Tap Tap Tap, does this thing still work??

Halloween!

This year Henrik decided what he wanted to be. A Robot. Awesome!

I'm a killjoy so Olof's suggestion of making a Bender costume was vetoed. Instead, I had plans of an elaborate light up costume with movable parts! But uhm, he's 3 and that would weigh poor little guy down. So plan b, a kick butt glowing at night, but daytime super cute!

Here are a few shots of the fitting and then the painting.

We went to the Goblin Walk downtown in San Carlos and had a blast!

He met the cast of The Wizard Of Oz!

Almost there...

Today, there was a party at school complete with a parade and cupcakes!

He was licking the frosting off the box!

Parade!

And glowing Henrik!!

So there you have it, our first Halloween in Belmont. I hope to become a regular blogger again :) Hope there are still a few readers out there!

Happy Birthday Henrik!

Happy 3rd Birthday Henrik!

Must set camera to speed of light. Henrik is fast!

We had a small play date with some new and old friends on Saturday (his birthday). Henrik opened presents as people arrived, which totally cracked me up!

He is enjoying everything, but oh boy oh boy, the bubble mower was the hit. I think he spent 30 solid minutes running back and forth with that bad boy! There was of course much coveting of the mower and unfortunately, it (the mower) needed a nap.

We went out to dinner and Henrik had a BLAST! They sang for him and he got a giant sombrero and a green and purple dinosaur balloon!

Then, when we got home, he put on pjs and then tucked in the mower with a blanket, hug and kiss!

Party Cupcake! He blew out all candles with one puff!


Nom Nom Nom!


Mmm Satisfaction!



Griffin makes cupcake face!


Adrian likes the cake part of the cupcake!


Katie's cupcake face!

Thanks for joining us on our play date with cupcakes! We were so glad to spend the afternoon with you guys!


Stats for Henrik:
Height- 38"
Weight- 36.4#

He's more than half as tall as me!

California

Let's see if we can start up some of the blogging again. We've been bad at it ever since most of our families starting connecting with us on facebook instead, since it seemed like a quicker way to share some of the everyday stuff.

Anyway, we've all made it to California now. The house has been sold, the movers have picked up all our stuff and most of it is in storage, and we're now in a surprisingly large 2-bedroom apartment for 2 months while we start searching for a house to buy. Sniffle.

Being in an apartment again is a lot of adjustment. While it's pretty roomy, there's definitely less space to get away from the rest of the family for a bit (for all of us), so there's less downtime and more friction. Also, while the everyday stuff works quite well, Henrik hasn't been having a great time. From sleep adjustment (waking up at 5.30 is starting to get old :) to more frequent tantrums, he's also quicker on his mood swings and doesn't listen to us the way he used to. It's all part of adjusting to a new place, etc, we know that. But it's still taking a toll on all of us.

Unfortunately most of the week has been rainy, so we haven't had a good chance to get out and do much as a family yet. We did dare the crowds a little bit yesterday to pick up a new winter jacket for Henrik (see the post below? Yeah, it's still missing, and he needs one). We also got a car GPS (TomTom) for Brandy, since she'll probably spend most of her time being lost otherwise. :-) We hope to go explore more soon. First real touring of houses with our Realtor is tomorrow!

have you seen this coat?

I can't seen to find his jacket and am wondering if I lent it out to someone. So, if I did and you have it, could you email me :)

Thanks :)

Boo!

Uhm, long time no post! Wonder if anyone still has us on their readers? :)

I'll do an update tonight or tomorrow. As I was loading up pictures from last nights, we looked back over Henrik's 3 Halloweens and just had to share the cuteness with the world!

Henrik the monster and his buddy Rhett the Monkey! (7months)

Henrik the penguin (19months)


BamBam and Pebbles (Audrey) (2y 7m and 2y 10m)

I made the costumes!

Hope everyone had a safe and fun halloween!

Dinner and a movie with Audrey!

We've been busy not selling our house, but keeping it clean for the last month. This house not selling is really wearing on us, but on the bright side, Henrik is back to his old happy go lucky self.

I think Henrik just had his first chaperoned date!

After nap time Audrey and her mom and brother came over to spend the afternoon/ evening with us. We decided to bake cookies (from scratch), make pizzas and watch Wall-E.

So dinner + movie = date...

Baking with kids (while messy) is a ton of fun. The kids are pretty interested in creaming the butter and sugar in the giant mixer. While this is going on I combine the dry stuff so they can scoop it in the mixer. Henrik and Audrey were great helpers in the kitchen!

They added the flour perfectly and each got to dump a bag of goodies into the cookies. We ended up with chocolate chip, butterscotch and heath toffee cookies! Yum!

As the bazillion cookies were baking, they ran off to play and make a giant mess. It was wonderful. Henrik has been so timid to make a mess and it's just been the last two weeks he's loosened up. Today they pulled stuff out from top to bottom and the look of joy on his face was wonderful to see.

Next, we heated the pizza stone up and got the dough ready for them to top. Both kiddos tasted everything and either liked it or put is back on the plate. It was so fun to watch them pick and choose. They used pepperoni, fresh basil, black olives, pineapple and CHEESE glorious CHEESE!

We turned on the movie and brought them out their pizzas on predesignated plates. Audrey said she gets the very clean (cleaned by herself) pink plate and Henrik gets the blue plate. They were super cute eating pizza and watching the movie.

My heart was melting all over the place and then I looked at the photos we took during the afternoon and seriously... puddles of love all over the place.

Here is a link to the highlight reel from today. Make the browser window as large as you can before clicking on it, and enjoy. :-) You have to see Audrey's super cute little brother chomping on some pizza!

Click me Click me!

Another month has passed

So, first to follow up on the previous post: We did get the house on the market in the two weeks we were gunning for. It was a LOT of hard work, and we had some very much needed help from some of Brandy's friends.

We've had some showings in the two weeks it's been on the market, but no offers yet. Traffic has picked up in the last few days though, so we're somewhat hopeful again. We'll see what happens in the next week or two.

One thing we've been bad at doing is to bring our camera along. We've taken snapshots with our phones and posted on facebook, but the "real" camera has been sitting at home a lot. We've tried to get better at it lately and here are a couple from today. :-)

We swung by Precision Camera today to look at lenses, and this is how grumpy Henrik was. He had his nap cut short due to a showing. Grumpy, but cute. :-)

Some friends of ours had their baby last night, and we went to see her (and them) today. She was very very cute, and Brandy will be doing a newborn session with them this week so keep an eye on her photoblog for sneak peeks from that later on. But this photo of Henrik and mommy was cute enough to share as it is. :-)