DAY 3 - THE DENMARK ADVENTURE... A HOME DAY TODAY...26th April, 2022

What a great start to the day.  We were awakened this morning by two delightful little boys who wanted to hope into bed with us.  Honestly we really cannot get enough of these wonderful cuddles.  It i another great day here in Fredrikssund.  The sun is shinning and this is the view outside our bedroom window...

View outside our bedroom window - the tulips and daffodils are flowering..

 

 We both had a relatively good night's sleep and were woken around 6.30am this morning by these pair who were happy to give us lots of cuddles and crawl into bed with us.  Today will be a quite day at home still for us as we continue to get over the jet lag from our big trip.  I am pretty confident that when Elliot goes down for his sleep, I will be napping also...

We are on babysitting duties today.  Maria has one last week left with her old job before having a week off to settle the boys into their new daycare arrangements and then starting her new job which is a lot closer to home.

Early morning snuggles

We started the day by all having breakfast together and then we got out the colouring in pencils and books to do some colouring in with the boy..

 

 Theo has really impressed us with his colouring in. For a three year old, he is very careful to colour in in the lines and although red is his favourite colour and he likes to use it a lot, his work is very neat.  Elliot doesn't want to miss out and he loves to scribble on paper along with Theo.   We needed a plastic mat under his paper because he is equally happy to colour in other surfaces as well including his plastic mat.  I sure it would have been the table also if the mat wasn't in place..

Theo is dinosaur crazy at the moment, and we had added to his collection when we arrived by bringing some over from Australia.   After the boys got sick of colouring in, the dinosaurs came out to play, that is until Elliot wanted the same Dinosaurs as Theo and whilst Theo was good at sharing his dinosaurs, Elliot was only really interested in playing with Theo's favourite one.

Theo loves his dinosaur..

 

 As a distraction for Elliot, I decided to get out some duplo blocks and get some of the cars (bilers) out for him.  Once we were playing with Duplo, Theo decided that he wanted to build also.  Theo was able to convince Poppy to come and help him build a big tower.  

Amusing Elliot with some duplo

He loves anything with wheels...

The building of the tower begins.  Theo wanted Poppy to help build his tower taller, so Steve headed for the sky...well the roof of the room actually.

They worked well together...

Even Elliot wanted to help..

But he wasn't parting with his biler (car)

Here are some blocks Poppy..

 

Here Poppy here are some more blocks..

Theo  really enjoyed building with Poppy and they spent a good couple of hours being the tower, only for it to fall, and then rebuilt, and then strengthening it.  It was really great to see Theo trying to help problem solve with Steve when building.  He amazes me as a three year old, his level of  conscentration and inquiring mind...

Elliot also wanted to be part of it....

 

Can you make it touch the ceiling Poppy

With the help of Poppy's shoulders, Theo wanted to see if he could reach up as high as his tower...

Poppy then suggested to him, that he might try and blow his tower over.  He would have to huff and puff like the big bad wolf in the three little pigs...

So he huffed and he puffed

And he tried even harder..

And suddenly his tower started to fall...

This activity kept us all busy until lunch time.. Lunch in Pete and Maria's household is around 11am.  This is so the children are fed and we can then get Elliot down for his mid day nap.  Maria only likes him to sleep for a couple of hours, otherwise it is too hard to get him to bed in the evening...

 

Normally he sleeps in his pram outdoors.  We rug him up in his woolen sleep suit, cover him with his little doona and he sleep outside.  It is still quite cold outside, but even in the middle of winter, their babies sleep alone outdoors during the day, as they believe that the fresh air is really healthy for them.  Surprisingly they tend to sleep longer when they are outdoors. Apparently the fresh air induce a deeper slumber while also decreasing exposure to germs.  This is a common practice not only in Denmark but the other Nordic countries as well..

Because Pete and Maria had just moved into their new place, their pram wasn't set up, so whilst Pete went to set it up for me, I lay with Elliot on our bed.  He must have been really tired because he was asleep before Pete could finish setting up his pram.  This was fine by me as I needed an excuse to recover from jet lag and have a nap also, so we both slept for a couple of hours..

Whilst Elliot has nap time, Theo is allowed to watch some TV, well rather cartoons on Netflix. This keeps him occupied and quiet whilst Elliot naps and Pete tries and gets some work done.  

By 2pm everyone was awake and we then headed out into the garden.  A lot of work needs to be done with it to get it ready for Spring planting.  This is Maria's baby.  She loves the garden and is real keen to get some crops planted.  Steve was happy to start digging the garden for her, and the boys were happy to play in the dirt with him...

Getting the garden ready for planting

One thing we noticed when we arrived was the hedge.  It looked like it had died, it was all brown and see through.  That hedge would change in the space of a week or two.  Each day we came outside, we would notice more and more green shots and within a couple of weeks, the hedge was thick full and lush green.

Huge contrast between the hedge here when we arrived to when we left 7 weeks later

The boys were very happy to be outdoors with their poppy and Theo had a lot of fun with his dinosaurs in the dirt, where Elliot was happy to potter around with his little shovel and bucket..

Meanwhile  I was in heaven just walking around the garden and admiring the spring flowers that were just coming out in bloom.  The beauty about Spring time in Denmark and these cooler countries is the changing gardens from week to week.  Each week, different plants would bloom so the garden was always changing.....

The tulips about to bloom..

The daffodils were all blooming when we arrived

The double daffodils were gorgeous

Who wouldn't love tulips, especially pretty ones like these..

Even the weeds looked amazing.  The Dandelions were flowering when we arrived, they were everywhere, all along the side of the road, all through people's lawns and nature strips and the little white daisies were also growing everywhere.  I know they are weeds and probably a nuisance but my gosh they looked so pretty and the countryside was amazing.  

Wild daisies growing everywhere in the lawn.... so so pretty...

 

The dandelion flowers over here are massive

 It's been a wonderful first day in Denmark.  The kids have been our little shadows but we have loved every minute of it.  Trying to make up for the last three years when we haven't been able to see them.  We have another day of looking after them tomorrow...