Our last week before departing for Australia ...

We all leave for a 3 month trip to Australia on February 1. It will be great showing Sofie to the Australian side of the family.



Dad and Sofie having fun ...

Sofie enjoys a little time relaxing on the sofa after our last 'rhythm and music' lesson.



A very funny new sound!!




Sofie loves 'Bamse'



Sofie has started sitting up with the support of pillows. In this photo she is sitting in a chair looking very very serious at our last mothers group meeting.


















In this photo Sofie is having a good look at Louise and Emil.















Anne-Dorte with Albert.





















Rebecca and Natasha.





















Anne-Dorte with Albert and Louise with Emil.















A group photo of all the mums with their babies.










.... and all the babies.
















Close-up of Sofie










Emil having a good laugh.










In this video Rebecca and Natasha show Anne-Dorte and Albert the way we do rolls in music and rhythm classes.

Two days before the flight to Australia Sofie had her last swimming lesson. It was strange saying goodbye to the other babies!
Balance exercises
More balancing and this time Sofie has both legs in one of mums hands which requires quite a lot of leg strength.












In this exercise the babies swim back and forth towards the mirrors placed on the pool edge.















At the end of the lesson all babies get to surf around without their parents.




















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Grandma's 70th birthday party

On January 13, 2009 Sofie's grandma turned 70. Thus this was celebrated this weekend with birthday brunch for 51 guests at Pejsegården in Brædstrup.

Before brunch started we all met on the ground floor of the restaurant for an appetizer. Grandma and grandpa can be seen to the left of the photo.










Sofie's cousins Daniel & Oliver were acting as cool as ever for the camera. Kenneth can also be seen in the photo on the right, he is one of Sofie's first cousins once removed.






















Here is grandma, the birthday girl with Sofie's grandpa. At 70 years of age she is still looking as young as ever.



















This is a photo of all the food that was served.













Each table had 'tillykke/ congratulations' written on it with grains of sand.












Our table with mum and auntie Jette seen to the right of the photo.












Sofie slept through brunch but woke at 3 pm. She was definitely a big attraction as all of grandmas friends had heard so much about her. In this photo she is studying her cousin Daniel.
















Then auntie Jette got to hold her and the number of her admirers grew.












Julia who is another first cousin once removed also enjoyed holding her.



















One of the guests, Martin had taken his guitar along and entertained us with birthday songs. We think he is a definite X-factor candidate!!



















After being confronted with so many strange faces and arms little Sofie enjoyed getting back into the comfort of her dads arms.


















Then Sofie entertained us with some help from her uncle Ole.



















After the weekends festivities we had loads of washing that Sofie helped me with while dad was back at work. In the videos below Sofie keeps me company from the bathroom floor and practices more interesting sounds. The intense studies of her hands and feet continues ....












On the 20/1-09 Sofie turned 5 months and was thus taken to the doctor for her 5 month health check and vaccination. Sofie's health is fine and she is now very long (67 cm) and her weight is 6750 g. She is growing so quickly ............... at birth she was 51 cm long and 3244 g!!! This photo is taken after the vaccination and she is looking quite content. I think she actually enjoyed playing with the doctors stethoscope and measuring tape.
Sofie didn't seem to mind the vaccin-ations. This time they gave her the two shots on the back side of her thighs.


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Swimming at the next level for babies

Sofie has now advanced to 'level-1 swimming' along with three other babies from her old level-0 class. The lessons are much the same although the dives are now longer and more advanced.

Sofie swimming from one edge of the pool to the other with mums help.














We do exercises which help the babies become aware of the edge of the pool as a place they can take a break.













In this photo Sofie is holding the edge all by herself.














The point of this exercise is to get babies used to floating around alone without the security of mum or dad around.












Dives are a little more advanced. This dive is supposed to simulate jumping in from the edge and turning around underwater to find the edge again.
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The first two weeks of 2009 ................

After spending New Years Eve skiing in Norway we returned to Copenhagen and back to all the routines our baby daughter loves. Sofie loved getting back home and as soon as we got through the door she smiled. She also slept all night without a break. Amazing that she is already so aware of her surroundings.

Sofie has now started experimenting with sounds, has advanced to level-1 swimming, is going to music & rhythm and has had a few encounters with solid food.

Traditionally, the first solids mothers in Denmark give their babies are porridges which are based on grains containing no gluten (rice, corn, millet ......). In this photo we have just given Sofie some corn porridge. As can be seen in this photo most of the food landed on her face so weening is still a long way off!!







In this video Sofie is eating rice porridge and more seems to land in her mouth.


Sofie has started experimenting with new sounds!!


When Hans gets home from work in the evenings he has Sofie's total attention. In this video one can see how fascinated Sofie is with her dad!

oops ....... Sofie looks like I caught her in the act!















Sofie and her dad in profile ......... Sofie has certainly inherited her dads facial features especially the turned up nose!













Sofie has found her feet ..........




















Even though walking is a long way down the track little Sofie enjoyed going for a walk on her dads toes!



















We have now bought a combi-stroller/pram that is fully collapsible. This will make our time in airports with Sofie a little easier as we hope she can sleep while we are in transit. It was a good deal due to the January sales. In this photo Sofie is giving it her stamp of approval.











Sofie is more and more interested in the food we put in our mouths!




.......... and here she experiments with even more sounds!

Sofie & I enrolled in a music and rhythm class just before Christmas. It's good fun but some of it takes some getting used to .......... In this photo all the babies are in the center of the room while the teacher blows soap bubbles over them. This really fascinated the babies. Sofie is lying across from Natasha (from our mothers group) in the right of the photo.



In this photo the bubbles made Sofie laugh a lot.







Sofie received a kangaroo under the Christmas tree from one of her Australian aunts and in this video she is having a very good look at it.





Even though Sofie has found her feet she still spends hours trying to work out her hands!!!


Sofie doing pull-ups with the help of Dad

It was also amazing seeing the mothers and babies from our group. After a three week break we could all certainly see differences in size and awareness. In this photo Anne-Dorthe is sitting on the sofa with Albert and Sofie








Natasha and her mum, Rebecca. We all think Natasha will be an early crawler as she is already rolling all over the place.


Previous posts.

Cross country skiing in Norway ........

On the 27th of December we headed north to Beitostølen in Norway to go cross country skiing. We were really lucky as the snow conditions were fantastic and the weather was beautiful.

It was Sofie's first New Years Eve and first experience with snow. It was also the first time our little jet setting baby used her Danish passport. Sofie slept really well in the sled during the day but the evenings suddenly became challenging for us as the new surroundings plus sleeping in the same hotel room with us seemed to disturb her sleep.

Check out a few of the photos and video below.

On our first day we went shopping and bought skis and shoes for each other which were our belated Christmas presents. This was great as we could head out directly after breakfast the next day. We started off doing a 8 km circuit on a green and blue route. The conditions were fantastic and Sofie slept soundly through the whole trip. The sleeping bag we had purchased for the chariot kept her nice and warm so we only needed to dress her in 3 thin layers.

I have only previously skied once so Hans is much more experienced he thus got to pull Sofie. The chariot pram we have converts to a sled. The skis for the sled were Sofie's Christmas present from us.









Our second day ........ in this photo I am recovering from one of my many falls.













Hans and Sofie with some beautiful scenery in the background. There are also routes that take one much higher but we stayed on the green and blue routes.





Sleeping in a hotel room with Sofie proved to be quite challenging. She wriggles a lot which disturbed our sleep and the smell of mums milk transformed her from a baby that slept through the night to a baby that woke every hour. So we rigged up the hotel room bath tub with her mattress etc so she could sleep in a separate room. The experience has given us a lot to think about in relation to our up coming trip to Australia.

On our fourth day I got to try out the sled on a flat section. It was heavy going!













Sofie started teething as well!!! This gave her quite a lot of distress and a little fever. We rang home to grandma/dad who suggested that a cool carrot could soothe her. In this photo she is biting hard on a carrot.















A family photo (even though Sofie is not visible).














More beautiful weather and scenery.


A diaper change ..... Sofie just loved the bathroom we had as she could see herself in 3 mirrors!










On our last day I tried out my snow shoes which were a Christmas present from Hans last year. With these on I felt confident and was able to pull Sofie around.










For more photos of our ski trip check out my husbands blog.

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