We were in lovely Decorah, IA this weekend for the Hovden family reunion (my mom's family). Soren had his first kransekake and lefse at Nordic Fest, petted/mauled some chicks (of the baby chicken variety, no worries Millie!), saw lots of corn and the old family farm, and generally charmed the heck out of people. What he didn't do was sleep aside from in the car, so mom and dad saw LOTS of corn fields! On Sunday over 300 Hovdens gathered, all decendents of two brothers who came over from Norway in the late 1800's (Soren's great-great-great-grandfather Guttorm and his brother Knut).

Now we're back home and resting up for the annual Albright Family Brulympics next weekend. Soren is working on memorizing Trivial Pursuit cards so he can contribute! This is our year, I can feel it!

A visit from Miri! My college friend Josh and his family came through town on what has to be the longest road trip I've ever heard of, and as the offspring of a bunch of Oles of course Soren and Miriam immediately set to making music together. Well, banging on stuff.
Soren got his hair cut yesterday, and the lady chopped off waaaaaay more than I wanted her to! I'm unreasonably sad about it for three reasons. 1) He looks super old now 2) I can't run my fingers through his fluffy hair 3) He's blond!!! Argh!
You might notice a bruise on Soren's forehead. Not sure if that's from him falling off mom and dad's bed, falling off the papasan at Aunt Beth's, or from mom dropping him on the sidewalk. He's a bit more accident prone these days.

One last parting shot (pun intentional). I love these pants!

My name is Soren, I like to dance!! (Anyone know how to get a kid on Yo Gabba Gabba?)

Soren clearly has inherited his mother's dancing abilities. That is to say, the kid can move! One first class ticket on the Hot Tamale Train!! (must stop the tv references lest everyone think we're slaves to the boob tube) Here is the evidence....

I was going to post a video of the S-bomb crawling, but I'm not sure anyone except his parents would be particularly impressed at this stage of the game. Plus it takes a year and a day to upload videos. So use your imagination, you've all seen crawling babies, just add in a bunch of grunting, because Soren always likes to let us know just how hard he's working!

Thirteen months!! (and then some, oops!) Soren had a big week this past week! He got his first molar, and has one more right under the surface, with two more working their way through on top. Not a happy camper! But the big news is he finally started crawling! He's not going any great distances yet, but he's on the move! Look out world!!

Pictures galore! Here are all the family portraits we got, scanned in on our not so fancy scanner, so the quality isn't the greatest. Thanks again to my parents who bid on the session at a fundraising auction for the agency my sister works at! What a treat to be able to have these amazing pictures!!

A plethora of pictures! We spent a lovely long weekend at Patrick's cabin for the 4th of July, and had a blast! Once we let Soren sleep in a bed rather than his pack-n-play he did pretty well, and aside from occasionally getting overwhelmed with all the people and noise Soren was quite a charmer! Swimming with mom and Rachel
Doing his best to get into dad's unopened beer
Hanging with the boys
Awwww....
Soren had never ridden a boat before! He loved the pontoon!
Snacks on the dock
Enjoying a Coronita (okay, just water and a lime in a little Corona bottle. Don't call CPS)
'tooning with Rachel
Soren is a water bug! He loves splashing!

One great thing about where we live is that in the summer there are free concerts every day at the Lake Harriet bandshell. We walked up the other day for a Minneapolis Pops Orchestra concert. How amazing is this?
After the concert we walked to Sebastian Joes for ice cream. Soren has yet to meet an ice cream flavor at SJ's that he doesn't like, and we've tried some odd ones! (although we passed last night on the garlic almond ice cream, the thought of it still makes my stomach turn!)