2012
Some pictures from 2012 before I went to USA.
Bookrelease in Djurgårdsstugan.
This is what you call peaceful work/studies or whatever it is.
Cozy time in Jönköping with good friends.
My wonderful, amazing, messy room. I miss it.
Öland with mom and dad.
Before.
After.
Fanny cuts my hair outside.
On my goodbye-trip.
We brought cookies.
And a dog.
We also said good bye to Malin and Hugo.
Fanny cut my hair outside before I went to the US.
Fanny's summercottage a summer night, with Ville.
Little stuck.
Moheda and cozy summerpicnic with Fanny.
Quality dog/sister-time.
Photography course at school.
Winter outing in Hylletofta with cookies and hot chocolate.
Just got my camera. Soon leaving.
Playing with Little in our yard.
Good boy in elljusspåret.
Tova/dog-time.
Stockholm for a visit to the american embassy.
Scrapbbooking night with Anna and her friend.
Prom and graduation.
Maskinen playing in Sävsjö.
Having a good time in Vetlanda.
Mommy's birthday.
Friend time in Vrigstad.
Älvsjömässan in Stockholm.
Grandmother's 80-years old birthday at Sandsjöbaden.
Chili.
Emil.
All days like this, we are ugly but we have fun. That's all that matters.
Outgoing, to Vetlanda.
Frida moved in to her apartment in Nävelsjö.
Björnstammen 25 february.
The best night ever, exept the big fight with Julia - we never spoke to each other like before after that. I am kind of thankful for that, she gave me nothing but a hard time.
Nävelsjö-time. Live, love, laugh.
Let's take a shower.
Midsummer at my favorite place.
The best summerjob ever.
Wops, how did I get here? Outing alone to Hult.
Väla, MC-ice cream in the fun. Quality.
Barbeque night. Quality.
Outing to Hörnebo skiffergruva and Sandsjöbaden.
Fanny's prom and graduation. The heatingpad on fire!! That's what I call memories...
Goodbye dinner before I left.
Gränna with the best one.
Sister-time in Vetlanda.
Picnic in Nävelsjö.
Easter party in Vetlanda.
Signing at Sävsjö library.
Björnstammen, Växjö.
Trip to Gothenborg.
Tova-time in Vrigstad.
Sockerklaras in my heart. The best summer/winter have I spent here. Now afterwards it seems unreal that I was alone in the store - I grew so much as a person.
Linköping, a memorable trip I got as a graduationgift.
My going away party/eksjö stadsfest.
It was a good year. Started pretty rough but got better and better. I am now happier than for a long time. It feels good to be able to say - 2013 will be even better. I have changed so much, changes I am proud of carry with me for the rest of my life. To go to USA made me open my eyes and see what's important in life. Take chances and always try. You only live once. Thank you!
Disney on Ice and Boston
I think my computer got slow because of all the pictures of Disney on Ice. So I will write here instead.
I expected Disney on Ice to be disney figures skating around in a rink in TD garden. I know that TD garden is huge and it's for the bigger events, but I still didn't believe it was going to be something spectacular.
I was wrong. Totally wrong! It was pretty expensive, but it was worth every single coin!
It was a real show with costumes, disney music and the character's real voices when they spoke which they did some times, like explaining and introducing etc. They had worked really hard on their costumes, everything was so professional, it looked exactly like the real characters in the movies. It was Cinderella, Snowwhite, Mickey Mouse, Pinocchio, The lille Mermaid, Poccahontas, Beauty & the Beast, Lion King, Finding Nemo, Aladdin, Toystory etc.
I am so glad we went - don't know how many times we told each other that when we sat there. We had the best view too - a little bit far away as you can see on the pictures, but you saw it better in real life. We had the rink just in front of us. What more can you ask for?
The characters were professional ice skaters so it felt like a figureskating show with disney costumes.
When we first got there we realized how many kids there were and figured we had bought tickets for a show only for kids, but it was truly for everyone, I think we enjoyed it more than the kids. Haha.
After the show we thought we could go to Frog Pond to go ice skating ourselves, but it was snowing terrible - wet snow that felt amost like rain so we skipped that idea. We went there fast to take some pictures but instead of ice skating we went to Panera Bread for some dinner. I had french onion soup with water, apple and got a free bakery since I just got my Panera Card. Nice Surprise!
Later we went to Loew's Movie Theatre - the big one with three floors I've talked about before. We saw a movie about grandparents that were going to take care of their kids. It was actually a pretty good movie even though it was a comedy, i'm not really into comedys...
We took the train home, and when we sat there I said to Julia "Oh, I'm so happy I took the car. It's snowing so badly.". When I got off the train I realized badly was BADLY!! It was more than 30 centemeter I'm sure. And when I looked over the parkinglot I saw that my car was buried under all of that - how would i get it out?! There were no other cars exept for one on the parkinglot.
Lucky me a plow came so I followed that one home, but when I got to our house it was a lot of snow so I couldn't drive the car into the garage until I had shoveled it away. So 10pm, even later than that I started and I did the whole driveway (my back is now in two pieces). It snowed all the time too... That was my exercise, I can assure you. But still, I felt good about doing it. I hope the family can drive in their car easier now too. I don't think every aupair shovle their driveway....
That was my day - after all, a very good day!
Disney On Ice
Julia and I bought tickets for Disney on Ice yesterday.
I had no expectations at all.
Julia brought swedish plopp
Friday dinner
Julia came over to my house as soon as she came home from New Hampshire.
Our plan was to eat something and then go in to Boston to go ice skating on Frog Pond. But as you can see - our dinner turned out really fancy so we stayed home all night instead. Quality time is what I call this. The best food for a very long time (the goose on christmas was great, but this was heaven). We had so much to talk about and we also sat and described our journeys to the US - before we knew each other. It feels like a very long time ago. We talked about the first time we hang out here, I remember that I had the car, waiting for her outside the bank. She had a pink adidas sweater.
I am so glad I have her, life here wouldn't be the same without her. We can sit and talk about our family's, how we usually do things at home or whatever.
Here are some pictures of the food and my homemade toffee + glögg. We had such a cozy time - we listened to Sarah Jarosz on Pandora and had candles. After that we watched "Mammoth", a pretty sad movie about a filipino nanny that lived in New York to take care of a kid in a really rich family to be able to send money home for her own kids. I am glad we don't have the same reason to be nannies in the USA....
However, a wonderful night with Julia. I enjoyed every minute!
Christmas 25th
Now I will tell you a little about my christmas here.
On the 24th I skyped a lot with my family and Julia. I had very bad service with my family which can be annoying. But it was better than nothing. At 3pm swedish time I watched "Donald Duck", at 7pm "Karl-Bertil Jonsson" and at 9pm "Svensson Svensson". I also ate ginger snaps. Between the tv-watching I skyped with everybody. Can't say I miss the christmas in Sweden, but maybe just to hang out with everybody. The feeling. But I wouldn't want to go home...
I watched "From all of us to all of you" with the kids.
Later that day Lori had made swedish meatballs with creamsauce and mashed potatoes - heaven! She is an amazing cooker! We watched a movie after that - a black'n'white old movie that was soooooo boring. I can't believe the kids didn't complain more... The story changed in the middle of the movie and I don't understand how you could enjoy any of it. But when it ended I was glad. Then we went to bed.
The next morning they got up early to skype with Charlie's mother. I still don't know if she lives in Washington D.C or in France or if she only has a summerhouse in France. However, they were already done with that when I got up.
We started to give each other the presents. The kids had decorated their presents to me with stickers and different christmaspaper - how cute!
But generally they didn't wrap their gifts, atleast not Lori and Charlie. They had had the kids to decorate some pillowcases that they put their presents in. Smart but very boring in my opinion. My map was in a big blue velvetbag with a orange silkbow on it.
They were all surprised/amazed of my wrapping, and I am glad. I had wrapped the kids gift twice to make it more fun.
This was what the kids got as their christmas gifts. Exept it was pictures of them and us in it.
Lori and Charlie got a scrapbookcalendar with pictures of us in it. Lori laughed a lot about the picture of me and Obama on the frontpage. I am glad they liked it and I hope they will hang it somewhere around.
After that there wasn't anything special on the scedule. Lori was going to cook and the kids played with their new toys. They got books, puzzles, a real expensive telescope (don't ask me why, they hadn't even wished for it!!), a new wii, games for the wii, clothes, some kind of toys like a helicopter and lego..
I went down to my room to skype some more with people. I also helped Lori with the stuffing and the goose - she's really awesume, she explains everything so well and is so easy-going.
In the afternoon Lori's parents came. We sat next to the fireplace, they drank wine and everyone was dressed up. It was a nice feeling! Arno had his orange bowtie.
We ate the goose with stuffing (pork, rice, apples etc), green beans, popovers (some kind of muffinlike, but it's no desert) and hot applebites with some sauce. The grownups had red wine and we "kids" got nonalcoholic champagne. As desert Lori had made cinnamon squares - lovely. They grownups hade som alcoholic desert with ice cream. I felt kind of like a baby when they didn't ask if I wanted - they know that I am allowed to drink in Sweden, but I guess their rules here are pretty strict.
Later we watched a movie again, like the day before. But this movie was some kind of science movie. I thought I would die of boredom......................
But however - my christmas was really awesume. My family here are just the best, I couldn't be more thankful!
My presents
This christmas turned out to be better than I expected. This thing about having low expectations it now officially my thing! I expected to get something handmade (it sounds so mean, but that is boring) from the kids, but from Mirea I got a stamp (from papersource which she knows I love), decortape and nailpolish. She had bought everything for her own money for the first time. I am so thankful. Love her!
From Arno I got a pair of red fuzzy pants with monkeys on. So cute! I had planned to buy a onepiece for pajamas, but now I don't need to do that. That was exactly what I needed, so cute!
From Lori & Charlie I got a map of the US were you are supposed to mark where you have been. Such a smart and fun thing! I also got a gift card on $150 at American Express - you can buy anything everywhere! I almost started to cry... They had writted a little not in the envelope too:
"Dear Victoria,
Merry Christmas! We hope you will use this to do something fun with your sister when she visits.
Love,
Lori & Charlie"
From Sofie I got a little "painting" with text on. It said "Live, love laugh" with underlines. I didn't expect that either, thank you!
From Julia I got a little sockmonkey from the Beanie Babies Collection, which turned out to be something pretty famous or atleast well known. It says that the monkey has its birthday on February the 8th and was born 2010. Haha!
I hang up the map over my bed. I am so happy!!
Christmas gifts
My christmas tree & presents
I got a present from a sheep called Julia.....
From all of us to all of you!
On the swedish christmas I showed the kids the american version of Donald Duck. They loved it. Especially the santa claus-part with all the elfs. Arno turned it back three times.
Mirea was just in the middle of saying: oh, that's wierd.
Snow
This is what it looked like early in the morning on Christmas day, the 25th here - how wonderful!
It kept snowing when we opened our presents too - what more can you ask for?
Arts and crafts
This was December the 24th. The kids had gotten things to decorate in their presents.
Ornaments to decorate and hang in the tree. Mirea's reindeer.
Arno's penguin - he did it so well, it was amazing!
Arno got a plasterfrog and dragon too. Mirea got a butterfly and a bee.
In the mailbox
This became like my christmas gift on the mail.
A movie, a game and audiobook!
December 24
A reindeer and a polarbear to use in the shower. They really loved them!
Christmas gifts
Merry Christmas Lori & Charlie!
December 23
Andover
I taught the kids how to make friendship-bracelets.
Arno kept doing it for a very long time - you could totally see that he liked it, even though he did his own thing since it was pretty hard for him.
Superwoman in the snow.
It looked nice with a little ice on the lake.
...and it was fun to throw rocks at it to see if the ice would break.
Yeah, we had a good time this weekend. I mean, I don't really like to go there since I have all of my stuff in my room here, but it felt good to spend some time with the family. We played scrabbles (alfapet) which is really hard in english!!, watched both The Polar Express and The Nightmare Before Christmas (might be the worst movie I have ever seen!). Mirea wanted to help me to translate my book to english so we did that for awhile, almost 15 pages.
These kids really are the best you can ever get as hostkids. They always hug you and kiss you, and both of them came to lie in my bed with me for a moment before they went to sleep in their bunk bed. Arno asked me if I could come up to him to say goodnight, but I told him I was already in my bed, sleeping. Then he said he'd better come down to me instead. He is just cute.
And Mirea is so thoughful and asked if her lamp was bothering me while she was reading. She's just awesume.
So this Sunday, when we came home again, we had dinner and watched Home Alone. I love that movie and so did they. Both Lori and Charlie laughed really laud, especially Charlie. It was great to see him have fun like that, I don't think I've ever seen him laugh for real before. When the movie was over Arno went upstairs to take a shower. Lori called for him to tell him to say good night and he answered he would do that in a little bit. As the rest of us knew would be a while since it always takes him forever to take a shower. So I said good night to the others and went down to my room.
So after a while he came down and almost attacked me with hugs and kisses. "I've better do this fast, because my parents think I bother you otherwise".
- yeah, that's Arno. Love that kid.
Julia's christmas gift
Gingerbread House
I bought a ginger bread house for the kids, so we brought it to Andover to built and decorate it.
Funny, the instructions are exactly the same as if it was a piece of furniture.
We melted sugar to glue the walls together. Lori and Mirea made some frosting and then we started to decorate with M&M's.
Happy kids!
Yeah, Arno liked the frosting too...
Cottonballs as snow and a little way of M&M's.
Snowmen made of reese's.
We made it!!
Family Wierd.
Oh, the kids loved this picture....
Arno wanted to eat it all!
Christmas gifts
Here are the gifts for the kids.
Gingerbreadbaking with Julia
Since I was going away for the weekend, and Julia for next week I invited her for some ginger bread baking and some glögg. To just have a cozy, good time together.
She brought some cookie cutters since I didn't want to open the kids (they got a bunch of them in their advent calendar). Lucky us, cause otherwise we wouldn't get "dalahästar"! The pig, the pig - oh, christmas pig :)
We didn't find a real rolling pin, so we took another pin (maybe that's what they use, I don't know).
(I look like a tired housewife)
It smelled soooo good. It was the first thing Lori said when she came home!
Christmas Decoration Outside
I know that I don't write as much as before on my blog, guess I'm too lazy.
I have other things to do... ;)
Tomorrow, thursday, we will go to Andover and be there until Sunday. I don't like to spend so much time away from here, since I don't have much to do there but this time I "had no choise".. It was either go this weekend or stay for five days after christmas (or both) - gosh, I sound so negative, but it really feels like I work all the time when I'm there. I love to be here in my room and do things that I like. Well, I will probably bring my computer so I hope that will entertain me a little..
Today I went to IKEA with Lori. It was nice to do something, just the two of us, and I'm glad she asked me.I bought some stuff - paintbrushes and a worklamp for my desk etc. Love IKEA!
Yesterday we went to Cabot's. The kids, Lori, Lori's twinsister Elisa and her kid. Also fun to do something with everybody :)
Well, it's getting late now. Mom, scan that postcard - I would love to see it!
Good night, sleep tight!
Christmas Tree
This Sunday we decorated the christmas tree.
Mirea put the star on the top.
That is pretty much all the decoration the family have. Well, some minisantas on top of the fireplace too and the kids have one stocking each. It's simple, but it's better than nothing :) And I really like the way they have their tree, it's nice and simple - as it should be, in my opinion!
Pick Up Sticks
Arno and his friend played pick-up-sticks with the sticks they got from me in the adventcalendar while they were drinking tea. How cute!
Luciaparty
I only took two pictures from the Luciaparty at Julia's house.. to bad, but I guess we'll have to be happy that I atleast got two :)
As you may know Julias "grandfather" is swedish so Julias mom wants to keep some traditions (even though she never lived in Sweden). So at this party there were only swedish food (LOVED IT!) like ham, lussekatter, gingerbread cookies, glögg, swedish meatballs, chocolateballs, kanelfläta? (avlång bulle typ) and other stuff. Ofcourse it's not like our "real" swedish food, but it felt so good anyway. And with the advent candles on the table too! They actually have a christmas-star in the window too, it's unique here.. I miss my white, big star at home...
The kids (the cousins) walked Lucia-tåg and sang in swedish (how funny to hear americans sing in swedish!!) but this gave me real christmas feeling for awhile. I'm so mad at myself for leaving my camera up in Julias room. The kids were so cute! One of them, the oldest one - he might be 12 or something, sang "Staffan Stalledräng". They have a hard time with our R. It sounded so funny when se hang apelgrå. And it's also funny that they have no idea what they're singing about.
After sitting and chatting for a couple of hours Julia and I went up to her room to watch Home Alone. I fell asleep after 15 minutes approx and woke up when it ended... great movienight!?
Well, I'm so glad I went to this party, cause it was so much fun to feel that the swedish traditions still exist.
Advent candles
December 16
Mr Frog
Arno jumped like a frog across the cangingroom at swimming last week.. looked so funny!
Lucia in Boston
This Saturday it was swedish Lucia in Boston.
It feels kind of wierd to appreciate swedish things so much, but when you have been away for about 4 months and everything is always so american it feels good with some swedish stuff sometimes.
Lucia was kind of fail, but the little "market"-thing was great - as you soon will see..
Emelie and I bought one shrimp open face-sandwich each, it was so crowded so we had to sit on the floor.
Holy moly......
Crowded, as you can see. And here had pretty much all the people left.
I tooke this picture in a toy-store nearby. Frida, do you remember ours?
Rusian or polish, call them whatever you want..... (the dolls).
Prudential.
We walked around in some malls, Emelie, Sandra, Julia and I.
A great day!
Dunkin' Donuts
Arno is enjoying his hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts.
Friday in Fenway
This Friday Julia, Emelie and I decided to go out and see a movie or something.
I brought my camera and took some pictures of the christmas decorations outside.
We went to Fenway - hometown of Red Sox. Also where you find Fenway Park, where all their games are.
They had this red sox-things all over (even at stores like marshalls etc)
Fenway Park.
Prudential in Boston.
Julia, me and Emelie.
Redbull car.
Mexican food, yummie!
Then we went to Julia's house to watch a movie. We wanted to see Skyfall on the movies but then we would have to wait for such a long time, so we went home instead.
December 13
You are supposed to draw a mustache and a beard with a magnet-pen.
Mirea got christmas stickers in 3D.
Decorations
I did some decorations on the wall in my room.
Pizza
Arno and I made some pizzas this week. Yummie!
December 12
Premium Outlet
This Thursday we went to Premium Outlet to buy some christmas gifts.
I bought one pair of converse for 15 dollar it was sale on sale, a green pair (siiiiick, since I've wanted green since forever)!!
I also bought yarn och croche-needles, because now I'm going to start with crochet!
Chocolate balls
This Wednesday I walked to Julia to help her make some chocolate balls for her family's Lucia party this weekend.
December 11
Crayons
Sorry for my bad update!
Here are some pictures from when I tested to melt crayons in the oven in ice cubes.
This is something I will do with the kids, I think. But then I will have a silicone cube that works better in the heat.
December 10
They got to open the presents for the whole weekend!
Letters and animals to decorate, pens and markers. Also swedish chocolate toffee from IKEA that turned out to be a hit!
New York
We had a wonderful weekend in NY even though the weather could have been better.
We walked a lot and got so crazily tired in our legs, but it was still worth it!
New York is an amazing city and we did so much stuff in such short time - we had a really good time.
On our way home we asked the buscompany if we could go home 30 minutes earlier (the 4h long busride was heaven for our legs, to get some rest.) We could do that.
Halfway we pull over in some parkinglot as normally. To let people out to get some food or whatever. But this time we don't start to go again for awhile. Suddenly somebody says (a completely random person, not the busdriver) that the brakes on the bus don't work anymore and we have to wait an hour and a half for a new bus.....!
Picture Julia and me, totally tired and wanting to go home. But there was nothing to do but wait.
2,5 h later we were on the road again, the clock was about 12.30 am when I got home to the house - yippie.
So today I am pretty tired...
But nothing beats a weekend in New York - we had so much fun!!
NY - Empire State Building
We bought a skyride-tour where you sit like in a movietheatre and it feels like you are in a helicopter.
You weren't allowed to take pictures in there, but I can tell you that it was worth it. It was expensive, but fun! And it really felt like you were in a helicopter (/merry-go-round).
Museum/construction pictures.
Then we went to observation deck.
Statue of Liberty in the middle.
It was a little bit foggy, but we decided that we are going back up here one more time anyway. To see New York by night!
This means ache in my ears.....
NY - Times Square & Rockefeller
NY - Madame Tussauds
We put our stuff in a locker so we wouldn't have to carry it with us all the time. But the locker was wierd and the line to the reception was so long so we did something as crazy as leave our stuff in an unlocked locker. Ofcourse we brought the most important (like my camera) with us but anyway.
There were so many empty lockers so we thought the people could just take another one if they found ours.
Luckily when we got back all of our stuff was there!
View from a window on the second floor.
Rainy from one side.
Yeah, here we come!
NY - Sockerbit & Friends
On day two we went to Sockerbit - the swedish candystore on Christopher Street.
She was happy, as you can see!
It was extremely expensive, but worth it!
On the next street, a little but further away was the house where they recordered "friends".
NY - Subway
This is what we felt like in the morning - ready for adventure!
This is what we looked like after a whole day of walking...
NY - By Night
NY- Times Square
NY - Rockefeller
From the crowd from 5th avenue.
The christmas tree at Rockefeller.
NBC Studio Tour, from the window.
The ice skaters. It was too crowded to go ice skating that night...
NY - 5th Avenue
Plaza.
Applestore.
It was very crowded as you can see.
We went in here, but it was nothing for me..
Wrapped house.
Yeah, crowded.
The policemen had to block the street so people could cross.
We stood in the crowd for about 15 minutes, comming nowhere.
NY - Columbus Circle
Julia's hostmom Annika told us that Columbus Circle was a good place to visit for some christmas-feeling.
She was absolutely right.
We also went to a mall next to the christmas market.
Face Stockholm!
After that we went to a café for some yoghurt and New York cheesecake!
NY - Museum of Natural History
Known from the film "Night of the Museum".
This food was wonderful. The potatoes tasted "real"!
NY - Central Park Belvedere
Squirrel in the tree.
Charles B Stover, the park commissioner of New York. Granit stover memorial bench for him. Installed 1936.
Belvedere.
Shakespear Garden.
The view.
NY - Central Park
They had both an american and a swedish flag, but since it wasn't any wind it's hard to tell...
A couple that had their wedding in central park! You can see her dress in white.
NY - Nelson A Rockefeller Park
NY - South Manhattan
The new World Trade Center.
Under construction.
Federal office building.
NYPD policecar.
Julia and I really wanted a milkshake for some reason and then we just passed Shakeshack. A sign from god?
Me with a chocolateshake.
Julia with strawberry.
The New York Public Library.
We don't really know what this was, but went up there anyway.
As you can see, it was very foggy this day - it's hard to see the top of the skyscrapers..
New Jersey to the left, but you almost don't see it at all.
This is what I am talking about, how cool is this?!
Teardrop Park - nothing special since it was closed or something.
A ball field.
World Trade Center.
The ball field again.
WTC - construction.
NY - New Jersey
Friday night in New Jersey with the view of Manhattan.
Saturday morning. Newport PATH into Manhattan.
Origami dragon
Here is the origami dragon Arno made for me as a thanks for my advent calendar.
Making bed
I can make my bed. Here's a proof of that!
Skifamily
Santafamily on ski in my window!
Christmas tree
My little christmas tree with lights on! I love it!
The kids were late today so we didn't have time to open their presents this morning. Oh, holy moly how grumpy they turned out when I told them... Unfortunately I will be gone this weekend too, so they will open 4 presents on Monday instead. Now I wonder if I should surprise them and put one gift in their bed. But I would like to watch them open them too. But we'll see what I do..
Alien at swimming
Yeah, what to say?
I found this alien in the changing room before swimming.. haha.
Tissueboxes
On our awardsystem we had an award to decorate tissueboxes. The family use them a lot and the kids usually have their own. So do I.
This is what one of them looked like before.
And after...
December 6
Two little stuffed animals. One moose and one dog.
Jingle Bells
In the car on our way to gymnastics today the kids sang in the car.
Another version of a christmas carol that I don't remember which one. They started to discuss who had made that song up. Mirea said: "I made up that song. Make one yourself!"
Then Arno started to sing "Jingle bells, Mirea smells..."
It may sound boring, but I couldn't stop laughing!
Later, when Arno and I where at Starbucks he asked if he could have his sweetday today. And a vanilla milk too. I said yes and he got so happy that he turned to me and made a "kissing mouth", waiting for me to kiss him. He's so cute.
After a while a guy came in and ordered 4 drinks. He talked a little with the cashier while he waited and Arno whispered to me: "I think he likes her."
"Yes, maybe. He's smiling all the time" I said.
Arno answered: "Yeah, and he's talking to her...."
He totally made my day!
December 5
Today's gift was ice cubes and crayola crayons to melt together.
Arno thought it was a waste of crayons and when I looked at IKEAs website they said the cubes was for "water only". So I'm not really sure what to do now. Maybe we'll just draw something fun with them and make fish-ice cubes.. We'll see!
Box Decoration
The kids got two small boxes the first day in the advent calendar.
I bought this book at Michael's too, so we all decorated our stuff.
Arno continued his box the next day.
Mice
Ida & Joseph.
Yes, the kids got really happy about them!
December 4
Today's gift was stickers.
Vacuumer
When I vacuumed my room this Monday I vacuumed up something that made the machine start to smell and smoke. I had to put it here so the smokealarm wouldn't go on. Luckily I found the rubber/plastic piece that was stuck so now everything is alright again... puh.
Toy cars
These are the cars that Arno got from Sofie.
December 3
Sorry for the bad update, but I've been feeling a little bit low.
Here are some pictures from december 3rd.
(yes, it's very hard to take pictures of the kids, cause the keep moving all the time...)
Last Night
This was Sofie's last night here so we went out for dinner.
We wanted chinese food.
It was really good.
Then we got lucky-cookies.
Mine said that wisdom is the principal thing (sooo boring).
But Sofie's was better - do not spend the money that you don't have. Ha!
Sofie's gifts
Sofie bought some gifts for the kids that I wrapped.
Arno got the Snowman and Santa. It was minicars inside the box.
Mirea got the reindeer.
It was three purple nail polish in the box.
Both of them loved it!
December 2
The second gift in their advent calendar was two mice.
Arno named his Joseph and Mirea named hers Ida (she wanted a swedish name).
Blurred picture, but Arno made a tie for Joseph.
So cute!
IKEA
We had an LCC-meeting this sunday. Some LCC's had rent a movietheatre and were showing the Polar Express. Since my family were gone and it was just Sofie and I we dropped in later, only to sign the papers and meet my new LCC Karen (who I didn't meet anyway).
The movietheatre had booked double with a birthdayparty so instead of The Polar Express they showed some american girl movie. Disappointment for some..
After that Julia came with us to IKEA. Yeeeah!
What would USA be without swedish meatballs?!
Thank god they have IKEA here...
I found a painting of Stockholm. Cool.
I bought some candles, and looked for matchboxes (they don't have it anywhere!!).
And after that we went to MICHAEL'S!!! Love it. bought some stamps and a paper/cardboardbook. And some paper too. Fun!
Hey My Winterland
This is what it looked like outside my window on december the first.
December 1
Since the family were going to the other house over the weekend the kids got to open their presents on Friday night.They were really excited.
Saturday in Boston
We had Pizza at Joe's american bar and grill.
The coziest restaurant ever with glasswindows from the floor to the roof.
Then we went to Georgetown Cupcakes for desert.
I took Rudolph Red Velvet.
Family on ski
Thank you, mom.
I did it myself and it was so much fun, they are so cute!
Christmas tree
The Christmas tree had its own personal guardian.
Waffles
This was mine and Sofie's breakfast this saturday. Yummie!
Puzzle
Sofie helped me a little with the puzzle one day. She finished the top and I did almost the whole green dog!
It's so hard, since the pieces sometimes are in different colors compared to the box...
Hairdresser
Mirea at the hairdresser this Friday. Gorgeous Girl.com.
