a garden day with my little ladies

what a great day to spend with my little girls in the garden.  they helped me water the greenhouse...

zoe helped to find as many cucumbers a possible in all the big cucumber leaves...

it is nice to see there is so much more green than there was a month ago. the tomato plants are turning into a tomato jungle.

yum!  cherry tomatoes!  now they just need to turn red,  i have not been able find any red ones yet because zoe always beats me out to the greenhouse and eats them all, buse unga.

then we had a picnic lunch out in the yard.  finger food, the only safe bet with crazy eijla`s crazy eating habits.

then our neighbor came over and told me i should make a bush fort for the girls.  our neighbor is great when she comes with ideas, she says them as commands almost.  always makes me laugh. but it was a good idea and they had bushes that needed to be trimmed so it worked out for both of us.  the girls seemed to like it, now we will just wait and see if they grow roots and survive.   this has been one of these days when i cannot thank my lucky stars enough about how lucky i am to be a mom to these two amazing little munchkins.

summer days are flying by...

the other day we had a lovely visit with the österström girls.  anya and eijla have an amusing way of eating.  eijla usually puts her food on anya's plate and then anya feeds eijla.  eijla will eat anything, so i think she ends up eating both hers and anya's food in the end.  pretty entertaining for the rest of us.

then the garden has been producing, yeah!  here is zoe with two of our first cucumbers.  they are canning cucumbers but she loves to eat them anyway.

then one rainy afternoon we headed over to mormor's house for a visit with her friend ellie and her daughter kimberly.  zoe and kimberly really hit it off.  boy how those girls can pyssla!

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!

home with the girly girls

always nice to be home with the girls in the summer.  they are so entertaining.  zoe rode her four wheeler around the yard, amazing how much more comfortable she is with it now.  love the expression on her face in this shot,  one determined little monkey.

 

 the other day we got up super early and drove thomas to work.  we loaded the girls in the car half asleep, and i was not much more awake myself.  all went well until we came home again.  that is when we realized that thomas had locked the doors, and i had left my keys in the house.  so i had two half naked girls and no cellphone locked outside in the way too early morning hours.  they were great sports, they cuddled up on the back porch while i tried to figure it out.  luckily we had left zoe's window open one the second floor and we had ladders, so i ended up breaking into our own house.  however it has made me realize how easy it is to get in.  so now i close all the windows whenever we leave!

 i have been shooting a lot in black in white lately.  the other day the girls and i had a little fun, and i got a few cute shots.  really love this one of eijla clapping. 

we finally moved the slide to the back yard, and now the landing is a bit softer on the grass instead of the stones out front, so zoe helped eijla slide down it, again, and again, and again, and again...
they had lot of fun.  it was a real treat to watch them playing so well together.  so glad they have each other.

so after months of having huge dirt piles in our front lawn, we finally leveled them off and made a new flower bed.  the poor lilacs and magnolia have been standing in pots for months waiting to be planted.  hope everything survives.  i think i will head to a nursery soon and pick up a few more plants though.  just so much nicer to look into our front yard and have it look like a yard, well almost.  still waiting for the grass to come in.

back on swedish soil.

none of us are morning people, but we all managed to make it up and out the door to the airport on time. thanks to tony our wonderful chauffeur. so we flew back to göteborg...

and do not tell tony, but on the way home we stopped by for a visit withe franz and anna and their two adorable little ones.  they had this great outdoor farm/play area nearby.  had a fika, did a bit of playing and enjoying the company...

little inez was just so cute and so little.  not sure i remember that eijla was ever that small.  now she is jsut a bit ball of buse!

they even had some animals there that the girls could pet, including this huge rabbit.

great seeing franz, anna, esikil and meeting inez.  zoe and eijla though inez was just the greatest.

and the two good looking gentlemen of the house...

still a bit of drive ahead of us, we stopped an hour or so from home and bought picnic supplies at ica, and headed to the nearest beach we could find. 

some moments in life are just too perfect for words...

believe it or not. zoe took this picture, she is really turning into a little photographer.  i might have some serious competition soon!

what a great trip.  i tell ya,  traveling with my family is just one of those things i am so grateful for. 

what?!?! last day already!

our last day was spent just enjoying the time with our wonderful hosts before we had to head back to the airport.  tony serenaded the girls and zoe danced for everyone's entertainment.

then we headed out to a local nature reserve for a bit of a wandering and some fresh air.  great way to for the girls to get rid of some energy before being belted into a airplane chair.  though at one point both both girls were fighting over the stroller eijla was using.  good thing they have a super strong pappa!

ellia and tony were all kinds of cute playing in the grass.

she was such a riot.  when tony took her shoes off, she did not want to put her feet on the ground until he put them back on. she literally sat with her feet up in the air so that they would not touch the ground. silly girl, but oh so adorable.

zoe wore herself out running around like the crazy monkey she is. 

and eilja decided it was more fun to ride standing up backwards than sitting down forwards.  go figure.

and it is off to the airport bright and early tomorrow morning.  thank you tony, sep, and ellia for a really great weekend, we had a blast and hope next time we can return the favor.  you guys are gold.

another day in paradise, uh i mean england.

i swear when you are on vacation there is nothing to do but relax and enjoy.  and that is just what we are doing.  and there is nothing like waking up the snuggles of two adorable little girls. think this is probably my favorite shot of the whole trip. 

zoe and ellia really hit it off.  the two had all kinds of fun together.

sep and i got a shopping trip in during the morning, found all kinds of great stuff for zoe's upcoming birthday.  then in the afternoon, while tony and i discussed his future website, zoe kept sep busy with crafts.  that girl is crafty!

dinner was delicious persian food a la sep served up picnic style in the donovans cozy garden.  good food, great company, and...

crazy little monkeys full of wild energy (not to mention some crazy eijla hair), made for another terrific evening at che donovans.

not so dreary england...

so yesterday we headed to the airport and flew to england to visit our good friends the donovans.  we arrived pretty late last night, so we just crashed, but this morning we headed out to cambridge for a bit of fun. love our modern 21st century dads.  they know how to push a stroller and look good doing it!

we walked about, the college and cathedral were closed to to graduation ceremonies, but the market was open. tony was a big hit.

eijla tried to make a run for it, but pappa caught her just in time.  crazy monkey child.

the donovans are just that cute!

of course there was an ice cream stop. 

and we wandered the "back streets" of cambridge. our little gang.

i picked up a new backpack, but found it to be a bit too wiggly!

in the evening we did what we all do best, chilled.  tony and sep have a great garden, and it was a terrific place to hang out.

and bubbles were the perfect end to a really enjoyable day...

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!