grattis på födelsedagen farmor!

farmor fyller år idag.  vi skall skype senare idag!  hipp hipp hurra!  men först var vi ute och körde.  och hittade många fina blommor!

happy birthday farmor!

time for our annual camping trip.

well, since thomas always knows i am running way behind schedule, and that we will never, ever get out the door in time, we decided to not stress. and take it as it comes.  so we ended up camping our first night in farmor and farfar's yard!

but it was still a great start for the trip.  we had to pick up some extra camping stuff at farmor and farfar anyway.  but who can stop in bjärred on a summery afternoon and not go down and get a a mjölkglass?  it had been a couple of years since the last time we did, so it was a must.

then, after the ice cream, we walked down to the little park by the water. the girls had a go at the slide.  zoe takes such great care of little eijla.  we are pretty proud of how great they are together.

even bonita got to give the park toys a go.  though not too sure how excited she really was about it!

then down to the beach to play in the wet and slime.  yeah!

on the walk back to the car, i believe zoe hopped off of every stone, there must have been more than 30!  she is like a little bunny rabbit.

then of course no visit to bjärred is complete without stopping and saying hi to the sheep. 

so then it was a night of luxury camping in farfars and farmors back yard! with lots of snuggles.  camping snuggles somehow seem so much more snuggly than regular snuggles!

getting crafty with farmor

yesterday we  had a crafty date set with farmor.  but pappa found out that he could get off of work early so we waited for him before heading south.  so we had a bit of fun with mormor while we waited.  eijla and puppy got a swing assist...

while zoe flew through the air all on her own. 

then we said bye bye to mormor and headed south.  where farmor was waiting with her clay all rolled out ready for us to play!  zoe and eijla helped to cut out the shapes.  there were not so surprisingly lots of hearts, butterflies, and seahorses.  and it seems as though eijla has an affinity for hedgehogs.

zoe took this pic of farmor and i working on the clay shapes, with my camera, the thing is heavy so it amazes me she can lift it and focus it and manage to get her subjects in the shot.  go zoe!

and here we have some of them after the first painting,  but we will see what colors they actually turn out after being burned.  exciting!

farmor's utstallning at borgeby slott

farmor is so talented and makes such beautiful pottery, we are so proud of her. check out her website bordertaktils

summer is here and hand me downs make us happy

summer has hit sweden hard, and we are enjoying it. but i noticed that due to the fact that zoe and eijla were born in opposite seasons. that there is not that much summer clothes in eijla´s size right now. so we dove into zoe´s one year clothes and found the adorable summer dresses that farmor made for zoe when she turned one. they are a bit big, but they do the trick , and eijla thought that they tasted super yummy!

humla sjön! the bee lake...

so we had been told that our new house is near a really nice swimming lake, and today we found it! it is only 4 kms away, and very nice. the water is still a bit too cold for proper swimming but i can see some lovely summer days in our future there. the sign says no dogs, but there was only one other guys there, and he said he did not mind, so bonita had a great break from her puppies.
farmor and zoe spent most of the time looking for tadpoles.
zoe was hilarious trying to catch them herself. three year olds are so funny sometimes, but finally pappa caught some for her to hold, and she was happy.
it was also eijla's first time swimming. or wading, or whatever you want to call it, but she was surprisingly calm about it despite the cold temperature.
after the cold water, she got some farmor snuggles to warm her up. don't know what those two were talking about, but there sure was a lot of laughing going on. pretty excited to be living so close to a nice swimming area! yipee!

gamla farmor

då var vi tillsammans igen
lite kallare i år än förra året. det har gått fort det sista året vi får se var vi åker nästa gång.
var en mysig kväll, go mat. det var som man rulla hem, som varnligt.
grattis från oss. mysigt att träffas.
kram från oss

Thanksgivinge came early to Tyringe

we managed to celebrate american thanksgiving for the second year in a row here in tyringe. mormor cooked all day, we had all the fixins, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and even cranberry sauce.
but since mormor was going back to states we had to have it a couple of weeks early. not a problem, as swedes don´t know the difference. the pilgrims and the native americans never came here! zoe was in a great mood and managed to entertain all the grandparents. i think they were all splitting a gut by then end of the evening.
farmor and farfar stayed over so they could play the next day. farmor and zoe got very serious with the play doh, there was a lot of stuff to make!
meanwhile, farfar and pappa put a big hole in the wall! no, seriously they took out an old window and replaced it with a new one, and it is amazing the difference it has made in the heating of our basement. it actually stays room temperature down there now!
and well, this picture is here because they are just so darn cute! happy thanksgiving to everyone!

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.

grandma hits 100!

congratulations on your 100th dive farmor!
way to go! you're a diving queen!

grattis farmor!

happy birthday farmor! the big 60! grattis!