Ecuador!

Our little family travelled to Ecuador the past weekend.  It was a very long trip, but totally worth it.  We get to spend Christmas, New Year´s Eve, Christian´s birthday and my birthday with my family and friends.

The flight was not as horrible as I had imagined.  Yes it was long, and yes we got sick from the air conditioning, but we made it!

Waiting to board

Slept through the first 2 flights!

Yay! we made it!

He took the entire hotel bed to himself :)

When we arrived in Quito we were greeted by my parents and nieces.  They were so happy to meet Nico! And this whole week has been spent meeting friends and family and showing-off our baby boy.

Reunion de primos 

They are 9 days-old apart!

I also got to enjoy some of my favorite ecuadorian things: Mangos! and try out the new flavor of beer.  It was pretty good. I missed a lot of foods from Ecuador, so we are trying to have a taste of everything while we are here.  Christian is a big fan of ecuadorian food too.

Digging through my old things I found the teddy bear that I used to love when I was little.  I decided to share him with Nico now, and he loved it!

Best friends

Enjoying each other 

This baby boy will be 4 months old this Saturday! Me and Christian can not believe how fast he has grown.  We have loved every day with him :)

No longer a new born

Since the time difference is 7 hours between Norway and Ecuador, we have terrible sleeping schedules right now.  Nico wakes up around 3 in the morning, thinking that its time to get up and play.  It doesn't help that we all have a cold.  But luckily we are on vacation, so we can catch up on sleep by napping during the day.  Both boys are asleep right now, so I am going to join them too!

First semester: Completed!

This tuesday marked the end of my first semester as a masters student.  As soon as I submitted my home exam I was done for the year, and it was an amazing feeling! Now I get to enjoy the holidays with my family.  Right now we are packing and getting ready because our journey to Ecuador starts tomorrow.

Nico helps me pack

This last weeks have been crazy.  Staying up until the early morning hours to finish papers, read, feed the baby... and then start all over again! A long vacation is exactly what we all need.  

However, we did manage to sneak in some joyful time with friends and family that we won´t see until after the winter break.  Here are some pictures of the Christmas night with our norwegian family.

Christmas dinner

Nico in a bow-tie

Santa came early this year

The first snow!

Another event that I want to mention is the end of Movember. Christian grew his beard and kept it the whole month! He was sad to shave and now he looks 18 again.  Here is the change:

And a little surprise!

Ok, back to packing! Wish us luck on Nico´s first flight :)

Long nights, long weeks...

This week was very long for me because it was the last week of classes before the finals start.  I faced getting a negative feedback on one of my papers, which made me really disappointed.  I am trying to focus on school to be able to complete my degree without needing an extension, or to re-take classes.  I just felt a bit overwhelmed, and the lack of sleep didn't help.

I have two more weeks of studying left before we go to Ecuador for winter break! I am so exciiteed. So let me just get over this study-crazyness and i´ll post happier notes :)

Nico did manage to cheer me up.  I mean, how could you look into that face and now go "awww" immediately.

He is going bald !

And then we had some fun times, which made everything better.  

Today I took a break from studying and we went to the Christmas opening in Asker (where Christian´s family lives).  We got to experience a koselig (nice, cute) Norwegian parade with children dressed as Santa.  They sang and danced and walked with torches and then they lit the Christmas tree in the city square. 

The countdown for the lightning of the tree was the best part. It gave us a Christmas-y feeling.  As I type now it is officially December, so the season can begin! 

        

This was second

This was first

Later, we went for dinner at my in-laws place.  We considered it late Thanksgiving given that my american friend Sean came with us.  Here is a picture of us before we got our bellies filled with delicious norsk kylling. 

The dinner

Cola de Navidad

Now, all I can do for the next two weeks is try to do m best in the finals and stop griving over that one bad grade.  Its not the end of the world! 

I made myself a cozy study area at home so I can be close to Nico if he needs me.  It includes a new desk lamp and norwegian Christmas cookies with coffee in my favorite cup! 

Given that its almost 2 in the morning, i´ll leave this as it is for now.  Hope everyone has an amazing December! Good night :)

Friday fun

Hey everyone! Today is Friday :) Best day of the week.

Last night Nico was babysat for the very first time. Me and Christian really wanted to watch the new Hunger Games movie, so we left the babe with his norwegian grandparents and went to the movies.  I am happy to announce that everything worked out perfectly! We got to watch our flick, and the grandpas got to spend time with their first grandchild.  Everyone was happy.

We also got to invite our friend Sean from university to dinner and to the movie.  I think he had a great time! Looking forward to his concert this Saturday.  Here are the details if anyone is interested in attending: Shakespeare-matine

This afternoon, our family had a little photo fun with my Mac.  Here are some of the coolest ones we got.

Double yawn 

Under the sea

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Baby love :)

Daddy and his mini-me

Martians

Attack!

Good weekend to all!

3 months

Nico is turning 3 months tomorrow! He is growing up way too fast. I already miss the days when he was a tiny little newborn that weighed less than 4kg.  Now he is more alert and likes to play and talk to us.  He has become really good at holding his head up, even if he only tolerates it for a few minutes at the time.
His favorite things are: his baby gym that was a gift from my exchange family in Minneapolis, and his spanish book that was a gift from my sister.

Eli the rattle

Cuenta cosas por ahi, por alla...

Tomorrow is the actual date of Nico´s third month-versary... but I did his pictures today since we got up early and the light was beautiful in the morning.  He was smiling despite the bad night he had after getting his vaccinations yesterday. He is such a brave little one! Here are some of my favorites from the shoot:

I was also able to take one of him holding his head up! With the help of daddy´s entertainment :)

After we wrapped up with the photo shoot, Nico took a lovely nap and started feeling better.  His post-vaccine fever is down and he is a happy boy again.  I have to use his nap-times very efficiently since I have to get my readings done.

I am currently looking for research topics to be able to write my proposal.  I am very interested in working in the Galapagos islands again, so we might turn into an adventurous family next year. Right now I am going to bake our (barely) famous peanut butter cupcakes to take to my night lecture/dinner.  This is the recipe we use and they always turn out great!

From: http://slowrobot.com/i/39918

Finally, let me leave you today with a piece of baby art.  I started painting this when I was pregnant, but the smell of acrylic made me nauseous.  Thankfully, a really nice Minnesotan stepped up and helped me finish it.  This is how it ended up looking: 

That´s all for today.  Now back to those books before the babe wakes up!