Friday morning. Every two weeks Ben gets to take a Friday as a flex day. This week I had promised him he could be in complete control of all the plans. Usually I spring something on him like wanting to have a haircut, or some prior commitment the girls have. Unfortunately Lilja is still a bit under the weather and Naomi is at the beginning of her antibiotics. So we spent the morning running some errands. It was a beautiful morning I might add and I took some pictures of the back garden. Last weekend Ben cleared out the flower beds, put in new soil and cow muck, laid membrane and fresh mulch. He also built the little stone walls. Looks pretty and very tidy. The peach tree is in blossom and looking very nice.

Here is Lilja on an errand with me, first to the bank to get a cashiers check and then to the post office to post off our passports for renewal.

Naomi got to go with Ben to Krogers (pronounced Kro-gers, Ben calls it K-rogers) for a food shop followed by a trip to Starbucks:) Always fun to hang out with Daddy!

After we got home Ben started working on the side flower bed and I started weeding and cutting back the dead winter growth in the front flower bed. The girls played happily for ages.

Naomi found a nice shady spot to read and Lilja played on her scooter and the slide.



Stopped for a bit of lunch, nice to have some cool shade for a while.

After lunch Naomi found another cool shady spot in the garage to read then got really helpful and helped Ben plant up some new flowers. We finished the front too. Achieved a lot.

Lovely to spend the day together, no big agenda, beautiful weather, hopefully one step closer to better health for the girls.

Well what can I say, I picked a great week to do a photo diary to show you all a snapshot of our life in Houston. I am not a quitter, and I will see this through (she says through gritted teeth). This is a picture of Lilja still not on form, although I would say that she is picking up today, she has gone past the sleepy phase and starting to get better so entering the mildly grumpy phase. Naomi is still fighting the cold, and complaining of wax in her ears. Complaining in general actually. So I made a doctors appointment for her and relaxed our school schedule. Naomi will not go to bed if ill, and in an effort to keep her from pestering me to do 'her' projects I tried to keep her on track and we spent an hour working on her Science project. It is a human body project, they have been doing a thing a week, eg skeleton, digestive system etc and adding it to a Naomi sized cut out. It is due in next week so we are in the final stages. It is pretty cool. Here is a picture of Naomi colouring in her brain.

At 9:40 we all loaded up to go to the doctors surgery, the girls go to a highly recommended pediatricians office at a nearby medical centre. There are two entrances the ill patients and the well patients. The girls were delighted to sit in the ill patients bit as it meant they were not in line for vaccinations. After a wait we got herded into a small, windowless waiting room with very little to entertain ourselves with apart from some magazines in Spanish. The girls got bored, I had to tell them off, we started counting how many floor tiles there were.


Eventually the very sweet and gentle Dr. Lee comes in to check out the girls, remove a large bit of wax from Naomi's ear. Here the girls are waiting to get the prescriptions which involved more waiting in said small cubicle. I thought it might be best for the children's health if I stepped out into the hall, Lilja then joined me. We then walked along the corridor to pick up prescriptions at the pharmacy. At this point I just wanted to be in Norway in a nice, clean, calm environment and not in a grotty pharmacy pumping out pop music and selling rack upon rack of junk food. It did not help my children that a very happy child sat on a very fat daddy's lap tucking into Coke and crisps. The girls longingly gazed at all that junk and begged me for food, I declined their wails and tried to keep smiling. We managed to get out with prescriptions and only one trip to the toilet.

Back home I was a good Mummy and made them their favourite oat pancakes for lunch and they got to watch a DVD. After lunch I instructed them to have 30 minutes room time. Lilja fell asleep and Naomi came in 5 minutes before the buzzer, she got to go back until I called her. We then got a little time to make her a scepter for her party next week and do her Maths work.

At 5pm I stole out the house to have the grand old outing of getting the post, I took the camera:) Guess who was coming home, my knight in shining silver!!!! Yeah!!! I left Ben to sit with the girls with their dinner and had a good half hour in bed on my own with my magazine, THANK YOU BJC! After dinner we managed a round of UNO.

Long Day.

Wednesday 23rd February, Day 3 'Photo Diary'

So here we are again. This morning Ben took Naomi to school as Lilja was still off colour. Nice sight, happy girl and her Daddy. Apparently the stereo was full blast and the window were down.

Lilja went straight back to bed after breakfast so I cleaned the kitchen floor and set to on some of those admin jobs that mostly get neglected. Some accounts and some Spring Break planning.

This is Lilja after her first nap and after vomiting all over herself. She is always extremely good about being poorly, even helping to wipe up the vomit. She watched a few DVD's and was happy to go for another nap. So pretty uneventful day for me, I got up to date on all the laundry and even some ironing.

After nap 2, I suggested that maybe Lilja would like a bath before picking up Naomi. She loves the bath, and can even wash her own hair and body.




Here she is all bathed, creamed, hair brushed and part dried.

Picked up Naomi, here is a picture of her with her teacher Mrs Scholl.

We had to take some books back to our local library. We live only a couple of blocks from this super little library, I am so glad to have access to English books after 8 years without. Not only books, but DVD's, magazines. YEAH! Naomi does not share my great enthusiasm, mostly because after school she is ravenous and does not like to be in public in her school uniform. I get that, but promised her it would be just short visit. Lilja does share my enthusiasm and loves to deliver the books back in.

After the library, we killed some time at home playing cards, reading a few books.

Then when Ben got home we went down the road to Costco to put some 'gas' into Ben's car and use a 'free pizza' coupon. As you can see I am a very responsible mother taking my sick children out in public areas. Forgot both my phone and my camera so here is an after shot of the leftovers. We had planned to pass this out of the window to one of the homeless people who beg on the roadside, the girls were very enthusiastic about this. Unfortunately there were none out, maybe as it was already dark. On that cheery note.... hoping that we are all back on form tomorrow.

Tuesday February 22nd- Day Two Photo Diary

Tuesday- started a little roughly, the plan was that Lilja would go to her playgroup. They were having a 'Go Texans' day and this included Pony Rides for all the children. Instead Lilja woke up with a raging fever. We had already said an early goodbye to Daddy who was flying to Dallas for a days meeting. On Tuesdays Naomi has an 'at home' school day. Her school is called a 'University Model' school, which means the parents sign up to co-teach their children. The University bit is a reference to the number of contact hours in the classroom, as the students grow older they work more independently. The work on the at home days it set by the school. Typically Naomi gets some work done before we drop Lilja off and then we work really hard until we pick Lilja up at 2, then we are free for the afternoon. Not today! Lilja did not touch her breakfast and got some rest and time at home, much to Naomi's annoyance:)

After getting showered and dressed Naomi tucked into her Maths work. Here she is playing shop, her task today was adding together three two-digit numbers. They have a daily drill in Maths including recording the temperature on a graph, calender work, fact quizzes, fact practice. There is plenty of repetition. It was a steep learning curve for her stepping in mid-term, but she has risen to the challenge. Lilja was a good sport and after her first nap came and worked alongside her sister.

Here is Naomi doing her reading comprehension on the sofa, she also completed her spelling work and grammar. Lilja took another nap and then when she woke up we ran some errands. Here we are at our local car garage (place of piano reference), it is pretty much at the end of the estate. Naomi and Lilja got to choose one piece of 'candy', they are very happy with themselves. Here is Lilja in front of the car with its replaced headlight bulb. No charges for the work, we are big fans of Adams Automotive!

Next stop our local grocery store, for a few items including some flowers for my friend Jean who has a Birthday tomorrow. Back home again for some more time on the sofa for a sick little girl and some computer time for Naomi. She is actually doing reading for her History and Science work. Screen time for Naomi is up there with candy as ultimate rewards. She covets any time on the computer or on a phone or other electronic device.

Our school day took longer than normal today given the circumstances and the fact Naomi is not 100% herself, but here is Naomi doing what she really wants to do after having to do what was required of her. She is drawing a picture.

On Tuesday evenings, I get to go out to Bible Study at our church, First Baptist. This week was a bit special as Jean was celebrating her Birthday and my friend Carrie (also lived in Stavanger, but now lives just outside Houston) and her Mum (visiting from New Mexico) were planning to come along. The Bible Study is massive, thousands of women attend, which means getting there early to get parking and a seat. Sick children and business trip to Dallas aside, at 5pm our sweet next door neighbour Madeline came to watch the girls as we headed out the door.




I managed to get a picture of the ladies I sit with each week (failed to get a picture of Carrie and her Mum, Amy). Here is Jean (with her flowers), Megg (who is in our Sunday School class) and Janice. This a picture of the Bible Study with Beth Moore. We are studying the book of James and it is very challenging. We had a wonderful evening and I got home to a tidy house, Ben back safely from Dallas and kids tucked up in bed. :)