Norway and new photos

Some people find it odd that I have so many friends living in Europe. Brooke in Norway, Emily in Greece, Matt in Munich, Dave in Prague and my friend Britta just moved back to the states from Sicily. All of them I've known since grade school or high school. Over Labor Day weekend we headed to Oslo, Norway and just South of Oslo to the island of Tjome.

We hit almost every mode of public transportation in our first day...car (ours, so not really public), bus, train, boat, and bus again all before we arrived at Brooke's house. The Bakken's prepared an awesome dinner for us while Anna got to play with their daughter, Klara and 8 month old, Liam (who btw is bigger then Anna).

It rained most of the weekend. It wasn't until we got back to Moss (the city we flew in and out of), that the sun came out for a short visit.

The long story short is we only have photos off our phone. I'll get them loaded soon...to tide you over here are a few photos of our cute kid.

Pants, diapers and underwear are all overrated!

First day of REALLY doing pedals all on her own...the downfall of being short!












She wants to eat EVERYTHING with a fork or spoon. Which is awesome! She's such a big girl! Oh and she's drinking out of a big girl cup most of the time now. I still give her a sippy when we're in the car, but I didn't even take a sippy cup to Norway this past weekend!


She colors NONSTOP! :D

Finally...summer is here!

Quiet babies are always up to trouble


Like I said before...


















Drinking out of the pool! It's a good thing I cleaned it before filling it up!




Swinging on Trevor and Ryan's swing

Photos from iPhone

My sister, Jenni, demanded I post on the blog, soooo here you gooooo!

Also, a little update on what's going on here in Germany. Lots of cold weather. I'm soo bummed! We had an icky summer last year, so I had high hopes for this summer. It's not going well. 50s and rainy is not summer! That should be WINTER! (oohhh how I miss the deep south!) I will admit we've had a few warm days here and there but nothing over 85*! :(

Brian has been gone since the 27th and will return home around the 13th. Lucky for us he's in Germany and we're able to visit him, so tomorrow Anna and I are going to head up to Grafenwoehr to visit him and the crew. Anna REALLY misses daddy. I'm starting to dread our next deployment already!

Strawberry picking - I picked, Anna ate.
















Our friend Tom strikes!




riding in the trailer (which she LOOOOOOOVES)






going to Berlin




THE Bugatti Veyron, yes the 1.2 MILLION DOLLAR Bugatti Veyron! I was so close I could touch it!





more on Berlin later!

oy!

I don't know what else to say. Anna climbed out of the crib by herself for the first time today and she learned how to crawl in and out of the umbrella stroller by herself today. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take! Tuesday night can't come soon enough!

Big Day!

Today is Anna's first official day at the CDC (Child Development Center aka day care aka Center for Disease and Colds). I signed her up for hourly care until we figure out if we are moving or not and what town she'll be going to Kindergarten in. She can start Kindergarten in our town starting this month, but if we ARE moving, I don't want her to start school only to move in a month.

Today she'll be there from 11:30-4. Thank GOODNESS one of my good friends, Kasey, works in the room Anna will be in. So it makes me feel a little better about that! I'll be spending the afternoon in the pottery studio!

I unloaded all of the photos from the red camera. I'm so frustrated with this camera it isn't even funny! But it works great for video. So I use it a lot for that. One day I need to sit down and upload all of the videos to youtube it just hasn't happened. But usually before or after I do a video, I will take a few quick photos.

It's been warmer here (not today) so we pulled out the kiddie pool we NEVER used last year. I also got some sand for Anna's sand box. We got the sandbox from the same couple who gave us the swing set. I bought 4 bags of sand - they looked small - turns out I only needed 1 ...maybe 2. So I need to find a home for the other two bags. Currently it's on the porch, which is nice, it won't kill the grass there and it's covered, so it gives us something to do outside on rainy days.

I'm not a big bow person...or a big flower person. I think babies look silly when they have this HUGE bow or flower the size of their head. It's NOT CUTE! Babies are cute enough, if you put a huge bow or ugly flower on your kid you're just saying "hey, I think my baby is ugly and I want you to pay attention to this bow/flower instead of my kid's face" I like small bows, but now that Anna is older, it's hard to keep anything in her hair for more than 10 minutes. If she doesn't know it's there, we're good, but as soon as she signs 'horse' she finds it and it's all over! She may end up with a daddy haircut ;) until then, I've made a few (60+/-)bows (small, cute, understated).


the box


Eating with a spoon all by herself.






oh boy


it gets worse!


daily coloring!


Daddy hooked up a 'winch' to our jeep so we no longer have to push. Anna can peddle with her feet, but not up and down the hill. We've also taken the jeep on a few walks!


Still a little big, but it was a steal of a deal!


fun for her, not for your back!


some things never change - proof it's inherited and starts at birth


Go zebra go!