Alert the Tooth Fairy!!!

Sofia's first loose tooth was discovered earlier this summer at the end of June, today it finally fell out!!!  We had just finished lunch and in the middle of a Jungle Rummy game Sofia asked me slightly confused why there was a gap in her mouth.  I looked and saw her tooth had fallen out!  Sofia was SOOO excited :-)  I was a little stressed out that the tooth was lost, but Sofia found it right there on the ground, she had spit it out since she thought somehow a rock had gotten in her mouth!  So funny!  Now, I wonder what the Tooth Fairy will surprise her with...  Sofia's guess was a ZhuZhu Pet.  I don't think the Tooth Fairy carries extra ones of those with her ;-)

There isn't many pictures of me on this blog, however we got a new webcam and I was experimenting with the snapshot capability so, "hi there!"  It doesn't seem to handle a low-lit room too well, but not too bad :-)

Random fun things!

Sofia and Kajsa decided to play beauty salon and tried out some kid make-up which included a sparkle lip gloss.  Of course, being little girls means the more sparkles the better so they smeared their arms, chests and faces with generous amounts of sticky sparkly lip gloss!   Ta da, don't they look bright and shiny?!  :-)

 For her birthday Sofia had asked for a desk in her room so she could do homework there since she is now in 1st grade.  I found a cute little wood desk at a yard sale for $5 and spruced it up with $40 of paint from Sherwin Williams!  Since the cost of this little desk was beginning to tip the scales the wrong way I had to economize on the knobs and instead of regular ones made Monkey's fists out of purple rope.  Turned out super awesome and Sofia loves her new desk.  I also moved everything around in her room and updated it a bit.  Sofia's favorite part of the mini-makeover was the doll house that Mormor and Morfar made, which was already in her room pre-makeover!!!

 Labor day weekend was officially labeled home improvement weekend!  Saturday I made over Sofia's room, Sunday we painted the ceiling in the dining room, put in the new custom shelf in the office (that our neighbor built), and Monday we painted the walls and trim in the dining room!  The dining room was previously a chocolate milk tan (walls and ceiling), so this paint project really made an impact.

 Our patio got an update with new outdoor pillows that I found on sale at Home Depot for $2 each!  Here our table is all set for a yummy taco dinner with placemats and napkins from Mexico courtesy of Carl and Raina :-)

Ryan was gone for work for a week and the girls were pretty excited for him to come home.  They decorated the courtyard with chalk drawings and sprinkled "love" aka rose petals :-)

Yosemite bound!

Tomorrow we're heading up to Yosemite for the annual "Yosemite Facelift" event. Sofia is so excited about going hiking that she packed a whole backpack for of stuff for the car as well as blankets and pillows, we had to check with her that she knew we weren't going camping ;-). Of course it's also super hard to fall asleep when you're excited! Here she is snuggling in Mamma's bed. (picture to come as I'm having trouble uploading photos from the iPad)

Spring is in the air!

The sun is shining and we've been enjoying 65-70F weather for the past week. Our "farm" behind Ryan's office is quite productive with all the winter vegetables that we planted. Here is a picture of today's harvest.Mmmm, this will be very yummy and colorful to eat :-)

Also some crafting activities around here included making a bubble twirly skirt for Kajsa. She picked out the fairy fabric herself. It turned out pretty cute, but next time I should probably google some tutorials on it instead of winging it as I ran into some tricky parts. The end result was liked by both Mamma and Kajsa!
Happy spring to everyone!

Photo models for an afternoon!

Sofia and Kajsa got to be photo models for a couple of hours for my friend Jenny, who is an awesome photographer. She is opening up her own studio in Fig Garden Village in Fresno inside the new Ga Ga Chic childrens clothing store. Their clothes are absolutely adorable and have amazing details - so cute! Check it out at http://gagachic.com

Memorial Weekend Camping

We went camping over Memorial Day weekend at Shaver lake in the Sierra Nevadas at 6,000 ft. The weather was gorgeous and so was the setting!
Sofia loved the rock climbing and jumped around like a mountain goat :-)
Out for a hike with Sofia and Drake while Ryan and Kajsa took a nap.
I made boats out of tree bark, sticks and leaves that Sofia and Kajsa "sailed". Drake thought they were sticks to fetch so he made some rough seas for those poor little boats! They did float and sail great though!!!
Me and Kajsa having chili cooked by the Boy Scouts in cast-iron dutch ovens over coals. Very yummy! Check out my uber-cool hat with built in LED lights for finding my way around the tent in the dark ;-)
Ryan and the girls snuggled in the tent reading bed-time stories. The night time temperature was 37F so a bit on the chilly side!

Sofia fun :-)

On Friday Sofia passed level 6 at SwimAmerica and got to ring the bell. She was pretty proud and excited :-) She can now swim pretty confidently across a 30 foot pool with crawl and back stroke.
This weekend we went to the Valley Arts and Science Academy(VASA) school carnival and had an afternoon with lots of fun. Sofia was super thrilled with the teacher dunk tank and insisted on trying it out. On her first throw, Sofia dunked the Principal!!! Not sure what this bodes for her school years ahead when she starts kindergarten in the fall ;-) Sofia's second favorite was the blow up "bounce house/giant slide"! There were giggle and laughs a plenty :-)

Bahamas Vacay!

Ryan hanging out in the hammock at sunset with Sofia and Kajsa.
Out for a boat ride to explore some deserted beaches for treasures! Kajsa wanted Morfar to go faster and Sofia wanted it be bumpy ;-)
Sofia sailing with Mormor and Morfar. She thought it was a little too slow!!!
Lunch on Guana Cay at Grabbers with Carola, Enzo and Leah. An awesome day wandering around the island.

Springtime girls!

Here are some pictures of the girls. Sofia and Kajsa had tons of fun at Kira's birthday party at Rotary Storyland last weekend!
We did an Easter Egg Hunt in Gramma's yard a week late and it was tons of fun :-)

A visit to Garden of the Sun and their Childrens' Garden.

Green happenings!

Spring is in full swing here in Fresno with summer just around the corner. This past weekend we worked on "outside" projects and the garden really feels like it's coming together. Ryan worked very hard on scraping and stripping our balcony railing to be prepped for painting which will get done hopefully next weekend. I set up a drip irrigation system with a timer for the raised garden beds. Hopefully this will keep everything alive when I'm gone for a month in Sweden!We put together my compost tumbler and filled it with it's first batch of yard and kitchen scraps to be turned into garden gold!Here are also some photos of what's been blooming, sprouting and thriving around our yard.

Gingerbread architecture!

Sofia makes a very creative gingerbread house :-)

Swimming and cute girls :-)

Sofia passed level 4 at swim class!
Two of Santa's helpers :-)
Cutie pie Kajsa:
Sofia showing off the scarf I knitted for a friend for Christmas.

Goofball poses!!!

Two silly little girls :-)

Sofia and Kajsa

Here are some pictures of our two cutie girls that my talented photographer friend Jenny took. Check out her website at www.memoriesbyjenny.com

Barbie & Ken make an appearance for Halloween!

Sparkle Party Barbie & Ken made an appearance for Halloween festivities in Fresno this year! We had fun at a party at our good friends, Jenny and Johan's, home.
I got lots of people confused thinking this was my real blond hair (not!), which has me wondering if I should color it blond and volumize the heck out of it. What do you think?