Memories...

There's nothing like fun memories. You can live on them for a long time. Below are some pictures from our last trip to Sweden (home) in summer of 2008. The kdis and I stayed there for 6 weeks and we had a blast. Hubby stayed at home working. We're dying to go home again soon. The kids have asked many times. Javari just asked me again if we can go tomorrow. :)

Pippi Longstocking's house (Pippi Langstrump is the original name).

Hakeem and Javari playing in the forest.

My mom and Soren took us on a boat ride and lunch on an island.

Hakeem with his cousin Ludvig.

Eating strawberries and "marangswiss" with the cousins.

Javari watching TV with greatgrandma Linnea.

Grandpa's rescue boat.

My cousin Nina.

Hakeem at Norrbyskar (an island), wearing a hat from the ice cream truck.

My mom took us golfing. The kids actually liked it.

New buddy Anzo

My sister Frida (to the right) and her best friend Sophia.

Stinky hair

If you have any experience with babies, you know they cascade milk all over you for the first few months. Nice right?! Well, Dequan is 8,5 months old and he has barely been puking at all this past month. This afternoon I took a nice long shower and I felt so fresh and clean when I stepped out. After my hair dried I sat down on the couch with the baby. I thought it would be safe to play with him a little bit so I turned him into an airplane and flew him over my head. Bad idea...he puked right in my eye and in half my hair. Arrrggghhh!!! Took a shower for nothing! On top of that it was really stinky...like my throw up after drinking too much (you don't forget that smell even if it's been years), ewww. Didn't feel like taking another shower so washed what I could in the sink. Needless to say, I still stink. :( Haha, I remember when hubby's daughter was visiting us when she was 14. Hakeem was a baby and she made the same mistake I did today, right in the face! The look on her face was priceless. :)

Mom texted me this picture from Turkey where she's vacationing. Isn't she hot for almost 60?!! :) She's in better shape than I am.

She's coming to visit me in 2 months. Counting down!

Not much happening

I don't have much to report today. We haven't left the house since Friday, starting to get bored. Last night the kids and I made some bookmarks with some scrapbook paper I didn't know what to do with. It would have been relaxing if the baby hadn't been fussy. Hubby was "too busy" to take him for more than 5 minutes. Tomorrow we're going to the play area at the mall. Wish I had some money so I could shop too. Need some clothes BAD. Oh well, at least the kids will have fun right? Only one month until Hakeem starts school again. Something to look forward to since it will be a little less fighting and yelling here during the day. Maybe I can hear myself think.

The kids are playing with the baby in their room right now, or rather they're playing video games and Dequan is watching. They're actually pretty good at watching him. Sometimes they "forget" about him though so I have to keep checking on them. Oh, and they actually want to change the baby's poopy diapers. Is that normal? LOL

Yesterday's FUN in the SUN

Yesterday we went to a water park with the playgroup. Three hours of fresh air always make me sleepy so I took a nap when I got home. Then we had one of my favorites for dinner. After dinner Dequan was practicing standing. One time he stodd up for 10 seconds. I don't think it will be long before he's walking.

My cuuutie! :)

My big boy.

Just hanging with friends.

This is how you let a girl know you like her.

This is the usual response you get. They learn early. LOL

Rebecca cooling off...it was over 100 degrees.

I made Swedish pancakes for dinner last night. The kids ate like they haven't seen food in days, and I think I had a small orgasm. Hubby won't even taste my pancakes so he ate leftover pizza (he doesn't know what he's missing).

I like them with Swedish raspberry/blueberry preserve, ice cream, and a sprinkle of sugar. Whipped cream works too.

I roll it up and cut it in pieces...and then I'm in heaven, mmm.

Suck it...

My Kodak scanner makes all my pictures stripy. And I have already replaced the all-in-one-piece-of-crap once so I'm about to kick it to the curb. Suck it Kodak and your so-called support!

I have a bunch of family photos I want to scan, but here are a few old ones that I already have on the computer...

My mom when she was little, very cute.

Here she is a little older.

This is my grandparents' wedding picture.

I just have to recommend these must-read books:

This is Waris Dirie's true story about how she grew up in Somalia, was circumcized and forced to marry an older man. It is sooo good and not your everyday romantic crap (but I do read that too of course). The second book is more of a follow-up of what happened later so the first book is the best one.

This is what I'm currently trying to plow through:

Swedish books I got from a friend. Some are from the 60's.

This one is on my wish list:

"Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom"

by John Follain and Rita Cristofari

Idea for a rainy day...Polyvore

Here's an idea if you're bored. Go to Polyvore, find pictures you like, and then create your own image by layering different items. There's pictures of everything. I especially like scrapbook stuff, like pretty papers and stamps and swirly things. I used one of the images I found there for the background on my banner (on the top of my page). Warning: you can easily get stuck on this website for hours.

Here's a few sets I really like...

Purple Haze by BeverlyAnne featuring Swarovski jewelry

Barely Hanging by ❤✿PaintHead on Polyvore.com

My Inner Giraffe by MushroomStew featuring Just Cavalli dresses

By the way, my Mom is in Turkey on vacation right now. Am I jealous? Oh noooo, of course not...grrr.

So satisfied right now

I took a trip to the International market today, by myself might I add. It's a very big store but not much Swedish goodies. I found raspberry-blueberry preserve (sylt), Kalles kaviar (caviar in a tube), my favorite cookies (Singoalla -och Ballerinakakor), crisp bread (knackebrod), soft cheese in a tube, chocolate fingers, some candy, and a couple of other things with various nationalities. Not much but it's something. I have the essential Swedish baking products at home so I'm good.

I'm glad I left the kids at home today because the car was messing up on the way home (I was counting on that). I had to make a stop at McDonald's to let the car cool off a little. At least it was a good excuse to buy ice cream (think positive). Tomorrow I'm taking the kids bowling at the casino with the playgroup...yes, indoors and close-by!

I put Javari in the lottery for preschool at a community center. Keep your fingers crossed that he gets a spot! It's only for two hours one or two days a week but it's something. Not long enough to go somewhere so Dequan and I will probably go to the playground while waiting.

Can you guess what veggie I look like?

If you must know...I look like a tomato right know, sigh. The kids and I were at the park with friends for a few hours yesterday and it was unbearably hot, about 104 degrees F (40C) and no breeze. My face, arms, shoulders, and back are red. The skin is flaking off my shoulders. Will I get cancer now?? The best part about being in the heat for hours is to then get into my very hot car with no ac. I was nearly dead when I came home, took a long nap and drank gallons of water. I don't have any pictures because my camera has been mysteriously missing for a few days, great.

Anyone know php? I'm trying to install various plugins to my blog. I managed to do a couple but the rest I could absolutely not do because I'm not familiar with templates and php. I hate being stuck and I doubt I can find someone to help me. I asked questions on the support forum but the replies were not very helpful. So I guess my archives will continue to look a mess. Good luck finding my previous posts (not that there are many).

The kids' swim classes are over. They did so good. Hakeem can swim a little bit and Javari jumped off the diving board for the first time. Now there are no more classes or anything structured until the end of August. I hope we'll survive with just playdates!

Speedy Boy

I just have to share...Dequan started crawling like crazy yesterday. Yay!! That boy got speed. Tomorrow he will be 8 months and he weighs at least 21lbs (9.5 kg) right now. All three of my boys were chubby and yummy, they love the breastmilk (the best food for baby). :) I breastfed my two oldest for 2 years, we'll see how long we'll go for this time.

This is my favorite picture of Dequan.

Now you can comment on my posts. I installed a plugin that will hopefully reduce spam. I had comments enabled at first but I got 1000 spam messages on just one post so I had to disable it, ugh. By the way, I use Nucleus CMS for my blog and love it because I can change pretty much anything I want in it. I know it's a lot of pink but I hope it's easy to read the text. What do you think?

Check out my friend's blog Millimys. (She writes in Swedish.) I have known her forever so it's really nice to see what she's up to now that we're on the opposite sides of the globe. Hugs to you if you're reading this. :)

Father's Day

Hakeem is out of school and we have a super busy schedule. Hakeem and Javari have swim class three days a week for a month and I have a 4-week summer class in web design. Plus we go to a couple of playdates every week (moslty water parks), and there's always doctor's appointments and grocery shopping and whatever else. I love my class because I'm learning more xhtml and css so I can make a nice website. I probably won't make any changes to my website anytime soon, but hubby's website needs a major overhaul. I made his website years ago so the code is now outdated and every single page will need a good amount of editing. Which wouldn't be so bad if he had less than 10 pages but he has way more than that. I have my work cut out for me. But at least it will be fun.

Having a baby for the third time is a charm and I'm enjoying it even more this time around. I wish he could stay this size forever (he's now 7 months). He's the best baby one could have. He sleeps through the night and he's mostly in a good mood. Only time he fusses is when I'm not holding him. He usually doesn't want to hang with daddy very long but last night he spent a couple of happy hours with him. It was nice for me because I got a lot of homework done. My two older kids I can't praise too much right now because they are just too much sometimes. Yesterday they were just climbing the walls and wanting to kill each other. A short trip to McDonald's to play with a friend and burn energy only helped a little. Right now they're pretty quiet because they're watching TV and playing video games but we only got up two hours ago so you never know. I plan on having them work in their workbooks and help clean up today.

I've been thinking...an associates is not enough. Why not turn my hobby into a job that I would love and get a bachelors in web design? I need a few months' break though so I will look into that later. I have something to look forward to now...my mom is coming here in three months. I'm already thinking about where I'm gonna take her when she comes. We need to do some fun stuff for sure.

I wish my dad and my husband a Happy Father's Day today. The kids and I made framed hand prints yesterday that we are going to give to hubby when he gets home. I hope he'll like them.

Painting at the park with the playgroup and we also made hand prints.

Hakeem painting away

Javari's concentrating 100%

The finished hand prints plus some more we made at home.