Summer Travels

Every summer for the last 5 or 6 years we have gone to visit Hannes' grandparents at their summer house in Sjællands Odde, Denmark...it's about an hour and half drive from Copenhagen.  They have a little house with a guest house in the yard.

You can barely see it on this map, but it's a really small peninsula sticking out into the ocean.

If the weather is nice, it's a great place to be!  They have some rock beaches and a nice sand beach.  We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner outside and enjoy the sunshine.  This is Henry's second time going and the first year he spent the majority of our trip in his stroller.  This year, he had so much fun exploring!  He found plenty of rocks, swam in his new pool and spent hours running around in the yard.  It wasn't hard getting him to bed since he was spending about 10 hours a day outside.  Our first day there was absolutely gorgeous so we took Henry to the nice sand beach.  You can walk out like 30 yards into the ocean and the water is never above your knees.  However, Henry didn't want to walk out into the ocean.  He only wanted to sit in this hole Hannes dug in the sand near the waterline and splash in what essentially was a puddle.  It was pretty funny though!

That was all we had planned for this summer, but after spending a few hours on google I found that Hamburg was only a 4 1/2 - 5 hour drive from their summer house.  The hotel wasn't expensive and it seemed doable, so I booked it!  Hamburg is an absolutely beautiful city full of old buildings.  Which is exactly what I'm looking for when I travel.  It is a little more calm and less metropolitan than Berlin, but not quite as beautiful as Amsterdam.  We pretty much only walked around the city, and ate.  We found this amazing Vietnamese restaurant, Quan Do and ate there twice!  I would probably go back to Hamburg just to eat Bún Châ from that restaurant.  We've already tried to recreate it once since we've been back.

This is central station.  Our hotel was just a short walk, about 3 minutes, from here.

This was an area called Alster.

The only thing we really splurged on was a trip to Hagenbeck, the zoo in Hamburg.  I thought Henry would absolutely love seeing the animals and I think I was right.  It was quite pricey to get in 30 Euros, which is about $50.  After living in St. Louis my whole life I have a really hard time paying to get into a zoo.  It was a really nice zoo, but like most places had some hidden costs.  Like using the bathroom...they had attendants that were looking for "donations".  I snuck out every time I had to pee and never donated, I mean, I already paid $50 to get in!  They also had food bags that you could get with a "donation".  Although, that donation was kind of worth it.  I literally had elephants eating out of my hands!  And baboons and alpacas.  Although, the baboons ate the food that we threw into their enclosure.  They may be a little too dangerous to hand feed.  It was the most natural looking zoo I have ever been in.  All the trails were made of a dirt/sand mixture and they had tons of trees.  It was almost like walking through a forest.  They also had quite a few animals that were free to roam anywhere they wanted in the zoo.  We didn't get a picture, but some of them were this weird mix of hare/deer/donkey.

Henry loved the bears and said "bear" over and over again.

This was the grossest animal I have ever seen!  I swear it was trying to figure out how to eat Henry.  It kept turning it's nose sideways and sniffing like it was smelling something tasty!

This walrus was hilarious!  It stayed in that exact same spot for as long as we could see it.  He kept going underwater, holding his breath, then coming up and taking another huge breath and then going back under.  It was so cute and we stood there and watched for like ten minutes.

One night, we went to dinner in this neighborhood called St. Pauli.  We didn't read much about it beforehand; but apparently, it was really lucky that we were there early in the evening.  You can read more about it here, if you want.  We ate at this burger place called The Bird.  Which, in my opinion, is the best burger I've had in Europe.  Although, nothing quite compares to Five Guys.  The kids and I ate there in Berlin and when I found out they had just opened one in Hamburg I knew I had to go.  They also have amazing hand cut fries and the best cheesecake I have ever had!  Plus, it's super cheap (compared to price in Sweden, especially).  Hannes and I each had a beer, a burger with fries and we shared a cheesecake all for 35 Euros (323 swedish kronor or $48).  It may not seem like a steal to some people, but when you're used to paying $30 for a kind of bad hamburger out, it's a huge deal!  While we were walking around we saw this building.

I made Hannes take a picture because it's my friend Amanda's last name.  I really hope it's spelled right, I think it is though.  The place looked a little sketchy, but it was still funny.

We didn't get a picture of the very best thing that happened the whole trip.  I'm still mad about it, but what can you do?  I am really bad about taking pictures in general, but I've been even worse lately.  I know I've said this plenty of times, but we don't have a camera right now.  We take all of our pictures on our phones.  Which usually works out fine, but when we travel we can't use our phones...it is way too expensive!  So, being practical, I always leave mine in the hotel.  Since I can't use it anyway.  Then, later when I want to take a picture I realize how stupid it is that I don't have my phone with me.  But the next day I do the same thing again!

Hannes loves taking these candid pictures of me, but most of them are too hideous to share.

Anyway, we had been walking around quite a bit.  We took the train down to the harbor and then walked about 45 minutes back up to the city hall, or rathaus in German (I found the name hilarious and called it the rat house the entire trip).  We decided to let Henry down so he could stretch his legs.  There was a big square with plenty of room for him to run without encountering any streets or cars.  There was a group of kids on a field trip sitting on the steps outside of the building. As soon as we let Henry out he ran straight over to the kids, turned around, backed up and sat down on the ground right in front of them.  It was hilarious!  Then, he turned around, smiled and said hi to all of the kids.  He sat right there for a few minutes.  Until he realized that everyone else was sitting on the step.  So, he did what anyone would do...he got up, climbed the steps and sat down right next to the last boy.  I almost died!  Then, he did the most Henry thing of all, he tried to take the boy's book bag...several times.  At one point, I thought about yelling to Hannes to take a picture, but then the kids got up and all stood in line to leave...and of course, Henry got in line right behind them!  He can be the cutest sometimes.


For anyone wondering...Henry did amazing on the trip!  There were a few times when he got fussy in the car, but I would just climb in the back and entertain him until he was ready to fall asleep again.  He had no problems sleeping in the travel cribs anywhere.  The only kind of tricky part was that Henry will not go to sleep if we are in the room.  So, we had to put him down for bed and then leave the hotel room and hang out on the steps in the hallway until we thought he was sleeping and then quietly sneak back in.  We covered the top of his crib with a blanket and watched TV with the sound off (Which wasn't a huge deal because they dub every show in German so we had no clue what people were saying anyway!  We did have fun watching 2 1/2 men one night and guessing what was going on.).  The only part that was kind of difficult at times was feeding Henry.  He's not a super picky eater and usually eats some variation of what we eat every night for dinner, but we didn't always eat food that he wanted.  He didn't like the noodles at the Vietnamese restaurant, I still don't know why.  So, he ended up eating what was basically a cinnamon roll for dinner that night.  He did have a pouch that contained fruits and vegetables so I don't have a ton of guilt over that, but it definitely wasn't the healthiest meal ever prepared.


For anyone who made it to the end of this post...you get a very special surprise!  Apparently, this is what Hannes and Henry do when they get up in the morning and I'm still sleeping.  Hannes found it so hilarious that he documented it.  I figured some people might get a laugh out of it too.

That's a lovely new necklace Henry, but you can only wear it in the house!  I also love that his shirt is off and in a ball on the couch.

One Year Old!!!

How did this happen?  How is my baby 1?!?!  It is crazy how quickly time flies!  We don't have a real camera...we take all of our pictures on our iPhones.  So, for Henry's birthday we asked Hannes' brother to take some pictures for us.  We haven't seen any of them yet so when we do I will update with some of those pictures.

Henry's Stats

Weight: 9.6 kilos

Height: 74.8 cm

Head circumference: 46.7

Teeth: 8, but we have 2 more trying to pop through on the top

Favorite foods: strawberries and watermelon (this boy LOVES fruit!)

What Henry's been up to:

Henry has been up to so much lately!  He's gone from walking to full on running...which means that when he falls (and he's always falling!  boys!) he lands a little harder than he did before.  I feel so bad for his hands, knees and head!  He always gets right up and keeps going though!  I'm sure his falling is harder on me than it is on him.  Henry  loves the library!  At home, he will sit down and read all of his books and look at all of the pictures in them.  At the library, however, he only runs around and pulls all of the books out.  He will not sit down or read a single book.  

Henry LOVES rocks!  I have never seen a child more obsessed with anything, ever!  If he's walking outside and sees a rock he has to stop and pick it up.  He really loves the big ones and will sometimes have 3 or 4 in each hand.  When we were in Denmark recently we stopped at a rock beach.  I think Henry was a little overwhelmed.  He wasn't sure how he was going to get so many rocks in his hands!  I swear he traded them out 3 or 4 times to make sure that he had just the rocks that he wanted.

I just had a little bout of deja vu and I feel like I've written some of this last month, but hopefully no one minds reading it again!

Henry has become quite the talker!  He talks almost nonstop.  His word for boo, bowl, bottle and button all sound the same, but we can usually figure out what he's talking about.  He also started saying something that sounds like "big ole, big ole, pickle or tickle" something like that, at least to me.  One day, he was hiding in his favorite corner and just talking and I was able to get some of it on video.  Normally, once he sees that you're taking a photo or video he runs over wanting to look at the screen so he can see what's going on...which makes it impossible to take a picture or a video!

Henry also had his first experience swimming when we were in Denmark.  Hannes' grandma bought Henry the cutest little baby pool.  It was just the right size!  He loved that thing!  He would climb in and out over and over again and then sit down and splash and play with his toys.

Thanks for the swimming clothes Aunt Jessie!

During my baby shower...a long time ago!  Everyone took turns writing cards to the baby in my belly.  At that time, we didn't even know it was going to be a boy...much less our wild, crazy Henry Tage!  Aunt Jessie got the first birthday card.  Henry was really excited to eat the card!  But I think it is going to be really fun opening these for the next, like 23 years!

Henry also had his first taste of sugar on his 1st birthday!  I made some really delicious greek yoghurt cupcakes with blackberry frosting.  At first, he was a little skeptical about eating the cupcake, but as soon as he had his first real taste he dug in!  Since then, he's rarely had sugar, but sometimes you get desperate when traveling.  We had a hard time finding food for him to eat at some of the restaurants we ate at in Germany so he ended up eating this cinnamon danish...basically, a flattened cinnamon roll for quite a few meals.  Now that we're back home it's back to real food for him!

What Mommy's been up to:

We finally had our first night away from our little guy!  For my birthday, Hannes' parents and grandparents got us a night at a fancy hotel in Copenhagen.  They watched Henry and we spent the night away.  Hannes' parents, grandparents, his brother - Henrik, his girlfriend - Ida, his cousin - Tim and his girlfriend- Jessica were all there to help!  We weren't worried at all.  Henry really loves people and with so many people giving him attention we knew he would have a blast!  While we were gone Hannes' brother posted this photo of my sweet boy on Instagram:

Of course, I was then worried about what was going on!  Just kidding!  It did make me miss that cute, chunky face though.

I'm still working on weaning this guy.  Every morning after he wakes up he gets into bed with us, nurses and then snuggles for about 30 minutes until one of us gets up with him to make him breakfast.  Some days, that is the only time he nurses.  If we're busy and doing stuff and he eats well then he doesn't even ask to nurse at all.  Some days, though, he wants to nurse every few hours.  Most of the time if I tell him no or go and make him a snack he just forgets about it and keeps going on about his life.  Other times, he will continue to beg and cry and try to pull my shirt up until I let him nurse.  I figure that whatever breast milk he's still getting is negating all of the brain damage he's doing by always banging his head!  I would like to wean him completely as soon as possible, but I am being patient and only nursing when he really wants to and can't be distracted by anything else.

11 Months Old!

As usual, this post is a little on the late side.  And it will not be very photo heavy…long story short I updated IOS on my phone and lost all of my pictures from the last 4 months!  Awesome!

Henry's Stats

Weight: 9.5 kilos (I think.  This is based off of Henry climbing onto the bathroom scale and weighing himself.)

Height: Not sure

Head circumference: Not sure

Teeth: 8 (We are finally symmetrical on the bottom!  Yay!)

Favorite foods: grapes and watermelon

What Henry's been up to:

Henry has really been getting into the swing of summer.  We have been spending lots of time playing on our rooftop.  Sometimes, he really enjoys the sandbox and other times he refuses to play IN the sandbox, but will play with a random bucket of sand that he finds.  Which is fun until he throws the shovel over the side of the roof and down onto some people enjoying some frozen yoghurt below.  True story!  Hannes did find the shovel and said it landed between the building and the table the people were sitting at.

He also enjoyed his first popsicle.  Of course, it was pear flavored.  There is something very Swedish about pear stuff.  They love it and so does Henry!

He enjoyed most of his popsicle this way, but he did start touching it with his hands, pulled pieces off and got everything extremely sticky.  I think our next popsicle experience will be naked with a hose nearby!  Henry also really enjoys talking on the phone.  Hannes lets him play with his phone sometimes and he walks around talking to people.  Hannes also always puts it on speakerphone when he calls his parents and Henry will grab the phone, walk around and say hi continuously while they talk.

Henry is really loving bath time!  If you mention bathing he will walk straight to the bathroom door and stand there while saying bath, bath, bath.  We don't have a tub so Henry is still using his baby bath tub.  I think he will soon outgrow it, but he loves to splash in there!  We enjoy giving him fun hairstyles.

Henry also got his first pair of real pajamas.  He generally sleeps in leggings and a t-shirt…which are pretty much pajamas, but this is his first real, legit pair of pajamas.  I almost died when he suddenly turned into a kindergartner when he put them on!

He is seriously so old and crazy big when he wears those!  Since his birthday is just around the corner…it is on SUNDAY!  I cannot believe that he is going to be one!  It is insane how quickly time can fly, but a few presents have been trickling in for him.  Mostly from Grandma and he is having a blast with them!  He loves being in the kitchen and playing with all of our pots and pans and kitchen stuff so my Mom got him his own kitchen stuff.  He is obsessed with them!  He is always cooking stuff and tasting it and having us taste it.  We might just have a chef in the making!

He also got the most adorable pair of dinosaur tennis shoes!  Which he wore to the library today and looked like a total hipster baby in his skinny cords…that may be getting a little too skinny.  They are definitely a little different for him to walk in, compared to his leather moccasins.  I just had to take a video of him tromping around the library in them.

He has been talking like crazy and ‘saying’ so many words.  I really think that he is going to be an early talker!  He also loves to make animal noises, especially dog noises.  Dogs are still his favorite animals and he loves chasing them around while yelling ruff, ruff, ruff.  He can also say hoppa, hoppa (Swedish for hop)…he does this with his frog and bunny.  He also says lampa (Swedish for lamp).  He can say door and bath and bye bye.  I do think that he really understands what these words mean, but he also does a lot of babbling.  Especially, when he is alone in his bed in the morning.

What Mommy’s been up to:

Now that Henry is almost 1 I am going to join a gym.  Then I will have no excuses not to lose these last 10 pounds!  I think that slowing down with breastfeeding has also helped me to lose some of the weight.  As weird as it sounds, I think I am one of the few people that holds onto fat/weight when breastfeeding.  Fantastic!  Hannes is also going to be on vacation for 5 weeks this summer so I will have some free time during the day and evening to take some classes and workout.  I am actually really excited about getting back into an exercising routine. 

I am extremely ready to completely wean Henry, but he is just not ready.  Some days, he wants to nurse as much as he did when he was a newborn…every 2-3 hours…despite the fact that I don’t really produce much milk.  I can definitely see how Moms get suckered into nursing toddlers.  I always said I would quit when he had teeth, that happened at 5 months and I still continued nursing.  Then I thought I would quit when he had many teeth, but not much later he started getting 6 teeth at once!  So, we kept on trucking.  Now, he knows what he wants and he will come over to me and try to pull my shirt up or down all while chanting either mama or ninnie (a family nickname for boob…could be spelled ninny, not really sure).  He drinks 3 bottles a day, sometimes 2.  He always has one before nap time and one before bed time.  Sometimes, there is one thrown in in the morning, mostly to give my poor nipples a break.  So, it isn’t like he NEEDS to nurse.  I think he likes it and finds it comforting and maybe since he doesn’t use a pacifier anymore he needs more sucking action then he is getting.  Who knows!  I really think that when he starts daycare in August it will be easy to completely stop, since we won’t see each other during the day and until then we can just see what happens.

I am thinking about doing a separate post about sleeping because it is just too much to get into here...  

9 and 10 Months Old!!

Somehow, keeping up with this blog was so much easier when I was doing pregnancy updates.  I can't imagine why!  Clearly, time passes way too quickly.  I cannot believe that in 6 short weeks my baby is going to be 1!!!  I cannot understand how that is even possible.

Henry's Stats

Weight: 20 pounds

Height: 28.5 inches

Head circumference: 18 inches

Teeth: 7

Favorite foods: corn and strawberries

I have never seen a human being consume so much corn, ever!  Nor have I had the pleasure of changing so many corn filled dirty diapers.  He will choose corn over anything else on his plate and then he'll keep asking for more.

What Henry's been up to:

Henry has been teething for what seems like forever!  He has never complained or been grumpy because of it and has never taken any medicine.  Which I think is amazing considering that he got 5 teeth all at the same time (there's still a few more trying to poke through)!  With these teeth has come a love of biting.  As I write this I am trying to keep him from biting my feet!  He's also taken to biting my nipples and I have considered weaning him early because of this (more on that later).

Henry has also been learning and talking nonstop!  For about 20 minutes one evening he could say bye, bye.  He sat on the floor, said bye, bye and waved to me nonstop for like 15 minutes…until I took out the camera.  I did manage to get a little bit on tape.  Now he just waves, but will not say bye, bye.  One day he said tear and shoes and dirty.  He just doesn't seem able to hold on to these skills and often will not repeat them.

He's also learned how to shake his head no, no.  Which he usually does too quickly and he makes himself dizzy.

He has really been experimenting with foods.  He no longer eats baby food.  He will every once in a while, but much prefers finger foods and feeding himself.  He just realized that everyone else eats with silverware and will point and grunt until you give him silverware, too.  Of course, he doesn't know how to use it properly.  He mostly bangs it on his highchair tray and puts it in his mouth and, obviously, uses it to push all of his food onto the floor.  Another one of his favorite foods is frozen blueberries.  After making the mess in the picture below I make sure that I feed him the blueberries.

Henry's first time having some Swedish pancakes, and he loved them!  He ate one and a half pancakes and a little bit of whipped cream.

Henry also really loves playing in our closet.  Mostly pulling all of our clothes out and onto the floor.  He loves reading books and remote controls.

Last month, we went to a friend's family farm and Henry saw sheep for the first time.  He was obsessed!  He was able to pet them and was actually pretty gentle.  He definitely did not want to leave!  While we were home in the states a few weeks ago he went to the zoo for the first time.  The poor guy couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to go play with and pet the animals!  He was getting so frustrated.  He just kept yelling and pointing to the animals.  However, his favorite animal is definitely dogs!  Anytime that he sees a dog on TV or in person he just points and yells and tries to say dog over and over again.  It is the cutest!

Over the last few weeks he has really been perfecting his walking.  He has been "cruising" for several months now, but one day he just let go and started stepping.  It's fun to watch him challenge himself.  He is constantly letting go and trying to walk more and more.  Which, I am grateful for because we were quickly running out of pants!  (He was crawling holes in all of his!)

He is definitely getting better and better and slowly he is able to go a little farther.

What Mommy's been up to:

Last week we cut out night feedings, Henry was still eating twice at night - usually around 12 and 4.  I decided that I was no longer going to feed him at night.  I felt confident that he was eating enough "real" food during the day and nursing enough and he had a bottle before bed.  We definitely had some REALLY rough nights!  One night he was up for 4 hours just screaming and wanting to nurse.  He has gotten better.  We've tried to be pretty strict with a sleeping schedule and I think it is working.  Last night, he slept from 9-3, and when he woke up he just needed to be tucked back in and he slept until almost 6.  This is a HUGE improvement from what he was doing before.  He also doesn't seem like he is wanting to nurse when he wakes up in the middle of the night and he is not so angry with me for not nursing him.


We have been giving Henry välling since he was about 6 months old.  He gets one bottle, about 7 ounces every night.  A lot of nights he does not drink the full bottle, especially when he was younger.  (Välling is a Swedish thing.  It's kind of a mix between formula and oatmeal, it also has added corn - which is supposed to be good for babies' bellies).  Other than that, he is breastfeed.  Lately, I have really been considering weaning him a little early.  I think it's definitely easier to breastfeed when I'm home and I, sometimes, enjoy it.  However, I am SICK of pumping at work and I am definitely tired of getting bit by Henry!  He goes through phases where he will bite me every time he nurses, like 5 or 6 times in a row and then he won't bite me at all for a few days.  When I was on the way to the states it got pretty bad.  He was biting me every time I nursed in the airport and on the airplane.  I really considered quitting right then!  But I didn't bring my breast pump and I didn't know what his schedule would be like with the time difference and I had only packed two bottles.  Plus, I knew if I started a formula there I, most likely, would not be able to find the same one here.  So, I thought I would make the decision when I returned.  Of course, he then quit biting me and so we are still breastfeeding, but it's definitely in the back of my mind to quit.  It just seems a little silly now to transition to formula and then in a few weeks, transition to cow's milk.  So, I'll probably just keep going.

I know that I've mentioned my weight on here a few times.  I still have about 6 pounds that I still need to lose.  That will put me back at my weight when I was 8 weeks pregnant.  To get to the weight I would like to be at I would need to lose about 10 pounds.  I haven't been strict about dieting or exercising.  The gym's here do not offer childcare until children are 1 and with Hannes' practice schedule it is hard to find some time to myself to make it to the gym.  I decided to wait to get a gym membership until this summer, when he turns 1.  I'll also be home from work and the older kids will be with their Dad, so I won't have any excuses!  In the meantime, I am going to try the whole30 challenge.  You cut out grains, sugar, anything unnatural, beans, legumes and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting for 30 days and just eat clean, whole foods.  We usually do not eat much meat, but I think that with this diet we will have to…there aren't many other options.  I have created a new Instagram account, julieskitchen30, where I am going to be documenting my journey on this plan.  I am really excited about it and hoping that it will change the way I feel!  On top of being a little heavier than I'd like I also feel bloated, tired and my skin isn't looking so great.  This challenge is supposed to help with that and change the way you view food.  If you'd like to follow along on my journey you can follow me on Instagram, julieskitchen30, and I'll probably do something on here, too.

And, finally, a little unrehearsed entertainment.