Momma's birthday !!

Go go go

lots of photos....

sorry for the wait of all these photos.. we got a new computer and it is a little tricky to figure it all out. but here are some of the photos left over from the last week. Just want to wish all our friends and family far and near, a Merry x-mas and a Happy New year. Also happy Birthday to my dad, who is the rock of our family. You listen, discuss and always support any decisions I (we) make, and you are the best Opa to Lilja.. We love you!! We did a lot of traveling from Belgium to Minnesota, from Fort Collins to Denver. and we had lots of visitors, even twice!! It is so fun to see Lilja so excited to see her family and she really looks forward when they come to visit. We are looking forward to 2014, it is so fun to start really doing some fun things with Lilja and watching her experience new things. She is such a bright, silly and sweet young lady now with true conversation that keeps going and keeps going.. Hmm who does she get that from, I wonder? We would love to see each and everyone of you this coming year. Bear with us as we are starting some renovations on the house. But this blog will definitely be kept up by moi ;) Love all of you, Nicole Aran and Lilja

remember the story about the blue kitty that she wanted and then she talked to santa about a black one.. well, she was so excited to meet Mauwie.. and is turning into her new lovey.. hopefully she will be the new 'lamby"   

santa put candy canes in the tree, she noticed those right away. This year we had an early x-mas with grandma and grandpa Johnson, and then on x-mas Lilja's stocking was filled. But I think next year we can't get away from that. Tis year it was already confusing as she told everyone santa came already. Her friends were confused ;) 

our annual x-mas ski day was a great success. You saw the videos already but I also love the photos. she definitely is a snow lover.

all by herself. she likes to do races!if she does not win (oh yes, we are that cruel) she will tell us.. Momma, it's not all about winning"!



Tired girl.. ready for some hot chocolate. we went a little farther that we should have as she kind of lost it on the way back. Luckily Daddy is so good that he can ski and carry her at the same time.

The best reward!! hot chocalate and a candy cane..

taking care of Jt for the day.. going to the train museum, and the playground. Lilja LOVEs JT!!!

down the slide!!

and ofcourse getting wet and muddy!!

Lilja learning how to skate. Aran and I can't remember when we learned how to skate. We both always skated with our families. We loved watching Lilja being a fast learner.. Yeah!!

the three of us, plus one..

First time on skates 1

JT is the one falling on the side.. he was a trooper and fell probably 20 times, wet and tired, he kept going and did pretty good at the end of the two ours. We will definitely get Lilja some skates. we both love it and there are lots of places we can ice skate, remember the lake at our house?

First time on ice skates

Lots of talks with Santa

So I need to give you a little story before you see this video. First of all, that Santa is a great friend of mine.. he was my santa when I did the fundraisers for the Family Center. I saw him a couple of weeks ago and we talked about Lilja.So when we walked up to Santa today, he said: so this is Lilja right?.. you should have seen her face, her mouth dropped. This is the best santa I would wish for, for Lilja to really meet for the first time. He asked if she wanted to sit on his lap and she said; No thank you " That took him back a little.. I was laughing so hard. She wanted to sit on the side there, and he just went along with her. They talked about what she wanted for x-mas and she said she wanted a black kitty cat. Now a couple of weeks ago she said that she knew santa was going to give her a blue kitty cat.. so I franctically looked for a blue kitty, and finally found a beany baby one. Love those, as they are little and she can carry then everywhere. So my mouth dropped when I heard the black kitty response. But Santa just kept the blue one as her taste changes sometime and I am glad.. she loves Mauwie, and carries her around everywhere. 

Down the slide

Almost time for hot chocolate

First ski day of the year

a little walk around our lake

We are very excited because it looks like our little lake is going to freeze over very nicely for some ice skating.. Both aran and i love to ice skate and we have not had Lilja on skates yet, so this might be the year.. The ice looks very thin when you see the hole they are looking at, but it is actually completely frozen over and very thick.. again.. Lilja is just a winter girl.. she is having so much fun with all the snow and ice.. fun to see and experience with her :)


Daddy showing Lilja a hole, (frozen over) in which they tried to see some fish



any in there Lilja??

Lilja made her own slide from the top of that hill.

with a little help from Daddy, she tried to go face first one time... and that was the last time :)



high in the sky!!




trying to see if Maggie can pull her.. nope did not work



cheese!! photo by grandpa.. including his finger , 

the pretty girl.. and a smart little cookie too (as she says to anyone that says she is cute )

Getting our tree

Ice angel

p.s making a digger in Nicole's world means... falling down )

christmas in Vallecito!! fireworks!!

Lilja has never seen fireworks as we always have a fireban during 4th of July.. this year, they had fireworks to blast off the x-mas season at the Vallecito lake.. so we decided to go and see how Lilja would do. She is not a fan of loud noices so we expected she would not really enjoy it.. but...

we are standing around a huge fire waiting for the fireworks.. Lilja was exited, but a little worried that the moon would get burned..

sorry for the red eyes, but still cute memory picture

the fireworks started out with some big bangs and this was the position Lilja had for the first 5 minutes... but then... 

she realized all the beautiful colors in the sky and that not all of them were loud.. she ended up yelling the loudest and was probably the most excited of everyone. Everyone was laughing about her little screams and noices!!

our little gilr definitely has eskimo in her as this mornign at 9 o'clock she wanted to play outside.. it was freezing, but there she goes..

such a trooper, playing outside for probably an hour!!

Grandma and Grandpa are here... Early Christmas!!

grandma and grandpa came to visit and ofcourse we had to find the perfect tree for our early christmas morning 

lilja loved hiding under the trees and just sprinkle herself with snow.

and sliding down the hills, on her tummy.....

and on her bum

we found the perfect tree, a 9 footer!! the biggest tree to date

tada!!!

after we decorated the tree, lilja made a cozy spot and watched a christmas movie from under the tree.

so cozy!!

we got grandma and grandpa tickets to the Polar express to go by themselves with Lilja.. i do not know which smile was bigger!!

Lilja was soooo excited, she just couldn't sit still on Daddy's shoulders. lamby ofcourse had to join the excitement

where is the train mommy!!?

There it is!!!

They make a big production over it, with big steam blasting and a little skit of the start of the movie.. so cute!

There they go... What about Aran and I?... we went for some jummy drinks and had some quiet time:)

we had an early x-mas morning this year..  Santa brought Lilja a aquarium with some fish in it.. she was speechless.. and is loving them

Momma does not just do one fish in a bowl.. yep, a aquarium with 6 fish!! 3 glofish ( they glow in the dark) , two cat fish ( they clean the tank) and one sucker fish that cleans the side.. now let's hope they stay alive ! 

the kitty cat scarf from Halloween is becoming Lilja's every day scarf

Pretty girl!!

Snow!! And a cozy corner

Lilja loves getting momma snowed on !!

We changed lilja's room back so she gas a big playroom again . This time with a reading corner , she loves listening to stories in the dark with her lady bug on and her aquarium 

Boooo

A dollar for Santa