It’s that time of the year again

May is a hectic month for CasaR. There is alot to do at work and on the home front.

May is the birth month of both SweetieS and SweetieL. So hectic planning and organizing to get ready for celebrating the girls.

This year we opted to celebrate with all their kindergarten friends. This will problably be the first and last time they have their birthday party together. It’s the last year of kindergarten for SweetieS and the first year for SweetieL with the “big kids”. And since their two kindegarten groups play so well together, I thought we would give it a go. I did however restrict to only invite the girls. We ended up inviting 22 girls (versus 36 boys and girls). Where am I gonna fit 24 girls if they all come???

The theme is PJ masks and pictures from the day will come. Hopefully I will have time to snap some pictures. Invites have been sent out, now to get all the little things in order. I haven’t involved the girls in the preparations for the party because I want it to be a surprise for them and their guests. Hopefully I haven’t bitten of more than I can chew.

The family asked for their wishlist, so here it is…based on their recurring “can-I-have-that?-requests” while watching TV. Yes, they still watch TV in these tablet/streaming days.

Practical wishes from us, the parents;

Both girls love wearing dresses, so casual Summer dresses for everyday use would be nice.

SweetieS needs some thights to go with those dresses (so she doesn’t flash her undies to everyone)

As for wishes from the girls;

SweetieS:

Hatchimals (is that how it is spelled?)

Drawing and writing supplies

“sydvest” (after loosing her purple one in kindergarten, she’s been longing for a new one)

Lego classics

Jumping rope

SweetieL:(wants everything her big sister has..):

Hatchimals

Drawing and writing supplies

DVD: Trolls

Activity books, preferably with lots of stickers

Lego classics, like this (these storage boxes are great!)

Here’s hoping we get thru the party weekend in a few weeks.

Another weekend with Teddy

The past weekend we got to have SweetieS kindergarten mascot Teddy for a visit.It’s been about a year since we had him for a visit. (in case you missed it, here is the post)

Sine we last saw him Teddy has been “upgraded” with new clothes and a new buddy, Little Teddy. This time SweetieS put in a request for a new hat for Teddy. With temperature rapid falling these days, SweetieS felt Teddy need a warm hat. So I was put to work. I did a quick Google search to have a base to start with. I found this pattern. Starting with 68 stitches I knitted until I felt it was big enough.

I’m still looking for Lille Teddy. He went to bed with Teddy and SweetieS and has yet to show up…I’ve emptied the bed (SweetieS has “a few” stuffed animals) and still no sign of him…

These days the windows in our house are being changed. So the weekend was spendt clearing and getting ready for the upcoming renovation, while the girls had a sleep over at the grand parents.

- how have you spendt your weekend?

No way back now…

Yesterday the invites went out to SweetieS birthday celebration with her kindergarten friends. Am I the only one a little nervous when sending out 17(!) invites? I have been researching and doodling around what theme. After checking with SweetieS we landed on My Little Pony theme.

I had fun making last years invites. (the post about last year “happening” is here) So again, thanx to Pintrest I got hold of a template I wanted to use for the invites. The original door hanger is available here. I did some editing on the originals to make it more “invite friendly”. The backside is mirrored and with party details.

Last year we had the kids over for 2 hours. Those are two intens hours….but worth it. SweetieS was very pleased with everything. The difference this time is that we are also inviting “the boys”. Hopefully it won’t get too out of hand….

Still two weeks until the event…so until then no more pictures. I know some of you mums attending read my blog, so no spoilers.

- how do you plan your kids birthday parties?
- do you have any smart tips to share?

Shake, shake, shake

Last years Christmas card from CasaR was a shaker card. To make the card I used the We’r’memory keepers Fuse tool. Bitten by the shaker cards bug I thought I would make more….but I want the shaker bits to be personalized for the recipient. So no mass production of cards to have at hand.

I made a shaker card for my nieces birthday, but of course I forgot to snap a picture.

Well this weekend I made one for one of the girls in SweetieS kindergarten….Happy birthday Dina! I had some postit shaped like an iphone, so inspired by a card I saw on pintrest, I made this…

I just love my Wink of Stella pens, they as such a nice shimmer. I used the clear pen for the iphone background. For the bubbles I used a sky blue and a purplish pen. Not sure if the picture does the shine justice….

I tried taking a picture of just the background…

I think I’ll just link to a video by Jennifer Mcguire here. In the video she shows how she adds shine to cards using the Wink of Stella pens.

-have you made shaker cards?

Teddy playgroup

Last week I arrived at SweetieS’ wardrobe like a big question mark. At her in-door wardrobe hung a big bag with a teddy bear and a big binder with blank pages. On further inspection, the binder belonged to Teddy. After talking to the employees I found that Teddy is a bear that belongs to the kindergarten and every week a child is picked at random to take home Teddy. In his binder you/your child documents what you have been doing the past days.

When we came home DaddyO were like “did they get inspired from Peppa Pig?” I probably missed that episode…but here it is the episode if you are interested in getting some background info about the concept.

Needless to say SweetieS was pretty excited about getting Teddy home.

Luckily this weekend we had plans and we weren’t the most boring family in the word….SweetieS wanted a page for each day we had Teddy visiting. So 3 pages in total! Let us just say there were al ot of hand drawn flowers on each page…

- does your kindergarten have a mascot that your kid can bring home?

Summer is finally here

With last weeks several centimeters of snowfall I thought for sure that Summer was far, far away. But this week the Sun finally decided to make an appearance. With temperatures well above 20 degrees Celsius Summer has started early. Norways Constitution Day is next week, so perfect timing.

With Constitution Day around the corner, so is SweetieS and BabyLs birthday. So on with the party planner hat and start cracking out ideas. This year SweetieS will be hosting her first birthday celebration with kids from her kindergarten. On the last tally I counted 13 kids. Oh my what have I agreed to??

Yesterday SweetieS put in her theme request, what other than another Frozen theme. If you don’t know the Disney Pixar movie Frozen, it’s time to crawl out from the rock you have been hiding under the past few years. Here are a few videos to start you of…

Wonder if the fictional city of Arendell has any relation to the Norwegian city of Arendal?

Patch Tuesday

For most people working within IT know that this is a term used for when Microsoft releases security patched for their software products. Well nothing IT related this time.

Just that I’ve spendt the day patching SweetieS stuff that has hole, rips and tears. With active kids comes clothes with rips and tears. And since we get alot of clothes pre-owned, there is some wear and tear from previous users to begin with.

I’ve posted earlier about patching I’ve done of knitted garnmets for SweetieS, like here.

Knit patterns I like using for these patches, so they are a little more fun:
- stars: here, thanks to Valley Yarns
- hearts: here, thanks to CreatingLaura
- square with heart lollipop, here, thanks to DesignsbyEmily
and my newest addition; butterfly: here, thanks to Lion brand yarns

a little collage of my patch works

Also on the stuff to fix were a zipper, some button holes that needed to pulled together, clothes that needed branding…not very intresting to mention.

- what have ou been doing tonight?

It’s that time again

Time to apply for kindergarten for BabyL. Two years ago when I was looking into kindergartens for BabyS, I did an extensive job mapping the kindergartens. You can read that post here.

This time the rules of the game have changed. With SweetieS in a kindergarten called Barneslottet in our district, we now can apply for sibling priority. This way our application is prioritized for a spot if we choose to apply to the same kindergarten.

Let’s be honest, why would we have our two children in two different kindergartens? Beside, we as parents and SweetieS are very happy with Barneslottet. The employees are wonderful caregivers and the facilities are awesome. Who wouldn’t want to spend their whole day playing in a building with 10(!) rooms with themes and an outside area of 6140 square meters(!)?

So applying for a kindergarten spot for BabyL is a no-brainer. Just remember to put in the application no later than March 1^st.
- More information on the whole kindergarten application process can be found here.
- To apply for a kindergarten spot in Oslo, apply digitally here. (to access the site, you need MinID/BankID)
- To read more about Barneslottet, look here (on the new website)

I have put in my application, so now we play the waiting game…

Knitted kindergarten set

A while back I bought some wool yarn on sale @Nille. At 10NOK a skein I just bought some without any projects in mind. Well the other day I came over a project. A knitted sweater and pants for SweetieS! After she got a “pre-loved” sweater and pants from a wonderful colleague of mine, I realized we were in need of another set.
So I went surfing around on Drops website. Did you know they have several thousands of FREE patterns just a mouse click away? Well I found these pants and this sweater.

Drops pants	Drops sweater

I used Baby Merino yarn (I think it has changed the name to Baby Ull now) by Gjestal. I used the colors 829 – light grey and 622 – light pink. And the result:

I used about two skeins of pink and two skeins of grey on the pants. On the sweater I used less than three skeins of grey and just one skein of pink. (if I didn’t remember wrong-had to buy more grey when I started on the sweater and lost count). I made the sweater a little longer than in the pattern. With the left over yarn I made some mittens using this pattern for kindergarten mittens. SweetieS has been wearing them inside and out ever since I finished them yesterday.
Off to start my next project…combining knitting and organization…what projects are you doing these days?

One day after the other

Haven’t forgotten about this blog, just had my hands full and haven’t prioritized blogging.

I just finished updating SweetieS and BabyLs calendar books. Ever since SweetieS was born I have written down stuff that has happened. Be it from her first steps, tasting new foods to who visited her with gifts. Stuff like that. While being pregnant with SweetieS I had just printed a bunch of calendar pages with space to write down notes. The pages worked fine but sometimes I felt they were too generic, boring and in need of some color. I tried adding color using different pens…but still not happy with the lack of personal touch.

full of colorful text…but boring

After seeing the life planners of Kristina Werner and Erin Condren I’ve been wanting to have one similar. I tried looking at a customized planner on the website, I just couldn’t find one just like I wanted. Being an IT person and knowing the inner workings of Microsoft Word - I figured it couldn’t be that hard to make my own, so I sat down and started creating my own planner pages.

I looked for hours at others planners to see what I needed on my pages. There is a lot of inspiration to get from Pintrest. Here is Erin Condrens Life Planner Wall of fame.

I created both girls pages as two page calendar spreads with a lot of space for taking notes. Both have the similar layout as I found it works for me. I made the calendar with undated monthly spreads and found out I needed to add the name of the month and year. For easy look up of current month I laminated a small yearly calendar as an oversized book marker. As both my girls are born in May, both their books start with the month of May – I just printed May to May instead of January to January.

A5 binders with SweetieS and BabyLs calendar book

I’ve been using Pilot Frixion pens because of the erasability and colors. But after reading about the pens fading over time I think I have to go over my pages with an permanent pen. I’m hoping to save these books for my girls when they are all grown up.

Another thing I’ve discovered for my binders are small post-its. Super cute and available in a gazillion designs. Adds a pop of color and easily highlights things/events. I bought mine on Ebay (duh) from this seller: Ginger Jujusmile

In between the calendar pages of SweetieS binder I’ve saved the information that SweetieS kindergarten emails us. This way it’s all stored in one place.

An afterthought, I wish I had made this calendar book while I was pregnant. That way I could have written down all the happenings during my pregnancy. But for my girls those notes are written in their Svangerskapsboken – I posted about that one here.

- do you write down the happenings of your children?
- what does your life planner look like?

If you would like a copy (pdfs) of the calendar pages I’ll be happy to share them.
- Made them to fit A4 or A5 binders.
- The week starts with Mondays
- The months are undated
- It’s in Norwegian. (If you want it in another language. Please send me the name of the months and weekdays)
Just drop me an email.

I’m back

It’s been a few full weeks here at CasaR. With BabyS taking a few weeks Summer vacation from kindergarten I’ve had my hands full with BabyS and BabyL. The plan was for DaddyO to take a few weeks off from work simultaneously, but had to change his plans when there was some lousy vacation planning on his colleagues part. So DaddyO had to “work from home” while BabyS was home. In other words, hectic days.

On the plus side…we have been blessed with super fantastic weather here in Oslo, Norway. With temperature well into the thirties. No need to travel anywhere for Mediterranean forecasts.Sunny days and poolside lounging, no complaints here.

Now that BabyS is back in kindergarten I get naptime back so I might even have time to do some blogging again. Though I have to admit…I have had time to do some Ebaying lately. After joining the Facebook group Ebay Baby & Barn I get many great tips on stuff to buy for my two sweeties.

The arrival of BabyL on BabyS 2 year birthday hasn’t given me time to reflect over the fact that my “little BabyS” is becoming a big girl. Just a few weeks ago she “moved” from her cot over to a full size bed – after a diaper mishap we used as an excuse to move the cot out of her room. The cot is now in “quarantine” before moving in to BabyLs room – so that BabyS doesn’t feel she’s loosing her bed to her baby sister. These last weeks I’ve noticed her growing personality, and her temper... her vocabulary is growing and how talkative she is several times a day. The other day I realized that I have to talk more Cantonese to her, if I want her to master the art of Chinese…So note to self – say everything in both Cantonese and Norwegian. It’s fun to see how she loves to try things out herself now. Think it’s time to give BabyS a new nick on my blog – how does “SweetieS” sound?

- have you given your children cyber nicknames?
- how has your Summer been so far?

Still alive…

I know I haven’t been posting much lately. With a new baby in the house I don’t get as much rest as I want..so not much time to write posts.

This week, and the next few weeks BabyS is taking some time of from kindergarten. So have my hands full…luckily DaddyO is taking a few weeks of from work too.

Not much happening happening at CasaR other than sleeping, feeding, burping and diaper changes the last few weeks. In between we’ve had family and friends visiting…and MommyS has had time to do some Ebay surfing. Not much we need, but after joining the Facebook group “<3 Ebay Barn&baby <3” I’ve found lots of items that I found interesting. (a group for Norwegians posting their Ebay buys)

My latest Ebay buy where these mini straws. Perfect for small drink containers like Danoninos drinking yoghurt. Just before BabyS started her summer holiday from kindergarten we were told that BabyS wouldn’t be served milk in the month of July with her meals. So the straws were perfect to send with her lunchbox and a Danonino drink.

+

=

no spill drinking when out and about

- do you Ebay for your children?

Lunchbox makeover

July month is a month out of the ordinary in the kindergarten BabyS attends. In cooperation with a few surrounding kindergartens, they are open all Summer. For us this means I have to remember to pack an extra lunchbox for BabyS.

With the need for an extra lunchbox every day I needed a few more boxes, as BabyS only has a few. Well I couldn’t find any I liked when roaming the stores, so I decided I would find simple food containers and pimp the.

I started with these containers from Biltema. I bought the sizes 570ml and 830ml. The difference being the height I could use the lids on both sizes.

very plain boxes…

I used a few stamps I had laying around (a clear stamps set from Michaels – Recollections #171837, and a Inkadinkado stamp set called “Welcome baby” #60–30108) and some jet black Staz-on ink. To color the animals I used fine point Sharpies (any permanent marker should do the trick), I used these. I love how the lids turned out!

the result…

This was fun and I plan on doing this to more lids when BabyL needs lunchboxes…or when I can get my hands on a few more boxes from Biltema. And if BabyS gets tired of the motives I’ve used on these lids, I can always use some ink cleaner to remove the stamped images and give the box a new makeover.

- have you given boxes a new look?

Like royalty

This week BabyS started kindergarden. So far it’s been a very plesant experience.

We started with being greeting by the sweetest employees. BabyS had gotten all the lockers and storage compartments labeled with her name.

a personal welcome note

- The first day was a short stay. The employees that will be “handeling” BabyS observed her interaction with other children, adults and playtime. While us parents filled in forms and got alot of information.
- The second day BabyS stayed a few hours without parents. She stayed for lunch before we picked her up.
- Today she is having a longer stay, including naptime. The nap is still to come…so don’t know how that will turn out.

I must admit I had my doubts as to leave my baby in such a big kindergarten – approx. 150 babies/toddlers. I got my worries eased when I went for a visit. Eventhough the kindergarten is large, BabyS belongs to a “base” – the kindergarten is devided into bases – that is only 9 children, ages 1-2 years (at the moment its about 50/50 of 1 year and 2 year olds). With 3 employees in BabyS’ base, Akershus festning, the babies/toddlers should be taken good care of.

Read more about Barneslottet on their official site, here.
The kindergarten in itself is just a few years old, and before opening undervent major reconstruction. Can read more about that in this article.

It’s fun that they have their on monogram and crown logo…just like the royals!

- how was it for your children to start kindergarten?

Not forgotten

I know I haven’t been very good at posting lately…but I have a good excuse! I’ve been taking time off from work to take care of BabyS. Next week she starts kindergarten…and I’m back to work. With BabyS being so mobile, I’ve had my hands full.

I do have to admit I’m looking forward to BabyS beginning in kindergarten, and getting an outlet for all that energy she has. At the same time I’m gonna miss spending the days with her. It’s scary leaving your little baby with others. And possibly missing all the sweet/cute/quirky/strange things she does. Not being able to experience that, just being told what happened by someone else. You can say I have mixed feelings with BabyS beginning in kindergarten…Maybe that’s why I have put off sitting down and putting nametags on everything BabyS is to bring to her kindergarten?

In preparation for BabyS time in kindergarten I have done some shopping. One of the things is several pairs of soft leather shoes. And they come is SO many cute styles! I’ve bought mine from a store on Ebay. Very happy with the quality of the leather and the service is impeccable. If you are looking into getting your hold of a few of these, here’s the Ebay store I’ve used. Did I mention they’re dirt cheap too?

aren’t these cute??? (pictures borrowed from the Ebay listing)

Another thing on the shopping list lately has been name labels. And I got labels with supercool Stitch – from the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch. Hopefully there aren’t other kids with the same label…At NordicPrint you can upload pictures and design your own labels, and in color! How cool is that??? If you don’t want to create your own design, they have some cool designs to choose from.

here are mine…

A tip I got from my wonderful sister-in-law is to get a mix of the sticker labels and the iron-on ones. With a hair straightener is should be a breeze to “iron on”. For that occasion I bought a mini straightener! I bought mine from Tinydeal.

it’s so cute…

Another tip I got - online - with iron-on labels, when ironing on use greased food paper between the iron and label. Makes the labeling easier. To help remove iron-on labels use “sandwich paper”.

In the evenings we have been planning our holiday for the year. A trip to Singapore! Can’t wait to travel to the heat in the middle of the Norwegian winter. It’s gonna be a trip for firsts…BabyS first trip to Singapore, BabyS first long haul, our first time traveling with children, first time travelling with my sister and her boyfriend to mention a few….

The evenings have also gone to knitting. I finally finished my first garment for BabyS! But I’m still waiting for the buttons I ordered. So holding of posting pictures until I get them…

Well enough procrastinating and off to labels some stuff for kindergarten…

- how did you deal with your baby starting kindergarten?
- how have you spent your summer?

Kindergarten time

Today is the deadline for applying for a kindergarten spot for BabyS this fall. We put in the application a few weeks ago, with the option to make changes until the deadline today.

We sent our application in digitally thru the official website http://www.barnehager.oslo.kommune.no/oslobarnehagen/soke_og_bytte_barnehage/

There are MANY kindergartens in the city district we live in, so narrowing it down to max five - you can only apply to a maximum for five spots- takes some work. Not knowing what to look for, we sat down and did some research. Not finding much help online, I turned to friends with kids in kindergarten for advise.

Some of the advice we got were:
- does the kindergarten have pedagogical educated employees?
- ratio: children per caretaker
- is the kindergarten divided into “departments”?
- opening hours?
- geographical proximity (location, location, location)
- meals?
- how do they handle absence due to sickness amongst the employees?

Our process before applying for a kindergarten were as follows;
- With the above“criteria” at hand I made a spreadsheet and inputted the kindergartens we were considering.
- I read up on the kindergartens homepages – those who had.
- I contacted the kindergartens and asked if we could come by for a visit.

One of the most surprising things I learned during this process is that very few parents take the time to make a visit to kindergarten they consider placing their child in. Would you trust your child in the care of a complete stranger? Most parents are on maternity leave when the kindergarten application is due, why not take your baby for a stroll to the kindergartens your are considering?

After we had made a visit I also made a note in my spreadsheet about my gut feeling. Based on all the information in our spreadsheet we sent in our prioritized kindergarten application.

Now we just keep our fingers crossed that BabyS gets a spot in the kindergarten we had at the top of our list.

- how did you choose the kindergarten for your kids?
- did you get a spot in the kindergarten you had at the top of your list?

Show me your lunchbox…

…and I’ll show you mine. With BabyS starting kindergarten this fall I’ve started looking for fun ways to pack her lunchbox.

I looked into different kinds of solutions and concluded I wanted a box with some kind of compartments. That way I can mix different sizes of food in one meal with just one box. There are MANY different solutions “out there” but the one I liked the most is the IKEA Krus box. Plain and simple…

Here is an example I came across from June HS blogg

Love that the dividers can be taken out and thus creating bigger/smaller compartments. IKEA offer this box in three different sizes and the prices won’t bankrupt you either;

Size:	24 x 14 x 10 cm	24 x 19 x 13 cm	24 x 19 x 7 cm
Price:	49 NOK	59 NOK	49 NOK

I’ve also gone shopping for cool trinkets to help facilitate the creativity going into making BabyS lunchboxes more fun! I’m looking forward to playing with these…

boiled egg molds…

some of the cookie cutters I will be using for more than gingerbread cookies bought from Dealextreme

I’ve seen lots of pictures where cookie cutters have been used to cut out slices of cheese, “fish pudding”, cucumber…

- What kind of boxes do you use to pack your lunch?
- How do you pack your lunchboxes?

Now all I have to do is get my butt over to IKEA and buy the boxes…