Einar and Soren's Adventures in Bellingham

Story Time and Soccer

2011-10-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last night, Soren was up a little latter than normal, so he joined Einar for story time. As you can tell, both of the boys like to read.

Einar is coming to the end of his soccer season. He really enjoys playing and running around. He even scored a goal this year (not that we're supposed to keep score). Here are some action shots and a team photo.

We have also had a good time visiting the Heritage Flight Museum, here in Bellingham. All of the airplanes are working, flying machines.

Soren is also having a great time teaching his cousins Odin and Lars how to play the piano, driving trains, and baking pies at his preschool.

Soren also enjoys eating the pies (for breakfast).

Summer Break

2011-09-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

Jared had his summer break from school, which resulted in some adventures for the family, both at home and abroad.

Papa, Einar, and Soren on the I-90 bridge to watch a Blue Angel rehearsal

Einar and Soren in front of the Mt. Baker tunnel.
The boys received a lot of call outs for their good choice in T-shirts.

Blue Angels doing a fly-by

Einar demonstrating his kayaking skills

Einar holding a really big socket wrench from John's truck

Einar and Soren get a turn to operate the crane.

At the Northwest Washington Fair.

Soren demonstrates his helicopter flying skills.

Jared and Einar go for a hang-glider ride.

At the Squamish Railroad museum.

Taking a break from ringing the bell on the No. 2 engine.

Einar and Soren in front of a really big steam engine.

Einar and Soren at Lake Alice Provincial Park, B. C.

Strange looking black slug by our camp site at Lake Alice Provincial Park.

A giant dump truck outside of the Mine Museum in B. C. Einar took this picture from our moving car.

Einar has started soccer and is demonstrating his skill at not turning the game into bunch-ball.

Soren helping to do some clean up around the house.

Papa and Farmor visitEin

2011-07-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Papa and Farmor came to visit for the past couple of days, so they could enjoy watching a couple of Einar and Soren's swim lessons. On Thursday afternoon, they also joined Karla and the boys for a trip on the Bellingham Speeder Train. It is a short trip on a disconnected line close to our house. There was also some kite flying on Thursday. Or more accurately, a kite from tree removal session, of which there are no photos. Soren, next time, don't let go of the kite.

Einar was able to figure out how to use
enough refrigerator magnets to hang the
Lego vehicle that he proudly built.

Emergency Room Visit

2011-06-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

It was a busy evening for us on Wednesday, because we were at church cooking for the weekly barbecue when Soren, somehow, cut his head on the sliding glass door frame. We rushed over to the hospital where Soren received 10 stitches. He was really worked up at first, and then slept while the medical staff worked on him. Everybody seems to have recovered and Soren will have his stitches out on Thursday.

In unrelated news, there was a deer sighted on our street one morning a couple of weeks ago.

The Best Mother's Day Gift Ever!

2011-05-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

At the age of three, Soren has given me the BEST Mother's Day gift ever--no more diapers to wash!!!!! Sunday was the first time that he went the entire day (including church and going to a movie in Marysville) wearing underwear and not getting them wet. Today he again went all day dry. The days of diapers are over!

Since February we've let him know that he will need to be wearing only underpants to go to preschool in the fall and it became even more imperative when I signed him up for summer swim lessons. The rules at that pool are that you have to be 3 and potty trained for the lessons. He started to see some value in going around without diapers when we put swimming lessons on the line. He is really enjoying the lessons that he is taking on Tuesdays and Thursdays and remembers Einar's outdoor lessons last summer.

So congratulations Soren on becoming a "Big Boy!" and entering the world of knowing where all of the bathrooms in all of the public places are found. We're excited to have you in the underpants club.

Birthdays, Lost Teeth, and a "New" Piano

2011-04-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Happy 40th Birthday to Jared!

Our "New" Piano

HappyBirthday to both Soren and Jared! Soren turned 3 on March 30th and Jared celebrated his 40th on April 12th. Lynn and Dennis came up to Bellingham on Jared's birthday for a yummy lamb dinner and then had an overnight so that they could walk Einar to school the next morning and see his kindergarten classroom. The following Saturday we went down to Seattle and celebrated with more of the family by serving 40 of each of the following: Ezell's

fried chicken, Larsen's pastries, baked humbow, steamed asparagus, vegetables on a platter, cups of coffee, and cans of sparkling water. All "Jared Foods."

Einar's first lost baby tooth.

Soren's Blue Monorail Cake for his 3rd Birthday Party.

Tonight, Einar lost his first baby tooth. Last Thursday night was the first time that we noticed that he had some loose teeth and it took just over the weekend for his tongue to push the first of them out. It happened about 9:45pm, just in time to put in place for the Tooth Fairy. Shortly after that he finally fell asleep for the night. He is still very much a nocturnal boy.

They are both very much enjoying their sleep these days in the morning. One Easter morning, one of those days when you'd expect an excited kid to pop out of bed at the crack of dawn, we had to rustle them both out of bed at 8 so that we wouldn't be late for church.

Celebrating being 3 with the cousins.

We celebrated GUS' birthday too. GUS stands for Great Uncle Steve.

For Soren's birthday bash he wanted to have a family party at Grandma and Grandpa's house so we combined one with GUS' since his is only 2 days after Soren's. He also wanted a blue monorail cake. I had been planning on getting away with cupcakes for the celebration, yet he kept saying that he wanted a blue monorail cake. It's hard to pass off cupcakes as a monorail. So I eventually came up with the idea of frosting twinkies and putting them on our existing toy monorail track and I think it

turned out really cool, if not so tasty for the over 6 crowd.

Here is Steve about to blow out the candles on his birthday pies. He always wants pie on his birthdays. Then it was Soren's turn at his three candles.

We also finally got the Bjorklund family piano moved up to Bellingham from Tacoma. This is the piano that my Grandpa Ed bought for his mom with his paper route money. My cousin Diana has given it a home for the past many years, but no longer had the space so had offered it to us. It took a year of pestering a local moving company that had given me a low-ball estimate, but they finally had space on a truck and delivered it on Jared's birthday. We are all pretty excited about giving it a home, just be advised to bring your earplugs with you if you come for a visit!

Blowing out Three Candles.

Catch-Up Time for the Blog

2011-02-18T01:02:00.000-08:00

Making breakfast form Mom.

Einar and Soren have become quite the team lately when they want to make breakfast. If they manage to both get out of bed before me (not an easy thing for a nocturnal boy like Einar) I can hear stools moving and cereal being poured. Perhaps I should be rethinking the gallon containers of milk that I purchase when I see Soren hefting out the milk from the refrigerator. On those mornings I must rush to the table to enjoy my special breakfast and my already milked cereal.

During Christmas break we also got the whole family to Mt. Baker for a day of skiing. It was the first time I'd been skiing since Einar was 2 and we went to Bend to celebrate with the Ogles. Soren and I were ski bunnies on the rope tow hill all day and Einar got a couple of runs with Jared on the big hills too. It was a gorgeous day and I got to enjoy the view even more after Soren finished his last run and said "Go home!" I convinced him that we had to wait for Jared and Einar and I held him outside on the patio. He promptly curled up on my lap and fell asleep! When it was time to go, we took off his rental boots and I carried him over my shoulder to the car. He slept all the way back to Bellingham.

Let's see, it's been awhile since I last posted. We have been keeping busy with school, work and general goofing off. Jared just got accepted into his elementary education program at Western and officially declared his major today as General Science Elementary Education! Einar is still enjoying kindergarten but has realized that it's not all play and recess and has said that it's a bit too much work at times. He just got his first report card and we are very proud of him. I'm back to working evenings again since school began again. At home we've been overrun by Legos and I even found a lego head in the dish drainer this morning. I've been impressed at the way that the boys have integrated all of the Legos with the train tracks and trains. Einar even made a train out of Legos that ran on the wooden tracks. I think if we were to find tons more Lego wheels, he would construct a huge Lego train.

Last Friday Einar turned 6 years old and we celebrated with his friends and four grandparents at our train birthday party here at the house. We ate a Daylight Steam engine cake (special request of the birthday boy) when everyone got here at 4 and then we played a memory game, a track building game, a mail sorting game, and pin the caboose/engineer/passenger on the train. I'm pretty sure that everyone had a good time and Einar came up to me 4x just to give me a hug during the party. He even said the cake was "AWESOME!" Awesome is getting lots of use in our house these days =).

All set for the slopes!

Soren getting in on the action at Mt. Baker too!

We hung out on the rope tow slope all day.

We're trying out our new lefse rolling board by making some flat bread.

This is a Dad approved activity while Mom was at work.

Happy Birthday Einar!

Daylight Steam Engine Birthday Cake, as requested.

Einar the goofy scientist.

See my tongue?

I'm ready for science!

After the first eruption, our volcano was looking "AWESOME!"

Now it's time to add the vinegar....

Add caption

Einar and cousin Sammy celebrating Matty's 2nd birthday.

First time on skis

2010-12-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Einar went skiing for the first time. Einar and Dad had a day out by themselves, and went up to Mt. Baker for some down hill time. There was a lot of falling down, but at the end of the day, when asked, "Is it better than Disneyland?" Einar said, "Yes!"

Snowy weekend weather

2010-11-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

It was the first snow of the season in Bellingham. Einar, Soren, Jared and Karla had a great time. There was also a lot of energy expended by the end of day on both Saturday and Sunday.

Halloween Costumes!

2010-11-21T18:37:00.000-08:00

Karla did a great job on costumes this year. Soren was a fire truck. Einar was a whale shark, so don't worry about being eaten.

A year ago this Monday...

2010-08-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

We moved into our house almost a year ago! However, if you want to see some of this last year's highlights just check out the other posts. We have enough photos to catch up on from the last three months.

Soren at the playground at Boxberry Farms.

Einar showing off his carrot picking skills at Boxberry farms.

The Einar Express zooms down the sidewalk!

Sammy and Einar at Alki Beach.

The giant's pizza oven across the street. (Just kidding. It's actually a lime kiln on San Juan Island that Jared visited while on a school field trip.)

We don't know what they were planning. We're not sure we want to know what they were planning.

Eating ice cream when you're two. That's the way you do it.

Rainbow at sunset. We had to go across the street and then face east to take the picture.

Over the past few months Einar finished Preschool and is now getting ready for Kindergarten. He has been getting ready for this by doing a lot of playing and drawing. He has also been doing some reading.

The good news with Soren is that he is starting to string two words together. The bad news is that most of the time he is saying, "no way," and, "knock, knock."

Einar Ditches His Training Wheels While I'm at Work Tonight

2010-05-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

In the half an hour after I left the house to go to work tonight, Einar rode his bike for the first time without training wheels! When I left it looked like the evening was going downhill fast with lots of crying, failed attempts to go to the park, and 5 year olds making bad choices. Jared creatively turned it all around with an impromptu "let's try this" activity and soon Einar was riding his bike down the sidewalk with the neighborhood kids cheering him on. Thankfully, our neighbor Chris was able to get these pictures for us.

Needless to say, when I left it felt like work was the best place I could have been going tonight, but it turns out that all sorts of great things were taking place while I was gone.

Can you select the nap skipper in this picture?

2010-04-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

If you selected Soren, you are correct! This was the dinner scene at our house, but it wasn't the food, because everybody else cleaned their plate, so it's all Soren.

(Karla is writing in Blue. Thanks Jared for updating the blog tonight after capturing such a great picture of Soren asleep at the table!) Well, I just got home from work and found out that this nap skipper and his brother were awake until 10 tonight and eventually had to be separated because they kept each other awake. I guess a little power nap at the dinner table only fueled the fire.

Unfortunately, it seems as if Soren won't be taking that afternoon nap nearly as long as Einar did. I shouldn't be too surprised though since Einar still sleeps in until 10am (like he did this morning) and Soren is ready to go most mornings at 7am sharp. Completely different kids.

Over the past couple of days there has also been a ferry ride to Lummi Island, running through the sprinklers, and other fun activities.

Ferry rides can start off as a bus ride. On Tuesday we rode the number 50 bus as far as it would take us to Gooseberry Point. Then we hopped on the little ferry that would take us to Lummi Island.

At the ferry terminal

Soren hanging out at the beach.

Einar playing in the sand.

Wet after a little sprinkler action across the street.

R.J, Gabe, and Einar doing some gardening work. I paid these gardeners with fresh peanut butter cookies. I think perhaps they got the best end of this deal since I still will have to go out there and finish up the job =). At least I got to eat some of the cookies too!

Einar and Soren helping Jared with his homework. Jared actually had a physics homework assignment where he had to figure out stuff based on a 35lb kid and a 50lb kid swinging. That is exactly what the boys weigh right now so he took them to the park and took pictures of them swinging and include the pictures in his project. I hope he gets extra credit for including accurate models!

Vancouver, Birthday and Easter

2010-04-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

The family went up to the Vancouver Aquarium and had a fun morning. There was plenty to see and all of the viewing areas were great for small people, like Soren, and everybody else, too. Afterwards, it was off to Ikea for lunch and some shopping, then a return to Bellingham.

Soren turned 2 this last Tuesday! Below is him receiving the royal treatment for the morning.

He is also happy to display his new Tonka Fire Engine, which big brother Einar was happy to help unwrap.

Soren had his 2 year doctor's check-up on Friday and he is measuring in at 3 feet tall! Good thing Einar still has a whole foot on him. For now.

Today is Easter Sunday, and in celebration, the guys went to church nicely coordinated, but not exactly matching.

Winter in Bellingham Not So Bad Thanks to This Year's El Nino

2010-03-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been four months since my last posting and I apologize to all my neglected blog readers for my absence. Much has happened in that time with major holidays, me going back to work, Jared finishing up his first quarter, and just continuing to explore our new surroundings.

Yes, I did go back to work before Thanksgiving. I'm a barista at the Sehome Village drive-thru Starbucks working about 25 hours per week. My availability is based on Jared's school schedule so that he can watch the boys while I'm at work. Going back to Starbucks was a great choice for me so far. I'm working in a busy store for a manager that I knew when I was in Fremont, we get a pound of coffee a week and a great discount go take everyone out for coffee on our walks and errands too. I also get to see other people besides this crew here at home and Jared has been doing an awesome job juggling childcare and his studies. Did I mention that I started my job about 2 weeks before his finals and he still managed to get 3 A's and a B?

We had a quiet Thanksgiving here with just the 4 of us since my family was scared away at the last moment by our never-ending plague. The boys and I had finally recovered, but Jared was fighting off a scratchy throat. Tor and Jess had good reason to stay away and be healthy because Jess is pregnant with twins now!

December was quite nice with Jared off from school for most of the month and doing lots of the cooking and laundry. Good break for Karla.

Let's see......Einar turned 5 in February! He is growing most nights while he is asleep he says. We've seen it in his height as we measure him whenever we visit Grandma and Grandpa and I'm also convinced that he is growing more wrinkles in that brain of his as measured by his ever more sophisticated word choices and his improving penmanship and reading capabilities.

Soren turns two at the end of the month and is a big fan of the word "No" of course. He also likes to flash his big smile and let everyone know that "it's all about ME!"

Now for some pictures......

Halloween and a trip to Seattle

2009-11-04T23:57:00.000-08:00

While we were in Seattle for Sammy's 4th birthday party, my friend Jennifer came up and spent Saturday morning with me and the boys. We walked around Greenlake and Einar rode around the whole thing on his bike! Here she is with the horse and elephant.

Minus a really cool turban for Prince Ali Ababwa, this is us all dressed up as the Bellingham royal family. Soren is Abu the elephant and I'm Cinderella with Einar as my pet horse. I'm having fun with my sewing machine and was excited to get some use out of my old Marine Corps Ball dress that I bedazzled with some sleeves, peplums and silver trimming.

Einar asked me last week what a troll was so I had to take him by the Fremont Troll while we were in town. There was no way Einar was going to get out of the car to take a picture with the troll and I don't think it was because it was raining outside.

Jared spearheaded the pumpkin carving this year with great success. The one on the right-hand side was "radioactive" and had a red bike light inside to light it up. Einar was his enthusiastic carving sidekick. However there were kids playing outside while they were carving at the kitchen table and Einar kept taking "play breaks" and running outside without a sweatshirt.

I appointed myself in charge of window decorations and painted these pumpkins. Through the front door you can see our Delta Clay colored wall that looks oddly seasonal. Now that the pumpkins are down, I need to seriously consider proper window treatments. Einar helped me paint the little one on the far left. Perhaps we'll do a little turkey finger painting for November...

On Halloween night I dressed as a magic carpet (Cinderella wouldn't be dressed warm enough for trick-or-treating) and took the boys out for a traipse through our new neighborhood. Einar's appraisal of the evening was "That was so much fun! Halloween is much more fun than time-out!" He also made out like a bandit as you can see in the following photo:

Now that the excitement of Halloween is over and the costumes are at least out of site (I haven't found a proper place yet for all of them) we have things like H1N1 to deal with on the home front.

The boys got sick on Monday night with fevers and sore throats and we're still in isolation. All three of us did get the vaccination last Wednesday, but didn't have time to build up the antibodies fully. At least they seem to have mild cases and are mostly on the mend. We've been watching a bit more tv than usual. Lots of Dinosaur train and Sesame Street. Tomorrow I am going to have to get them out of the house for a car or stroller ride just for a change of pace. Tensions were running a bit high while I was making dinner tonight and I had to shake things up a bit and take Einar on a laundry folding mission and teach him how to sort the clean clothes and fold socks in order to avoid more trouble.

August and September Wrap-up

2009-11-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

We made lots of great stops along the way from CA to WA (why won't this underline blue thing go away?!?!?!) The Reagan library where we saw Air Force ONe and got to go on board for a tour; Monterey Bay and it's fabulous aquarium; Gardnerville , NV where we reconnected with our friends Chuck and Darlene and hit the hot springs in Markleeville; San Francisco and some time with the Fenells; and we even got to drive through some great big redwood trees! The carseats started to feel like our home, but it was sure good to make it to Bellingham and out of the car.Then there was the ice cream and grilled cheese sandwiches in Tillamook. We could have had all 38 flavors, but we had to make some room for lunch at Bob's Red Mill.
Soren did get his first haircut finally and for all of you who were worried about losing the curls, not to worry, it was just a trim. (hey, how did the underline and black disappear? The next blog better go better in its production). Once we were in Bellingham, we opted to do more getting around with our feet and bicycles. The boys however think that I ride my bike too slowly on the way home as compared to Dad.

Jared has a new red rain coat and I snapped a photo of him on one of his first days of school. He's got a new uniform now that includes colored t-shirts and jeans. He's also added a beard and is looking great!

Bellingham Bay is beautiful when I get to see it. I don't head down to that part of town much and neither am I on to many hills to see the view. I do walk the boys downtown once in awhile and the other day we even saw some big old salmon swimming up the ladder.

You'd think by the looks of Einar's face that Rocket Donuts are horrible, but then you see his plate and his donut is long gone. I think I caught him just in the middle of one of his crazy smiles. That morning I'd packed them up in the bike trailer and rode them downtown to the library to check out some more books and then to Rocket Donuts before heading back home. On the way home Einar asked why we weren't going as fast as Dad up the hill. I guess less donuts and more exercise for Mom.

Soren says "Boo!"

2009-11-01T21:37:00.001-08:00

Here is an up-to-date (tonight at dinner folks!) video of Soren playing his favorite game.

We're Finally Surfacing in Bellingham...

2009-09-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

I guess that when you don't do anything on the computer for a month that you can expect some changes, but I apologize that I'm not adapting to the new blogger photo uploading and posting in a smoother way. We've got lots and lots of photos to share from our coastal road trip, our move, and our new home in Bellingham, but this posting is just a little teaser for you and a chance for me to get in the swing of things again. These pictures are mostly of us when the place was empty and we did all of our painting. We have painted our bedroom (evening glow yellow), the boys' room (Thar She Blows Blue), the hallway, living room, dining area and kitchen (Apple Crunch beige), our living and dining accent wall (Delta Clay orange) and our kitchen cabinets (Delta Blue). Thank goodness we planned to do all of this before our stuff came or we still might have white walls only. We really like the colors that we chose and it makes the place feel much more homey. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for all of the painting help!

Einar also had his first day of preschool on the day that the movers showed up with our belongings. He now goes to school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. The school is a short drive away and we see not only a Rhino (statue) but also three horses on the way there. At the moment, Einar is the only one with any type of a schedule to keep. Jared doesn't start his classes or even register at Western until next week. Until we figure out classes and schedules, part time jobs are a little hard to look for so I'm enjoying my "vacation" still.

On Tuesday the new washer and dryer arrived so we can do laundry at home now. Soren really likes watching the clothes spin around in the front loading machines. Thankfully they come with kid locks so he can't do his own laundry. He's now back to wearing his cloth diapers again too so he no longer has the slim look.

Yesterday TV, computer and telephone was installed. The reviews are still out on the new DVR, but the internet is sure quick. Well, I'm off to make myself a turkey sandwich so that we can rid our bikes downtown to the train museum and scout out one of the potential dr. offices. It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow so we've gotta get out and enjoy the sun while we can. I'm sure my sun bank account is already on the decline.

Still Having Lots of Adventures in California...

2009-08-05T21:42:00.001-07:00

...and some of them are wearing Soren out! Here he is passed out in the jogging stroller after a great morning at Sunset Park where we had one last big park day with our San Clemente friends before our move at the end of next week.

I strapped his "get-away" car onto the stroller so that he could zoom around the park this morning. He zipped and zoomed for about 5 minutes and then gave the car up to his buddy Zach. I think he realized that he could ride his car at home and there were slides and sand to be had at the park. About 40 minutes before we left he decided he was through and climbed back up into the stroller with a water and a juice and pretty much hung out there until we were ready to leave.

Soren, me, and Kathleen at Sunset Park this morning for our going away party with our MOMS club friends.

Kathleen snapping a photo of the fun morning a the park this morning. I will definitely miss her and my other San Clemente friends once we move. I'm trying not to think about that right now.

Snacking under the play structure with Nathan. The kids were smart and found some good shade for their plum and muffin break.

An action shot with Nathan. The big stick was taken away shortly thereafter.

At Sunset Park this morning, Einar is on the look-out for his friends. He is his own fashion consultant and rocks the snap shirt, orange t-shirt knit baggy shorts and brown socks look.

Tired out again. "Can't my mom make it home in time for me to take a nap in my own bed?"

Einar in his dress-up duds. The cowboy boots are fancy, but the tie makes the outfit.

Despite his reputation for being the dirtiest little kid most have ever seen, Soren is thrilled when he is occasionally cleaned up.

This is a boy who was finally let in on the family secret that we have a hot tub on our back patio. We've kept it from him for the past 4 years because it's pretty dangerous having a hot tub around the kids especially since it doesn't have a locking cover. It's pretty old school and we've only used it periodically. Since we are leaving and Einar started asking a few more questions about the big thing in the back yard, we finally let him in on both the secret and into the hot tub.

Enjoying a soak with Jared in the hot tub. Notice his little pony tail on the top of Einar's head. We call it a whale spout and he loves to sport a whale spout these days.

Looking down on the guys from the upstairs patio.

Soren loves popcorn just like the rest of us. Here he is watching CARS with Einar and Reeder while eating popcorn and drinking milk. His buddy Hayes had already been asleep for at least an hour and a half. Soren is always up for a party.

Einar doesn't like to miss out on anything either, but sometimes when he is trying so hard to stay awake at night, he falls asleep on the hallway floor. Jared took advantage of the situation and took a couple of good shots of him asleep. Thanks Jared!

While my folks were down visiting we went to SeaWorld one day and really had a great time. Here they are with Jared on one of the first boat rides of the day. We all got really wet riding, but it was so refreshing on such a hot day. Soren was the only one who wasn't able to ride, but he had fun watching us float on by.

Riding the SeaWorld rapids.

Einar and Soren looking for Jared, Grandpa, and Grandma on the river rafting ride.

Jared and I finally made it to see Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach a couple of weeks ago. They put on a huge show using hundreds of volunteers as props and recreate masterpieces from the ages. It was fantastic and definitely a fun date night.

From the parking lot to the venue you get to ride trolley cars. I snapped this shot for Einar so that he could see the neat trolley car that we rode.

Soren still likes to eat, particularly if there is a fork to practice his skills. Even oatmeal can be eaten with a fork.

Einar and Reeder walking back to the cars after seeing Sparkles the Clown at one of the base community centers. She put on a super show with magic tricks, balloon animals and bubbles. The kids of all ages were enthralled. After this we went to the library and then had lunch at the brand-new Johnny Rockets on base down where Jared works.

These California ground squirrels are some of the fattest that you ever will see. Every time that Grandpa Lee comes down for a visit I try to get him down to the view point on I-5 to feed them peanuts. Grandpa Lee and squirrels have a special affinity that can't be denied. This particular one is storing peanuts in his cheeks until he had room for no more and scampered away.

They approach without much caution, as do the seagulls. Einar was the only one who chose to wear cowboy boots and I think that he made a wise decision.

They've got the peanuts and are ready to go. I wore sandals that day so I was in charge of the photos. The last thing that I wanted was to have my toes mistaken for peanuts.

Einar really likes Cotton Candy-flavored ice cream from Wholesome Choice Market in Santa Ana (how that is an wholesome choice, I haven't a clue). I really like the Sangak there as well as the Byblos yogurt, and the deli, and the fruits and vegetable selection, and the fresh meats, and the cheeses, and the--well you get the picture.

Till next time.....

A visit to the Fire Fighters at Camp Pendleton

2009-07-10T19:31:00.001-07:00

This is as close as we got to a group picture from our great morning on base. Hailey and Nathan Cobb are playing with us today and on Monday since their mom, Kathleen is in San Francisco this weekend walking the AVON walk for breast cancer. I wanted to plan something fun for the day so we made cookies after breakfast, met Marianne and the kids at the base library for story time, and then took the cookies to the fire station in area 52. The guys there were super appreciative as they whisked all those cookies into their kitchen and then they pulled one of the engines out of the garage so that we could get a better look. The ambulance was opened up and became a mini classroom for the kids and no one wanted to leave. We ended up eating our picnic lunch behind the station on their picnic table. It was a great day!

Here is Soren in the back of the ambulance looking more like a patient perhaps with foot trouble than anything else. I think he was missing his morning nap.

Get Ready Camp Pendleton, there is a newly trained and highly enthusiastic group of paramedics that is ready for their first shift at Firehouse #7. (Their moms are enthusiastic too when we heard that shifts are 72 hours long--"We'll pick you up on Tuesday morning!") They all were figuring out what all of the equipment in the back of the ambulance is for and they got to hear their own hearts beating as well.

Where is the next emergency? Firefighter Einar is ready for duty!

Here Reeder, Nathan, and Hailey are checking out the ambulance cab.

Looking more awake here, Soren looks around for someone to reach the pedals for him while he drives the engine to the fire. A dalmation would come in handy for this job and would also appreciate the crumbs that can always be found under Soren.

Nathan and Einar in the fire engine.

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

2009-07-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

Fireworks are hard to take pictures of, but Einar never tires of taking pictures of his rock collection. He keeps it by the front door and deposits the cool rocks that he brings home from his walks there upon his return. He even brought the neighbor over on Saturday to see his collection. I'm sure she recognized some of the specimens from her own front yard.

Here are the boys all dressed up to see the fireworks. Jared and I got the pajamas on them and then Einar added the neckties and cowboy boots. Adding a necktie spiffies up any outfit. I think it's kind of like when little girls add those frilly petticoats to any outfit.

We are fortunate to have the best place ever to see fireworks from just by going to the top of the neighborhood. Once you are there you have a panoramic view of San Clemente and Dana Point so you can see not only those municipal firework shows, but you can also see the ones that the Ritz shoots off from their resort at the north end of Dana Point. It's not crowded, the people who live up there blast patriotic music during the show, and it takes only 30 seconds to drive back home afterwards. Since the sun sets early here in Southern California, the fireworks start at 9pm.
To get to the top of the hill, the Cobb Family picks us up in their Ola Truck a.k.a. big gray Suburban that could fit a family of 15. Einar loves riding in the Ola Truck with Nathan and Hailey!

Jared and Soren going back home after a great fireworks show. Soren was really into the whole thing this year. Last year he was asleep in his sling the whole night. This time he sat on our laps and ooohed and aaahed just like the rest of us.

Camp Outs and the San Diego County Fair

2009-07-03T21:53:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon we went with our friends Marianne, Reeder, and Hayes to the Del Mar Fair a.k.a. The San Diego County Fair. It is at the same place that they have the horse races the rest of the year (have never been to those, though). It was a blast! Einar and Reeder got to ride an elephant. In the pictures they are the two on the very back with the big grins. There were of course tons of other rides to choose from, but the elephants were the ones that really got the kids interested. Who wouldn't want to ride on an elephant?

The elephants are from an elephant ranch in Perris, CA (who knew there were elephants out there with the train museum and all of the houses with extra cars on their front yards?).

We also saw a turkey stampede, a camel being milked by the only camel dairy owners in North America, and a bunch of San Diego police vehicles. They had even built a pirate ship to climb on and take your picture on to get the word out about anti-piracy of music and movies laws.

Soren loves animals. Here he is in the petting farm in the Agri-barn. We saw goats, pigs, sheep, cows, baby chickens and turkeys at the fair. We missed the worm races by a couple of hours, which I regret. I wish I knew what that was like. I might just have to host some worm races of our own here at home with my red wigglers....

Hello goat!
Einar participated in a squash throwing competition and got a ribbon and a round of applause. He and I also got ribbons from our participation in a hula hoop contest. You might have guessed that all particpants got ribbons and you would be correct. They certainly didn't hand them out based on our mastery of the hula hoop.

This fair is also known for its crazy food--everything deep-fried from avacados, twinkies, frog legs, white castle burgers, smores, to the newest addition this year: a hollowed out zuchini stuffed with a hot dog, battered, and deep-fried called the zuchini wiennie. We didn't try those but we did try the chocolate covered bacon and that was pretty tasty.

Last Saturday was national camp out day so we set up the two person tent out on our upstairs balcony. Einar and I slept out there under the stars and had a really nice camp out. Soren played around in there while we were setting it up, but he slept in his own crib. The blow up mattress made it extra comfy.

Clean Teeth, Mission visits and Jane Wayne Day

2009-06-18T08:36:00.001-07:00

Soren had his first visit to the dentist last Wednesday and here he is afterwards in his car seat playing with the bracelet that he chose from the prize drawer. Sorry, no pictures of him getting his teeth cleaned because he was on my lap leaning backwards onto the lap of the hygienist and then the dentist for his check-up. No crying for him. Einar's visit was first so we watched big brother hop up into the chair and open wide and Soren just went right along.

Bright lights for the little guy, but he didn't even notice since he was riveted to The Incredibles that was playing on the screen over his head and coming through on his headphones. Things are looking good in there, we just need to brush for the full 2 minutes 2X/day.

Einar posing in a doorway at the San Juan Capistrano Mission on Friday last week. I don't know of many people who wear cowboy boots with athletic shorts, but Einar is always out to set new fashion trends. The device hanging around his neck is my audio tour for the mission that he high-jacked right from the get-go. He found most of the numbered signs that let you know which button to push for the information and he kept up with the tour. His biggest learning was that 40 people died in the earthquake that brought down the big stone church. He's been curious about death lately and the cemetery also brought some questions at the mission.

Lots of big koi live in this pond at the mission.

The gardens are beautiful here. In the background is the ruins of the big stone church that was destroyed in an earthquake on Easter Sunday not long after it was constructed.

The three of us in the big stone church. Paula took our picture for us.

Paula and Einar off on a little exploring adventure at the mission. She came down to visit us one more time before we move and we sure kept her busy the whole weekend. We went to the Mission on Friday, did Jane Wayne Day on Saturday, Disneyland after church on Sunday, and wine tasting in Temecula on Monday.

Reeder and Einar welcoming home the "Mommy Troops" after our live fire exercise during Jane Wayne day at the School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton. They are climbing around on a light armored vehicle (LAV) that they insisted was a tank. Marianne's husband Clint invited Paula and I to join in the Jane Wayne day for wives and family members to get a taste of what it's like to be a marine. Thanks Clint!

This isn't us during the live fire exercise, but we went next shooting off the M-16's. They outfitted us in Flak jackets and helmets that we wore around all morning. Being a Marine is pretty dirty and not so comfortable with all of the heavy equipment and tight places to ride around in. We definitely gained a new appreciation for Jared's career these past 20 years!

Practicing in my simulation rounds. I got some pretty good marks during this practice.

Here is the LAV that we rode around in after our obstacle course.

I did make it over the wall after using a loose board as a stair on the other side. Most of the rest of the obstacle course was too much of an obstacle to take very seriously.
Should we be smiling while practicing our punches?

Paula made it over the wall too. There was a lot more smiling and giggles while we were doing these things than when real marines go through the activities.

You are actually supposed to be on top of the bars not just hanging from them like you see me doing.

One leg over, hey, is that a marine pushing me up on the other side? Maybe you can't see him since he's wearing camouflage.

Painting our faces and preparing for the day. We used a slightly different color palette than our typical daily compact holds.

Running the Combat Fitness Test (CFT). Push-ups, grenade throwing, sprinting, crawling (Soren would have aced that part!) and ammo can lifts. Our course was modified and it still kicked our butts. I didn't mind the ammo can lifts though since I've been lifting up Soren like that a lot.

Riding off in the LAVs.

Marianne, Paula and I in our marine duds with big grins on our faces.

More Bellingham Adventures

2009-06-10T06:21:00.001-07:00

Last week we flew up to Washington to get serious about our house hunt in Bellingham. Our move is scheduled for the third week of August and we wanted to have something secured by the time we got there so that we wouldn't have to live out of suitcases in a motel room for a few weeks.

Einar was very excited about the trip up because we got to fly on a little Horizon plane instead of the usual Alaska plane. That was the first thing he told Grandpa when we arrived atSeaTac. I thought Horizon was pretty nice because they offered free wine and beer.

On our way up to Bellingham the following morning, we dropped Einar off at Poppa and Farmor's house where he stayed for two nights. He played with the electric train, outside in the dirt, and had an especially good time chasingFarmor with the hose and getting her really wet. Thankfully Seattle was having a heat wave last week and it was in the 80's while we were there. He also went down toAlki to play with his cousins Matty and Sammy.

Soren, however, got to stay with Mom and Dad and go house hunting in Bellingham. We saw 19 houses that day between 10am and 4pm! He is quite adept now at testing out a place. There were only a couple places where he didn't get to try out the floor. It seems like a lot of places to keep straight, but since we'd already spent so much time on theInternet checking things out and looking at whatever pictures had been posted about the places, it was easier than you might think. We were pretty quick in making our first impressions and really didn't want to have to do too much work to the place before we moved in, eliminating many of the properties in our price range.

Long story short, we bought our first home in the Columbia neighborhood of Bellingham. Being close to Western, downtown, the waterfront, parks, the grocery store and 4 blocks from a great elementary school are the biggest perks to our new place. It also has a fenced in back yard for the kids to go crazy outside. It has three bedrooms and one bathroom and is just about 1000 sq ft. Smaller than we were hoping for, but location won out over square footage and amenities this time around. Now it's time to start planning what to get rid of around here before we make the big move so we can fit into our new home.

Our new bathroom on Kulshan street.

Our kitchen. The appliances are on the other side.

Einar went up on Saturday with Jared and Poppa for the house inspection to check it all out and choose his bedroom. Here he is showing where the washer and dryer will go in the kitchen.

In front of our new home!

Here Soren is rearranging the pine cone decorations in the hotel lobby while we were doing more house stuff online. He was such a good house hunting kid!

Our new kitchen sink.

Brand new appliances.

Soren roaming around and checking things out.

Fenced in back yard with a nice 10 by 10 shed out back. I hear that you can chickens in Bellingham too.

A cute little bush that is in the front. It might be a smaller relative of Tor and Jess' fry-guy tree that they have at their place.

Exercise Ogle Family Style

2009-05-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

Here is Einar's new bicycle. It fits his long legs a whole lot better than his little bikes. However when we bought it from the neighbors it didn't have training wheels. I was super excited when I found a pair of training wheels at a garage sale (pink even!) and put them on when I got home. He then sat down to ride it and said "Mom, I'm not going anywhere." We tried a whole bunch of different things to make them work, but the training wheels are just for a bigger bike. Now he rides it while watching his television show and his favorite place to ride his new exercise bike is out on the patio looking out over the ocean.

Einar and Reeder astride "Joan" and "Bugsy" at Stepp Stables at Camp Pendleton.

"Joan" wasn't really a pony, she was a pretty big horse for a little guy to ride. She also didn't want to go around the trail so much and I had to put my whole body into tugging her forward on occasion.

Here come the cowboys. We totally dressed for the pony rides last week. We all wore our jeans and cowboy boots and hats. It was fun to actually wear my cowboy boots around a horse!

This is Joan the horse. I got to lead her and Einar around the Pony trails down at the stables on base last week. "Giddy-up, Joan!"

Soren has been getting around the playground like a pro lately. He really likes slides and I managed to catch this shot as he was coming down. I think I surprised him. He also has taken 3 steps now and has 11 teeth!

Last Dance Class, Medieval Times, and Walks along the Ocean

2009-05-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

On Mondays we've been going to a store called Reptropolis on the way home from Einar's Dance class. They have turtles, snakes, lizards, birds, a rabbit, and a big iguana named Joker. The boys really like seeing all of the creatures and we don't have to have them as pets, we can just visit them.

This is a cool picture, but it's really not what it looks like. Although Einar has been learning ballet, tap and jazz, he hasn't been practicing picking up the girls in his routines. This is just an illusion. He does look like he's having a good time though!

Ballet is what he likes the best. On Monday he had his last class and all of the parents were able to stay and watch. Usually we just have to drop him off and pick him up 45 minutes later. Definitely world class entertainment for parents. They jumped, boogied, slithered like snakes, walked, twirled, and shook out their sillies.

This is their first position in ballet.

Stretching out and "eating peanut butter sandwiches."

ON Saturday we went to Medieval Times in Buena Park for dinner with our friends the Fenells. Jared had put this destination down on our "things to do before moving" list and we thought it would be fun to do with another family. We all had a great time! By the end of the show Soren was really getting into the cheering. We were each given flags to wave to support our Blue Knight and after he sucked on it for awhile, he started to wave it around. He kept his eyes on the arena for most of the show. I think he liked the horses a lot.

Here is Maddox, Einar and Zachary at the table rooting for the Blue Knight. We each were given one napkin and one napkin only and no silverware. For dinner we had Tomato soup, garlic bread, chicken, ribs, half a potato, and an apple turnover. Einar is still talking about drinking soup.

"Go Blue Knight!"

Nobleman Jared looked dashing in his crown.

Daggers, swords, shields, and other medieval weapons all available in this shop in the "castle."

The boys were keen on checking out all of the swords and daggers in this little store.

Young sire Soren was the fairest of the land. He kept his crown on for most of the evening!

When we got our tickets for the Medieval Times they recommended that we show up early for the pre-show "activities." I'm pretty sure that the "activities" that she was talking about were the numerous gift shops with all sorts of neat things for the kids to look at!

Last Saturday we went to South Coast Farms and picked some strawberries. Kathleen, Nathan and Hailey joined the boys and I on our picking adventure. Between Einar and I we plucked about 1 and half pounds of berries. It was enough for an experience and for some yummy berries after lunch. On the way out, we saw a red Tesla in the parking lot that we had to take a picture of. We don't see this kind of car everyday. Kathleen is outside of the car snapping a photo with her cell phone too. I wonder how many pounds of strawberries you can fit in the trunk of a Tesla? Do Tesla's have trunks?

Hi Mom! Have you seen me drive my car? Can you pick me up too? Then I've gotta get back to the car.

Here I come!

I can't believe how fast Soren is growing (or crawling towards me). Although he's taken about a step and a half on his own, Soren still is not in any hurry to start walking since he has mastered this crawling thing.

In and out, in and out....Soren's favorite part about driving the Fred Flinstone car.

This is a picture of our garbage truck as it picked up our recycling last Thursday. We still stalk the garbage truck when it's in the neighborhood and now Soren is in on the action as seen in the following photo. Einar now has a chore that helps "Team Ogle" function smoothly. He is responsible for making sure that the recycling is taken out to the bin when it gets full. In our house that needs to be done about every other day. Sometimes he asks for help with the lid on the big bin in the garage, but he's been known to take it out all by himself even when it might take him 2 or 3 trips to get it all emptied out. It's a great help!

"Einar, Nice tie! You look great today!" We heard a lot of comments like that when I dropped him off at preschool last Thursday. I guess he is now tall enough to not only get his socks and underwear out of the top dresser drawer, but also to root around in his "accessories." I didn't see the outfit I chose until he ran out to the car to go to school.

Although it is usually cloudy during the morning due to May Grey, it is perfect for walks along the ocean. Last Thursday after I took Einar to school, Soren and I walked along the San Clemente coast on the beach trail. I walked the whole thing and the Pier with him in the stroller which is about 5 miles. He fell asleep after about the first 2 miles and had a good snooze. From the Pier you can look back at San Clemente and if you are lucky you can see one of the Metrolink or Amtrak trains zoom along the coast.

This is definitely used to people and paparazzi. There were about 4 of us taking pictures of it on the San Clemente Pier last Thursday morning. I didn't have to use my zoom much to catch this shot. Soren was asleep in the stroller by this stage on our walk.

National Train Day and a trip to Point Loma

2009-05-09T21:46:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Our Savior's Lutheran Church, we have a new family picture. As those of you who just got our 2008 Christmas card in the mail, the kids are growing like crazy and my hair is getting longer. Last Sunday they snapped this photo of us for their new directory and surprised us with a copy of it in an email.

Today was National Train Day and although we didn't go to Los Angeles for our "local" celebration, we did go to San Juan Capistrano and eat a yummy breakfast in a train car at the Vintage restaurant. This place is right next to the train tracks/station and is a steak house that is also open for breakfast and lunch and part of the restaurant is two train cars that have been turned into dining rooms. Einar ordered pancakes and a scrambled egg. I had eggs benedict the traditional way and Jared had his with ham, gruyere cheese and sauted mushrooms. Soren had a piece of toast with butter and jam and some of Einar's eggs. It was all really good and lots of fun to eat a fancy meal in a train car.

After breakfast we walked around the building to see the trains and visit with a horse named Popcorn. Then it was off to Point Loma for a family adventure day.

"Hey, do you hear the ocean?" Here we are at Sunset Cliffs Natural park over looking the Pacific Ocean in Point Loma. Point Loma is the northern point of San Diego Bay. There were lots of surfers enjoying the waves down at the bottom of the cliffs. There is a National cemetery there as well as a National Monument to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the Portuguese explorer who sailed under the Spanish flag and was the first European on the shores of California. He only made it to the Channel Islands off of Santa Barbara before he injured himself, contracted gangrene and died, but he did claim this part of the world for Spain in the process.

This is looking out over San Diego. We saw a couple of Navy jets fly over and lots of sailboats today from the point. There was a marine layer that kept threatening to limit the view, but it didn't block the sunshine too much and we had a lovely day.

Heading down to the water (we didn't make it that far since it was high tide and we don't surf yet). Don't jump Einar!

Visiting with a 17 year-old horse named Popcorn at the San Juan Capistrano train depot.

"When will I be big enough for my parents to order me my own meal and not just a piece of toast?"

Here are the guys just after the breakfast came. Check out the size of the pancakes! He ate all but a few bites of them.

Soren can now open the many doors that we have in our house with French doorknobs. Here he is reaching for the handle and letting himself in from the deck. The picture is kind of cloudy since our door is so dirty. It's kind of hard to keep glass clean with a toddler and a preschooler going in and out all of the time with their sticky, grimy hands.

"Watch out, here I come!"

Fun With Chalk Festival in Mission Viejo

2009-05-04T00:11:00.001-07:00

This weekend we went to the 11th Annual Fun with Chalk festival in Mission Viejo two times. On Saturday morning I took the boys there after I had read a short notice about the festival in the Weekender newspaper. Jared had been wanting to spend the whole day scrapbooking so the rest of us left him with his photos and need to document. (He created a scrapbook with all of the highlights of his 20 year Marine Corps career and it looks great!)

On our first visit, the artists were just starting their creations. The whole parking lot at the community center was sectioned off into various sized rectangles and folks were busy planning out the drawings. You could see those that were quick and others who took a slower pace at the project. Einar had fun watching and checking it out, but he really liked the kettle corn that we shared and the fantastic playground that is behind the playground. On our walk back to the car he mentioned that he wanted to bring Jared back there on Sunday to see the chalk and the big slides.

I'm so glad that we managed to get back there this evening after we finished our yummy dinner (thanks Jared!). The festival was over and cleared out, but the drawings were all intact and spectacular. I've posted lots of pictures because they photographed quite well. Enjoy!

Easter and time-outs

2009-04-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the bed invaders caught red-handed. We don't exactly know when Einar slipped in next to me and Soren came in when he woke up at around 5:30. He just wanted a fresh diaper and some more milk to get him through until it was wake-up time. On most mornings, Soren is a pretty good alarm clock because he wakes up for good at 7:30am. It's a good thing that we don't have a dog because our Queen-sized bed just wouldn't be big enough!

Things are getting messy around our table now that Soren wants to use the spoon and feed himself. Unless he is really hungry he won't let me shovel it into his mouth anymore. Maybe we do need a dog to help with all of the food on the floor.

Mommy left for an evening for a PTF meeting and a massage and Daddy got the kids to bed or at least to sleep. They had lots of fun playing trains. Soren even had his own tracks and engines in his pack and play.

A bit of hot chocolate to start the evening out right.

Soren with his tracks and trains. He was let out to play with the big boys once the train tracks were all constructed.

These are the two animals that grew out of the eggs that the boys got for Easter. They kind of look like they could glow in the dark because they are so bright.

Can we rent the neighbor's dog?

What?!?!?! There seems to be foil on my chocolate egg!!!

Soren really likes chocolate and couldn't wait to take the wrappers off before he started in on his Easter candy.

"What is in here?"

Looking through the Easter bunny loot.

These are the eggs that housed the alligator and dinosaur. Here they are submerged in water.

"Look, Mom. Einar is sleeping, can I wake him up?" Good luck Soren, Einar had passed out while he was sick and almost missed his dinner. I don't think even screeching by the "Eaglet" would have woken him up that night.

Soren's first time out. He came up to me and bit me in the leg while I was on the computer.

Visit with Poppa and Farmor

2009-04-08T10:06:00.001-07:00

Poppa and Farmor came down on Soren's birthday to celebrate his first year and spend a week with us in sunny southern CA. Seattle has been so cold this winter that a little bit of thawing out was in order. While they were here we went to both California Adventure and Disneyland, a day trip to Temecula, hung out with sickies and gave Lynn the crud in the process, visited the art fair in Downtown San Clemente, and even managed to have a family picture taken of all 6 of us on Sunday after church. It was a really nice week!

Einar got to go to a birthday party for Claire, one of his classmates. He had a blast at the backyard bash playing with his buddy Nicholas. They especially enjoyed taking time out in the porch swing and eating popcorn together.

Jared and Soren in New Orleans Square in Disneyland. We went there on Friday afternoon and evening.
Einar and I had about an hour by ourselves in the park while Jared took his folks and Soren to see Jedi Training academy and Astroblasters. He and rode the big train, went to the Tiki Room, rode Alice in Wonderland, and scouted out dinner places.

He rode in the front of the caterpillar all by himself through Alice in Wonderland. Check out that profile!

We said good-bye to Einar's Lightening McQueen shoes this week. There were some tears, but I took a picture of them for him to remember.

Two-day Adventure to Port Huenume and Soren's First Birthday Bash

2009-03-29T22:20:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Soren! Here is the little guy being put back into his high chair after he tried an alternate method for blowing out his candle--the touch method. It was quite successful at extinguishing the flame, but it surprised him and definitely brought on some tears. No burn resulted, thankfully.

Yum-ba! Banana cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting. He even got to use a fork to use and you can see how proud he is of this new implement.

Soren seems to be spell-bound by cameras much of the time so we get a lot of pictures of this stare.

Here it is, the banana cake with the chocolate cream cheese frosting shaped like a number one. It is very delicious and we enjoyed some more of it last night with our dinner. Einar picked the flowers from our yard to decorate the cake tray. If you like corner pieces with frosting, this is a good shape for a cake to be. It was also really easy to slice.

Dinner was a success too with beef tri-tip, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green salad.

On Sunday while I went to a baby shower in Encinitas with a friend of ours, Jared stayed home with the FOUR kids. After making pizza for lunch they spent much of their time outside in the garage and along the side of the house riding bikes, playing with sidewalk chalk and playing t-ball.

"I see you Mom." How many pictures do you need of me eating this dinner?"

Jared, Molly (age 3), Einar (age 4), Jacob (age 6). Hey, where is Soren?

Here we are all together with someone else available to take our picture.

Look, a little bit of a belly (although it might just be muscle) and those curls are too cute to cut quite yet. I think we'll have to wait until his hair starts to interfere with his sight until his first haircut. Besides, didn't Einar already get the honors in February?

He is on the move.

Soren likes to be tossed up in the air and I think Jared likes doing it for him.

Jacob and Einar enjoying balloons from the baby shower. Einar's balloon sailed off into the sunset about 30 seconds after this shot was taken and He fell apart.

Oops, I didn't turn this picture around, but this is of the kids eating yummy Jared pizza for lunch.

Soren makes a good outfielder for a t-ball game. Watch out Ichiro!

Playing in the sand at Point Mugu on Saturday morning. He also tried to eat a bunch of this sand.

This is Reeder and Einar in the back of the Mazda 5 for our road trip to Port Huenume. They had a video player strung up in front of them for a princess movie and continuous showings of CARS. The middle seats were where Soren and his buddy Hayes were planted and all the available space in the car was taken up with the rest of the stuff. It's a good thing that none of the kids have super long legs yet!

Marianne catching some rays after doing a masterful job repacking the car.

Please don't call CPS. The little boys enjoyed a raisin snack in the parking lot while we were packing up the car to leave on Saturday. This wasn't your average hotel parking lot with lots of cars moving around though. We stayed at the Navy lodge on base and on Saturday morning, most of the Navy guys were sound asleep.

Soren was drawn to the industrial toilet with the black seat in our room. I'm not sure why the alarm clock was in the bathroom.

Finally sleep for both of the boys. Soren slept with me and Einar on the "nest" that we made for him in the corner of the room from two chair cushions.

Einar's nest. He pointed out that it is not round like Big Bird's nest, but rectangular.

Crabs in the Santa Barbara Harbor.

Getting off of Lil'Toot after our water taxi ride in Santa Barbara.

Check out his pony-tail. This was one happy kid while on Lil' Toot.

Pelicans in the harbor.

Toot Toot!
Reeder and Einar got to drive Lil' Toot while we were going around the pier and until we got into the harbor. I think Einar did it 3 times.

Our whole lively crew on Lil' Toot.

Here comes Lil' Toot.

The Santa Barbara Aquarium is perfect for the age children that we had along with us. This is the puppet show corner that we spent some time putting on shows. Reeder was the announcer and Einar had the whales eating the octopus and the crab.

"Look Mom, cheese crackers!"

That is a shark that we all got to touch. It took Einar a while to warm up to the idea of touching a shark (or anything in the touch tanks), but he gave me a high five and did a dance after he touched this one.

Looking through cool sliding magnifying glasses into a tidal pool tank.

Ear protection is now needed at our breakfast table since Soren is screeching like an Eaglet. Check out Einar's oatmeal. He puts sprinkles on it and it turns his milk pink.

Where has the month of March gone?

2009-03-22T21:44:00.001-07:00

It's already the 22nd of March! Winter , St. Patty's Day, and over half of Lent are already over! Where has the time gone? I'm surprised my blog hounders haven't been on my case for not keeping up on my updates. March has gone by in a blur with trips to the zoo, birthday parties, cooking, another trip to Disneyland, a garage sale, and another cold that got us all for awhile.

Way back on the 4th of March we went to the San Diego zoo with our friends Marianne, Reeder and Hayes. They now live on Camp Pendleton down by the Naval Hospital about 50 minutes away from our house, but we've been able to see them about once a week since they moved which is really cool. Here Marianne is showing off her Next Top Model moves while waiting to see the Pandas. The pandas were noshing on bamboo while we were there. I guess all of the pandas in the US are actually Chinese nationals with "green cards." They are on loan from the
Chinese.

We made the trek out to see the polar bears and happened to time it right to see them feed on salad and a huge old meaty bone. Here they are just tumbling around. They didn't get in the water while we were watching, but still worth the trek with heavy strollers up an enormous hill.

Yum, bamboo. I wonder how their teeth are after gnawing on all of those sticks.
This one also was sporting a shaved patch of tummy where they had just checked out all of her female parts for her annual physical. I'm giving the panda a bit of privacy and only showing you her head.

We almost got lost at one point, but Reeder and Einar helped us navigate our way to the polar bears.

Right before St. Patricks Day we went down to one of the community centers on base and went to a kids in the kitchen class with Reeder and Hayes. While the bigger kids were making chef hats and "cooking" a magical St. Patricks day treat, Soren and Hayes were having fun playing with the musical instruments in the room. This concoction that they made had colored pudding, crushed up blond Oreo cookies, Lucky Charm marshmallows, and green Peeps bunnies. Einar ( I don't think he takes after me in this department) only ate the bunnies and about 3 spoonfuls of the pudding. The teacher also served Hawaiian punch with the treat. Einar asked for water.

Chef Einar. Doesn't he look more and more like Jared every day? He colored his hat purple which is now up there with pink as his favorite color.

After the cooking class we met up with Jared for horseback riding (or technically pony) and the silent drill team that was visiting base and had a performance. The drill team is in the black tops and the Commandant's Own Bugle corps is in red.

Nothing like swinging around rifles with bayonets attached without any commands and in complete synchronicity! They were silent except for the sounds that the guns would make.

Einar and Jared watching the performance on the drill field.

Einar and Reeder checking out the performance. Reeder's dad also met us down on the field to see the drill team. Watching the two big kids and the babies and trying to keep them all quiet was a bit of a trick.

Here is Einar riding a pony on base called Bobby Socks. He took Einar around the circuit once with Jared. Soren was sleeping in his carseat so I stayed in the car and read the newspaper. Thankfully Jared took some pictures. There are stables on base down by Jared's new office and for only $2 you can lead a pony around quite a long trail. Einar only went once since the hill seemed a bit too scary for him. Next time he'll wear his cowboy boots.

Hayes turned one on the 7th of this month (he's three weeks older than Soren). At his party, Soren drank his first juice box. He got a hold of that thing and wouldn't let it out of his hands until he'd sucked it dry. He ended up wearing a good portion of it, but he sure thought that was cool. He also enjoyed the cake, but he ate that with more self control than the birthday boy:

Hayes really enjoyed his first birthday cake!

Last week I got a haircut and snapped a couple of pictures of it. I now have some bangs/fringe again.

Einar waiting for the monorail to come into the station at Disneyland this afternoon. We rode the train, the monorail, the river boat, the rocket ships, Buzz Light Year's astroblasters, the jungle cruise boats, and saw one of the Tiki room shows. I also got to ride Space Mountain while the boys all shared a slice of pizza.

Soren has now inherited Einar's Mickey Mouse hat and not only likes the hat, but also likes checking everything out at the Magic Kingdom. He waves at everything!

We rode in the tail cone of the monorail on the way out of the park. It was the first time that we'd been on the new monorail. Today the red one was in operation.

This picture, however beautiful it is, does not do justice to the gorgeous sunset that we enjoyed at Disneyland tonight. No rain and a fabulous sunset--perfect.

Whale Watching Past and Present

2009-03-07T21:02:00.001-08:00

Einar and Jared aboard the Dana Pride March 2006.

Jared and Soren aboard the Dana Pride, March 2009

Soren on the deck enjoying the sunshine. Not much crawling was done on this deck since the texture of it was so rough.

Our family and one of Einar's classmates peering through the window, March 2009.

Einar and I peering through the window, March 2006.

Last Sunday we went whale watching on the Dana Pride out of Dana Point Harbor. For those of you who have been reading this blog since its conception, you might recall that we have done this before and have enjoyed the entire experience whether or not we see any whales. What you might not remember is that Einar was about the same age as Soren is now when he went on his first whale watching trip. We found some of the same clothes that Einar wore that day and put them on Soren and tried to recreate some of the photos for comparison. We didn't put him in the yellow coat though since it was in the upper 70's. I know that you shouldn't compare your kids to one another, but this situation lends itself so well to that inclination.

This year we followed once whale up the coastline a ways as it skirted just feet away from where the waves were breaking. My guess was that it was trying to pick up some surfing tips from all of the surfers that were out on that gorgeous afternoon, but the guide figured that it was scooping up sand and eating tiny animals. We didn't see any major movements, just up to the service every 3-4 minutes. After awhile we left the whale to catch up with a pod of common dolphins that swims off the coast.

baked goods and burpy pictures

2009-02-26T19:27:00.000-08:00

Wow, I actually get to finish this blog update tonight! We had planned a Starbucks and Trader Joe's outing tonight after swimming and dinner but we tuckered little Soren out and he almost fell asleep in his highchair. Therefore, I'm home with the sleeping baby and Einar and Jared went out to procure the food supplies. Also check out www.pooseandhawk.blogspot.com for some great pictures of the boys when we went down to visit our friends Reeder and Hayes at their new home near the Naval Hospital on base.

A couple of weeks ago Jared remembered that we have a bread machine hiding out in the garage. I guess that remember isn't really the right word since he more "found" it again when he was sorting through the garage and reorganizing our belongings a.k.a. stuff. We've had it since we got married and used it a bunch of times in Gardnerville, but since we were living at 4300 ft above sea level the results were lacking. Now however we decided that Einar might have some fun making bread in the "Breadman." All he has to do is add the ingredients and wait about 3 1/2 hours and out pops the bread. He made a really delicious whole wheat and flax bread on Thursday night that we ate for dinner with garlic spaghetti, salad and a pear-cranberry crisp--delicious things coming out of our kitchen all night! This is him with his first slice of the warm bread straight out of the machine.

Close-up shot of the delicious bread. We ate it in sandwiches last night when we went to California Adventure. I had mine with salmon salad and lettuce, yum!

"Look, Mom! Dad is slicing the bread that I made!"

Track construction is getting mega complicated around here. Jared made this one before I woke up the other morning.

Last Sunday after church we went on an adventure down to LaJolla with the Fenell family. It involved lunch at the Carlsbad In-N-Out and time on the gorgeous beach once we had made it to La Jolla. The boys loved running around on the softest sand I've seen and we all enjoyed the view and the slightly overcast day. We parked by the Scripps Oceanography Institute (sorry we didn't get a picture, Uncle Tor) and just walked down to the beach. Once we had worn the boys out we looked for children's beach where the seals are, but alas parking just wasn't available on Sunday afternoon to check it out. We figured that the upscale shopping boutiques downtown weren't up for our four sandy boys so we headed back north and everyone fell asleep in the car once we were on the freeway. In less than 90 days the Fenells will be moving to Burlingame CA and we're trying to spend as much time with them while they are nearby.

These are the infamous baked donuts, Grandma. See, they don't look too bad and they are really yummy. I didn't take a picture of the spinach pancakes, but those were good too. The pancakes are an actual appetizer recipe from Finland and not some sneaky-get-your-kids-to-eat -veggies pancake recipe. I ate mine with sour cream, Einar chose maple syrup, and Soren likes his pancakes plain.

You can often find Soren in a box of some sort these days. Here he is checking out the inside of the train basket. Like Einar he can entertain himself quite easily with all of the toys that we have in the living room. Whenever Einar is around Soren will of course want to play with what ever Einar is playing with and that causes some noisy situations especially before breakfast. I'm sure that Soren thinks that his name is "NO Soren" according to Einar.

This last picture was taken by Einar of one of his most favorite things in the world, his burpy.

Einar's Week-long Birthday Bash

2009-02-18T18:09:00.001-08:00

Einar turned 4 on the 11th! I still catch him singing the "I'm Four, I'm Four, I'm Four" song. It has been a very exciting time in our household. Since he is enamored with trains (and has been since he was 16 months old) he wanted to celebrate his birthday at the train station. The Metrolink commuter train schedule worked in our favor and we were able to plan his party to happen on a Metrolink ride from San Juan Capistrano to Oceanside and back.

In the picture above, Einar is enjoying one of his Daddy engineered train tracks. Jared has now figured out the "tricks" for making some pretty complicated track lay-outs in just a little bit of time. They still take up most of our living room, but we are all getting pretty adept at stepping or crawling over the tracks. I even managed to build a pretty cool track with Einar yesterday afternoon with the help of his new round house and turntable.

The four of us took another train trip last Saturday to Los Angeles to visit Olvera Street, Chinatown and Little Tokyo. Jared had not gone with us on this adventure before and we had a nice day exploring a little bit of LA as a family. One of the best things we found was a bag of fresh fortune cookie flubs for $1. They were all flat, crunchy and delicious. Einar bought a pink guitar with some of his birthday money and has been serenading us ever since.

Einar still likes horses and he wanted a green horse cake that he saw in one of my cookbooks for his birthday. Since we held his party on the Metrolink train cupcakes made more sense in that situation so I made cupcakes for the party and this cake for his real birthday. You will never see pictures of the cupcakes. I went through so much with those "blue" cupcakes that the camera never came out and I was just happy to have something to have for the party. The green horse pasture cake was a better success. The grass is colored coconut and I flavored the buttercream frosting with coconut as well. It ended up tasting kind of like a Hostess Snowball, something that I'll keep in mind for St. Patrick's Day.

His birthday dinner request was chicken with bones, rice, salad, corn on the cob, and horse pasture cake. Our friend Helen was able to come over and join us on Thursday night (on his actual birthday Jared had to work late and the kids and I were at Disneyland) for our family celebration. We ate the cake first since the chicken was still cooking and we were all getting hungry. Then it was time for presents and finally dinner. Why not mix up the order once in awhile? It's good to keep people on their toes.

This is the MONORAIL! Thank you Disneyland for this fabulous monorail that you gave to Einar for his birthday. (Since he is an annual pass member instead of a free ticket, they gave him a gift card for the amount of a one-day ticket!) It has a voice announcement just like in the real thing. It doesn't go as fast as the real Disneyland one, it's kind of slow like the Seattle monorail, but it makes up for speed in all of the teeny-tiny pieces that it has. Definitely a cool thing for a four-year old. Soren has even learned how to use his tiny index finger to push the button on top of the car to make it talk just like Einar does.

It's big enough to set up over the train tracks and have a massive transportation bonanza.

Reed and Einar meeting their favorite Pixar characters at California adventure on Einar's actual birthday. Reed's family came down from Seattle for a week of Disney and other Orange County vacation fun and were able to come to Einar's train party too. Reed and Einar were still inside when we met at our childbirth classes in Ballard. Reed and Thea also were in our Seattle PEPS group and it's great to be able to catch up with them once in awhile.

All of these parties and outings really wear out baby boys. Here Soren is falling asleep in the middle of a bottle on Jared's lap. As I recall, he got the bottle after nursing and chewing on me too long without falling asleep one evening. He's starting to realize that things keep happening after he goes to sleep and he's been trying not to miss anything.

Reed and Einar in the hammock on our patio after dinner.

Metrolink party festivities. This is Jared directing a game of pin the caboose on the train. We forgot the blindfold, but strategically positioned each kid's new train hat down over the eyes instead. We also colored Thomas pictures, played with stickers, ate cupcakes, drank lemonade, and opened packages on the train. I do apologize to the Metrolink clean-up crew for the green cupcake crumbs on the floor. We wiped down the tables, but next time a dirt devil would be a good thing to bring along. Green cake crumbs really stand out on that industrial flooring!

Pictures were kind of hard to take successfully on the train since the light from the outside was so bright. It kind of looks like we are all glowing or something. Kathleen held Soren for awhile (even the babies got railroad hat's, although not personalized). All the big kids were also given wooden train whistles. The cars that we rode on cleared out pretty quickly after we got on as other passengers fled to other parts of the train.
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Hayes ditched his hat early and sat with his dad, Clint. He doesn't like wearing hats much.

All-Aboard! Einar thoroughly enjoying the party with his friend Hailey.

Here are the kids waiting for the train to come in San Juan Capistrano. We are missing Maddox and Zachary from this picture because they joined us in Oceanside and did the reverse trip with Rosellen. Everyone had to stay behind the yellow line as you can see.

This is the first train that came in to the station, but we didn't get on since it wasn't our Metrolink, it was the Amtrak. Einar really has a thing for Amtrak trains now, but not only was the Amtrak schedule inconvenient for our outing it is also more expensive to ride. I did however find Amtrak paper plates and napkins for the cupcakes. Did you know that there is an online store called Trainparty.com that only carries things that one might need for a train party? You can get pinatas (wouldn't Metrolink have liked that?), bandanas, paper products with everything from Thomas to the little engine that could, hats and our whistles. The internet is the only place that such a specialized store could exist!

I think that the birthday celebration is finally over now.

Soren's First Haircut

2009-02-01T17:57:00.001-08:00

Well, I wish I had pictures for you all of Soren getting his first haircut, but it happened so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to get the camera out. I was making dinner (baked tillapia, garlicky chard, orzo and a green salad) and Einar was out on the patio working on his "project" that he'd been working on for awhile. I had moved the kid table to the patio along with the dining room chairs so that I could clean the floors well. It had started out with just markers and paper to make a thank you note for an older boy at church who had passed on his dinosaur collection to him. It then morphed into needing some scotch tape and scissors. A little later on I had to confiscate the tape after I noticed that he was trying to tape the patio doors closed. It was probably all going a little too well out there. Anyway, at some point Soren came back in the dining room and found me in the kitchen and started grabbing my legs so I picked him up and gave him a hug and showed him what I was doing in the kitchen for dinner. Then I looked down at my chest and saw a clump of downy soft hair. It didn't take me long to figure out what had happened. Einar has been separated from his beloved scissors until he turns four (8 more days). To be honest, I knew that this was going to happen one of these days, I only wish that the original scissors that I had given him for his last birthday that promised that they couldn't cut hair would have actually been able to cut paper. Only a small clump was taken off of the top and is not enough of to take a photo. We'll be saving the paparazzi action for his official first haircut, date TBD.

This is Einar riding his new Dream Journey bike down at the golf coarse with Grandpa last week. Grandpa Lee and Grandma Jean came down for a whirl-wind visit from Mon-Fri to celebrate Grandpa's birthday. This year at Disneyland you get in free on your birthday!

Soren is just reaching for something just outside the confines of both this picture and his arm length, but it shows how he's been changing. He's now 10 months old and is starting to have some chubby cheeks!

Definitely poker faces for a game of Go Fish. Einar can now play, we are just working on holding a hand of cards to keep them hidden. I remember having trouble with that for a long time, so at the moment I'll just try to fight my urge to use the advantage of seeing his cards as much as I can. I'm not promising much, sorry Einar (and sorry Mom for posting this picture).

Soren's shirt says it all in this picture: "Who are you Calling a Turkey?"

The tracks are getting more detailed these days and Einar still spends much of his time constructing tracks and playing with the trains. Jared has figured out a system to make intricate track layouts much faster as well. Last week we had a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Brown, Einar's teacher, and she said that he chooses to play trains during most of his free time as well. All I can say is that we've gotten some good use out of these toys since he started playing with them at 16 months and it looks like we'll be playing trains for the foreseeable future since Soren wants to do everything that Einar does.

Now they are figuring out how to play one of the many Webkinz games. Einar has a pinto pony named Dolly and I have a lion named Rudy.

The birthday boy at the Blue Bayou. Mom and Dad went early to Disneyland on Tuesday and had a tour in the morning and then we met up with them after preschool. Jared even skipped out of work a bit early to drive up and meet us all for dinner and the Fantasmic show. They learned a lot of cool stuff on the tour that ended up to be a personal tour since no one else had signed up to go.

This picture is definitely near the top of my all-time favorite pictures of Jared, not one that most would expect, but shows the Jared I get to see and love around the house here once in awhile.

Family photo, obviously we didn't plan our outfits that day.

Einar is still jazzed up after riding on the go gadget roller coaster in Toon Town--one of his new favorite rides along with Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Disneyland is even fun when you ride around the park in a stroller according to Soren.

Go Gadget Roller Coaster in Toon Town. Grandma wasn't so sure it was fun once she got on.

Preschool Roller Derby

2009-01-25T20:49:00.000-08:00

Double-click on this title too for a little video action of the rollerskating.

Just kidding about the roller derby, but I did take Einar rollerskating/rollerblading last Sunday afternoon for the first time. We met up with my friend Marianne and her daughter Reeder and went to SC-SK8, an outdoor! skating rink in San Clemente. It is a big roller hockey rink that is under an open-sided roof. At first we put the kids in traditional roller skates thinking that would be the best place to start. I had explained to Einar on the way to the rink that there are two different kinds of skates: car ones with 4 wheels and motorcycle ones with the wheels all in a row. However, that wasn't the best place to start. The kids could hardly stand up and Einar just kept going backwards. It was certainly not going well so we switched to the motorcycle skates and at least the kids could stand up.

Einar and Reeder posing in the motorcycle skate room after our time on the rink. Notice that everyone is still smiling.

Chilling with the car skates.

Check out these skates! Look mom, I've got wheels! We are resting on the other side of the rink for a few minutes. There were only two other small groups skating that afternoon, so we had the rink to ourselves and didn't have to worry about staying upright the whole time.

Another break with Reeder. Reeder was borrowing a helmet and it got too floppy for her to see. She's also a lot closer to the ground.

Look at him go! The guy who owns the place led him around the rink for a personal lesson to help him get his feeling for skating. It also gave me a chance to go around a few times by myself. Having not been on skates in a long while, I was a bit shaky myself and found it challenging to hold Einar up and make our way around the rink.

This shot was taken just before we headed out for our first attempt. They sure look ready, don't they?

Soren Now Walking with Footstool Aid!

2009-01-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

Double-click on the title of this entry and you'll be connected to video of Soren walking across the living room with the help of our IKEA foot stool. He just figured this out this afternoon!

Here is another picture of a huge helicopter that flew over our neighborhood the other day. As you can tell, the weather has been pretty nice down here. We've had a bit of a heat wave with a couple of days into the low 80's. Shorts and t-shirts have been a nice change from the several weeks when we didn't even hit 65. On the news this morning, however, they are starting to worry about the unseasonal heat and lack of January rain and contemplating more water rationing this summer if it doesn't start storming up some rain here soon.
On Sunday we drove down to San Diego after church to have lunch and visit with my cousin Connie and Auntie Arlene. Connie lives down there and Arlene is up visiting for the holidays from her home in Mazatlan. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and bar-b-que. Eating hamburgers, watching the Charger game (they lost), playing with squirt guns, and making fabulous ice cream sundaes wore out the boys and we took one more picture of Einar zonked out in his car seat.

Ok, so this is the decorator of the sundaes with his handicraft displayed in front of him. Connie had 5 different types of sugar sprinkles, chocolate, caramel, and whipped cream to top both strawberry and vanilla ice cream. Einar decorated every bowl and mine had so many red sprinkles that it was crunchy throughout!

The boys really took to Connie and Arlene. Connie can now say that she was the first one to teach Einar how to fill up a squirt gun. He even got to take two of them home with him. I think he's coming down from his sugar high in this photo. Soren is still on the move in the background.

And here is the little guy who is starting to walk with the help of his stool. Not only is he getting into all of the garbage cans, he's far more mobile than before. Long gone are the days of the little peanut asleep and hiding in the sling while the rest of the world keeps on spinning around him! He'll be 10 months in just two weeks and he's changing every day.

Bowling, Christmas, Lefse and More

2009-01-07T22:28:00.001-08:00

Such form! I've never bowled with a baby in a front pack or in my arms before, but even so I scored 96 points! The shoes were a bit too big as well, but I had a great time. I'm not sure that Soren is ready to go bowling again anytime soon.

Have you ever wanted to go somewhere and cause lots of frustration for the folks who work there? My recommendation would be to take 10 toddlers and preschoolers to a bowling alley. Last Wednesday we met some other moms with their kids up at the Saddleback Bowling alley and had a great time introducing the kids to bowling. They had tons of shoes in their sizes, so people must do this on a regular basis. They have guards that pop up on the lanes so the balls don't automatically go into the gutter. The only thing they haven't figured out is how to tilt the lanes towards the pins when the kids are playing so that the bowling balls gain some momentum after the kids have rolled them instead of getting stuck in the middle of the lane. The stuck bowling balls are what was causing the most frustration for the employees since one of them had to walk down the lane to get it. At first we tried to help, but that only made a loud voice come over the intercom "Stay off of the lanes! Someone will come and help retrieve stuck balls." Needless to say, that "someone" ended up hanging out at our end off the alley.

Have you ever seen this many balls rolling down one lane? The kids had these two lanes and then the moms also shared a lane and played a game.

Here is Einar perfecting his roll. Notice how his ball doesn't seem to be actually touching the lane. I think his resulting technique involved a little bounce at the beginning. In the background you can see a metal ramp that they let people with disabilities and in wheelchairs use to get some velocity on their balls. The people line up the ramp how they want it and then let it roll.

Einar and his ball that he shared with the other kids too. He really liked his bowling shoes, but they fit better after I adjusted them so his foot wasn't crammed onto the top of the shoe's tongue.
Waiting at the ball return.

Soren's first beets. I think he liked them!

This is that picture that I was promising in the last blog entry. After I had told him one more time that quiet time wasn't over yet, Einar gave up and crashed in front of his bedroom door. He slept almost 2 hours there!

Now here come the Lefse Making pictures. Last Saturday we invited the Fenells over to make participate in the annual lefse making. Usually I like to make it before Christmas, but since I got sick the week before, that just didn't work out this year (for those of you who think that you got bumped off of our Christmas card list, have no fear all of our cards are still sitting on my desk just waiting for addresses. How about some Valentine's day cards?). Anyway, Rosellen, Nathan, and their boys Maddox and Zachary came over and we had an afternoon of intense lefse production. This is Nathan explaining the rolling process to Einar and Zachary.

Soren really liked eating the final product. Lefse on it's own without the butter and cinnamon sugar was his favorite. He had some with his breakfast for most of the week. Gee, I'm sensing a pattern here, however. So far I haven't been posting too many pictures of Soren disliking any foods. Tonight Jared took the boys down for a bath while I made some more baby food for the freezer (squash, sweet potato, rice and beans) and when he came up he said that in the tub he could really tell how much Soren has changed. This morning at church we sat down and my friend Christy hadn't seen us in a few weeks and she couldn't get over the changes either.

This is Maddox perfecting his rolling technique with Rosellen standing by for guidance. We are investing time into our lefse school so that in a few years the boys can all make the lefse and we can sit back and eat it. It's definitely time well spent and the kids sure had fun.

Here they are watching me do some rolling. I think this is the third year that we've made lefse with the Fenells. Our first attempts were definitely a bit challenging, but I think our results have been getting better each time that we try. Definitely not an everyday "greenlight food" but yummy once in awhile.

I'm not sure who likes this knee-bouncing activity more, Jared or Einar. Soren enjoys it once he's into the music. Notice the pink and red Hello Kitty socks that Einar got from Santa.

Dennis and Lynn came down on Christmas Day and spent a week with us. Whenever we drove anywhere, Soren and Poppa got to sit next to each other and Einar sat in the way back of the car which he really likes to do once in awhile. While they were here we had a picnic at Sunset Park, went on a couple of drives to see Christmas lights, caught up on some sleep, ate yummy rib roast and turkey breast dinners and sent the guys down to see the USS Midway on a "cold" and windy day. The cold is in quotations because I know that for those of you in Seattle this winter just laugh at our idea of cold around here.

Here is Einar in the Way Back of the car all decked out in his sunglasses. He also went to Garden Grove with Poppa and Farmor to see the Glory of Christmas at the Crystal Cathedral. Lots of Camels, Kings, horses, sheep, llamas, and flying angels.

Watching TV with Farmor.

Here is Einar flying the plane on the Midway.

He keeps talking about the ship and incorporates it into his play discussions with his cars. Mater the Tow Truck and Lightening McQueen are often on the Midway while he plays.

Playing with Farmor after Christmas with all of the new toys.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T18:32:00.001-08:00

The monsters from the new monster bowling game hopped into the Barbie car and went for a spin. I think they prefer that over being knocked over in by a monster "bowling" ball.

This is a very tired boy who fell asleep in my chair after going for a Polar Bear swim with me in the afternoon on New Year's day. After we came home, he and Jared were watching a Faith Hill Christmas song special and warming up again and he zonked out. He is now zonked out again as I write this on the floor outside his bedroom door. Quiet time got to him I guess! I'll post a picture in the next update.

After the swim. Soren opted to just go as a warm frog. The pool is heated year-round, it's just the outside that isn't.

Watching crazy brother and Mom swim in the pool on New Year's Day.

A jump into the deep-end to start it off right! The actual plunge was much better than I was anticipating. It was nice and warm as long as you kept your body under water.

Einar dressed in layers to walk down to the pool. I think it's the first time he's worn his ski gloves this winter. There wasn't anyone else from our neighborhood at the pool. All the folks that were playing golf on the little course thought we were a bit crazy I think. Not as crazy as jumping in the Pacific though, Einar vetoed that Polar Bear option.

Decorating our Home for Christmas

2008-12-21T07:47:00.001-08:00

The stockings have been hung over the couch with great care in hopes that St. Nicholas will soon visit there. The boys have monster-sized stockings that absolutely dwarf those from our childhoods. Grandma got a bit carried away with the size of Einar's when she made it for his first Christmas and so when I made Soren's this week I matched the size so as not to fuel any stocking envy arguments in the future.

This is Soren's new stocking. On Friday we went over to my friend Marianne's and had a day of stocking making. The red and blue felt is recycled from 3 old stockings that she wasn't using anymore and the brown is from an old curtain she had in her linen closet. All my sewing skills (yes, Mom and Tor I do think that I must have learned something all those years ago even though I still am prone to winging it.) came back to me and I came up with this fabulous stocking for Soren. It has inspired me to bust out my own sewing machine that I got at a garage sale this summer.

Our decorated tree. Einar was my tree decorating helper and we didn't break a single ornament! He was very careful unwrapping the ornaments, making sure that they had a hook, and handing them over to me to hang.

Hamming it up for the camera as he unwrapped another ornament.

Fantasmic! and the Fifth Tooth

2008-12-14T23:28:00.000-08:00

Two guys totally sacked out in our bed. I think I'll go join them (or at least carry one back to his own bed so I can have my pillow back).
Einar in front of the Alaska Airlines plane that we flew home.

While waiting for Jared to pick us up at the Long Beach Airport after we returned from Seattle, a nice man offered to take our picture as we were sitting on the curb. We're even wearing festive colors.

Soren's Sock Monkey costume got some more use in Seattle as an extra warm layer.

Hanging out with Far Mor. Can you tell that Soren loves his grandparents?

Bundling up for some Northwest November weather instead of San Clemente sunshine.

Soren's first amoxycillin for an ear infection that came on while we were in Seattle. We brought the California Crud up with us and promptly got Grandma, Uncle Tor, Auntie Jess, Grandpa, and Jared sick and we are all still struggling to get back to normal. I am truly sorry for spreading this one around.

The four of us after a yummy dim sum lunch at the House of Hong in Seattle--an Ogle family trip to Seattle necessity.

Soren and Poppa goofing off together.

Having a Taco Time lunch with cousins Annie and Cyrus after a fabulous morning of swimming at the Mountlake Terrace swimming pool.

No pictures from today (don't worry, I'll post some from the past couple of weeks for your visual enjoyment). Today I forgot to put the memory card back into the camera when we left this morning and then again when I came home to get it, the water bottles, and a pb & j sandwich for Einar. However, Jared is right that we probably can survive a trip to Disneyland without a camera.

Today was the last Sunday that we could go during the holiday season before our blackout days. Even though we've had a pretty busy weekend and none of us are the picture of health (still trying to beat the crud) we went as a family and had a marvelous time. I have heard that when you are sick and have had a lot going on, it's a good idea to have some down time or things won't be so much fun, but there is always tomorrow, right? I have a feeling that we are raising a couple of party animals.

The place is all decorated for the holidays with lights, snow that falls in the evenings in front of It's a Small World, and even though we go frequently there is always some thing new for us to see and do. This afternoon we went to the Aladdin show in California Adventure. It's a Broadway style show and was great fun. Jared also convinced me to ride the Hollywood Tower of Terror too--you have to be 40inches to ride this thing, but there is NO way that Einar will be riding on it anytime soon! We saw parts of two parades and the fireworks and the Fantasmic show which is truly Fantastic. I'm not sure if I'll ever get Einar over to that Island to play again after seeing the super scary dragon appear on it's shore and all of the other scary stuff but it sure was cool.

Soren was also gnawing a bit more than normal these past couple of days and his fifth tooth appeared today! It's on his bottom left and has popped itself out of his gums. I hope that means that he will sleep well tonight.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-09T23:23:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Dear Santa

2008-12-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa Claus,

How are you? The Amtrak is BIGGER than the Polar Express. I think you ride on the Metrolink. Do you ride trains every day? I've been on the Metrolink and Amtrak trains and a long time ago I rode Thomas with my friends Jacob and Molly.

I've met you before. Do you remember me from San Juan Capistrano? My name is Einar and I am 3 years old. I've been good this year and Mom agrees.

I would like a Sante Fe train with some people and a passenger coach for Christmas. Some trucks like Mack the truck and Mr. the King truck and the Chick Hicks truck. My Pinto horse would like a truck and trailer to drive around. Nothing else.

Thank you and Please,

Einar Ogle, age 3.5

We think it's still summer here...

2008-11-19T17:51:00.001-08:00

Yes, this is outside in the middle of November. Einar in particular was a bit cold until he became more excited about the prospect of painting pudding all over (especially his tongue). However, I must note that this past week we did have temperatures in the mid 80's around here. My friend Marianne invited us over this afternoon for body painting and we just couldn't resist the chance to try it. Once the kids were done, they spent some time in the bathtub. I got to cross one more thing off of my to-do list the day before a big trip: a clean Einar.

Other new and exciting adventures include Jared teaching the boys how to make a fort out of our couch cushions. You can see that they even got the cushion off of my nursing chair.

Soren is keeping his eyes on what is going on so that he can be a part of it.

Last Friday night we went to the 233rd Marine Corps Birthday Ball with Jared's Battalion. We got all dolled up--new dress, hot rollers, even make-up. We had a good time and weren't in any danger of falling asleep like one of our table companions did in the following picture:

This is the Marines in the ceremony presenting the cake and having the oldest Marine and the youngest Marine eat the first pieces. This year Jared escaped being the oldest one there to eat the cake because there was a guy in his late 70's who was in attendance. Last year since the ball was only for his company instead of an entire battalion, that honor fell to him.

Can you believe these pictures were taken in the Walmart Parking lot? We've been having gorgeous sunsets this past week!

AARG!! It's the dreaded Food Beard, the pirate.

2008-11-10T20:50:00.000-08:00

It's the dreaded pirate Food Beard prior to gorging himself at dinner time at Disneyland. Also, having a great time hanging out with the group for Kathleen's birthday.There's always time to play drums, and make other loud noises, around the house.
Blocks from Uncle Tor and Aunt Jess are fun! Watch out, that road looks bumpy!Yumm-baa! and they even taste like they're food-safe.

Halloween Fun

2008-11-01T21:50:00.001-07:00

On the day before Halloween, Einar's preschool had a Halloween Parade for the kids first thing in the morning. The two classes lined up and then paraded around the courtyard three times so that we could all get some good pictures. Einar might look like he is just a plain simple brown horse, but he went as a "Circle of Life Pony." Those are his words. I think he wanted to be a horse and then started reading the Lion King book a bit and just incorporated them together. He did mention that he wanted to be Mufasa about two days prior to Halloween, but thankfully embraced his horse costume. Notice he's about a head taller than the princess behind him.

This year I finally had some help with pumpkin carving. He wasn't into scraping out the insides and he was a bit too eager to wield a knife, but he did stick around with me at the table to help with input on the final product. We went for the "make it look like Soren" design. Two teeth on top, two teeth on the bottom and some sizable ears completed the look. Instead of fire this year, I went with the glowstick option.

Halloween Frenzy.

The crew before heading out for trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Einar is at the far left and Soren the Sock Monkey is being held by Balto the Wolf Girl.

Little sock monkey got to ride with dad all night. Notice that Jared is wearing short sleeves. It was in the low 70's that night and our Circle of Life Pony practically had heat stroke by the time we'd finished two streets!

There hasn't been much to report on this week and regrettably I've been living in the house of sick and haven't felt much like blogging. Einar came down with a crud on Sunday night and has been kept out of school all week and Soren caught it as well. Soren hasn't been as sick as Einar, but he has been oozing snot all week. Yuck, see it isn't even fun to read about!

Out of the Worry Woods

2008-10-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

He did it! Soren gained 1lb 10oz in the last 2 weeks and is now on the weight chart again! Can you see how proud of himself he is? I don't think he'll be looking back any time soon and I'm happy that I don't have to go to the doctor with him for another 2 months.

Guest Photographer

2008-10-29T23:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I've had Jared publish a post once in awhile, but today I'm debuting my newest photographer: Einar. Last Saturday he and I walked down to our neighborhood clubhouse to see the annual Ocean Hills Dog Show. This was our third time at the event! Each year on the weekend before Halloween this show is held and a variety of neighborhood dogs show up in costume to frolic with each other and compete in best trick competitions and best costume. It's always kind of a hoot to see and there are usually snacks. This year there weren't too many dogs and the costumes weren't all that elaborate, but we had a good time anyway. Einar took the pictures, except the one of him holding the little dog. The owners were very encouraging and helped Einar remember how to approach dogs and scratch them.

Food, Fangs, and Forward Motion

2008-10-23T22:04:00.001-07:00

Wow, it's been a big work week for Soren. He just got his fourth tooth. Food is still his top priority and he is now enjoying rice, sweet potatoes, squash, applesauce, bananas, carrots, and yogurt. Tonight he tried out his new mesh feeder first with a banana and then with some apple pieces and loved it. Definitely kept him busy while the rest of us enjoyed our dinner too. I fed him before we sat down for dinner tonight since he was so hungry and when I ran out food in the first bowl, he broke down into angry tears. He settled down when another bowl of food was offered. From a couple of those pictures you can understand why one of Soren's many nicknames is Food Beard, the dreaded Pirate.

He also is now crawling and can move across the room! Last night we all were on the floor encouraging him to make it over to us. He still prefers carpet for his top speeds, but he's getting faster every day.

The Cowboy and His Posse Go Shopping

2008-10-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Last night we all went shopping in search of a dress for me to wear to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball that is coming up in November. Why take your whole family to go dress shopping, you ask? I think because Jared is afraid that I might be gone half a day or more if I head out to do alone at the mall and that baby of ours still wants to see mom more often than not. So we decided to make it a family outing and it worked exceptionally well.

When I told Einar to go get dressed since we were going to go shopping and I wasn't going to take him in his pajamas he came back naked and holding his horse costume. (He's going to be a horse for Halloween). Well, it's really not cold enough to be parading around town in a horse costume since the Santa Ana winds are blowing and the temperature has been in the upper 70s all week. If it were cooler, he might have been able to get away with it since it is October and he's 3years old, but I decided to steer him away from the horse costume and instead encouraged him to wear his cowboy suit. That idea went over splendidly and we went shopping with a very happy cowboy who liked the sound that his boots made when he walked.

So while I looked at dresses, I either had the cowboy with me in the dressing room since he likes to offer his opinions, or he was hanging out with Jared and Soren in the mall. In the long run I did find two dresses and I'm still trying to make a decision, but I no longer have to worry about going to the ball naked or in my bathrobe.
His T-shirt says "Tough Guys Wear Pink."

No good excuses, but lots of good pictures.

2008-10-14T21:02:00.001-07:00

Well, no good excuses for my long absence in blogging. Just the usual with Einar and I losing the battle with the back to school crud; visits from Ukrainians and a nice visit from Jennifer, Mary and Sammy; the computer nearly crashing from being overloaded with old information that was taking up our start-up disk; and just keeping up with these two kids and our San Clemente life. Jared fixed our computer on Sunday by trashing a lot of old stuff that was taking up disk space. It's working SO much better. We also celebrated our 6Th wedding anniversary on Sunday!
This is the kids at family night out at Pick-Up Stix. You should see the noodles that Einar can put away. Soren is going to be fighting him for food at the rate he's been slurping up his squash, sweet potatoes, applesauce, rice, and banana. Last night he ended up eating an entire banana mixed with rice cereal! Tonight it was squash and sweet potato.

"Chunky" Soren hanging out on his new blanket that was handmade by my friend Kimber. Can you tell that he's been chunking up? We go back to the doctor on Thursday for a weigh-in and to find out the results of his blood and urine tests last week.

Yum, Soren likes sweet potatoes.

Yum, I like giraffe biscuits.

Look at that amazing tongue on the giraffe! It's black and it really likes giraffe biscuits. On Saturdays at the zoo you can feed the giraffes (3 biscuits for $5). It was really an experience to remember. I fed the one in the corner. I think Jared and Einar fed the same one.

Check it out! Einar in front of the hippos at the Zoo. Not only are the floating hippos super cool, but I think that the best thing about this picture is Einar's hair. We've been letting it grow out a bit and you may be seeing more pictures with action hair.

Happy Exersaucer time.
Mary and Sammy in the San Diego Zoo parking lot with my Man-Totem.

Einar Giraffe.
Soren Giraffe.
Karla Giraffe.
Dancing up a storm while waiting for dinner at El Adobe in San Juan Capistrano.

Soren gets a kick out of watching Einar play with his trains and build his tracks. Then when he's had enough he cries out to be rescued.
Sammy, Soren, and Einar stop the playing to have a bit of a photo shoot. Sammy and Soren had a good time hanging out on the couch together.

This is one of our visiting Ukrainians, Mykola. He and our other guest, Toraas, are in the Kiev Symphony Orchestra and were in San Clemente for 3 nights last month. We volunteered to host a couple of the musicians and enjoyed having them here. Jared and I went to the concert on Friday night and it was a great evening. Soren liked it too.

Cousin Sammy hanging out with the gorilla baby at the Zoo.

Ogle Family dressed in navy blue shirts and olive shorts at the San Diego Zoo. We didn't plan the outfits, but when we all walked out the door we matched. Even Jennifer and Mary were wearing this outfit! Only Sammy and Soren didn't get the memo.

Lots of Sweet Potatoes!

2008-09-20T22:10:00.001-07:00

Can you tell who is enjoying sweet potatoes? Soren just started eating them last night, but tonight he sat down and ate one bowl (1 oz) and then I had to refill it! I think that he's just been waiting for tasty real food. We are going to have to feed him real food more than once a day now too since he likes it so much. Maybe he'll finally start to bulk up a bit. I'll keep you posted.

Guest Photographer: Einar Bjorklund Ogle

2008-09-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

Jared, as seen through the camera lens by Einar.
Karla, as seen through the camera lens by Einar.
Soren, as seen through the cameral lens by Einar. He eagerly identified this shot as "Soren!"
I had to include this shot even though Einar did not take it. Here he is posing with a humongous rabbit. It is larger than many Southern Californian dogs. We went to a birthday party on Sunday and a 4H girl brought all of these animals to share with the kids. It was really quite fun and we all learned something about animals. I guess you have to learn how to walk your chickens for show and there is even a metal stick called a chicken walker. Jared handed Einar the camera to take a picture of all of the animals in their cages since he was having trouble sitting down with the rest of the kids towards then end of the presentation. I quite enjoyed his perspective....
multi-colored Guinea Pig
This is the chicken named "Ricky" that could walk and pose.
I think this is the silky chicken.
Monster rabbit.
Chinchilla eating dried papaya.
Party-goers.
African spiny tortoises.
Pot-belly pig named Puggly.
Pygmy Goat.
Tan Guinea Pig.

NEWS FLASH: Soren Eats His First Food!

2008-09-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I took Soren to the Dr. for his follow-up appointment and weigh-in. He had gained 5 ounces, but still is not on the chart again. The Dr. wasn't too worried about him since he is gaining weight and in all other respects is a healthy, happy baby. She did, however, want him to start eating rice cereal and get some solids going.

That night after dinner Jared fed Soren his first bites of rice cereal that had been mixed with some tasty breastmilk. Most of it ended up on his over-sized bib and he's really good at pursing his lips when the spoon comes near. It takes a lot of practice to make a tongue swallow something that isn't liquid so we'll be encouraging him to practice daily. Next is sweet potatoes.....

Yesterday I celebrated my 34th birthday! It was a really good day. We got to sleep in until 8am and after some fruit and toast, we picked up some breakfast burritos (egg, bean, cheese and potato) at Pedro's Tacos and I took the boys to North Beach to play in the water and sand with some friends. The plan was to do special San Clemente things that I won't get to do on my birthday next year when we are back in Washington State. The water was pretty warm and Einar got very wet. Afterwards we went home for some yummy turkey spaghetti that Jared had made the night before (are you catching on to the lack of cooking being done on my birthday?) and some chocolate cupcakes that Kathleen baked for me that morning. Then we lounged around the house till Jared came home and Soren woke up from his nap. At my car wash they give free car washes on your birthday so I didn't want to miss out on that so we then took my filthy (it had been camping and to the beach) Mazda 5 to the car wash. Since it was still fairly early we went to Disneyland to spend the evening. It was so much fun! We got inside just as the parade was starting, stayed through the fireworks, and closed the place down! Einar fell asleep in the car before we'd even left the lot and we got home at 12:30am. Today we slept in.

First Day of School for Einar

2008-09-04T17:43:00.001-07:00

This shot was taken at 6:30 tonight. Einar was still passed out after falling asleep around 2:45pm! I think Mrs. Brown wore him out this morning in his first day of preschool. He is now awake again, but still kind of waking up and watching the news now with Jared.

This is how the day started....wake-up at 7am without an alarm clock, waffle and banana breakfast, getting dressed without too much trouble, and hopping in the car without a scene and fastening his own seatbelt--I think he was excited to be going to school. On Tuesday all four of us went to his class for meet-the-teacher day so we had already seen the classroom, met Mrs. Brown and picked up his red bucket. The red bucket will be going each day back and forth with Einar to school and we'll find his art work and papers in it when it comes home.

At school, but still in the parking lot, an eager Einar poses with his red bucket. All the bucket has in it now is a change of clothes in a ziplock bag.

Right before he enters the classroom, I insist on a quick photo in front of the door. I also mangaged to weasel a quick kiss from him before he rushed in to join the rest of the kids. No looking back for Einar! Soren and I then made our way back to the car and headed back home. Once home, Soren ate more and took a nap while I cleaned the bathroom and did some laundry.

After the thrill of pick-up there was a brief meltdown when I wanted him to stop long enough for a picture before we went home, but he recovered quickly.

And here we are after class is over. He had goldfish and juice for snacks, listened to two Clifford stories and a Bible story, sang a pig song, played on the playground, and that's all I was able to get out of him. Tonight he's chosen spaghetti and mint chocolate chip ice cream for dinner and he get's to eat off of the red plate.....This just in, the Three Little Pig song has now been identified as the Hokey Pokey.

Labor Day Weekend

2008-08-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Since it is Labor Day weekend, Jared put Einar to work tonight. After they cleaned up his train tracks and trains, Einar swiffered the floor really well. Our upstairs looks really good tonight! And we get to stay home and enjoy it tomorrow since Jared has the day off and we don't have anything big planned for the holiday. That last little bit of cleaning must have really done Einar in though, he fell asleep while Jared was reading him "Mulan" for his bedtime story.
Last Tuesday, we went to Disneyland with Kathleen and her kids. On the way out we caught the parade on Main Street USA. Soren was asleep and Einar was pretty close, but he was awake enough to point out all of the princesses as they made their ways down the parade route.
Sleeping Soren in the Sling.....
The look of a proud Dad who was able to put Soren to sleep for bedtime. Jared even was able to complete a successful transfer to his crib!
This is my Totem pole of guys. Aren't they cute? They had just come back from a walk down the hill to play a little golf while I made dinner. Dinner turned out really well--Stir-fried Eggplant with ground beef and peanut sauce and Chocolate Souffle for dessert. Not a combination that you would find on most menus, but it sure did taste good!

The following video is if Einar using his new school scissors for the first time this afternoon. He is starting preschool on Thursday this week and I'm sure there will be a dramatic difference in scissor skills before too long.

Failure to Thrive?

2008-08-28T14:17:00.001-07:00

Soren did not pass his 5 month check-up with the Dr. this morning. He has grown 1/2 an inch in the past month and by all accounts is a strong, happy baby but he has fallen off of the growth charts in weight. He only weighs 12lbs 5 oz. So now, even though he just started sleeping through the night this past week, he must eat every 3-4 hours around the clock. Yippee! We've gotta start filling up those gangly long arms and legs!