Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Box and A Birthday

A while back Dave bought a shop vac. The empty box sat, unnoticed, in the corner of the living room for almost a month. Then one day Dave decided to take the box to the recycle. He set it by the door, next to the other recycle. Within minutes Lilli discovered the box and had drug it into the hallway. Then Tipton wandered by and saw the box. He decided to check it out. Lilli was not happy. She wanted him OUT of HER box!


She decided the best way to maintain her claim on the box was to move in.

And close the "doors."


But she made a brief appearance for the paparazzi.

Being a nice big brother, Tipton brought her some of her favorite things to decorate her new "home."

And then there was a birthday...
Dave's favorite kind of cake is a coconut cake. Every year for his birthday I make him a coconut cake, from scratch. I use a recipe from my Gooey Desserts cookbook. It takes all day, but he's worth it!
Lilli helped him blow out the candles.

Dave must be mellowing in his old age - letting a toddler near an open flame...

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The New 'Do

According to the wonderful lady that cuts my hair, I'm "trendy." Or, at least my haircut is.

For normal every day wear, I tuck the long bits behind my ears.


And when I "go out to parties" I wear the long bits down. That's the "trendy" part.


Here's a shot of the back.


She cut the part around the middle of my head shorter than the rest, and kept the top part a little longer, to cover the short part. That way she didn't have to thin my hair. As much. It seems that I have really, really thick hair. Whatever. I love the new 'do. And one of the mommies at Tipton's school said "You look like you're in your 20s!"

Just Another Saturday Morning

Dave and I take turns "sleeping in" on the weekends. One of us will get up with the kiddos while the other gets to sleep in. (Unless "the other one" is me, and then I only get to sleep as long as Lilli will let me, as she always seems to wander into the bedroom and wake me up after just 20 or 30 minutes of my "sleeping in"...)

But I digress.

One Saturday morning the kids decided it would be fun to run up and down the hall, screaming. Being the good and dutiful and loving wife that I am, and knowing that Daddy was TRYING to sleep, I made the ultimate sacrifice and pulled out the big guns: Playdoh.

We have lots of playdoh and lots of playdoh "accessories." But we don't play with it very often. So it's always like bringing out a new toy. Why don't we play with it very often?

What? You've noticed the rotten bananas on the table? Yes, they are just about perfect for making banana bread...

See that pile of playdoh in Lilli's chair? She doens't realize it's there. Nor do the kids realize that most of the playdoh is now on the floor under the table and chairs and that it will be vacuumed up as soon as they are done playing - never to be seen again.

Playdoh. So magical, so mysterious. So Messy. But it kept the kiddos happy and relatively quiet for over an hour. And the massive, intense cleanup afterward? A small price to pay so that my beloved husband can get a little extra sleep.

Pizza Pals

In our house, every Friday night is Pizza & a Movie Night. One Friday Tipton asked if Aaron could come home with us afterschool, and stay for dinner. I said yes and both boys were very excited.

I make pizzas (usually frozen, but on rare occasions I'll make one from scratch.) Cut up apples, fill cups with chocolate milk and lay a sheet out on the living room floor. The kiddos pick out a (child friendly) movie and then the magic happens. The children (usually) sit quietly eating their dinner and watching the movie.

Aaron really liked the idea of a pizza picnic while watching a movie.
After a while Lilli decided she needed to sit in a real chair. So when I got up to get the boys more pizza and apples, I came back to this.
Notice how she's holding on to the arms of the chair?

Lilli's Little Gym Egg-scapeds

Lilli was the only child signed up for the first Wednesday Little Gym class for of the semester for her age group. So the instructor let Lilli have a free play session.

First, Lilli played with the eggs.

Then we dressed her up in all the bells.
She loved wearing the bells, and danced around all over the gym with them on.

Ahhhhh - good times!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Malmo Festivalen!

Every August there is a festival in Malmo. I guess it's kind of like a state fair, only without the livestock and agriculture. Just lost of crafts booths and food and rides.

Of course we had to go!

We started off at one end of the pedestrian mall and walked down to the other, hitting all the highlights along the way. The first ride we stumbled upon was the carousel. Tipton and Dave had a ride. Lilli had fallen asleep in the stroller.

We walked further on and came upon the food booths. A few of the more memorable booths:
"Los Gringos A Taste of Mexico..." Fajitas, Tacos, Muffins? I wasn't aware that Mexico was famous for it's muffins.
Nor was I aware that Mexico is famous for it's Wok entrees.
Hey, look! Someone drew a smiley face on the statue!
In the middle of Malmo - a little piece of home.

Tipton and I went on a kiddie roller coaster. And when we got off Dave showed me what was holding the roller coaster up. Yikes!

So the next ride was one that stayed on the ground.

We let the kids go on a few more rides, then headed back for the car.

Overall, Malmo Festivalen was fun. The craft booths were crafty, the food was - interesting. And the rides were, um, exciting!

The Second Little Pig - or Maybe It's the Third?

Have I posted about the finger puppets? I really should go back and read my own blog...


A while back Tipton asked me "Can you knit me the three little pigs?" Uh, sure, sweetie. I'll try. So I found a pattern for pig finger puppets. I knit the first little pig out of solid piggy-pink. Then I found this yarn that reminded me of bricks. So really I guess this is the third little pig (and I'll have to go back and knit up a second little pig.)

Random Cuteness

Just some random pictures of the kiddos being cute.

Tipton and Lilli riding on Daddy Puppy

Tipton giving Lilli a ride on Daddy Puppy.
Lilli sitting in the toy basket in the kitchen.
Lilli modelling the finger puppets I made. One of the little pigs and the big bad wolf.

Circus Olympia

The circus came to town! Or, rather, came to Oxie - where our friends Adriana and Samantha live.
So the day that Elvira and Keith left, we went to the circus with Adriana and Samantha. Tipton and Samantha were very excited:
Dave and Lilli were excited, too!
I think the kids enjoyed themselves. There was one act, where these two guys kept rolling/flipping/falling over each other - I thought Tipton was going to bust a gut laughing!
The kids all had pony rides at intermission. Lilli's very first pony ride!
After the pony ride, Tipton had a little nap. The circus started kind of late, and he'd had an exciting week of looking at Really Big Rocks and climbing towers.
When the circus started up again, Tipton opted to sit in/on the Daddy barc-o-lounger
Samantha opted for the Mommy barc-o-lounger.

A fun time was had by all.

Paddle Boats and Pizza

The day after our jaunt around Copenhagen we decided to hang a little closer to home.

We spent the morning/afternoon walking around downtown Malmo. We did our own little version of the Malmo Canal Tour, in paddle boats. We took two paddle boats - a Boys boat

and a Girls boat.
Tipton wanted to race, but the guys were no match for Girl Power!

That evening we drove to Lund. We showed Elvira and Keith the cathedral:

It's much bigger in real life. Ha ha. No, seriously, this is a really cool little wooden replication, inside the church. I'm not nearly as talented a photographer as Elvira, so this is the only picture I took inside the church that actually came out. Here's a shot of Elvira and Keith outside the cathedral:

After the cathedral we walked down to our favorite pizza place. Didn't take any pictures there, but ate some really good pizza!

After dinner we walked along the pedestrian mall. I saw this in one of the windows:


which may not seem like anything really exciting, but as a kid we had a dog named Snigelfritz. Our dog was named after slug repellent??
We really enjoyed Keith and Elvira's visit. I miss my friends. I am really enjoying living in Sweden, but I miss my friends. It's funny - you really find out who your good/best friends really are when you move away. They are the ones who keep in touch. And some of them even spend their one week of vacation to come and visit!

Copenhagen

Still trying to catch the blog up to present day. This would probably be much easier if I'd actually work at it, instead of just thinking about updating the blog...
When we left off, Elvira and Keith were visiting us. In August. And we'd just spent a day driving around Skane looking at really big rocks. The next day found us in Copenhagen. We walked right past Tivoli in search of the Canal Boat Tour. All day long Lilli had been talking about "riding boats." She was Just So Excited. So excited, in fact, that she fell asleep on the walk from the train station to where the Canal Tour started. This is how Lilli spent most of the canal boat tour:

Asleep on my shoulder. But she eventually woke up and was really excited.

What with being a photographer and all, Elvira took lots of pictures:

Like a picture of this really cool church:

See the spiral at the top? You can climb up to the top of the spiral! So after the canal boat tour we set off in search of the black and gold church.

Keith volunteered to wait at the bottom with the stroller.

Tipton raced everyone to the top. And won!

Dave was overcome with a sudden and fierce fear of heights - very strange, he's never experienced anything like it. So he and Tipton didn't stay up top for very long.

Elvira and I, on the other hand, took our time and enjoyed the view.

Especially since I climbed the entire tower like this:

Wearing Lilli in the sling. Now, take a moment to understand the wonder of this accomplishment - I am overweight, out of shape, and climbed all the way to the top of the friggin' tower with a two year old strapped to my hip! I recieved many pittying looks on the climb up, and many looks of astonishment on the climb back down. Lilli really enjoyed the climb. She brought her "handy dandy notebook" to document it.

The height didn't bother her at all.

When we'd all made it safely back to terra firma, we began the long walk back to the train station.

We saw many interesting things on the walk back. A unicorn head:

Christmas penguins in a window, in August:

A shrink-wrapped building:

And happy bicycles.

I think we all had fun. And we were all really glad to get back home, and rest!