Big deal birthdays

We went to Eugene this weekend to celebrate two BIG DEAL birthdays.  

This handsome fellow here happened to be turning one.  ONE!  I remember when he was born and now he's practically in college already!

And my dad's 60th birthday was on Friday.  Hi dad!  Hope this print isn't too small for your old man eyes!  I hope someone found you a walker and a cane so you could get to the computer to read this post!  I hope you... I can't think of any other old age jokes, but you get the drift.  Happy big deal birthday, daddy!

On Saturday, we celebrated my dad's birthday at a Thai restaurant, with friends my parents have known for a long time.  Everyone at the party was also at our wedding seven years ago- save for one guy who was invited but couldn't come.  So it was nice to catch up.  Or, it would have been if Scarlett hadn't been so wiggly  squirming all over the bench and then running to see Grandma "(Not you, Mama.  I want to see YOUR Mama."), running back to me, refusing to eat, knocking things over, etc.  

We celebrated Oliver's birthday the first night- and Christmas, since we hadn't all been together in months- and the little guy had applesauce muffins and pretty much fell asleep before the presents were opened.  Kelly and I waited until the kids were asleep, then we ate a lot of ice cream.

I would like to title the above picture 'Johan and his twin'.

I would like to title the above picture 'At Least One Karlsen Knows How to Look at a Camera.'

Bowling. Also, flossing.

Flossing

Bowling and flossing.

Mostly flossing.

Total flossing.

Bowling.

Out with the Old

Happy New Year!  

• Good news!  Scarlett's unpleasant night & nap behaviors seem to have crested with my blog post from last week, and she is happier about sleep again.  
• Bad News. Today is my last day of a loooonnnng vacation- eleven days- and tomorrow I have to go back to work.  It's been fun, and I haven't gotten as much sleep as I wanted but ultimately, I've spent lotsa time with the bearded man and the little blondie that live with me and I'm very pleased about that (not about the beard, just the guy under the beard.)

Beard and Blond

• Yesterday we went to the pool with the cousins- Scarlett and Esther have matching swim shirts and matching hair color so probably everyone thought they were twins.  I carried them around the lazy river, thinking 'this is what Erin will feel like so soon!'  

Cousin love (now with less teeth!)

• Scarlett played many games, including Old Dark Frog (He is a ghost who eats little frog children, courtesy of Arnold Lobel).  She also plays a lot of teddy bears picnic, which takes up most of the free floor space in our house but is really cute.

Old Dark Frog in the house

• I'm making orange cardamom rolls right now, formed like cinnamon rolls.  If you were here, you could have some!  (Unless you are my mom, or Lauren, because these aren't gluten free.)  They smell good though.  They've taken me half a day, off and on, to get into the oven, so they better be good.
• Scarlett recognizes most her letters now, and in addition to her number one favorite word to spell- ARNIE- she can spell mom, and dad, and her name.  We went on a nature walk the other morning, and she was climbing around the Tabor reservoir singing 'M O M and D A D. M O M and D A D."  It was a beautiful song.
• Soon, twin babies will be born that I'm excited to meet.   My dad will have a milestone birthday.  Scarlett will have a birthday (every birthday is a milestone when you're only one-digit old, right?).  Sometime this year, Scarlett will start preschool, and the babies we met last year will start walking, and if we're really lucky (fingers crossed!) Charlie will shave that logger beard that he's growing.  2013 is going to be legendary, maybe.

Car conversation

Scarlett is feeling philosophical.  

"Everything is where is it. 
Why is everything where it is? 
Why do some things stay where they are today?  
Why do buildings not move?"

Toddler For Sale

We've had some rough nights lately because Scarlett, our sweet angel who a few weeks ago was offering me kisses and asking to hug me extra at bedtime, has turned into a total ....  She gets out of bed immediately after we leave the room.  Like, 20 times.  She wants a drink of water, or to go potty, or for us to talk about her day again.  She wants to sleep in our bed, or she doesn't like her room, or it's too light or not light enough.  She is throwing bedtime tantrums unlike any I've ever seen, and it's exhausting us but it doesn't seem to be exhausting her.  She's also getting up at night- something she has never done- and walking out of her room.  Sometimes she goes back to bed easily, sometimes not.  I'm so tired that I don't even know if this has been happening for 5 days, or two weeks.  It reminds me of her 0-6 month phase, where we'd take hours to try and gently coerce her to fall asleep and she'd wake up again 20 minutes later.  Now, I just stand in the doorway and when she opens the door, I point to the bed and tell her to go to sleep.  I even took Arnie away for a while, but he's my bargaining chip and after that, she had no reason to stay in bed.  

I'm explaining all this because everything is a phase (right?) and soon she'll be over this, and back to being lovely and sweet at night, and I will read this post and laugh about how dramatic I'm being.  

In the meantime, here are some adorable photos of actual Christmas morning.

Chocolate mousse

Merry Christmas

Scarlett woke up this morning and ran out to the living room, asking me to turn the tree lights on.  She asked me to tell her a story, so I told her about Santa and the reindeer.  Her favorite Christmas song is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, followed by Frosty the Snowman.  Sometimes she likes 'a rum puh pum pum' she says.  As we're driving, she squeals that she's looking at Christmas lights.  Being a kid looks so fun, I'm glad I get to experience some of the winter magic with her.

The first pecan pie I've ever made is cooking in the oven right now.  I love pecan pie, why has it taken me this long to make my own?  Yesterday afternoon, we made chocolate mousse and it's waiting, in 15 little cups, to be devoured.  Where we're going for Christmas dinner, there's a hot tub.

(We're having some camera-to-computer confusion, so these pictures are actually from last week.  They're about as cute as Christmas though.)

"I like the presents."
"I love green things."
"I love this frog." (I don't know what that's referring to, because she has like 10 new frog things.)