Trip to South Carolina

We kicked off 2014 by taking a six-day family trip down to Aiken, South Carolina to visit Leif and Bjorn's Aunt Jessica, Uncle Mitch, and cousins Rachel and Libby. With four children under the age of five to be entertained, our itinerary was heavy on kid-friendly venues. We revisited a couple of the places we had taken Leif and Rachel back in November 2011 on our first trip to SC, as well as adding a few new destinations to the mix:

[Wednesday - travel day]
Thursday - lunch at the Mellow Mushroom & EdVenture Children's Museum in Columbia (about an hour's drive from Aiken)
Friday - library story hour & dinner at Mitch and Jessica's favorite barbecue place
Saturday - Riverbanks Zoo (also in Columbia)
Sunday - Monkey Joe's "inflatable play center" in Augusta (which, although across the Georgia state line, is actually closer to Aiken than Columbia is)
[Monday - travel day]

I note the travel days because they were a memorable odyssey in and of themselves. We had opted to fly nonstop to Atlanta and drive from there, both to limit plane/airport time for the boys and to give them a chance to nap in the car. Given how much time it takes to navigate the gigantic Atlanta airport and the three-hour drive to Aiken, we really did manage to consume nearly a whole day each way just with transportation. Still, far easier and faster than driving all the way from MN to SC!

It was really fun catching up with Mitch and Jessica and seeing the four cousins interact with each other -- after all, our last trip down to South Carolina was in the pre-Bjorn and Libby era. I think I have at least one good video of the four of them playing together at Jessica's house, which I'll post at a later date. For now, here are a few photo highlights from the trip.

Leif, Rachel, and Libby enjoying some tractor time at EdVenture

For comparison, here is Leif riding the same tractor in November 2011!
 

Bjorn found a dalmatian doggie at EdVenture

Aaron, Leif, and Bjorn at Riverbanks Zoo

Leif and Rachel did a GREAT job of posing for pictures together at the zoo, now that they are a (relatively) mature almost-4 and almost-5 years old!

And here they were at the same zoo back in November 2011 :-) 

(On that visit, when Leif was just 1 1/2 and Rachel 2 1/2, trying to get the two of them to sit on anything together was NOT happening, no matter how hard we tried to coax them!)

Aaron, Jessica, and I all got a good workout helping Bjorn and Libby to climb up the bouncy structures at Monkey Joe's -- particularly this huge, inflated double slide

Christmas / Gock's birthday

On December 25th, we had Gock and Grandpaw G. and Auntie Sarah over at our house for our traditional dual celebration of Christmas and Gock's birthday. A good time was had by all :-) .

Around 19 months, Bjorn was frequently extending both arms straight out backward like this (apparently just for the joy of it), looking like he was a little toddler rocket about to launch!

Also around this age, Bjorn was starting to get interested in demonstrating his taking-clothes-off-all-by-himself skills at random moments, such as in the middle of opening Christmas presents

Auntie Sarah brought a memorable doggie-themed cake for Gock's birthday

Leif is always in a good mood when there is "Happy Birthday" to be sung, candles to be blown out (a service he will happily provide on anyone's birthday, not just his own), and cake to be eaten!

Christmas Eve 2013

A few photos from Christmas Eve 2013 at the House of Brynolf....

Vivian (5), Leif (3) & Bjorn (1)

Bjorn and Vivian took turns modeling the Christmas tree glasses

Tami sporting the JO JO JO! (Spanish for "ho ho ho," doncha know) Santa hat I got in Chile in 1996

Vivian and Leif were both very helpful little elves, delivering presents to the appropriate people and providing present opening assistance to others as needed

PIE!!! (True to form, Bjorn was primarily excited about the whipped cream.)

Clockwise from left: Tami, Timo, Mirja, Elvi, Thelma, Leif, Vivian, Erik, Rudy, Aaron, Bjorn

Thank you to everyone for another year of happy Christmas Eve memories!

Translating Bjornspeak

I've been thinking about writing a blog post about Bjorn starting to talk for several months now. I've kept procrastinating in hopes of getting a video clip of him actually *saying* some of these words, but since it seems that his intense interest in the video camera (which causes him to rush up to me and attempt to snatch it out of my hands approximately five seconds after I begin shooting) isn't going to end anytime soon, I thought I should just go ahead with the post already!

If I'm remembering correctly, when we took Bjorn in for his 15 month doctor's appointment, the item on the language development checklist for his age read something like "uses words to name at least five objects." He was right around that level of language development at the time -- just beginning to name a few things other than Mommy and Daddy. By the time his 18 month appointment rolled around, I had a vague sense that he was saying more than five words, but I wasn't sure how many -- maybe a dozen? Two dozen?

To get a more concrete picture of where his language development was at, I started a list of all the words he was trying to say. By 19 months, he had easily blown past the 100 mark. It looks like Bjorn is learning from his chatty older brother that talking is a pretty fun pastime! Granted, many of Bjorn's words are probably only intelligible to me and Aaron, and only within an immediate physical context that makes it possible for us to guess what he is most likely attempting to say. Still, when you've had no means to communicate other than crying and gesturing for the first year and a half or so of your life, even a 100-word vocabulary with questionable articulation seems like a pretty amazing development.

A few of Bjorn's favorite words these days:

FOOD/DRINK - pickle, olive, popsicle, apple, applesauce, banana, meatball, berries, yogurt, pizza, pasta, waffle, pear, cracker, water, milk, juice, cookie, coffee (no, we do not give him coffee! but he is fascinated by my coffee pot and all its weird noises)

HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS & LOCATIONS - bowl, fork, chair, DVD, computer, light, camera, clip, cord, keys, garbage, floor, wall, kitchen, bed, paci, potty

BODY PARTS - belly, eyes, arm, hand, mouth, ears

ADJECTIVES - hot, cold, hungry, messy, heavy, stuck

VERBS - try, trade, eat, carry, back (meaning "put it back on" or "give it back"), shut, push, help, hug, go, park, pour, see, jump, dancing, hiding

CLOTHING - socks, shoes, boots, shirt, pants, hood, glasses, hat

VEHICLES - airplane, bus, car, truck, van, train, ambulance, bulldozer

ANIMALS - doggie/puppy, panda, cow, piggies (may refer to either pigs or toes), bear, duck, cat, squirrel, horse

MISC. - alley, home, pictures, baby, snow, shovel, all gone, please, knock-knock, other, else (meaning "something else" or "someone else"), up/down, out/in, off/on, yeah/no

Interestingly, Bjorn does NOT say "more," but rather persists in saying "neh neh neh" while doing the baby sign for "more." This reminds me of when Leif was a toddler and for quite some time referred to blueberries as "za za," who knows why!

At 19 months, Bjorn is also starting to put together a few simple two-word phrases, such as "Where Dad?", "Grandma sleep," and "Go, Leif!" However, much of the time he has a knack for communicating a whole sentence worth of information through a single word. If you are standing with him at the bottom of the stairs and he looks up at you and says something that sounds like "key," he's actually trying to say "carry," as in, "Carry me upstairs!" Or if Leif eats a quarter of his dinner and declares himself done, while Bjorn has rapidly cleaned his plate, Bjorn will point to Leif's nearly full plate and declare, "Trade!", meaning "I want to trade my plate for Leif's!" And we are starting to get that classic toddler proclamation, "Self!", meaning "Hands off, Mom/Dad! I want to do that ALL BY MYSELF -- or suffer my wrath!!!" I'm sure we will be hearing plenty more of that in the year(s) to come :-) .

Aunt Jessica, Cousin Rachel & Cousin Libby

 Our third and final Thanksgiving gathering was at Gock and Grandpaw G.'s house on Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Unfortunately, I was apparently too busy herding children and eating delicious food to take any pictures! Leif and Bjorn loved seeing their grandparents, Auntie Sarah, and all the dogs, as always, and enjoyed the additional excitement of having their South Carolina cousins, Rachel and Libby, in town for the holiday. The cousins had another chance to play together two days later when Jessica and the girls came over to our house for dinner. The video below was shot after dinner when the kids were all hanging out in the living room with Aaron and Jessica. (Mitch had flown back to SC that morning, otherwise you would probably catch a glimpse of him in this video as well.) Not a whole lot of action, but enough to give you a sense of Libby and Bjorn at age 1 1/2, Leif at 3, and Rachel at 4.

Thanksgiving at Erik's house

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had another fun family gathering, this one at Erik, Tami, and Vivian's house. Leif and Bjorn's Grandma and Grandpa B. were also there; Auntie Mirja was getting over the flu and so did not make it. We feasted on appetizers of fruit, shrimp with cocktail sauce, and garlic-topped crostini, followed by lasagna and several Thanksgivingy side dishes (corn pudding, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows). Leif, Bjorn, and Vivian all took advantage of the Picky Youngster Tasting Menu, consisting of plain, cold lasagna noodles with a side of jellied cranberry sauce. In the end, it didn't matter a whole lot what was on their plates, since they could only stand to be torn away from their Matchbox car races to sit at the dinner table for about five minutes, anyway. Bjorn did his best to keep up with the big kids as they drove laps through the kitchen, hallway, bedroom, and dining room. We all noticed and remarked on HOW WELL all the kids got along and maintained their good spirits throughout the evening -- an unprecedented occurrence! As I said to Aaron, any gathering where perpetually happy Bjorn is the kid who requires the most attention qualifies as a VERY GOOD evening.

Thanks to Erik, Tami, and Vivian for the delicious feast and good times hanging out with the fam!

Bjorn perusing "How Proust Can Change Your Life"

Vivian and Leif tending their carefully-designed parking lot

Bjorn getting a ride from Grandma B.

Thanksgiving Day

We had three separate family gatherings over Thanksgiving weekend this year, and the one on Thanksgiving (at our house) was the most low-key. Since we knew we would be having turkey with all the trimmings at Gock and Grandpaw G.'s house on Sunday, we decided on a simple menu of crepes with raspberry sauce for Thanksgiving Day lunch at our house. Gock, Grandpaw G., and Auntie Sarah entertained Leif and Bjorn while I made a pile of crepes, and Gock brought her always popular fruit pizza for dessert. And since it was Thanksgiving, we also enjoyed a bonus dessert of pecan pie (courtesy of Sarah and the fine people of Bakers Square) a little while later, after cleaning up the first round of dishes and roughhousing with Leif had enabled us all to build up an appetite again. I'm thankful for all of our extended family members who make my kiddos so happy whenever we see them!

Leif and Gock planning their Black Friday shopping strategy

Leif ate every last bite of his large pile of whipped cream (he insisted on pushing the spout on the whipped cream can by himself), then passed the untouched piece of pecan pie to his dad to finish. Aaron did not protest.

Bjorn ate an entire pint of raspberries (dipped in whipped cream) in lieu of pie.