Anouk's fashion sense

Anyone who has a toddler knows that they have a fashion sense. Whether it was Liam demanding an orange sweater with a blue monster or Anouk dressing herself in the morning.

Anouk insists on dressing herself most days: "I do it self! I choose!" OK...

This is one of my favourites from the last few weeks:

Snowman pajama top, a dress that fit her when she was 1, blue pants and red rubber boots. And yes, she did go out of the house like that. With a jacket covering up the PJs and the dress. :) And yes, that's a full basket of laundry in the background that contains lots of clothes that are actually her size...

Here she is playing in a box in the kitchen - note the foot sticking out:

They both had a lot of fun in their boxes, cutting out windows, colouring the inside... It was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon!

Here's another shot of Anouk "all dressed up":

The daycare had asked me to make some dress-up clothes for them and I had a great time choosing iridescent and sparkly fabrics and lots of tulle. I made them into easy pull-up skirts and tutus. Anouk just loved the fabrics and wrapping herself in them. :)

And here is a blouse I made for her with some corduroy that I have had in my stash for a while. It's one of my favourite Oliver and S patterns: the 2+2 blouse. The great thing is, once you have sewn a pattern a couple of times it really is easy. 

A new addition to her wardrobe, something to distract her from the dress that is two sizes too small now and an alternative to the PJs.

Liam is growing up...

He lost his first tooth right after Christmas in true Liam style: eating an apple while reading a book. He swallowed the tooth without noticing anything... We had to write a note to the tooth fairy that he had lost the tooth and would be more careful next time. It's a good thing that Liam has a good relationship with fairies, because the tooth fairy was OK with the note and left two chocolate coins under his pillow (lucky kid!!). Now the new teeth are coming in and pushing the next tooth out. I guess we'll be playing tooth roulette for the next couple of years... And when I saw how loose the tooth is I decided I needed to get going and finally sew him that tooth fairy pillow that I have been talking about. :) I guess I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Another indication that he's growing up is that we are now dealing with the first fad at school. We're a bit slow and I know that it's so yesterday for many kids and adults, but it's still cool on Liam's playground: Silly bandz. He's out to the toystore right now to buy some with his dad. Apparently they have been the thing for quite some time - he even got one as a present one day and then lost it in the bottom of his backpack. Of course it meant absolutely nothing to me when he came home talking about the silly bandz in the bottom of his backpack... But now I understand - finally. And I really understand the importance. You need them to show, talk about, trade, covet, give away as a present. In short, they are the social currency on the Kindergarten playground. Mark suggested I sew a pouch for them, but I remember how important the details are on the playground, so I asked Liam what the other kids keep their Silly Bandz in. Boxes. Silly bandz are either around your wrist or in boxes. Not pouches. So I told Mark to get a box, too. I assume they sell them at the toystore. These things are usually sold together. (Clever marketing people!).

So, my toothless, growing Liam is getting Silly Bandz that will one day be smiled about like slinky bracelets, scented pencils or whatever it was we really needed to be part of things in school.

But for now they are far away from being a nostalgic memory: they are important and cool.

Summer fragments

As we are settling into a gray and rainy Vancouver winter it is nice to remember the sunshine and the colours of the past seasons.

Last summer I made a few dresses and blouses for Anouk in bright and cheerful colours. So, I decided to take those fabrics and sew them into a table runner. Little pieces of summer with light gray fabric. The pattern was inspired by the "Little Bits" quilt.

The table runner is on its way to Germany for my mom who is turning 65 tomorrow and who spent the summer with us. I hope she will remember the days and the sunshine with a smile when she puts this table runner on the table. Happy birthday Mama!

Here are the summer moments with the fabrics in the table runner.

The ocean and the beach leave so many inspiring patterns and textures around us. Here is a selection of shapes and reflections that inspired the quilting:

And here is the table runner:

Happy birthday!

65!

Love from all of us.

Merry Christmas!

It's really feeling like Christmas around here now. As Anouk declared yesterday in her matter-of-fact way: "We have Christmas." I think she was referring to the tree, which Mark and I put up yesterday while the kids were at daycare. Anouk is really excited - and that means a bit fussy at the moment. But, what would the days before Christmas be without kids being fussy because of the anticipation, Mama being fussy because she doesn't know whether or not she can meet the expectations and Dad caught in the middle...

All is good, all is calm. Presents are wrapped, the goose is the fridge for Christmas Day, the cupboards are bursting with Stollen, cookies and chocolate. Until Anouk announced this morning that Christkind was bringing her a new cuddly: a zebra. Zebra??? Two days before Christmas? Really?
I got lucky - it was the last one in the toy store. The teenagers working in the store were laughing about the people doing their last minute shopping (did they know that customers were in the store??) and it made me smile, because they obviously do not have children at home who decide last minute what  Christkind (or Santa) will surely bring this year.

Amazingly I even finished the quilt for Liam. It's been a long time coming and I did not want to give him a box of quilt blocks with the reassurance that some day I would finish it. Although Liam would have been happy with that, too.
Here is the quilt still in the making:

I wrapped it and put it away without taking another picture. The next picture will be of Liam snuggled into the quilt.

And so we are all ready for the days of celebration to come. We decorated our tree with our collection of ornaments coming from my and Mark's childhoods, ornaments from Denmark, Germany and some new ones from the Vancouver Christmas market.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas without the Krippe that has been passed along to us from my parents. It's the Krippe of my mom's childhood, made by my great-grandfather for a young family with small children (my grandparents and my mom). It is always a very special moment when I take the old Sauerland barn out of the box and the delicate figures out of their boxes. The figures are old paper mache figures, probably from the 1920s.

Many generations come together in our Christmas room to celebrate with us. That's what Christmas is about this year. Family. Far and near. Family members that have passed away and left their memories with us and family members on their way to join us (Angela, we're thinking of your growing belly!).

Merry Christmas to all!

It's beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas...

I was actually a bit shocked when I saw today that the last entry was in September... September!!

The fall went by in a blur. Liam is doing great at school, Anouk is doing great at her daycare. I've been super-busy finishing the book and Mark has been busy writing as well. Bookwriting was an all-consuming endeavor throughout the fall, with continuous re-writing, editing, revising and re-revising. And then all of the sudden the December deadline came and it was done. It took me the least two weeks to catch up on everything and catch my breath.

... and then all of a sudden Christmas is around the corner. And it's beginning to feel like Christmas here. Little by little the decorations have begun to crawl out of the Christmas boxes and the house looks more and more festive and cozy. Anouk's assessment: "I like the decorations, beautiful." And Liam is very excited about Christmas.

Here's Liam knitting a hat for Anouk's doll for Christmas:

Liam took his knitting to school for "show and tell" and I was a bit worried that he would get teased, but it went really well and the kids were interested when Liam showed them how it worked. A few weeks later he brought the finished hat to "show and tell". I asked him what other kids bring for "show and tell" and he replied "Things that we don't have, like computers". For the record, we have more computers than we need, but I guess none that I would let Liam bring for "show and tell"...

And here is the doll I made for Anouk that will wear the hat:

Doing some crafting during the bookwriting was really good for me. It was good to just relax, let my hands do the work and let my mind rest. Up to the last few weeks when I just collapsed onto the couch in the evening and then dragged myself to bed - no more creative energy left, actually no energy left at all...

I even started a quilt for Liam for Christmas and joked about how this is a perfect procrastination excuse: instead of writing another 3 study questions, finish another 3 blocks for the quilt... Then a friend confirmed that I was not alone with that method: there is actually a book about quilting instead of writing on your book... I have to ask her about the title...

Now that I can do some sewing without guilt I made some Danish Christmas flags for our window:

And I even tried to make some chocolate treats. There are lots of recipes for this online and it all boils down to a simple: melt your chocolate and pour it out onto some parchment paper, put some toasted almonds (or other nuts, or candies, or whatever) on top, melt some more chocolate and drizzle on top. Done. Easy. And super-good!!!

Encouraged by the almond bark, I decided that making caramels wouldn't be too tough either. And honestly, what can go wrong when you mix together sirup, sugar and heavy cream and bring it all to a boil? Well, it's guaranteed to taste really good, especially when you then stir in copious amounts of butter... But, if the recipe says to boil for 45 minutes, you should probably boil for 45 minutes, not 25. 25 minutes gives you very gooey (but delicious!!) caramels. Too gooey in fact to really cut up and put on a plate or put into little jars as a gift... So, what's a novice caramel maker to do? How about melt some chocolate, freeze the caramel and then dip the frozen caramels into the chocolate - chocolate-covered caramels!! mmmh!!!

And then the treats do all fit into a little jar as a gift. This one is for Liam's teacher.

And here's our kitchen window looking more and more Christmassy, especially with the snowflakes and the star that Liam made and the little gingerbread ornaments that arrived just in time for Nikolaus from Germany.

And since I haven't written a thing here for months I thought I should share some recent pictures of Liam and Anouk.

This is what the kids looked like this weekend as they dressed up:

Liam is off to school!!

This week was Liam's first week of school. He started on Wednesday and the whole family came to send him off! He was a bit nervous but quickly adapted to the classroom. His comment about French? "French is easy!" and indeed he quickly repeated the word of Madame Lisa : "Frapper les mains, tapper les pieds..." "Tete, epaules, genouz, orteilles..." I think he's going to be OK. :)

And this Saturday morning he actually cried when I told him there was no school on Saturdays.

So I sent him off to the library with his new red backpack.

Of course we had a Schultüte for him filled with wonderful school supplies Oma and Opa brought from Germany: a pencil case (Federmäppchen), water colours, a pencil sharpener and of course candy and chocolate.

I cleared off my grandfather's desk for him and he is very proud to have his own space for his precious pencils and notebooks - out of the reach of his little sister!

I think he grew about 5 cm this week.

:)

... and then suddenly she was 2!

At the end of August, Anouk turned 2. My little girl growing up so quickly. So much energy, so much fun, so much talking, exploring, running...

I found this lovely book for her that summarizes all the wishes I have for her, all the blessings I want her to have:

Happy birthday my sweet girl!