Something strange...

...happened to Mr. Payne's leg during the move!

Yikes!

Yup, definitely two years old.

Birthday girl!

In the midst of the ruckus of moving house, a very special someone turned two!
Luckily, we were pretty well installed in the house by then, so we managed to throw her a little party. The guest of honor herself was in a kind of mountain-high-river-deep-mood, which in itself was a proof of the fact that yes, she is two years old now. She is a very wonderful and very bossy little madam!
That our life was without her, just a little over two years ago, is a mystery. The magical little person.

Moving day.

Lately.

Ashore, sort of.

A crazily intense period is over. We have handed over the keys to our old house to its rightful new owners, we have moved our stuff and are starting, slowly, to settle into our new home.
I am so in love with it. Head-over-heels, infatuated, struck, hopelessly devoted.
We still have a lot of work to do there, but we're in! YAY! A huge weight is lifted off our shoulders, my husband is a hero (I'll say that again!), and now, sometimes, we can rest.
Love!

The view.

As long as I have photographed, I have recorded the scenery from my windows. I have photos from a very young age with the view from my room, or our living room, or veranda. Just the view, nothing special, not even a spectacular sunset (although I have some of those, too), or anything happening out there. Just that scene, those trees, houses, that hill. There is such beauty in that, in the ordinary, and it is completely paired with the love I feel for the house I live in. Those two things go together. And the strange thing is, when I think back upon a house or a flat I have lived in, it is the view from the windows I think of first, that frame, of the window and what it surrounds.
In the cities I've lived, I have photographed roofs, chimneys and sky, pigeons sitting on the edge of the buildings, lights in the windows across the street, things like that. When I was little and lived with my parents, I photographed the hill across the valley a lot - in my eyes it always looked like a gorilla's head in profile (I have to go and see that again, soon). And here, I have photographed the trees and land that surround the house. Our fields. The edge of the forest, with the little summer barn up there. The huge birch tree close to the house.
And tomorrow is the last day in this house, with this view. I'm on to new ones again, luckily not so far away, and hopefully the last move in a very long time. In fact, I will have this house as a part of my view now, and that's a sweet comfort. I kiss these views goodbye, thank you for being so beautiful.

A very special visitor.

There was great excitement about whether the Easter bunny would show up today, so when Ronja discovered that he had left a note on our front door, I heard a joyful shout from out there. Wow, how cryptic - and in ransom note-style even! The Easter bunny sure is clever. (The note says Se under uthuset/ Look under the shed.)
When the treasures were discovered, the littlest one here was very quick to disappear into the house where she promptly started checking out the catch. Yummy!

Spring!

Ok - it's actually snowing outside right now, and the newspapers said that winter probably will have a comeback next week, but I choose to ignore that, to close my eyes for a bit, to imagine all the herbs we are going to plant, who will thrive in our big kitchen windows, like Mr. Cress here.
Spring is here, the weather gods can do what they will, it is here regardless.

Cute as a button!

Scenes from a house project, part III.

Perfect easter activity.

It's so cool, Ronja has really got the hang of crossword puzzles now, and she's loving it!

How to use a saw, crash course:

Today:

Even the toughest of workers need a little breather now and then, so we brought tea and went up the field to admire our beautiful chaos from above. Today was a sunny, windy day, and now my cheeks are warm from being outside a lot. Feels good!

Scenes from a house project, part II.