a real weekend

i think this just might be the first weekend in two months that we both have been off work and home.  so nice to have a real weekend. (okay so thomas had to work sunday night, but we will take what we can get).  spent saturday cleaning, and playing in the garden,  the girls admired our first tomatoes of the season before they downed them.  yum.  cannot wait for more!

zoe loves picking the sugar peas in the greenhouse.  nice and fresh and oh so yummy!

and sweet little eijla, she always wants to help water the plants, but luckily they are finally getting big enough that she does not destroy them with her vicious water methods so much anymore.  still, i adore my little helper.

since thomas has been working very long nights, his clock is all off, not to mention he is sleep deprived, so he slept most of the day, but he did come out on rest and snuggle with the girls on the lawn in the afternoon.  mysigt. then on sunday farmor and farfar were able to come up for a short visit.  they brought their newly made fläder saft with them, so we filled our freezer with delicious concentrate.  mums.  after dinner, it was time for a bike ride.  zoe wanted to show them what she could do.  she is not quite there yet, but oh so near riding by herself without training wheels. (and yes, auntie zita, she does love your black outfit afterall, stubborn monkey!).

eijla was pretty proud of her bike "riding" skills as well, as that is just what she does, ride.  has not quite figured out to pedal forward and often tries to do so backwards, which of course brakes the whole operation.  farmor did a great job pushing her along.  always nice when they can come up for a visit.  but tomorrow it is back to work.  boo hoo.

cykels och blommor

the weather is warming up, the flowers are growing and pappa has gone back to work.  in our effort to survive a few hours without pappa snuggles we took a bike ride.  bonita loved it.  ran around like a crazy dog, i think she knows spring is here too.  zoe of course found lots of flowers to pick, so it was a very slow bike ride.

zoe has actually outgrown her bike, so eijla has inherited it, she can barely reach the pedals, but she loves riding it anyway,  mamma just has to push her along most of the time.  zoe is getting really good on her scooter.  cannot believe how fast the girls are growing up.

zoe´s bike comes home

so finally zoe´s bicycle came home to tyringe. it started out as a great first ride around the football field, though because of the gravel, mommy and pappa had to push now and again. but zoe was really hamming it up and having a grea time. however, when we approached our house, instead of stopping zoe was at full speed downhill and not at all interested in stopping. so mommy and pappa had to do a little running to keep up. then she even convinced pappa to follow down the next street. but when it came time to finally turn around, she learned the harsh lesson of not turning too sharply on a bike, and crash.
it was not so bad, but i think it was her first real time crashing on her bike. but she is a tough kid and got back up on the bike and pedaled all the way home with the saddest look on her face. poor kid. luckily there does not seem to be lasting trauma.

more bicycle fun...

so zoe has been loving her new bike, she has gone out almost every day, weather permitting of course. the other day when we finished work and washed up we went for another ride. there was a lot of stopping and smelling of the flowers, there was very much hopping off and walking with the bike, and there was even more buse (cute kind of naughtiness). pappa even gave the new bike a try, but zoe thought "det inte passa dig pappa, det passa mig".
she has really gotten the pedaling thing down, she can really move on that thing, though i think we have to adjust the training wheels. whenever she hits a slightly low spot, if she is not moving fast enough she just stays put with the back wheel spinning off the ground and her little feet pedaling as fast as she can. this second shot is of here trying to outrun us on her bike, i tell you this kid is pure buse.

zoe 1st bicycle!

last year when we were in central america, we stayed at a place where there was a little girl with a pink bike. zoe loved that bike, she would sit on it and wiggle about and giggle with glee, despite the fact that her feet did not come close to touching the pedals. so farfar promised to buy her a bike when we got back to sweden, she was just so cute, he could not resist. but last year she inherited a tricycle from our neighbors, so farfar didn´t get his chance. when we came home this year, she immediately noticed whenever anyone went by with a bicycle. especially when it was a smaller child, oh how she wanted one. soon she was insisting on calling up farfar and asking him to buy a bike. "farfar handla cyckel till mig" och "jag vill här en lila cyckel". so sure enough zoe had a great surprise from farfar and farmor, she woke up sunday morning to find a beautiful purprle (okay and pink) bicycle waiting for her. oh was she excited. here is a shot of her on her first ever bicycle ride. it only took her about 10 minutes before she started getting a hang of the forward pedaling. zoe, farmor, and i went all the way down to the playground and back. though there were a lot of pauses, as zoe had to get off her bike and check things out, which usually meant smelling the flowers. it was pretty darn cute.