So this is a brave attempt to catch up my diary with the key points of what's been happening since my last entry in Feb 2009. What's the excuse for not writing regularly? Well, as you know, mummy needs to help me out, and she's always complained about not finding the time it takes to sit down and do this - but today we'll make a real effort in filling in the gaps - see below.

Xmas was spent with mormor in Mosjøen. We drove by car and spent the night in Trondheim at David and Elin's. As usual, xmas preparations keeps us very busy, so when xmas eve came and we could all relax with the traditional "pinnekjøtt" (salted lamb ribs) and champagne and aquavit, we were all relieved. The raminder of the evening was spent opening all the gifts. I got the one thing I wished for the most: my own umbrella - with Pippi Longstocking print. Abi got a doctor's set from mummy and daddy, which was a huge success. Unfortunately mummy had accidently left her and daddy's gift from them to me at home, it was the blue watch with hearts that I had pointed at at the jewellery shop earlier this year, but at least I got it when we returned.
On New Year's eve we set off fireworks from mormor's garden. Abi was very scared and started crying, so we had to bring her inside again.
Here you can see all the photos

First a short summary of the autumn so far: the new kindergarden season started in August as usual, and this time we have two male "head" teachers, both at Abi's and my unit. It's great to have a better balance amongst the staff, and we both really enjoy kindergarden. We go on fun trips almost every week, plus Abi's unit goes to the "House of Literature" where they are read to almost every Tuesday in addition.

Later this autumn we went to the cabin just to enjoy the autumn colours and crisp nice mountain air. What's great this season is that Nicklas and his mum and dad have rented a place almost right next to us! We went over there to play with Nicklas, plus we've been swimming together at the large pool at the SAS hotel, and we even went bowling there. This was both Nicklas and my first time bowling, but we did well all considered.
We also made it to cousin Linus' 7th birthday in Halden, where cousins Eiril and Alva had come to visit too. Linus had the most amazing birthday cake with Yoda from Star Wars on it.

TheBIG event this autumn however was our California holiday in late Nov/erly December. We had looked so forward to it, not only to go to "exotic" America of course, but of course to see both daddy's American family plus the London crowd again, who all flew over there as well. The main reason for this trip was daddy's cousin Marshall's wedding, but since we spent almost 2 weeks there, we had plenty of time for other stuff too.
After a loong but fairly good flight via Frankfurt, we arrived in San Francisco in the evening. Sadly for mummy, a nasty cold was already building up that day (and eventually almost everyone caught it).
We were so extremely lucky that we got to stay in really big and fabolous house in aunt Ellen and uncle Bernie's neighbourhood just outside San Mateo. We shared it with grandma, grandpa, Guy, Sharon, Michael and Ethan.
So what did we get up to? Well, let's see...one of the first things we did was meet up with daddy's cousin Adam, his wife Pilar and their sons Dylan and Aidan who are 4 and 2. Last time I saw Dylan, we were both babies. We went to the airport museum outside San Francisco and had a look at fighter jets, helicopters and other planes. We even sat inside an engine! We also went to a children's amusement park called Gilroy Gardens. The hot air balloon carousel was a favourite - but we enjoyed the other stuff too - like driving our own car, riding the ferris wheel...etc. We visited the Golden Gate Park and drove to Sausalito - a lovely little town on the other side of Golden Gate bridge. Grandma, grandpa and mummy decided to walk back again across the entire bridge, but since that would have been too far for us to walk, daddy and Ellen drove us back instead. Mummy said she really enjoyed the walk and the great view from the bridge.
A big event was cousin Ethan's 2nd birthday, which we celebrated by going to the Oakland Zoo with our American cousins. There were plenty of animals to see, including bats (!), pelicans, elephants, giraffes, monkeys and goats. You name it. Afterwards we had a party at the house we stayed in, with pizza and cake. I think Ethan enjoyed his birthday and gifts too.
We all got dressed up for uncle Marshall and his fiance Jen's rehearsal dinner. This is a very American thing - a dinner a few days before the real wedding. Grandma had bought us these cute knitted dresses for the occasion.
Since going to America without doing tonnes of shopping is almost a crime (everything there is so cheap it's almost like they give stuff away for free) - quite some time was spent at the malls, but as long as we get some food and snack breaks, we're usually good.
See all the photos in my California 2009 album

We've not managed to take that much holiday this summer since we have to save up our holidays for November when we're visiting daddy's American family in San Francisco, but we have spent a couple of weekends at the hytte. At the end of June we had 28 degrees there, and went to both the north and south side of Osensjøen - a very very loong lake with a fantastic beach at the north end.
Our main holiday outing has been Dinan as usual. It's become a tradition now. We spent a week there, going to the beach at Sables D'or a few times and generally eat lots of nice food. We also made an excursion to a castle about an hour away. See the photos in Abi's Summer 2009 album

We made another trip to see mormor in June - but this time only mummy and I. We took the train all the way there and back. Mormor fell and broke her pelvic bone before xmas last year, so she's a bit imobile currently, but she's getting better and we helped her do her daily exercises that her physiotherapist has told her to do. We also made it to the city centre with mormor, plus to the Laksfors cafe where we always attempt to go when we're in Mosjøen.
We also had my cousin Johannes stay for a few weeks this summer since he's got himself a summer job at a big laywer's firm here in Oslo (he's a law student with only one more year of his degree to go) . It was great having him stay with us.

On a couple of occasions we have taken the ferry out to Nakholmen to visit Ingunn at her new summer cabin. Nakholmen is a very idyllic island in the Oslo fjord, only about a 15 minute boat ride away.

See more summer photos in my Summer 2009 album

Grandma & grandpa came along a couple of days before my birthday and helped prepare. I got great gifts as usual: new clothes for my Annabel doll, a synthesizer, a charaoke machine (same one as Michael's, only pink), a board game, puzzles, paint set...etc. But my absolute favourite gift was a fairy outfit - with shoes, magic wand, skirt and wings. I absolutely adored it and wanted to wear it all the time. So did Abi. I had a fun party with my friends, with party games and all, musical chairs amongst others, and there were even prizes to be won. Abi didn't catch the drift though, but tried to take part anyway. See the photos in the Birthdays album

We spent easter at mormor's in Mosjøen. On the way there we stopped in Trondheim to visit David, Elin, Theodor, Synnøve and their almost brand new baby sister Ragna. In Mosjøen we had a couple of days of great weather, so we went skiing at both Sjåmoen and Korgfjellet. Well, OK, so Abi and I didn't ski since we don't have cross country skis yet, but daddy pulled us along in the Nordic cab. See photos in Abi's Misc album

Hi, Abi here! It's almost a year since my last entry here in Wednesday's blog, so about time for another.
As you can imagine, I've developed tonnes since last time. A major event was starting kindergarden last April. I love it there and have made many great friends. The staff there are wonderful too. Fortunately two of my best friends from the barselgroup, Ilayda and Markus, were in my unit when I joined. A few weeks ago I moved up a unit, and the transiton has been totally hassle-free. It will be even better when my friends from my old unit start there I guess. Lots of mornings just after getting out of bed, my mum lifts me up so I can see the group photo of everyone and I point at everyone and say their name, plus I know who owns every single lunch box!
Verbally I'm just getting better and better. At my 2 year check-up in January, I was given a language test and the teacher said I'm ahead of monolingual 2 year olds, which is quite impressive for a bilingual kid like me. I sometimes put 5 words together in a sentence. I repeat a lot of what the grown-ups say, I'm like a parrot according to my teachers in kindergarden.
My 2nd birthday went by and seemed to last for several days because gifts kept turning up . I had a party with several of my friends where we had pizza, cake and other sweets, and I still, to date, keep singing the "Happy birthday to you" song, both in Norwegian and English. I will soon ask mummy to publish some photos from my birthday.
I'm still quite different from my sister. I still don't obey mummy and daddy much, allthough I've become better than before. Whenever I'm out of mummy and daddy's sight, and I've been quiet for a while, they get worried, because this usually means I'm up to something "evil", like tearing all the wet tissues out of their packet, or stuffing toilet tissue down the toilet, or worse: spreading food from the kitchen cabinets, including chilies and spices, all over the floor. Wedneday does her best to stop me and frantically tries telling mummy and daddy, so that helps them I guess. I've also gone from being the easiest child in the world to put to bed (in fact, I used to cling on to my cot and say "sove" (sleep)), to being pretty hopeless. Sometimes mummy or daddy will need to lie next to me for ages until I'm asleep, and sometimes they just give up and let me stay up way later than I'm supposed to.
I'm a text-book 2 year old. In the last month I've started insisting on managing most things on my own, allthough my abilites to do so are very much lacking, and so consequently I get very frustrated, The "terrible two's" behaviour has set in, and I will sometimes lie on the floor screaming like there's no tomorrow if I don't get my way. I still love singing and dancing, and I keep drawing scribbles, but using plenty of colours. I still love my food and I eat solid portions. Height-wise I'm below average and weight-wise I'm above, but thats's nothing to worry about luckily.
This winter has been slightly tough since I managed to get hives (elveblest in Norwegian ), flu and an ear infection, all over the course of two weeks, so I kept having to turn up at the doctor's office. I'm so rarely sick though, so I shouldn't complain.
I still go to swimming classes with Wednesday once a week, but I'm currently in a phase where I'm much more scared. Wednesday was like that too but got over it, so I'm sure it's just a phase.
Do remember to visit my site every now and then :-)

This year I'm finally big enough to take part in the skiing classes they have here in Trysil (plus my feet are finally big enough to fit into the smallest available ski boots). I was on the stage 1 class - 'Bittesmott', for the very smallest kids. The course lasted 5 days, for about 2 hrs a day. The first day was all about getting to know each other and playing around in the snow. We were divided into several groups, and I was in the same group as two little boys from Denmark. Our skiing instructor was a Swedish bloke called Kristian. At first I was scared and really did not want to be there, but my parents were persistent, and after 1/2 hr I showed a little more interest. Problem was, daddy had already taken me skiing for a few minutes before the class, so I was very eager to continue doing exactly that., i.e. skiing, rather than doing all the silly games like feeding snow to the little toy animals they had scattered around the slopes. All I wanted was to put my skis on ASAP and skip all that boring childish stuff. Anyway, finally we got to do a little skiing, first on one ski, then on both. We made it safely to the bottom of the nursery slopes and even took the little button lift back up, all on our own! Well, I needed some help getting on and off, and would occasionally fall off the lift, but I loved it! At the end of my first day, when mummy mentioned the skiing class and Kristian, I got all starry eyed. I think I developed a little crush on my skiing instructor.
While I was in my class, Abi was in the little nursery next to the slope, whilst mummy and daddy went skiing in the big slopes. Mummy thought this was perfect. This way she only had to ski for about 3 hrs a day rather than 8 (which bores the life out of her).
I got quite good at skiing, but I have some work left when it comes to stopping and turning properly. I'll work on that in next year's class. Perhaps Abi too can take part then.
On the last day they arranged a cup called 'Smottecupen'. I proudly made it down the slope scattered with little obstacles, with the aid of one of the 'Smott's. Eventually I got my well deserved medal :)
Here are some photos of my skiing extravaganza

Happy new year! Xmas this year was spent in Dinan. We flew to Paris and drove to Dinan on Dec 19th. The next day it was daddy's birthday, so grandma cooked us a lovely meal and daddy got to open his presents. In the evening we went for a walk through Dinan's centre to admire the xmas lights. I even saw Santa Claus! He was handing out sweets, but I was very sceptical and scared though.
The next couple of days we spent preparing for xmas. We made a trip to the woods to pick some mistletoe and grandma found some pine cones and greeneries to make her decorations from. We also decorated the tree of course, even with little chocolates in cute wrapping. Abi soon found them though (she can sniff them from far away!), so they needed to be re-hung, much further up the tree!
On Dec 23rd, uncle Guy, aunt Sharon and cousins Michael and Ethan arrived. They had taken a train and ferry to get there.
The rest of xmas was spent eating lovely food, including some very scary crabs that I wouldn't come anywhere near. They were still alive when grandma & grandpa came back from the shop! Daddy kept telling me that if I wasn't a good girl, I would need to spend time in the garage with the crabs, and that tactic certainly worked. Abi was scared too, but the weird thing was that by New year's eve, when they had brought back live lobsters, we had somehow been transformed into being very keen to talk to and cuddle them.
We received some fab gifts, but the most popular, at least in my book, was Michael's karaoke machine. Poor Michael didn't get to play with it as much as I'm sure he'd wanted to since I was playing with it all the time. Instead he got to borrow the digital camera that I got.
On Boxing day we drove for about an hr to see Manny and Damien. Manny served us roast beef, and there was plenty of sweets and cakes afterwards.
We also made it to a few restaurants for lunch for the usual galettes and dropped by the St Malo aquarium. Abi and I were extatic to see all the colourful fish. Here you can see all the Xmas 2008 photos

I know, I know...it's been forever since my last entry. Mummy and daddy have been too busy (or lazy) to help me out with it.
The summer has passed by, and as you can see from my previous entry, we went to Dinan in July, and before that we had a weekend in London to celebrate my aunt Sharon's non-30th birthday. It was as always great to see everyone again, allthough grandma & grandpa were away travelling unfortunately.
In late August we went to a wedding in the Netherlands, outside Maastricht, where my parent's friend from university, Tim, got married. We stayed at a spectacular hotel in a rural area. We had a 2 storey flat to ourselves, and there was even a pool and spa there. The wedding was great fun too, with lots of stuff for kids, including a giant trampoline and a bouncy castle. My parents had booked a babysitter for Abi and me after the wedding dinner, so that they could return to the party while we went to bed, which worked out very well. Here are some photos from our Netherlands trip and trip to London: Abi's Summer 2008 album
The following weekend we went to London since my parents were attending another university friend, Phil's wedding.This time we stayed with grandma and grandpa. They took us to the London aquarium where we got a cuddly toy-fish / shark each.
Apart from all that we've enjoyed the good weather in the garden, using our paddling pool lots. I've had a great time playing with my neighbour Ella (5) this summer, and we've also lazed around on the sun loungers together.
A rather big event is that I'm now in the oldest unit at kindergarden - Stjerneskuddene. Mummy couldn't quite believe that I've become that big, but I', 3 1/2 now, so it was time. Everyone there is many months, even years older than me, but I'll get to go on many exciting trips and learn lots, for instance science, matchs...etc. They're also concentrating on Astrid Lindgren's character Pippi Longstocking, so we'll be reading the books and singing the theme tune. I keep singing it in the car.
Today we went to Halden for my second cousin Linus' 6th birthday. My other second cousin Eiril was also there and had taken the trip all the way from Bergen with her mum Agathe and grandma Kari. We had delicious pizza and cake, and after the party, in the car on the way home, we discovered that Sweden with its dirt cheap shops at Svinesund, were only right around the corner, so we dropped by and got ourselves some cheap Swedish groceries.

Just like last year we decided that Dinan would be our main summer holiday destination. We flew to Paris and embarked on a 4 hr drive to Dinan where we arrived in the early evening.
Grandma and grandpa's house has had the attick turned into a huge bedroom and bathroom, and the builders were just finishing when we arrived. The attick looked great, but my God was there a lot of cleaning wwaiting to be done, so that's what we did all of Friday.
Once the house was in reasonable order, it was time for the annual Medeival festival. Mummy and daddy dressed up in medieval costumes sown by grandma. There was so much stuff going on at the festival, and tonnes of people everywhere. They had a temporary zoo right by our house, with camels, dromedaries, a tiger, a falcon and a lion, amongst other things. At the markets and in the shops they were selling medieval stuff, and there was medieval music playing everywhere. It was certainly interesting, but after one day I think both mummy and daddy had had enough of pushing us through town, in 27 degrees, wearing some very warm outfits.
We had a visit from daddy's school friend Damien and his mum and also went to see them in their enormous house about an hours drive away a few days later.
Grandma and grandpa came to stay for a few days, in between their sailing sessions. We also went to visit them on their boat at St Malo.
Just like last year, we spent 3-4 days on the beach. Water was a bit cold though. I hope we can return next summer. Next time we're in Dinan wil be at christmas. Have a look in the Summer 2008 album for more photos.

Mummy and I have been on holiday in Mosjøen. We took the night train from Oslo to Trondheim on Wednesday night and continued on the day train to Mosjøen on Thursday morning. We had our own little sleeping cabin on the night train, and it was very exciting and a bit scary and unusual too. It had a bunk bed and I had the bottom bed of course. Mummy snook up to the top bed after I had fallen asleep, which I did quickly after the train started moving. Then I woke up at about 5AM when it started getting light again, and that was it for sleep that night. We had breakfast in the cafe at the Trondheim train station and then awaited another 5 hrs on the train to Mosjøen. I occupied myself with watching Nightgarden and Fraggle rock on mummy's portable tv, plus went to endless trips to the toilet (to mummy's despair - I tend to visit the toilet a lot when I'm bored).
I was so happy to see mormor again. I haven't seen her since xmas, so we had much catching up to do. Mormor thought I had changed quite a bit in the last 6 months. I'm a lot more verbal now than at xmas, that's for sure.
Friday was spent helping out with the gardening since mormor's garden needed a lot of work! Mummy cut the lawn with the new powerful lawn mower, and mormor and I helped out doing some raking. I was very into this indeed! On Saturday we all went to the town centre to buy some flowers and just have a wander around town. We had lunch at one of the cafe's at the mall. On Sunday we went for a long drive to find a spot to BBQ our hotdogs. Eventually we found a picturesque spot by the river. It was a bit unfortunate that it started raining just as we were about to eat, but at least the rain didn't put the BBQ out.
We went back on the afternoon train from Mosjøen and continued on the night train from Trondheim. Then it was straight home for a quick unpack and then straight to kindergarden. See a few more photos from our holiday in the Summer 2008 album.

Today I had so much fun since I got to see almost everyone from my old barsel (mother and baby) group. We used to meet up regularly when I was a baby, but after that we don't see each other that often since everyone has moved quite far away. Harald and his mum moved all the way to Telemark, but today Harald's mum and his little baby sister came to Oslo so we could meet up again. Sadly Harald himself couldn't come along. We met up at Marie's house, and the twins Anna and Pauline and their mum came too.
Marie has a baby sister too, and we were all very interested in looking after her and Harald's sister. Afterwards we had a fun time making our own pizzas and enjoying ice cream for dessert :)
Time just flew and suddenly it was time to go home again.

I'm three today! Since my birthday falls on a weekend this year, we celebrated my birthday in kindergarden on Thursday. I brought everyone brownies (just like last year) and my teachers had made me a beautiful purple birthday crown.
Grandma & grandpa flew over on Thursday evening to spend the wole weekend plus Mon and Tuesday with us.
the day today started with playing with all the balloons that my parents had inflated for me, and then, after breakfast it was time for opening all my presents. I got heaps of nice stuff as usual, but the best thing was a brand new bike - with two wheels (and a couple of support wheels). It even has a little 'shopping' bag by the handle bars. We took it out to Frognerparken so I could practise. At first I was very frustrated and upset because I couldn't pedal backwards like I was used to on the 3 wheel bikes at kindergarden. Whenever I tried, the bike just stopped. I took a while getting used to that but was getting much better after a little while.
In the park there was also a colourful clown making magic balloons. I was very scared of her and was hiding behind mummy. The clown made me a pretty balloon flower. (B.t.w - my parents calculated that being in the magic balloon business must be very very lucrative indeed, based on what they had to pay for my balloon).
For dinner I had my favourite - mushroom risotto, and then banana split for dessert.
There are plenty of more pictures from my big day in my 3rd Birthday album. I have also put some new photos in my Misc album.

We have spent this weekend at our hytte. Nicklas, his mum and their new au pair, Yulicel came along also. During the day both Sat and Sun we spent time in the cute nursery by the children's slopes. Nicklas came along some of the time when he wasn't racing down the slopes. He's amazing and skis a lot faster than mummy would dream of doing! Mummy tested her new skis for the first time. This was in fact the first time she tried down hill skiing in over 5 years, and at first she felt like 'Bambi on ice' but she slowly re-gained her confidence and eventuelly went down some relatively steep green slopes.
We made great friends with Yulicel, and we hope she'll want to come and babysit us once in a while.

Hi, Abi here! Wednesday has let me write an update on how I'm doing and what I'm up to nowadays in her diary, since my parents so far have been too lazy to get my own diary up and running.
Some of the best news lately is that I will join Wednesday's kindergarden on April 16th. It's like winning the lottery, so we've been very very lucky. We hope I will get off to a good start there, as I have tended to be scared of strangers, including the staff working there. I will be at 'Knøttene', the unit for the 1 year olds.
Since Xmas I have been very busy meeting up with my friends from the barsel group, meeting them up to 4 times a week! Especially Conrad and Ilayda. It's been very nice and we have been to Child Planet plenty of times plus gone for walks and cafe trips here and there.
I have not started walking properly yet. I can walk grabbing on to furniture and have been doing so since November.
I'm really good at talking though! At xmas I started saying "jump" when I saw my parents jump. In January my parents tought me to say "eye" while pointing at my eye. I would then start clapping since everyone else did :-) The 'word' I say the most though is "uh-uh" whilst waving my finger. The reason is obvious, it's what I'm told all day long since I'm not a very obediant little girl. I have even said "Uh-uh Abi!" I also say "Åh nei"! a lot, since that's what my sister tends to say a lot too. I say "bye bye" when people leave and when the credits roll across the telly. I can say "mamma" and "daddy" and "hei daddy". Lately mummy tought me where my toes are, so I can now point to them and say "tå" (toe). I nearly said "gruffalo" the other day (since I have a book about him and a cuddly gruffalo toy). I can sing the first phrases of the Balamory song and the "Lala, Poe" part of the Teletubbies song after mummy or daddy sings the first phrases. I absolutely LOVE music! I start dancing every time I hear some rhytmical music. It's very fun for everyone else to watch.
Another favourite thing lately is jumping in the sofa. I laugh and giggle and can go on and on for ever. In general, I'm very smiley and happy but I do have a temper, just like my sister. My mum says she thinks I might become an explorer when I grow up. I tend to crawl away to places I shouldn't be, like the entrance doors of cafes or whereever. If my mum isn't observant, I'll crawl right out in the street! I can be very sociable, but I do have this need to get out and about and explore stuff on my own too. My sister was a bit like that too at my age, but nowhere near as extreme. I usually play well with Wednesday and she makes me laugh a lot, but also cry a lot when her way of displaying her 'affection' becomes too vigorous for me. I always smile when I see her though.
I've gained lots of weight since my one year check up, and now I'm 10 kgs. I think my weight to height ratio might be tipping over to the 'robust' side, but we'll know more at my 15 month check up. I eat impressive portions plus I wake up to have milk twice a night (unfortunately). I'm extremely fussy though and won't eat bread (I spit it out after chewing for ages) or any savoury dinner. It seems my parents will be struggling in the next years to make me eat regular food and not just porridge and milk.
I hope I will have my own diary soon. Meanwhile, do remember to visit my site as new photos are being posted regularly, not just under Misc but also Bath Time and Friends & Family. I'm sure there will be new categories added soon too.

This year is the first year any of us spend easter in the mountains. We spent last Friday until Good Friday at the cabin. There was even more snow there than when we last were there a month ago. I had brought the pretty easter decorations I made at kindergarden - a yellow easter chicken and an easter egg, which we put in the window. Unfortunately for mummy, she fell ill as she normally does at the hytte, lord knows why this nearly always happens, but before that we went cross country skiing together. Abi and I sat in the new bicycle buggy / pulk and had cocoa and blackcurrant toddy half way through.
Mummy bought herself some downhill skis in the half price end of season sale so that she can go skiing with me in the nursery slopes next year.
When we returned home we had our easter eggs on Easter Sunday. Grandma & grandpa had bought Abi and me a lovely Swiss chocolate easter bunny each, but for some reason I found the bunny very frightening and refused to eat it and wouldn't go anywhere near it until daddy had torn it into little choclate pieces for me so I wouldn't know it came from the bunny. I can be very unpredictable sometimes. Fortunately Abi loved her chocolate bunny.
I have put some more easter photos in the Misc album.

My parents have invested in a new fancy buggy with the space for both Abi and me. It is completely wind proof and serves as both a buggy you attach to the bike and as a "pulk" (a sledge to pull children along in while you're skiing) since it comes with a set of detachable skis. We tested the cycling version today when we cycled up to Maridalen. Abi and I sat next to each other while daddy was pulling us along. He says it was very very hard work pulling roughly 40 kgs of kids and buggy uphill. Mummy had a go too, and after roughly 500 metres uphill she was super-exhausted. I must have found it very relaxing in there because my parents found me fast asleep when we arrived at Maridalen and had a hard time waking me up. I fell asleep again straight away. Abi on the other hand, cried lots in there since her cycling helmet kept tipping in front of her eyes.