Jonas' birthday

Last Tuesday my baby turned 4... I can't believe how fast time flies. Both Frank and I had taken the day off, because Jonas' wanted to invite all his friends from Early Years to his birthday party. I guess because some of the other kids had celebrated their birthday by inviting everyone, and then of course so did he. We live so close to the school, so why not...

I e-mailed his teacher, and we made the arrangements, in one of the last e-mails I asked how many kids there were, and the answer was 27... I don't know what I expected, I see most of the kids everyday, I see all their "cubbys" everyday, I could just have counted them, but I was slightly surprised that there were 27 of them, and I got a bit nervous about it....

I had seen online someone made a "hungry caterpillar" cake out of cupcakes with green icing. I loved the idea for several reasons, one it would be easy to make, it would look fun and the kids prefer a cupcake to some fancy cake... at least Jonas and some of his friend does. So I made a "hungry caterpillar" cake, and all the kids knew the caterpillar, because they have read the book at school.

 

I decided to look online for some party ideas with the hungry caterpillar theme. I saw someone had decorated with balloons that looked like the caterpillar... it's funny that everytime you see things like that online it's always perfect... well I couldn't exactly get the balloons to do like I wanted them, so I will be the first to post pictures of failed hungry caterpillar decorations...

 I asked Jonas if he wanted to play some games with his friends... he suggested "musical chairs"!!!! We don't have 27 chairs so that wasn't possible. We did a "Pin the nose on the caterpillar" game instead.

 The party went SO great. The kids were very well behaved, and as soon as the got a bit loud the teachers told them to quiet down, and use their indoor voices. I would love to show you pictures from the party, but I don't want to post pictures of other peoples kids without their permission, so you will have to use your imagination.

 Just before they left, the teachers told them "Tidy up time" and in a matter of minutes all the toys were back in boxes, on shelves etc. Jonas' room was almost more tidy than then they came.

 In the afternoon we build the Lego he got for his birthday. We then again celebrated his birthday on Saturday with our Family, where he got even more Lego, so all of Sunday was spent building and playing with Lego again.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

Party planning

I can't believe that on Tuesday my little baby will be turning 4.... Yes four!

When some of the other kids had their birthdays the kindergarten had been invited for their birthday, so of course Jonas should have them over too... So I e-mailed his teacher and invited them. In one of the last e-mails I asked how many would come, the answer 27 kids and 3 teachers.... 27! But now they had been invited and I couldn't take it back. I was just really happy that we had decided to do it on his birthday and take the day off work, instead of a Saturday which we also had discussed... Because this way they come with 3 teachers.

So tonight I have been doing the party favours for all the kids. Instead of giving them a lot of sugar I have made a small "hungry caterpillar" activity book, which I found online, a pencil, an eraser, some stickers, a balloon and a lollipop.

The theme for his birthday will be "the very hungry caterpillar", mainly because I saw a really cool cake online, where the caterpillar was made of cupcakes with green icing.

Now I'll have to wrap his presents and relax for the rest of the night, and tomorrow I will be baking... And maybe panicking....

Wonderful Weekend!

This weekend is almost over, but what a wonderful weekend it has been:)

Friday evening we had invited my parents in law and my sister in law and her boyfriend over for dinner. It was my belated birthday celebration. We had a really nice evening, and I got 3 new dresses and a new top, so almost a new wardrobe. My sister in law is the best at buying clothes for me, I guess she is a bit more patient than me, because if I don't find something I like right away I give up. I almost always get clothes from them for my birthday and Christmas, and so far I haven't had to take anything back, which is why I always tell her I want clothes:)

We didn't have any plans for the rest of the weekend, except for Jonas swimming class on Saturday morning. Otherwise this weekend has been spent relaxing, napping (all 3 of us have been napping), playing, knitting, watching TV and doing a little laundry.

Today we made a bonfire, tomorrow is our midsummer, where it is tradition to have a fire and burn a witch. Though it's suppose to rain tomorrow, and it might be a little late for Jonas to go to the public bonfire, so we decided to make our own little bonfire, though without a witch.

We did make "snobrød" which is a dough you twirl around a stick, and bake over the fire, translated it will be twirl-bread. 

Jonas started making his, but he had on the ground, in the dirt, deep in the fire etc. And in the end he handed it over to Frank to finish it while he rode his bike. 

I actually didn't think he would eat it afterwards, but he really loved it, so it was a success. Next time I guess we also have to make marshmallows.

Happy midsummer everyone!

My baby turned 3!

Well again more than a week passed between blogposts, but this time with good reason. I was preparing for Jonas' 3rd birthday... I can't believe he is all ready 3 years old. We celebrated his birthday on Sunday, though it wasn't until yesterday it was his birthday. But yesterday he was starting the Early Years programme at the International School, so it seemed like celebrating on Sunday was the best way to go.

Opening his first present, a radio controlled Jake on Skateboard. Jonas is quite into everything Jake and everything Cars.

Since he loves Jake so much we had paper plates and napkins with Jake, and the table was all ready for the guests to arrive.

Sunday was also shrovetide, and since Jonas didn't get to attend any parties this year he put on his Jake costume, though not for long, he wasn't too fond of it. I guess polyester isn't the way to go:)

Opening more presents. And yes he isn't wearing pants, he just like running around in his boxers, and it's just so much easier when potty training, so we let him.

Blowing out candles on his rainbow cake.

 Blowing out candles on his cakeman which my mum baked. It's tradition for her to bake one for everyone of us on our birthday.

  

And a close up of the rainbow cake, I'm quite proud of how it turned out.

So my baby is now quite and has started the Early Years programme, but that is a whole other story!

Some birthday pictures

I finally got around to getting the pictures from the camera to the computer... better late than never, so here you have a few pictures of a sick birthday boy.

 My big 2-year old boy having breakfast, though trying to get hold of the flag was the best thing.

 

 Opening the first present of the day, a box of Lego Duplo, which is always a hit. In the morning he seemed to be doing fairly okay, and we thought he was over his sickness.

 

 Just before lunch my parents came and he got all excited about the cars he got, and I wasn't allowed to see them, he kept saying "mine, mine" I guess that is typical for a 2-year old:) 

 

After his nap he had a fever and we went to the doctor. When we got back my Brother and his girlfriend had arrived. The first present was a pair of gloves, the second was clothes, Jonas didn't even finish unwrapping the second one before he went on to the last one. He seemed to say "hey uncle you could have done better, let's check the last one and see how lousy you did on that..." my brother had been away on a business trip and had asked me to buy something for him since he would run out of time. I bet I don't get that job Again, but honestly he isn't really missing any toys, but he need new gloves and then I bought some summer clothes as well... and a book about tractors, which he seemed to like.

Since Jonas is all about trains and tractors I baked a train cake, which Jonas didn't eat any of, but it looked nice. He wasn't really eating anything those days due to him being sick.

 

Getting his cake with candles, and when we started singing a birthday song he kept saying "no, no, no" I don't think we were that bad a singing, but it made us stop, and he went into the living room to lay on the couch to watch Tractor Tom and relax, while the rest of us celebrated his birthday.

Happy Birthday Jonas

On Sunday it was Jonas's second birthday, and we had been looking forward to it, since last year he was sick on his birthday... well why should that change? Thursday night he ran a fever and started vomiting. I thought Jonas and I had made a deal for him not to get sick the 2 weeks my parents in law was in Mexico, but as with lots of other things, he didn't listen to me. 

A friend of ours are not working at the moment due to back problems, so he was babysitting Jonas on Friday, Frank went to work earlier than usual so that he could leave earlier and get home before Jonas' nap time. Saturday he seemed a bit better, though he didn't eat much, but we figured that this year he would be healthy on his birthday. 

Well Sunday came and he was coughing a bit more, and a little after noon he was running a fever again, and he started crying when coughing, so we went to the doctor, and my parents would greet our guests. Well it turned out he had otitis and a sore throat so the doctor prescribed him some penicillin.

My parents stayed till Monday so they could babysit while we were at work, but Jonas was suppose to celebrate his birthday at daycare, and since the fever was gone, but he was lacking a lot of sleep, we had decided for him to stay at home. I dropped the cake of at the daycare and my mum took Jonas there for an hour or so when the guests were there so he could be celebrated with gifts and cake. Afterwards he was so tired, and fell asleep after a few minutes in the stroller on the way home. 

a picture of him unwrapping his present at daycare, I bet everyone was following intensely. I haven't got around to moving the pictures from his birthday from our camera to the computer, so you will have to wait for those.

My mum left last night, since she had volunteer work today, but my dad stayed to babysit Jonas, though I doubt it was necessary, he seemed perfectly fine when I left for work, and he had been fine all day, but it was nice to have him home an extra day so he can be sure he isn't sick anymore. So after dinner we dropped my dad off at the bus station, while keeping our fingers crossed that this will be all the sickness we will have in a long time... though Frank seems to be coming down with something, but that at least doesn't interfere with my work schedule. 

A weekend of music:)

Yet another week has passed, and I can't believe it. This weekend we went to the Southern part of Denmark and stayed with my parents, during day Saturday and Sunday I was with the orchestra/brass band at a cabin in the woods. Frank and Jonas came to visit a few times. Saturday night we had a small party, my parents usually attend those parties as well, though this year my mum were busy all day Saturday and Sunday, so she offered to stay home and put Jonas to sleep, and we could enjoy the evening without having to run around making sure he wasn't getting into trouble.

Jonas doing a little dance to the music, please don't look at my face, this was at the end of the day Sunday, and I could hardly play any more.

During the weekend I think we played for 8 or 9 hours, it was so much fun, we played some of the old stuff that we have played forever, and we got some new stuff which was really exciting. We were teasing each other, making fun of each other and walked down memory lane. After all the orchestra has existed for 31 years now, so there are quite a few funny stories, like the guy who showed up in the wrong uniform, we still tease him about that 15-20 years later, the Christmas song where I always, and I mean always play during the pause, I can't help it, in my head there is another note, or the girl who said I'll get it right next week, though she didn't and she still uses that excuse:)

Jonas had fun running around and dancing while we played, though every now and then he would get into trouble.

It was a fun weekend, but boy was I tired when we got home on Sunday. Monday was not at all fun, we attended my cousins funeral. He died only 44 years old, though he has not lived an easy life I was still shocked when I heard he had passed away.

Yesterday was Franks birthday, I can't say we celebrated in style... we both had work, and for dinner we had spaghetti bolognese, how is that for a birthday menu? Though I asked Frank what he wanted for dinner and he said something Jonas would like... so that was how we ended up with that menu.

Today I have the day off, since I will be working this weekend. Jonas and I have been sleeping in, well I was lying in bed and Jonas was sitting next to me watching Tractor Tom, we have been shopping, playing with his trains and baking. Now he is sleeping, and afterwards we might go to the playground. 

Have a great week everyone.

I think I am ready...

Our suitcases are packed, well most of it, just missing the last minute things. So I actually think I am now ready for our vacation:) 

Today is actually my birthday, and at work I had some of the most boring assignments, which I told my boss I thought should be forbidden on your birthday, to which he just laughed, and said it would be nice if it was done before I went on vacation! Anyways it turned out to be pretty rewarding in the end, but I still hope that I don't get those assignments again on my next birthday. 

I was meant to be working all day until 10.00 pm today, but a really sweet co-worker thought that since I had been working all weekend, it was my birthday and I was going on vacation, well she offered a few weeks back to work for me, which I really appreciate now:)

I guess all that is left to say is.... "Scotland here we come!"

The weekend is over, and 2 days to go...

So the weekend is over, and as promised my husband took my out for dinner, but we changed it to Friday night, because we were invited for dinner at some friends on Saturday.

We had a really great dinner, and afterwards spent the evening on the couch with a movie. So Friday was a really great day, first with a visit from the mail man, the a great dinner and last a movie relaxing on the couch.

The place we had dinner via

Saturday was my husbands birthday, and honestly we didn't do much. He started doing some cleaning, I must admit I don't have the energy for doing too much anylonger, so what a great way to spent your birthday! Saturday night we went to some friends house for dinner, and had a really nice time. So nice not having to cook dinner 2 nights in a row:)

Sunday we did even less, slept in late, a little cleaning otherwise we were just hanging around the house hoping that I would go into labour. But I didn't... I'm due on Wednesday, but honestly I don't think he is coming before the weekend now, I don't know why, just a feeling I have!

My brother called and asked me to get it over with before Tuesday or otherwise he would be pleased if I waited till Sunday! The thing is he is moving into a new house, and my parents are going to help from Thursday till Saturday, and he knows they will skip out if I give birth:) I'll try to meet his demands, but I can't promise anything!

Otherwise I'm getting sick and tired of people calling to ask if I have given birth yet. At first it was only my parents and my parents in law, but now a lot of friends are calling as well, and honestly I doubt I goes any faster by them calling! Maybe I'll start screening my calls, or leave a message on the answering machine "No I haven't given birth yet, I'll let you know when it happens". A friend of my husband gave me a great idea yesterday when I complained about my mother in law calling everyday. Next time you will just say "Yeah I gave birth a couple of days ago, didn't Frank call you?" I think it would be a great joke, only she calls everyday so I guess I can't use it!

Hope you all will have great week!

It's weekend, and I caved in!

Finally the weekend has arrived, I'm unbelievable tired, so it's very much needed. This morning I even caved in, and are now wearing maternity pants... I hate to admit it, but my old jeans weren't feeling too comfortable any longer, especially as the day turned into evening. The thing is I don't feel I look pregnant yet, just like I ate too much over the summer:) But I must admit I love wearing them, the are just really comfortable, so who cares, and why had no one told me they were so comfortable?

Tonight I believe I will spent on the couch in front of the TV, doing absolutely nothing! Tomorrow we will be heading down to my parents to celebrate my mums belated birthday. I can't wait, a weekend of doing nothing! Just sit and be served, is there anything better? We asked if it was okay to stay till Sunday, to which I of course knew the answer, but you got to ask, right? My mum said she thought we would, so we are staying.

This week at work have been super bad, and I don't hope it will continue at this speed! If it does, well then I'm not gonna last over Christmas... I'll be on sick leave, but hey December won't be the worst month to spent at home... so who knows, I just hope it slows down, but I'm not the one to make those choices.

Hope you all will have a happy weekend!

Weekend... yeah!

My weekend started early, at 12.30 pm to be exact! And I haven't done much since, besides relaxing and taking a nap!

Tomorrow morning we will be heading to my parents house and will be staying till Sunday. We are going to celebrate my dads birthday, which isn't until Monday, but this way we can get together with my brother and fiance too.

my dad and I before going to the church on my wedding day

I'm so looking forward to going down there, I'm so exhausted and just needs to do nothing, and what a better way than being at mum and dads and getting everything served for you? No laundry to do (well there probably is, but I'm not going to do it), no cleaning to do (I'm sure there is nothing of that to do, my mum have always kept the home clean), just being able to lean back and enjoy a great meal:)

Well I should go and wrap my daddy's presents. Happy birthday dad!

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

What is age really?

Remember how excited you were about you birthday when you were a kid? Back then getting older could only go too slow, if someone asked you how old you were, you answered 4½ or 5 3/4. Why don't we do this any longer? I think I'll start to do that again, so if someone asks in 3 months how old I am, my proud answer will be "I'm 31 and 3 months!"

Me and my "niece" at my 30th birthday last year!

Why is it that we aren't that proud of our age any longer, why don't we (okay I can only speak for myself), so why don't I get as excited about my birthday any longer... I figure it's like everything else you have done several times. Let's face it the first time you drove a car it was exciting, but after driving for 13 years, not so exciting any longer, the first time you go on a airplane, you are excited, after having travelled a bit, the plane ride it not so exciting, it's the destination. So I guess after having had 30 birthdays, the 31st not so exciting.

Though I wish I could get that excited about my birthday again, maybe I should try planning a bit more than work for my next birthday... I have plenty of time to do it!

A few years ago they started a project for retarded to get into the workplace at my work. One of the ladies one day came up to be, and said "You know what? It's my birthday on Thursday", she sounded really excited about it, and I congratulated her, asking her how old she turned, she very proudly told me "I'm turning 42"

I should probably learn a bit from her, so next year I promise I'll be excited about my birthday, and I'll try not to make it a 14 hour workday!

I can hardly wait...

Yesterday my sister in law came by for dinner and most importantly to plan our summer vacation. At Christmas time we had talked about going to the USA, but hey the tickets are almost the double of what we sometime can get them to. So now we have bought tickets for Singapore:o)

On July 26th "I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again" well I know I'll be back at August 9th. First we will spent 4 days in Singapore, which I'm pretty excited about, we went there last year as well. So the hubby and I have decided we want to go at eat crabs, we don't care if my sister in law don't like seafood... her loss!

Then we will fly to Borneo, and live at Damai Beach Resort, which looks really cool. Here we want to go and see orangutans.

via

Last we will spent some days in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We also went here last year, but Kuala Lumpur is mostly for the shopping, which is a lot cheaper than in Singapore. So maybe a Marc Jacobs purse or a pair on Gucci sunglasses will find its way to my suitcase... who knows?

I'm super excited about our trip, and have almost started counting the days:) So the last few days I have been caught up in all the vacation planning, so I completely forgot it is my birthday tomorrow. It wasn't until a colleague asked me if tomorrow wasn't my birthday, I realised I had forgotten all about it. I had planned on baking a cake for my co workers, but I forgot... so I guess I'll just buy everyone breakfast, that's the easy way out:) I feel like my birthday was last weekend, because we celebrated it on Saturday, and tomorrow I have to work from 8.00 am to 10 pm... not much fun on your birthday!

But that can't bring me down... because I'm going to Singapore, Borneo and Kuala Lumpur! Yeah!!!

Enjoy your weekend.

I'm ready for summer

I managed to get everything done in time, and we enjoyed the visit at our friends on Friday night.

Yesterday we celebrated my birthday with our families, and had a really nice day. My mum had baked a !cake-woman" for me, she has bake one every year for my birthday, only the missing the year I lived in the USA. That is a tradition I will never give up, she bakes one for all of our birthdays, so it's easy having people over for coffee at you birthday, because mum is doing the baking:)

My parents in law and my sister in law came with really great presents, I got a lot of new summer clothes, now I just need the summer.
Okay not the best pictures, but they will have to do:)

I can just picture myself in the black or the yellow dress walking on the beach in Malaysia... yeah our summer plans seems to have changed. We had talked about going to the USA, but the tickets are really expensive, it's actually cheaper going to Asia. A ticket to New York has almost doubled the price compared to what they usually cost. So we are considering Asia, USA will be there another time.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend as much as me.

Could I please get an extra hour or two?

I can't believe how fast this week has gone by, and now I'm on the edge of stressing out over my long to do list.

I can almost cross out the tons of laundry and just as much ironing, the hubby mowed the lawn after dinner while I re-potted some plants. So all I need to get done by Saturday afternoon is clean the house, go grocery shopping, iron the table cloth and put away the laundry... oh and of course cook. Both our families are coming on Saturday to celebrate my birthday (though it isn't until next Friday, but I'll be working), but my sweet mama is going to bake a cake, so that won't be on my list. Though that just reminds me I need to get a belated mothers day gift and a early fathers day gift as well.

Hopefully I'll be able to leave work around 2 or 3 pm tomorrow, I will be meeting at 6 am so there is a chance. Because then I will have plenty of time to get the shopping done, and maybe some of the cleaning, before going out. We have been invited to dinner at some friends house, and that have been planned for ages, so I can't get myself to cancel it, as well as I couldn't get myself to cancel my first step class ever today. I had been signed up for the class for about 3 weeks, and was really close to cancelling, since I couldn't figure out how to get everything done. But I'm so glad I went, it was really fun, hard and sweaty... it looks so easy, so how come my feet can't follow the rest of the class? I guess I just need more practice. But after having attended the class I felt more energetic, which really was needed today. via
Housework done for today... Now I'm on the couch, with my laptop and coffee, so I'm going to catch up on all the blogs I haven't had time to read during the week.

Have a nice weekend if I don't get back before it starts:)

Granny's chocolate cobbler

Some of you might remember my last baking disaster, to say the least I'm not much of a baker, I blame my husband! By now you are probably thinking why blame him, well he isn't much of a cake eater (after 9 years together I still don't get it). But since he isn't eating cake I don't get to practice.

But my birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and next Saturday I have invited my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, my parents in law and my sister in law to dinner. Whenever we invite people over I see my chance of getting dessert (yep my hubby doesn't eat ice cream either). So the other night I was surfing online, and stumbled across this recipe.

I figured that was going to be my birthday dessert, but I wanted to try it out before the birthday dinner, just in case. So I tried it tonight, I only made half a portion, and after mixing the ingredients I didn't think it look like much. Though the finished result turned out to be a lot more than I thought midway through.

This was where I started to think that I wasn't going to serve this for my birthday. You have to pour water over the cake and not stir it... I had read somewhere that it would look weird, but you should definitely not stir... but come on... I kept hands and spoon to myself and didn't stir...

And this is how it turned out... not the best picture, but you could see the soft inside coming up in the edge and it looked really yummy...

I served it with a bit of vanilla ice cream. It was really great if I should say it myself, so this will be the dessert at my birthday dinner.

I give granny's chocolate cobbler 2 thumbs up... ask for my hubby it will be thumbs down, he tried a little bit (and that is a bit thing) and he didn't like it. So now I'm glad I only did a half portion.

Now I have figured out the dessert, now I just need to decide on the rest of the menu, but so far so good.

The weekend is getting closer

I can't wait till I'm off work tomorrow, don't get me wrong I love my job, but the weekend is very much needed!

I didn't get a hangover later on Sunday, which I still can't believe. I had so much energy and suggested we should go look for more flowers for the garden, but my husband pointed out the he bet I didn't care to plant them when I got home, to which I could only agree... I just wanted to do something fun and he suggested that I could mop the floor or pull weeds... where is the fun in that? So we decided to watch a movie, and about 30 minutes into the movies I was asleep on the couch!

But the afternoon nap on Sunday wasn't enough, so I went to sleep early on Sunday. But on Monday I was still tired, again I went to bed early and it isn't until today that I'm feeling back to my usual self... I guess I didn't get a hangover but I was tired for almost a week, but it was worth it.

On Tuesday me and 3 colleagues went across Denmark to see some of the other departments store in our chain (there are 14 across Denmark). We started out driving to Copenhagen, and then moved back. We went to 6 other stores, and I was exhausted when I got back and then working 13 hours yesterday. The trip gave us a lot of great ideas to what we could improve, but it also confirmed us in the things we were doing right. It also made me think about how lucky I am living in such a small country, where you can easily drive from one side of the country to the other in the matter of a few hours... so why is it that I hardly ever go to Copenhagen?

This weekend I will be relaxing... well on Saturday I'm going to my brothers fiances birthday, its her birthday today and we have been invited for lunch on Saturday, though my husband won't be able to make it since he sign up for photographing course. On Saturday night we have been invited for dinner at my husbands sisters place, since she has a new kitchen and would like to cook for us. But Sunday I will be relaxing, and depending on the weather I might be doing a bit of gardening.

The birthday girl, Mette, at our "survivor party" last year. Happy birthday Mette!

What are you up to this weekend? Hope you will have a great one!