Vyssan Lull Sale

One of my favorite Scandinavian children clothing stores "Vyssan Lull" still have their holiday sale going on. I know they had a rough time after Sandy, but they are back in business and shipping on time again. Check out their cute stuff here.

All for Children by H&M and UNICEF

The collaboration that's in select H&M stores today is a beautiful fantasy fro creative little minds. It has so many creative cute little details, just look at the backpack, suspenders, gloves and hats. They are very fitting during Halloween times.  To top it all off H&M will donate 25% of the purchase of the products and it is all in stores today, October 18th.

When I was little I was involved with UNICEF so know first hand what a great organization it is and am very happy to see this collaboration with so much style.

Teaching My Toddlers Swedish: Learning From Music

We have been so busy, I completely forgot about the little list of topics I was going to focus on with the girls. I think we are doing ok though. I am doing great with baby L since she does not really talk anyway. I notice that I talk to Little L in English too much. I'll talk to Little L and then turn right around and talk Swedish to baby L. I think Little L is keeping up with a lot of it though. Earlier this week I was looking for her in the house and she walked over to the steps and yelled "Här är jag (Here I am)". Something I was completely surprised that she even knew to say. I asked her where she learned that and she said that's what they say in the song.

The song she refers to is "where is thumbkin", a song that she knew in English from preschool, that we now play int the car in Swedish. So they are learning even when I don't think they are learning. 

Crazy about tights

Little L is as crazy about tights as she's ever been. She tells me that leggings are not pretty, but tights are. I was looking through her collection of tights yesterday and was thinking I defiantly do not need to buy here any for this fall/winter. Then I came across there super fun knee patch tights and I can't help myself. She's got 20 pairs of tights and at least half are from Polarn O. Pyret.

Teaching My Toddlers Swedish: Body parts

I found that when I put the girls to bed is a good time to teach them body parts. It the bath we wash from top to bottom pointing out the body parts. In front of the mirror we brush our teeth and hair. When it it time to tuck them in we get kisses on all the different head parts (nose, cheek, eye, forehead, ear... even eyelashes) and we might even get a kiss on the belly - this all usually ends in a lot of giggles. All in Swedish of course.

Check out ittikid's new design

I'm really liking ittikid's new website. Things are a lot easier to find and you can easily see the cute colorful patterns of the Scandinavian brands they carry like Maxamorra, DUNS Sweden, Smafolk and Sture&Lisa. You can now look by size, type, brand and more. They even started a blog that they are calling ittibits. 

Pippi Longstocking

I recently got a question from a reader about Pippi Longstocking toys in the US. You definetly won't have any problems finding book copies of the world's strongest girl, toys are a lot harder to find.

You can get a really cute doll by Hjelm at Amazon.com that includes Mr. Nilsson. I might actually get this one for one of my girls for Christmas.

You can also find some cute hand made things at Etsy.com. I like this doll, this one is also cute. KajaDesign that I have mentioned before also has some cute hairbands and clothing.

During my recent visit to Sweden I found a really cute Villa Villekulla doll house and a Hoppetossa ship by Micki Toys. You can get both of these at Scandinavian Design Center (Shipped from Sweden I would guess). It doesn't look like they come with the dolls, but you can buy a set with Pippi, Annika and Tommy on Amazon.com.


I saw these and a lot of other Pippi Longstocking toys at Scandinavian toy stores like Lekia and BR. I also make sure I visit Åhléns to see what Pippi clothing and toys they have while I'm in Sweden. This dress-up box looked like a lot of fun.

Teaching My Toddlers Swedish: Colors and Apps

The "Colors" week went ok, but it is also one of the things that Little L and I have talked about the most. She learns Spanish in Preschool so it gets a little extra confusing for her since they have talked a lot about colors. To help out a little I downloaded this app for iPhone and iPad: Färgmonstret.

We got the first iPad pretty soon after it came out so there were not many apps for kids out. The iPad did not come out in Sweden until years later, and now I have finally been able to find some good Swedish blogs that review kids apps for both iPad and iPhone. This one is our favorite so far since you can look at reviews by age, rating or topic: http://www.pappasappar.se. I like having some Swedish apps so that the girls get one more source where they can hear the language. It is also fun to expose them to some of the Swedish characters that I grew up with like Pipi Longstocking, Pettson and Mumin.

If you have any suggestions for fun Swedish/Scandinavian apps, or a Swedish app review blog let me know. I'm always interested in seeing what others like.

Mini Rodini Tigers

What is your kids favorite animal? Little L's favorite are tigers so we are totally loving Mini Rodini's Fall/Winter collection "Eye of The Tiger".

Check out their new shoes too.

Teaching My Toddlers Swedish: A Little Frustrated

It’s been a frustrating week this week. I have not been very motivated to speak Swedish with the girls, but I know I need to keep doing it. Little L has been ignoring me when I speak Swedish, but it’s probably because she is not very confident in the language yet.

Then yesterday she started to use some Swedish words. She said “stackars daddy” (poor daddy). Daddy broke his collar bone and has been wearing a sling for about a week now so she was feeling sorry for him.

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to pick an area to focus on per week. Here are my first 5 topics that I am going to focus on:

1. Colors
2. Body parts
3. Fruits
4. Vegetables
5. Vehicles

These are all part of a picture game that Little L likes to play in Swedish on my phone. I think the game will really help with learning the words.

Petitbo for a teething one year old

Baby L is now almost 16 months old and just started getting her teeth. I was a late teether (is that a word?) myself, so I didn’t think there was anything strange with that. Trying to keep from having to change her outfit every 2 hours from all the drooling is another issue. Little L started getting her teeth much earlier and the little baby bibs still fit around her neck, but I put those away a long time ago.

I finally found some really cute scarves that does the trick. This way she looks cute and does not have to run around feeling like she is supposed to sit down and eat all the time. At first she was not too crazy about wearing them, but then I put one on the dog and the whole thing went over much better. After all - she idolizes the dog (and her older sister).

I especially love this Petitbo organic Scarf at  Thumbeline. Petitbo is a Swedish children’s brand that aim at making their children’s clothing not too childish yet really comfortable and playful. They describe their clothes as Nordic bohemian with a little French touch.

Teaching my Toddlers Swedish: Swenglish

The girls are really starting to understand a lot of Swedish words I think. Baby L's first word was "bye bye". She started saying that about two months ago. Now she has changed it to "byedå". I'm obviously confusing her but it is so cute.

I think I'm going to try to come up with a schedule to help motivate myself to speak Swedish to them. One week we would focus on colors, the next week we would talk about animals etc..

Do you have any good ideas of how to keep pushing the language for someone who only speaks it every other week for maybe 30 minutes otherwise.