pinic!

so i filled the bread maker with all the ingredients, and set the timer, thinking we could have delicious fresh bread for breakfast the next morning.  however i neglected one small item.  i forgot to push start!  so there was no bread for breakfast.  instead when it was finally ready later in the day we had a picnic with "momma bread".  yum!

these are the times to just enjoy.  wish i could remember that more instead of thinking in the back of my head of all the other things i should be doing.  honestly there are no other things i should be doing, than soaking up these moments of being a family.  who knows how long it is going to be until the girls won't have time for us.  so now we need to make the time for them.

midsommars celebrations!

down to furulund we headed for the festivities.  we were late as per usual, but luckily jessica did not mind!  the lunch was crazy good with salmon pie and sill, and gravad lax, with much, much more...

 so we ate, and then there was swimming...

 and the dressing of the middsommars pole...

 the guys were of course very helpful...

 we were so busy eating all day that we had barely time to sing and dance around the midsommars pole, but the girls made sure it happened...

 rebecka and eijla were tied at the hip.  the two were almost never seen apart.  she even taught eijla to ride a bike!

 the four years olds were adorable, and crazy, running around like maniacs and making everyone laugh.

 the festivities went one well into the night, i think we finally ate dinner around 2230!  there was just so much good food, seemed like we never stopped eating!  but we all crashed, and most of us slept in, though there were a few early risers...thank you family annermalm for a wonderful midsommars.  though i must say it was certainly much like christmas, cuz christer disabled the alarm on our car, and all i can say now is i feel so very happy and so very free!  christer is my hero!  and i think rebecka is eijla's.

 after the annermalms we headed to farmor and farfars to pick up bonita.  they had a bunch of cherries growing on their tree, so zoe and i picked them.  zoe claimed she did not like cherries, and then proceeded to eat about a million of them!

eijla was a bit of a grumpy butt, stayed up way too late the night before.  but farfar is just a stubborn and managed to get some food in that grumpy mouth.

 then there was some farmor snuggles...

 which just made someone else jealous so there were even more farmor snuggles...

 and then we enjoyed a spectacular sunset for a good portion of the drive home.  ah, life IS beautiful.

the randomness of june

eijla, my little sweet toothed baby.  if she knows there is ice cream or candy around she goes crazy until she gets some.  a compromise is that i have been freezing yoghurt into little yoghurt pops.  a slightly healthier alternative.  the other day i gave her one and she went out to the garden and sat down and enjoyed.  thought it was so cute.

thomas snapped this shot of zoe last night, she had curled up on a beanbag and fell asleep.  so peaceful they are when they are sleeping...

thomas got beer glasses and an umbrella from svb for midsommars.  the logos were quite witty.  not sure what is more funny/ironic here, the umbrella or thomas' shirt!  happy summer everybody!

field of buse

zoe's favorite thing is to go out in the field behind our house and pick flowers.    flowers, flowers, and more flowers.  we have piles of dying flowers everywhere!  she has started taking eijla with her on her field adventures.  so i followed them out one day to see what they got up to.  eijla was a grumpy monkey as she needed a nap very badly. so we could not get the binky out of her mouth, but i thought we ended up with some cute shots anyway...

summer painting and gnawing...

the weather has been fantastic lately. and with our new back deck, we have been enjoying it thoroughly.  we pulled out zoe's easel the other day, and she got to painting.  here she is with one of her fantabulous works of art!

i often wonder if these meat eating kids are actually mine.  man, do they love their meat.  the other day eijla was chewing on some bbq ribs, a summer staple here at che thoren, and i had to get a few shots of her animated devouring of them. 

yeah, our girls are cute.

eijla has been such a charmer the last couple of days. been having a lot of fun with her.  she has found a new favorite chair, the dolly stroller.  she pushes it over to where she would like to chill out and climbs right in.  i am not sure how much longer it is going to hold her. but she seems to like it so much, i do not want to make her get out.

then she decided the stroller was not high enough so she climbed up on the pall and started giving me all these adorable poses, so cute.

then today i walked in to see zoe had put eijla down for her nap.  what a great big sister.  gotto love it.

a visit to baby ella

today we had the pleasure of heading over to see jocke and sanna's new baby ella.  only 9 days old.  so very cute.  while there i did a photoshoot with her which was interesting as i had planned for all these newborn poses, that the baby needs to be asleep for. but ella was wide eyed and bushy tailed, she wanted to see everything that was going on!  we still were able to get some good shots i believe.  the girls thought she was adorable.

 then as a bonus, there were baby kittens as well.  zoe just could not get enough of them.

 she even taught eijla how to very gently pet them. it was really cute. 

a tyringe day...

thomas mowed our grass the other day.  it has finally come in enough that it looks like we have a yard instead of a mud pit. yeah!

 

we headed into tyringe for the day today.  first we stopped at mormor's house to drop off some plants for her garden. so eijla snuck in a little mormor snuggles.

silly mormor!

then it was off to österströms for playtime!  i think i have a pic of zoe and maya about this age on this same swing.  these two are so different though.  love the different personalities.

 

zoe and maya hamming it up as per usual.

monica entertaining eijla with her furry, pink elephant.

monica entertaining the rest of us with her, well, general silliness.

lina and elin were there as well.  elin was charming the pants off us all.

nice to have a fun, relaxing day with friends.  and the weather is nothing to complain about either!

back to ivö and then good times with the Svenssons

yeah for the weekend and back to the good time that is ivö with the tidholms.  we a had a great evening. and even played taboo,  like pulling teeth to thomas to play a game, but i think he had fun.  i know rita and i did, and not only because we kicked the boys butts!  the girls attacked their jasmine bush.  the flowers were everywhere, but yeah, that's what little girls are good for!

after saying good-bye to our dear friends, we headed up for more fun.  roger, marie, and the girls came up for a bbq.  despite the fact that it has been so long, the girls all really hit it off.  and the hammocks that christer and thomas put up the weekend before were well used!

 

really enjoying this summer weather,  just hope it lasts. it has been great seeing all these friends recently, but gonna be nice to just relax, well, as much as possible with all our projects, me trying to start my own photo company, thomas working tons, and two wild little monkeys.  relax,  yeah right.  :-)!

auntie zita and uncle fredrik come to sweden!

yeah!  always a treat when they come over from new jersey.  we picked them up at the train station and after a rather crazy big shopping trip to ica, we headed out to their cottage on the island of ivö.  ah, relaxation...

we headed down to the water the next day while thomas was at work, and rita managed to get her trousers wet, yeah, sure you did not pee yourself auntie zita! i did a bit of a foto shoot with them, as well as some other friends recently, but as i am putting together my new website for my photography, you will have to wait and see them until it is ready.

zoe was keen on the water, but eijla was a bit hesitant.  had a hard time understanding why this water wasn't warm like in asia!

and then had to post this one.  my little zoe monster, she sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil, or does she?

it was a great couple of days relaxing with two of our favorite people.  looking forward to heading back on friday for some full on weekend chillin, cuz thomas will not have to work! yeah!