Hannah and Josiah

One night at home and then it was off to England for my brother’s wedding. It was a perfect day and Hannah got to be flower girl, and boy was she a pretty one

Josiah was a very hansom boy as well.

and they looked cute as pie together!

The best game at the wedding was picking up all the gravel and dumping it on each other’s head and generally trying to get wedding clothes as dirty as possible.

Josiah pretty early on started snuggling with Cath

and before too long he was sound asleep and tucked up in his travel cot just outside the marquee! He stayed sleeping until around midnight when he woke up very confused and slightly dewey and we went home

Hannah danced all night, mostly with Britpop,

until, at around 10pm she asked him where she was going to sleep so we put her to bed in the car… arrhh, poor neglected children but I swear they had a good time

We got to spend a lovely week in a hotel in Turkey. We saw nothing of the outside world but that was fine, we needed sun and relaxation which was pretty much what we got.
We spent most mornings sitting by the pool.


and playing on the big water slides (all of us!)

(We got some pretty dodgy looks for that one but Josiah loved it)

Hannah got much more confident in the water as the week went by. She started the week being scared to get water splashed in her face to letting me duck her and drag her under the water and taking leaps off the edge of the pool. All very good and much more fun for her parents than the kiddy pool!

Afternoons after naps were spent at the beach. I think Josiah thought he was being seasoned and roasted much of the time but he mostly enjoyed it. Some of his favourite things in the world are sand and containers that he can stir so the beach was pretty good to him.

and Hannah liked it too

That wasn’t quite a flurry, but a flurry is coming and I promise vacations, weddings and flower girls so watch this space. Right now I’m going to bed

Well, I guess I got kind of stalled on blogging but now it’s time to catch up. We’ll start with the rest of the Vardeman trip way back in May.

May was actually one of the nicer months we had this year and maybe that was the most time we managed to spend out in the garden.

Josiah managed to prove that the fence Micah and Shawn built as entirely redundant.

Hannah got to ride on Uncle Andrew’s death skates.

and we even got to hold mother’s day lunch outside (the boys grilled meat!)

Hannah did some swinging

some playing

some pouting

but mostly just had a good time with the family.

Hannah turned 3 on the 9th and then Josiah turned 1! How did that happen, my little babies getting all grown-up. I especially can’t believe how fast Josiah’s first year has gone by…. anyways…

We have a rule that the kids are allowed to sit on the same number of stairs as they are years so the very first thing Hannah did on her third birthday was to run up 3 steps and sit looking very pleased with herself! Next there was time to open a couple of presents from both sets of grandparents before the wild rumpus started.

We invited Hannah’s bornehave class around to celebrate her birthday and this is how it looked right before they showed up.

All the kids came in and made themselves at home but it was no problem rounding them up for cake! They sang a Danish birthday song for her and then had her sit on a special birthday chair.

and then Daddy helped her blow out candles.

and then it was time for the playing to start!

This all looks much calmer than it was but Hannah had a ball. I think she was slightly overwhelmed by all the kids rushing in to play with all her things but she’s still talking about her birthday and the kids coming to visit. There was just one point that she needed a break and hid out where we usually keep the warrior!

After a nice long nap to get over all the excitement and when Daddy had come home from work, it was time to open all the rest of her gifts, which took rather a long time, and yes, it does seem kind of odd that you’re not allowed to play with your new things because you have to open more new things!

Here’s Hannah enjoying her Happy Birthday song,

opening gifts

and opening her and Josiah’s present from Great grandma Wava

After that it was time for cooking meat outside with Daddy and collapsing in bed exhausted (and that was just the grown-ups!)

Saturday rolled around with 2 whole new reasons to celebrate. Josiah turned 1 and I won’t say how old Grandma is We had another party with the kids from church and that was much more relaxed (although it doesn’t look it from this pic).

There was more singing

more candle blowing

more cake eating

and of course some gifts.

(notice how the bigger kids are helping him?

He wanted this one back right away though!

Hannah and Lane decided that Josiah’s birthday present should come in the form of shared belly button showing

Phew, nearly there… Nap time again for the kids and then it was time for Josiah’s final gift opening which was mostly taken care of by Hannah because he really wasn’t that interested after a few minutes!

and to finish off the day, they had lovely baths and wrapped-up in their lovely dressing gowns from Grandma and Britpop.

Both kids had great birthdays and Hannah (not unlike her mother) now thinks that birthdays go on for at least a week

Josiah’s progression to walking was much steadier than Hannah’s. With her we could say for sure the date she started but Josiah has just been building up slowly.

He started off taking a few tentative steps between people.

at the same time being happily led around by his Mum and sister (and anyone else he could use as a bridge)

progressed to pushing his sister around,

moved on to one-handed walking and being quite brave about letting go of furniture to make a dive for things across the room,

and finally the things he dived for got farther and farther apart until we just called it walking (around 3 weeks ago)

“Look Mum, I can do this now!”

Oops, I’ve been pretty bad at keeping the blog updated so now I have to do a flurry of post to catch-up…. sorry!

Well, Grandma V came to visit at the end of March and took lots of lovely photos of my babies. Here is just a selection.

They looked like proper Danish elves all wrapped up in their danish hats and coats

Josiah learnt to cuddle. Seriously, he does it for a couple of seconds at the longest but it’s still the sweetest thing

Hannah and Josiah have really started to enjoy each-others company and she loves driving him around.

and squeezing her friend’s knee

Hannah has inherited her dad’s habit of sticking her tongue out when she’s concentrating. Very sweet to see.

She loves hanging upside down,

helping her Dad sweep

and move rocks

and generally just being a goof.

Oh, and not to forget hanging out with Grandma by the sea

Josiah is a really happy (if sometimes willful and moody;)) little boy. He loves outside and baths and anythings that doesn’t belong to him

Last but not least we should say Thank You to Uncle David for their lovely birthday outfits…

Micah thought that Josiah’s ‘wings’ were making him look girly so he got the clippers out. Everything started OK,

then he kind of needed pinning,

but was happy in the end

Feb was a pretty busy month here. I started working 2 day/week which means that Josiah started going to dagpleje with Hannah on those 2 days. He doesn’t blink at the change but is always very pleased to see me when I pick him up. It wasn’t exactly a smooth start back to work though. My first work day Hannah got a fever and was really floppy when I picked her up after a couple of hours. Turns out she got pneumonia so I only worked the 2 hours before Micah had to leave for work on my 2nd day. By Monday Josiah had bronchitis so no work for me then either and that was followed a week later by conjuntivitis! Huh! Things are all better now though. Anyway, the point of that story was to introduce tired, sore eyed baby pictures that just happen to be v cute!

Oh, Josiah learnt to pull himself up at the beginning of feb so now we have trouble in 3-D

Micah turned 30 and Hannah enjoyed helping him open presents and eat cake.

It can be kind of hard keeping Josiah out of all the things he’s not supposed to touch but my Mum was able to distract him for quite a long time by making him a hat..

Sarah and Will who visited back in December brought with them this incredibly sweet outfit for Hannah from Vietnam. Apparently all the school kids wear these and can be seen toddling down the street in pairs

Josiah and I started an 8 week long baby swimming course back in Jan and he LOVED it. The first few weeks he just splashed from the moment he got into the pool until he got out again. By the end he was a bit more relaxed but still really enjoyed it, just not as exciting. One time we took the whole family along and Micah got to get in the pool with Josiah. The instructor’s comment was “yes, things tend to be a bit wilder when the dads take part”

We’re all done with the course now. By the end Josiah could be jumped off the end of the pool and dragged along under water and we did one ‘torpedo’ where he swam underwater between the instructor and me! He doesn’t complain about being dunked which Micah thinks is because of how often he’s under water in the bath

I have a video which is too long to post but I think I’ve found a way of editing so maybe, maybe I’ll get that posted…

…..what would happen to a peice of plastic bread if Hannah thought it would be a good idea to toast it for her big baby?

Well, this is before:

and this is after:

That smelt real nice

This one’s for the grandparents in Iowa…

Just to keep you up to date with where we are. Josiah has 4 teeth and is getting 5 and 6 now. He crawls by dragging his belly along the ground and occasionally gets his bottom up. He started that back at the beginning of December and has been refining his skills since. It’s not very graceful but he can get anywhere in the house and he can get there quickly. He plays patty-cake, can wave and loves to dance by shaking his head and arms. It looks like he’ll be able to sit himself up any day now. Sweet and smiley boy, he is he is.

Oh, I think Hannah’s a genius. She knows all her letters and can recite the alphabet, can write several letters and can count pretty reliably up to ten. She knows colours and we just started learning how to tell time.

Right, that’s the end of a mothers boast No more I promise…

We all travelled to England for a long Christmas and New Year stay at my folks new house. We had a great time and I love their new house which proved to be the perfect Christmas house. Here are the kids stocking all full up on Christmas morning

This year Hannah really ‘got’ Christmas. She had a ball opening all her gifts but also really enjoyed handing around presents from under the tree and helping other people to open their presents. It was great to watch We started with the kids stockings on Grandma and Britpop’s bed first thing in the morning. Not a good picture but you try keeping 2 kids still on Christmas morning

Josiah found out that his favourite thing was to chew on the oranges that were in his stocking and they actually kept him busy most of the trip. Well, those and the electrical wires and the fires and the cat

and this is Hannah handing Josiah one of his presents.

and them both in full flow with presents

Josiah proved that it doesn’t matter if you dress him in Hannah’s new pink hat and scarf and let him carry her new pink bag he is still going to look every bit the big man!

After and excting morning it was time to get down to the hard work of making a lovely Christmas dinner. Grandma and Hannah did a wonderful job and managed to keep themselves clean in their matching aprons. You gotta love the photo!

It was just really fun to have the kids at the ages they are celebrating Christmas. Hannah because she really understood what was going on. She learnt all her Christmas versus so knew why we were celebrating but of course got really into all the presents and Christmas candy. Josiah is just at a lovely interactive age. He learnt to crawl (well, drag his belly across the floor to wherever he wants to go) right before Christmas and he’s at the smiling and laughing all the time stage which is just wonderful.

It was also really fun to look back and compare what Hannah was like at her first Christmas and exactly the same age that Josiah is. We remember leaving her sitting on the breakfast bar at my parents old house (and not worrying that she was going to crawl off) and her laughing at anyone who walked past. We also remembered her pulling out huges grins whenever anybody held up anything that remotely resembled a camera. Josiah couldn’t be left in a room on his own let alone on a table but he is the same smiley disposition so maybe they are alike…

And now something for the people who took all the last set of pictures

Most of December was taken up with Christmas parties of various sorts. We started with a Christmas party at chruch where Hannah and Josiah (and I think Micah too) got to dance around a Christmas tree for the first time. Hannah thought that was pretty fun Next came Hannah’s dagpleje party that Josiah and I got to go along to as well. This is Hannah with her dagpleje mor and 2 of the kids.

A bunch of my friends from England came for various lengths of time at the beginning of December. We visited the Christmas market in Lubeck and got into the festive mood. Unfortunately my camera was missing so no photos apart from this one which is what happened to the car on the way home from taking Mary to the station

Finally, the weekend before we left for England we held Christmas over the webcam with the folks in the US. To make sure we kept up with tradition we started with family photos around the tree.

Oh, and while we were taking photos Hannah ran off to get her phone so she could take photos too (true 21st century girl!).

Well, bearing in mind that Steve and Jo Ellen came with 3 extra suitcases full of gifts for us and the kids you can imagine what happened once all those gifts were opened…

Thanks everyone for all our lovely gifts!

Away in a manger,
no crib for a bed,

:)

A lot has been happening in the last couple of months so there’s going to be a flurry of blog entries. Very importantly Micah’s parents came to visit for Thanksgiving which was great for the whole family. The kids loved having grandparents around and we loved having parents (and babysitters!) on hand

Micah took some time off studying and so had time to be his normal, boisterous self with the kids.

We got this photo that really reminded me of one of Micah and Andrew at about the same ages. See what you think:

Josiah got to show off how big and strong he is, little did we know back then…

While Micah’s parents were here we decided to do Josiah’s baby blessing/dedication. The weekend we chose coincided with a dedication for 2 other kids who’ve recently moved here with their families from The Congo. It was a really international affair with translation from Danish into English, French and Swahili!

We couldn’t let Thanksgiving go by without making turkey cookies for the kids at Hannah’s dagpleje so we had a fun afternoon of turkey baking and decorating..

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with a 22lb turkey (for five of us to share) that Micah slaughtered, plucked and gutted himself (no pictures, sorry!) and the little people got to enjoy their meal too

The weather was, and remains, really mild but we can still make our kids snuggle bugs!

We think we finally cracked who Josiah takes after, Grandpa all the way!

And to end…. a few photos of the whole, lovely scene.

This week Josiah learnt to clap, shake his head and wave. Maybe I’ll post a video. Andrew, how do I do that??

Hannah is potty trained!!! Well, mostly. We took last week off daycare and concentrated on getting potty trained and it went really well. She’s been dry since tuesday last week and although we’re still pretty nervous when we’re out and about there doesn’t seem to be any problem. A couple of problems with the other that we won’t go into here

The 1st 2 days of the potty training schedule we used had us staying at home with the potty next to Hannah at all times and graduating to using the big loo by the end of the week. Now Micah keeps getting interupted because ’someone’ needs to use the big loo and we’re never sure whether it’s Hannah or big baby…

After taking those two pics Hannah thought it would be a good idea if Mummy did a wee wee while she took a photograph… I declined!

Josiah went from sleeping from 7:30 pm -7:30 am to waking up at 7, then 6:30, then 6, then 5:30 then we thought it was time to start with some solid food! Here’s the first bite

He’s taking to rice cereal pretty well but he’s really messy! In his quest to get more food in his mouth he grabs the spoon, your arm, whatever and tries to shove it to the back of his throat, I guess he really was ready for something solid Oh, but he’s still waking at 5

Just for fun here’s both Hannah and Josiah during their first meal of rice cereal.

In an attempt to make mealtimes slightly cleaner, we bought a full-body-armour bib and Josiah’s first high chair, now he looks like a proper king!

And he has a tooth!!! I just found it tonight, bottom right. Maybe now that’s through he’ll sleep better…??