Sunday walk

This is it folks, Pure Unadulterated Nilsen Life.

They make a sweet pair, don't they?

Lars, about 1 second away from wiping out and sliding the rest of the way on his bum, much to his delight

Daddy makes Annika giggle

Week of Red Letter Days

It's been a big week at the Nilsen House. Our biggest girl hit SIX, our smallest girl started crawling (instead of dragging herself across the hardwood like a brave wounded soldier), and our little Big Boy tried out a two-wheeler for the first time.

All these milestones can be considered big successes, if somewhat bittersweet for the two in charge of marking these occasions. How does it all go so fast? Its almost as if the training wheels were ripped off and now we're flying down the Hill of Rapidly Growing Kids.

This little lady we came across, has refused to let go of the messenger bag she got for her birthday for a good 48 hrs now...

Presents

The party was so successful the present opening had to happen after the guests went home, but ohhhhhhhh, do Cecilie's friends know what she loves!

A gorgeous pink & purple tutu from Ellie (and her extremely talented designer-of-the-tutu mom), and here you have Cecilie opening a fancy pink satin cape from Lauren.

Any new tutu warrants a ballet recital, even if it is 9pm on your birthday night!

A grand & graceful exit from the party.

Food and food

Cecilie's heart's desire was to have a real Dessert Table, with every dessert she could think of. To wit: a chocolate cake, a Norwegian cream cake, a pumpkin pie, sugar cookies, almond macaroons, molasses cookies, brownies, and (of course) the Scarecrow Cupcakes

Wait, don't forget the caramel fudge apples too!

One down, 8 to go.....

Jonah C. feels dessert fatigue setting in, even as Farmor serves pieces of chocolate cake.

Games and food

Reverse Musical Chairs, in which you have to share your chair if someone else doesn't have one, until many party guests are piled on top of each other. Very popular with the six-year old set, but I can imagine it would be a great drinking game also...

Lars & Jonah were helpless with laughter when Jonah's daddy Chris tried to sit on top of them!

Meanwhile the girls are in thrall to Sam (an old preschool classmate) who was putting on a one-man cabaret on the porch...

Oh yeah, you gotta have the scarecrow cupcakes.

Harvest Day

After 3 days and 3 inches of rain, the Harvest Festival Birthday was almost RAINED OUT. But after our first few calls to cancel were met with 'What!?!? We still wanna come!' Cecilie made the executive decision to move the party indoors. Cue banners, flags, corn stalks & haybales inside, along with all 36 guests. Yikes!

Kirsten is particularly proud of these pumpkins. Offers of art school scholarships on a postcard, please...

Each family was invited to decorate a pumpkin in true harvest style...

And the first game was eating donuts on a string, with your hands behind your back. This was definitely more successful with the older kids, but the younger ones enjoyed the sugar high nonetheless. Adam Stein won, (no)hands down.

Birthday picnic

Since Cecilie's 'real' birthday (Sept. 23) fell on a school day, we invited the other 7 kids in her class to a picnic at the playground. Mommy forgot to bring playclothes for our girl, but a few cupcakes and a juice box & all is forgiven. This was also Farmor's first day in the US!

Liberty checking out the harvest cupcakes...

Annika wasn't the littlest baby this time: Liberty's baby sister is 3 months old.

Grandma was watching over Jack AND Max AND Talia that day - lucky for us!!

Driving a fast car

What's that dad, I can borrow your keys?

The neighborhood will never be safe...

Nuttin' but trouble

Um, where did that last s'more go?

We like the artful juxtaposition of Upside Down Cecilie and Tongue-Out Talia

Where are the adults at this circus??

I believe the phrase is 'butter wouldn't melt....'

Grampa heaven

Well heck, its hard to say if it was a happier weekend for the Grandpa or the kids, but with perfect fall weather and no WiFi connection for miles, the grandchildren had a captive audience, and a grand time was had by all.

The epic hike, Buzzards Rock

Every once in a while you come across a branch that's good for Monkey Swinging. This means Daddy pulls the sapling down to your height, you hang on for dear life and he lets go. And we wonder how we earned the rep as Danger Family...

This boy loves a good adventure.... especially when there's the promise of PB&J at the end!

One of our "stations" was Buzzards Rock, we found the rock but couldn't see any buzzards

This is how two miles tuns in to three hours, Lars is making sure only the coolest gets to the top.

How gorgeous is this girl? That is a look her dad will get a lot in say, 10 years.

Lars throwing stuff, again

The epic hike, part deux

On the cusp of SIX - that takes some pondering at the edge of the stream...

And then your rowdy 3-yr old brother has to get in on the act. End of reflections.

Let's THROW ROCKS, Sister!

Family Von Trapp making their way through the mountains: 2 miles of trail turned into THREE HOURS of hiking

Lil' traveller

Saturday morning last weekend took us on a three hour hiking, and this was our Happiest Camper of All!

Go faster Daddy!