Easter blog entry #2

Well, some would say that we are mad, but.... for the third year in a row, the January 2007 birthday girls have managed to meet-up. Lexi and I met Jacinta, Grace and Rachel at Stavanger Sola airport on Easter Sunday evening. We flew to London Gatwick and then stayed overnight at a nearby Holiday Inn. The next morning, we took the train to Chichester where we invaded Deb, Elita and Lailah's house. 5 girls -three and under- was definitely excitement at all times and three days was probably the max amount to invade Deb's lovely house. Here are some pics of the fun...

Lexi, Lailah, Grace and Elita hopping on the trampoline...

Grace and Lexi enjoying Elita's backyard toys...

Lexi and Grace again...

Elita and Lexi at the local playground in "the baby swings"

Miss Fashion statement herself....

Beautiful Lailah...

Deb and the girls being blown away on the boardwalk in Bognor Regis

"No fears" Elita had to have her picture taken with Diego. The other girls only wanted to watch.... (We spent Tuesday at Butlin's - which is a family fun park - both indoor and outdoor - in Bognor Regis)

Gorgeous Rachel

Elita and Grace riding the cars....

Lexi insisted on riding by herself....

Again, "loner" Lexi wanted her own teacup while Grace and Elita shared one...

We finally prevailed - all three in one ladybug

And all three in one teacup!

On the Merry-Go-Round outside.... (Elita, Lexi and Grace)

Lexi, Bran, Jacinta, Rachel and Elita on the Merry-Go-Round

Playing dress-up at Elita's house...

Dancing at the ball...

Thanks Deb for being such a wonderful hostess! Looking forward to July :)

Easter holidays pics - at last!

I know that I have been promising these pictures for many days now, but here are some of the better pics from Easter. As many of you remember, our Easter holidays in Norway start on the Wednesday before Easter (March 31) and end on the Monday after Easter (April 5). We had planned to spend some of the Easter holidays in Feda and some in southern England. So, this first blog entry is the Feda portion. Our lovely friends, Ben, Nikki, Naomi and Lilja joined us for some days of fun in and around Feda. They travelled back to Stavanger on the Saturday afternoon and we enjoyed a nice Easter dinner with Tim's family on the Saturday evening. Easter Sunday afternoon had the traditional egg throwing and hot dog grilling, but we left fairly early to drive back to Stavanger. Lexi and I flew to London with our friends Jacinta, Grace and Rachel on Sunday night and took the train to Chichester on Monday morning to spend a few days with Deb, Elita and Lailah. I'll post these pics on my next entry in a couple of days :)

Here is a beautiful photo collage that Ben put together from the days in Feda. You will see that we had some gorgeous sunshine, the girls colored some beautiful eggs and had a great time playing together.

Here is Lexi and Lilja on Friday - we grilled hotdogs outside.

Here is the lovely Clarke family enjoying their hotdogs.

Here is Lexi and Luna painting eggs - they liked finger-painting the eggs with water-colors better than just dying them.

More of Lexi and Luna...

Naomi and Nikki....

Nikki and Lilja...

On Saturday, we spent a few hours at the local indoor waterpark. It was a great success and everyone was sad to leave it. Here is Lexi in her new swimsuit from Grammy and Grandpa...

Nikki, Lilja, Naomi and Luna...

Luna and Naomi....

Brandee & Naomi coming down the waterslide....

all smiles Lilja....

On Saturday afternoon, we went on a little walk. Had to motivate Lexi with chocolate and gummies, but it was nice to get out into the woods.

Feda church

Lexi throwing Easter eggs....

one more egg....

How far can she throw it?

Here is the annual hot dog grilling - under the patio since the weather was a bit dismal. Luna, Lexi, Tim and Linn.

(Quite different from Mark Thomas' shorts and t-shirt in Tulsa!)

Rocking-out....

Here is a video clip I should have uploaded before Easter, but I ran out of time. Probably one of the more popular Christmas presents is Lexi's Princess Guitar. Or, as she says... "pitar". The crown on her head is her birthday crown from daycare which still gets worn daily around here. For info, the second most popular Christmas present (right now) is her Princess hair set (the one with the hair dryer, hair straightener, etc.). Enjoy! (PS - I don't know why/how to get the opening picture on the video clip to show something - rather than black - like it used to???)

We love packages - once again!

Grammy and Grandpa sent another wonderful package that arrived today. The video clip is long, but speaks for itself. Enjoy!

A somewhat funny story from this morning. Tim and I decided to carpool to work together today. So, we are all in the car on the way to the daycare this morning, and I asked Lexi "what are you going to do today at barnehage?". She immediately replied "I'm going to hit somebody." Well, needless to say, Tim and I were at a loss for words.... (we, of course, recovered and had a discussion about hitting)

Fun at the boathouse

Our friends Joe and Jacinta and their two gorgeous girls, Grace and Rachel, joined us at the boathouse last weekend. Lexi was "over the moon" to have a playdate that stayed the night!

Here is Princess Lexi with her Barbie dolls and the hot pink jogging suit that I am forced to wash quite regularly since she insists on wearing it nearly every day. (Thanks again, Aunt Brenda and cousins Jen & Jonathan for the very popular birthday gift!)

Presenting Snow White and Tinkerbell, er, um I mean Lexi and Grace....

And yes, costume change! Tinkerbell (in green) and one of Tinkerbell's fairy friends.

Lexi, Rachel (6 mo +) and Grace

Playground time....

New Bedroom and Snow Play

Well, I finally managed to take a few pics of our new bedroom at home. These pics were taken last Friday morning when Lexi decided to crawl up in our new bed and make herself comfortable. The room isn't finished yet, but you will see the new bed, 2 new nightstands, new closet, new flooring, new paint job and new blinds (which are in the raised postition in all the photos.... hmmmf.)

Here is Tim's new closet to house his clothes. (I have the walk-in closet in the hallway...). Tim's new closet has three sliding doors, two wood and one mirror.

We still lack a dresser for socks and undies; hence, the bare wall spot in the background.

Miss Morning Person herself...

Here was the view of our neighborhood from our upper terrace last Friday morning.

We were seriously late, but Lexi was in a good mood (which is abnormal for my non-morning person child).

Lexi insisted on wearing her favorite (well-worn) dress and setting up her laptop next to mine. She and the bears got to watch some Dora while eating breakfast. I'm not sure why/how the kaleidescope (from the Christmas stocking) made it to the breakfast table....
Lexi posed for a picture with the snow-family at daycare...

Lexi and I spent an hour on the playground in Feda this last Sunday.

I like the below picture because it shows you the fence (standard height chain-link) and the gate that are covered in snow. Lexi and I just walked right over them....