November & Thanksgiving

This is just to get caught up on November before we dive into celebrations of Maddie’s first birthday! We can start by getting right into the swing of things…

On one of Morfar’s whirlwind visits we had Mormor up at the house as well, and one of the very few pictures, if not the only one, of the girls with both their maternal grandparents.

Trine finally got tired of her desk being messed up and sticky fingers on her keyboard, so we decided to set Molli Malou up with some of the old computer equipment that was just gathering dust in the garage. Now, if you were that equipment, would you be happier accumulating dust or producing this kind of happiness:

(She’s wearing headphones because we didn’t have any more speakers, but we found a cheap pair online and that was her first Sunday advent gift this past weekend.)

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday with two other familes of American fathers, Danish wives, and dual national little girls. Here are Steve and Elisabeth with their Rebecca (about Maddie’s age), feeding her a little of Nana’s curried pumpkin soup:

Here are Trine and Elisabeth with the two pre-toddlers:

Here’s Grant with the toddlin’ Emmy. (Emmy’s mor, Sofie, is very pregnant and can just be seen reclining on the couch.)

I don’t know if these have caught on in the states: because Maddie always tosses off her blankets in the night, we got this sleeping bag nightdress thing that besides keeping her warm at night is also adorable.

For want of little kids to play with (they were, she complained, “too small to play right”), Molli Malou spent a lot of time walking her dog.

…and not too unhappily.

The morning after both girls were in a good mood and I went nuts with the camera.

None of the following are especially great pics in and of themselves, but I love them as a series.

The grand finale: Molli Malou finally gets Maddie to show off that tooth!

That afternoon we went to Bymidten (literally “the middle of town,” but also the name of the Værløse shopping center), where there were free pony rides!

They’d also heaped up a pile of snow for the kids to play in.

To celebrate Mormor’s birthday, we went to the tree-lighting ceremony in Frederiksberg (a family tradition now–just check the archives). Here are Molli Malou and Mormor anticipating Santa Claus’s appearance.

Maddie was a little more blasé.

But there he was!

Mormor treated us all to a big rib dinner at Promenade in Tivoli.

…where Maddie discovered her inner carnivore.

After dinner we enjoyed the park in its Christmas glory.

Mormor and Jørgen rode the carousel with Molli Malou.

..while the rest of us watched.

Molli Malou talked Jørgen into riding the kiddie ferris wheel with her, just as she had persuaded Nana not so long ago.

Commercialization has gotten the best of Tivoli, unfortunately: Quality Street is not the name of this little lane through the middle of Tivoli, but a line of candies. Tivoli needs to make money to stay in business, but the advertising struck me as a little un-Tivoliesque. Not hygge.

It is hard to believe that it was one year ago this evening that I took Molli Malou out to dinner on what would turn out to be her last night as an only child. Harder still to believe that the willful bundle of energy crawling around the house at light speed, tearing through our drawers and cabinets, gnawing on our furniture, and waving hi and bye-bye to anyone with an upraised arm is the same creature that entered this world as an utterly helpless little 3-pound bundle of spindly limbs just a year ago tomorrow.

A birthday tribute to Maddie tomorrow!