The Busy Bean

The Blurs Called July and August

So, July and August have really gotten away from us. I can hardly believe that Jamie starts school to begin his MAT program next week and that I begin school inservice days the following Monday. We have meant to do a better job keeping this page updated. However, the move and settling in, as well as our many trips up and down Oregon's highways have kept us hopping and mostly away from real computer time.

Kjell has taken three steps, but no real repeat performances of that feat have occurred in the last two weeks. We did get to introduce Kjell to his Grandma Georgia. She is ninety now and recently moved to a foster care facility where she seems to be doing very well. She looked pretty in her favorite color the day that we saw her and even remembered Kjell's name during our conversation. Short term memory is her biggest struggle right now, but his "beautiful blue eyes" made quite an impression.

Kjell also is making some more sounds and noises. He is starting to mimic us much more. He makes quite a few animal noises, though sometimes he pretends that he has forgotten them. I think he just likes hearing Jamie and I moo and oink. We just finished up with two nice visits with Grandmas. Sara was here to give me time to work in my classroom. Many thanks, Gram! Then we went to Astoria to visit Grandma Judy where we enjoyed some seafood and the local farmers' market.

We're also mostly installed at our new place. We are accepting visitors. So, book your reservations soon. We miss all of our other coast friends and family. In our "free" time we've been exploring Salem a bit and becoming reaquainted with it. Kjell rode the carousel at the riverfront park and seemed to be wary of all those horses. He didn't cry exactly, but was very vigilant like he was with his first swimming lessons. His most recent lessons have demonstrated much more comfort with the water. However, the local pool is too cold. He prefers Gramma Sara's country club pool with it's almost bathlike water. We make do with what we've got in town, but sometimes we have to leave the pool early since our skinny little guy ends up with a blue quivering lip before the end of the half-hour.

Kjell Practices Standing

As of today, July 4th, Kjell can stand on his own. Admittedly, it's only for very brief stretches of time, but it's independent standing nonetheless. There's even video to prove it. I think it's funny that after a few seconds of standing, he starts wiggling around to celebrate his accomplishment. Of course, the wiggling knocks him over.

Kjellybeans in June

Some of our more ardent blog watchers (ahem...Auntie Anna...) have been asking, perhaps even needling, us for some more photos of The Bean. So, without too much further ado, here he is enjoying some of his more recent activities. He loved his airplane ride--yet another way that he takes after Daddy. He also has been getting a huge kick out of Grandbobby and his many tricks. These talents include the following(note this list is not by any means exhaustive): funny faces, guitar strumming and guitar lessons, fishy claps, exaggerated "Ohs" and magic carpet rides. The rest of us are a little bit of chopped liver right now, but we're trying to console ourselves with the fact that Kjell is getting pretty heavy to pack around. That's the price Grandbobby must pay for Kjell's adoration of him! I think he's okay with it. Kjell has also recently had several firsts. He took his first swimming lessons. These were met with a constant state of high alert and vigilance over his own safety (here he takes after Mama). Let's just say we won't be expecting him to take after Grandpa Nels with his great swimming prowess. He has just been really enjoying his time with his Oregon Grands. He loves the cows outside Gma Judy's house. He touches his stroller wheels on both the Pacific and Atlantic's shores in the course of one month's time. Not everybody can claim that! He was introduced to peanut butter sandwiches by Gramma Sara and can now safely enjoy monster cookies as well. Thank heavens for no peanut allergies so far....knock on wood...we feel bad for our dear friends who do have them, because boy is peanut butter good. Kjell has also been enjoying the bounty of Oregon's berry harvest. We've had sweet delicious strawberries, and now some raspberries and blackberries. He "helped" his gram and Mama make freezer jam too. He comprehends many basic sentences now. Unfortunately, he seems to also have some frustration at not being able to say more "real" words to us. This results in a fair amount of whining and grunting at times. We hope this will suffice for an update. I may try to put some more pictures up soon.

Let him eat cake!

June 1st, 2007 was a big day in the Peters family. On that day, we celebrated Kjell's FIRST BIRTHDAY! He had a big day. We started with our customary early morning wakeup (about 6:00 AM). We came downstairs at Gramma and Grandbobby's house and Kjell was most thrilled by his birthday balloon. He LOVES balloons. Once he got over the excitement of the balloon, he opened lovely cards and presents from all of his favorite family and friends. There were many favorites, including the stackable cups from Gray, Heather and his best gal-pal, Lucy. After he played and opened presents, Maija, Grandbobby and I all left Kjell in Gramma's capable hands, while we went up to Salem to try to find a house. We'd been up 5 times previously with little to no luck. Our luck turned on Kjell's birthday. We found a great house in West Salem that was right in our price range and had almost everything we were looking for (see photo in this post). We can't wait to start hosting our first visitors. Once we finished our house hunt, we headed back to Roseburg for Kjell's big night of birthday cake and ice cream. This was his second birthday cake. On Aprill 22nd, before we left North Carolina, Grandma Penny made a very cute Duck cake for our little man that he enjoyed, but without the normal mess that you expect from a first birthday. On Friday, he was much messier with his second cake. I've attached video of both below. I apologize for its length (almost 8 minutes), but he's just so cute, I have trouble editing out any of the fun! Cake #2, the messier one, starts at about the 3:45 mark on the video. Enjoy!

Welcome Baby G2!

We were SO excited to hear about the arrival of Jason and Sara Goguen's most recent addition to the family. Welcome to the world Tyler Charles! Follow this link to visit the Goguen blog and see photos of the newest member of our extended family.

Our Little Rounder

The previous pictures are of Aunt Tara's visit to Charlotte and of Kjell doing what he does best these days--getting into trouble. I lovingly call him our little "holy terror."

Cousins at play

Cade and Kjell had some fun times on Sunday afternoon, while the adults watched Oregon beat Winthrop and advance to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tourney. A good day all around.

Crawling Part Deux

Kjell is getting better at crawling by the day. Mom and Dad keep saying to themselves, "We are in so much trouble!" Chasing him around is going to become a full time job. Now that he's mobile, he's that much more inquisitive about his surroundings. It's fun to watch, but diligent parents can't take any breaks. Invariably, he wants to go grab electrical wires or play near the brick mantle. We're already considering building two "runs" in the backyard. One for Moose and the other for Kjell.

Please enjoy the new video of Kjell crawling and a "classic" video from the Peters' family vault. It's of Kjell playing in his jump-a-roo and it was just posted to the web for the first time today.

Kjell's First Attempt at Crawling

Here's a post with a couple of "firsts". First off, I'm (Jamie) trying my hand at posting video to the blog. Hopefully, it will work for all of our regular visitors. Second, the video is proof positive that Kjell has started crawling - sort of. Last night and again this morning, he scooted backwards while on all fours. Tonight, during undies time, he actually took 2-3 "steps" forward while on all fours. By the time we grabbed the camera, he was a little tuckered out, so I think we only capture about 1 1/2 "steps" on the video. Oh well, he's stinkin' cute anyway. All our best! The Peters

Firsts

February has been filled with some new firsts! Kjell had his first moment when he realized that girls are much more complicated creatures than boys. You can tell from the "holy smokes!" look on his face in the picture where he is having a conversation with his buddy Little Miss Lucy Dyer. He also was perplexed by how the balloon worked. We couldn't leave the store without one though, because his squeals of delight and grunts of enthusiasm were too precious to miss. He just kept reaching out toward the balloons on display in the local grocery store and wiggling and grunting.
His bottom set of teeth are visible in the picture of Kjell driving. He thinks he is pretty hot stuff when he is cruisin' in his Jitterbuggy. Thanks Uncle Gray and Aunt Heather and Lucy!!!

This entry is dedicated to Auntie Anna by the way, who keeps telling me that I need to add a new posting the the blog.

The New Year Is Looking Good If A Little Bit Turned On Its Head

Kjell's Many Christmas Memories

We had a wonderful first Christmas season with Kjell. First of all, in the Osterholme-Peters-Siebum clan, we don't just celebrate Christmas once, we keep it up for a while. We have at times celebrated Christmas from the week before Christmas, all the way through February, March or April I think. Kjell of course is very popular, so we had a few official Christmas and Christmas Eve celebrations with all sorts of family helping us enjoy his first Christmases.

While Kjell was just still a little fetus in the big fat belly, we had decided that we would spend this, his first Christmas, at our home in Charlotte. We had planned on a big, fat, merry Christmas inclusive of all our three wonderful families. We did have some sort of hybrid of that plan. Mom and Anna did not make the trip out, but maintained our normal traditions in Oregon, but celebrated with us by phone. We had Bob and Sara and Jon Siebum out to our house from several points in the west. Jon is now in school in Arizona and Mom and Bob came out from Roseburg. All were affected by some sort of winter travel changes, so that kept us on our toes. We also were glad to have at various times throughout the traditional weekend for Christmas Cory, Leslie,and Cousin Cade, as well as Penny Peters and Great Grandma and Grandpa Vickey and Mel. Then, the following weekend, we celebrated at Penny P's house with our usual meal of make-your-own pizzas and Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation and Bing Crosby's White Christmas.

Since Grandma Sara was not able to be at our house on the day she had expected to arrive (due to Denver's snowstorm extravaganza), I braved making her special Christmas cinnamon rolls and fruit-filled pastries. Although not quite as good as the ones Gramma makes, they were a pretty good first attempt.

Kjell enjoyed the ribbon and paper that adorned his presents probably more than the gifts themselves. The blue silky ribbon was his absolute favorite, but the toys are growing on him now. He really enjoys the little stacking ring toy that probably every kid in the past several generations has had the fun of experiencing. We tried to convince ourselves that he is in fact brilliant because he can put one of the rings back on the little, cone-shaped toy.

We were missing very noticeably this year our Poppa P., but Jamie and Cory reluctantly enjoyed (well, managed to choke down) a glass of Black Velevet in his honor. We know that he was with us in spirit and was very much on all of our minds and in our hearts. We know he would have loved his first Christmas as a grandpa, but there were many reminders of him that we shared with Kjell and Cousin Cade.

We have been enjoying our new kitchen table, Kjell's big boy car seat, new kitchen sink, and a very fun waffle maker to ring in the new year. These were some of the great gifts we received this Christmas. Everyone was far too good to us.

Mostly we are just thankful to have such great families and of course our best gift of the year--- Kjell, who continues to be a happy, healthy, boy. In our most recent visit to the best child urologist in the world, Dr. Perez told us that his "bad" kidney is shrinking very quickly, which is what we have been hoping for, and that his good kidney is robust, quite large and very healthy. We think he wets enough diapers for several children! He is growing and changing like crazy. He now has two teeth coming in, can sit up, and is we think quite strong due to all the push-ups he likes to do.

Happy new year to all of our friends and family!

Merry Holidays To You!

We wanted to wish all of our family and friends, as well as Kjell's many admirers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We appreciate having all of you in our lives and Kjell has enjoyed hearing about and meeting so many of you already. He looks forward to those of you he may meet in the new year.

Kjell is now sitting up (as of today), babbling like both his parents, and showing a pretty keen sense of humor. He loves eating and listening to music. His favorite foods so far are green beans and applesauce, even when they are eaten together. He is now drinking from a sippy cup pretty competently and is perhaps the world champion of drooling.

Thanks for being a part of our lives! Love and hugs from all four of us (Moose too) to all of you!

Christmas Is Coming

We are really looking forward to our first Christmas with Kjell. He likes the tree and lights when he notices they are there. Of course, he gets the fun of seeing them each time he looks at them as if it was the first time. Kjell is really loving reading stories and, especially loves the ABC books by Dr. Suess and one called The Napping House.
On a related note, he is also napping (lest I jinx myself). I've discovered that if I'm disciplined enough to put the kid down at the same times every day, he'll happily fall alseep for me. Go figure. So simple, yet such a hard lesson to learn.

Kjell likes slapping his presents in their boxes under the tree. We're pretty sure this will actually top his enjoyment of the presents themselves. He likes Mommy to whistle Christmas tunes as well. He has forgiven her for not being able to sing on key, but she is okay with the whistling. Daddy invented a song for him recently that gets a grin every time. It goes something like... Kjelly Kjelly Kjelly Kjelly Kjelly Kjelly---BEAN, you're the cutest baby that your Dad has every SEEN!

He is growing to anticipate things more and more every day as well.