We go out almost as soon as the lifts open at nine and ski until late afternoon. After an hour’s break around four o’clock, the kids want to ski some more. Most lifts close at half past four, but some ski runs are lit and stay open until six. Those include a nice little stub of a run right next to our cottage. It is literally a minute away. (For future reference: we stayed in one of the cottages at Sjungarbacken.)

This late in the evening there are hardly any skiers here and no queues whatsoever to the platter lift. Up and down, up and down, with no downtime in between. It’s an easy “blue” run, suitable for the whole family – and it has a little snow park! The kids love the snow parks here at Kläppen and could probably spend half of every day going over the humps, over and over again.

Ingrid doesn’t blog, but she has an “a sentence a day” diary.

She’s pretty good at Mastermind.

The box says the game is suitable for ages 6 and up. While a six-year-old can understand the rules and be the “hider”, they won’t enjoy the “guesser” role much because all they can do is make random guesses. At 12 Ingrid has just about gotten to the level where she has mastered the game and can get the most enjoyment out of it.

Back from the library with a pile of the books.

Waiting for the gift part of the Christmas party.

Ingrid now wears reading glasses for, well, reading, but also drawing, writing, computer games and such. They make her look quite sophisticated.

Almost every week I notice her and think about how grown she looks.

We went for a snowy and icy walk. (Kallhäll to Görväln and back.)

It’s a good thing I have children, who make happy artwork with rainbows and unicorns, and make me make paracord bracelets and gingerbread cookies and watch movies and play Minecraft with them. On my own I’d never dredge up the energy to even get started. I’d just curl up in the sofa from November to March and not do anything I don’t absolutely have to do.

Ingrid has had “home skills” at school this year, every other Monday. They’ve cooked and baked and talked about environmentally conscious buying etc.

None of the baking and cooking skills were new for Ingrid, but it seems that going through them at school made Ingrid more confident about them. Or perhaps it was the simplicity of having that one cookie recipe to choose from, that they used at school. (Ingrid likes cooking her favourite recipes over and over again.) In any case, she’s now baked those cookies several times, both to eat and to give away.