We took Ms. Emma to the health clinic today for her well-baby check-up. She’s now 6.760 g and 61 cm long, up from 5.805 g and 58 cm three weeks ago. Just for kicks, I found a growth chart program from the WHO, and here’s Emma: Interestingly, the health system in Iceland uses growth chartsRead more
All of our children have at the very beginnings of their lives really liked doing their ‘big business’ into an open diaper while lying on the changing mat. Emma is no exception. So we spend quite a bit of time every day sitting by the mat, jiggling her feet, aka ‘poopy charming’ her. 🙂 HereRead more
[Written 14 April 2013]
Easter brings with it the Season of Confirmations, aka teenagers ‘confirm’ their belief in God etc, aka teenagers get a ton of really great presents and tons of money. (Did I get confirmed way back when? Yes. Am I now jaded and sarcastic and basically an atheist? Yes.)
Not every teen gets religiously confirmed, but it’s very common in Iceland, although it’s now also possible to just ‘confirm’ that you’ve indeed turned 13 years old without having to pledge allegiance to some sort of deity (a ‘civil confirmation‘) and still get all the presents.
Anyway. This past Sunday, Ásdís Sól, daughter of my aunt Hulda, got religiously confirmed, and her parents threw her a big party to celebrate. We of course showed up, and got very lucky in that Emma slept through 95% of the party, so I was free to chat and take pictures. 🙂
Here is the FULL SET OF PICTURES ON GOOGLE PLUS, and sampling of which (of just my family really) follows here:
Apparently they were dipping strawberries in chocolate, and ended up with leftover chocolate, which resulted in chocolate letters! 🙂
Ásdís Sól with her parents, Ágúst and Hulda.
[Written 08 April 2013] I stupidly neglected to get a haircut before Emma was born, forgetting just how tricky it is to leave a newborn at a predetermined time. When Finnur was home, I planned on calling in to get a same-day appointment sometime in the afternoon while she was sleeping, but that just neverRead more
[Written 08 April 2013] Logi and Tassanee (Logi was a fellow EE student at Stanford), who now live in Canada, came for a short dinner visit with their two kids. The last time we saw them we were living in a different apartment, and Tassanee was pregnant! How time flies!!Read more
[Written 08 April 2013] Anna and her friend hosted a small picnic in our front-yard with Bjarki. I snapped a photo though the window.Read more
[Written 08 April 2013]
This year the wait for Easter was almost as difficult for the kids as the wait for Christmas, because they knew they would each be getting two large Easter chocolate eggs on Easter day, courtesy of my parents. Just to be on the safe side, we therefore told them the night before that there would be no eating of Easter chocolate eggs until after 8 am (no waking up at 6 am to eat chocolate!). They seemed to get the message because they woke up at the same time as usual, and Finnur took them down to have breakfast, and then hunt for the eggs.
Emma in her lounger on Easter morning.
Looking for eggs.
Yup, Ms. Bambino has a name: Emma Ósk Finnsdóttir. 🙂 There’s not a whole lot of meaning to the names. Emma is originally a shortening of a of German names that began with Erm-, Ermen- (such as Ermtraud, Ermgard, Ermenhild). The first shortening was probably Erma, related to the sound sheep make (?!?). Emma isRead more
Imported ‘specialty-stuff’ tends to be considerably more expensive in Iceland than in the UK and US, so I got my dad to bring over a few things from the UK to save us a little bit of money. One of them was a proper ‘Moby Wrap‘ (burðarsjal) which is basically just a really long pieceRead more