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Thursday, December 29th, 2011

Happy Birthday, Elina!

My dad and brother Dave came out for a visit. We had fun playing together. Thanks for coming, guys!

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Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

We celebrated Elina’s birthday today before she leaves for Arizona. We went to Gustav’s and had tasty food before going back to Else’s for some CHOCOLATE cake! Magnus made sure to get his picture with the birthday girl.

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Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

Magnus is getting better at standing alone. He still only does it for a few seconds at a time; but today he took a step, unsupported, before falling down. He’s almost there!

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Monday, December 26th, 2011

Magnus made bank at Christmas! We especially appreciated the “Thor” motorcycle pajamas from Uncle John. Thanks for all the presents, everybody!

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Sunday, December 25th, 2011

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

For Christmas we all went down to Salem after church. We got to spend good times together and ate some tasty tasty food. Hors d'oeuvres were gourmet cookies and peppermint bark. Everyone tried some (except Magnus – but he certainly tried).

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Saturday, December 24rd, 2011

Christmas Eve!

We had a very nice Christmas Eve at Farmor’s house. Calli was able to come and be with our family as well. There was great food and lots of fun. When it was time to open presents, Magnus got more and more excited at the amount of paper on the floor. He even pre-tasted several of the presents before dinner. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

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Friday, December 23rd, 2011

This was near the end of the my Christmas Beard. I finally shaved on Christmas morning. The foundation was able to exceed its goal to raise money for orphans.

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Thursday, December 22nd, 2011

We built “gingerbread” houses tonight. As is tradition, Dana’s house is more elaborate and fancy than mine. You may have noticed the circle drive, water feature, and multiple cars in the front yard.

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Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Magnus has warmed up to bananas. I think he likes being able to feed himself. However, when he got to the last nubbin, I knew he was done eating because he started squishing the banana between his fingers experimentally.

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Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Magnus enjoys watching videos of himself. He bounces and laughs and breaths rapidly in excitement. When we run out of interesting things to do, we pull up the videos.

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Monday, December 19th, 2011

Welcome, Rachel Sue!

The elves brought us this present! Yay! Phil Hartman narrates the featurette, so that was fun.

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Sunday, December 18th, 2011

Magnus is studying the art of the high-five; although he is more likely to give you ten or fifteen….

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Saturday, December 17th, 2011

Magnus waits for his bath to fill in a makeshift cloth diaper.

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Friday, December 16th, 2011

Happy birthday, Ruth!

Exploring the gorge together! We all had a fun time.

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Thursday, December 15th, 2011

Magnus is a wiggly boy.

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Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Ivan took us ice skating today for my birthday. We all had fun taking turns around the rink. Thank you, Ivan!

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Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

This picture comes from the end of a video of Magnus crawling to the bathroom at bath time.  He likes the bath and likes standing up in the bath – which makes his mom nervous.

As I do this Magnus is giggling and laughing. He loves to watch videos of himself!

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Monday, December 12th, 2011

Here is Magnus in his Christmas jammies. They probably won’t fit him after Christmas…

You may notice he has a sock in his hands. Socks are his new favorite. He likes to carry them around as he crawls around the house. And when he finds a new one, he drops the one he has and picks up the new one.

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Sunday, December 11th, 2011

Magnus was very sad before Dana put him on his head. But as soon as he got up there he started giggling and acted like he was supposed to be there.

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Saturday, December 10th, 2011

In Denmark, the Christmas gnomes (or elves) come in December and cause mischief around the house. They also leave treats and presents in your shoes if you leave them out. This morning Magnus got his Christmas ornament from the elves and I let him open it himself. He got about halfway done before he got distracted by one of his socks.

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Friday, December 9th, 2011

We have been having fun with the Lego Star Wars advent calendar that the elves brought us on December 1st. We now a little fleet of ships on one of our shelves, and every day brings a new one.

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Thursday, December 8th, 2011

Happy Birthday, Will!

Magnus can now sit on our shoulders very well. He likes to pull on our hair and bounce like he is riding a horse. Ruth is demonstrating…(imagine this with happy giggles and squeals).

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Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Magnus likes to try to catch the Wii cursor on the TV screen.

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Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

This is what the sidewalk outside the library looks like. I like the stains the leaves make.

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Monday, December 5th, 2011

Dana’s dad got a new dinning room set to accommodate more people, so he has given us his old set. We still have some chairs at the table, and so the new chairs have to sit here. They remind me of the four thrones at Cair Paravel. Now all we need is two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve…

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Sunday, December 4th, 2011

We went to the Festival of the Nativities today put on by the local stakes. They had hundreds of Nativities to look at. Many were very beautiful. This is one that Dana liked a lot, partly because of where it was from.

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Saturday, December 3rd, 2011

Our ward’s Christmas party was tonight. They had the gym set up like Bethlehem, complete with a market to buy food, little gold rocks to pay for the food, and Roman soldiers. It was very nice.

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Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Ruth and Magnus took a nice walk down by Officer’s Row and enjoyed the brisk air.

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Thursday, December 1st, 2011

We’ve finished decorating for Christmas! The elves have started coming, too, and delivered our first present, a Lego advent calendar!

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Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

We’ve started decorating for Christmas! We even have presents under the tree thanks to John. Thanks, John!

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Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

The beetle says “yes.”

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Monday, November 28th, 2011

Magnus wanted to help clean up his room today. Unfortunately, his “helping” isn’t that helpful yet.

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Sunday, November 27th, 2011

A friend of ours is doing a Christmastime charity group called “Christmas Beards.” He gets people to advertise for it by growing a beard and encouraging people to donate to his group, which will be donated to help Ukrainian orphans. Dana and Magnus both agreed to not shave until Christmas.

If you want to grow a Christmas beard to show your support, go for it!

Or if you’d like to donate, go here: http://www.christmasbeard.org/

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Saturday, November 26th, 2011

The festival of trees was this weekend at the Air Museum. Dana says that any reason to go into an Air Museum for free is a good thing, so Magnus and I went to see the trees. This is the one I voted for as my favorite. It was very busy, but it was fun to go see the planes (and the trees, too!)

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Friday, November 25th, 2011

Magnus is a big fan of being flipped around and hung upside-down, but he only seems to actually like it when Dana does it.

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Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dinner was super good and everybody helped out! Yum!

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Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

We did Thanksgiving down in Salem this year. Since Dana had to work at midnight on Black Friday, we decided to go down the day before and hang out. Magnus had fun exploring and making friends with Chuck the dog.

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Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

Magnus agreed to do some modeling for me while I got acquainted with my new camera. Body Beautiful!

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Monday, November 21st, 2011

Yay for Target buy-back program! We turned in these 3 old cameras (they all turn on, which was the only stipulation) for one fancy new one for me! Happy (early) birthday to me!

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Sunday, November 20th, 2011

We took a drive down to the Wildlife Refuge today. The leaves are mostly gone on the trees and the lighting definitely makes it feel like winter, but there were still lots of birds. Some Canada geese and some trumpeter swans? in the background.

After we got home from church Magnus was so so sad about not being held immediately upon his removal from the car seat. He was so sad that he started crawling to me, just a little ways down the hall, crying. Unfortunately, his eyes are closed when he cries and so he ended up crawling into a wall instead towards me. Poor Magnus!

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Saturday, November 19th, 2011

Magnus and his new upper teeth. He is now up to four.

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Friday, November 18th, 2011

Anton and Calli invited us to come and eat sushi with them. We were happy to go since it has been a very long time since we went. We were having a great time until Magnus got a hold of Ruth’s water glass and dumped it on Ruth’s lap. Good thing we were just finishing.

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Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Magnus’s new habit of biting his teeth on our glass table and making a very load clicking noise makes me cringe. But he seems to love it…

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Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

I needed to get some things at the store, so I used it as an opportunity to give Mom a break. I took Magnus with me and he was very good. He is now starting to like to sit in a shopping cart, and he didn’t really freak out in the car with me. I was a successful outing.

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Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

A woman at work thought I might be someone that would like an aquarium. So, we ended up with a full setup for free, including these two fish. We finally came up with the names Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Today, we also went to the mall to use a gift card Aunt Nancy sent to Magnus and he got some sweet boots and a sweater. We also picked up another fish that eats algae to help keep the aquarium cleaner.

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Monday, November 14th, 2011

Elina works at Tuesday Morning and found this little chair. With her discount and the special sale that was going on she got us the chair for a few bucks. Magnus may need to grow a bit more, but he seems to like it.

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Sunday, November 13th, 2011

We used lemon juice in our food today. Magnus was watching and he really wanted to hold the lemon. We let him try it. And even though he made some good faces, he kept sucking on the lemon. He must have gotten a taste for lemons from Dad.

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Saturday, November 12th, 2011

As Magnus plays on the floor he has developed a more efficient way of sitting. Notice how his legs are circled around him. This gives him good support and it seems to make it very easy and quick to lean forward into a crawl position and then back to sitting. I know I could never do this.

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Friday, 11-11-11

Happy Birthday, Steen!

And Thank you to all the of those who have served and are serving out there.

Construction continues. They can be very noisy sometimes, but they’re very polite about it.

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Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Happy Birth Day, Kyle Erik!

We went to see They Might Be Giants tonight in Portland with Elina! Thank you to Ivan and Terry for babysitting Magnus.

The concert was very loud but very awesome. Jonathan Coulton (of Still Alive fame) opened for them. They are great live performers and I think it’s fun to go to a concert where you know most of what is being played. We had a pretty awesome/close place to stand with a relatively unobstructed view. It was fun times.

We were also happy to hear Steen and Katie had their fourth baby, Kyle Erik today around 1:00 pm! He weighed 8.2 pounds and measured 20.5 inches long. Everyone is healthy and we are excited for this new addition.