Happy New Year!

Another month has passed, but at least this time we can use the excuse that Christmas is always a busy time.... And now Christmas is nearly over, and we are about to enter 2010.
We´ve had a lovely Christmas, first with a nice celebration in Hamar with Bestemor, Bestefar and Uncle Kristoffer. Milly found it so exciting that she didn't want to go to bed till after midnight on Christmas Eve! After a few days in Hamar, we had one night at home in Oslo - which was good, because we had to dig our house out from under all the snow.... The next day we went to England, where we spent some lovely days with Grannie Annie, Grampy, cousins Arthur, William and Tilly and Auntie Helen and Uncle Bob. Being the little princess she is, Milly is getting all the attention in both families, and certainly knows to make the most of it. She is also making herself heard at the moment, and gives her mum a headache with her high pitch screams of joy... 

Now we are about to celebrate New Years Eve and also the 10th anniversary for when Andrew moved to Norway! It´s just going to be the 3 of us tonight, but we are looking forward to a quiet night with some nice food. At the top there´s a picture taken of the view of Oslo this afternoon, it´s been a gorgeous day with lots of snow and -13 degrees... 

Happy New Year to you all, hope you have a lovely celebration!

And as usual, we've been rubbish at posting new stories on the blog.. But finally, here is an update and some new pictures as well!
Things are going fine, Milly is getting bigger all the time and is more and more active. These days it's difficult to change her nappy without her flipping roung on her changing mat. And she's started eating her toes when we change her.

Friday the 13th

I noticed that the last posting was exactly a month ago...... and it will not do to go more than a month without a posting!!
We are beginning to think that Milly might be a giant. She seems to get longer everyday...... one thing for sure is that she'll be looking down on her dad some time soon!
What have we done in the last month: We had a visit from Kate and Del..... we've been up to Hamar..... we've been out to dinner a few times..... and generally time has disappeared at an alarmingly quick rate..... 6 weeks to christmas..... how can it be possible?
Milly is as gorgeous as ever and she's as unwilling as ever to sleep. We're hoping that the introduction of solid food might help.... but we're not holding our breath. It is a bit tiring for us.... but we are thankful that even when she's not had sleep for ages, most of the time she's either laughing or smiling.

Christening

Here are some pictures from the Christening on Sunday. We had a really lovely day, apart from the weather which wasn't exactly on our side... But the actual Christening went like a charm, Milly was a star and didn't cry at all. She even smiled at the priest. After the service we all went for a nice lunch at one of our local restaurants, Smia, and then back to ours for coffee/tea and cakes after. It was a really nice celebration of our little Milly, and we enjoyed it very much! :-)

More updates

Back home again, and it's turned in to autumn. And we've just finished our summer holiday...

But it's really lovely at the moment, the weather has been nice and the trees have got the fantastic autumn colours. We actually took Milly for her first trip in Marka on Sunday, which she seemed to enjoy in her Mei Tai. Milly is now nearly 4 months old, and is changing constantly, although still gorgeous :-) She can turn from her back onto her tummy, the only problem is that she keeps getting her arms stuck underneath her, and gets quite frustrated. She's laughing and smiling a lot, and is in general a good little girl. We do have a slight problem with her sleeping, well, more the lack of sleeping really... She doesn't seem to be to keen on it, she might miss something... But luckily she is good at sleeping at night, which is the most important bit!

We are having Milly's Christening on Sunday. Grannie Annie and Auntie Helen are coming over, and so is Colin. It'll be a small gathering with family, God parents and friends. Should be really nice :-) We will post some pictures afterwards of Milly in her lovely dress that Bestemor (Grandma Dagrun) has made for her!

Holidays..... who'd have 'em!!

The blog has been inactive for a bit, due to holidays and the recovery from the holiday. As most may already know, our trip to France wasn't exactly a raging success..... we'd have had more fun camping in Afghanistan frankly!! The only positive thing in the first week was that Milly stayed fit and healthy, and didn't seem that bothered by the traveling (well, apart from scaring a bloke out of his seat on the flight to France).

Fortunately the second week in England was super. We managed to drop in on Kate and Del for a day. Spent some time in Haynes, so Grampy, David and Aunty Gert got to see Milly for the first time. Maureen and David dropped in the day we picked Tilly up from school.

We had a day out in London where we met Colin for lunch..... and at the end of the week we had a lovely weekend with the whole family in Norfolk. Belinda dropped in too..... so Milly got to see a lot of new faces on her first trip to England. We think that Arthur gets the prize as Milly's favourite..... hopefully we can borrow him next summer as a full time baby sitter!!

All in all Milly was a good traveler, which considering her genes shouldn't come as a big shock..!! Lovely to see everyone.

Some news

We have been a bit rubbish with updates again, but time flies! Last week Milly and I (mummy) went to Hamar from Monday until Tuesday, and then brought bestemor and bestefar back with us. They were so kind to help us out in the garden (or what is supposed to be a garden eventually...) for a couple of days.

This weekend we went to see onkel Kristoffer and Kubakken play their first floor ball game for the season. But since more or less the whole team had been to a wedding party the night before, they were fairly rubbish. The game was in fact so boring that Milly fell asleep half way through! Needless to say they lost...

So, some news about Milly. On monday she had her first jabs (vaksiner). She was being a brave girl, and only cried for a bit. Luckily it didn't seem to affect her much, apart from the fact that she went extremely sleepy for the rest of the day - for a change!! She is very cute at the moment (well, when isn't she cute :-)), and laughing and smiling a lot. And today was a milestone, she rolled over for the first time! She was lying on her stomach, and then managed to turn so she ended up on her back. I think she got quite surprised herself and seemed a bit confused...

Visitors from England

It's been an eventful week for little Milly. From last Friday until Tuesday this week, we have had Andrew's sister and the family visiting from England. So Milly got to meet her 3 cousins, Arthur, William and Tilly, for the first time. That was a real treat, and she very much enjoyed all the attention she got. Maybe a bit too much... Now she's back to the old boring days with only mummy to entertain her... It was really nice having the Mansers here, and we all had a brilliant time.

As for updates on the little "flump" (daddy's new word for her...). She has now started going to bed a bit earlier, and isn't quite so difficult to get to go to sleep. Which means there is a little bit more alone time for mummy and daddy... hurra... She is smiling and laughing a lot these days, and has started 'talking' to her self when she's lying on the mat.

There was a request for a picture with mummy in it, and finally we have got one of the whole family.

They start early...

There is no doubt which club Milly supports (although she didn't really have much choice...); there is only one United!

2 months old.....

A big event this week. On Thursday, mummy and daddy were going to the local music festival, Øyafestivalen, and bestemor was coming down from Hamar to babysit. So the big question was, was Milly going to accept being fed from a bottle? And would she behave for grandma? As it turned out, everything went absolutely fine. Grandma showed experience counts, and both got her to sleep a lot of the time and fed her 4 times, so mummy was able to stay at the festival the whole evening without having to pop home once! Which mummy enjoyed a lot, and even indulged herself with a beer or two...

Milly is growing quickly, it's amazing to think she's already 2 months old :-) She has started to really take an interest in what's going on around her, and has lots of funny facial expressions and keeps us amused by coming up with new ones all the time. She is smiling a lot, laughing and has started making sounds, which sounds like she is trying to talk to us.

First trip

Ok, we just have to admit it. We've been rubbish at updating recently. The only excuse is that Milly and mummy have been away for a few days. Milly has been on her first trip outside Oslo, to visit the grandparents in Hamar. We went up on the train (which was a success, as Milly slept most of the way!), and daddy came up to join us after a couple of days. It was nice to go up there, we got to see lots of people and spend a bit of time with bestemor and bestefar.

Now we have the Huby's visiting for a few days, with the little 'Womble', which is really nice.

I've added some more pictures for the followers, just to show that there is progress!

Update

We aim to please our crowd, so here are some new pictures. One is showing daddy feeding Milly from a bottle, and successfully as well. She was a bit sceptical to begin with, but once she realized it was actually milk, she didn't turn her nose up anymore. The other one was taken yesterday.

Everything is going fine. Mummy and daddy are still trying to get used to getting less sleep, but that's just one of those things you have to accept. Milly is being very good, and it's fun to watch how quickly she grows. She is a lot more awake, and we've had to buy her an 'activity centre' as she was starting to get a bit bored with staring into the wall!

Are babies like buses??

...... don't see any for ages then 2 come along in one year!!
"Womble" Huby is due for release on 27th December..... so
he / she is not quite ready to play with Milly yet.
Hopefully Lynne is over the worst of the morning sickness
now..... just in time for a calm and relaxing school holiday.
We're delighted for Colin and Lynne..... and of course we can offer
them a practice facility should they need it..... advanced nappy
changing..... pram pushing lessons.... it's all here waiting for you
chaps!!

Slack-bloggers

The blog has somewhat dried up in the last couple of weeks..... I blame Milly personally!!
She tends to save her unreasonable moods for when we're all together in the evening. The major issue seems to be that she doesn't want to go to sleep.... no matter how tired she is. During these periods she has a constant struggle to keep her eyes open..... which usually leads to lots of arms and legs flying around and the occasional ear splitting scream. So doing anything constructive in the evening tends to take a back seat.
Still, we can't blame the little munchkin too much, she's only 4 weeks old. We do get the odd smile. The occasional chuckle (when just about to fall asleep or fill a nappy).
This week we've tried to bottle feed...... which hasn't met with success so far....... we've tried the dummy, which works some times but mostly not..... but by far the most popular "boob" replacement is the end of daddy's nose. She can't get enough of it.... so now we need to go out and find a nose-shaped dummy from somewhere.

What are you smiling at?!?!

Life is fairly simple being less than 4 weeks old. It's all about eating, sleeping and filling nappies. This new life does take a bit of getting used to for the parents, but we are slowly getting there. And enjoying it :-) Even when she is crying, it feels so rewarding just to look at our gorgeous little girl. That sometimes even smiles at us.

Lots of presents

We haven't been so good at updating the blogg recently, but with daddy back at work and mummy busy all day with Milly, it's not so easy to find the time. But hopefully it will be a bit easier when we get more of a routine with her. As we have mentioned before, she's had so many presents, thank you so much to all of you! Being a little girl, most presents are clothes, and daddy is probably already a bit worried about the future and how to fit it all in... Here are some of the outfits that fit her now, although she is growing so quick that it wont take long before she's grown out of them.

More visits

On Saturday we got another visitor from England, this time it was Grannie Annie that came to see little Milly. Bestemor and Bestefar from Hamar also came down that day, so there were lots of attention for the little princess. In fact so much that she refused to go to sleep, stayed awake for hours and ended up being over tired... But that's what happens when you don't wanna miss the action! Here are some pictures of the little angel with her two grandmothers :-)

Today Grannie Annie, mummy and Milly went shopping in Oslo. It was Milly's first trip into town, and she even got to go on a bus both ways. She obviously didn't find it that exciting, since she slept her way through that as well... It's still extremely hot here, and it's hard to be a little girl in this weather, but she's coping fairly well. It just means extra milk duty for mummy as she needs refills quite often.

Nearly smiling....

It's been a few days since the last entry. We've had a bit of a heat wave..... which Milly took a little time to get used to. She didn't want to sleep at all on Tuesday..... but since then she's been sleeping pretty well. Today is the first day we haven't actually been out at all..... Marit was feeling a bit under the weather, which we think is a combination of the heat and the extreme events of the last 2 weeks. We have started making a list of all the gifts and cards...... she's been a very lucky girl!! Tomorrow is my last day of paternity leave.... although I have been working a bit so hopefully I can take a little bit of time off soon. Will be strange to go back to work...... for those of you that have seen "The Good Life"..... I feel a bit the same way as Tom did!!

But I expect the bank will be expecting a mortgage payment any time soon :-(

Milly at home

The first couple of days at home have been quite eventful, well at least for a one week old girl that spent her first week more or less stationary in one room!


Auntie Helen arrived on Saturday afternoon, which was really nice. In the evening we went to Kristin's 40th birthday party for a couple of hours. On Sunday we had our first stroll in the park, and also had two lots of visitors dropping by. And today we have enjoyed lunch at Ekebergrestauranten. But Milly seems to work on the basis that she sleeps her way through all these events, so I guess it's mummy and daddy that find them the most exciting...

Breaking news.....

Milly has been cleared to leave hospital..... more to follow

We are now home!!! It´s so lovely to finally be able to take our little girl home. And also extremely nice for mummy to get out of that room... as I was going slightly mad. But the main thing is that Milly is fine. We are now trying to sort out the facilities for feeding and changing at home, but as she´s now had both a feed and a nappy change it seems to work here as well! 

We are waiting for auntie Helen to arrive in a couple of hours, and I think Andrew is trying to push on nappy duty to her while she´s staying.... We will post some pictures of Milly in her new home later!

On the beach....

Why did we think it would be any other way...... she arrived 2 weeks late..... when whe did arrive it took ages to get her out and now we have to wait and wait and wait to get her home!! Last night Milly took a trip to the solarium to try and clear up the jaundice (gulsott)......... it is a common thing.... over 50 % of babies have it but that didn't make it any easier to leave her on the sun bed in someone else's care. She's now had yet another blood test so we have to wait and see..... we are so desparate to get her home now. Marit is climbing the walls in the hospital hotel!!

Little bit longer....

We had hoped that Milly would be home today but we´re slightly delayed. She is still a little bit "yellow" and the staff at the hospital won´t let us out until the blood tests show that the jaundice levels are lower... or she may have to have a bit of a go on the sun bed. She´s had several blood tests.... which she really "enjoys"..... bless her, it´s not the most pleasant thing to have blood taken from your foot. Apart from that though, she is feeding properly..... Marit cracked the technique a little before Milly but they are now in perfect sync..... she is also filling her nappies with some really unpleasant liquids, as chief nappy changer I can safely confirm that. Sorry that the blog is getting slightly graphic, but if you´d seen what I have over the last few days then you would realise this is a very tame description!! Hopefully we will have a homecoming blog entry tomorrow

Milly Jørdre-Roberts

Sorry for the delay there bloggers...... typical isn't it..... you login for news and get my drivel for days upon end, and then the big event finally it happens and the blog goes quiet!!

The statistics are (bean counters privilege).... 15 hours of labour...... 3.856 kilos, 51 cm long..... born 13.00 or 13.06.... depending on which clock you were looking at...... 2 eyes, 10 fingers, 10 toes, and one gorgoeus little girl :-)

Am very proud of my wife and daughter..... Marit for not complaining once through the whole thing and being braver than anything I've seen or am likely to see..... and Milly because she's Milly.

We hope to come home tomorrow, if Milly isn't too yellow. More news then.... but I'm sure everybody's more interested in the pictures than the words.........

Blog requests...

On the blog we always aim to please. A request came in via e-mail today..... why is there no picture of the "bungy" carrier in full bloom??

Day 11......

....... yesterday saw two potential names for "bungy" crossed off the list...... Cristiano and Ronaldo are now unlikely to figure in the final shake up.
One thing is now certain..... this will be my last day at work for a couple of weeks...... as we have an appointment at the hospital to "encourage" old lazy bones to come out.

Day 10......

..... the house mates are bored and don't know what to do...... perhaps we should have a jelly eating contest to pass the time..... It's worse for the "bungy" carrier than it is for me, as I've got slightly less stomach to carry around (although not by much). If any of the bloggers out there need their photo albums organising then Marit is now an expert in the field. All of our photos which have been sitting around for years are now beautifully catelogued. I never thought I'd see the day.

It nows looks like Uncle Kristoffer is going to be on holiday when "bungy" does finally arrive..... and the way things are going it's not going to be very many days old before Aunty Helen gets here. I suppose we should get used to having our time schedule determined by the little ankle biter..... !!

Old wives tales.....

we continue to explode the myths of accelerating child birth...... the last 2 to go were reflexology and rhubarb..... any more suggestions??

Cousins.....

..... I should have mentioned..... on my review of the weekend, that "bungy's" cousin ended up in hospital on Friday night after a trampolining accident. Arthur has a double fracture of his left arm..... but he was extremely brave through the whole ordeal and is now back at home, skiving off school! According to William, he was asked by 27 people at school yesterday to explain what happened..... sometimes it's not easy to have an injured brother, is it Helen!!

Get well soon Arth

Day 7.....

.... and the house mates are getting restless...... just imagine that you're watching big brother and none of the contestants ever got evicted from the house..... Welcome to our world! Not that I've ever watched big brother..... but waiting for "bungy" to come out is what I imagine it to be like..... BORING!! One of my colleagues sent me some reflexology tips for accelerating child birth..... maybe we'll give that a try today.

Patience

Not even born and already "bungy" is testing our patience. 6 days late..... let's hope this isn't a sign of what's to come during the teenage years. On the positive side..... we managed to do lots of small jobs over the weekend which would probably have taken another 10 years had the birth happened on time.
As this is not just a blog but a historical record of our family expansion here is a news update of the weekend. We watched a football snooze fest on Saturday, as Norway drew 0-0 with the might of Macedonia.... England splattered Kazakhstan 4-0..... A little bit of fatherly advice here "bungy" don't get carried away when England win, they will generally find some way of disappointing you any time soon. The cricket over the weekend was a better example..... beaten by Netherlands (who can only just about manage to get a team together) and then wallop Pakistan (for whom cricket is a religion)..... makes no sense.... but you'll learn this soon enough.

Waiting for the great leap forward

This is the first entry in the blog in which we hope to chart the progress of Jørdre-Roberts junior. The blog will get first access to pictures, thoughts of the parents, and expert analysis from various baby experts...... having fought off stiff competition from Hello! magazine for exclusive rights.

Watch this space