Madi: 16 Months

As I sat down to write this post it seemed like just yesterday that I was writing Madi's 15 month post... and then I realized that's because I have only done three blog posts in the past month. Yikes! :-/

Things have been crazy busy in the Stingerie household and seeing as we leave for vacation this week I don't think they are going to slow down until November! But that's not what this post is about. :-)

So on to Madi's 16 month post! Oh and to make up for lost time over the past month, I've flooded this post with videos. Enjoy. :-)

Madi has started saying "oy!" all. the. time. She drops something - "oy!", she falls "oy!", there's a loud sound "oy!". We have never said "oy!"... which leaves me with the conclusion that it's a Norwegian catch phrase that Madi has picked up on from barnehage. It causes us to burst into laughter everytime though because she sounds so serious when she says it!

We've been off and on runny nose, cough, and slight fever (a combination of barnehage, fall, and teething maybe?). We got some extra snuggles one morning...albeit they were a bit noisy. ;-)

But the biggest change since last month is Madi's talking - she's been good at talking for awhile, but the past couple of weeks it has magnified! Even barnehage said "We have no idea if she's speaking English or Norwegian, but she's been talking a lot the past couple of days!" You're telling me!

Along with her gibberish (Madiense?) she's repeating everything we say (watch out!). Here are some of her new words: corn, tower, door, up, cake, boat, ball, fish, staw-berry (strawberry), cup, done, and bowl, and ba-da (banana, which she eats a full one every morning!).

Oh and two more favorites: bubble and cookie (it's at the end, promise ;-) )

Up until now Madi has been really great at de-construction. However, this past month she started actually building! She's very meticulous with the pieces and making sure they are all the way down. She also had a bit of a tantrum when she couldn't get the nut and bolt from her tool bench to screw together and figure out how it worked... perhaps we have a future engineer on our hands? :-)

Miss Madi,

I love listening to you talk. But I'm also truly afraid when you start to say real words. Let's just say we plan to avoid any children's church or activities where you will be given a chance to speak freely. ;-) You are still so joyful and happy and we feel so blessed to be your parents. I love you baby girl!

Mommy

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Trolltunga: Hardest Norwegian Hike... So Far ;-)

This past weekend Jason let me go for an overnight with my girlfriends Kathryn and Kirsten. Some people like to do vino and movies for girl's night... we like to go camping and hiking. ;-)

The hiking season is coming to a close (unless you want to truck it through snow... no thanks) so this was one of the last weekends we had to hike this monster. It's a 22 km (13.7 mile hike) that's about 4.5 hours away from Stavanger. We left Friday afternoon and camped near the start of the hike.

Saturday morning we got started on the ridiculously hard 1.5 km straight up staircase. Who needs coffee when you have stairs, right?! Right.

The rest of the hike (all short 9.5 km remaining) was relatively moderate. It didn't get any worse than Preikestolen or Kjerag (in my opinion), but is obviously loads longer making it challenging. However, the weather was ideal (cool, but not really rainy; windy, but only enough to blow you two or three steps forward which is movement in the right direction).

And then you get to the top and it. was. all. worth. it. Because you get to see this - such amazing and beautiful horizons that pictures cannot do justice to (especially mine... really missed Jason's picture-taking on this trip...)

And then we headed down. The last 1.5 km was as difficult (if not more) than the uphill and my knees were screaming by the end. It took about 8.5 hours total (including a 15-20 min break at the top for pictures and lunch).

We headed back to Stavanger and I took pictures out the window as we drove home. Sadly they are about as good of quality as the ones where I tried during the hike...

All in all, it was an absolutely amazing experience and I am so happy that I did it! It was a challenging, but rewarding hike and definitely one of the most beautiful in Norway... so far!

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Gran Canaria

This fall we had a unique opportunity - I got awarded one of the ConocoPhillips "cabins" located in the Canary Islands. My mom and Jeff were already talking about possibly coming for another visit this fall and we proposed meeting at Gran Canaria for a week.

The weather was gorgeous the entire time that we were there! It was sunny and warm. We did a few touristy things, but mostly just spent the week relaxing and enjoying one another's company - it was perfect!

I mean, why would you need to leave here anyway?! ;-)

We visited two big tourist sites - Palmitos Park and Aqualand. The dolphin show at Palmitos Park made the visit worth it (fabulous!) and the water park was fun, but we were a little disappointed when Jason was told he couldn't go down the slides with her in the kid area. That didn't leave a lot of things for her to play with, but she still had a good time with Grandma and Papa and we snuck off to ride some of the adult slides. :-)

Most of the restaurants seemed to offer the same eclectic selection of food, but there were a couple places that were really delicious! Madi loved this pork chop, but was not a huge fan of the lemon (although she kept eating it and making that face...)

We also visited a couple beaches in the area, Anfi del Mar and Amadores. Both were very nice and we enjoyed them. Highly recommend if you are visiting the southern area of the island.

But mostly we just enjoyed watching this cutie pie run laps back and forth across the yard. :-)

It was hard saying good-bye to Grandma and Papa, but we are so happy that they could join us for the week!

I loaded up on Starbucks before we left and snapped some shots from the plane on our way out. It was a long flight to Oslo and Madi decided she didn't want to nap on it. Until we landed. She slept like that through the terminal, into baggage claim, and only woke up before we went through security again to catch our flight to Stavanger. This was the first plane ride we've had since Madi has been proficiently walking. It definitely made it a bit more challenging, but she's a pro at this now with 34 flights under her belt. ;-)

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Weekly Wrap-up: Fall Y'all

It's been two weeks since our trip to the Canary Islands and I am just now going through the pictures and blog about our trip! Life's been a bit hectic lately, but I've got a two week wrap-up of mostly pictures, as usual. ;-)

1. Madi's new backpack and my big girl walking home from school with Mommy. And in just a couple more months she'll be able to walk by herself. Kidding! But kiddos do begin walking themselves to school here very early!

2. We were able to babysit some of our favorite playdate kiddos, Caleb and Ty, while their parents went out to dinner for their anniversary. They had loads of fun - in fact, I was told on a scale of 1-10 that Caleb's fun level was 50! :-)

3. Madi fell asleep on our way downtown to dinner with friends. Nothing like a 10 minutes cat nap and she was roaring and ready for the evening!

4. We had to say goodbye to some dear friends who moved back to Houston, Megan and Loren. We are going to miss them, but we have a large collection of spices and kahlua to remember them by. ;-)

5. Starbucks is coming to Stavanger! Maybe. There have been rumors for awhile, but they announced that it was approved and the location decided... so we will see when it actually arrives! I would love a Stavanger mug before we move away.

6. Madi has become a pro at tickling. She mumbles "tck tck tck" and smiles and giggles as she "tickles" Daddy.

7. A week ago Friday night, Madi wasn't feeling great. She had a fever and we decided to have a relaxing and rare movie evening. Well 5 minutes in I was cuddling Madi and stroking her hair and Jason goes "She's asleep." Someone was exhausted! :-(

8. But she didn't want to sleep in the next day. ;-) She still had a slight fever in the morning so we had a lazy Saturday and just hung out.

9. Madi is officially done with a bottle. She has only been getting one in the evening for the past month or so and now she's just drinking from a cup with a straw or just a cup (with a bit of help still). Big girl!

1.  It's fall ya'll! Or at least the weather has been that way except for today, which is sunny and warm again. Tease.

2. We had to skip church Sunday a week ago since it hadn't been 24 hours since Madi's fever had gone away. She was back to normal so we decided to head to the pumpkin patch to get a few decorations for the house. She was really excited to take a selfie with Mommy.

3. Madi needed to review our Northwestern Mutual funds to decide if our portfolio was balanced enough. Her conclusion? We need to diversify.

4. Madi "helping" Mommy get her work done this week. Daddy was out of town and I had a big deadline that required spending some time in the evenings (after Madi's bedtime) working.

5. Monkey see, monkey do. Except that Zoey had an easier time getting in and out than Madi...

6. Daddy's home!! She kept saying "Daddy" that day and then became silent when he actually came home. Silly girl!

7. We had a parent/teacher meeting at Ekofisk Jr barnehage to get an update on how Madi is doing. It was so precious and wonderful - she's the most smiling child in her class and doing fantastic in all areas. She is so joyful and always has been as you can see from the Timehop picture above. :-)

The only place she needs a bit of improvement is language and they said that's just a result of getting English at home and Norwegian at barnehage. She's already repeating Norwegian words though and understanding a lot for just a month and a half!

8. Thursday afternoon we got a call that Madi wasn't feeling good and had a fever. Again. :-( This meant Mommy got to stay home Friday to be with Madi - fist bump!

9. Daddy and Madi got some quality time Friday night and Saturday while Mommy went camping and hiking with some girlfriends. They had a blast hanging out and enjoyed their time together!

It's been a busy, but great couple of weeks. Here's to a fresh one with a hopefully healthy Madi! And more blog posts of Gran Canaria and hiking too. :-)

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