Vintage Autumn

Well my first workday after pregnancy leave was last Wednesday, and that was also the last for this week. It was very quiet at work, so didn’t feel stressed at all. I still had time to be creative this week! I also painted with the kids yesterday, I’ll show you after the card, so the people who are here for the card can skip the rest.

I decided I want to go ahead with a long slumbering idea of opening my own webstore. This means I have to buy supplies. I am bad at saving – I think I said for the last 6 months that I shouldn’t buy crafting goods anymore, that I had allready spent my budget for the coming month. (And the month thereafter). Now, however, I got a fixed goal and an achievable amount of money I’d like to save. But I can’t buy crafting goods anymore. (Ok well maybe only the stencils from Designs by Ryn, I still want those). But I think I need a monthly dose of new supplies, and the only way I can get that is to win them. (I know that signing up for challenges without a price doesn’t get me supplies, but it does motivate me).

Going vintage is a challenge in itself, but maybe I can combine it with a French Kissed Postcards – image, I’ve been wanting to use one for a while but I am not really good at using digi/printed images. I combined it with Fall/Autumn, the vintage colours and aged look fit very well with Autumn, where the old leaves start to fall and warm colours decorate the trees and bushes.  And I loved using this colour combo: Brown and blue!  ((and cream and yellow)

Enough talking, on with the card. I admit I am very proud of this card, it makes me feel good. Isn’t that wonderful, that making a card makes you feel good? I also used up several items from my stash, yay!

Isn’t she just lovely? I immediately fell in love with the warm colours. It is currently not listed in Trishia’s store “French Kissed” on Etsy, but if you want it just convo Trishia and I’m sure she’ll put it up for you.

Materials used

The butterflies and doily are from my stash, the doily is from a Cheery Lynn die, the big butterfly is from a Christina Renee clear stamp set (not availble anymore) and the smaller butterfly is from a Chocolate Baroque stampset. The frame and text stamps are Crafter’s Companion from the Vintage line, and the blue diecut beneath the flowers is Joy Crafts. Both the paper for the doily, background and flowers is from an old English to Dutch dictionary. Colours used are Wild Honey, Vintage Photo and Broken China (with a touch of Salty Ocean), distress inks ofcourse.Also used are flower dies from Marianne design and Joy!Crafts.

How I made it

Background:I took a piece of cardstock, some pages from the dictionary which I ripped in pieces, and glued them on the cardstock. I used the Crafter’s Workshop  Mariposas stencil on the background, with distress paint bundled sage and distress ink vintage photo. (Not really visible anymore). Then used Mod Podge decoupage glue to seal it. While this was still wet, I sprayed on the black sooth and rusty hinge to darken it.

On the background and the blue diecut I made use of the new spraytool from Tim Holtz, the – what is it called- airbrush thingy which enables you to do airbrushing with markers. The contrast between the background and doily was low, so I darkened the background with black sooth and vintage photo (airbrush) and wiped piucked fence distress stain on the doily.

Blue swirl die cut:The blue diecut is painted with Peackock feathers distress pain, then added some bronze distress stain and wiped it off lightly, and lastly, put decoupage glue on it. Then I didn’t think that was done, so I sprayed some black sooth and rusty hinge on it with the airbrush tool. After it was dry I dabbed some Salty oceon on it with a sponge.

Frame and large butterfly: are heat embossed with bronze embossing powder. The butterfly was made a few weeks ago. It was stamped onto cardstock which was inked up with Brilliance Moonlight white.

Small butterfly: made a while ago, see this post “Time is the essence of life“.

The flowers: Diecuts from a Marianne Design die, maybe the small petaled one is from Joy!Crafts. Inked the edges and leaves.

Layering: Matted it onto cream colourd paper. The blue layer is made by using the Peacock Feathers distress paint  on paper (from the kids, they were colouring on their coloured paper and I did a tiny bit of crafting, ofcourse they wanted to dab with the dabber too. Ofcourse I let them – better to teach them how to use it properly, and tell them they can use it when I’m there, then to forbid them too and have them do it when I’m not looking!

We went on to use the cuttlebug, they love using it 🙂 My oldest understands the paper has to go in the folder and in the stack, although he doesn’t really know how to build the stack. My daughter is still too young for that, she will be 2 soon, she slips (only) a piece of paper in the machine and starts turning – ofcourse not much happens since there is no resistance. When I help her – build a stack for her – she loves to turn the handle.

The piece of paper for my frame however was too big for the cuttlebug (and folder), so I grabbed a … what’s the word in English… doughroller (literal translation) – the thing you use to flatten dough – and rolled it over the embossing folder, repositioning the folder untill all the paper was embossed. I dabbed some distress stain bronze on it and sprayed black sooth on it with the airbrushtool.

Glued it onto cardstock which was made brown with Vintage Photo.

Challenges

I’d like to enter the following challenges with this card. If there are special requirements to participate, I’ve mentioned those (again) behind the challenge link.

• We love vintage challenge blog – Butterflies; (Ik volg via rss feed en heb de google friend connect ook ingevuld)
• Simply Create too – Challenge #70 Fall/Autumn;
• Kraftyhands Challenges – Autumn Colours; (following via rss feed)
• A Vintage Journey – Autumn; Tim Holtz his influence: he is what made me enthousiastic about cardmaking. I got a lot of his products (markers, stains, paints, inks, latest buy is the airbrush tool). How he has influenced my style: The ease with which he makes things. Things don’t need to be perfect. The background would certainly be up in his alley, and putting airbrushed splatters on the background and diecut to age the item too. Also the frame with the text is distressed by inking the (cream coloured) paper a bit with vintage photo then spraying water on it. (I only used the wrong spray, so don’t have little pretty dots but more like one big dot). Another influence is that paper isn’t uniform in colour – none of the layers are uniform of colour exccept the cream one. The others have darker and ligher areas, and in case of the blue layer I even dabbed a not reinked sponge of a darker blue (salty ocean) on it. The overall look fo the card is not what I’d expect to see from him though, (don’t he’d ever use doilies) and ofcourse the main image is a digi image (thought the butterflies, frame and text is stamped). So no worries if I’m not eligble for a prize.

 

 Crafting with the kids

Now onto the part about crafting with the kids. We painted a tissuebox-box, an mdf cutout from a castle and a mushroom, and some tags and other wood embellishments. My plan is to put a finish on the box so the colour looks more vibrant (it is a bit pale when it dries, as it’s children’s paint), and maybe add some more embellishments and then give it as a gift to my mom. She has allready seen it, as my kids showed her, so I’m not spoiling a surprise!

I helped paint the side of the box, as you can see. My children are still too small to not blend all the colours untill it’s a purple shade of grey.  Also, the lid looks great like it is on the first pictures, doesn’t it? When we where nearly finished, my son put red paint all over the top. Then I went to the sink with my daughter to wash her hands, and I told him he could clean the plastic tablecloth with the cloth that was there. When I returned to the table he had done that, but was also “cleaning” the box. It does have an interesting look now, looks quite distressed! Great technique T! Thanks!

As I said earlier, the colours look really dull now, but they’ll brighten up a bit after putting some kind of sealer on it. My plan is to seal it without the kids using spray finisher (spuitlak) or seal it with decoupage glue and have the kids add embellishments (or just torn paper or some of my unused die cuts or punch-cuts). I am very tempted to spruce the items up a bit now though, like really paint a castle or dots on the mushroom, or add more colour. But it’s the kids project, so I should let it as it is. What I should have done, I realize now, is make examples. Not while they are paintin – I am running around too much trying to prevent the whole table (legs and underside), chairs and floor getting under the paint, and preventing brushes going into mouths or painting of hands, arms, faces. No time for a project for myself then!

Thank you for visiting, even it it’s just to browse the pictures!

 

The Little Prince birth theme – part 1

  Long had I been thinking about the theme for the birth announcement card. I like to design a card with a theme, something that to me, suits the child. For our first child, it was easy, I knew quite fast I wanted a bit of a spring theme, not neccesarily lambs, but sheep. He is Aries, and lambs are born in spring so that was very suitable. The birth announcement board was a felted sheep, so that matched too. For our second child, it took a little longer and I took her name as starting point. Also incorporated was something of her brother and of a parc in the area we used to visit often. The animals on her card were cats, and the birth announcement board was also a cat, (our cat). Now, our third child, I couldn’t think of anything. So I browsed the internet for something that matched his name. I found a card I kind of liked, and started tweaking it a bit (ofcourse I couldn’t just use the card as is, I had to put my “stamp” on it.). This is the original: I wanted less blue, and more summer colours, so i put in a yellow background, darkened the blue to more of a royal blue, then switched the colours around. But I wasn’t convinced by it, it was too.. obvious, in a way. (As the name Lodewijk is mostly associated with the European kings named Lodewijk or Louis, and those are associated often with baroque. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodewijk_%28voornaam%29 (site is only in Dutch). I don’t remember wether I started on the birth announcement card before or after June 6th, it seems it was after. As I wasn’t satisfied with this card I started anew to find a theme, another drawing style like the one that Freya’s card was based on. So I tried searching for comic styles (but how do you search for a style if you don’t know names from artists, comics, or styles?). Eventually I found paintings from various artists of The little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and I was immediately in love with it – it had a nice drawing style (not the balloonhead or manga style you see so much today), it had something royal in it, but also thoughtful quotes and a deeper meaning. My neece crossed my mind often while designing the card and re-reading the story. Some of the inspirational images are found here: http://cizgilimasallar.blogspot.nl/search/label/The%20Little%20Prince – this is a list of the posts which have artists work of The Little Prince, click on Read More below each post to see more artwork. One I liked very much is this one:

Kim Minji – http://www.ki204.com

Oh and this one:   I liked the yellow flowers, although there is some melancholy in the images. Ofcourse, that is also throughout the book, and the look of the little prince is a look of wonder. I thought about making the entire card myself, printing it and finishing it with stamps, even colouring those stamps. The prints didn’t look very well, so I eventually had them printed. But I did order handmade stamps, from http://memitherainbow.blogspot.nl/search?q=prince. On the 14th of June the kids and me painted a little. Tobias first painted something on his sheet, and then he started painting a vulcano. Next, he said the vulcano erupted and the entire sheet had to be covered with yellow/orange paint. I loved it, and when it was drying I thought this was a perfect background for the card! See the vulcano on the bottom right? Freya’s painting (and the circles from where the lid or the paint jar had fallen or stood). As it is childrens paint, it dried up a little pale, so I edited the photo’s digitally.

– I’ve written the above part a few days ago, but it’s kind of busy, not much time to write so I continue in photo’s now and no text. –

The card was made mostly digitally, then I uploaded it to have it printed by a cardprinting company, and then I added some stamping with (bought) handmade stamps from Memi’s rainbow. (I stamped the little prince and 3 stars on it, the star stamp was inked up once when stamping 3 stars.)

 

Hard at work, designing. (well, not really, as I didn’t do that on the laptop.)

(anonomised) family tree – Lodewijk has been named after 3 of his great-granddads (they were called Louis), and as second name he has the second name of great-granddad nr 4.

A bundle of innocence – Our third child is born!

Well he wasn’t born just now or yesterday, but almost exactly 2 weeks ago. (As I’m typing this, it’s 22:31, and he was born 2 weeks ago on the 3rd of july at 22:47).

He got a bit of a classic name – Lodewijk. It means: warrior/fighter for loot. The two other names he got mean: strength of a lion and protector of mankind. Lodewijk is the dutch version for Louis, or Aloysius, althouht those two names are/were quite common in (the south) of the Netherlands too, as there is / was lots of French influence here.

We are all doing fine, and enjoying him a lot. He’s very sweet. Then again, babies cry most when they are 6 to 8 weeks old.

Only a short post, was a busy day today! More about the birthannouncement card and how I made it later!

Here is a picture of his very proud brother, holding him for the first time the next morning, Lodewijk is about 12 hrs old here.  (Lodewijk, just as his brother and sister, was born at home) :

His sister was frowning a bit at him, but she soon decided he was interesting and fun. He too has eyes, and ears, and a nose, and hair:

And last, an “action” family picture, Lodewijk was about 18 hrs old here:

On the brink of life and death – let’s hope life wins twice.

New lives – in more ways then one.

Here I am, one week before my third baby is due.  It’s been – and still are – times of extremes. I’m about to give life to a baby boy, while my 12 year old niece is fighting for her life in the hospital. She had an accident on the 6th of june and has been in the IC ever  since, her life hanging by a thread. And if she survives, what life will she be able to lead? I don’t want to say more in public about this than her mother (my oldest sister), so I won’t go into details about it. For all of us, a new life has started allready – no matter how you look at it. Let’s hope it will be a happy new life for all of us.

It’s understandably a difficult time for my family – my niece in the hospital, and my baby is due any moment. I am sure he will bring comfort, joy and strength to all of us, and I so wish that I can show him to Meg, and they can start their new life together. They will have a bond forever, at least to me they will. Is he with her now, in the twillight of life, while they both aren’t with us yet? Is he comforting her, wherever their spirits are now? I hope so.

I was raised catholic, but I do not think that is the path for me. I believe in “cosmos” – a greater thing in life – which is not necessarily God. God is just one of the faces of it. Call me an atheist, a pagan, treehugger – I don’t mind. As such, I do not really believe in praying to God, as in, asking Him for a miracle. I do believe in praying and using a focus point to send positive energy too. For some, the focus point is God, and that way, the positive energy is focused and sent into the universe. Faith can move mountains. I might have mentioned it before: the snowball effect.

The snowball effect of positiviness

Imagine you go out in the morning, walking to your car / work /  busstop / trainstation. You pass a stranger on the street, who looks rather grumpy. Maybe you are grumpy too as it’s early. Easiest is to just ignore eachother and go on your way. But what if you look him/her in the eye, really see this person, this being, and say “goodmorning” with a smile? Smiling eventually makes you feel better. (I know from working as a waitress – sometimes I didn’t feel like being cheerful, but ofcourse I was friendly and smiling at people, and not soon after I would be genuinely smiling, I’d feel better and be cheerful. I know this doesn’t always work, but might work for normal grumpiness). So that is the effect on yourself.

Acknowledge existence

Now the effect on the stranger. Maybe he/she felt very lonely, unimportant, had a bad start of the day or something sad has happened. Maybe your smile and greet can bring a smile on his/her face. Maybe he’ll feel noticed, and feel seen. Nothing is worse then being ignored – it’s like your existence, your very being, is denied. That is why I never ignore a begger, homeless person, or people you feel uncomfortable around: being ignored is very painful. It is hard sometimes to look someone in the eye, greet, and move on, (without giving money, or buying the homelss newspaper) – but I force myself to do it. The least I can do is give them a smile and a greeting – acknowledge their existence.

Appreciate existence

Now, not only acknowledge their existence, but somehow, in truely seeing or looking at a person, you can make a person feel valued, be appreciated and worthy of existence. So, that stranger. Maybe he’ll feel a bit better. Maybe he’ll greet the next person he meets in turn: it could be the busdriver who is looked in the eye and greeted, maybe even smiled at. By smiling from the heart, you make a person feel welcome, feel appreciated. A person feels better about him/herself, and feel better about life, and want to do better in life – make other people feel that way too.
It might not work for everyone, but I’ve experienced this the first time in high school – I wasn’t one of the popular girls, more a quiet and shy girl who felt like not fitting in. One of the more popular boys one day asked me a question about something in the lunch break (no idea what the question was) – but he made me not only feel like I existed – he made me feel like I was appreciated.  He looked me in the eye, and treated me with respect, with value. He saw me. It’s not like he was hitting on me or absently asked a question – he was calm and focused. I was impressed by it – I never thought he’d speak to me, or at least not as sincere as he did then. I felt respected, worthy of existence, so to say. It’s not like this happened all the time he spoke to people, but just that one time made a huge impression on me. I wanted to be like this too: to be able to really see a person and make this person feel valued, feel acknowledged, appreciated just and accepted just the way this person is inside, not just how others categorize this person.

Maybe that busdriver smiles more at the people coming into the bus, greeting them more cheerfully. And maybe those people are a bit more positive.

All these little bits of positiviness give off a vibe – have you experienced the feeling of solidarity after a country has won an important soccer game? The positive vibe in a meeting room, the energy, when everyone is excited to get started on the new project, to do his best and to give his all? This positive vibe, positive energy can have huge effects could have been started by a single smile in the morning.

Healing thoughts

So I believe in positiviness, in healing thoughts. Ofcourse, I too am not always the sunshine in the house, I have plenty of grumpy and negative moments, but I try. I keep thinking of posibillities, for Meg, rather then impossibilities. I keep thinking of rehabilitation, recovery for Meg, instead of the long way it will be and the limits she might have.

Normal life continues – normal activities take place, we still laugh at jokes, have fun with our kids and cherish moments together. It is needed, for Meg.

We too burn a candle for Meg (albeit one on batteries, I don’t dare leave a burning candle out with young kids around, not even if I’d put it high up).

We too “pray” for a good recovery and send healing thoughts her way.

Will you think of her too, even though you don’t know her? Send some loving thoughts her way, send her strength, send her comforting thoughts and feelings of safety.

Miracles happen – let Meg’s recovery be one.

 

Birthday Girl – 1 year! Hieperdepiep, hoera! CAKE!

Warning: picture heavy post!

She’s usually moving too much to get a good picture when she’s really happy/laughing.

Cake nr 2 – presenting it to F.

Dikkie Dik! This is what they were supposed to look like. As you can see, I’m not much of a drawing artist. Luckily the image of Dikkie Dik is printed on the tag as well.

Last week my daughter turned 1. We celebrated this on saturday and sunday (half of the visitors preferred saturday, the other half sunday, hence the celebration on two days).We also had 2 cakes: A big mocca one made by my mom, and a smaller chocolate one made by me. I did make the decorations on thursday, for both cakes.

Stamps are very versatile, I used the stamps from Design By Ryn on the fondant and marsepan! And while making this post, I thought of using liquid food coloring on the stamps to actually stamp onto something, instead of only embossing with the stamps!

Here is a photo impression of the preparations, the cake and preparing the treats to hand out at the daycare.

Day 1: lots of flowers. And a gap in the cake due to my toddler who tasted the cake when he was on kitchen stool and I was making his bottle of milk.

Day 2 Applecake/applepie and Chocolate cake.

Day 2 Applecake/applepie

Very Chocolatey cake, as much more cacao then was meant to go in, went in. The other half of the applecake went in the freezer, to be taken out later as a treat to the daycare staff.

Day 3 – making more decorations.

Day 3: Cut out a small flower (with the tool) in white

Day 3: Then place a bigger tool on top of it

Day 3: Press the whole tool down, press the “handle” down (it embosses the marsepan) , wiggle to get it to loosen from the rest, and release from the tool.

Day 3: Heey maybe I can use my stamps! Duh, not for stamping with ink (Although, now I think of it, I DO have fluid foodcolouring! That would have been great! AAah yes! (*makes mental note for next birthdaycake*)

Day 3: Me playing around on the fondant . I figured it was going to be covered in flowers anyway, so why not add some more? I used stamps from Design by Ryn.

Close up

Close up

Close up

I can do that with leaves as well!

Rougly cut with a kitchen knife (don’t bother with the stems, they are too small!)

Lift from below with the knife

And voila, leaves!

Leaves and blue flowers

Lifting up the fondant to put over the cake.

After putting it on the (chocolate) cake

Pressed down and cut. It’s not smooth, but I knew that wasn’t doable for me. I was ok with this, I knew F. won’t care 😛 I also forgot to turn the cake over, so the bottom is the top. That way you have a flat top.

Close up – it’s still visible! Autumn fairies on the cake!

Origami flower

A bowl turned upside down as a lid

The decorated cake – filled with cherries. The flavour was not very strong, it could have been stronger (of the whole cake, apart from all the sugardecorations ofcourse).

Cake nr 2 – presenting it to F.

Happy Birthday – cake nr 1 (On day 3)

I was telling Tobias to watch out for the candle, or ask him to blow it out. The candle was out of reach from F, but not the cake! I didn’t see what she did there: Dig in!

Maya de bij

Mjam! (Actually she didn’t quite like it, she was mostly just playing around with it)

She loved rubbing her plate over her head… look, gel!

Hanging around again. (She is not allowed to put her foot on the table)

Cake nr 2 – presenting it to F.

Fake laugh! Not sure when this picture was taken, I think during the preparations sometime. And no, the fake laugh is not because of the flash! Might be a bit because of the focus light on the camera…

Dying some fabric handkerchiefs

I didn’t entirely follow instructions. The lighter pieces is a piece of cloth added later.

Wrapped the napkins around a mandarin, and drew a catface on it

Dikkie Dik! This is what they were supposed to look like. As you can see, I’m not much of a drawing artist. Luckily the image of Dikkie Dik is printed on the tag as well.

She’s usually moving too much to get a good picture when she’s really happy/laughing.

A few days before…A yoghurt mask…

Feels good mom, you should try this too!

Preparations

It’s like a hurricane was in the dining room – why? I’ll explain further down the post.

Somewhere in between creating the hurricane-look I also made a card for the son of a friend, who will be 5 (or was it 6?). He is really into public transport, so I did my best to relate to that. I started out with a tardis from Vivalasvegastamps and chalk (well I did that (the tardis) more for his mother, who probably knows dr. Who), a track  from Stampinback and a Thomas the Train stamp-cut out. And some balloons. After I had done my best to colour in the balloons with my Neocolor crayons to get a good color coverage, I remembered another stamp from Crafty individuals: Boys Toys. Stamped that on top and then I had to “fix” the balloons a bit. I used my white gelpen freely. I would use it less if I had thought of that stamp sooner, but now it was just too much going on on one layer,  I used it to create another layer. More Caran D’ache Neon Colors later, and gluing it on a red card and it was done.

The idea was that T. would be making a drawing, but he got caught up in “cutting”. I just recently started to let him cut with a real steal (childrens) scissors, as the so called safe ones from plastic are too difficult to cut with. First, he got a little plastic scissors which was in a drawing set. It didn’t cut, so I searched for my old one when I was a kid, but the blade was loose so that didn’t really cut either. Then I bought plastic scissors which were a bit bigger, thinking those would be better then the first ones as it wasn’t included in a cheap set, but they didn’t cut. Today I bought metal childresn scissors, they cut perfectly. Only they are for left-handed children, and although T doesn’t have a clear preference yet, I think he’s right handed…. so… *sigh* still not the righ scissors.  so he was cutting enthousiastically, and not really making anything anymore, he was just cutting. Even in his drawing. The remaining bit of paper looks too much as a left over to be given. So after he went to bed I finished my card (I stopped at the balloons bit, so when I got back to the card I remembered the stamp).

I also told you my daughter will be 1 soon. I am preparing a little bit for it, I made a small chocolage “biscuit” cake tonight, and put it in the freezer. A day before her birthday I’ll get it out and decorate it more. I also have to make a bigger cake. Theme for the cakes will be Maya de Bij.

It is not going to be very fancy, just green fondant over the cake (oh and some filling, don’t know what yet) and then these flowers I made tonight as decoration, together with a toy Maja.

Not really perfect… my previous “cake biscuits” ones were better. I guess that’s beginners luck.

Flowers and bows. Flowers with cutters from Albert Heijn (a Dutch big grocery chain), and the bow is from a mould.

When I was done I remembered I hadn’t thought of the treats for the daycare! How could I forget! Luckily I still have 1 week to think of something.

So, back to the hurricane. In my previous post I mentioned renovation, storing and storage. So I am in the process of cleaning out cupboard and organizing my crafting stuff. I knew I had lots of wasted space (and lots of waste too, actually, because of bad usage of storage. I’ve got 3 Ikea drawer chests, (If that is the right english word for “ladekastjes”) – they don’t sell them anymore, but ever since my previous move (so not the last one but the one before that) some of the drawers were kind of filled with stuff I didn’t know where to put or which I still had to sort. Others kept my jewelry making stuff (nothing fancy like gold or silver, but the beads kind of jewellry). I haven’t made a necklace or a bracelet in ages, and still the beads and tools were taking up 2 drawers. I moved most of it into 1 drawer now, and plan to use it on cards. My inks and inking tools were kept in little shoeboxes (childrens shoeboxes are great storage – they still fit inside the cupboard, as opposed to some of my shoeboxes which are just an inch too long to put in efficiently). Anyway, the inks have moved to the chest of drawers, and I added wheels to the bottom, and moved the whole thing under the dining table. Tadaaa! The 2nd cupboard is dedicated entirely to my kids crafting, none of my stuff in there (ok except for printing labels). Also with weels, and on the other side under the table.

Halfway – the little sidetable I made on a blue monday in furniture / woodworking school, it was behind a big chair but placed here because it would go to storage. Ofcourse it got used immediately to put my binders with stamps on, while I was cleaning out the bookshelves on the left.

So much junk in this picture, most of the used and usefull stuff was allready moved to the cupboard on the right. Because I made an extra shelve in that cupboard (and I needed to paint it), the organizers couldn’t go in yet.  And there is also the Med-Comfort: the latex gloves which I bought a size to big, so they are annoying to use. I bought household gloves the other day, and thinking about my mistake here, took a small size. You can guess what I’ll say next. Yes. They were too small, my fingers went numb if I wore them for more then 10 minutes. So, onto the positive things in this picture: Look at my “work in progress board” – I still have to make a post about it. I like it a lot 🙂

Bookcase gone, sidetable gone, empty walls again! But the table is still cluttered, and I didn’t dare put the extra table in the picture…

The top between the lower and upper cupboard on the left also is full of stuff that needs to be sorted. Laundry is under the kids chair. See the chest of drawers next to the red childrens chair? On the other side of the table is my chest of drawers. I know the memoboard is full too, it can be taken off as well, but first I’ll sort all the loose stuff that is lying around.

I think you’ve seen enough junk and chaos. I’ll conclude this post with a beautifull image. Please respect the authors copyright, and if repinning/sharing it, include the name of the artist and website. (phatpuppy facebook.com/phatpuppyart).

Pinned on Pinterest “My World and Welcome to It by phatpuppy (facebook.com/phatpuppyart) By request of the artist: please do not remove artist name or facebook link when repinning.

Making cookies with mini Chef

Just some pictures of my kids, no elaborate post today. Mostly photos of my little chef making cookies. (Or rather, me making them and him making a mess). But we all fun! And he helpdes cleaning the best he could, he gets upset if he isn’t allowed to help clean. He is in the “terrible two” stage. And I pick my battles – if he wants to help clean, that’s ok with me. I’ll wipe the table/floor again when he’s not looking 😉

Drawing everywhere on the board.

Being content

Making cookies

We don’t have a table in the kitchen, as that is only 1 meter wide, so we went to the dining table to make cookies. I’m not sure if I will do this lots more often, as he doesn’t help knead yet, he only eats it. I think I might have to premake the dough for a while and then we roll it out together and punch out shapes. I think my partner wasn’t here when we cut out the shapes, so I have no pictures of that. My little chef loved to cut out the shapes with the cookiecutters!

And making a mess

Fortunately, he loves to vacuum!

Awwww sweet moment. (Totally unrelated to the baking story)

Koekies! *points to oven*

My little chef!

Waiting…

Next day: decorating with daddy!

My sweet little girl 🙂

Stacked cake

I’ve been absent again for a while. On 2nd christmasday I got a bad fever, I really couldn’t do anything but stay in bed. Not the way you imagine spending Christmas. In the following 6 weeks I had the flu twice more, felt drained of energy and had several colds. I blame it on the weather: spring is needed! Sun is needed! That’ll give my health a boost. I also blame it on a flu virus which lingers for 6 to 8 weeks, I probably had that variant. I also blame it on low resistance, due to a loooong winter, and lack of sleep. Slowly I was getting more energy again, those 2 days of spring in ..when was it, february? really helped me “survive”. It was needed. Now, I feel spring is near, but it’s not yet here. My health is better now, my sleep is better. My daughter is sleeping on the same room as my son since about 3 weeks ago, (since 18th of March). After a weekend at my parents place, where we slept in one room (partner, kids and me), he asked the followin monday, when he went to bed, if Freya could sleep in his room too.  Now I make it look like he literally asked this, but he’s not even 2 yet, he can’t make sentences. He can point to the upper bed of the double bed, and say: “Aya?” “Aya!”. So we asked, should we get Freya? He nods. We put her in the upper bed, and he is happy and dives into his own bed. From that night on she sleeps there every night, and sinve a few nights ago she sleeps through the night till morning. She used to wake up after 03:00 for a while, but that is over now, despite her cold. Poor girl. Been having a cold on and off since christmas, that hinders her sleep.
Last weeks have been busy as well, computer has been barely on at home, but now, while waiting for a cake to cooldown, there is time for an update.

Tomorrow we’ll be celebrating my sons 2nd birthday.

As I didn’t see a childrenscake I liked in the (online) stores, I decided to make one myself. My son doesn’t like whipped cream that much, and most bought childrenscakes are cream cakes (slagroomtaarten). I wanted more fruit.

Wednesday morning I also received a message that one of my dearest friend has had a severe burnout. She lives too far away to visit frequently. We’ve been very close, but due to the distance our lives are less intertwined. The bond is still strong, but the details of daily life are not shared on a daily or weekly base anymore. It was hard for me to hear she is ill, as I felt so totally helpless. And guilty that I do not invest enough time in my friendships. I am not a good friend, I am usually not the one who picks up the phone to dial someone. I try to improve, try to send out more mails, send an unexpected card, or even call, but soon I revert to my own day to day life and neglect my social contacts. So, to stop myself from worrying to much while there was nothing I could do, (except write a long e-mail to her partner, and have a card ready for her) I focused again T’s his birthday.
I found this webshop & forum and spend a few hours browsing through, finally ordering a print and several baking ingredients and materials. The print is from a slightly different shop, but I should have read the small prints better: They would ship it the same day if ordered before 14:00. So I thought, jay! then it will be here on friday, just in time! But, the mail has a delivery time of up to 3 workdays…. it will probably arrive monday.

Yesterday evening I made a first cake, a tulband [turban]. During mixing I thought of my friend. Not only due to the bad news, but also because I think I’ve always done that. As I keep remembering how enthousiast she once was about a cake she made with a drill. The mixer was broken, and she and her bf wanted cake. So they carefully put the garde (mixing-utensil) into a drill, and carefully mixed the batter. I remember how delighted whe was about it, how “lyrisch”. The batter was smooth, shining, soft… She almost considered using a drill every time for making batter. The cake was delicious. (Though I can’t remember if I had any of it). Thinking of that always brings a smile to my face!

Back to the recipy, banana whimsical bakehouse cake (site is in Dutch). It required brown sugar which I didn’t have enough of, so I used palmsugar instead. I always do that. Meticuti..meticulo…Precisely following instructions up to one point where I start adventuring and adding my own touch. Just like yesterday. I kind of forgot that palmsugar is salty of itself. So I added the required amount of salt according to the original recipe. Although the structure of the cake is excellent and the look is great, the taste is just a little bit too salty. Not very very salty, I didn’t quite notice it the first bite. But after the 2nd or 3rd bite I had enough, not exactly the taste I had in mind. Behold the cake with gula jawa instead of bruine basterdsuiker. Maybe with a less salt it might be tastier. Now I save it for my parents to taste on sunday, to see if they (well if my mom) thinks it could be a good cake with less salt. Palm sugar is a natural sugar and healthier then the normal suger. Oh, in case you’re wondering: I used the gula jawa with the bamboo strip around it, it’s a sort of disk. Took a lot of mixing (and before that some chopping) to get it to be absorbed by tehe batter well enough. I had greased the baking form with a spray and then sprinkled flour in it, as I am used to do. Well putting flour in it is, the spray is new, usually I used butter. (Only today I read that isn’t really necessary).

turban – tulband.

So today I got the baking ingredients and materials, and just now, after my yoga class, started working on the cake. I’ve received a cakeform with christmas and decided to use it. (stapeltaart bakblik / bakvorm van de Xenos of van cookandco.nl).

This is the one:

(More info about the

form)

Usually a stacked cake is made by placing circles on top of eachother, not in this way. But I got it as a present so wanted to use it. Carefully I followd instructions for the chocolate biscuit mix. As well as I could. I made some adjustments.

450 gr mix, 5 eggs (which weighed about 290 gr), 105 ml water. Baked it about an hour I think. I had set the alarm on 10 minutes several times, but at 30 minutes it looked like it was baking too fast so turned the heat down. (From 150 on a hot air oven to 145degrees). And 5 minutes later it felt still very not yet done, so I decided to go ahead and have some fun with the punchers and marsepein I had. I kept checking the cake, and decided it was done eventually. How long it had been in the oven? eeeh….several times 10 minutes plus several times a couple of minutes? My guess is about 50 minutes. Mostly at 150 degrees, a bit lower, and then a bit higher. I’m not good at experimenting. Good experimenters write down what they do so  they can reproduce it. I always think I will remember what I’ve done. Fast forward 5 minutes and I’ve forgotten the amounts and time allready. Probably because I know I won’t stick to them next time. I’ll be experimenting again.

Mixing the stuff. Hm… doesn’t look like much. Ooooh it’s getting bigger! The eggs are getting fluffier! Look how it shines! ooooh it rises more. Eh. Wait, stop! that doesn’t fit in my mixerbowl anymore, my mixer (on a standard) is about to drown! That is easily fixed, remove the mixer from the standard and do the last bit with the mixer in hand. It looks good. It tastes good. I hated making cakes while I was pregnant, as I wasn’t allowed to taste the batter, (raw eggs) and I love to taste the batter. (Also a reason why I decided baking is not a hobby I should pursue. 1 – I like the batter too much. 2 – I’d be eating probably the largest amount of what I bake, because it is always too much, so we are left with half a cake. What happens to it? It ends up in my partners tummy. And mine. Mostly mine I must admit. So, it should not be a hobby of mine. But making cakes is fun!

Anyway. Marsepein. Tobias doesn’t really like it, so for the cover of the cake I had ordered fondant, hopefully he likes that. He isn’t much into sweet stuff (yet). I’ll add lots of fruit to the cake. Punching out the shapes was fun, yet how do I remove the excess castingsugar? Oh well, just make it wet a bit. Hmm. Now my marzipan was a bit wet. How do I dry it? Not in the fridge, it will “sweat” in there, so out on the kitchencounter. Apparantly, you can use casting sugar to make it more dry. But then it will have this dull look of the casting sugar, and as I’ve been creative with (edible) glitter gel on it allready, and thus can’t rub on the marzipan. Oh well, it’s a childrens cake. He’ll love it no matter how it looks, as long as we present it like it’s very important and special.

The cake is cooling down now. Tomorrow I’ll see about cutting it straight, filling it and putting fondant on top of it. Furthermore I have stuff to put against the sides (edible confetti) and fruit: bananas, raspberries, strawberries and mandarins (though i didn’t intend to use those). Oh and I got forest fruit jam and strawberry jam, to put in as filling between the layers. What layers? It’s one piece! Well maybe I’ll cut it. Or maybe it fails and I need to make a new one and then I make it the way my mommy told me, so two seperate

cakes with filling between them.

I’ll go and make a picture of the cake as it is now. I’ll be right back.

Oooh I can almost make a mushroom cake out of it. A Shi-take mushroom cake. Shi-take because it’s a very flat mushroom cake, and the shi-takes always look so flat and thin.
As it’s late, I can’t be bothered to clean my kitchen properly before taking the pictures, or to crop the photo’s. It’s the counter of a mom of 2 young kids who was a bit nervous about baking and the party tomorrow. I bet, secretly, a lot of counters look like this, only people make it look like a moviecounter or a kitchenshowroomcountertop right before they take pictures :P. Anyway, pictures!

Ehh, cake, you can let go now, you’re cooled… it’s allright, let go of the rack…

It didn’t rise smoothly along the edges, but that is due to the oven still being to hot initially. Or maybe I shouldn’t have put it on air heating, but should have put it on conventional heating… hmmm…

Hmm smooth talking won’t work, I have to push this mushroom out of the rack.

You can see a crack in the top, that indicates the oven was too hot. The outsides were baking faster then the inside. 150 degrees Celsius in a hete lucht oven (hot air oven). And I had a bowl of water underneath it (seems that prevents burning of the crust?)

Doesn’t look too bad, does it? A bit dark though. And I am still kind of worried the inside isn’t completely done though.

Oh, you can see a small portion of my home made play-dough in the background, I’ve been keeping it in the fridge but I think that isn’t necessary.

Now a small overview of several of my purchases at de leukste taarten shop.nl  (The site is available in Dutch and English) and several items I allready had or which I had purchased in a regular supermarket as yesterday I got nervous about the delivery not making it today.

Marzipan elephant (owa), giraffe and train (ein)

This is my workspace before I collected the items onto a tray. Elephant in dutch is olifant, and my son says “owa”. I forgot how he pronounces giraffe. Train is trein in dutch (“ein” according to my son). I didn’t use the lego cookie cutter yet, I have tried using it before on cookie dough but it doesn’t work very well. Maybe it will work better on marzipan or fondant? Next to it is red foofcoloring from the toko (asian store). My lesson learned: don’t pour it out of the bottle onto your food. Put it in teacup, or even better, use a toothpick to get some color out and swipe the toothpick on the food. I wanted a drop, got a whole teaspoon. The original colour of the marzipan was white, green, pink, and I wanted it to be more red instead of pink. So I colored some pink marzipan, but because I used too much coloring I mixed in the remaining white and green as well. (I didn’t  use all marzipan, the leftover you see in the back isn’t used). I had allready punched out an elephant an giraffe in pink.

There’s foodink on the tray as well, in the brown bottle. You can use it on foodstamps to, what do you guess, stamp food! I have lots of stamps, but no foodstamps. Wondering if it will work on (well  cleaned) regular stamps or foam stamps as well? hmmm. Too much to try out, too little time! The little punches in the front (3 white things) are starpunches. You can see several punched out stars in the little box. It’s so fun to use! I had to restrain myself to not keep punching. After all, I have to put the fondant on the cake first, and then think of a layout. I bet most people do that before they start baking, but I only start with a general idea, a set of colours and a set of possible items to use. I do it like that with other crafts as well, and usually it turns out ok. I like to be surprised by myself, wondering what I’ll cook up next ;).
The cars in the middle are candles. He loves cars. (Not only the movie Cars, but all other cars as well.) And trains. And Bambi. (Namni, or Nani). And excavators. Firetrucks.

Oh the intended print I had ordered to go on top of the cake is this one:

Round caketopping, somewhere about the green lines is the diameter of the top cake.

It will be hard to position this print, but I intended to cover it with some cream around the edges so it wouldn’t be very obvious if it would be off centre.

Oops. I just realized, (at 1:45 in the night), that we haven’t put up the eh, forgot the english name, slingers in dutch… you know, the flags/garlands/banners. Bunting! That’s it… now off to do that and then hop into bed!

Orange Ornaments and Salt dough ornaments.

Orange Ornaments

Cheap and toddler safe winter ornaments! Not just for your christmastree, they could also be used for other decorations, like in wreaths or in front of the window.
The first batch went well. They were a bit moist still so I turned the heat up, and then they kind of burned. The next batch was much better.

*

Philosophical intermezzo

A little bit of history I got from somewhere (I can’t remember…)
In the old days, Christmas wasn’t called christmas. It wasn’t a Christian feast then, it was a heathen feast to celebrate the end of winter. It was around the darkest time of the year, it was a celebration of light and harvest. Trees were decorated with (dried) fruit. Then somewhere, the Church added the Christian touch to it, adopting the feast (because that is easier then banishing it), like they did with so many feasts.
I only know a bit of the story, haven’t researched it a lot, but I think the 6th of January (arrival of the three kings) also was a heathen feast originally. The 3 kings were Christian marketing: See, for our holy king, kings from all over the world come! Asian, black, white, they all come to worship our king! Nations could identify with a king, and could be converted easier.
I am baptized and raised as a Catholic, but I have mixed feeling about religion. About the church, mostly. The witchhunt, surpression of women, the changes in the religion,  (God was not a loving god all the time, he was feared a lot, only in the latter ages he has become a loving and forgiving God.) I do believe in helping other people, in doing good, but that should also be a goal for a person without a religious motivation. Be good because you want to, from your soul, not because God tells you or because you fear God. Be good because you know that is the right thing to do.

Every religion has it’s extremists and it’s time of holy war. I just get sad by all the wrongs that are done because of religion. I feel that, in the Western world, Christianity is the standard. Islam is viewed as different, not the standard. It’s ok to build churches, but it’s not ok to build Mosques. We celebrate all these Christian holidays, they’re national holidays, but we don’t have national holidays on other religions important days. I am in favour of separating politics and religion. And I’d like to go back to the root of things, like the root of Christmas.

I do not like the commercial Christmas. I like the thought of Christian Christmas. I understand the heathen Christmas. My Christmas is a mix of these. I try to withstand the commercial Christmas, try to withstand the “Consume!” message from companies. Commercial Christmas tags: Consume, posess, waste.. Consume lots of food, drink. Posess: it’s important to receive gifts. What you posess / get is important. Material. Not the thought. Waste: wrapping, left over food, decoration… just more and more to add to the waste pile. People are starving, we are wasting food by having extravagant dinners. We decorate and throw away the decorations after the holiday, as they’re out of fashion. Next year we need to have new ones.

Christian Christmas: The story of baby Jesus is beautifull, and I intend to share it with my kids ofcourse. There are lots of messages in the story. It’s a time to stand still and reflect on things.

Heathen Christmas: Celebrate that the dark is receding, that light is returning. Hope for a good harvest, for the spring to come. Celebrate the light, hope.

I am not sure where the family and friends part fits in (is that Christian, Consuming or Heathen, or all of it?)

My Christmas: I like decorations, but don’t buy lots of new things. I think it will be wonderfull to make decorations together with my kids. The family part, being creative, having activities together. Making it pretty with few resources. It’s about the thought. We did give gifts with Christmas, allthough I think our kids get a lot allready. They don’t need it. But we like is a lot to buy them presents. The excitement! Oh and we like Lego too, so it’s an excuse for us to buy more Lego “for the kids”.
I like to try to make home made gifts, but unfortunately, store bought is the standard. Store bought is better, is more appreciated. It’s easier too. Just check the list, pick one item and get exactly that item. But it’s not creative. The focus is on the gift, instead of on the giving. It’s on the size/value, instead of on the thought.
Anyway. Very idealistic thoughts of me, aren’t they? And I wished I could hold on to them more, but I am weak. (And a bit lazy / not much backbone, as saying “I am weak” is just a poor excuse for not caring enough/not wanting to put too much energy in it.) So, in thought I might be idealistic and all “holy” about environment and family and friends etc, when it comes to real day-to-day life I’m just a consumer who doesn’t have time to do the right thing or think about the right thing all the time. Enough philosophy and ideaology. Back to the crafting!

*

Orange Ornaments – How do you make it?

Get oranges (not oranges for juice, as you need to dry them so less juice is better). Slice them up, and dry them. You can dry them on the heater, but in the oven is faster. Put the slices in on a bout 100 degrees Celsius, and leave it in for a few hours / untill you think it’s ready. Mine were still a bit sticky when I got them out. I also sprinkled some casting sugar on it while drying as was suggested for a more glazier look somewhere. I didn’t mind the stickyness that much. The slices continued to dry (and shrink) more while hanging in the tree, but no rot or mould or bugs in sight. Next year I’ll probably make them again!

Burnt batch of oranges, and old apple and an old kaki-fruit which I used because it was too old to eat.

Kaki-fruit shrinks a lot.

2nd batch of oranges above, and salt dough below. A 2ns baking plate in between to catch the moist of the oranges.

Dried orange slices! Could have been prettier with jarn and a ribbon, but as it was close to christmas allready I just put the hooks in straight away.

Salt dough ornaments (and homemade play-dough)

First side

The other side.

Soooo easy to make! I intended to use this as ornaments in the tree, but they became quite heavy and weren’t finished yet. In fact, they are still lying on a cupboard for further treatment. The idea was to add pictures into the big turqoise one and in the heart one. I still plan to do that and hang it on my copper painted wall. (I love the combination of copper and that peacock/turqoise color!)

I wanted to make an impression of Tobias his hand in the salt dough, and though he’d enjoy making and playing with the dough as he did like it when we made muffins the other day. But he was only half interested and kept squeezing the dough instead of keeping his hand flat, so I gave up and continued on my own. I only have 2 cookieshapes: the handfigures (3 sizes) and the heartshape (1 size). The round shape was made with the bowl that was standing near.

A basic recipe:

• 1 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water
• 2 cups of  flour
• optional: Add potatostarch for more elasticity (aardappelzetmeel)
• optional: add some vegetable oil
• Add food coloring for pre-coloured dough (or for colored play-dough)
• Varnish the end result after drying/baking

I found that the dough is very suitable to use as play-dough as well. Might not be able to store it as long as playdough from the recipe below, but it’s almost the same.

Variations on this (check out the sites for the full instructions, including baking temp and times and other tips!) :

From Musings From a Stay at home Mom (I didn’t try this recipe yet, but looks good and clear instructions and looots of positive comments!)

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar  (no idea what this is)
• 1/3 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• food coloring

The recipe involves heating the stuff, so go over to her blog for the tutorial.

From a dutch site for bakers, bakkerwereld, about salt dough decorations:

• 1 kg of flour (1000 gram bloem)
• 5 g baking powder (5 gram bakpoeder)
• 200 g salt (200 gram zout)
• 250 g real butter (250 gram roomboter)
• 400 g water (400 gram water)

(Edited 21-09-2013:

Instructions:

• Meng alle droge grondstoffen met de boter goed (Mix all dry ingredients very well with the butter)
• Voeg water toe en kneed tot een glad deeg (add water and knead untill it’s a smooth dough)
• Laat deeg minimaal twee uur rusten (Leave for a minimum of 2 hours)
• Breng in model naar keuze, laat even rusten en bak af tussen 160-170ºC. (Shape as you wish, leave a while and bake it between 160-170ºC.)

For kids, easy recipe on a dutch site, njam:

• 1 kg flour,
• 600g water
• 500g salt
• 3 tablespoons sunflower oil

(Edited 21-09-2013:

Instructions /bereiden:

• Maak een kuiltje in de bloem en giet het water erin. (make a dimple/pit (which one?) in the flower and pour water in)
• Los het zout op in het water en kneed er beetje bij beetje de bloem onder. (dissolve the salt in the water and start kneading it, adding the flour bit by bit )
• Blijf kneden tot het deeg niet meer aan je handen kleeft. (Keep kneading untill the dough doesn’t stick to your hands anymore)
• Verdeel het deeg in worstjes en kneed in de gewenste vorm of steek er figuurtjes uit met een uitsteekvormpje. (divide the dough in sausages and knead in desired shape or punch out figures with a cookiecutter)
• Vet de bakplaat in met een beetje olie. (grease the baking sheet (baking plate?) with a little oil)
• Bak de kleine figuurtjes 20 minuten en de grote 40 minuten op 170°C. (Bake the little figuers 20 minutes and the big ones 40 minutes at 170°C)

Finish / werk af:

Borstel een beetje olie over de figuurtjes zodat ze een mooie glans krijgen.)

From a belgian blog, mijn hobbyblogje, someone who makes pretty things with salt-dough. (the categories/site doesn’t function well though). (edited 21-09-2013: The site seems to have gone, so unfortunately you can’t visit it anymore for the instructions about baking it. Wished I had written that down too! That is why I have added the instructions to the rest of the recipes)

• 200 gr meel
• 200 gr zout
• water (no specific amounts, just add little bits as you go.
• To be able to make thin stuff: add 100g of potatostarch.
• For rough work: double the amount of salt.
• For tiles and plaques: use a double amount of salt as well and add 2 tablespoons wallpaperglue.

Uit het boekje “Deegtafereeltjes” (Anne Karine Lemstra, 1998) uit de reeks “SuperHobby”, p.7 e.v.

Back to my salt dough products, not as nice as the ones above, but fun to make! I added green and red foodcoloring. I only had liquid food coloring at that point.

Worskpace

A rose and some round christmas ornaments

Put the dough on a metal bbq/saté stick and make beads out of it.

A little bit more explanation on the last picture: I rolled the dough around the stick, and rolled the stick around with the curl of the stick off the table (so rolling on the edge). Then a few rolls on the table. Because the stick is now angled due to the curl, the inside hole of the dough is a bit bigger. Cut the beads with a sharp knife. You need some room between the beads, so you have to gently move the remaining dough aside so there is space between the beads. If you want to make pretty beads with pretty sides, move the dough much further then I did. The sides of the beads were very rough when it was finished. I did push them apart more before baking, but still some stuck together.

See my next post about Home Made Gifts – play dough ingredients in a glass-etched jar, decorated with salt-dough for the results after baking and varnishing!

Freya (and Tobias)

October 12th of 2012 my daughter Freya was born at home.
Here are a few pictures of Freya and Tobias. The newest pictures aren’t transferred to my pc yet (haven’t found the SD cardreader yet which I need for that).

12 Oktober 2012 is Freya thuis geboren.
Hieronder een paar foto’s van Freya en Tobias. De nieuwere foto’s staan nog niet op mijn pc, ik ben de SD kaartlezer nog steeds kwijt.

An hour old. The midwife is showing how Freya had been in my belly.

9 hours old here.

1 1/2 day old.

Me and my girl, 2 1/2 days old.

Her second bath, in the tummy tub, 3 days old.

Daddy and his girl.

Our first walk outside – 5 days old.

1 week old

Isn’t this dress cute? Made by my sister from viltalakim.com

Sleeping in a chair behind the window in the sun 🙂

Tobias in my outdoor shoes

Tobias giving a toy to Freya

This is a fine place to watch tele from

Oh hi mom, you here?

Tobias and his curls – the hairdresser would come visit today for his first haircut!

Tobias with his hair cut (and some ointment on his cheek)

Tobias and me making muffins, his first time baking!

Freya, 3 1/2 weeks old

3 1/2 weeks old

3 1/2 weeks old.