Fridge

These must be the best-looking cupcakes ever! A friend made them for her brothers wedding. It was a huge hit with the young guests - obviously! But the older ones couldn´t resist either. The decoration was a bit crumbly which I think is so fitting as they look like the cookie monster who is not known for his table manners as I recall. If I were able to make cupcakes like this I´m sure they´d be a regular at Auroras Birthdays.

www

I know I am little late in the season for this now but still...

Don´t ever tell your kids that you ate their Halloween candy. Even if it´s just a joke. They do NOT find it funny in the least bit.

Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

My shelf

I go to kinder garden now. It´s nice to go in the morning with my dad. He takes me everyday and in the tram we listen to music together. My really like my teachers Nicole, Dolores and Annika.

But of course the best part of the day is when I get picked up.

My handprint paints a little hedgehog

My group is called the "chicks"

Toybox

Paint-soap is guaranteed to make bath time more fun. Aurora in particular doesn´t like bathing too much. But she sure loves to smear stuff around. Anything that makes her feel like she´s actually making things dirtier rather than cleaner is huge fun for her.

On the downside: when you take the tube away you get this attitude:  

Saubär at DM

Closet

How good is this??? 

Of course your pre-pre-puberty boy is going to get a cold chin during the winter! He can´t grow a beard yet! This hat-beard combination is the answer he´s been waiting for. How genius?!

On Etsy 

Cool Kids

The other day on the playground a boy (guessed age 7 or 8) came and sat with me and Aurora and out of the blue started the following most awesomely random conversation:

1. 

Boy: "Do you know what I hate?" 

Me: "No. What do you hate?"

Boy: "When kids are grown together, you know... Siamese twins. I know one pair that´s grown together at the heads, one at the shoulders and a dog too."

Me: "That condition is pretty rare, it´s a big coincidence that you happen to know so many." 

Boy: "Yeah, I saw pictures on the Internet."

Me: "Oh ok, on the Internet, I see."

Boy: "Yeah no, they´re not all my cousins or something like that. Did you think they were all cousins of mine?" 

2. 

Boy: "Do you know how old my great grandma is? 85!"

Me: "That´s pretty old."

Boy: "Yeah she´s not going to make it till 100 though. Maximum to 96."

3.

Boy: "In my school there is a huge gem and my teacher said that if the owner doesn´t show up I can have it. With the money I am going to buy myself a house when I move out. With the money that´s left over I´m going to buy myself some pets and if there´s still money left some food for them as well. I want a turtle and a lizard. I used to want a goat so I don´t have to go buy milk and cheese. "

Me:"You´re going to have to buy an aquarium for the pets to live in." 

Boy: "Can I ask you a question? Is it illegal to have a whole room for your pets?"

"And if the pets start freaking out I´ll just turn on the radio for them." 

Photo

She does love me, trust me. Just some times a little less than other times.

 

Utensils

 This little inconspicuous sieve has proven to be a real genius in the kitchen if you have a baby (I´m sure without the baby it´s very helpful too). You put a little water in the pot, place the sieve in the pot and cut your vegetables into the sieve - that´s it! 

Here is why it´s awesome for when you have a baby:

- for some reason it seems to me the vegetables get cooked a lot faster

- steaming the food is recommended by all the baby-food-guides over cooking them

- there are no worries of burning hot water boiling over, even if you went into the living room to find out why the little stinker has been so suspiciously quite for a while now and then forgot about the stove

- if you cook potatoes too long in water it always turns basically into soup because they flake and whatnot, it just seems so much messier, with the steaming-sieve, the vegetables aren´t over cooked right away and they´ll make it at least onto the plate

- I feel like the food soaks up less water too, so if you want to make crisp potato wedges this thing also helps

Is that enough reasons yet? 

Buy it at Ikea

Photo

Closet

As it´s difficult to pull off red pants for me, Aurora wears them. Again red, white, blue plus stripes... I love it. You can never go wrong with that.

 

Erm...

Super dirty face + diaper on the head = best mix ever

 

Cool Kids

How about these two cool kids?! Eli and his brand new baby brother Ira are the boys of my friend Salo. It´s hard to describe why Eli is so cool, he´s just a really lively funny kid who will randomly scream things at you like: "Hello, we´re friends" or "later gator". Sometimes he´ll start dancing out of the blue, which is probably his south African half coming through. The other half is German and likes to sweep. How awesome does that mix sound? -Exactly. No doubt Ira is going to be just as crazy and sweet as his brother. Salo is such a beautiful, petite, lovely woman - they are going to turn the house upside down, drive her crazy, wear her out and never love any woman as much as their mother.

 

Dear Diary

We´re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo.
How about you, you, you? 

We love our Zoo. 
We love the goats the most, so far.  

Dear Diary

First Birthday!

Closet

The indoor playground in our neighborhood "Kawi Kids" put on a children flea market and we picked up a bunch of stuff for Aurora (Matt got some stuff too, dice and such).

But out of all the things we bought this Panda shirt is my favorite! How cute is it?? Very!! I think it´s actually from China too. The size is called "child 2".

Dear Diary

I can walk!

Toy box

It would be extremely hard to pick which one of the Pixar movies so far is the best. However, gun to our heads, we would probably pick Monsters Inc. If Aurora watches this movie later and doesn´t enjoy it enormously (which is impossible) she will be put up for adoption. Greater guy love than between Sully and Mike only exists between Turk and J.D. And if she doesn´t like Scrubs we also will need to have a talk but let´s not get ahead of our selfs, that´s way in the future.

www

Oh my goodness!! You thought the page about how your dad was the original hipster was funny - look at this one! 

www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com

I must have laughed about half an hour straight!

Probably my favorite: "The dueling horse sweater"

But since this is a baby themed blog, these are also great:

Fridge

I´m having a hard time thinking of things to give the babies for breakfast. Obviously a banana is good. Matt always lets Aurora snack on dry cornflakes (not that that would be all there was). Since I´m still not so sure about joghurt that´s another typical breakfast item off the list. I offer her a piece of bread with spread or cream cheese on it from time to time but she just crumbles it apart. It definitely has to be something that requires very little preparation from my side in the morning and it has to be something she can eat by herself since she doesn´t enjoy getting fed that much anymore.

So the other day it just came to me! Whole wheat cheese muffins. Broken into halves or quarters she can eat them herself, they´re sugarless and it makes me look so much better than if I just threw her a slice of dry bread, which let´s face it wouldn´t be that different. But this way if someone is watching it looks like I put in all this effort ;-) 

In all seriousness though: they make a great snack. They are perfect pick-nick material and you can cut them in half and spread them with something or add something along the lines of salami slices which turns them into a full on lunch. When it comes to the kids I just love having the security of knowing exactly what the things I give them to eat are made out of, obviously baking yourself ensures that. I find they´re a great bridge between what your kids will eat and you´ll enjoy too.

Dear Diary

This is my daycare friend Noemi. Just thought I should introduce her since I´ve been spending 4 days a week with her ever since I was 4 months old. So there you have it. Shepard doesn´t need introducing but she´s there too. In your face!

Display

With a movie obsessed dad like Matt it´s obvious that Aurora can´t just have any old music box. So she has this one from 'Spirited away'. Matt brought it back from Japan for his future child way before she was born. How romantic is that. She actually probably won´t ever really care about it but I like looking at it. 

www

Have you ever seen someone on the street and envied how stylish they looked? Do you have a friend who is kind of your fashion role model? Are there times when you wished you came up with a particular style that is in? You wished you worn it before everyone else. You want to be one of the hipsters for just one day? 

Well, forget it because someone came before you and did it all: your dad.

One of my favorites: the big headphones trend

If you want to find out what other trends your hip dad prevented you from inventing by doing it first go on this blog. Even if you don´t go check it out. If you don´t laugh you´ll get your money back.

Picture from www.dadsaretheoriginalhipster.tumblr.com

Bookshelf

We have this book and Aurora really seems to like it so I thought I´d recommend it. It´s called Kribbel-Krabbel by Karin Blume. You stick your fingers through holes in the pages and they become parts of the animals on the page. It´s a really cute little book and it´s only about 4€ (in Germany).

 

Available on Amazon

Fridge

My favorite fruit is sand berry. Or wait, maybe not. On the other hand... Let me try another one. Uh no! I was right they´re horrible! Well, I´ll give it one last try. Yum! Oh no discusting! Hm kinda nice. Gross! Yummy! Gross! Yummy! 

Gross! Yummy!

Gross! Yummy!

Dear Diary

I could eat my baby! 

No literally - I could eat her... 

...clothes. 

I just never noticed how yummy her pants look until I made these cupcakes yesterday. 

Toy box

True two cats is enough but I guess Matt must have missed our two furry children so much when we we´re on Christmas break that he got Aurora her own. She is striped, she is Japanese and she poops way less than danger - which basically can be said about any being in the world though. But I guess it would have been a shock if Matt had come back empty handed from his trip to Muji.

Display

No further description needed, right?!

www

Another great blog is "whats cooking with kids". It´s a mother on the quest to give parents suggestions on how to feed their kids healthy, organic food, how to get them involved in cooking and how your lifestyle (with kids) can be shaped by trying to be as environment friendly as possible. She has written a cookbook and is running a mobile cooking school for kids.

Stop by the blog and I am sure you´ll find great ideas.

I like especially:

1. A post in which she measures the amounts of sugar in common drinks (keep in mind that this is a page based in the USA - some of the brands are not available in Europe)

2. A post in which she describes her struggle with feeding her child in the past, how she learned and tips on the issue for new parents. Written with heart and personal experience which makes you want to take her advice because it doesn´t sound like schooling if the teacher tells you exactly how they came to their conclusions.

3. A post introducing a tool that helps you feed your family healthy food while staying on your budged. 

Dear Diary

"Auntie" Kim came to visit last weekend - it was great fun!

Me and my Mommy want her to move back! 

Toy box

Did you think we we´re going to let our child grow up without a joda doll?? Of course not! Who would teach her the way of the force?!

Display

This is another trinket Matt brought back from Japan. It was actually for me, it´s a heart shaped prayer sign that wishes for a happy relationship. But right now it´s residing in Auroras display shelf. I am sure she wishes her parents to have a happy relationship as well.

Fridge

Auntie Sarah is getting married in September. Auntie Sarah has asked me to make her wedding cake. Auntie Sarah has send me the link to a certain blog for inspiration. Auntie Sarah has scared me for life. This woman, I call her crazy cake lady, posts about her baking adventures and by the looks of it also has made a little business out of it. It´s beyond insane but go see for yourself. 

The Blog. 

Anyway I saw these babyshower cookies and thought they we´re cute. Plus I´ve got a baby shower bake assignment coming up. I´m going to go for cupcakes though, since I need to practise for the wedding anyway. ...Oh yeah and also because I am not insane.

Closet

Germanys next Topmodel has been chosen. How can you be not even a year old and act like this as soon as you see a camera? Anywho... I actually took this picture to show off her lovely scarf which Kim made for her. She is taking a sowing class now and this is the first thing she made by herself at home. And she thought of Aurora, aww! I am so jealous! It´s got little elephants on the one side as you can see and white/blue stripes on the other. Plus I love the shirt and the scarf together. I am a bit of a mixed-patterns-phob but I think these two look well together. I wish I could pull the kind of style off that Aurora has. Am I old and out of style already? I didn´t expect it to go so fast.

Toy box

These foam plates with letters are nothing special. They are available basically everywhere from toy stores over drug stores to grocery stores. Every kindergarten and every household probably has them. But I was a tiny bit proud of my picture so I figured I´d mention them to be able to show it off.

Never the less they are a big hit with Aurora. Not so much for the reason we thought they would be though. Maybe they actually taste like blueberry and such and it´s like that high pitched noise that they use in England to keep teenagers from loitering. You know the frequency you loose hearing for as you grow older. So maybe these letters have a very yummy flavor that only babies can taste.

Dear Diary

... I don´t like waking up!

Toy box

So Babies love garbage. When Aurora is done eating and I let her crawl around on the floor she´ll start eating whatever she dropped during her mealtime which - she clearly stated just seconds before - was over. Same concept applies to toys. We bought her many interesting, cute, funny, pretty and or early development beneficial toys (as seen on this blog). Does she love them? No! Would she rather play with shampoo bottles, empty yogurt containers, kleenex packs, bottle caps or boring old pens? Yes! Knowing this you can imagine what a great find this old plastic pipe was for Aurora. It is soooooooooo interesting. Whatever, girl, you just garbage-played your way out of toys for your next 4 birthdays. 

Plastic pipe available over www.garbage.ga for 0€ 

Utensils

Matt comes up with some strange ideas sometimes. One of these is a gymnastics ball. It turns out it´s a quite a cool thing to have when you have a baby though. In the beginning we used it to bounce Aurora to sleep. Now that she´s older she doesn´t really go to sleep like that anymore but it makes for great giggles to bounce on it for fun. When she´ll be even older like our friends son Eli who is 3 years old you can play giant football. And we also use it a lot as a desk chair. In fact I´m sitting on it right now.

ca. 15€ over Amazon.de

Display

Every year at the annual Bowles Christmas party we all bring a little gift and we play a game called gnome-game in Germany. Everyone draws a number and picks a wrapped present, then the next number gets to either pick a present or steal the one off of one of the other already unwrapped presents. It´s very fun and always ends up getting quite loud. Anyway, that´s how we got this little blue jay. I don´t remember who brought it, it´s odd since it´s a bird very typical for Canada and it was definitely no Canadian who brought it. I stole it from someone because I thought it would be nice to be able to tell Aurora about blue jays since that´s also the mascot for the Toronto Baseball team. When you press his wing he twitters. 

Closet

This is just a snapshot with a phone camera so excuse the quality but I realized that I never posted anything about her cool snowsuit Aurora got from her aunt for Christmas. Obviously we had her dad in mind when we found this at TK Max. This suit is the closest thing Aurora has to saying "I love you Dad" in binary. 

The other reason why I wanted to share this photo is the hat which has turned quite a few heads on the children front. Several young kids have stopped mid-step and said to their parents out loud "oh look at that funny hat, it has a cat face on it!". Seriously it happened more than once but in the exact same way! Apparently my taste in clothes is considered hip with the 4 to 9 year olds. I´m not sure if I´m going to take this as a compliment yet.

Dear Diary

Here I am on my trip to the lovely island of Mallorca. I went there for a week in February with my mommy and my grandma. It was nice and sunny and I got to go to the beach for the first time. Sand doesn´t taste as yummy as it looks though so be warned. Sea grass is less crumbly but has a strange aftertaste, not really worth it either. I also got to fly, which was a lot like taking the tram except there is not much to see out the window. 

Toy box

Matt picked up this alphabet teaching toy from the flea market before Aurora was born. It´s actually not super cool or anything but I think the fact that it´s second hand, vintage if you will, makes it special.The girls seem to start to develop an interest in it too although it´s obviously made for kids who can do a little more talking than our two rug rats. 

Utensils

We got one of these ghost lights to have a soft light in the baby for bedtime but as it turns out it´s also just an excellent toy in general. The other day Aurora and I were on our way home from the city and it was already dark and she was getting grumpy and we had to wait 10 minutes for a tram. So I put the light into her pram and she was happily distracted for waiting time. It changes colour so it can keep a baby busy for quite a while. Definitely one of my top 10 favourite things to buy for a baby!

Spoka nightlight over Ikea.de ca. 13€

Display

I don´t know how he does it but Matt comes home like once a week with different monsters in his bag. Like these two finger puppets. He already played out a whole little tea party with those two for her. The conversation mainly hovered around their plans to get together again soon for some unicorn blood. It´s not exactly a story for a 6 month old but she was laughing so I assume she inherited her fathers humour.