The day after

The day after Thanksgiving we decided to go to San Francisco and have a relaxing time. First stop was Ocean Beach, yes it was a little foggy but not too much, just enough to make it kind of magical:

After the beach we went to a new visitor center around the corner and thought it reminded us a little of the restaurant at the top of Ulriken. It wasn't a fancy restaurant like at Ulriken but more like a museum store with a cafe, but it was nice and it had lots of windows with great views, like Ulriken.

Finger food.

After that our hungry bellies directed us to a burger place on 9th Ave just south of Golden Gate Park and had a really good dinner.
Not a bad way to spend a beautiful day!

Yes waiter

I'll have the steak. 

Thanksgiving 2013

Here is a great selection of pictures from last night, Thanksgiving. It was great to spend time with our norwegian friends having great food. 

 Pre dinner greeting

Espen checking out the wheels on his toy car

The Turkey was incredibly moist!

 Per serving the girls at their own table

Espen eats  

The side dishes 

 Caitlin prepping the food

Notes were taken 

Movie time after dinner. Toy Story in norwegian at 11PM!!!

Another Curly

Loooonng overdue

Lucia's hair was looking super scraggly and well, matted. It was a mess and she freaked anytime we tried to comb through conditioner. So it was time to get a major cut. She said she wanted about six inches off but 1. We didn't want her to cut off that gorgeous hair -at least not *that* much... 2. We were worried she didn't understand the concept of hair being gone when she wanted to cut off 6-8 inches. 

So three inches it was. 2.5 more inches than Pete was comfortable, but thankfully he had other plans so he couldn't white-knuckle in the salon (like last time). Here's the before and after. It looks SO much healthier and springier!

Sickly

The awesomeness about our new daycare situation was ever so slightly tarnished when we remembered why people steer away from daycare: the sickness. Espen started running a fever on Tuesday but it vanished by Thursday morning. Then Lucia came down with a cold which left her hoarse and wheezy. Then Espen came down with it Saturday. He's coughing and so very congested. But he seemed better today, hooray. Here they both are this morning. 

Espen at the new daycare

Flappy

I'm positive there's some developmental reason for the arm flapping, but I don't really care what it is. It is simply adorable. Please never stop flapping, Espen.
 

No school Day - Play Date

Today was no-school day, but Lucia's classmate Veronica invited her for a playdate. Lucia had so much for that when we left she begged me to let her have a sleepover and cried most of the way home ( think mostly because she was exhausted and very hungry) Heres what she looked like after a 10 minute ride home:

Brudder and Sissy

Seven!!

Seven months!! He's a big boy now. He filled out and got suddenly pretty chubby this month, awwwww. Other changes we saw this month:

• Eating more and more solids. This month we tried more oatmeal, peas, blueberries, cooked apples, pumpkin and carrots. He really likes pumpkin and sweet potatoes. 
• Sitting up! He doesn't topple over as often. 
• Grabbing stuff of the highchair. Pete put a bowl of his food with a spoon in it the other day and went to get a bib and Espen grabbed that bowl so fast. He also really likes grabbing the spoon when we're feeding him. Manual dexterity! It's a thing!
• Sleeping in his CRIB! YES. We moved him into the other room and now have both kids in one room. True to Espen's laid back nature, he was like, oh, I see that I am now sleeping here. Fine by me. He is so diametrically opposite of Lucia that way. 
• Rolling and rolling and rolling. And more rolling. 
• I think the chatting has decreased this month, but he's definitely doing more of the arm-flapping. In the next few days I'll post a cute video of him doing that. 

Behold some cutie pie pictures I took yesterday as we hung out and just gazed into each other's eyes (seriously). 

Watching the cat

Theres a cat in the garden. Its an outside cat that only comes around when it needs food, but it caught Espens attention right away, he kept staring at it and the cat kept staring at me

Channeling Elton John

Daddys turn

Tonight it was my turn to don the head light and explore the new steps on an evening walk:

First day in new daycare

Espen had his first day at the new day care home today. He spent an hour there - with me - to get used to his new surroundings. The new place is well set up with a dedicated play room and sleep rooms, in addition theres a big yard with fruit trees and lots of grass and I think they will spend a lot of time out there.

My Girl

Lucia has really, really enjoyed a new thing we've implemented to positive reinforce good behavior at school: solo time with Mommy. To my delight, she has chosen to spend this time going for walks with me. I love love love going for walks and the fact she wants to makes me so happy. The night after Halloween she was very explicit in her instructions of our walk: we were each going to pick two pieces of Halloween candy, put them in separate ziploc bags, and take them on our walk and eat them somewhere. We did just that, and had a great time. I've been making a huge deal of our solo time together and reminding her that Daddy or Espen can't interrupt us and it's just time for me and her. She swoons each time I say that. Aww. Tonight she wanted to do the same, but because of Daylight Savings it was super dark, so we wore headlamps and sat on a newly constructed staircase near our place. She tried a tootsie roll and peanut M&Ms tonight and although she had a reaction to the milk chocolate, we still had fun anyway.