Fir or wood??

I just love the sight of an Advent wreath made from fir, 4 white candles and 4 red bows.

It reminds me of my childhood and the feeling of joy and excitement, when my mother lit the first candle on the first Sunday of Advent. (And along with that day came another big thing, which I liked as a child - our town put up all the outside Christmas ornaments in fake fir(!) and plenty of white light bulbs all the way through the main street).

I almost wish that I wasn't as tradition-bound as I am, about how our advent wreath looks like. Because then I would absolutely buy this gorgeous one from Ferm Living...

Photo from Ferm Living

It's so cool! The wooden balls, the colours and the leather string - and when Christmas is over you can make it into a long row of pearls, which will look like a completely different candleholder.

Photo from Ferm Living

How about you? Are you as tradition bound as me with your Advent wreath??(Well, many of you might not even have this tradition in your country).

And we still wonder

After a wonderful sunny walk on the beach on Christian's birthday, everyone in my little family has an unanswered question.

It all began with our - usual - hunt for fossilized Sea Urchins. Whenever we go to a beach we commence a family quest for the fine round fossils.
The person who finds the most has won.

This time I won because of all the many fine examples I picked up. Not a normal outcome of our quests.
Christian, however, was the one who found the most special stone - and it wasn't even a Sea Urchin...

It was this beautiful redish stone, which has 2 tiny balls inside of it.
It's so amazing to look at, and it really has puzzled our minds through the last days.

What on earth is it? Which kind of stone? Maybe it's just another ordinary stone for someone who has a lot of knowledge in the stone area. But we have never seen anything like it...

 

Dreaming of Holly Hocks

I hope for many more Holly Hocks in our garden this year. We already have some, but not enough.

Having a whole bunch in different pastel colours - like the ones in the mosaic - would make a dream come true.

Ever since I, at the age of 7, saw all of the beautiful Holly Hocks at my grandparents' little farm in the country, I have dreamt of getting an old house with those exact flowers growing along the outer walls.

The old house we already have. Our little white house from 1912 is a suitable background for the tall plants with the delicate corollas - now it's time to go looking for seeds and herbaceous perennials.

And out comes his board - for real!

He has been waiting and waiting - for the snow to dissapear, for the sand to be swept away from his usual skatespots, for the weather to get warmer...

And now it's finally time! His skateboard can be used all over the place and not just in tiny areas, which happened to be free of snow and sand during winter.

Emil has been skating indoors this winter,  but being outside is something special. He is so dedicated to this hobby of his, and we admire him for the time and energy he puts in working on his skills. Always training on a new trick and new moves.

So I think that it's up to us to support him in his heartfelt sport. We often go to bigger cities as they have better and much bigger facilities for skaters.

This photo - which I picniked and turned into the 60ties style - is from a skatespot we went to last week. We wanted to take some fine photos to use on Emil's invitations for when he is going to be confirmed. I like this one and several others, but as I'm not the skater expert, I will leave it up to Emil to decide which photos to use...

Has anyone seen one of these lately??

My old handlebar basket has seen better days, and the other day I had to throw it in the bin. Of course I need a new one, and I have found the one which will match my bike perfectly. Simple and yet with a tiny splash of colours.

It's the little beauty- above - from rice, but sadly I think that it was from their former collection in 2009.

SO if anyone has seen it out there in the shops or online, then I would be more than pleased if you would drop me a line. Thanks...

Ranunculus and stripes

These flowers are some of my favourites ones...and I only paid 20 Danish Kroner (3,68 $) for these!! A bargain if you ask me...

I wish that we could get Ranunculus at the end of May, when Emil is going to be confirmed and have his party for family and dear friends. But I know that it's not the time for them when we reach that date.

Hopefully we will find some other beautiful flowers. Not that it's Emil's favourite subject (that would be a bit strange anyway!).
When I ask him which colours he wants for the table at the party, he looks at me and smiles. "That's entirely up to you, mom!" is his answer - and probably just what one could expect from a boy his age. (But I thought that he should have a chance to decide...)

So, green it will be in some kind of shade - Emil loves green.

While talking about colours: the stripes for Agnes are coming along fine. This time I think that the size will be just perfect.

And then...

After a very cozy night it's time to try out one of the - outdoor - presents....

A snow skateboard (not snowboard) which we ordered in the USA. I never knew that such a thing existed before Emil wrote it on his wishlist. But I knew that he would be able to skate it the very minute he stood on it...and I were right.

He had so much fun skating down the long and steep slope, and after him ran happy Otto - trying to catch up with Emil.

Now we are all back in our warm house, and soon we will begin the family Bezzerwizzer tournament.
Take care and enjoy the day...I sure do.

Ursus in real life

These days my husband is in the northern part of Sweden.

He's a great lover of nature and while he was in the woods yesterday, he met a Brown Bear. All of a sudden it showed up in some shrubbery - only 20 metres away from him. So he carefully reversed.

Even though it must be an "every day thing" to some people in other parts of the world, it must have been quite an experience to see a real bear (ursus!) in it's true element. I know that my husband will cherish it a lot.

Thank God he's coming home soon....

Redcap, Mario and flowers

Yesterday I managed to transfer this embroidery to the Gingham tunic I'm making for myself. It's Little Redcap designed by Cathy Gaubert, and I have been looking so much forward to getting her on a piece of clothes.

Maybe you remember one of Little Redcap's sisters Ursula. Oh, how I love that designer...Cathy has a very special talent.

It was my first try with a blue transfer pen, and I didn't get it as clear as I wanted it to be. But I can see Little Redcap enough to embroider her on to the fabric.

Another embroidery is all the Marios. I have almost finished the bag for Anne-Sophie, and I brought it along when we went to her and Tim's apartement to have supper. The strap needed to be measured to get the right length.

I also took these with me - Anne-Sophie loves to get flowers from our garden. I like how light and summery it looks...

I love the rainbow...

And this is how it looked like yesterday, seen from my livingroom window.

But I sure love this sweet boy much, much more. He's 13 years today - I can't believe it....

Mario X 6...so far

Mario X 6, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

While Anne-Sophie has been in Thailand, I have been working some more on the Mario tote that I promised to make for her and Tim.

They both love Mario games - and so do I - so what is more suitable to use when grocery shopping, than a linen tote with a bunch of Marios.

Hopefully a lot of plastic bags will be saved on that account....

:)

On a lovely sunny day we went to a special and beautiful place. There are old ruins there, fabulous and breathtaking nature and lots of peace. The perfect place to spend some time with your loved ones.

I did bring a little embroidery work - this pattern - in our rucksack, but there was no need for stitching.

Have a lovely Monday...

Ice & sun

While Anne-Sophie is enjoying 23 degrees, sun and lovely sights right here, it was finally time for Emil to go skiing - in Denmark!

That possibility sure doesn't come up very often here in our little country. My family usually travel to Sweden for that pleasure.

So we went to this place, which had proper ski lifts and a fairly good - but very short - slope. And eventhough it was extremely crowded and they rented out skiies which were "from the late 80ties" as Emil said, he and Christian did have a funny afternoon skiing.

Sadly I can no longer ski, so I watched and were happy that the others had such a nice time. When it got too cold I sought refuge in the car and knitted a row or two, while listening to a good audio book.

BUT we would all rather enjoy the snow and the cosiness in the big snowman's place.....

    

December at my house

December at my house, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

It was such an extremely beautiful morning today. After weeks of grey and rainy weather, the sun broke through the skies. Oh, that's lovely! I love the light, but who doesn't?

So, I took a few photos of our house and garden - dressed for December...

And as I promised you, kaylovesvintage, here are a few shots from the book JULEBOGEN.

My niece's fantastic photos

My niece's fantastic photos, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

Once again, my niece has taken some gorgeous pictures!

I'm so impressed by the way she captures life, light and all the little details which make such a difference.

To have a better look at her photos, you should go visit her flickr.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have....

P.S. The shadows are my nephew Andreas and my niece Emma.

Lovely summer days

We have come back from a wonderful vacation in the south of Denmark. We camped in our tent in a beautiful town called Sønderborg. It's beautifully placed on the small island Als with lots of beaches and water. That town had everything we wanted:

Exiting historical places (Sønderborg Castle in the picture above). We actually all like that...if it doesn't take too long, as Emil says. ;)

We also went to see Dybbøl Mølle (which was covered in plastic due to renovation!) and Dybbøl Banke, the place where the Danes were at war in 1864.

We had beautiful views.

We found out by mere chance that the Danish royals' ship Dannebrog was anchored outside the castle. So we got to see it through the windows of a castle and for real. Beautiful ship...but without our queen.

We went to the beach, which had fantastic water eventhough the beach was full of stones! But stones are suitable for knitting too - and while I did that....

....Emil and Christian went bathing several times. (It's Emil sliding down the slide and Christian waiting for him in the water). It seems that Sønderborg was the only place in Denmark with 22-25 degrees and sunny weather. The rest of the country had rainy days while we were away.

It's always nice to come home again, though and we still have more than a week left of our holiday. I know that we will enjoy those days as well and celebrate Emil's 12th birthday next Tuesday.

A foolhardy dog

Every night we take Otto for a long walk out in the meadows. He has always been a bit afraid of the many cows we meet out there. But getting older has improved that a lot - now he sometimes acts foolhardy towards them. Like yesterday. I don't think that he will go that close to them next time.....

Back from Samsø

Now the girls are back home from their cycling holiday to the Danish island Samsø. I think it's wonderful to have them home...

They had a lovely time and all the days they had sunny, warm weather. (That was rather easy to see when they returned - they both had a lovely tan).

The girls were supposed to return Saturday, but the weather forecast said LOTS of rain, so they decided to pack their things while the tent was dry. We went to pick up the girls at the ferry - my sister and I thought that it was a fine idea....and actually the girls thought so too, especially when they sat in our car on the way home.

A heavy shower

My son absolutely don't think so.

And where were I?? Sitting inside our house filming out the window....

2 sweet cyclists

Off they went at 7 o'clock in the morning our precious girls. It's my sister's girl Ida at the right , and our daughter Anne-Sophie at the left hand side.

They looked so happy and exited - ready to start their bicycle holiday together. With helmets!! With them they have a little tent, in which they are going to spend some cozy and funny hours - and days - in a nice place many kilometres away.

They are so lucky if you ask me....I just love holidays on bicycle (eventhough it's a long time ago since I tried it).