Gingerbread house bake-off!

We had a gingerbread baking session 2 years ago with our good friends, the Karlberg family, and last year (well, it's already 2014 as I'm writing this post....), we decided to do it again as a competition, a friendly one of course!

Step 1 - let the kids cut out the pieces.

 

Step 2 - Once the pieces are baked and cooled, serious engineering thinking process started!

"We should do like this...."

"Beautiful" background music provided by aspiring xylophone players.

The Karlbergs prefer teamwork and Mr. Strömbäck wanted to achieve perfection all by himself....

"Do you need help?" I asked. "NO." was the fast reply.  Okayyyy...... *retreating slowly with hands up in the air*

Finally the pieces were put together! Presenting the Karlberg's creation!

And the Strömbäck's!

Next was the less intense and more fun part - decorating.

Young designers totally focused....

"I'll put just one more over here...."

While the bigger ones were busy decorating, Chris was starting to feel left out, "So exactly when can we eat these?"

These guys were having fun! Ivan broke the plastic bag containing the green frosting and suddenly there was a grass patch next to the house! :D

 

And we had a zombie snowman, with eyes popping out and frosting dripping down from his mouth!

Ta-dah! All done!

And the artistic version! The result was that both houses had their own positive points, so both won!!!

We had our own gingerbread cookies baking with the kids at home.

Angel seemed satisfied to be able to cut out so many cookies at one go!

While Jovan was totally focused on rolling out the dough (or rather totally focused on ignoring his mother who was clicking away like a mad woman!), someone photobombed him with a big heart! 

 

It's like a cookie making production line!

Done and ready to travel down into our tummies!

I guess we had planned too many activities.  This small guy was totally drained!

Recharging for tomorrow!

December baby and Lucia celebration

Both Chris and Lars are December babies and it's quite important to make sure that I don't wrap their birthday presents in Christmas-sy wrapping paper.  Yeah, apparently, it's an almost taboo thing to do, at least in our household!

The must-have birthday banner.  Since our printer broke down, this old mother had to draw everything....

The little prince who turned 4!

Angel must have really loved the cake!

His favorite - opening presents!

So many to open!

After spending money on toys, turned out that Kinder Egg is his favorite.... 

On 13th December, Sweden celebrates St. Lucia Day.  All schools will have their own Lucia procession, which consists of kids dressed up as St. Lucia, handmaidens, star boys and ginger bread boys, singing songs.  This was Chris's first year participating in the Lucia procession and they had been training really hard for weeks with the different songs.

On that day, all proud parents, grandparents and siblings were sitting in the dark, waiting for the procession to start.  Finally the door opened and out walked the girl dressed up as Lucia, it started!  Chris was a little bit behind in the line, and he looked so cute in the ginger bread boy costume and singing along.  When he realized that there were a lot of people watching, he started searching in the crowd for mommy and daddy.  As he was searching, they sat him down together with a few other smaller kids in the front row.  Our eyes met, he found me! My heart swelled with pride, my little baby singing and taking part! Just then, his face crumpled, he pulled down his beautifully trimmed hat, threw it on the floor, tears started to fall and wailed,"I want mommy!"  I deflated like a balloon.... 

After pouting from the beginning to the end, he finally reconciled with his daddy.....

And recovered from his melodramatic episode very quickly to start munching on gingerbread cookies!

Birthday of a Minecraft fan!

Didn't realize that I've been away for sooooooo long!!! Not sure why I'm so busy..... ok, ok, I'm just lazy....

Ivan had his birthday in October and he turned 6! (I know, right? Growing up too fast...) He is a real Minecraft fan, so we had a little bit of Minecraft theme for his birthday.

Farfar came all the way to celebrate his birthday a few days before.

Angel drew the Minecraft characters on the balloons....

Of course I need to enlist help with the cake! Piping like a pro!

Can't take a proper picture of this goofy guy....

Ta-dah! The creeper cake turned out pretty good!

Good job!

I think he was quite happy with his creeper cake.

The 6-year old boy!

He got a Minecraft game for the Xbox and many other toys.

We brought them to Busfabriken to have some fun.

It's a fun place for big kids....

and small ones!

Watch out for crocodiles!

Ice creams in between is never wrong! Yum!

Climbing up the....

super slippery volcano....

Weeeeeeeee!

Birthday boy receiving his birthday kisses from mommy and daddy at the same time while trying to look cool.....

Chris said he needed some kisses as well!

Being a 6-years old, Ivan is starting to take on some responsibilities, making his own bed, putting his own stuff away, washing his own mugs (not so often though...) and helping Chris when he needs help.  He thinks that Jovan is the coolest person on earth and really looks up to daddy and his elder brother a lot.  With these good role models, he is turning into a sensible, considerate, affectionate, responsible and very happy boy. We are also starting to notice some girl-related issues in school now, oh well, that's part of the burden of being so good looking!