Day 18

It's late, I'm tired and I'm off to bed LOL - but first I'm going to upload today's photo...

We have cold weather and snow right now - the weather forecast calls for more snow, we might even get a slight blizzard LOL. Anyways, I took the girls for a walk this morning - we went out at 11 am, and it was almost light outside. You can see the sun still trying to rise over our little glacier. This is in a neighbours garden - I wish it was mine, but it's not. My garden is a total mess.
Anyways, I have lots to post tomorrow - photo, layouts, awards!!! But this will do for tonight :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a good night!!

Day 17

Today I decided that I was a lazy mother since I haven't started my 2,5 year old on potty training. She's been without a diaper a few times, but somehow doesn't seem to feel when she needs to go - and therefore, she goes all over. I've just been too lazy to clean up after her so it's easier when she wears a diaper. However, the prize of diapers has almost doubled in the past 4 months and now I feel like I either have to start having her wear cloth diapers (and I hate laundry) or just to bite the bullet and start her on potty training. So that's what I did - it's easier to clean up than do laundry all the time LOL

So I made a potty chart LOL - she gets a Bob the Builder sticker for every time she does No1 in the potty and a big Dora the Explorer sticker when she does No2 :) Today she started out quite well and did both - as you can see LOL Then, in the afternoon, I asked her if she wanted to go potty, she said no - and peed on the floor!! Oh, well - tomorow is another day, and she is quite excited about the stickers so I'm sure well get there in the end!

I have another layout with Shien's new kit, Xing Fu...

This is again from our China trip in March 2004. The photo was taken on March 3, and we had been a family for 2 days.

Have you seen Phuong and Miki's gorgeous new Valentine's kit? It's called Mood For Love - and it's just stunning!! I'm not even that big a fan of Valentine's kits since we don't celebrate it here in Iceland, but the kit is amazingly versatile...This is my 6 year old sweetie blowing me a kiss the other day :)

That's it for tonight - I'm off to bed early, since my lovely 2 year old and my pesty cat woke me up at 4:30 this morning!! I'm not a morning person, I've been grumpy all day!!
Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Day 16 and layouts

Today's photo is nothing short of terrible - the memory is great, though, and since that's 90% of what matters, I decided that I don't care. At least not too much. I can be endlessly disappointed that I didn't get a single good shot of my older daughter's first dance show, and I can make tons of excuses for it; the school was badly lit, I had a whiny two year old on my lap so I couldn't mess with any of the settings...etc, etc. However, I was just having too much fun watching her dance, and when I figured out that the few photos I took were horrible, I decided to film it instead - that also gave me a free hand to cuddle my two year old LOL

So here's one of the photos I took...She's got moves - and she's only 6!! I'm just wondering where she learned to move her hips like she does!!! Certainly not from tone deaf, no rythm me!!!

I have a couple of layouts to show today too :)

Dawn Inskip debuted at The Digi Chick yesterday with 3 new packs of gorgeous stuff.

Perfect stuff for the 365 Project layouts!!! And here is mine - this is Day 1 :)

We went to the beach on New Years Day and the weather was so gorgeous - for midwinter, at least!

Kim De Smet also brought out a new kit this week. It's called Clownerie and it's available in her OScraps store.

This is my younger daughter showing off :) She was 9,5 months old, highly mobile, just a couple of days from letting go and walking on her own - and she missed no chance showing off and just being a complete goofball LOL She's still like that at 2,5 - I'm hoping she always will be :)

Final one tonight - I promise!!!

Shien Designs released a Chinese New Year kit yesterday. It's called Xing Fu (Happiness) and it's such a cute kit.

My husband took this photo of Lovisa Lin in the Forbidden City. She was in my arms - and not happy about it!! She is looking at her dad, asking him with her eyes why he let that terrible woman hold her, when he could just as well do it himself. I can laugh at it today, because she's a complete mommy's girl - but it hurt at the time :)

I'm off to bed - thanks for looking and have a good night :)

Day 14 and 15

The days this week have been very long for my girls, my older one has dance after school this week so she's not done until 2:30, and since our au-pair has January off, my 2,5 year old is in Kindergarten until 4 o'clock - which is a long day for her. The time from 4 until they go to bed at 7:30 is sometimes very difficult because they are so tired - and most of the time it's hard to get away to cook dinner LOL So this is what I do...

They sit on either side of the stove and take full part in cooking LOL - it's fun for them and total anxiety for me because, of course, everything is either hot or sharp :) But whatever works, I guess!!

Today I have a meeting so I won't be home until late. Therefore, only a slim opportunity for photos. Lucky for me, the opportunity arouse already early this morning!! My DH came home last night, and when he's home, my younger daughter sees this as an opportunity to rise early and keep him for herself for a little while. So this morning she woke at 6 am - which is late for her on these occasions - and they went up to the kitchen and livingroom area. Instead of turning dad around her little finger as usual, she found something far more fun to do. For one hour, she jumped on the trampoline, with the kitty, and sang as loud as she could. For one hour!!! She is just an amazing morning person.

Thanks for looking - I so appreciate all the nice comments!!!

Day 13

This project is getting increasingly difficult - it's not that I don't take plenty of photos, it's just that now that our lives are in routine again, I find myself taking photos of the same stuff over and over again LOL It doesn't bother me too much, but when I start going through my photos at night, I keep thinking, hmmm - I had a trampoline photo yesterday, one of the cat the day before...what's remotely new today :)

Well, at least we had snow today LOLNot much, though! I thought there would be more since it snowed so much for about half an hour - but then it just stopped. I'm happy - I like a little layer of snow, but I hate when it gets so much that the car gets stuck in the driveway LOL

Birgit Kerr has a new kit out today. It's a collab with Alana McCarthy at Scrapbook Graphics, and it's in a vintage carnival/circus style. It's called Carousel, and it's really beautiful. I'm not good with themed kits, but this is what I came up with...

...it's not remotely circus related, but since we don't have a circus of any kind here in Iceland - I'm hoping I'll be forgiven :) This is my 2,5 year old playing twister with herself - lots of fun LOL

Vera Lim also released a new kit this morning. It's called A New Beginning.

These are my girls on Christmas Eve. They were in a rare tender moment :)

Oh, and you can check the Happy Place over at DST for a RAK game from Dawn Inskip's CT. Dawn is adding a new store - and if you can guess what it is, you'll win her entire store for 2 whole months! There are still 2 more days left - so check it out!!

That's it for tonight :) Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Day 10, 11 and 12

I'm slacking in the blogging department, but I am sticking to taking photos every day - so I guess that's good LOL We did, however, go to Reykjavik this weekend, so there wasn't really a lot of online time. Not much computer time at all, really.

We got a cat on Saturday, and my daughters love it. Her name is Kung Fu Rósalín. Kung Fu because she's a dead ringer for Kung Fu Panda and Rósalín because Lovísa wanted to call her Rósa but Matthildur didn't - so this is a compromise :) She is a cutie, though, and deathly afraid of my 2 year old LOL She does enjoy getting the occasional snuggle from my 6 year old - but she definitely prefers me :) Here she is with Lovísa - my photo for Day 10...Sunday, we didn't do much and I didn't take too many photos. I did take some of my mom's Christmas decorations, which are still up. My mom collects Santa figurines and she has quite a collection. She always displays them in such a nice manner - and my photo for Day 11 shows her collection of the Icelandic Santas. There are 13 of them, and she had all but two - until Boxing Day when the grandkids got a hold of them and broke a couple...!!!

I thought the light was nice, I used no flash but there was a candle burning above the figurines, which cast a nice warm glow over them.

While in Reykjavik, we finally bought the girls' Christmas present. There was no time to get it before Christmas so they had to wait a bit LOL Not that they minded - especially since they had no idea they were getting anything other than they book they got to open up on Christmas Eve :) We got them an indoor trampolin - and it's a HUGE hit. Hence, my photo for today, Day 12...Oh, and the pacifier goes everywhere - even on the trampolin LOL

I haven't been in much of a scrapping mood lately. Here's the page I've managed over the weekend. It's kind of strange, only having one to show, when I usually easily manage 2-4 on my days off. Granted, it took a while to make, and I'm pretty happy with it. Anyways, I used Jen Ulasiewicz' fantastic new kit, Primitive Valentine, to show my little one last February. She was 20 months old and running all over the living room :)That's it for today - maybe I'll be in a more creative mood tomorrow :) Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Day 9

Five years ago, January 9 was also on a Friday. I sat at my computer at work, with my mobile on the desk, waiting for a very important phone call. The call didn't come - and at 4 o'clock I was convinced that I had to endure the whole weekend without that call. I worked until 6, my husband picked me up from work and when we pulled into the driveway at home, the mobile finally rang. It was the Icelandic Adoption Society, and the lady on the other end announced that we had a beautiful baby girl who was waiting for us in southern China. This was, without a doubt, one of the best days of my life :)

Five years later, here she is - a feisty, happy, troublesome, independent, big-hearted, fun, smart, beautiful 6 year old girl. My subject for my photo for day 9 - and a forever resident of my heart!

This is not a good photo by any means, she was jumping on the bed, "helping" hear grandmother make the bed. She's been very excited today, because tomorrow she is getting a long awaited kitten - and she gets to go to her first sleep-over with her friend LOL

Irene Alexeeva released two new kits today, first there is Junk Treasures, totally gorgeous, of course!!This is my 2,5 year old fast asleep on the couch in the living room. She is always exhausted when she comes home from Kindergarten in the afternoon, but she refuses to take an organized nap LOL She much prefers to fall asleep here and there in various awkward postitions :)

The second kit that is new in Irene's shop, is a collab with Lynne-Marie Favreau and is called Land Of Odds. It's amazing - and perfect for all kinds of layouts, but especially altered art layouts. This is my humble attempt at altered art LOL

Not much else today, we went to Reykjavik this afternoon and are planning on staying at my mom's for the weekend. Just relaxing, visiting friends - and maybe some shopping if I'm lucky LOL

Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Day 7 and 8

I missed one day on the blog - yesterday was busy LOL, and I took hardly any photos!! Since I had gone through so many blogs with delicious looking food photos, I thought I'd try out my own and take photos of last night's dinner. No good!! All the photos looked disgusting - if I had only seen photos of the food, I would never eat it LOL
However, since yesterday I started taking down the Christmas decorations, I decided to try and take a photo of my advent candle wreath. I lit it every Advent Sunday, but only for a little while, and since the candles are big, there is still like 99% of them left LOL So yesterdays photo was to remind us of the end of Christmas :)

The photo mask is by Anna Aspnes.

Today's photo is another injury one! My 2,5 year old is a tomboy (with a pink flare LOL) - today, she came home from Kindergarten with 4 bandaids on her hand because she had gotten into another fight!! What are you supposed to do with a fighting two year old girl???!!!

The frame is a Vintage Snapshot Frame by Ziggle Design.

And some layouts :) There's a new kit in JanaM's store. It's called Es War Einmal, and it's just gorgeous! I managed a layout with it this afternoon,I started this page long ago and I've change the layout and the photo many times. I'm still not fully happy with it, but I decided it was not meant to get any better LOL This is my 6 year old a few days ago :)

And here's a little sneak peak at what's inside Irene Alexeeva's new kit, Mon Valentin, which will hit her Scrap Orchard store SOON!!! It's unbelievably gorgeous - as are all her kits!!

This is my 6 year old again, enjoying herself with indoor bombs - or actually that which came out of them! - on New Years Eve :)

And Dawn Inskip is having a CT call. It's a guest call which could turn into a permanent position. Check out Gabs' fabulous ad...

That's it for now, I think :) Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Day 6 - isn't it?

Today is the last day of Christmas for us. We went to a bonfire with fireworks along with some trolls and elves and other supernatural beings that are connected to Christmas and New Year here in Iceland. So I was absolutely positive I was going to have a fabulous photo for today. It was a bit windy, really cold and rainy, and although I took tons of photos - it was only because my "trigger" finger was frozen stiff to the camera and I did not get even ONE SINGLE decent one!!! In the garbage they all went! When I tried to take photos inside afterwards, since we had a celebratory dinner at my in-laws', I found that now my camera was frozen stiff and there were no photos to be taken - good or bad!! Except for this one - which was essentially bad, but slightly salvagable LOLThe photo mask is by Anna Aspnes, Xmas FotoBlendz No1 (love her masks!!) and I just realized that I forgot to credit the frames for my Day 4 and 5 photos. They are Mailing Label Frames by Bren Boone.

I have a couple of layouts today too :)

My little sweetie trying to look at the photos, still in the camera, which I had just taken of her. She had been posing with her best smile and this was the only remotely natural looking photo I got of her - and then it was only 3/4 of her face LOL
I used JanaM's newest kit, Something New, to scrap this photo. The kit is available in Jana's ZigZagScraps shop...

And I just finished this layout. It's my first as a CT member for Jen Ulasiewicz, and I kind of like it :) And I love Jen's designs!!

I used a mish mash of everything for this layout - it's linked for proper credit :) This is my 6 year old little beauty on the morning of Christmas Eve Day. She was super hyper and excited but was trying her hardest to not be impatient LOL And now Christmas is over and tomorrow, all the Christmas decorations will come down. I should have started this evening, but it was a long day - and it will keep :)

That's it for tonight - I'm off to bed! Thank you so much for stopping by!

Day 5 - and new stuff

The holidays were too long - so long, in fact, that I got used to sleeping in, and so did the girls. This morning, therefore, was NOT easy LOL. I had to wake both of them, and my younger one, who has most mornings of her short life woken up before 6 am, turned on her other side and said - "No, I'm on Christmas vacation" when I tried to wake her up at 7:30. We did get up, finally, and she was off to Kindergarten and I off to work, while my 6 year old got to stay home for one more day.

So today was a challenge for everyone, everyone had to get up early, everyone was tired and miserable and when I got home from work, the house was a mess and the girls fighting. And my little one had a little fight with one of the boys at Kindergarten and has this to show for it...

This photo pretty much sums up the day - thus my photo for day 5 :) - a tired, cranky little baby - with a bloody scratch!

On to the new stuff...
Dawn Inskip has a gorgeous new kit out today. It's called Truly Scrumptious - and it truly is!!My 6 year old went slightly nuts when she saw all the pink and the fairies and asked me to scrap her birthday photos with it. Which I of course did LOL She turned 6 on December 4 and I still haven't scrapped the photos from her day...but here is one layout, using Dawn's - delicious new kit...Isn't she just the cutest ;)

Vera Lim also has new stuff out today. She has a pack of overlays called Overlays Worded...

I love Vera's overlays - and here's a layout I made using it

One of the good things about this 365 photos thing, is that I already have TONS of photos to scrap from 2009 LOL This photo was taken yesterday on our rainy walk. No matter how much I dislike the rain, my daughters LOVE talking these walks, getting wet and jumping in puddles. You don't really need much when you're 2 and 6 :)

I have another Vera layout today, since it's the first day of Vera's blog challenge. The challenge is all about change - and going outside your comfort zone when you scrap. There is a freebie template by MiYon (Scarletheels Designs)...

The challenge for me was to use a template to begin with - I hardly ever use templates and have a very hard time doing so. They either end up looking nothing at all like the template, or they are exactly like it, and therefore very boring LOL
These are my girls, by the way, on Boxing Day. We went to a Christening in Reykjavik and I got a few good photos of them outside the church afterwards...

That's it for today - thank you so much for stopping by :) And of course everything is linked - just in case I enabled anyone LOL

Day 4

I took tons of photos today - I have to recharge my camera battery every day these days LOL I take the camera everywhere and my little one is now getting into the habit of sticking her face in the camera and saying "Take my photo, mom" - and then she puts on her best smile. Her best smile, in her opinion, is when she shuts her eyes really hard, wrinkles her nose and opens her lips really wide but with teeth closed :) She is the cutest thing - but I prefer her with her big baby blues open and a genuine smile!

This is my photo(s) for day 4We went for a walk in the rain today - and the girls got to take their dolls with. I tried out the sepia function on my camera, and I think it turned out pretty good. Basically, the photos I took today were, mostly bad, some were ok and a couple were really good. In my humble opinion of course LOL These actually fall in the ok category - but when I was looking through them, I liked how they looked side by side, even though one is looking north and the other is looking south :)

No layouts today - I'm in a serious slump! Thank you so much for stopping by :)

Day 2 - and 3

I'm a bit late with Day 2 so I'll combine it with Day 3 :)

Yesterday was a quiet day for us. Mostly because the girls were still tired from staying up until midnight on New Years Eve, but also because last night, my husband went back to work and we just wanted a nice family oriented day. He'll be away until Tuesday. We just read books, played games and then the girls took a bath - which was almost the highlight of the day LOL I have to admit, though, that the photo is posed - I bribed them with chocolate to get the cuddle :) You can tell, too, because neither of them has that tender look that comes from an impulse cuddle between the two of them LOLI used a frame by Christina Renee.

Today has been another quiet day. I think because December was so busy that everyone welcomes some quieter days. At least I do, and then the girls have to LOL
The girls have been almost on their best behaviour today, although, I had to take them with to a little meeting I had this afternoon and they showed all their worst sides! To top it, Matthildur, who is in potty training, peed in her pants (tights, pants, snowsuit), so I had to leave the meeting and take them home early. It was my own fault since I forgot to put a diaper on before we left. Oh well, LOL

Anyways, todays photo shows the girls playing Twister. Lovisa got this for Christmas and it's a never-ending source of fun for them.And it's the same frame by Christina Renee.

I've been in a scrapping rut, but managed a layout yesterday. I did it for the New Year resolution challenge over at Pickleberry Pop. Dawn Inskip is sponsoring it with a fab mini kit...which I used on this layout.

I don't really make resolutions, and this year is no different, but I am determined to teach my little, badly brought up, spitfire some manners this year. Her big sister has very good manners, and always has - but this one has no manners whatsoever!! I do realize it's our fault for not teaching it to her properly, so that will be the task this year LOL

That's it for today - thank you so much for looking :)

Happy New Year!!

I can't really believe it's 2009 already - it seems as if 2008 just begun! I am going to try and follow the 365 project this year and take a photo a day to try and preserve our memories a bit better :) Maybe it will be an incentive to blog more often LOL - at least more than one post per month!!

This is the photo for the first day of the year...we went for a walk yesterday since the weather was extremely nice. We went to the beach, which is just a couple of minutes walk away from our house. I actually took a whole lot of photos yesterday, both of the fireworks after midnight, quite a few on our walk and then my sister and her family came for a visit - so there were many to choose from. The challenge starts to day, I think LOLI'm going to try and compile all the photos into weekly layouts with journaling about the week :)

Anyways, here is my last layout of 2008This is my older daughter out in the snow on December 20. We went to Reykjavik to do some Christmas shopping and had to make the trip a little fun for the girls. So we went to the Domestic Animal Park - and it was snowy and cold, but a lot of fun.

I used stuff by Cinzia Loosemore on this layout, her Color Theory White kit as well as her Brush Strokes for the photo and her newest pack of Quote UnQuote wordarts.

And here is my first layout of 2009Here she is at a quarter to midnight on New Years Eve. She was inspecting the fireworks which her dad and uncle had bought. She had been so excited to see all the fireworks on New Years Eve and had been waiting very impatiently all day. When it came down to it, though, she was a bit scared of all the noise it made, but soon she got over it and stood on the balcony saying WOW and cheering her dad on LOL
I used a combination of Birgit Kerr's newest kits, December Morning and Christmas Morning, along with a couple of other things :)

That's it for today :) I'm going to try and keep the posts shorter and more frequent from now on LOL
Thank you so much for stopping by - and I hope you'll have a wonderful day!

Birthday weekend...

...Thursday was my older daughter's 6th birthday. She was so happy to finally have to use two hands to count how old she is LOL We had a birthday party for 15 six year old girls Thursday afternoon and then the family came over for a little "grown-up" birthday party yesterday. She is happy :)This is her on Thursday :) I used Birgit Kerr's fantastic and just released kit, December Morning, along with more of Birgit's gorgeous goodies on this layout.

I got to play with Monica Larsen's new kit, Frosty Sensation, when she did a one kit CT call the other day. This is the first layout I made with the kit...

This is my little one last weekend. We went to see the lighting of the town's Christmas tree and it was REALLY cold. Still, she was happy, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Santas coming for a quick visit with some goodies in their sack :)

Dawn Inskip has some fabulous new goodies in her store. First of all, there is a grabbag which you can still get for only $2,65 at her Pickleberry Pop store and her NDISB store. It will be opened up tomorrow (the 8th), so you might want to hurry up :) She also has some gorgeous element packs in her stores - so run on over and take a look!! Here are a few layouts I made with Dawn's new stuff...

This is my newly turned 6-year old almost exactly 4 years ago. She was waiting to go to her first Christmas concert and was quite excited. I used mainly Dawn's grab bag for this layout, but also some elements from her Passion kit.

And here she is again on Christmas Eve 2004, very much impressed by all the Christmas decorations and all the presents under the tree :) I used Dawn's grabbag - and her new Festive Trees and Tinseltown alphas, along with some more stuff...And my 6-year old sweetie again :) This time having fun in the snow in our backyard. These photos were taken in January 2005. I used Dawn's new Flakes and Personality Alpha, along with more of her wonderful designs here.

That's it for now. I have to go make dinner LOL Thank you so much for stopping by!!