Our Sunday hike

Thanks for the Skype-call on Tuesday guys - Isabelle really loved seeing and speaking to you all. She's not one to miss a chance to show off, that is for sure!

I just thought I'd upload some photos from the forest hike we did last Sunday. We started out at Tærruddalen, which is about 5 minutes in the car from our house. Isabelle walked for the first 1km or so - which took us about 30 minutes since she was exploring the forest and running around like crazy.

Then for the next hour she was sitting comfortably in our hiking backpack, while mum and (mostly) dad had to struggle with an extra 16 kilos through the forest. We made our destination, a little cabin about 5-6 km into the forest in good time, where the local ski club was selling waffles to tired hikers.

We had our waffles, hot chocolate and a couple of biscuits too, before turning around and starting on the hike back. Isabelle was really good again, and probably walked for another 1 km before it was back up into the backpack. It seemed a lot quicker to walk back, and the hike was done in no time. We stopped at our normal "camp site" on our way back, where we grilled pølse (sausages) and pinnebrød (damper with spices on a stick!). Lovely!

Another relaxing weekend?

My cousin Nora turns 4 this week, and Isabelle got to go to her carnival birthday party on Saturday afternoon! Our beautiful little girl dressed up as a Spanish senõrita with a costume Mimmi and Bett picked up on their holiday.

Isabelle was very proud when mum put a bit of 'make-up' on her face...

The party was held in Nora's barnehage, where my auntie Anne Marit (Nora's mum) works as well...


After eating pølse (hot dogs) for lunch, the girls got their faces painted. Most girls asked for butterflies and princess faces, but our little darling has had a bit of an obsession with dinosaurs ever since coming across Jurrasic Park on one of the movie channels, so naturally - she wanted to be an angry little dino... Oh well - I tried my very best! (It was pretty hard to sit still for the little one - but luckily my auntie and her friends were painting the rest of the girls while I worked hard on my masterpiece)




The birthday girl:


Roooaawwwrrrrrrr!


They even had a piñata set up for the kid's take-home lolly bags!

Slumber party

Isabelle will be having her first slumber party tomorrow night, since we are looking after my cousin Nora while her parents go on a much deserved theatre-trip in Oslo. Ella is so excited, and the only reason why I could talk her into going to bed tonight was by informing her that we'll see Nora a lot sooner if we try to get some sleep first. We spent the day with Nora a couple of weeks ago as well, and the girls had so much fun together...

...first a bit of drawing. We have changed the rooms around so that James and I now have our desks in the bed-room, so that Isabelle could have the study as her own little palace. She is pretty happy with the result, and it is lovely to have somewhere to put all her toys! After showing of their artistic talents...


...we headed outside for a bit of action...



...the girls loved it, and it seems James had some fun too...


...after playing in the outdoors we needed to fuel up, and hot chocolate truly hit the spot with these girls...


Since Bett was out of town at the time, after lunch we actually went downstairs to his refuge where he's got a massive projector set up. Equiped with popcorn and cordial we were definitely ready for the movies - and after popular vote it was decided that Ice Age 2 would get the honours that night...

Isabelle's first skates

Friday morning we decided to test out the ice down at Fram Stadion, and after a hearty breakfast we packed what we could find of warm winter-gear and headed out to hopefully find a bargain on ice-skates for Isabelle and the boys.

Unfortunately, our bargain-hunt was rather unproductive as none of the stores had any skates left in the sizes the boys required. We did however manage to find a pair in Isabelle's size (or rather, her size for the next couple of years to come), and uncle Jacko did what good uncles do and provided one lucky girl with her very first pair of skates.

It had been a while since the last time I skated, and it took only a few minutes before my feet were hurting like crazy. Luckily uncle Jacko was there to help out!


Isabelle and mum skating (very fast).

The store were we bought her skates didn't have any good helmets in stock, but as none of the boys would be skating we figured it was ok this time around. Isabelle tried to balance on her own a few times, but she didn't feel very safe and was more than happy to receive some help and support from the three of us.

Unfortunately it had been snowing earlier that day, and the ice was to be prepared for the afternoon session a bit after we finished our session - so the ice was not superb, but we managed anyway...


My beautiful family!

An alternative family?


Ninished! (which is how Isabelle says "finished")