Spring! .... or not?

Just as we thought spring arrived, we woke up to minus 9 degrees, this morning. So the small spring flowers in the lawn froze, and we had to take out the mittens and hats once again. But the mornings are lighter, and when the sun is shining (and it is every day), we still get a feeling of spring on the way.
The girls are doing just fine. Lisa started swimming lessons with Odin on tuesdays, and Signe is still taking riding-lessons and playing the flute.
Monty started a "Puppy-training-class", I take him every sunday. He's getting bigger and better at everything, but he's still very silly and needs to learn alot.
We are looking forward to the visit this weekend, where we will celebrate Odins birthday :-)

 Lisa playing outside, when I picked her up in the Kindergarden.

 Monty and Signe sunday morning.

The cold danish spring. It is nice to take the long, fresh walks with Monty.

In the forest this morning..

His morning we went to the forest with Lisa and Monty (Signe had a sleep-over at a friends house). Monty played with other dogs, and Lisa was walking around, trying to order them all around. We went home by car, and Monty was very tired. Lisa was so kind, she cuddled him all the way home.

Monty 2

Things are going really well with Monty, he is settling quite easy. He takes care of his "business" outside, and only had accidents inside the house, when we didn't notice his signals - or if we were too slow getting our shoes on. He really loves the girls, but stopped being over-excited every time he saw them, so now he just tags along, if he´s allowed. Signe, who was known to be scared of dogs, loves him dearly and wants to teach him things all the time. She constantly wants go give him small treats, and we have to remind her that he also needs to live off his real food! Lisa is less impressed by him, she things he´s sweet and cuddles him, but is otherwise too busy with her own stuff and games. Monty seems to connect really well, he´s very observant of Odin and I think he sees him as the head of the flock. I'm the one he cuddles and snuggles with - "mom", I guess. Monty and I just had a blast in the garden, playing around with his ball and sniffing out every corner. Monty gets a little intimidated, when we take him for a walk outside in the street. He doesn't want to go far and he turns around after passing 2-3 houses. Back into my garden, thank you! I'm thinking its a question of settling in and confidence - after all, he´s still a baby.
We taught him to sit down on the command "sit", and to come when we call "Monty, come" - or just "Monty", so its going really well. He seems quite bright, I think he will be easy to teach. I wrote the local dog-training-club to join a puppy-class, but dont know the details yet.
Oh, and Luna! - Luna is skeptical, but curious. She warns him, when he tries to get close, and hisses a bit, but when he's calm, she comes closer to sniff him out. She wants to join us all, so she keeps close all the time, which is really good. They have been nose-to-nose twice already, which is extremely good, considering he only spent 2½ days with us. She's being a very good girl, and is given a lot of treats these days :-)
We are really happy to have Monty with us.

Monty

Yesterday we picked up Monty. He was confused but interested in the new world. Signe and Lisa was very happy to meet him and they both adore him.
Today we took a walk to the harbour with him, that tired him out completely!

January - long and cold

It's snowing again and for the last week or so, we didn't hit a single plus-degree. It's not so bad, though, as long as the sun is shining, the cold is ok - and the snow makes everything brighter.
Signe and I started running 3 times a week now, and I even signed us up or a 5k run in may - already looking forward to it.
Lisa mostly dances around saying "Bahbahbahbaaaah-bah" with her tongue out of her mouth, so everything is normal :-D
New Blog here, I thought it needed something less christmassy..

Happy New Year

Vacation is over and we are back to work. We had a lovely vacation and enjoyed time with family and friends.
New years eve, we had the pleasure of having both girls home and friends over as well. 12 people all together, it was a nice evening. Signe was playing with Jonathan, a son of one of our friends, and they played in her room all evening, we hardly saw them!
I managed to film Lisa, while she was dancing with my friend Karin to the "Just Dance 3" for the Xbox.
Lisa loved it, and she was so adorable! The movie isnt the best quality, you can see it best if you choose full-screen.
Here is the link to the youtube movie of Lisa:
http://youtu.be/3q06mOpIshw
(the movie was to long for this blog).

Enjoy and  Happy New Year!

The day after...

We had a lovely evening, last night. Although we missed Signe, who celebrated Christmas with her father, Lisa had Buster & Benjamin to play with, and she enjoyed herself.
The 22nd we had a lovely dinner and Signe got er presents. Both girls have gotten such lovely presents this year, I'm posing some of them below.
We are enjoying vacation now, all we have planned it to watch "The Hobbit" in the theater on the 28th - for the rest, its just relaxing - lovely!
Merry Christmas to you all, both in Denmark and Holland - and everywhere else, for that matter.

Signe's presents so far; riding pants, riding gloves, clothing, Monster High-stuff & dolls, books, bracelets etc. She´s also really enjoying the Lego, she got. As you can see, its all over her table, in her room.

Lisa got the princess dress as her first present, and she wore it for the rest pf the evening - and this morning too. She got a racetrack "Flexi-track", which she really likes. She also got a small trumpet and a cuddly rabbit, which she can feed, cuddle and tickle.
As you can probably guess, Odin likes the racetrack as well, and after building one box of tracks (first movie), he started playing... (movie 2)

And after daddy had his hands on it...

:-)

Waiting for Christmas

We had a lovely time in Holland, thank you :-)
Lisa is talking about Oma & Opa in the kindergarden, and Signe is playing with her LEGO all the time, so the girls definately had a good time as well.
Now, evryone is waiting for Christmas :-)

December

Sinterklaas & Christmas is getting closer and we are busy preparing the Christmas-calendars for the girls. Luckily, we only have to wrap 16 gifts for Signe, since her father is doing 8 of them. For Lisa we have to find all 24. We finished Signe and need 8 more for Lisa. Its getting harder and harder to find things.
No snow yet, but I heard its on its way, and we are ready for it. Its been too long with grey skies and rain. Now we want proper winter, please.
The girls are fine, we are fine and Luna is fine. She is getting used to her new role as a single cat, in the house, and she behaves more like a Queen now, than ever before.

Dancing

Every friday we watch "Vild med Dans" / "Dansen met sterren", and Lisa dress up and dance along. She demands that we look at her and film her, while she dances, so often we actually miss the show on TV. Yesterday the show was longer than normal, because Denmark is collecting money for Cancer research this weekend, which meant that there was a display of several other types of dances. Lisa was very interested in two of them; Ballet and Flamengo.
Here is Lisa dancing along to the TV, as the worls famous Flamengo-dancer Selene Muñoz performs.

This is what she was watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNcMaAVNKjw

Disneyland Paris

We are back home from an amazing trip to Disneyland. We had a really nice time, the girls were fantastic from we left home till we arrived this morning. We had nice weather, only half a day with rain, and the cabin was perfect for us. All went smooth and easy. Disneyland is just an amazing place and it´s not the last time we went, thats for sure! :-)

Clothes for the kids

Yes, its time again! - The girls need some proper clothing to keep them warm in the winter. We got Signe quite alot, shoes too, she needed it badly and Lisa got a set of pants and a new jacket :-)
Now we just need mittens and warm snow-boots, and then we are ready for the winter!

 Signes new shoes, they will keep her nice and warm untill the first snow falls. Fancy, eh?

Lisas new jacket. The picture is not quite the real color, the pink jacket is VERY PINK,  screaming pink. On the back is a silver star, which is also a reflex. There is no way she will ever get lost in this jacket!

Lisa's room continued..

We got further and only a few small things need to be done, before we can say that it's completely finished. So far we really like the way things are turning out, and Lisa loves it. She's now sleeping in the bigger "junior-bed", and there has been no problems getting used to it, at all.

 

 The electricity-cabinet is now covered with a woden box, that Odin build. We glued the flower-wallpaper on the box, so everything fits :-) 

Lisa´s room

Now we painted the ceiling, the walls and the floorpanels and we started putting up the wallpaper. Its loads of fun, and its going to look very, very nice :-)
We are going to put up a white wooden list on the edge of the wallpaper to finish it off.

1st day of Kindergarden

Lisa and I just arrived home after a good day a the new kindergarden.
We got there at 8:30, and she started playing right away. After a while, the children gathered around the piano to sing some songs. When Lisa was asked to choose the next song, she started singing her favorite "sol sol, skin på mig", which she learned at Heidi´s house. They didnt know the song, but though Lisa was very brave and cute for singing it for everyone.
At lunchtime Lisa got her lunchbox out, sat at the table with the other kids and cleaned up, like the other kids, when she was done. She ran, along with everyone else, to the bathroom to wash up, and then out to the playground.
Around 12:30, I picked her up, had her pillow ready, and we said goodbye for today. She was tired and didnt want to say goodbye, and when we got home, she started crying and only wanted to snuggle. Many impressions -> very tired. Now, she is sleeping upstairs.
She did very good today, and the first day of kindergarden was a big success.
Lets hope it goes just as good tomorrow.

Puzzle

Signe made her first 300 piece puzzle today. Yes, she had some help, but she was proud anyway :-)

Knuthenborg Safaripark

So we took a family-trip to Lolland, where we visited the famous Safripark in Knuthenborg...

Yes, this is our car on the picture. Once in the park, you drive slowly into the areas with animals, and if you are lucky, the animals will approach your car, so you can get a closer look. The girls were very impressed. We saw alot of animals, including wild tigers, wolves, rhinos, camels and much more. Lisa and Signe fed grass to a camel, which was very friendly to people.
After the drive around, and a lunchbreak, we ended the day at the parks big playground. And I tell you, it was hard to get both girls away from that place...

Susi: "Signe and Lisa, sit down and let Mommy take a nice picture of you two"....

We had a great day, but unfortunately Signe was bitten by a "shetlandspony" as the last thing, before we drove home, and got a big, blue mark on her leg. Fantastic day!

Viking-play

Signe joined me this year, at the Viking village for the Viking-play. She loved it, and we were lucky to have the best weather ever. We had blankets, drinks and fruit and the sun setting over the small forest - lovely!

Vacation!

Signe and I now had our last day at school, and we are enjoying the good weather, which came to Denmark, when our vacation started - lovely! Lisa is in daycare one more week, and then she joins us and has vacation for 4 weeks.



Lisa and her long legs!

Playing in the garden - the cats were VERY interested in the tent, and they were lying in the tube almost all day.

Signe after a visit to the hairdresser. She had 6-8 cm cut off, and then the hairdresser straightened her hair, which she loves. She doesn't like her thick hair and all her curls....  I cant see why!

End of the season at Signe's musicschool

Today was the last day at the music-school for this season. Signe is continuing on the western concert flute next season, which begins in September.

So today parents and other family members were invited to join the last lesson. Me and Lisa went with Signe, and it was really a nice lesson; the teachers and students played all the songs they had learned throughout the season, and there was cake and drinks. Lisa was hilarious! She wanted to join Signe when she was playing, so she walked up and stood beside Signe, and she hardly moved except for a bit of dancing. Her face was deeply concentrated and I'm sure she felt like she was performing too!

After one song, she ran to me, sat with me and clapped and danced. Then, with the next number, she went to stand with Signe again. Signe liked it, she was proud of Lisa. But it was so funny to see how Lisa felt like she was performing, and she even waved at me from where she was standing, haha!
A really funny day :-)