zoe loves the winter...

but still hates wearing socks!  but we are somehow managing to get her to dress weather appropriate most of the time.  the school had a field trip to the ice rink, so zoe has been practicing at home.  it was her first time ever ice skating, and it has been reported that she did really well.  she absolutely loved it.  she really wants to go back to the rink, but none of us can skate, so we keep trying to distract her with other things.  bad parents!

 she made us a snow heart...

 uh, oh, look what glitter did to my winter gloves!  oops!  naughty dog.

lucia!

well, many of the swedish traditions are still new to me. but i am getting better at them,  this year i even managed to remember lucia, and fix costumes for the girls.  the both wanted to be tärnor this year,  which is good for me as it is an easier costume than being lucia!  they were so cute.  thomas and i got to go to both eijla´s dagis lucia, and zoe´s school lucia.  zoe even sang some of the songs this year.  anyway, i thought they were so very adorable!

jeans and binkies

our girls are growing up, finally convinced zoe to wear her jeans to school.  think it is the second time i have got her to wear them since we bought them.  luckily we bought them big.  funny thing, once she gets them on, she likes them.  it is just getting them on her!

 then mormor is heading to the states so she offered to take all of eijla´s binkies and give them to the little babies in the states that needed them.  she was such a big girl about it searched the house and put them all in a bucket for mormor!  she is really excited to share them with the american babies.

bbq with cege and brita!

finally we convinced the johanssons to come and visit,  don´t think we had seen them since we travelled in cambodia together.  farmor and farfar also came with and we had a lovely evening, including a walk in the forest.  zoe and glitter ran around like the crazies they are.

 while showing brita and cege the greenhouse zoe found a squash that she took a liking to. think she is actually snuggling with it here.

yep, they wore themselves out…

a girl and her dog

first trip to busfabriken

yeah!

the end of summer

enjoying the last days of decent weather before it gets too cold and the leaves begin to fall.  eijla was pretty proud of the lovely hairdo zoe gave her.  lupin hair!

 then we are enjoying our crazy little puppy.  she is snuggly and wild and often both at the same time.  i can say i have never mopped our floors so often in my life. potty training a 2 year old and having a new puppy means a lot of poop and pee on the floor!  fun.

 and with the beginning of fall comes a new semester, and zoe started a new show dance class with maya!  they love it!  us parents get locked out, so no peeping, but cannot wait to see the show they put on for us in the end!

she came home

yep, could´t wait any longer, we had to bring glitter  (yes, zoe named her) home, and zoe and her have been inseparable since then.  they are so cute together.  think they are going to be really good friends.

then the girls have been talking about moving in together and sharing a room.  so we found them a used bunkbed which we let them paint themselves.  think they did a great job!

picture day

yep, today was picture day for our big school girl.  grabbed a quick shot while her hair was still curly from her braids.  she was pretty excited in her princess dress.  what a big kid.

first day of school

cannot believe it, our little zoe started school today.  where has the time gone.  she was so excited.  and of course, our dear zoe, being zoe decided to wear her old, tried and true favorite green dress instead of the new school clothes we bought.  oh well, at least she knows what she wants and who she is, and i am proud of that.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!

started the day off with singing and presents in bed,  then papa´s yummy pancakes with ice cream for breakfast!  

 

lunchtime brought a herd of friends to celebrate her big day.  there was fun and games.

and chocolate muffins! 

and then of course a water fight!  there were some wet but happy kids that headed home…

then there was time for a bike ride, no more training wheels!  but still working on the balancing.

 

then a super yummy cake to be shared with the grandparents!  yum! not a bad day for turning six! 

 

ahhhhhh, summer

precious moments

so as summer tends to be for us, it is work, work, work.  but since it stays light so late, we are often bad parents and keep the girls up a little bit later so we can spend more time with them.  so we do get our snuggles in.  i have learned to really appreciate the time we get with them.  we were so spoiled in india.  but i miss my girls now.  here are a couple of recent pics that just melt my heart.  eijla giving her baby puppy snuggles in the hammock, baby puppy has replaced her baby elephant, which replaced her baby, which she carried around india for five months.  i suppose we should be grateful that she is not so attached to just one toy, but it makes you wonder about her loyalties.  ha ha.

 then zoe, our little artist.  here she is proudly displaying one of her most recent masterpieces.  that kid has creativity just pouring out of her. 

and lastly,  sadly, i have not had much time for the greenhouse, i think thomas actually waters it more than i do now, but luckily it is still going strong and the green is getting greener.  yeah!

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.

what? summer already?

the other day we had a picnic at zoe and eijla´s dagis, and since it was skolavslutningen,  it was dagis avslutningen for zoe.  cannot believe she is so big, going to move over the the "big röke school" in august.  but seems like they are going to have a fun class, though i feel a bit bad for the boys, the girls outnumber them 5 to 2!

 then of course whenever we get the chance we swing by the österströms for a bit of lovin', though it is not always frivilligt on anya´s behalf.

 the plants are in, the starts up popping up.  it is starting to be green!

a beached whale in kovalam

well, we have left varkala,  and headed south to kovalam.  i am still getting my shots, but now at another hospital, with a rather unfriendly doctor. ugh.  but i am starting to feel a bit better.  even made it to the beach with the family today.  all gathered around to see how the beached whale that i am was doing...

 but everyone else had energy aplenty for some good old beachy fun.  even in the rather large waves.

while i was sick, zoe managed to fall and scrap both of her knees,  she insisted i take a picture to document her pain.  poor thing.

last day in hampi...

zoe walked eijla to breakfast.

then it was all kinds of cuteness from her before we took the night bus to bangalore, which by the was much more comfortable than our last night bus.

zoe´s circus!

so yesterday was zoe´s long awaited circus with her school.  it was great.  they had clowns, acrobats, and even wild tigers and lions(they dressed up the little kids from the nusery school, too cute!).    here is zoe all dressed up and ready to perform at the start of the show!

 the opening parade with all the other kids in her group.  she wanted to have circus hair, so she had me braid beads and bangles into her hair.  classic zoe.

 zoe was in the balance group.  here is she is doing her walk on the balance beam,  at one point she even balanced on one leg, but i was kinda stuck behind a coconut tree, so could not get a good shot. but she did great.

 and they even did a small human pyramid,  the kids were great.  it was a super fun show, and we are so glad zoe had the opportunity to be a part of it.

 last night after the show we went to the beach for a fish dinner to celebrate.  one of zoe´s friends from school was at the next table, so they wanted to play,  but playing with bigger stronger boys, you take your chances.  zoe came back from one of their flower searches with her face all scratched up!  he had been carrying her around on his back, and when he leaned forward, she did not let go and slid face first on some rocks,  stubborn zoe!