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.

Holiday Fun With The Fam

My New Friend Elephant

A Few More Of Cousin Cade

Kjell is now rolling both directions and can make it back off of his tummy to his back. However, he doesn't do this in the middle of the night. That is frustrating to both Kjell and to his parents who want him to be able to solve this problem on his own, especially if it happens at 3 a.m.

We really enjoyed our visits with Sara and Bob. Sara accompanied us to our friends Bill and Cheryl's wedding in Maryland, and Grandbobby got practice wearing Kjell in the bjorn carrier as well as walking endless tracks around the house to keep Kjell interested in the scenery.

We wish all of our friends and family a very happy Thanksgiving. Grandma Judy and Auntie Anna will be here in just a couple of days to celebrate with us as well. We are looking forward to baking some Scandinavian holiday treats with Grandma Judy and Kjell can't wait to see his auntie again.

Bath Time, Friends, and Family Visits

We hope you enjoy the new pictures.

Cousin Cade and Pumpkin Hunting

Not Just Another Pretty Face

So, Kjell now is a man of many accomplishments. Among his finest to date are the fact that he can now roll over in both directions left and right as well as from front to back and back to front. He is also a fan of great literature. He giggles with glee when Mommy reads Five Little Monkeys to him. When she gets to the part where the doctor says "NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED," Kjell wiggles in excitement and anticipation and then chuckles loudly.

More pictures will follow, but we had to focus on the substance of our little guy today, not just his adorable little face.

Hugs and Rice Cereal --My Favorites!

This is good stuff. I am loving hugs and kisses and even try to give some of my own now. Rice cereal isn't too bad either. I did better this time, so it may be more of a permanent part of my diet soon.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Time with Daddy

Kjell got some new big boy duds. He is already wearing 6-9 month clothes. He was quite fond of the new outfit and celebrated wearing it by spending some time with his pops. They watched football together. Later we tested out how warm the pants really were with a little stroll and stroller ride around the neighborhood. Kjell thought it was great until just after six o'clock when he decided that it was time for bed. He does this now very suddenly. He'll be very jovial and good-natured one moment and then turn into a little cranky pumpkin the next moment. Mom and Pops have had to become experts at rollin' with the punches. Bed time is now usually long before the sun goes down. But it seems to suit him and he wakes up quite cheerily in the morning.

The Only Kitty Allowed in Moose's House

Kjell has been trying out some new things, namely his high chair, and testing out costumes for Halloween. We haven't decided if we'll actually take him trick-or-treating this year. It seems mostly like a transparent ploy to get candy ourselves. That, and I think we'd both miss holding Moose back as he strains at the collar while all the little ghosts and goblins of the neighborhood come begging for sugar. We don't hold onto him after 9:00 when the too-old teenagers come a knockin'.

Kjell's gramma, Sara, will be here to see him soon. She is excited to see him, as well as anxiously awaiting the birth or Cory and Leslie's baby, Cade.

A Few More Photos