Hair clip holders

Here are my new hair clip holders,

made from wool felt and stuffed with wool.

This flock is ready to fly. The will safely land at Ten Toes Children's Shoes

in San Carlos.

hang in the bathroom to collect all the clips that floats around

Felt hair clips

Here are some of my new hair clips. They are made from wool felt. The felt keeps the clips from sliding out of thin children's hair. You can find the clips at Ten Toes Children's Shoes a lovely boutique in San Carlos.

dogs and cats

Tweet, tweet, tweet

one can never have enough bunnies

I love toadstools! They remind me of Elsa Beskows ' The Children of The Forest',

my absolute favorite book as I was growing up.

hoot, hoot

gingerbread house and other fun holiday things

Our gingerbread house this year is larger than we normally have. I have usually bought pre made kits, but this year I decided to tackle an real one. After it was baked I got to enjoy decorating it with white icing. SO much fun.

I was dreaming away of pastel colored candy and powder sugar to finish it of, but that would not have been fair to Oliver and Celia who patiently was waiting for me to finis the house so they could bombard it with candy decoration.

So we invited their favorite people in the whole world, cousin Chloe and cousin Nicolas to come

over to bake cookies and decorate the house.

It turned out really cute with loads of candy on the roof!

The kids can not wait until Christmas comes so they can smash the house with a hammer and eat the candy and icing. Sooo much suggar....

The window display at Tiffany & Co is amazing this year! The paper art is beautiful, made me want to go home and sharpen my scissors.

I love the sled and the frost branches, and my moms profile in the refleciton.

My mom and Celia making marzipan 'nisser' / santa

I sent a load of christmas cards to Norway last week. It made me realize how

close we are to christmas. Only a week and a half left! Oliver and Celia are counting

down the days, writing wish lists and making little treasures. My mom has been visiting so together we have been busy making gingerbread house and cookies, marzipan, glazed almonds and caramels.

Rhubarb and Plum Jam

Summer vacation is coming to an end. Oliver and Celia are going back to school tomorrow. Yet again, our summer flew by so fast. In hope to preserve a little bit of this summer I have been making jam. Lots of jam!

I found a great plum and rhubarb jam recipe at a lovely blog named apple & spice . It was easy to make and tasted fantastic!

The recipe asked for brow sugar which gave the jam a rich flavor. It also gives instructions on canning without boiling the jars in a big pot of water. Which means, no splashing scolding hot water around the kitchen, a big plus. I had so much fun and the house smelled heavenly.

I had loads of strawberries so I ended up with strawberry and rhubarb jam too.

The success of the plum and rhubarb jam made me try another recipe from the same blog. Plum and vanilla jam!

You add a vanilla pod to the jam while cooking, and it smelled so good! After canning the jam Adel and I sampled the jam on crackers with some goat cheese gouda and brie and a glass of Savignon Blanc. Incredible.

I think the jam will also be great over ice cream and on crepes.

Thursday night is farmers market here in San Carlos. Last week was wonderful. The berries and peaches were so flavorful, seemed to be at its peak.

My plan is to pick up some blackberries and raspberries for one more batch of jam.

A little bit of summer in a jar.

Summer surprise

Every day at around 4 we hear barking, it is the arrival of the mailman. Dash dutifully warns us that we have an intruder outside our fence. The barking quickly stops as soon as the mailman has placed the mail in its slot and left. But yesterday Dash did not stop barking. When we ( Oliver, Celia and I ) reached the door to investigate the situation, Dash was proud to show us the arrival of a box!

Since there are no birthdays coming up before November we were very curious. We quickly opened the box and inside we found presents!!! Lots of exciting presents. We love presents! Our dear friend Sissel, Jonah and Synnøve had sent us summer surprises all the way from Norway.

Lots of treasures!

Thank you soooooo much! We loved it. Loved it, loved it. loved it!

Hand painted chair

Hand painted table for Thomas and Michele

I have been decorating this play table for Thomas and his little sister Michele in

Half Moon Bay.

One side has a little princes tea party and on the opposite side a knight with his dragon.

Thomas and Michele were both excited to find their initials on the crowns in the border and on the flags on top of the castle.