One of my favorite Summer Pictures - 2009!

Well, I have over 1000 pictures to sort through from summer 09 - but this one is one of my clear favorites from a very sweet long vacation in Sweden this summer!

I'm working my way through the pics and will hopefully post a link with all the goodies (nobody wants to look through 200 pics in an album so I promise to keep it short and sweet) of the highlights from our time in Sweden.

Until then, enjoy this gem of my favorite people in the world!

Cheers!
Lovisa

Beautiful colors of all shades

We recently spent a wonderful day at the pool and 2 adorable and fun Swedish children joined us in all the fun water play. I know Max & Emmy are used to Chinese people and certainly don't react to their looks at this point but this time it was different.

The Swedish children were adopted from Africa and I could tell that Max was puzzled by their skin color. Finally he asked me why their "skin was grey" and we talked about people coming from different parts of the world and our skin looks different even though we are just the same inside. This was the first time we had a talk about people being different and it was an eye opener even for me as a parent to have this talk. The opportunity to teach your child about people's differences and equality are so great at this age and it's an opportunity I don't want to miss as a parent.

Fun Play date!

The weather is still too hot to be outside playing for more than 30 minutes here in Shanghai so today we resorted to a great indoor play area called Ruby's where the kids had a great ole' time!

Max, Emmy and Liam dressed up and played theatre while the enthusiastic audience (2 excited moms) clapped hands to every move they made..They got to do finger painting on the glass wall and played with all the fun "new" toys. All in all a great day!

Also, I'm reading a book called "Give your child 100 possibilities instead of 2" which talks about gender issues and how to try to give boys and girls a more equal upbringing, so along with that I'll post the picture of Emmy wearing her favorite outfit, a princess dress - lifting weights! How's that for balancing it out!

Here are some more cute pictures of the kids today

Emmy's new bike!

It was not difficult to see Emmy's passion for bikes after this summer and for the last two days she's practically robbed two bikes from restaurants we've visited. The signs couldn't be more clear, so today we went around looking for a good bike for Emmy. After mingling with a million other Chinese people on a casual Sunday afternoon (I can't believe I got Magnus into Carrefour on a weekend!) we finally found a gem at the TREK store for our little girl. It's just perfect and she LOVES it.

A new bonding relationship has formed between a pink bike and a very happy 2-year old little girl....

Astrid Lindgren's World - Vimmerby, Sweden

What a wonderful place on earth this is!! In small Vimmerby, Sweden - the home town of Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi, Emil and Madicken, an entire world is built for children of all ages who love Astrid's tales. We loved visiting it and the kids couldn't have been happier there.

There were so much to do and so many exciting theatrical performances to see, we simply couldn't get enough of it. We stayed for two days and walked around to see Emil feed his pig, Madicken to do her tricks and Pippi to sail on her dad's pirate ship for real! This is a place build entirely for children and it is so well designed and fun, no child could possible be bored, at least ours weren't! I think our favorite was Ronja's castle where the actors were so real and good it brought back some major childhood memories of my mom reading Ronja Rovardotter over and over again by my bed.

Here are the photos of our time at Astrid Lindgren's Varld!

A New Haircut!!!

It was in the shower on my 37th birthday I decided to finally do it - cut bangs! I called my good friend and excellent hair dresser Eva in Stockholm (Heads on Linnegatan) and I am SO excited about the new look. It was a welcomed change and certainly time for one...

Here's me and Eva afterwards.

Cheers!
Lovisa

Hey - it's just another birthday!

What a sweet day! I couldn't be happier on my 37th birthday today with my family here on Boda, Sweden. I've been pampered with a nice long walk with my mom in the woods, then a massage, later a facial (see the shine, ha!) and a super delicious cake made by my sister Signe. And I'm told a pedicure is awaiting me this evening so the pampering continues...