before the true christmas holiday arrived, however, we attended an ugly christmas sweater party at the smith's. since calle, jade, and i could not find any ugly christmas sweaters we opted to dress like the preppy nerd family as seen below.

one of the rhymes -

jade in her christmas pajamas [or jamaspim per holmgren tradition].

there were many presents under our tree, nearly all for jade of course! below is the wonderful pile of gifts sent by family & friends. from sweden, the fredrixon's sent a wonderful song book & lucia crown which jade will enjoy for many years to come. they also included calle's favorite christmas program on dvd. from colorado, my brother & his beautiful daughter sent jade an assortment of adorable clothes and friends also contributed to her ever growing wardrobe. thank you all!

on christmas day we joined our lovely group of friends for dinner & games at the smith's where we found ourselves asking the age old question:

what christmas celebration would be complete without wearing stick on souvenir mustaches?

on new year's eve calle & i hosted a simple dinner party for the smith's and the johansson's. despite a few stressful moments in the kitchen, everything turned out great! we prepared mustard-crusted pork roast with shallots & wine sauce served on a bed of shaved sweet corn & a side of garlic mashed potatoes. yum!

after a pretty casual new year's eve celebration we joined the smith's for a short hike in the cleveland national forest, about an hour north east of home. the fresh air was fantastic but a combination of starting too late in the day & the temperature being much lower than we anticipated forced us to give up before reaching our destination.

2010 was a very exciting year; we found out in february we were expecting our first child. our pregnancy was healthy & happy! despite the continued economic stress in the US, Calle and I both maintained our jobs, kept our home, and found time to enjoy a latte here and there. In July we traveled to Sweden and spent 3 incredible weeks with our family. In October we welcomed the most amazing little person into this world & every day since her arrival has been noted as "the best day ever".

we greet 2011 with enthusiasm knowing there are many exciting firsts to come our way; crawling, walking, & talking to name just a few. in a world of negative media I must say we are feeling quite the opposite. a surge of happiness & excitement fills our home - we are content in the most positive sense of the word & hope all our dear family & friends can say the same.

with love from our family to yours,

nicole, calle, jade & ingo