Baking time

Every season and festivity is accompanied by some delicious food here in Switzerland (or so it seems to me). Soon, we will be celebrating "Fasnacht" (carnival). I am sure that there will be some pictures soon since Andrin and Bigna are all set to go and got their costumes (Andrin decided for Bigna). But today, we started with some baking in the kitchen for Fasnacht. We tried out a recipe that Mami discovered the other day. Andrin loved to help and to sample the dough! And Bigna was sad that she could not really join in on the fun.

 

Siblings

The other day, I realized that we hardly have any pictures of Bigna and Andrin together. Well, I tried to get some pictures of them today ... I am not entirely sure how successful I was with my endeavor ...

Happy girl, eating lunch! Her cheeks are so flushed because she just woke up from a nap and is teething on top of it (and probably also inherited Mami's tendency to get flushed easily as well ... but like one of my coworkers at Jasper Mountain once said, it must be the Swiss genes that indicate a happy and good life!)

Bigna can laugh from the bottom of her heart at the moment ... Mostly, when her brother is doing something funny. The other day, there were ganging up on Mami ... oh no! Andrin did something and I scold him and then he started laughing and Bigna just joined in as well ... 

Finger painting fun

This morning, Mami got a little bit adventurous. One of Bigna's daycare teachers (actually, the leader of her group, called "the dwarfs"), is going back to school. It will be hard for Bigna because she is rather attached to Sarah! The other day, there was someone else there and she cried really hard... 

Well, but we were asked to make a scrapbook page for Sarah as a good bye present. Mami had the idea of using Bigna's hand prints (since she is not very skilled with markers yet :). Of course, big brother had to join us in the fun right away as well. Bigna enjoyed the finger paint, but was not really happy when it was time to clean everything off. 

Meet Andrin, the elephant

A few days ago, Andrin came up to Mami and told her with a big smile on his face that he used to be an elephant. To prove it, he showed me his tusks and how he looked like!

Our little ones

Well, I wanted to write this post for such a long time ... But finally, I took the pictures to go with the blog. Our dear and very talented friend Becky sent us for Christmas a wonderful present. This time, it was not a big surprise and she did not have to go around my back to get pictures from Clemens. But never less, our joy and happiness was the same. Thank you so much, Becky. We love the drawings and cannot believe that you pulled it off and got it done with everything else going on in your life! The two drawings are hanging side by side in the hallway of the top floor, by the children's bedroom.

It is ... cold ... very cold ...

We will still have some snow covering our ground, even though it has not snowed a couple of days. But we have at the moment arctic temperatures. Even during the day, it does not really warm up. We ventured outside today for a walk and all got to be pretty frozen after about a hour. On our walk, we discovered where all the children (and parents) of Muttenz go sledding. Too bad we do not have a sled yet! But back inside, we all had something warm to drink and Mami made Poffertjes, a Dutch speciality. Oma will be proud because both Andrin and Bigna loved them (they are a little bit like little puffy pancakes).

Sorry Bigna, but she had to eat them plain without powdered sugar and sirup ... 

For some reason, Andrin did not really want me to take his picture (well, he was tired ...). 

Actually, he really did like them. He ate three plates of them!

Well ... this is serious

We can hardly believe what we are at the moment spotting outside our door. Somehow, I catch myself being surprised every time I look outside. We actually got some snow here and it has been on the ground for the third day in a row. The first day, it snowed without stopping. The second day, it started to get cold, and today ... well, it is really cold. I took the kids to daycare this morning and Andrin was complaining about his ears being cold even though he had a hat on. And I myself felt it too, there was a chill between the apartment buildings!

Andrin was outside several times today. He had to work, like he mentioned. This was his first trip outside early in the morning. 

Back inside, there was more work ... his yarn chaos needed to be organized ...

Who was saying that you have to put bandaids directly on your skin? Silly boy! He will never use a bandaid when he actually would need one. But this way, his friends were closer to him (Winnie, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore!).