zoe´s newest talent

yes, turns out zoe had yet another hidden talent, or shall i say identity! that is right, zoe is really a monkey. the other day thomas and i were sitting on the front porch and watching zoe and bonita play in the yard, after a bit we heard a yelp from our little mysig stället. went in to see what it was, and what do you know. zoe had climbed way up in a tree.
not only had she climbed up a couple of meters into the tree, but she was proceeding to climb around from branch to branch. about gave me a heart attack. and yes, i am a bad parent, those are pyjamas she was wearing. so now every time we head outside she can be found climbing some trees. monkey child.

hairdressing with the cousins

after our fiasco the other day with curly hair, zoe likes to make sure everybody´s hair is straight. here she is winding down after a fun evening with the cousins, making sure that emma´s hair still isn´t curly.

this princess does not want curly hair!

so the other day i french braided zoe´s hair. it was very cute, but then she is always cute. anyway, when it came time to take out the braids, i mentioned how cute she would be with the curly hair one gets from having it in braids. however, this princess was just not feeling it. she looked in the mirror and started howling. i am not kidding.
luckily it just took a bit of water and a comb, and she managed to calm herself down a bit. but the mirror was still a load of fun.
after all the to do with the curly hair she decided that to be a real princess she needed to have her hair up in her flower thingy and wear mom´s old necklace. so here you have one coe little princess with no longer curly hair.
she rounded off the day by doing one of her favorite things, lounging in her chair while watching one of her films (usually referred to as her bow wow movie, which means any movie she has that has a dog in it, though lady and the tramp is the current favorite). you just gotta lover her movie pose.

time for more sowing...

this last weekend it was planting time. mormor came over and we got to work. i think we planted about a hundred million pots with seeds. cannot wait to see what comes up. zoe was her usual helpful self. she helped to write on the labels and play in the dirt. we even planted zoe´s little garden. she has all kinds of stuff, tomatoes, flowers, beans, cucumbers, herbs, and we even planted peas in all kind of random and secret places. only time will tell if the plants or the weeds win out. but she was pretty excited, and very very helpful.

grattis på 40 års bröllopsdag!

Anita och Lars
40år tillsammansafter 40 years, it is time to start oiling the gears!
congrats, hoppas ni får många mer roliga år tillsammans!
puss och kram toez

the zoe monster hamming it up.

so the zoe monster has been up to her usual silly self,though now that we are working fulltime we do not get to enjoy so many hours of entertainment as we did before. but she just seems to be packing it all into smaller timeframes. the other day she randomly decided to wear one of the princess dresses we had bought her in thailand. nevermind that she refused to try it on there, and we have not managed to get it on her any other day. but hey, today was the day, apparently. so of course i had to get a pic of her in it. so here she is playing donna reed, frying up some mushrooms, and being careful to use her well oversized oven mitt. what a ham.

every chance we get we have been working in the garden trying to get it organized and planted, and i just had to include this picture, she was so funny. she had one of my very dirty pots as a hat, and was throwing the ball for bonita. however, between every throw she insisted on washing the ball off in the watering can. she of course ended up very dirty and very wet, but it seemed like she was having a great time.

mormor is back!

zoe has been so excited about mormor coming back. so after months of the wandering mormor and the wandering zoe monster, they have finally been reunited. of course now zoe is loving all the extra attention she is getting. so welcome home mormor! great to have you back.

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.

old, old, old uncle johan

that´s right uncle johan is getting old. turned the big four-oh, and then decided to have a party with two of his friends that were also turning 40. then as if that wasn´t bad enough, he invited thomas and i! so farmor and farfar came and picked up little zoe, and off we drove to the north, the far north, karlstad. though i missed zoe we had a lot of fun. here are the birthday guys...as the evening continued things became even more and more silly, including karoke. i ended up having to hide under a table to get out of it. but there was much fun to be had and it was fun to celebrate with such dear and longtime friend. we even got to meet some of johan´s friends, even got to hear some good stories about him. thanks for sharing with us.
gratis johan!

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´s very own flower

this week it was finally time to hit the greenhouse and stock up on flowers and tomato plants that are ahead of my own in growing time. we picked out a few flowers to put up around the yard. when it was time to go we called for zoe and asked her to follow with. nope, that was not going to happend. she had her nose in all the flowers trying decided which one she liked best. in the end we could not resist letting her pick out her very own flower to take home. here she is the proud owner of her very own plant.

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.

a party weekend

thursday was valborg´s afton, a holiday here in sweden celebrated by lighting huge bonfire in the middle of the village park. we have made it a bit of tradition to spend it with maya, tom, and monica, but this time we decided to scale things down a bit and just had a small fire in our garden. it was very cosy, and much warmer than standing down in åparken freezing. we even roasted marshmallows, which was a first for nearly everyone there. the girls preferred just catching their sticks on fire, rather than the roasting, but a good time was held by all. it is always a good time with the österströms!
then on saturday was a big thoren family birthday party. four members of the family had turned the big something-O, so they decided to put all them together. els-marie turned 70 this year, anita turned 60, and both rikard and pär turned 40, so it was a 210 years birthday party.
it was a lot of fun, and great to see some of the family members we had not seen for years. there was gaming early on, zoe took her turn at a game called boule. love this action shot. she actually managed to throw those balls, which are a bit heavy, a few meters.




then of course there was the visiting of the sheep. some of the sheep just had lambs, so it was very exciting for the munchkins.








then there was the kiddie disco to round out the evening. zoe, emma, and moa are busting a move here. it was a great time watching them dance. zoe would wiggle her bum a bit, then run into the snack area and grab a couple of chips and then run back and wiggle her bum some more. she kept up the cycle for hours. she was so happy to play with her cousins again.