Mormor's Trip

Mormor came to visit for about 10 days at the end of September.  She helped out a lot and the girls thought there was an endless tickle session going on.  I can't recall how often I overheard Karina enthusiastically saying "Tickle me more, Mormor!  I want you to tickle me again!".  Mormor has several Norwegian tickle rhymes that she recites to them.

Lydia has a penchant for chewing the nose of all her stuffed animals.  In the picture below she is biting Leah the Lion's nose.  She had managed to partially rip off Leah's head doing this, but Mormor performed surgery to reattach it.  We'll see how long that lasts.  Her beagle Emma's nose has seen the most affection. 

Singing at the piano is a perpetual favorite:

Lydia continues to be a word sponge.  I don't even know how many new words she recites per day.  Some of the fun ones from yesterday were 'Bob Baah-hoe" (Bob the Backhoe is one of her favorite books), and 'ibby ibby pidah" (Itsy bitsy spider).   She continues to impress and amuse us.  

Here we are Skyping with Morfar on the computer:

We installed a new toy shelf storage unit in the playroom/office and are enjoying the added organization.  We also added cabinets and drawers to some of the cubbies. 

One day we went out to the mall.   My mother and I shopped, and Nate and the girls played in the play area, and then we all got ice cream:

I was even lucky enough to spot a special cart at the mall that someone had finished with, but hadn't returned.  Karina was excited. 

One day we went to the Newseum in Washington DC, a fun and interactive museum about the news.  Karina and I looking stylish in the glasses for a 4-D movie:

My mom and Karina by some actual portions of the Berlin Wall:

We kept trying to get a nice family photo with a view of the U.S. Capitol, but ended up giving up. 

Most of the family pictures we took looked like this one (though Lydia's squirming scream is pretty cute):

This was our best shot, since everyone's body is angled toward the camera and no one is crying:

We did manage some good shots with my mom though:

At the Newseum we also got to make several attempts at presenting the weather and other news in front of a green screen.  Karina was a great broadcaster and was not at all camera shy.  She kept giving shout outs to all her family members and announced that the weather today was hot and that tomorrow it would also be 'hot':-)

Here is the only video we bothered to have saved, though this was not one of the better videos we made.  It's too bad we didn't think to click on the upload button after the first video Karina made, because that was the best one.  Oh well.  She's still cute.  

Thanks for coming, Mormor.