And the monthly...

February on one layout...
And that's it for the month of February - let March begin :)

And the layouts

And here's the rest of my February weekly layouts :)

And now I'm almost done...

Rest of February

Now for the rest of my February photos...

February 24There was a concert at the Music school and both girls performed. Lovisa Lin is taking piano and singing lessons, so she sang a song and played two songs on the piano. Matthildur Inga had only had two piano lessons, but she had learned to play the "C" note - so that's what she did :) And she was VERY proud of herself!!! She did want to sing, though, just like her sister, and had prepared a song, so she was not too happy with not getting to perform it LOL

February 25

Winter's here! It's a bit late for my taste - we really should be seeing warmer temps, but this is Iceland so we know we can get any kind of weather all year round LOL

February 26Since the weather has been rather bad, cold, windy and snowy, the cat hasn't been able to go out as much as she's used to. So she's grumpy - just gives us the evil eye as if the weather is our fault :) I love that cat LOL

February 27 Matthildur Inga at the sports hall watching her dad play soccer. She didn't find it too exciting LOL

February 28

The weather has been great this weekend, so the girls have been outside playing in the snow a lot. It's been SO much fun - but they were so tired when they went to bed tonight :)

Mystery Challenge

This is the last one - I promise :)

I'm running the Mystery challenge at Scrap Orchard this month - and the challenge is to scrap family and to journal quite a bit. This is my layout...about the day when we became a family of 3.

Use the challenge to journal, to remember – just tell us how important family is. And it is by no means only about children. Family is so much more; parents, grandparents, cousins, friends, fur babies…anything that means family to you.

And a couple more...

Can't stop now LOL

Penny Springmann released a fantastic kit last weekend. It's called 4 sho and it's available at Sweet Shoppe - and in Penny's new and fantastic personal shope, My Digital Stash!!

This kit is filled with teenage attitude and slang - and since English is not my native language, I have to admit, I didn't know half of them and was afraid to use them wrong LOL "Just sayin'" was about the only one I felt comfortable enough to use :)
This is Lovisa Lin at 5 - showing all of her pre-teen attitude. Can't wait to see what this girl will be like when she actually hits her teens LOL

Last week was a huge release week for Scrap Orchard - as usual :) I made three layouts using their new releases

This was once my dog - she got killed a few years back. She was completely crazy, never did anything we asked and always ran away from us on walks to chase birds or sheep LOL But she was such a lovable thing - ans she ALWAYS waited for her food. We could tell her to sit and stay while we put the most delicious food items in front of her, and she would sit and stay - and slobber - until we told her to go ahead. No matter how long it took. We took this photo for a competition that was running on one of the radio stations in the summer of 1999. We never sent it in, but the photo was supposed to advertise a candy bar - and that's what she is looking at and slobbering over in this photo :)
I used a template by Megan Turnidge and a fab collab from Julie Bullock and mle card, called The Good Dog - bot available at Scrap Orchard.

This is our cat. Can you see an animal theme running through this week? No story with this one, except she was having fun playing with Matthildur, running all over the living room. Both of them LOL
I used AnnaBV Designs' Kit Cat kit and Cat Wordart pack, as well as Tracie Stroud's stitches and worn overlays. All available at Scrap Orchard.

These are my girls. They disappeared into their room one afternoon, only emerging to hand me a ticket, which said that I was supposed to pull up a chair and enter their room to watch a play in 5 minutes. I did - and they gave a brilliant performance in a play about a bad pirate who kidnapped the princess and made her walk the plank. They got a standing ovation :)
I used a Clean and Tiny template by Dani Alencar and also Dani's collab with Bianka Argollo, A Whole Year - February. Both available at Scrap Orchard.

Couple of layouts

I've been slacking in posting my layouts on the blog - and since it's been a long time, and I scrap a LOT, I won't even pretend that I can ever catch up LOL So, I'll just post a few now and try and do it regularly from now on :)

Dawn Inskip released two new kits last week, Sugar and Spice was one of them and About a Boy was the other. They are both available at Pickleberry Pop and Catscrap.This is Matthildur Inga, my mud magnet :) We went to the beach the other day and it was windy, rainy and cold. Matthildur sat herself half on the sand and half in the ocean and was happily wet and dirty within seconds LOL I don't need a boy to scrap boy kits!!

Lovisa Lin, however, is a princess through and through. This girl does NOT like to get dirty LOL

Irene V Alexeeva also released two kits last week. She is guest designer at Scrapbook Graphics this month, so she released Squeak With Love there and Chocomint at her regular Scrap Orchard store.

This is Matthildur Inga on Ash Wednesday. Her Kindergarten always comes to my workplace on Ash Wednesday to "trick-or-treat". It's so much fun to get all the Kindergarten kids marching up to the house all dressed up in their cute little costumes - on top of their warm winter coats and skisuits LOL I took these photos of Matthildur while the kids were singing for treats :)

Now these are my girls on Shrove Monday - or Bun Day as we call it here in Iceland. This was my photo of the day, so there is a bit of explanation a little further down on this blog. Basically, layout shows how much my girls enjoyed their cream puff buns with jam and whipped cream - and of course their pink and green frosting :)

Egypt

Lovisa Lin is fascinated by Ancient Egypt. When I went to a book fair on Sunday, I bought her a book on the subject...

She spent the best part of the afternoon looking and reading and asking questions - she was so engrossed in the book that I hardly saw her face the whole time LOL

One Love Charity Collab

Just a quick note to let you know that this is the last week to buy the One Love Charity Collab at Scrap Orchard. The kit will be retiring at the end of the month!!

This is such a fantastic kit where forty-eight designers from around the community have joined together to bring you this incredible kit with the common purpose of raising funds for Haitian aid and relief. Our theme, "One Love", symbolizes not only our heartfelt effort to help the people of Haiti, but also encompasses the diverse styles of all the designers involved in this project. This kit represents the diversity of our community and shows that even though we are all different, when we come together the result is truly spectacular.

The profits from the sale of this kit will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. We chose the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund not only because it embodies the spirit of One Love, but also because 100% of the donations will go to the relief and recovery efforts in Haiti and because they are working to provide both immediate relief and long-term support to the earthquake survivors.

This beautiful kit includes 114 papers, 356 elements, 3 alphabets, 6 page templates and 1 hybrid template and 16- 12 in. x 12 in. .png quick pages.

Week 7

Here are my completed layouts for week 7 :)

Weekend - and more

I've been having big problems with my internet connection at home, and it takes forever to update and upload to the blog. I'm sneaking this one in at work - so don't tell LOL

February 19Friday night is tv night so we make popcorn and get cozy in front of the tv. There are 2 comedy shows the girls get to watch Friday nights and they look forward to them all week. And daddy's popcorn tops the night :)

February 20

We went to Reykjavik Saturday morning. It was cold and windy and when Lovisa Lin got dressed, she put on shorts, knee-high woolen socks and those summery shoes LOL At least she wore woolen socks - although the didn't quite reach up to the point where her pants ended, so there was a part of her lower thigh that was naked :)

February 21

Sunday was "wife-day" here in Iceland. We have "husband-day" around the 20 of January and "wife-day" around the 20 of February. They each mark the beginning of a new winter month according to the old Icelandic calendar system. These days are our equivalents of Valentines Day, and Sunday it was DH's turn to pamper me LOL So Saturday, we left the girls at mom's an he took me to a hotel and out to eat at a really good restaurant. It was a fantastic 24 hours - if only for the fact that this is the first night since March 1, 2004 that I have spent a night without either or both girls :) Anyways, he got us a really nice room on the top (executive) floor of the Hilton Hotel Reykjavik - and this is the view from our 9th floor queen size room :)

February 22I made Indian food yesterday, and although I loved it, both girls thought it was too spicy. Lovisa Lin tried her hardest to eat it with lots of rice and veggies, but even though I mashed the meat (without sauce) into the rice for Matthildur, she really didn't care for it at all. She tried, though, and since we have been giving them a hard time about eating the food they get and not appreciating the food they get, she told me how much she loved this food, grimacing through every bite LOL Poor kid. This is her, trying to put a positive spin on the food :)

Ash Wednesday

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and traditionally it's a day of dressing up and going trick-or-treating. My girls went to school/Kindergarten dressed as pirate princessesDon't they look cool? They took their part very seriously LOL

Yesterday, Lovisa was busy practicing the piano for her lesson today - when I started pestering her with the camera she started giggling, telling me not to bother her while she was playing

She's really good - I know I say that a lot about her, but she's really good at everything she wants to do. But she does give up too quickly, in my humble opinion, if she doesn't get it right away, she believes it's better to do something else LOL She doesn't get to, but she wants to :)

Shrove Tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday and my in-laws invited us to a traditional dinner of salted lamb, potatoes and yellow pea soup. It was delicious, but I had to be careful because all this salt goes straight to my blood pressure LOL The girls love this, so they ate a lot, but they can handle it :)This is the day where Iceland gets a record breaking number of people visiting the ER with heart palpitation and possible heart attacks. There is just so much fat and salt in there it can easily kill the weak of heart. But we still eat it - and most eat a lot. I love the taste of the meat, if it's not too fat, and potatoes and veggies and I love the soup if it's not too salty - but I don't like how it makes me feel afterwards, so I keep intake to a minimum LOL

And now I go on the treadmill to sweat and drink a gallon of water so that I'll survive this year's Shrove Tuesday with my heart in tact :)

Bun Day

Yesterday was Bun Monday, or Shrove Monday, I'm not sure of the English translation - if there even is one LOL Anyway, on this day, the Monday 7 weeks before Easter, Icelander's stuff themselves with buns filled with jelly and whipped cream and topped with frosting. We eat meatballs or fishballs for dinner - and basically it's a day about buns :)I made buns on Sunday and when we got home yesterday we filled them with raspberry jam and whipped cream and made frosting for the top. I prefer brown chocolate frosting, but the girls insisted on different colors. Matthildur wanted green frosting and Lovisa wanted pink frosting - and, of course, they got pink and green :)

Week 6

I've got my layouts for week 6 all ready

This is why I don't want to give up this year. I love how my weekly layouts are turning out - and I WANT a whole years worth of those layouts all nicely printed out in a Shutterfly book LOL

Thanks for looking - and have a good day :)

Missing Days

I'm getting lazier with the blog, I've got to get in gear, though, because now I'm at the point where I gave up last year :) I'm so NOT going to do that this year!!!

February 9

My baby in the shower. She loves taking showers, but I try to not bathe/shower the girls too often since they both have sensitive skin and it dries out too much when they take too many baths :) But bathtime and showertime is ALWAYS a lot of fun :)

February 10

The girls will be pirate princesses for the costume parties on Ash Wednesday. Today they got pirate hats to complement their costumes. They were both really happy about that :)

February 11One of Lovisa's girlfriends' birthday was today and she had a pajama party. Lovisa wore her new pink Barbie pajamas - and looked really good! It must have been fun, though, being the neighbor of this girl when 22 kids in pajamas ran out to the playground to play outside LOL

February 12

Matthildur had her first piano lesson today. She's only three - although if you ask her, she is getting close to 4 REALLY fast!! I was a bit worried that she was too young, but we have Russian music teachers at our music school and they claim kids are never too young to start LOL As it turned out, she LOVED it and when we were walking home after class, she told me that she had learned EVERYTHING - and proceeded to show us when we got home :)

February 13

We had visitors for the weekend. Our friend and her daughter came to stay from Friday until Sunday. Her daughter is only 2,5 months older than Lovisa and they get along really well. We did a lot of fun things on Saturday - even went for a long walk in the rain and wind, and when we got back we were all soaking wet LOL Then we made bread and Lovisa and her friend loved kneading it :)

February 14

Today's my birthday and this is what I got from my girls. Their dad took them to the store when he was home on Thursday and they each got to choose a present for me :) So they both got me necklaces - and I love them both!

Ok, now I'm caught up. I'll try and post more regularly from now on :)

Fifth week...

I just noticed that I never posted the February half of my Week 5 layouts - so here it is :)

I'm still only using Biograffiti's 365 templates and W&W Hodge Podge and Life 365 series. I added the Sweet & Simple Monthly kits as well.

Good weather

The weather has been totally amazing so far this year. Not like winter at all - and now, for the past 10 days or so, we are having absolute spring weather, even though it's just the beginning of February and spring weather shouldn't be here until late March or early April. We are taking advantage of this weather, though, trying to be outside as much as possible.

Sunday, my husband and I got his parents to watch the girls while we took a long walk. It was nice - and it's so rare that we do something just the two of us :) I took this photo on the walk, it's an old abandoned fish plant which will be turned into an art gallery this summer. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Yesterday, we had a rather quiet day. When it was time for bed, the girls got in their pajamas - and then, all of a sudden, Matthildur thought it was time for gymnastics LOLShe is quite limber. Not quite as limber as her big sister who can scratch the back of her head with her big toes - both at the same time LOL But Matthildur is very strong and very athletic.

Reykjavik

We went to Reykjavik yesterday afternoonI took this photo out of the car window when we were about 10 minutes away from the house on our way to Reykjavik. We had just a little bit of snow - can't really call it that - but enough so that all the shadows in the mountains were clearly visible with the slight snow and beautiful sunlight.

Tonight we came back home after having spent the day with grandma (my mother). This morning, Lovisa Lin made her grandma teach her how to knitShe is really amazing, this girl! Whatever she wants to do or learn, she does and learns how to do in very short time. She is amazingly smart and really clever and talented too. We are so lucky that she's ours.

Coming home!

My husband came home today!! He's been out to sea for the most part of the last two weeks, I only saw him Friday afternoon and Tuesday afternoon for a little bit of time each day. The boat only stopped while the fish was landed and new bait was put on the boat. Now he has the weekend off - yeah!!!
I took a long lunch, since I wasn't feeling well and had to go to a meeting at 4 so I thought I'd better lie down and rest for a while so I could make it throught the meeting. Anyways, when I was about to go back to work, I saw my husband's boat sail by our livingroom window - and of course I took photos LOL

It's not a good photo since it's taken out the window at maximum zoom - but it will do :)

Cats and Buns

It's been an eventful day. I started out this morning taking our cat to the vet to have her fixed. The vet lives an hour or so away from our house and when I got there at 9:30 this morning, the vet gave her a shot while I held her and then I left her with him for an hour - which was the time he said the operation would take. I got back a little over an hour later and when I opened the door the first thing I saw was the cat, asleep on her back, legs stiff in all directions, eyes wide open and the vet finishing sewing her up. I can tell you, I did NOT want to see that!! I felt so sorry for her - the operation took place on a hard wooden table, the table where I left her - which I thought was just a receiving table and that the operation would take place under sterile conditions in a back room, where it would at least be a little warm. But no! Just shows you how much I know!! And then I took her home. He shoveled her into her travelling cage and off we were - like 10 minutes after the operation was done with! But she is ok. The vet's been practicing for many, many years - and he's a really good vet - it was just a big shock :) She's been staggering around all afternoon, prefering to be lying somewhere close to me, but I can see she's getting better.

Anyways, cat adventures aside, Lovisa got to take the bus to the neighboring town after school to visit her friend. Usually she takes part in the after school program until 4 when I'm done with work, but today she got to skip that and just have fun with a friend :) While she was away, Matthildur and I made cinnamon buns

Matthildur loves to bake - and since she didn't get to visit a friend like her big sister, she demanded we do something fun LOL However, our oven is broken, it turns itself off periodically, so baking the cinnamon buns wasn't an easy task - but we managed, and by the time we went to pick up Lovisa, we had a bowl full of really wonderfully smelling cinnamon buns :)

Pirate Play

I ordered the girls some new costumes and they came in the mail today. They were really excited, since it was a double dress :) One one side it was a pink princess dress and on the other it was a red and black girl pirate dress. They promptly made up a play, which I was the audience for, where Lovisa was the pirate who kidnapped Matthildur the princess - who ended up having to walk the plank and fall into the ocean. It was quite a play!!

This is Lovisa the pirate, having just bound up her prisoner, and now busy rowing the pirate ship out to sea LOL

Rooting for our team

Iceland took home the bronze at the European Handball Championship that ended yesterday in Austria. We took home the silver at the Beijing Olympics, so this is our second medal from a big championship in 1,5 years. Getting a team that good from a nation of 360.000 people is pretty amazing - in my humble opinion - and these guys on the team are our heroes today :)

Iceland welcomed them home today, and there was a live broadcast from the welcoming ceremony. I turned it on on my computer but had to go upstairs to make dinner, just leaving it on. All of a sudden I was hearing clapping from the computer area, looked downstairs and there was my 3,5 year old, glued to the screen, clapping excitedly whenever one of our fantastic handballers was called to the stage. Now there is a fan for you!!!

Next year, it's the World Championship in Sweden. Maybe we'll take home the gold - it's the one medal we're missing LOL Well, we can always hope!