Thursday morning

We have been welcoming fall into our heart! It is cold in the morning and then beautiful during the day. This morning, we went to our grocery store (Bigna walked all the way, pushing her doll stroller) and then had a painting session at the house. Andrin first wanted to paint with water color and then also finger paint. The children were busy for almost 90 minutes .... And seemed to love every minute of it. After that, it was back to making a beautiful mess with all our playing cards.

(Just in case you were wondering: this is NOT the Swiss flag!)

Bigna was delighted to paint her hands. 

Fully concentrated. 

Timid to get her fingers in this paint ... 

And then the entire hand had to be covered in brown paint!

While Mami is at school ...

These past few weekends have been busy. Mami had to go to school for her licensing and since Oma and Opa are on vacation, Papi had to jump in and stay home. But as you can see from the pictures, it was not too bad ... and some fun was had at home!

Going for a stroll ...

Our preschool boy

Andrin transitioned from his playgroup at his English speaking school to preschool. He is doing great and starting to learn some letters. He is always excited to tell Mami and Bigna about his new letters when we pick him up. But he also told us the other day that it is HARD work! While Andrin is at preschool, Bigna enjoys some alone time with Mami.

All the things we do for love ...

Mami never imagined that she would do something like this ... but she did. She knitted a SNAKE, her most favorite animal in the world, for Andrin. While we are at the zoo, Andrin always has to tell everyone that Mami does not like snakes. Sometimes, he takes a look at the snakes on his own!
And since Andrin already has a lot of presents waiting for him for his birthday, he already got the snake now.

Role play

At the moment, our house is either a fire station, a doctor's office, or a castle ...

Can you hear the cho cho ?

Another one of Andrin's elaborate constructions ... 

Meet the king: Kind Andrin (with a crown that hopefully will last longer than the paper one that he loved). 

Bigna is finally able to wear all the Tea Collection dresses that Mami bough just before we left Eugene!

The king is enjoying a special croissant in the morning. He wanted to put some chocolate sprinkles on top of it. I told him that he had to take a bite first, he took a bite right in the middle of the croissant ... silly king!

What a still patient ... 

Unfortunately, Andrin knows really well how to check the ears ... (He is playing with an old vintage doctor's kit ... it belonged to Mami when she was little)

And last, but not least: meet the queen! Queen Bigna! She also needed a crown after seeing her brother walking around with his own crown. 

Look what we found for sale!

Today, we spent the day in Aarau, checking out a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful fabric store (good that it is not that close so that Mami is not tempted to go there too often:). On the first story of the store, they have a great selection of children's toys. As I was ready to pay for my purchases, the sales clerk just commented on how I must be tired at night with the two that I have on my hands. But then our transaction was disturbed because we saw something else for sale ... there was no price tag on it ... but ...

Bigna had managed to crawl into the window box underneath the cash register table and was sitting there, all "folded" up on a pink little car that she fancied. She even had closed the door after herself. 

Ready to climb out again.
Papi saw the pictures and commented that we should get the cute kid. I will remind him of his choice when he has to get up in the middle of the night because she is crying :)

Oh Bigna, you bring so much laughter and joy into our day! We love you!