I'm still here!!

Another picture from our bikerides through the city....

I am still here! Ask and I are sick, I have a billion pages to read for my class......
On the bright side, Ask is better, and will be back to his normal lovely self very soon, and hopefully I should be so too :-) Once he is okay it shouldn't take me long, being able to sleep at night is so healing -compared to being kept awake by a sick 1 year old!

Election Day in the US is pretty interesting for us in the rest of the world too....so please vote if you are able to do so! Please!
I know I am keeping my fingers crossed and will be checking the internet at the crack of dawn to see who will be the next president...

Until then.....I have been given an award! YAY! Thank you Thrifty Mrs!!!
I am very happy to get this award!

A little sewing

Viola's daycare doesn't allow dresses :-( It's a safety-issue, the children climb trees, and dresses get caught on the branches :-( So...what is a girl to do? Viola is into princess-glittery-sparkly-dresses, of course she is, she's turning 4! I have been making her some new pants, for these she chose the fabrics for the pockets, and the sequin-ribbon embellishments.

She wanted 3 rows of sequin-ribbon: purple, pink and red. I had to stop after purple, I thought these pants were sparkly enough! Plus, she probably won't wear them much anyway, she loves her velour pants too much!

This saturday was cleaning-day at her daycare, I went and Charles stayed home with the kids. We were both totally beat that night, he's not used to having the kids a full day, and I'm not used to working away from home -unless it's school.
Charles and the children bought me this scale, I love it, it's hanging in the kitchen. My parents had one of these when I was growing up. They don't make them anymore, so Charles was lucky to find this used :-)

The scale I have is tiny, it can weigh a max of 500 g, but can really only hold app. 250 g of flour at a time.....That makes it really frustrating to bake bread. Or maybe I'm just impatient. LOL! This new scale can weigh up to 3 kg!! And it is nice and big too. So I am happy.

Yesterday Viola and I spent the day together, she had a dentist-appointment in the morning -she did so well, wasn't scared at all, and made her mom very proud!
Afterwards we went to the zoo. It was so wonderful to have a day just the two of us. I miss that, must make it a priority to do that more often.

After all, I can only do that as long as I study. Once I get a job, that will all change. Not that I don't have a lot of work now, I just have a more flexible schedule. No-one cares if I read at night, as long as I do the work.

Halloween

Tivoli here in Copenhagen celebrate Halloween this week. They are open for Halloween one week only, then we have to wait until Christmas to go back :-) ...and summer of course!
They have decorated the gardens so beautifully, they have used more than 21.000 pumpkins in all :-)

Asks favourite was this mill, he loved watching the wings go round and round...
I took some pictures for you....the chinese tower....
....the pirate ship....
....the brewery.....
....and some more pumkins!
The kids liked this pumpkin-man, but when it came time to take a picture, they got bored. LOL!
It was a great day!

Charles has been away at a conference in London all week (he'll be back tonight!), the kids and I have been sick.....and I am soooo behind on my webometrics-paper. I had to call my parents and ask them to come help me out.
They did, thank goodness :-)

Come for a bike-ride!

On our way home, the kids and I pass some very nice places, atleast I think so! So I thought, I would share with you all :-) The first picture is Violas favourite part, she loves how the trees make a roof over the bike-path (her words. LOL!)

This next picture is one of my favourite stretches (I make it sound like it's a long journey!!! It's really only 5 km), I like this because, it's on top of a bridge, the rest of the way home is all flat, and....this is downtown Copenhagen right in front of us. Seriously, we could ride one of the tourist-busses from the kids daycare to our house, we pretty much see all the sights of the city on our ride home every single day..... Well, not all, but many :-)
This is the old stock-exchange, built in 1619-1623. I'm sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I was riding my bike when I took these ;-)
This is a department-store, remind me to take another picture in December, they have christmas-lights around all the windows, and it looks beautiful!
.....these are all the sights for today....I have lots of blurry shots to share! LOL!

Viola needed new slippers for daycare, she doesn't want to bring her unicorn-slippers, she's afraid they'll get lost....
So I bought her a pair of plain grey wollen slippers. Not very interesting or fun for a little girl :-(
So we decided to have some fun with them. We went shopping, and found some purple (what else is there?!) sequin-ribbon and some sequin-flowers to add.
Much better.
And the flowers help her put the right slipper on the right foot.

This and that.....

Starting a new semester has been a lot of work. We all have to adjust to it, I don't have as much time to do stuff around the house as I have been used to this summer. But I just need to be a little more efficient ;-)
Viola loves her princess-gown, and wears it any chance she gets!
And she is epecially happy with how it matches her new wool unicorn-slippers.
She loves the "diamonds" on these.

Ask has a cold, a very bad one. He doesn't sleep well at night at all -so neither do I!
He stayed home today, hopefully he'll be feeling better soon. Chocolate always makes me feel a little better.....it seemed to cheer him up too. I'm not too sure that's a good thing to learn at such an early age. LOL!
I'm trying NOT to eat chocolate, so to cheer me up (I get grumpy when I don't get the 5 hours of interrupted sleep I'm used to), Charles and Viola bought me these flowers.
Surprisingly, they do the job just as well as chocolate would have! Now that's a good lesson to learn at any age!

I have not been able to get to my machine in a while, which almost always means I come up with a lot of idea for quilts to sew! I have figured out what to do to solve the size-problem with Charles' quilt....I will let you know soon ;-)
Thanks to Lisa and Tia I have fabrics and plans for no less than 2 quilts for Ask! YAY! A pirate-quilt for his bed and a a rocket napping-size quilt. I'm so excited about that!

And....I have always wanted to make a Christmas-quilt. I don't see this wish coming true this year, but maybe next year?!
Is it just me? I love these seasonal quilts...

Fantastic class!!

This semester I'm taking a class on webometrics, and it is so much fun! It's a lot of work....but then, nobody said it would be easy. I have decided, that I work while the kids are away, so monday-friday when they are in daycare. It gives me just about 5 hours a day. Quite a bit less than I would normally work, and quite a bit more than I had last semester when Ask was at home with me ;-)
So all in all, I should be okay.

The class is taught by Professor Peter Ingwersen, who is well-known internationally in his field. And he is a wonderful teacher, I feel very lucky! So my first class this semester is off to a good start.

I do miss the kids, though. But I am comforted knowing they are having fun with their friends. And this way, I can spend time with them in the afternoon, and just focus on them....and dinner....laundry....the general mess that is my house!

Unfortunately I don't have much time for sewing. Right now, I'm trying to remember how to study, summer was a bit long, and somewhere along the way I seem to have lost my ability to remember what I read. Not so good! LOL! But it'll come back to me....I hope! No, seriously....it's the same every time I've had a long break. I just need to reboot my system...

Trains

We stayed in and played today :-) Ask really loves his train!
Didn't get any sewing done, I had to tackle the mountain of laundry!

The weekend will be busy too, and next week I have to start studying for my exam.... So who knows when I'll get to finish the I SPY. Of course I already have a ton of ideas for my next project! LOL!

I never did show you my finished paper.... Here it is:

Tootsie is on tv! -see ya....

Playhouse

Viola and I went to the Danish equivalent of Home Depot, and she really wanted to bring this little house home -and the slide! Can I have the slide, mom? Pleeeeease!!
But no :-(
We bought the stuff we needed, and to make sure the trip was not all bad, we went for something to drink...
Also I needed to figure out how to bring home that 80x80 cm bulletin board we bought.. I know my bike is big, but it's not that big!

This slush-ice did make her feel a lot better about the whole no-we-cannot-bring-the-house-home affair. Especially when she figured out, how red and blue make purple!

It's not that I don't sympathize with the play-house situation. This is the tent my kids play with....and let's just be honest, it's very very ugly!

We just don't have enough room to have a house that can't be put away. When taken down, this fits nicely under our sofa... But it is still ugly!

Then I saw this in a magazine:

and I thought.... Hmm, this is pretty! Maybe I could sew a pretty tipi for the little ones? It would be pretty, it would be something I could put away when it's not being used, it would be made with love...

So.. Does anyone know of a pattern, or some instructions for making a tipi?

Huge presents! Happy kids :-)

This is what I did today, I worked on my paper. I'm happy to report, that Ask is doing so well at daycare :-) He already has a lot of little friends. One of the other boys gave him a hug goodbye yesterday! I was so happy!
I missed my post last night, because I fell asleep.......again!

Today my sister is here, and she brought presents for the kids. Ask got a Duplo giant zoo, he was a little bit afraid of the box -it was bigger than him. LOL!

Viola liked all the animals too...

She got the Belville royal winter stables, lots of pink and purple, glitter and princesses...
-and a few borrowed animals from the zoo!

They both had so much fun playing with their new LEGOs, I'm sure it'll be the favourite toys for a very long time...

I'm beginning to be able to relax a little when Ask is at daycare, it makes it a lot easier to get some work done on my paper. I can't wait until I'm done with it....

End of holiday-weekend :-(

I took the kids to the playground today, so Charles could have a little bit of peace and quiet to finish some work. We're trying out different places to see what works best with a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old :-) They both seemed to enjoy this playground!

They are going back to daycare tomorrow, and Ask will be starting taking his nap there soon. I wanted to make him a special set of linens to snuggle under.

So I made this...


Viola and I have almost finished the Mickey Mouse pants, but I'll show you when we're all done. Also I've been working on the 6"quilt for Imagingermonkey, but can't show you that, until she has seen it.

Mothers Day

Look at how well my kids know me. This is the present they bought me -with help from Charles :-) The fabrics are from Viola, and the measuring tape is from Ask. He is always stealing mine, and leaving it in the strangest places.
It's been a great day! I love being a mom, every day of the year.

I fell asleep!

Ask did so well yesterday, he played with his new friends, and didn't complain at all. I sat at the nearby coffee-shop, and studied. I am really quite busy, I have a 20 page paper due May 26th...

But I still found time to do some shopping.... This is a new house-dress. Viola and Charles love it, and want me to wear it out of the house too. We'll see about that!

And I got Ask some sandals for summer.

And....who can resist these little Tupperware-wannabies?! They are perfect for bringing raisins, nuts, grapes and all those little foods the kids like to eat :-)

Anyway, this was supposed to be yesterdays post, but after I fell asleep when I was tugging Viola into bed, and when I finally woke up, I just went right back to sleep in my own bed...
so there may just be 2 posts today!

Good mail-day

Look what I got in the mail today! I had completely forgotten about ordering these fabrics, so it was a nice surprise. They are for the back of the I SPY quilt. Viola loves dots and bubbles!

I don't really have a lot of time on my hands yet, I am still with Ask at day-care, today I left for 40 minutes, and he was fine! I was so happy, and somewhat less guilt-stricken ;-)
I spent the time studying at a nearby coffee-shop, looking at the time on my mobile every 20 seconds.....LOL!
Tomorrow they want me to leave for more than an hour, and hopefully I'll remember my camera.

Not keeping up at all :-(

Thank you for all the nice comments on the daycare-situation. We are trying to make the best of it!
It is stressing me out a bit, and I'm not posting everyday at all!! That has got to change :-)

This is a window-display at the Copenhagen Public Library. It's pretty amazing, this little "mouse-town" is made out of painted milk-cartons etc. It's made by Shane Brox, a former designer for Levi's.

Look at the castle -I apologize for the reflections in the window :-)

And here is a lazy little napping-mouse... Look at that cute little bookshelf!

And the toystore is definately worth a visit

Here's a view of downtown Mouseville...

My kids could spend the entire day here I think.