Tulsa...HERE WE COME!

The suitcases are nearly packed and most items checked-off on the "to do" list. We are all healthy and well and ready to travel!



Lillian's dancing style has changed a bit...

Lexi ice skating

Since I posted a pic in the below blog entry of Lexi's first ice skating trip of the season, I decided to follow it up with the video. Tim says that this video was taken at the beginning of the outing and that she got better at "gliding" by the end. I wondered if she was having a good time since there were no smiles.... she looks so concentrated and serious. Tim said she had a blast. Regardless, she skates much better than I ever will!

Random pics from the rest of November

Well, I really don't feel that I have used the camera that much since Lillian's birthday, but apparently I have. As I dumped the pics and sorted through for any good ones, I found some cute ones to share. We have spent the last portion of the month of November doing random things. We were in Feda a couple different weekends, celebrated an early Christmas with Tim's family and went about our normal, daily routines.

Here is a pic of Lillian and I on one trip to Badeland in Lyngdal

And she gets braver and braver...Fun with leftover birthday balloons
Um, ice cream anyone?Lillian favors Baby Jilly and the white chair. The underwater pics for this term of Baby Swimming were slightly better :) Taking a little boat ride up Feda riverLexi is ready to go to Leonora's birthday party The first ice skating trip of the season Tom, Lajla and Abel at our "Christmas" dinner (aka Thanksgiving turkey spread) The tired chef Beautiful cousinsPlaying dress-upTim, Linn and Samuel

Some video of Lillian...

Here is a video of Lillian "dancing" to the music from our Spanish caterpillar. Enjoy!




Here is a little bit of Lillian laughing. Big sister is providing the la-la-la.

A few words about Lillian

She turned one year old today.

The End.

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Just kidding... however, these will be short as I am soon headed to bed. Once again, I marvel at how quickly the days have passed by. One year ago, Lillian Marie was born and today she is a walking, talking (ok, it's just baby babble) one year old. We have had so much fun this year as a family and will certainly not be accused of letting the grass grow under our feet. :)

Lillian is still our sweet, precious, happy, smiling baby. She wakes up happy, hardly ever fusses or cries and smiles a lot. Of recent, she has started laughing a lot more. It is always fun to learn what things she thinks is funny.

Lillian has definitely mastered her walking. The wobbling is less and less and she has mastered door jams and can step up (and down) into the bathroom and step over the (raised) door frame into the laundry room. Granted, she still uses the wall or door for support for the ups and downs, but you can see her confidence building.

Lillian is so tough. She can fall and get right back up. No big deal. Big sister was definitely NOT like this.

Lillian loves books that have buttons that make noise or books that have textures to feel. Books are the new thing. She also still loves anything musical...I seriously need to get some video of her "dancing". She swings her arms back and forth around her chest. It is super cute.

Over the last few weeks, she has been super mamma clingy. She is not too keen to play by herself anymore (unless she is filling her diaper). I guess this is a phase...I seem to recall it for Lexi as well.

Lillian uses a pacifer when she naps or goes to sleep at night. At night, she also "soothes" herself by pulling her hair. Crazy, I know... Her two little hands are on either side of her head and "pull" her hair - over and over and over again. If I'm giving her a cuddle before bedtime, she tries to use my hair...OUCH!

Lillian still gives lots of hugs and cuddles. They are the best.

Lillian's best meal is breakfast, followed closely by lunch than dinner. A typical breakfast is a small bowl of Cheerios with milk, a piece of cheese toast (or just half) and some fruit. She loves fruit with a capital L. Here is the order of preference...blueberries, ripe, soft, sweet pears, blueberries, grapes, blueberries, bannanas, etc. She seems to like apples, but the poor thing only has the beginning of one tooth poking through. She is my cheese eater...takes after my own heart :). She was off her dinners last week due to a stomach bug and even though she got her appetite back, it has taken over a week to get her to eat dinner again. She loves chicken, will eat meat (steak, pork, etc.), seems to like potatoes (most of the time) as well as rice and pasta, but we have some serious work cut out for us in the veg department :(

Her daytime sleep habits are good...she still takes a morning nap (45min-1hr) and an afternoon nap (45min-1hr). Her nighttime sleep is slowly improving (just in time for us to travel and time change again...). She has learned how to lay herself back down in the bed if she finds herself half-asleep and sitting up. Mind you, we often find her laying the opposite direction on top of her dyne. Hence, fleecy pajamas are good.
That's all I can think of right now. Here are some pics of our big one year old.

Look Mamma! I found the bow in my hair, AGAIN!

Zoom in, you can see "the tooth"

First Birthday celebration

I'm a bit behind at updating the blog; hence, the belated Halloween posting below, but I wanted to give you a sneak peak at Lillian's birthday party pics. The girls got to open their gifts from Grammy and Pops on Saturday. We are saving the other gifts (Lajla's and Brenda's) for Lillian's actual birthday. In addition to many other generous items, they both received matching tutus. Here is Lexi demonstrating the twirling capability of her tutu.

Sorry this pic is fuzzy, but it is the only forward-facing pic I got of Lillian in her tutu and I thought this one was sweet because of the way she was holding the tutu.
On Sunday afternoon, we hosted an open house from 3pm-6pm to celebrate Lillian's first birthday. I think there were a total of 33 of us in the house at its fullest. Here is the food table in advance of the guests' arrival.

We sang Happy Birthday to Lillian and she got to blow out the candle (with help) on her birthday cupcake.

Hmmm...this looks good!

OK, not so sure what to think now.

Family pic (Lexi literally had about 15 different dresses on that day. She wore one dress to church, changed into another for the party and the minute Grace arrived, she dragged Grace upstairs to put on "princess dresses". This particular dress is a "play dress" made from scraps from Lajla. She even had her new tutu on for a brief period of time.)

We managed to sneak a bow into Lillian's hair without her noticing. She generally finds them and pulls them out straight away. This one stayed in for a bit. It is a beautiful bow that was handmade from my good friend Lauren. Thank you!

Had to include this pic of Lillian practicing walking in her new shoes. These are a bit more rugged to be worn outside. Up to now, she has been walking without shoes or with her Robeez. I want her to master a more sturdy shoe so that she can wear it outside.

Halloween

Well, this is a belated Halloween post. I guess I should have uploaded the pics last week, but I got busy and then sick and then busy again. Apologies for the lateness...enjoy! This first pic is of our traditional (in every sense of the word) carved pumpkins. Lexi's friend Leonora came to visit after barnehage last Friday. When Tim got home, he helped each of them carve a pumpkin. They had loads of fun. They were so high-strung afterwards, I didn't get any good pics of them posing with the finished products :(

This may be our 2011 Halloween pic of Lexi... Thankfully, I got some good ones of Lillian and the pumpkins a couple of weeks ago. Lexi would never pose for me.
Lexi and I made Halloween cookies (iced sugar cookies) that she took to barnehage to share on Halloween.

Here are the girls on Halloween. (Hmmm, let me guess, you guys are still in shorts and t-shirt weather?). Anyway, this was taken after Lillian and I picked up Lexi from barnehage - around 3:30pm in the afternoon.

Lexi got to go trick-or-treating for the first time ever this year. She wanted to be a witch because Grace was a witch. So, I picked up this costume at the last minute. Tim took her up into the upper neighborhoods and was amazed at the amount of trick-or-treaters. Halloween has really started to take off here. She came home with lots of goodies. We probably had about 30 kids ring the bell here at our house in the lower neighborhood.

Lillian had a stomach bug that started on Halloween afternoon. She threw up a couple of times and didn't feel the best. But, here she is anyway. (Outfit compliments og Grammy and Pops.)

Lexi and her stash

Video clips

I finally found a relatively easy way to convert my MP4 video clips to an decent size AVI for uploading. So, here is the best one of Lillian walking. Enjoy!

And, Big Sister has demanded some film time lately since Lillian is getting so much attention. Here is Lexi singing a Norwegian nursery rhyme.

And lastly, here is the Halloween package video clip that never got uploaded :) Thanks Grammy and Pops for a great package!

Walking and Comparisons

Well, it's official. We now classify Lillian as "walking". When she turned 11 months on Oct 10th, she started taking 2-3 steps - mainly into our arms. A week later, she started practicing standing solo with balance. A couple of days later, she started walking 7-8 steps - not necessarily into our arms. Yesterday, she conquered standing up from a sitting position. Today, she really motored around. While I took Lexi to dance, Tim said that she walked solo from the playmats, past the fireplace, into the kitchen and back around to the playmats without ever sitting down! She is so proud of herself and big sister is trying to compete for the attention by imitating Lillian's wobbly walking style :)

I have been wanting to post some Lexi/Lillian comparisons for some time now, but have been too lazy to access the storage server where all of Lexi's pics are stored (and backed up to a redundant server). Anyway, here are some pics taken at roughly the same time frame for both girls. A couple of weeks before their first birthdays.

Lillian

Lexi Lillian (concentrating on eating grapes and blueberries)
Lexi and Harley
Mamma and Lillian Mamma and Lexi and Harley

Samuel's Barnedåp

Baby Samuel is now 4 months old and we attended his Christening (Barnedåp) this last Sunday. Here are a few pictures from the blessed event. First up...our best take at a family pic. Hmmm...maybe we should have tried a bit harder.

Abel, Linn and Samuel (Samuel is wearing the family's Christening dress that was also worn by Linn, Luna, Lexi and Lillian)

Mother and daughter

Mother and daughter
Mormor and Samuel

Mormor and Lillian