Bubble machine

Sophie has a touch of tonsilitis but it's the Winter holiday week in Stavanger so she's off school anyway. Here she is having some fun with the bubble machine she got for her birthday from her Auntie Nikki.

IT class

Messing around in Brekko

Boys and Girls

Jane, Mike and Dan have come over from England for Sophie's birthday. Yesterday we took the kids to the Oil Museum. Much fun was had and the day was concluded with a bit of oil industry-related colouring in. Sophie and Dan named their results "Princess Platform" and "Beast of the Night" respectively. I think you can probably work out which is which.

Sophie is 4

Sophie celebrated her 4th birthday party on Saturday along with 16 friends at Lekeland, a playbarn on the edge of Stavanger. It's regimented fun (...note the blue tunics) but they all really enjoyed it. She did a great job of making sure her guests felt welcome and they bestowed lots of nice presents on her in return.

Writing

Sophie has learned to write her name (and strangely mine and Jo's too). Not sure where she learned this ... not from us that's for sure. Here's a pic of the little minx doing a bit of crafty homework with the fridge magnets.

It's not all high brow activity in this house though. Here she is pretending to be a dog ...

Dance Class

Sophie had her first ballet lesson this evening and I think it's fair to say she's completely hooked. It was nice to watch her through the window going through the motions ... in her orange cardi surrounded by the rest of the class in pink tutus (Mum won't be allowed to make that mistake again). Sophie is now going to "early birds" class as I drop her off at school before work. This is a temporary measure until the current ice age ends and the thick ice covering our neighbourhood roads retreats back to the poles (... and Jo is happy to drive again). Check out Sophie's new bedroom. She has moved to a bigger room downstairs to free up a bit of space. The Beast is happy with this arrangement as she likes to hang out in Sophie's room but doesn't like to climb stairs.

The Clangers come to breakfast

Sophie has a vivid imagination and likes to pretend she's her latest hero. Over the Christmas holiday she insisted on being called, and dressing up as, Katy (the fairy in the BBC Christmas pantomime). This went on for several days until she transformed into her favourite Kerwhizz racer (the pink one, see picture). We liked this one because she put on protective gear whilst running around the house. Now she's a clanger. See the photo taken at breakfast (6.30 am) this morning. I had to get breakfast for Tiny Clanger and Baby Clanger too.

Chinese lanterns

We had fun designing these on the computer.

Seeing in the New Year