Zoo

The kids' school is closed for two weeks in between summer session and the beginning of the new school year. We decided to head over to the zoo early this morning when it opened because we could. This way we could beat the crowds and also beat the heat, well, somewhat anyway.

Silje had her first experience on a carousel.

And Stian had an ice cream cone bigger than his head. (though he only ate about a third of it)

We saw some animals too, it being the zoo and all.

Rockets and drums

Kris and Stian built a water bottle rocket launcher yesterday. We took it over to the park to try it out. It was pretty cool. Stian loved it.

While we were setting off the rocket we heard drums, so when we ran out of water for the rocket we investigated and came across a drum circle. Stian wanted to run home and get one of his noise makers and bring it back so he could join in (though we didn't, it was almost dinner time). Silje was just jamming.

Eating

Silje can eat. This girl can really pack it away. It's kind of amazing how much she eats considering her size. And she's even on the skinny side. She must have a hollow leg. Tonight for dinner she had half an avocado, a peach, 1/3 cup of corn, 1/3 cup of shredded cheese, 8 crackers and then 8 oz of baby food. I finally stopped feeding her, but I think she would have kept going. All of this takes forever, especially now that she is feeding herself a lot of this. Dinner time is a marathon event around here. After about an hour and a half I was getting really bored. Can you guess how I was sitting there with her?

Mmmm

Gelato!

Silje is a fan. We stopped at YoLo, a local frozen yogurt and gelato place this afternoon after getting Silje's new glasses (her old ones were broken for quite awhile, but we kept using them until we finally had time to go get the lenses transferred to the new frames. These frames are exactly the same, except they are a different color. I like the other color better, but those were back ordered until September). We all opted for the gelato over the frozen yogurt. Stian had grasshopper flavor, Kris had coconut and I had both salted caramel and key lime pie in the same bowl. Yum! Silje had some of all of ours, but really liked sharing mine with me as I let her use her own little gelato paddle thingy and dig in. I think she liked the key lime best. Though she seemed to like all of it.

She has made huge strides this week in eating table food. It was just last Saturday that I gave her Cheerios, and tonight she had scrambled eggs, toast, tater tots and watermelon. And of course gelato earlier in the day.

Milestones

Silje has reached a few milestones recently. First, she finally has a tooth coming through. Her first tooth at 14 months! That's very late! I haven't been able to get a picture of it because she barely lets me look at it. I don't think either Kris or Stian have even seen it yet.

Another milestone is block stacking. I remember this from parent teacher conferences with Stian that being able to stack blocks is a milestone. I just googled the age at which they should be able to do this, and apparently 4 blocks is 17-25 months, and here she is with 5! She may be delayed in her acquisition of teeth and her gross motor skills, but she's a pretty smart little girl!

Up until now she's been really uninterested in finger foods, and we haven't pushed it because she would gag and then puke when I fed her anything other than purees. But suddenly she's been eating them. But she prefers to use a fork (just like her daddy). She's pretty good at it really. (the conversation between me and Stian in the background is also kind of funny. That's so Stian, always with a million questions.)

Tennessee

And then we moved to Tennessee.

Here we are crossing over the Mississippi into Tennessee.

The first picture of the kids in the house:

The house is about two blocks from Overton Park, which is a very large park. We have been over there many times already.

The park houses the Memphis Zoo. We bought a membership, which has been money well spent already. We've lived here a week and a half now and have been to the zoo three times. It's a really nice zoo. Stian loves it. Silje even seems to love it too.

The park also has the Levitt Shell where there are many free concerts during the summer. They take a break during the hottest months (right now) but will be back in August. They will have free movies starting soon, however.

The kids playing in the house, which is still a disaster area. We might get unpacked sooner if we stopped going over to the park and zoo so much.

Grandma's Birthday

Before we left for Tennessee we went back to the Twin Cities for a couple of days to visit with Kris's family again and celebrate his mom's birthday. We had a great day. The weather was just perfect for hanging out in the pool all day.

Silje chilled with Grandma most of the day, which I know Grandma loved.

And then it was time for cake.

Whoops!

Ah well, what's a little dirt in your cake? ;)