Howling at the Moon

You wouldn't guess it, but my daughters had holidays again these last two weeks and because experience learns that May/June is the best time to travel these days in Europe, because of the heat we had the couple of years in summer, we went on vacation. One of the countries on our bucketlist was Slovenie so off we went. We flew to Innsbruck, Austria, hired a car and drove to the Alpen Zoo, because we had to kill a couple of hours before our appartment would be ready.  Some pictures of Innsbruck and Igls The third day we went to Slovenia and to be honest: I wish we had spend all vacation there. What a beautiful country! Green, clean, friendly people, good food, very outdoory, comfortable houses, just great! The only sad thing was that we had lots of rain, but even with rain, we had a superb holiday! Bled, the famous lake and the castle

Three months ago my daughter had her ninth Birthday and we still didn't have her party for class mates. Last weekend she asked if she could celebrate this weekend. A bit of a short notice, but since there's another two week school vacation coming up (again), I couldn't postpone. So, this weekend we had a party. My daughter wanted a pineapple cake (just the look, not the taste), so I made this one.

Not the first bunny, because I already made a bunny as a baby present, but this one is for the Easter table. But as you all know, since we have a bunny ourselves (a Flemish Giant weighing 9 kilograms, so he counts for ten bunnies, actually) I love bunnies, so I can't get enough of creating them. This one is from the book Crocheted Wild Animals by Vanessa Mooncie Here he is, the Giant of Flanders. Don't worry, he's still alive, just relaxing. ~*~ Toothless , from How To Train Your Dragon, that I made for my daughter, was featured by Creative Jewish Mom ! Thanks, Sara

If you have younger kids, chances are high you know the movie 'How To Train Your Dragon'. My youngest daugher is nine and she talks about one Toothless almost the whole day through. Toothless is a dragen, without teeth apparantly, and has the lead role in the before mentioned movie. I must say: he's an adoreble little dragon; black, with green eyes, and cute little wings. And he can spit fire. As a surprise I bought a crochet pattern of Toothless to make for my daughter.  ~*~ The Little Llama that I made a couple of weeks ago is featured by Ginx Crafts ! Thank you very much!

For some reason every plant that I ever bought in my life, ended up dead after just a couple of weeks. Time and time again I bought a plant every now and then, to see if my vibrations, or aura, or spirit companions, or whatever had a better outcome on a new plant in my house and I'm very happy to say that since about six months such is the case! Not all plants, I must say (the ficus for example still hasn't a long life when it lives in my house, and I really don't know why), but most of them stay alive, and not only that, they grow!  In the town I live is the most adorable little plant shop, with all kinds of special plants and exotic flowers. Sometimes I just find that I deserve new plants, because apparantly I take such good care of them lately, so yesterday I went in and bought three new ones. Because the window sills are full, I had to change to hanging plants, and besides those two I bought a little terrarium.  For the hanging plants I made hangers myself by r...

This weekend my husband's whole family came over for eating, drinking and chatting. Although we had a week of rain every single day, spring is definitely in the air. Flowers and trees are not blooming yet, but it won't be long before they will. I made a delicious Spring Cake, vanilla cake with caramel cream, decorated with Chocolate Flowers, Easter Eggs and  Caramel Crumbs. Do you know anyone who doesn't like caramel? I don't.  ~*~ The Llama that I made last week was featured by Creative Jewish Mom and The Blogger's Life Style ! Thank you, Sara and Kathleen!

The cutest things to make for expecting moms are llamas. I can't stop making them. Here's another one.  The pattern is from the book Animal Friends of Pica Pau by Yan Schenkel . ~*~ The Long Legged Bunny that I made for a colleague was featured by Creative Jewish Mom and Shoppe No.5 this week!

Since a couple of months I have another job. Well, same job but in another hospital. And you won't believe it, but there also are a lot of colleagues that are pregnant or just delivered. I'm a scrub and circulating nurse in the operating room and most of my colleagues are women, so after just three weeks on the job the first one announced her pregnancy. The second one followed a month later. So lots of work for me to do when it comes to making baby presents. Here's the first one.  The pattern is from the book Fair Isle Hake by Natasja Vreeswijk

Last week both my daughters had a day off from school. One of many in a year, as I have told here before. Besides five vacations, variable from 1 to 6 weeks and different holidays like King's Day, the also have around five or six days off when teachers have meetings or seminars. Most of the time my days off from work aren't tuned synchronously with their days off. aren't synchronously at all, so I have to look for someone who can look after them, but last friday we had a day off all together en we went to the Zaansche Schans. The Zaansche Schans is typical Dutch landscape with mills, cows, wooden shoes and the best: the old fashioned Sweets Store. Here are some pictures.   

Just in time to show you the XXL Tompouce that I made with my daughter  for her fiance. Mind you, my daughter is just nine, same age as her boyfriend. They know each other from the day-care center, where they were going to as babies and toddlers. They're in the same class nowadays. My daughter claims they were in love even when they were babies and when I look at pictures of that time they were always sitting next to each other, indeed. So I guess it's the truth. True love.  We cut two hearts out of puff pastry and baked both hearts for 25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. In a bowl we mixed two parts mascarpone and one part whipped cream together with vanilla sugar and a couple of drops red food coloring for the cream between the puff pastry layers. In another bowl we melted marshmellows (50 seconds on the highest) and stirred a couple of drops of red food coloring through it and smeared it over the upper layer.  Then we cut some strawberries in little ...