christmas plans

our first family blog post in what seems like ages and it's regarding things we want. nice, right?

seriously though, the holidays are approaching at rapid speed and i'm feeling completely overwhelmed by basically all of it. except for the fact that we're obviously just stoked to get to spend christmas with our american family this year. :)

so while i'm thinking of it, this will be a random quick post about wishlists. just in case any of you feel the need to get things for the girls.

we need absolutely nothing! so mainly we'd like contributions to causes we care about. i'll try and add a few links later tonight if i manage to stay up past the kid's bedtime.

so if you'd like to have things for them to unwrap, please keep it small (i foresee us having a hard time staying within luggage limits as it is) and preferably somewhat in line with our crazy hippie ideals, which i know you're aware off at this point. ;)
just a gentle reminder, etsy is a fantastic source for beautiful and thoughtful gifts for the whole family. support local artists!

joon has recently shown a LOT of interest in schleich animal toys. they're more expensive than other animal miniatures i've seen, but they're so beautifully made and feel so good in a child's hands i can see she clearly prefers them over others. she especially loves horses, elephants, rhinos, hippos, dinos and monkeys and doesn't have any yet, so no worries about her having doubles. she's also very much into just about anything crafty. so age appropriate craft tools would be nice. however, she can't do fingerpaints or bathtub paints because of her excema.

mika is drowning in joon's toys and clothes and really doesn't need anything other than a carseat and good shoes, both of which we kinda have to "try on" in person. however, she loves anything that makes music. so maybe wellmade african or asian handdrums or other small childfriendly instruments would be something for her.


so. that's that. your company and lots of yummy food is all the four of us need to make this christmas wondeful!


in other news, mika got her first tooth, took her first unassisted steps, joon pooped in the toilet and dave got an official certificate stating his german language skills as excellent all within the past few days. hooray! i'm strangely exhausted and would like to spend a few days in bed and continue to accomplish nothing worthy mentioning here. no, i'm not pregnant. and won't be any time soon. it must be winter hibernation mode kicking in....


much love all around and we'll see y'all very soon!

beautiful garden, talented artist, fresh fruit, refashioned clothing...

beautiful garden, talented artist, fresh fruit, refashioned clothing
or if you prefer to look at everything all together... joontoon's photostream

happy hippie folks

after a couple of days of acclimating to the new situation we are now fully enjoying life so close to the woods in a nice organic quiet neighborhood.

first thing this morning right after breakfast we went on a wood hike again. mika napped in our manduca and the rest of us happily marched towards the big playground and small stream which offers endless playfun and runs through the woods right behind the play area.
joon has gained so much confidence in the past couple of days (and so have we!) so she can now ride on all the "big kid toys" on her own.

soon after we got there though a large group of ten-year-olds arrived in all their pre-puberty glory so we fled the scene and set up camp by the water instead. within minutes joon's pants got wet so we just undressed her and let her play naked. pictures of that are found here but you need to have or create a flickr account AND add "joontoons" as a friend or family. keepin' the crazy internet stalkers away from our kiddos. ;)

i'm also working on uploading lots more pictures to a public set which will be called "forest fun" but somehow the internet is done being my friend for the day. i'll letcha know as soon as everything's up.

so. happy hippie greetings from all of us to all of you! hope you're enjoying summer wherever you are!

building, styling, riding, tarzaning, kidwearing, NIPing, picking

lots of new pictures for the loving grandparents and all others who care to keep up with our currently kinda strange life here. (hoping the upload will work. internet at this house is a bit wonky.)


as you may know we're spending a few weeks at my mom's house. we've been helping my sister move (bleh!), reorganizing two rooms in that old house and spending lots of time outside.
the girls are doing really well, they're extremely happy to be in such a wonderful place with lots of attention from family members. joon is in heaven getting to go outside whenever she feels like it and playing with all the random odds and ends she gets to discover around here. her days are filled with exploring and she's obsessed with watching "poppins" every night before bed and most mornings before starting her busy day.

today we finally took a much needed break from working on the house and went on a long hike in the woods. walking to the woods from here takes about three minutes so we'll be doing lots more hiking in the next weeks. joon loved the big playground and met a two-and-a-half-year old boy named julian who was the perfect size for her to ride the seesaw-carousel with. his dad basically looked like dave's twin, they're also german-english bilingual AND the kid attends the waldkindergarten we're hoping to send our girls to. needless to say we were pretty stoked to meet these guys and silly shy german me did not get their phone number. i regret that now but am guessing we'll run into them again some time soon.

after her nap joon got to pick this year's first tomato. yum. our garden is doing surprisingly well considering we've been really slacking at keeping it in good shape. living here has certainly helped make it easier for us to take care of it though and in another week or so we should be drowning in tomatoes.

so. off to go back outside. i'm hoping all our pictures will upload despite the annoyingly slow internet connection here.

as always though, a little tease...

little things

spent a rainy sunday at my mom's rediscovering favorite toys from my childhood. these teeny bits and pieces saved our day for sure. joon was happy for several hours and mika, my sister and i got to hang out on a mattress covered in blankets while drinking yummy coffee and eating vegan gummybears. random but good. oh, mika of course had neither coffee nor gummybears. she got to enjoy very extended nursing sessions, tickle games and sitting practice instead.



more picture here

oh, please ignore the chaos. we're currently in the process of completely rearranging and renovating three homes in that house and it's all just gonna be a huge mess for a few more days.
please also excuse joon's filthy looking hands and dirty face. she's been helping with gardening and the combination of a constantly running nose plus yummy fresh off the tree cherries just makes for a very sticky toddler face.

two years rewound

hundreds more here (2nd year) and here (1st year).

in light of what's about to happen...

i've somehow managed to recover joon's old online photoalbum and gathered some more pictures from this past year.

if for some crazy reason i won't waste my evening browsing baby pictures and getting really really sad i'll upload more pictures later.

so if you have some time to spare and are feeling a little nostalgic, go ahead and start browsing.

she'll only be a baby for a few more hours. crazy. and the universe apparently meant for her to be a very babylike version of joon today, because brilliantly timed, she's sick and feeling yucky. so we're loving on her and cuddling and that's what i'm gonna get back to. right. this. minute.

annalie's birthday

joon's very best friend and frequent partner in crime, annalie, turned two yesterday!
we went over to the cho's house in the afternoon for lots of fun play, gift giving, extremely delicious cake and brownies, a little forest adventure and then finally very delayed but tasty pizza.
we got back home at nine thirty and were all tired but happy and had the best night sleep we've had in a loooooong time.

yay! for birthdays!! we should do more of those. wait. there's another one coming up only three days from now. how convenient. ;)

so. as always, here are lots of pictures to prove it all. and a few more added in the "crafty stuff" and "random june pictures" sets.

june

the kid is about to turn two and i'm kina freaking out over it. trying not to let it surface too much but still... my baby is totally not a baby anymore. of course that's very exciting, but i'd be lying if i didn't admit to my heart breaking a little as well.

good thing we've got a super cuddly full-on baby around still! :)


soooo... we've got some new pictures to share with you on my flickr .
important note regarding pictures, there are a few new snapshots which i've decided to keep private. you CAN view them, if you create a flickr account and add me as friend or family and i add you in return. chances are i'll be adding more pictures on that private setting in the future, so if you actually know and love us in real life and aren't just some creepy internet lurker you now know what to do. ;)


lovelovelove

random may pictures

here ya go! be warned though... it's about 150 pictures and they're in no real order.

farm fun

lots of pictures from yesterday on flickr.

and one little preview...



yes, we have a fancy new camera. and yes, we have been taking lots of nice pictures lately. we've just honestly been too busy living life to upload them.
i promise, i will try to get that done tonight when the kids are asleep. thank you for your patience. :)

farm pics

more here

BBQ