Starry Night

(Click on image to enlarge)

We never see much stars because we live in one of the most light polluted areas in the world and have to drive 2-3 hours out of town to see a resemblance of "Dark Sky" like we did in Bodega Bay this weekend. 

Apparently I took this picture all wrong, and it didn't come out as I had intended but it shows the Milkyway (and me). Not having brought a tripod, I just placed the camera on its back on a table, placed a hand over the lens (to avoid shutter vibrations in the camera), and pressed the shutter. Set the ISO to 400, shutter speed to 15 seconds and waited. Only took one shot, but next time I will do what the pros say: Set ISO to 3200, and shutter speed to 20 seconds…  

Espens first ever visit on a beach

... in slow motion!

Bodega Bay Trip

Why not take a nap? 101 was horrible on a Thursday night.. Accident up ahead and rush hour makes for slow driving - added 30 minutes to our 2 hour drive :(

Dinnertime! We arrived at the house just after dark, 7PM-ish, and had great foods waiting for us.  

Next morning art time! 

View from our bedroom. Not bad. 

 The back yard is huge and has great ocean views. 

Great weather this weekend. Usually this place is lost in thick fog, but we lucked out and can't spend enough time outside. Tonight hot tub time!

Espens new bed is ready!

Looks like he is ready too!

His new seat is a hit!

It is a great relief that Espen no longer has a raging fit every time he is placed in the car seat, these days he is quite content and is more likely to fall asleep than scream his lungs out. After getting his new seat things seem even better, and I think it has something to do with being up higher and able to see more?

Big sister, big help

Sweet potatoes are a hit!

New bed is finished!

The bed came in this very compact box weighing about 50kg (110,23lbs), mattress was simply rolled up, pretty impressive I think. 

First part done!

No whale tail but nearly there!

Because I took all the pictures it looks like Heather did ALL the work, not true!!
It was a 2 hour team effort..

Yay! Bed is completed but the rest of her room obviously need some love soon. Lucia cant stop jumping up and down. Lets hope her first night goes well and not forget she is a bit higher than usual...

Lucia

I asked her what she thought about her old bed and this is he look she gave me.

New bed!

We took a trip to IKEA last night to check out the bed we have been thinking about for Lucia. She has been in her current bed since she was no older than Espen is now and he needs to move in to a bed he can't climb out of..

Enjoying the evening

6 months checkup

It is hard work going to the doctor, but he checked out great. And we got a couple of vaccinations.

The wait can be long but the view from the doctors office is great

First tooth

Not easy to photograph something this small and fussy but you can easily feel it now: a sharp edge of a tooth inside a 3 mm wide dark strip.

6 months pictures

Espen seems to love some foods more than others, bananas are a hit while avocado is not so hot. But hey even beer is an acquired taste for some.

Here is another recent photo in his new Viking outfit. So awesome, we hope it still fits during the cold season, his head is so big... He is already sharing hats with Lucia!

Here he is in Lucias old car seat

This will be embarrassing 15 years from now ;)

Being driven around town is hard work apparently, but also important to note is that he no longer melts down all the time in the car!

Six Months Old!!

Here's where I'd put in pictures of our little man, but I dropped my phone one too many times and there goes the camera. Dangit. Pete is going to fix it for me, but in the meanwhile... here's Espen's six month update (Pete can you fill in the pics?)

This month! We've seen:

• More scooching, especially in the backwards direction. 
• A LOT more talking! 
• Growing out of his teeny straw hat, sadface. We're pretty sure he's still in the basketball-head size range (97th percentile last time we went in).
• In the past few days or maybe week? He's taken to resting his head on my chest after I sit him up and burp him. Which is ridiculously adorable and a change for him; he's normally like OK PUT ME IN BED NOW LADY as soon as he's done nursing, or during the day LET'S GET BACK TO PLAYING, SHALL WE? So the snuggles are really welcome. And super cute. 
• Size 2 diapers. I had a hard time with this milestone, I have no idea why. I denied it for a week or so, then he pooped on Thursday and it squeezed like toothpaste up his back and out his armholes. Uh. Fine. We'll move up to size 2s. 
• Experimenting with a few solid foods: we've had bananas, sweet potato, applesauce, avocado, black bean puree and oatmeal. The winner is banana, of course. Who doesn't love mashed banana? This week and month we'll try more veggies and maybe more oatmeal. I figure if I can mix banana with stuff we'll get further. 
• Waking up only once to eat overnight! Believe it. we now feed him at 10ish, 3ish and 6:30ish. Good stuff. We give him his pacifier or gripe water if he wakes up other than that.
• The promise of a new tooth. It's coming! So soon! We can see the shadow of it -- we hope it'll push through this week. Poor guy has been crankers. 

That's all I can think of... Yay six months!! 

I Ate the Snake!

When I was growing up, my sister and I shared a room for a while, but then when we had our own rooms I'd sneak into her room to whisper at night. One of my favorite games was a play on the word Eight. It goes like this:

Me: I one the snake

Her: I two the snake

Me: I three the snake

And so on and so forth, until you get to eight, which obviously sounds like you ATE the snake. I distinctly remember sitting in our family room in Indiana and realizing that if I let my sister start the game I would always automatically get to say I ATE THE SNAKE (as I was the even numbers). Tonight I remembered it and decided to teach Lucia; her eyes lit up when I said it the first time. She laughed and laughed and wanted to play a few more times, so we did, each of us getting a turn to say I ATE THE SNAKE! 

As I tucked her into bed tonight, I told her that sometimes I want to go back to that time when she was a baby, but nights like tonight are just so fun because we can play games like that. 

:)