HALLOWEEN 2009!

Added: Princess Leia

(...don't like to put myself above my pretty kiddos but don't know how to change the order of the pictures on blogger...!)

Let me present this year's Obi Wan Kenobi & Queen Amidala - let the Force be with them!

We had so much fun earlier tonight during the neighborhood Halloween celebration, Max & Emmy were so proud of their tailored outfits in true Star Wars theme. They gathered tons of candy together with their friends around the streets of Greenhills.

More pictures soon!

Happy Halloween - booohoooooooooo!

The Trampoline is finally up!

After missing some spare parts in the original shipment of our new Trampoline, we finally received them and the Trampoline is now up and the fun can begin!!!

I'm looking forward to relieving some of that energy my kids seem to have a lot of after school on the bouncing mat of this trampoline!!!

Email Max & Emmy!!

I just read about this great idea that I want to share with all of you who are reading our family blog. It touched me and I think this can be a great new way of writing our kid's diaries while they are growing up.

By setting up email accounts for Max & Emmy, we can all email them messages which they will read once they are grown up and ready for the electronic age. It is sure to be a wonderful treasure for them when they are older and have access to these emails. We're all busy today and it's difficult to find time to create scrap books and send letters the old fashioned way. I decided I will start sending them short little messages of things they've done in school, who they're doing and their growth path and interesting little facts about them - I can't wait to read these together with them when they are much older - if they let me, haha!

So, type away and tell our little monkeys how much they mean to you, they will love to read it one day :-)

max@tedestedt.com
emmy@tedestedt.com

Cheers!
Lovisa

p.s - I am not going to read these email messages (nor do I have time) - they will be stored away in different email accounts. :-)

A very hungry Catapillar's Birthday Bash!

Today we got to celebrate Emmy's best friend Mia and her 2nd birthday during another sunny, warm and blue-sky afternoon in Shanghai.

Mia's theme for the party was from the book "A very Hungry Little Catapillar" and Mia was the most adorable little catapillar we've all seen - and so very hungry!

The kids had a wonderful time playing, creating butterflies, eating many many lollipops and delicious food. Max & Emmy loved every minute of this wonderfully organized birthday bash!

Here are the pictures from the great fun day.

Halloween Decorations!

It's so much fun to decorate the house this time of the year to celebrate all the kid's favorite spooky holiday - Halloween!

We've covered the house in spider webs, spiders, pumpkins and ghosts and we even carved our first big pumpkin, although it rotted within 4 days in the Shanghai heat, but it was pretty while it lasted!

Max & Emmy will be trick or treating with the neigborhood kids on the 31st and they love the whole flash light spooky experience - but mommy and daddy usually have to stay v e r y close by throughout the parade.

More pictures from Halloween after the 31st :-)

Marathon training!

Somehow I decided I would train for the Half Marathon coming up on Nov. 29th here in Shanghai - by writing about it here on the blog, I'm making it more and more official, giving me less and less power to bail out last minute, ha!

It's actually been quite refreshing to train for this little event - I try to run every other day and have set new records for 5 km (27.48) and 10 km (58.58) - a distance I haven't run for in 20 years! The picture is not very pretty but it means a lot to me, running 10 K was a big achievement and something I honestly didn't think I could do and once it's done, it's like, no problem, I can do this! So at least once a week I'll run 10 K and I will run 15km twice before the big race in November. The fact that I should be able to run 21 km during race day is going to be an interesting one... I'm hoping the sheer adrenaline kick from running in a marathon race will be motivation enough and get me through it!

I'm running for my own little sweet cause too - for a happy and loving relationship with my family back in Sweden and around the world, for us to have a strong, caring, supportive relationship even though we're so far away from each other most of the time which makes it tough at times. It's amazing how much easier running is when you set up affirmations and goals to run for, it's helping me a lot.

So send me all your support on Nov. 29th, that I can run this thing and cross the Marathon thing off my to do list :-)

Cheers!

Videos of M & E!

It's about time I debut some videos of Max & Emmy on our blog and appropriately enough they decided to sing along in bed the other day a few of their favorite nursery rhymes! Pretty cute stuff if you ask me :-)

And here's my personal favorite of our ever so calm boy Max singing his all time favorite song in the world - the Star Wars tunes (notice how Emmy clearly is taking after Max in pretty everything, even playing Star Wars...):

Enjoy!

Max First Sleep Over party!

Ok, I'm doing great - 2 blogs in one night :-)

Look at these cuties - Max (aka Star Wars Storm Trooper Captain Rex) and his friend Isak is in bed trying to put their tired little heads on those pillows! Max is having his first sleep over night and the boys have had so much fun!

First we went on a bicycle ride to the DVD store to get the night's DVD (WallE and Scobby Doo) and during the ride we also found a store with Star Wars costumes which of course we had to buy as they are hard to find in China! Max was thrilled to get the storm trooper costume and wore it all afternoon and evening!

Before dinner we had fun in the park and Max & Isak played really well together. After dinner the boys got to watch a movie with popcorn and a small dish of candy (it's Saturday!) and then off to bed. First we reviewed all the Star Wars characters in Max Star Wars book (yaaawwwwn....!) and then lights off for a good night's sleep - no surprise, they boys went to sleep quickly!

Friends visit to Shanghai!

We were so excited to have our great friends Philip & Johanna visit us in Shanghai over the October Holiday! They were our first friends to visit us in our new house and luckily we got the house ready before their visit, a month after move-in.

For 7 days we had a good ole time showing them Shanghai, but instead of packing the days full of crowded sight-seeing adventures, we decided to actually plan...virtually nothing! Instead we went out for a few dinners, strolled around some of Shanghai's cozier neighborhoods, hung out at the pool, did some of the well deserved shopping only Shanghai can offer and just enjoyed the amazingly good weather this time of the year. And of course,
n o o n e leaves Shanghai without supporting the infamous copy markets, they certainly fascinate most people and leave few without anything!

One of the nights we also met up with fellow Swedes in Shanghai to do a cooking school night at Stiller's restaurant, one of our favorite spots in town. The menu for the night was prepared with 3 fish entrees, coupled with a savory chocolate dessert. A great night, lots of food and good conversations with old and new friends! Here's the group photo before the night's activities got started!

More photos and fun from Philip & Johanna's visit here!

Cheers!
Lovisa