We had some Lego fun

What it is

Is adventurous.

What it is

Is inventive.

What it is

Is satisfaction.

 

These photos are inspired by 40year old ad of Lego for Woman's day ..
I did not see the ad way back then, but now me&kids had fun lego filled weekend imagining & making things :)
We do this quite often when the weather is bad .. or boredom hits .. or both :D
and as it's raining now we'll probably play with lego this weekend too :) 

Most of the time we forget to photograph our creations, but this time we just had to :)

+ Some more photos of my kids ->

Fun&Fancy pillowcase :)

You better believe it!
I have managed to finish this beauty while playing around with 3 kids 24/7 (oh yes - nights are pretty busy over here still - fun fact - most of the nightly activity comes from the big kids - who would have thought that baby in her 2 months could sleep better then 3&5 year olds combined! :D )

I am loving these totally different looks of my new pillowcase I can (and will) showcase the fun part of rainbowish solid granny diamond during the playtime with my kiddos and will change it to the fancy HexATile side when my girlfriends come to visit ... o, yes :)

Otto is trying to jump on and take a nap on SolidGrannyDiamond side ...
he wasn't lucky today, I'm not ready to share this pillow with him yet :)

and the fancy HexATile side in all it's glory :)

Both sides just so you know I have actually joined them :D and this is how Sam put it in the middle of the room to be her horse .. that was a fun moment :D
unfortunately that gloomy time of year has come when I get ZERO sunshine in my home, so pretty much all of the pictures I take inside looks colorless and murky ...
But outside even the gloomy days seem brighter probably because of the leaves ...

Random Rambling: Little tricksters are growing!

Five more minutes!
Sam's way of bargaining for anything :D

Sam 2&half

Just two bites!
First milk, no carrots, only potatoes ..
Oli's way of bargaining for sweets ... when he promises to eat some amount of real food in exchange for sweets ... he starts this without even knowing if there is something sweet planned after the meal :D
But I am smart enough to tell him that in this case he will have only some part of that particular dessert afterwards .. sometimes that works better than expected and he eats an extra meatball :P

Oli 5min till 5

Mommy is mine, Daddy is yours.
This is a way for them to divide their domains. They are dividing everything! :D parents, cousins, friends, cartoons, music :D
Of course it works only till the other one gets offered something better... for both of them dealbreaker is that the other ones parent is taking them somewhere even if it is something really booooooooring :D

Both (Sam 3 and Oli 5min till 5)

Letter of the week: O

O is my little mans letter .. He used to point it out wherever he went like Sam does now with hers.

But he has outgrown that childish game and now he prefers his full name:

• he writes it himself (just his name) and any colouring ends real fast (he hates it, I have no idea why) he colours about a square inch (tiny spot on a page), decides he should write instead, writes his name and if I suggest some other words he claims "too tired" and runs off to jump on bed ... :D
• he uses scrabble letters to put together his name in two "letter couches" as we call them .. :)
• he uses puzzle letters to arrange his name (something quite similar as scrabble just letters on puzlepieces) other kind of puzzles do not interest him now ...

(On really rare occasions I have managed to trick him into writing Sam's name)

Pattern for letter O

Letter of the week: P

Figured out we didn't need to go trough letters alphabetically and well next one we ran across was P.
and this is what we did ;)

We (me and Sam) went to Hesburger for a our First ever (Pirmo reizi) meal (Pusdienas) just us two in restaurant ... we picked Hesburger because kids meal had plus-plus toys in it (this is where we figured out that next letter should be P) ... and I love burgers but I think I like those plus-plus toys more :D so I ate cheeseburger and drank milk (piens) as well as Sam and we built our first P right on the spot ;)

Then we came home and played with Puzzles (puzles) 

Letter of the week C

This is the first post I'm gonna write half latvian ... just because there are not that many words starting with the same letter and meaning the same thing in both english and latvian ... (and obviously right now I am teaching my kids latvian, english will come later when they are a bit older)

This is a pic I took for instagram - C - Computer (dators), Crochet (tamborēšana), Cup of Cofee (kafijas krūzīte), Capricorn (mežāzis)
so you see what I mean ...

Letter C in our household started with CILVĒKS (human).
We took big piece of paper and drew Sam and Oli on it :) they loved it (because it tickles) and the end result looks a bit weird so we talked about CITPLANĒTIEŠIEM (aliens) too..

Then we looked CAUR (trough) legs just for fun and went outside to play ;)

What happens on the rug - stays on the rug :D

Me and sometimes my kids exercise on my yoga mat - ScrappyRug :)
I document my exercises on instagram acount UnderTheChandeleir ;) I hope this will help me to exercise daily because crazy enough - endomondo doesn't really make me want to exercise more, I use it just to log my workouts ... :) (i think instagram will work better on inspiring me on my daily yoga because I love to express myself and of course I like the likes too ;D )

I did actually just take a two day break after a month of exercising every day and today I started again because I missed it! more than I am willing to admit...

Here are few of my most favorite pics yet, but I hope there are many more to come :)

Happy body - happy soul! ;)

p.s. I used to hate working out because my kids wouldn't let me alone - now I like that they join in and "crash" my poses or do them with me .. ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING!

Random rambling: my little tricksters

* when you love to be naked
And are old enough to know how to take off your clothes ... easy game till mom figures out a solution and "help" you wear something that is hard to get out of .. it works for about a week and then you have grown and can outsmart her again - pee in your pants and mom will have no choice but to help you undress ... (evilgrin)

Sam now, Oli 2 years ago 

When this happens after what seems as an eternity spent trying to dress up that screaming monster I just want to cry ... thank god most of the times we are not in hurry to get somewhere so its just frustrating for me.

* drawing is easy!
especialy when all of the drawing is done by the grownup .. "please draw me a car, tractor, airplane, helicopter ... flower, tree, house ... pig, cow, bunny ... " after you have listened to your mom about hundred times why you should draw at least some of the stuff yourself just keep repeating previous sentence and after a while you can easily say just "NO, you!" and pictures will appear as if from nowhere!

Oli always, Sam sometimes

pencilcases

You have probably heard that time flies when you're having fun …
or kids .. or fun with kids …

School year has started in our home too
This year Oli joined the big kids group. And Sam is going to start kindergarten in a week with all the other babies … and with all those lists of needed supplies and stuff I almost feel as if we were getting ready for school ..
As a meditation in this stressful time I chose to make pencil cases by myself :)

Shape it as you want!

When Oli was just born we celebrated the quiet moments by solving a jigsaw puzzle together. 5000 pieces is quite a lot and makes a huge picture … for a while it hang in our corridor but after remodeling it got stuck under our bed … and now when Oli is about to turn 3 years old I have made a wall hanging out of it again :)

puzzle cut in shape of Latvia lying on my floor

I cut out the shape of Latvia because I love all the different ways americans celebrate the shape of their states (with string art, jewelry, on mugs and t-shirts and that is just the tip of the iceberg!) and my country's shape is close to my heart so I thought why not and woala!

If you want to know how I did it just read further ;)
if not just skip ahead, skip ahead ..

Salmon lasagna - Salmagna!

Spring is coming!

To brighten up our weekly meal plans as well as our mood (I have been quite gloomy this week because Sam is teething and enjoys to be carried around all day long (including naps, god forbid I try to put her in bed .. )).
so I was browsing hypermarket  and thinking about the good old boring (well our regular, kid approved) meals and i ran in to salmon and so the idea of my own salmagna was born :)
few hours later it was baked and minutes after that it was gone. to be clear - it wasn't just four of us who ate it.. Sam loved it, but I am not sure Oli even tried it because he saw grandma with the cake just before we sat down for dinner...

but the fact it disappeared so fast means it was good and will be reappearing in our weekly meal plans :)
and hopefully next time there won't be any distractions and Oli will at least try it .. (he is going through some weird phase. if we let him he would eat only cookies and drink milk .. just like Santa Claus :D)

Alphabet wall!

Wall alphabet .. lovely, BIG, delicate, colorful letters ... I have been wanting to make my own a loooong time - and now I have IT!! my own version - Latvian one! :)

And the most important thing about mine is that the letters are detachable! :)

Random rambling: Sleep

I have been a bit sleep deprived lately and I can't say that before kids it was much better .. because going to sleep early always seemed such a waste of time ..
I wonder why?

Well it was a bit better - I could afford to sleep just 5 hours some nights and then enjoy longer 10 or 12 hour undisturbed night sleep occasionally .. now my two little angels are playing tricks and it doesn't seem possible in the near future ..

Few years ago I heard there are some other sleeping patterns than the most used 8h night in every 24 hours ... but I discarded it then because it seemed hard to implement .. but now living with average 6h of disturbed sleep daily it seems rather intriguing to sleep even less but feel better...

More about the daily plan so far and the upgraded plan for the future .. if not interested please return to your own precious daily hours ;)

Random rambling: Food

I have recently rejoined caloriecount to observe the things I eat and are they any good for me and my goal to loose few kilos ... and man! I knew I had a sweet tooth but OMG! if I am being my usual "IeateverythingIsee" self, then more than a half of my daily calorie intake consist of sugars and sweet things!!!
I will keep on blabbing here about my latest obsession of food logging and goals in this direction for future self... so better go on crochet something ;)

not so pink couch

For past 7 years pink couch has been there for me in good times and bad .. but lately I had neglected to call it pink because it had been stained so badly and was pink just in my memories.. so he* had a makeover and from now on will look like this!
* yes he! .. it feels weird to call my sweet pink couch as "it" ..

Down the memory lane ...

❤

Today my baby boy turned two!
It feels like I am on a high speed train .. and everything flies by too fast .. how come I don't feel any older and wiser?

For all kind of different reasons he has been avoiding kindergarden so we have spent loads of time playing games .. it means no progress in my crafty endeavors but loads of fun and smiles from my little man :)

I made this in his nap and thought I take a picture of him happily destroying it, but it all went down a little too fast :D
he sent a giant bomb (the ball used in pilates) on the "Olivertown" and that was the end of my hard work :D

Add a button!

I have a jar for buttons .. any loose* button I come across ends up there ..
* mainly buttons from old clothes
A while ago I made a button bouquet for my giveaway winners and I have used the jar buttons as replacements for lost buttons in our everyday clothes, but this is WAY better! and more fun manner to use up old buttons ;)

I knew it when I saw a button necklace in pinterest that I had to make a string from buttons for my pearled curtain :)

So a progress report is in order :)

Merry Chrristmas and Crafty NEW YEAR!!!

This has been a great year! And I know the next one is going to be even better ;)

I didn't do even a half from my crafty plan for this year but I am still satisfied with what I did do... and I promise that next year I will sit and write down a more realistic NY resolution... although it is good to dream big even if it means that I probably won't have the time to do all of the things that I have planned... so probably I will write even more unrealistic NY resolution .. :D 

I Love Christmas! It is the best time of the year .. the best part: there are soooo much time to spend with the family! Enjoy ;)

This is my baby boy Oliver wishing you all
 "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"

Have a peaceful farewell from this year and see you next year! ;)

Pants!!!

My baby boy had a perfect pair of pants that could be used in this weather as warm underpants unfortunately he worn them out crawling around the house almost a year ago (then they were a bit too big and now they barely fit) .. so I made him a new pair out of a stained T-shirt! It took me just 3 of his nap times to finish them..

Oliver in the new pants :)
and in background me and my baby bump ..

I made them a bit longer and wider than the original .. babies grow so fast!!!
and if you are interested here are some pictures of the progress ->

Breakfast treat :)

This is one special morning - our BabyBoy Oliver is already one week old!
For this special day I have made something special for our breakfast ... lets call it a waffled egg :)

It took me less than 10min to whip it up.
Well I have to admit it, I just threw things together... I bought the waffles, warmed up white chocolate, poured it onto the waffle (It takes up loads of chocolate, because of the big waffle holes) and put an apricot half in the middle :)