She woke up!

Just so you know, this is what five and a half hours of napping can do to a person:

Double Whammy

Svea has tonsillitis and strep throat. Her temp hit 104.7 yesterday. I had never seen such a high temperature on our thermometer before. Her little body is working hard to fight all those germs.

She's been napping for over five hours now.

Yep. She's in there, asleep. I keep checking on her to make sure she's still there.

In the meantime I've had a lot of time on my hands.
Elin ate lunch and hung out with me in the kitchen. She was a good little helper.

I decided to bake some goodies. I made lemon-poppyseed pound cakes. And apple crisp.
It smells pretty good in here.
I emailed Nate to alert him that he was coming home to a bake sale.
He's pretty stoked.
Then I remembered Nate has some coworkers who, as far as I can tell, don't even know how to use their ovens.
So if you'd like to buy a freshly baked Easter dessert, the pound cakes are $20 each.

Mmm . . . . they look good, don't they?

Then I decided to wander around Etsy.com. That's always dangerous. I found this fabric and knew I would die if I didn't own it and make it into a new purse as soon as possible. Usually I don't just go around buying stuff but I couldn't help myself. Plus a girl can never own too many purses. This is what happens when I have a little extra time on my hands.

I also decided to make some new pillows for our couch and laundered some fabric for that long-overdue project. And I hunted down a pattern because I want to make Svea and Elin cute little pants.

I cleaned up the kitchen and I wondered what life would be like when all the kids are in school and its quiet like this all the time. Will we get really fat from all the baking?

I drank coffee and ate trail mix for lunch. I kept thinking Svea would wake up and we'd eat together. And now I'm starving.

And now this one is in bed too.
Shhhh.

I love being a stay-at-home mom and taking care of these little girls all day. I love the baking and the sewing and the cleaning. And I can't wait for Viggo to come home and see all these fabulous treats I've made. Plus I made brownies last night just for kicks. He has quite a selection to choose from for an afternoon snack!

I'm glad I'm the one that gets to be at home with the babies.

I never asked for equal rights.

In the Kitchen: Toasted Wheat Germ

I confess I haven't bought toasted wheat germ off the shelf at the grocery store for . . . probably at least five years. In a moment of extreme frugalism years ago, I decided I would never again pay $4 for a smallish-sized jar of toasted wheat germ. I order raw wheat germ in bulk from here, and pay a fraction of the price that I would pay at any store. But it's not toasted, so I just use it in its raw form in recipes, which admittedly sometimes turn out a little chewy.

But no more!

I was in the middle of making granola bars today, and the recipe called for good ol' toasted wheat germ. In a moment of inspiration I thought, what if I toast the wheat germ myself?

Duh.

I popped a tray of wheat germ into the toaster oven, set it to toast, stirred a bit in between, and four minutes later I had myself a pile of nice, crisp, toasted wheat germ.

So now you know. Do what you want with this trivial bit of information that has just revolutionized my baking world.

This outfit

People asked me when we were expecting Elin, "So, do you want a boy or a girl?"

And I would politely say, "As long as the baby is healthy, I don't care!"

But secretly I was thinking, she had better be a girl so she can wear the pink leopard outfit.

Good thing Elin was a girl.

Otherwise there would have been one funny-looking baby boy around here.


Elin loves these ancient Disney blocks.
They were from when I was a kid, so according to Viggo, they're really old. Practically fossils.

I love her strawberry-blonde fuzz.

Elin isn't crawling yet, but she gets around pretty efficiently in her own way. As you can imgaine this fleece outfit on a wood floor makes her a quick and slippery mover. She gets stuck under furniture a lot. We are constantly retrieving her from places.

Here she was happy to find a police smurf, so getting stuck under the sette wasn't a big deal.

I'm in no hurry for her to crawl. She can take her time.

Sleeping Beauty & the Sneetch

Svea made a little bed under Elin's jump-a-roo and then actually fell asleep in it yesterday. I was able to move the jump-a-roo just enough to slide her out and put her into her own bed. She never even woke up when I was moving her.

What a funny girl.

And today Svea decided to diaper her Sneetch. She got some money awhile ago as a gift and went to Kohls with Nate and came home with a Sneetch she bought with her own money.

She knew exactly what to do. She laid out her little pretend changing pad and carefully set the Sneetch on it, and then put on the diaper.

I think the Sneetch looks pretty happy.

Cutie Fix

If you're in need of some extra cuteness today, you came to the right place.

But all good things . . .

. . . must come to an end. We love you, Elin!

St. Patty's Day

Today was a big day in our household. We wore green. We drank green milk. And we celebrated Nate being 1/16th Irish and the children 1/32 Irish. Or something like that. I was the only 100% Swede around, but I will happily celebrate anybody who chased snakes away from anywhere.

Last night Viggo asked me if leprechauns were real. Well I said, "Of course not, honey - they're just fun to pretend about."

Well guess who came home from school today and saw leprechaun footprints around school.

And guess who's friend at school, John, actually saw a real live leprechaun.

Leprechauns do exist!

What do I know?


We ate Rainbow Cupcakes. Typically this type of food flies in the face of our normal healthy fare. I can't say they're healthy . . . or natural . . . or that they can even be classified as nutrition. But I saw this recipe idea in a magazine in a waiting room and knew I had to try it because it just looked like it was so much fun. It also supplies your body with a decade's amount of food dye. I closed my eyes momentarily in shock when I saw the amount of food coloring the recipe calls for. But then I thought, well, the kids will love it.

Viggo had fun squeezing the bags of cake batter to see what color the dye would make it!

It was quick to mix up the dough in ziplocs. Hint: the recipe does not tell you this. I read this tip in someone's review of this recipe, and measured out the batter per her instructions in 5.5 oz. amounts directly into the ziplocs. I measured it on my little digital kitchen scale, which is easily one of the most handiest things I own.

After the batter was mixed well inside the bag, I clipped a tiny corner off and squirted it in the muffin pan and silicone muffin cups.

Purple batter first. Viggo said, "Mom, I think the batter looks too thick on the bottom." He was right. I ran out quickly. What do I know about making rainbow cupcakes anyway?

Then blue, then green. I was more conservative and got through all 18 with a nice, even distribution of colored batter. Viggo was so proud of me.

Viggo and I hid a walnut in one. This is for Nate to take to work tomorrow; he's bringing the leftover cupcakes in for a treat. Whoever gets the cupcake with the walnut wins - a pot of gold! Viggo is supplying the pot of gold; he's going to create one.

Then yellow.

Then orange, then red. I did not smooth out the batter like the directions specify. In several reviews people mentioned this took forever; even up to 2 hours. I didn't have 2 hours to spare, so I just squirted it in rings around the outside edges and let it run together at will. Obviously the person who came up with this recipe had a lot of time on their hands.

While baking, Svea and Viggo went outside to trike and bike.

I came home from IL/MN the other weekend to find that Viggo mastered biking without training wheels! And guess what he tells me: "Mom, Dad showed me how to do a wheelie!"

Also while outside, Viggo was looking at the ground and suddenly cried out, "I found a four-leaf clover!"

He saw leprechaun footprints and found a four-leaf clover. He was living the St. Patty's dream today.

And here's our cupcake, all frosted and ready to be eaten. These are so fun!

Svea was really wowed by all the colors.

Elin was just having a good time eating her squash and rice.

Guess what? Svea has built-in binoculars. Nate does too, but for some reason I could never capture him wearing his.

We hope you had a happy St. Pat's!

An evening in Ukraine

We went to Ukraine tonight.

Just kidding. I'm still recovering from last weekend and believe me, I'm not going anywhere.

Ukraine came to us! Missionaries from Ukraine that are dear to our church came tonight to share traditional Ukrainian food and tell us about what is happening in the mission field.

A Ukrainian church located in Philly came and prepared plenty of food. There was borshch (beet soup).

I can't say that was the tastiest thing I had ever eaten. There was lots of dill in it. Nate noticed that there was meat in it; apparently that's a sign of wealth. He had borshch at least twice a week when he lived in Ukraine and he never saw meat in it.

Speaking of wealth, can you believe that most Ukrainians make between $200-400 a month? Count your blessings tonight.

And then there were pickles.

I can't say those were the tastiest thing either. Wait, I didn't even eat one. I could just smell them. They smelled like dill. Yuck.

I don't like dill either. I know - what kind of Swede am I?!

Nate informed me I probably wouldn't really fit into the Ukrainian scene if I dislike their three major food groups: beets with dill, dill, and pickles that smell like dill.

I would love to go to Ukraine but I might stave to death there.

Viggo and I both like the vareniki! And I really enjoyed the golubtsi. I ate mine and Viggo's too (cabbage rolled up with cheese and rice). Please don't ask me to pronouce that. You'll have to contact your local Ukrainian and ask them how you say that.

And the desserts. We ate lots of those. Look at this printed candy! Viggo said it had a cherry inside. He sampled every dessert.

I might not starve to death in Ukraine but I would have to subsist on pastries.

It was very interesting listening to the missionary talk. Nate was reminiscing about the friendly people there - how if you stopped to chat with an aquaintance on the street and said conversationally, "well, see you tomorrow!" or, "See you soon!" that person would then show up on your doorstep the next day and you had better have your calendar cleared because they would hang out with you all day long. They took those words literally. Well, tonight we learned that children there are basically neglected and left to fend for themselves. Which would certainly explain the desperate need for relationships. Nate thought it was just a cultural friendliness, but it's much more than that. While we were driving home he said, "I guess I never noticed how kids weren't around that much, and I never saw a little kid out with their parent."

We have so much to be thankful for. If you are able to spend any time getting to know about your church missionaries and are able to support them in any way, do it!