Silas lost his first teeth!

In the beginning of December, we noticed that Silas' bottom front tooth was loose.  That was weird, he was only 4½ and I had never heard of anyone having loose teeth so early.  A few days later, we realized that both bottom front teeth were loose.  So we concluded that Silas must have hit them on something and knocked them loose.  Within a week, both teeth fell out on the same day!  The first one in pre-school and then second one while he was brushing his teeth at night.  He was so excited about it.  We don't really like the idea of the tooth fairy, so we just said that he could put his teeth under his pillow and then they would get exchanged for something.  In the morning there was money under his pillow and a few days later he used it to buy a Spiderman mask!

About a week after the teeth fell out, we could see that the adult teeth were growing in!  Much too quickly Silas has a set of adult teeth where the once adorable gap had been!  Wow, he is getting so big!!

Here is the big boy showing off his gap!

Hockey weekend!

This past weekend has been full of hockey and a lot of fun,  Saturday I had a game at 4:30pm and the boys came to watch.  I had to be there at 3:15pm so Søren and the boys went and got a McFlurry before the game.  It was a fun and intense game and the boys had a fun time climbing up and down the bleachers.  Søren was able to watch a lot of the game, and I thought it was so much fun to have my fans in the stands.  During the game I got a penalty for roughing....I was pushing a girl out from in front of the goalie, and apparently I was a little to rough! Anyway, the first thing Silas says to me when I see him after the game is "Mommy, why did you have to go and sit for yourself? What did you do wrong?"  He was very interested in that.

On the way home, Silas said multiple times that he really wanted to play hockey soon.  So Søren and I agreed that he should and in fact the next day, Sunday, they have "dad"/son hockey for kids under eight at the rink. It is free and they have helmets, skates and sticks to use. Anyway, Silas and I went to the practive and Silas loved it so much.  He improved a lot too and was able to shoot the puck and get up again by himself after falling down.  He was so excited about getting to wear a realy helmet and have a stick.  At one point Silas started pushing a chair around, as he has seen many of the other kids do, but the "coach" came over and said that he was too good to push the chair around and that he should just keep going.  We were able to pass the puck around and it was amazing to see how much better Silas did with the skating when he concentrated on something else.    Sometimes we took a "break" and I pulled Silas around on his put, just to make it even more fun.  But then he would say, "Mommy, I want to score goals again".

When we were done Silas didn't want to go home and asked many times on the way home when he could play hockey again!  :-)

Go Herning!

Halloween our style!

We decided to celebrate a little bit of Halloween this year.  None of the creepy, scary stuff and no trick or treating, but just a lot of dress up fun and games.

Our friends Jette and Carl, as well as their 3 girls, came for our Halloween "party".  They all showed up dressed up and ready for fun.  We ate caramel apples and dirt cups (oreos, pudding and gummi worms) for an afternoon snack.  Then we had a few games like pin the mouth on the pumpkin and a Halloween treasure hunt so the kids could get their candy fix in.  An unexpected party game arose as Carl had dressed up as a bear and there is a very famous kids song/game,  (a little like doggie doggie where's your bone), that the kids just started singing and playing.  Ha ha.  The bear costume had another funny twist as Søren was dressed up as a Vikings player and they were to play the Bears the next day. Ha ha ha.

For dinner we had halloween shaped pasta, and well that was it.  We enjoyed a nice and relaxing adult evening on the couch at the end of the night.  It was fun to make what was a regular saturday here, into something out of the ordinary.

Without training wheels!

Silas had been asking us a lot lately when he could learn to ride his bike without training wheels. We had been holding off on it until we had more time as we figured it would take a few days. WRONG!  After 10 seconds of Søren holding on to back, Silas biked away with the proudest smirk covering his entire face. Within the next 30 minutes we was able to start on his own and took trips non stop up and down the street like a pro!

Finally Søndervig again!

We were so lucky to spend the past weekend at Farfar and Hanne's apartment in Søndervig.  We really enjoy getting away from home, and just having time to be together.

It's been a year since we were there last, so it was fun to see how much more Benjamin could be included in the "usual" activities.

Activities such as:

Swimming in the swimming pool

Driving the electric cars

Playing at the playground

Going down to the beach....and with beautiful weather we were able to dip our toes in and run around in the tide.

Eating!

Yes, a very good time was had by all!  When can we go again??? :-)

Benjamin 20 months

Benjamins1½ blog post has now turned into Benjamin 20 months, and in those 2 extra months so much has changed.  So it'll be a mashup of what has been going on the past few months. 

1½ - Benjamin is becoming more vocal.  A lot more noises and even a few words are in his vocabulary.  There are both Danish and English words among the few…and well, some of the words are hard to tell if it’s English or Danish…for ex: TRAC-TOR!.....in general only Søren and I understand them.

Night night

Duck

Bye Bye

All done

Far (bar) =also other people of our immediate family

Mommy (Mama)

Banana (Nana)  = all fruit

Tak + Thank you

Hej Hej

Vroom Vroom

Kitty

Water

No

Uh-oh

Oh NO!

The vocabulary list hasn’t really gotten bigger since then, but the words are more clear and he is starting to repeat more and more things after we say them

Here is a list of his favorite activities

• Climbing up on things…tables, couch, chairs
• Coming with books and sit on our lap to read
• Drinking by himself from a regular cup
• ANIMALS, HE LOVES animals.  Loves to make the noises, carry the plastic LEGO animals around and he gets to excited pointing at every animal he sees!
• Stacking LEGO blocks together…the small square ones
• Imitating everything we do...mostly copying Silas.  Both with noises and actions. He giggles a lot when he does it.
• Making car racing noises
• Singing along to a few songs….Pharoh song “yeah yeah yeah” and also doing some actions to songs like “The Wheels on the Bus”
• Eating with a fork….also here at 20 months, eating oatmeal himself with a spoon
• Lining up cars…lots and lots of cars in one long line
• Jumping on the trampoline
• Playing outside…he will come with his shoes and want you to put them on
• Pretending to be an American Football Center…down, set, hut!

These past few weeks it seems Benjamin has grown in leaps in his understanding of life and how things work.  Both with the rhythm of the day, but also how different appliances work, how to shake the juice before you pour a glass, etc.  He can also follow simple directions and seems happy to help out, especially with cleaning up!

Benjamin has come to love sleeping.  He now sleeps completely through the night.  The past 4 months his wake up time has been at 5:15 am, but the past month its been moving forward to 6:15…and two days this week until almost 8!  He also takes a 2½ hour nap each day.  Around 7pm, we tell Benjamin it’s almost time for bed, and he often begins to walk towards his room waving and saying “night night”.  He also says “night night” after we put him to bed while we are leaving the room. 

Overall Benjamin is a very happy boy.  He had a few rough months a few months back, where he was very whiney and throwing lots of tantrums on the floor.  Tantrums that could last for 30 minutes or longer.  These days he has found new ways to communicate and it is much easier to get him to snap out of it during a tantrum.

He loves to play with Silas and copy everything Silas does.  The boys have a lot of fun at the dinner table making noises and faces at each other.  Silas said the other day that he was excited for the day when Benjamin also started going to his pre-school.  So they are starting to build a more playful friendship with each other.

Benjamin is a total chatter box at home, and we love hearing him blab and blab.  Interestingly enough, his daycare mom has told us that he is quite quiet for most of the morning, but then in the afternoon when only 3 or so kids are left, he starts talking more and more. So he seems to be more comfortable in situations with fewer people.  We have also noticed that even though there are a lot of kids around, Benjamin will still talk a lot as long as Søren or I are there.  So that’s an interesting fact.

Benjamin enjoys getting to do a little bit bigger boy things now and being allowed to play with Silas’ toys…especially the tractor and ambulance.  But books are still one of the biggest hits.  He will bring over a huge pile of books and plop down on our laps to read each and every one.  He is very particular about  which book we should read first, next, etc, and shakes his head while saying “uh-uh” if we choose the books in the wrong order. J

We sure love our sweetie.  Wow!

I've got my animals!

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USA 2015

Here comes a very short description of our amazing vacation and time spent in Minnesota this year.  As usual we had a wonderful time visiting lots of family and friends and getting to participate in lots of fun activities.  This year I felt we were really good at communicating with each other and having realistic expectations.  We were able to do a lot of things but also really enjoy down time and relaxation.  It was fun to see the boys' reaction to our vacation this year.  Silas woke up most mornings asking, "What are we going to do today Mommy?"...No matter what the answer was he gave the same response with the biggest and energetic looking eyes. "Okay!"

At 4 years old, Silas was able to try a lot of things for the first time.  For example: going down a really long waterslide by himself, tubing behind the speed boat, going on a jetski and ordering his own food.  He loved playing with his American friends and whenever we had to go home he was always dissapointed and wanted to stay more!  Silas is also at an age where you can actually engage in a conversation with him and get answers that are more than yes or no.  So it was fun to see him talking with the other kids his age, and also with Grandma, Uncle Johnny, Grandpa and Lizzie.  It seemed like they all got to know him a bit better.

Benjamin turned 1½ while we were there and he also began saying a lot more sounds.  His favorites were "uh-oh", "all gone", and "tractor",  He laughed a lot and also showed us his adventurous sides while climbing at the playgrounds and in the water.  He loved playing in any type of sand, and with a bucket of water beside him, he could entertain himself for hours.  Benjamin suprised us with learning how to sleep past 6am many days, so that was also a nice break.  Right away when we got to MN we sensed that Benjamin really wanted Dad (Søren). This "daddy's boy" behavior only thickened during our stay, and at some points I wasn't even allowed to hold him.  The funny thing though is that as soon as we got back to DK that immediately stopped.  Interesting.  Benjamin also had fun with the other kids his age, exploring their playrooms and practicing his words....there is a video og Benjamin and Adam (Our friends Holly and Dave's 1½ year old) saying "uh-oh" repeatedly after each other! :-)

As for us, we enjoyed watching our life.  Watching our boys have so much fun doing so many different things.  We enjoyed evenings talking, and evenings out with friends or on a date.  Grandma was so generous in watching the boys many times so we could get out and explore the city.  We even had 2 evenings where we were able to go to a restaurant with some of our friends.  We enjoyed so much getting to eat at our own tempo and actually ordering appetizers.  It was much appreciated and enjoyed.

Otherwise I think I will just let the pictures tell themselves.  We feel so blessed for our time there and are so grateful for our lives, friends and family.  Oh and there are pictures from our week in Florida in the previous post!

 

 

We made it!

Happy belated Birthday Silas

4th of July Parade

Benjamin was in heaven with all the animals we got to see and pet!

The Ormans (Josh, Julie, Alexander and Ruth)

Silas and Westin

Benjamin and Liam

Lunch picnic at the Como Zoo

There were rides at the zoo too!

Westin has fun toys!

Hangin' with the Kozlaks in their pool

Benjamin and Adam

All the boys

Yay, golf time

At the Beach while the boys golf

Date night with the Ormans

Mommy and Silas date to see Shrek the Musical...he loved it!

Jetski!

Farewell dinner with Westin and Brody