baby/dog rocker :)

simple paper wall art

the other day i stumbled upon some really cheap red and yellow wrapping paper and when i got home i found out, that it was double sided - red/orange and yellow/green - great :)!

it really came in handy today, since Ji is sick with the flu and i've been trying to cheer him up with some quick and cheerful projects.

                                        

                                             tools:

                                             - large pieces of paper

                                             - scissors

                                             - masking tape

this took 5 minutes! - just cut paper strips in different widths and folded

down the top corners and then taped it to the wall with masking tape.

 then i cut up rectangles of different sizes and Ji taped them on to his
liking. and we added a silhouette of Mates into one window :).

start/stop car pouch

everyday morning Ji picks 2 cars to take with him to preschool. he usually carries them in his hands (sometimes stuffs them in his pocket), so i made him this little start/stop car pouch to carry them in. (this way  we can also keep better track of the cars he takes home - which are sometimes not his... :)

   

my giraffe eater :)

sledding

here's Ji sledding with his stearable sled that he got for xmas:

(i tried it too and it's really fun!....but i kinda felt like a grizzly in a mini cooper :))

deer watching

we live on the outskirts of the village with forests behind our house, so we see deer pass by very often, especially in the winter when they scavenge the village for food. my husband built this manger 2 yrs ago so Ji could watch the deer from close up and it's a wonderful sight!

lately they don't seem to care for the hay too much, since our neighbor's cat has started sleeping on it (i often see him crawling out in the morning, stretching after a good night's sleep) but they do love the grains we toss under the manger for them :). 

p.s. the photos were taken from our dining room window!

baby faces

all swaddled up, being rocked in his rocker

and not wanting to go to sleep, but making

irresistible baby faces at me :)

Napping outside!

Our regular afternoon walk (that is, unless

it's not way too cold or furiously snowing):

After the walk baby St has a nap outside...

  When I moved here I was really surprised to find out that parents have their babies sleep outside in their strollers, even in the winter! even in freezing temps!…..living most of my prior life in Arizona I thought “poor babies, they’ll freeze outside.” But as long as they’re bundled up enough (ex.: onesie + insulated winter-suit + winter hat + insulated sleep-sac + blanket + cover + any other needed additional layers) they won’t :)! When Ji was a baby, his dr. told me a quick and simple way to find out if he’s warm enough – touch his nose, if it’s warm, he’s warm also!

  After a walk I just park the stroller outside of our house under the roof, turn on the baby monitor and check up on him every 15 minutes or so.

  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we too could take a cozy nap like this outside with fresh mountain air, and sounds of a babbling brook and birds singing in the background?! :)

The ring theif

I always loved to listen to stories that my grandparents told me about their lives when they were young and here’s one of them:

My grandmother was about 20 yrs old, she was living with her parents and had been courting w/ my grandfather, who was away at the time, undergoing the one-year state-required army service.

She was on a train on her way home when she was addressed by a sympathetic young man. He was witty and gallant and he was able persuade her to lend him her ruby promise-ring that she got from my grandfather..…my grandmother said he was so canny about it, it didn’t even seem strange to her that he wanted to try it on. After he slipped it on his finger, he of course wasn’t able to take it off. So they agreed that he would go home w/ her to see if they could somehow get it off there. No luck. He promised, that he would go to the goldsmith the next day to have it removed and that he would return the ring. My great-grandmother was so trusting that she even offered him to borrow my grandmother’s bicycle to get there. My G refused to do so, since she rode her bicycle to work every day. Good thing she didn’t, because the stranger never returned. Later she had a lot of explaining to do to my grandfather!...good thing they worked things out ;)!

Anyways, a year or two later, my GG was visiting a friend and when the friend was telling her about her daughter’s engagement, she was surprised to hear the name and description of the groom to be – the ring thief! So my GG told her about their stolen ring and that it had to be him. My GG made arrangements to be at her friends’ at his next visit. Sure enough it was him! At first he didn’t recognize her, but she reminded him of his crime. Of course, he no longer had the ring, but in a room full of many angry women, she was able to get him to pay up for it. He had a lot of explaining to do to his fiance...good thing she never married him!

Ji said :)

kids say the darndest things.............

today when the mechanic from the electric company was doing some work on our electrometer outside and was using our garbage can as a support for his laptop Ji yelled with joy: „that mechanic is fixing our garbage can!!!“ .....i should have asked Ji what he tought the mechanic was fixing on it...the smell? J