Spring at last!

After slogging through some snowy, slushy, sleety days well into April, we are finally feeling securely enough into springtime to pack away the winter coats, boots, hats, and mittens. We've been enjoying some warmer weather outdoor activities, too -- lots of bubble blowing, sidewalk chalk drawing, and bike/trike riding. Leif is getting to be quite the whiz on his balance bike, zooming around the large, open asphalt play area at the school across the street from our house. Bjorn sort of has the hang of pedaling a tricycle, although at not quite two years old, his legs are too short to reach the pedals on many of the trikes he encounters (much to his chagrin). He's also not a fan of having to work too hard while pedaling, so he prefers to have a grown-up push the trike unless he's going slightly downhill. We're humoring him with the trike assistance for now, assuming that soon enough he'll be insisting (like he does already with many other things), "Do it SELF!"

Leif and Bjorn aren't very adept at blowing bubbles the old-fashioned way yet (they do try, but get frustrated with their limited success), so I picked up a couple of hand-held, battery-operated bubble blowers that work like a charm -- quite the hit!

Another popular outdoor activity at our house: scaling the back yard fence. Fortunately, Aaron built it to be sturdy enough to withstand such treatment.

Leif's 4th birthday - VIDEOS

As promised, here are a few videos from Leif's birthday back in February. Well, technically the last one dates from March -- we had the traditional family birthday gathering at our house the weekend following Leif's birthday, and given the short month, the calendar page had already been turned. No worries, it still felt like winter!

Leif's 4th birthday

Hard to believe that Leify Leifster turned FOUR in February! The biggest surprise of this birthday for us was probably how little (relatively speaking) he had grown and changed since his third birthday. Of course he *did* grow and change, but after the whirlwind pace of growth of any baby or toddler, preschoolers seem to be downright stable in the growth department. (Not in the mood department....)

To illustrate, here are photos of Leif on his third and fourth birthdays:

Opening presents on his third birthday

(He still wears these size 3T "Dirt Dog" pajamas! Granted, they 

are getting a little bit short in the cuffs for him at this point.)

Showing four fingers at preschool on his fourth birthday

I have a few videos related to Leif's birthday that I want to post, as well, but given the late hour and how long it takes videos to upload to Blogger, I think I'll wait and post them another day. More to come soon!

Winter pastimes

We have been slogging through a VERY long, cold, and snowy winter here in Minnesota, and the boys and I have had to get a bit creative in order to stay sane through our many, many hours spent cooped up playing inside the house. Here are a few of the indoor winter pastimes the boys have enjoyed:

(1) Pillow Blanket Mountain

Procedure: Procure six large cushions from sofa on back porch, plus two to three throw pillows, plus three bed pillows from upstairs, along with several blankets and/or sheets. Create a large, fluffy mound in the middle of the living room floor. Alternate jumping/diving/sliding off the couch onto the Pillow Blanket Mountain, lolling around on top of it reading books, and running across the length of the dining room to leap or belly flop onto the pile of pillows.

(2) Repurposing the play mat

I don't think this is exactly what the makers of our alphabet play mat had in mind when they decided to make the letters removable....

(3) Taking over the toy bins

We have not had much luck so far convincing Leif and Bjorn that our various toy storage boxes are actually for toys, not for boys.

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!