gingerbread and fotoshoots...

it is beginning to look a lot like christmas...  and smell like it too. thomas and the girls made some yummy pepperkakkor the other day.  they are so funny when they bake.  but as usually it was a load of fun.

 then i did a quick fotoshoot with the girls a couple of weeks ago for our christmas cards.  they were so silly, and really were hamming it up.  but we managed to get a few cute pics.  the dogs even got in the christmas spirit!

pyssla dax!

the cold is setting in, the dark is creeping in, so this weekend it was time for a little fun.  painting is always a big hit here with our little munchkins, and sometimes with our big one!

when pappa has to work, we make time fly by making yummy rainbow cookies.  the girls always get so creative!

we miss pappa!

thomas has been away working most of the week, so i have been trying to survive what it must be like to be a single mom.  i do not know how people do it. get up insanely early, get the girls ready, drop them at dagis (daycare), work all day, pick them up, go home, make dinner, feed kids, put kids to bed, clean up, and try to get in bed at a decent time to do it all over again the next day! so when the weekend came we made the best of of it.  we had popcorn and a movie, we made the girls favorite cookies, molasses.  yeah, that is cookie dough...

 then there was lots of princess dress up and dancing.  eijla has some moves!

 and i of course just think that she is so damn cute.

then there were lots more snuggles.  seems like anya has gotten the chicken pox, so we are going to head over there tomorrow to try and see if they can rub off on our girls.

my baking buddies

the other day zoe and eijla helped me make molasses cookies, or maybe i should say i helped them.  as they took over the show...

but it seems like the final result was definitely approved.  had to fight them off with a bat so they did not eat all the cookies in one sitting.  they sure do have a sweet tooth these kids.

bracing for the big 5 year old day...

we have been getting ready for zoe`s birthday here.  she has all kinds of ideas and plans.  today we went out to the garden to see if there were not enough ripe strawberries to pick that we could maybe use for her cake, but well, we ate them all.

but we decided to make chocolate cupcakes instead as a trial run for her cake.  the girls waited with great anticipation while they were in the oven.  you could feel the tension in the air...

then out came the cupcakes and we put on creamy chocolate topping and sprinkles (thanks auntie zita!) and they were a real hit.  she is looking forward to her yummy cake in less than a week!

finally caught up!

so i have finally made it. the day i publish is the day it happened.  unbelievable. this is the first time i have been caught up since we were in thailand.  yeah, i am a slacker.  but i do get it done eventually.  aside from allergies i am really having a great summer. the weather has been mostly amazing. the garden is growing. the girls are growing. and thomas is thomas (he claims that greatness is described as thomas, so i am using his definition here!).
tomorrow we are flying to london for a few days to catch up with the donovans.  really looking forward to it.  today we made muffins, and we used the yummy sprinkles that auntie zita and uncle fredrik gave zoe.  everyone swears they made the muffins ten times yummier!

cheerio!

baking and driveways...

zoe loves molasses cookies, though i am not sure if it is because she gets to roll the dough in sugar, and then sneak pinches of sugar when i am not looking.  my little sugar monster.  but eijla got in on the action today. they were a great little baking team.

 they were barely cool from the oven before the girls were devouring them.  good that our cookie jar has a lid, or i think eijla would have eaten them all!

 this evening i was working on the driveway, and so to keep eijla happily occupied i put her in her wagon with the itouch.  should i be worried that my one year old already has such a good grasp of touch pads?  she loves the thing, and goes absolutely crazy when she sees it and doesn't get to play with it.  think we have created a monster!

 the stones we ordered for the driveway have a "random" layout, which means it is a detailed layout that looks random.  i was trying to puzzle it all together,  you can see it is not going that well.  but i can say i am much happier to be laying stones than shoveling them!

christmas candies! yum!

we had the pleasure of having the österström girls over to make all kinds of yummy christmas treats. there was english toffee (my favorite), peanut brittle, ischoklad, and all kinds of yummy combinations of almondmassa, maricipan, and nuget! yum, yum, and more yum!
even made all the girls names in mandelmassa...
thanks for a lovely weekend girls. always a pleasure, screaming kids or not!

who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

nobody did! cuz zoe and pappa got caught red handed eating all the peppkak deg! fy på er!
zoe is trying her best to turn eijla into a girly girl too. i am afraid she might be suceeding!

cookies instead of turkey...

thomas worked all thanksgiving. and well, i am no turkey eater. so we made cookies instead. and not just any cookies. we made play dough cookies, or lollipop cookies. found a couple of different recipes for them, and they had different names, but zoe thought they were a lot of fun and very pretty.



i have the most colorful cookie jar in the village. these were a big hit, going to have to make them again soon!

happy fathers day!

today is father's day here in sweden. so yesterday we decided to bake pappa some pepperkakor. zoe really gets into it. funny enough her favorite part is the flour, she loves to put way too much on the cookies, but honestly i think it is more about having fun than making tasty cookies.
eijla watched, but was not so sure what we were doing
but don't worry, it won't be long before she starts getting in flour fights with us too!

we love you pappa!

pappa´s christmas candies, yum!

so the evening started off innocent enough. we were just going to melt a little chocolate and color some almond paste, and have a little fun. zoe was pretty excited about the chocolate. i have no idea where she gets that from!





pappa showed us how to mix the coloring into the almond paste. zoe decided it was much more fun eating the chocolate, so pappa ended up having to mix it all himself.





then it was time for pappa to show us how to make little tomtes and such. his first one turned out quite cute.
then about this time we got online with scott and liz´s kids, so zoe was torn between being entertained by them on skype and making more funny shaped candies! but we did manage to make a few things. mama made a wreath





and here is zoe working very hard on an adorable little christmas tree. the kids loves her christmas trees! thomas also dipped some of the almond paste in chocolate and nuget, and man, those maybe were not so pretty but man were they yummy!



we managed to make a few more figures before zoe smashed most things up into a big colorful ball. they are pretty cute if you ask me.

then in the end it was just eating the chocolate and watching her cousins. looks like she had a pretty good time.

tis the season to be baking

well, that´s it, i admit it, i am addicted to baking cookies. zoe is turning into quite the little baker herself. she loves to help. especially stirring, but she has a hard time waiting as the recipe i have for cookies means the dough has to sit in the fridge overnight. poor kid, just does not have the patience.
this time pappa even helped out with the cookie cutting part, they made all kinds of shapes, but they were very mean and kept making mooses, which are the hardest to move from table to pan to cooling rack without breaking off their horn and legs!
and here we have the finished results. i tried a different recipe for the frosting, but i apparently failed as it seperated and was not good at all, so sadly zoe was frustrated for days that she could not "paint" the cookies.

cookies in all the colors of the rainbow...

something about this pregnancy is turning me into a bake-aholic. but zoe is enjoying it. we make sugar cookies the other day, not quite sure why they are called sugar cookies as the recipe i have is really nice and not all that sweet. i will say they taste more like nutmeg and vanilla. anyway, her favorite part is "painting the cookies". check out the colors....

and there were orange hedghogs, green feet, pink squirrels, purple snails, yellow stars, well, you name it, we made it. not she wants to paint cookies everyday! oops! what have i started?

girls play while the dad´s away!

daddy and farfar went off to scotland and left us girls home all alone. but while the papa is away, it is up to the girls to play. so play we did. we had at least one painting party everyday. i love how zoe sticks her tongue out of the side of her mouth when she is really concentrating, it is just too cute.
we also baked. we did not have any chocolate chips (sob, sob, poor us), so i smashed up a couple of chocolate candy bars instead. however i read the recipe wrong.
turns out there was a lot more chocolate involved than i thought. the picture with the recipe looked like normal chocolate chip cookies, but only after i was halfway through did i realize that the cocoa powder was going to make them VERY chocolatey! luckily they were yummy anyway. zoe had fun digging in the cocoa powder box.
one day i was busy doing laundry or something downstairs and it seemed way too quiet, so i hurried upstairs to find that zoe had spilled her watercolor paints water cup over the kitchen floor. however, no problem mama, i´m cleaning up själv! such a sweetie, but i do not want to know how many poor trees this girl has killed so far in her very short life. PAPER, PAPER, and more PAPER!