from across the Atlantic…

bless⋅ed [bles-id; especially for 3 blest]

So this weekend its just me and Nell…Lars and his dad went up to the mountains to do some fishing, so birdie and I are holding down the fort.

Not too much news…took it easy yesterday and now today just gearing up for a walk.  Nell has a hard time taking a good nap in the afternoon (when she goes down about 1430), so I find its best to get out and go for a long walk at this time.  She sleeps fantastic in her stroller…and wakes up whenever I stop!  So shopping is out of the questions, its got to be a constant stroll.  Too funny!  But if she doesn’t get a good snooze in at this time of day, then she’s ready for bed about 1700…and hour too early.  So we’ll see if I can get a good hour and a half walk in this afternoon and then keep her up until 1800 or so.

Our "routine" is a fairly good one too…something that Nell has fallen into on her own, actually.  Here’s an example of an average day (-ish of course, all of these times flex by an hour or so depending on the day!)
*0600 up for a feed, then straight back to bed
*1030 awake and feeds, then she plays for about an hour and starts showing signs thats she’s sleepy again
*1200 Nell takes about an hour snooze on the sofa, in her little cozy corner that we have set up for her
*Feeding again about 1300
*Nap time at 1400
*After this nap (which is about an hour and a half if I’m lucky), Nell has a feed and then has a very active period where we play pretty hard
*Bedtime about 1800
*Then after she goes down, Nell sleeps until 0600 the next morning when I give her a "dream feed", which is a bottle (of pumped b.milk) at 2300. 

She’s been on this "routine" for quite awhile now and I feel soooooo lucky to be getting so much sleep at night!  And fabulous that Nell goes back to sleep right after her first feed…it gives me time to shower and get my day started before she’s up at at’em!

This week doesn’t bring much action…we have a physical therapy session for Nell tomorrow, so will be interesting to see how that goes.  Her neck flexibility has gotten so much better and she now turns her head to both sides without a thought, so this is just a follow up to check that she’s still doing great before we go on vacation.  Then on Tuesday I’m picking up Henriette and bringing her out to Drøbak for a few days…so we’ll have some time together before she takes off for her year of studying in Seattle!  Of course we’ll see when we’re there…but she won’t be back to Norway until next summer!  Too much fun!

Alright, going to get ready for our walk before long!  Hope you had a lovely weekend!

Took these pictures of Nell "crawling", last night!  Isn’t she just a doll?!?  I am just having too much fun being home with Nell and I feel so extremely privilidged that I get this year at home to watch her grow!  There is nothing I love more than walking into her room every morning and getting that heart-melting grin first thing!  Who knew I’d be this ga-ga for my girl?! 

This afternoon we were at the healthstation for Nell’s 3 month appointment and everything is going great!  Our jordmor was impressed that Nell is so active.  I told her than Nell is already baby-talking back to me and Lars, that she loves being on her stomach and that she is already rolling over! 

Its so fun that Nell is getting to be at an age where she can show love too…that she smiles at us, coo’s at us, and even puts her arms around our neck to hold on while we’re walking around home!  The other morning Lars went to get Nell out of bed and came out beaming…"Look!  She’s hugging me!"  It was so darling!  He even told his golf friends that he got his first hug! 

Nell also got her first vaccines today, the first of the series of three.  In Norwegian she got difteri, stivkrampe (tetnis), kikhoste, poliomyelitt and Hib-infeksjon (DTP-IPV-Hib), Pneumokokksykdom.  One in each thigh.  And she screamed bloody murder for them both!  Our jordmor said she was impressed with Nell’s pipes!  "Does she always have such a high pitched scream?" she asked me!  Ha, ha!  I told her yes, that Nell has screamed like a tea-kettle since the day she was born, but that we rarely hear her scream these days…she is such a good girl!  So dose 2 (of 3), Nell gets in October…more screaming to come!

As for stats,
Nell weighs 6,835 kilos (15 pounds)
she is 61,5 centimeters long (24 inches)
and her head circumfrance is 41,8 (16 inches)

So Nell will be gracing the beaches of Hawaii at the tender age of just 10 months!

We have booked yet another (our 3rd) trip to Hawaii for this winter and we couldn’t be more tickled!  For those of you who know us well, you know that Lars and I just fell harder than hard for the Hawaiian Islands when we first visited there for our honeymoon in 2006.  We returned in 2007 and had plans to return in 2008 but had to cancel when we got pregnant with Nell…not complaining there…what a GREAT reason to stay home!  So now we’re back on track and have Hawaii as our va-cay destination for 2010!

This year we’ve even convinced some friends to come with us too…so we’ll be two families (with 2 kids!) gracing the beaches (and the golf courses!) of Hawaii!  I can’t believe they want to come with us…what fun!

We’ll start our trip by spending 12 nights at the Park Shore Waikiki Hotel, where we’ve never stayed before.  We usually stay at the Waikiki Beachside, but they didn’t have room in the rooms to accomodate a rollaway bed for our kids.  Soooooooo we’re moving down the beach, but the view from the balcony will be the same…ocean front!  Lars and I (and Nell!) will have 4 days together before our friends join us (they’re flying directly from Norway to Hawaii, phew!), and then we’ll jump to Kauai and spend 9 nights there, sharing a condo at the Poipu Makai…again, right on the water.

We are already counting the days until our trip…and as fall, and then winter, settle in…we’re going to be more and more excited every single day!  Plus, this trip to Hawaii means that Nell will be visiting her Bestemor and Bestefar in Seattle just after Christmas!  A bonus visit!

Alright…so I am back on track and following Dr Joshi’s regimen once again!

If you have been following my blog since forever ago, you’ll remember that I started my first round of Joshi’s detox just before I became pregnant with Nell.  If you’re interested in catching up and finding out what this detox is all about, you can always read all my detox postings by clicking on the "detox" link under the title of this posting.

To sum it up…from August 1st until October 8th of last year, I lost 16 kilos…thats 35 pounds!  And I did that by just changing my eating habits, almost NO exercise what-so-ever!  I stopped this manner of eating (I can’t call it detox really because a detox has a start and a finish…) when I found out I was pregnant, mainly to reintroduce dairy for Nell’s sake!

In a nutshell, this lifestyle means that I’m only allowed to eat chicken and fish, no diary (except for natual, probiotic yogurt), no sugar, no caffiene, and no wheat or gluten.  It sounds very restrictive, but it is extremely easy and I swear I feel better after just a few days of being on the "program" again!  The only thing is that you have to give up all your store bought sauces, etc.  I was really startled when I started this last year and actually started reading the labels on things…there is sugar in EVERYTHING sold at the grocery store!!!

So far Lars and I have been doing Joshi since Tuesday of last week and I’m already feeling 100% better and am watching the numbers drop on the scale every single morning!  Definitely check out this book if you’re interested in taking charge of your life and just feeling better about what you’re putting in your body!  I saw changes in my waistline, my skin, my hair, energy levels and my attitude!  And I’m looking forward to reeping the benefits of the diet all over again…this time I’m making it my permanent lifestyle…GO JOSHI!

My Nell update is so overdue that I don’t even know where to start!  Yesterday marked our 3 month, 3 weeks old Birthday!

Nell is changing and growing up even faster than I ever thought I could even imagine!  She is laughing, rolling over, trying to crawl when she gets on her belly, and she is just talking up a storm…just jibber jabber of course, but its constant!  And wonderfully enough, Nell is sleeping 12-13 hours with a dream feed…which means that after I put her to bed between 7 and 8, I feed her a bottle in her sleep at 11pm…which keeps her sleeping until 7 or 8am!  NICE!

Nell’s latest measurements (which were taken 3 weeks ago at her 3 month mark) were 6,49 kilos = 14 lbs and 61 cm = 24 inches!  Nell was at the 75th percentile in both her length and weight…so she’s a growing girl!  This Friday we have our three month check up at the healthstation…and Nell will be getting her first vaccines.  Will be great to check in with our jordmor and to hear what she has to say about Nell’s progress!

We are very busy giving our little girl all our love…I never knew I could love anyone this much!!

So I know I said I wasn’t going to blog much this summer…but I just had to post this recipe!  Plus, I want to have this recipe on my blog so I can make it at my parents during out visit…Yummy!

Just made this for the first time and it is absolutely delicious!  Lars even loved it and he’s practically terrified of lentils!  Personally, I think that most lentil recipes are fairly boring…and almost all cold lentil salads call for vinegar, which Lars also isn’t too crazy about…so I’m tickled to finally find one that is just fantastic…hot or cold!

I was looking up recipes for baked lentils and came across this website.  As the blogger shares, this is an extremely low cost meal…and its sooooooo insanely easy to make because you just throw everything into 1 baking dish and walk away from it!  Its really that easy!

Here’s the breakdown

Honey Baked Lentils

1 cup red lentils (rinse them, but no pre-soaking necessary!)
2 cups water
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp tamari (a type of yeast free soysauce)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1 clove garlic (I used a dash of dry, didn’t have fresh)
1 small onion
salt & pepper to taste

Bake in a covered dish at 350 until tender, for an hour and a half.

Other tips from the blogger "you could also substitute 1/3 cup of rice or barley for some of the lentils…and add whatever "winter" vegetables you have on hand. When I made it, I used squash and potatoes."

As you can tell I have not been blogging regularly lately…and I will defintely try to pick up speed again once we get back from Seattle at the end of the summer.

Things have cooled down here, so we’ve had a bit of rain and no extreme heat like we had a couple weeks ago.

Nell is growing up right before our eyes, even faster than we could have imagined!  She is now 14 pounds and 24 inches long…just over 3 months old!  As for a quick list of her latest accomplisments…she has rolled over several times from her back to her stomach, she is desperately sucking her fingers and thumbs (when she can get ahold of them), and she is babbling up a storm!  My mother-in-law is shocked at how much Nell and I "talk" during the course of a day and she thinks that its very early for a baby to carry on the way Nell does.  Its pretty hysterical.  We’ve been video taping some of it and once I figure out how to get it on the computer and online, I’ll share it.

So we’re having a TON of fun with our girl!  More pictures to come too, I’ll try to do an update before we leave for Seattle…

XOXOXOXO to you all!

Really…how much information is too much?

I have caved an signed up for twitter…I have heard a lot of buzz and have been wondering what all the commotion is about.  Between e.mail, facebook, twitter and blogging…how much information is just too much?  How many different ways can we share information about ourselves?!  And how can we even start to keep track of updating all of them?!  Ha, ha!  As you can see by my lack of blogging lately, I am having a hard enough time without twitter!

But I promised a friend that I would try it for a month…and I think I’ve found out the "secret" to making twitter interesting…its sharing news and pictures.  People can’t seriously be interested in me updating twitter every 2 seconds with what I’m doing right that second…but posting interesting news that I have found online, or pictures of Nell might be fun.  So I’m going to give the occasional update and will try to share interesting tid bits that I find in the news!

Enjoy my updates and let me know if you use twitter so I can follow you too!  Going to give twitter a decent chance to see what I think!

Phew…its is toasty over here!  Just too hot to be sitting at the computer, so you have to excuse the fact that I haven’t written since before mom and pappa left for Seattle!

We had a wonderful time together creating soooooo many beautiful memories that I carry with me every day!  I only wish that they lived here so we could spend a little bit of every day together like we did in June.

Thats all for now…just wanted to let you know that alls well…but HOT!  I’ll start writing more again as things cool down…I owe you a LONG update on Nell!  She is growing and changing so fast!  We have a real angel on our hands she must be the perfect baby!