Been a long time gone…

But I’ve been working like a dog! Sorry, had to shamelessly steal some musical lyrics. Life has been so busy, that I haven’t blogged in a week! I think it would be funny if I heard myself say that 15 years ago. “Wow, I haven’t blogged in a week!”

So here’s the rundown in photos:

We had Knut’s cousin Andrew over, along with one of his friends from Luther seminary “Boontousa” (I’m sure I misspelled that) who is from Nigeria.

David played with his cars while they were here.

Silje read everyone books.

Boontousa and Elias played a lot. I think he REALLY misses his family back home, and you could see he was just drinking the kids in. I don’t think he willingly gave up Elias anytime he was here! Elias was in awe of him!

We had our friends Tony and Carolyn over another night, but I didn’t take pictures of them. Sorry.

And this week is VBS!

Here’s David’s mugshot that I took his first day at VBS for his probably-will-never-make scrapbook for him. It’s a jungle theme, and he was in the lion group. He was really nervous his first day, but now he just runs in. His favorite thing that he always talks about is the “high five kids” who give him high fives as he enters the building. He LOVES that part!

Here’s Silje posing with David. She was in the monkey group. She was very glad to help David feel more at home.

And here’s pictures of everyone but Elias before they went to take a nap 5 minutes ago:

Here’s David. He kinda had a dramatic “first” this morning. It was his first time getting some business stuck in a zipper. (Guys cringe.) I think he’ll be more careful with zippers now for awhile.

Here’s our Lena. She’s down to a pretty good routine now, and obeys Knut and I fairly well. She will at times sit for Silje to pet her, and she ADORES being around Elias, but she still sees David as another puppy, and tries to play rough with him. Mostly because David tries to play rough with her. They are both in need of some training on this one.

And here’s Silje. Isn’t she getting big? I’m starting to hyperventilate when I think of this fall, and how she’s going off to school. I know we’ll make it, but I’m getting more and more nervous!

In other breaking news, Elias has a tooth! If you look, you can see 2 teeth on the bottom gum, but I think only one has actually completely broken through, because when you feel his gums, you only feel the one.

Things have been busy, even though the kids have spent time at VBS in the mornings. Tomorrow is their VBS program, and then on Saturday I get to go to a women’s ministry convention, and then on Sunday, we are celebrating with the grandparents Knut, Silje’s and Uncle Chris’ birthday. That will be at our house, so I need to get it in semi-clean order before then! The birthdays all fall so close together, we thought we’d combine the family party. Silje will have a few friends over on her actual birthday, and Knut will probably have a special birthday meal on his actual birthday, but other than that, we’re trying to keep this already packed summer as simple as possible.

I feel like I have oodles more to share in stories and reflections, but I thought at least I’d get some pictures on here, with some explanation, and leave the other stuff for later.