Team Builder

Tonight we journeyed up to Liberty for a picnic with Scott's "team" at work. Scott was excited to have Karsten meet his coworkers. The drive to Liberty was the longest car ride Karsten has been on - he did well. It started out a little rocky because it was just about time for him to eat AND the sun was in his eyes. But, once we covered up his carrier with a blanket and he fell asleep, all was well. I know it sounds like we planned the timing of that drive poorly, but it's hard to plan a 45 minute drive into a schedule where he eats every two hours and the feeding process takes an hour, then you have to get changed, loaded into the car and ready to go. :)



Katie and Karsten - Karsten loved her, he quieted down as soon as she held him!


The kids playing while we all chatted.

Just because

I have some random pictures to share - they don't necessarily belong together or to any event. Mostly I just think they're cute. :)

Karsten and Madison in semi matching shirts. (still can't figure out how to rotate pics in blogger :(


Hello Mr. Frog


Flying baby!


o hey, there's animals hanging there

Whoa, he's close to me

Lets Do Lunch

Karsten and I had an adventure today - we were tired of being in the house so we decided we were ready for our first car ride with just us. I have been riding in the backseat with Karsten while Scott drives (or vice versa). We're trying to figure out how to rig up a mirror in the backseat so I can see Karsten in the carseat but we haven't figured it out yet - I don't have a headrest in the middle which makes it complicated.

DRUMROLL - it went very well. He cried a few times but seemed to calm down if I talked to him, so I talked and talked then I sang, then I talked some more. Eventually he fell asleep - he may have been tired of me talking. :)

We went to see my mom and have lunch at Red Robin. Red Robin was featured on the Food Network (one of my fav channels) the other day and I've been craving it ever since. Karsten did great, he slept through the entire meal! I was worried he was going to wake up since it was so loud in there, but it didn't faze him!

Sleeping soundly

Fun Delivery

We received a fun surprise in the mail today - the company I work for sent a gift basket congratulating us on Karsten's arrival! How thoughtful was that! It had a rubber ducky in it, a cute burb cloth and some fun toys!

WE love the Wank

A few weeks ago our friends Kevin and Melissa came to meet Karsten. Kevin's last name is Wanklyn and in college he got the nickname Wank. The nickname spread and eventually there were shirts that said I Love the Wank - you can read all about it on his site. We all wore them proudly - check out this picture of all of us in college.

When Kevin and Melissa visited, they brought Karsten his very own I Love The Wank shirt.

Karsten decided he would sport his new shirt today - check out how cute he is. I should try to find my Wank shirt and get a pic of us together! I think Karsten is officially the youngest member of the I Love The Wank club.

Curls!

When we wash Karsten's hair it gets all curly - it's so cute! As soon as his hair dries it's straight again, but check out these curls!

Urgent Care

On Tuesday, Karsten started coughing a little. I called his doctor's nurse and we agreed that it sounded like reflux. He kept coughing on Wednesday and on Thursday he started sneezing a lot. By Thursday evening he was sneezing a lot, coughing more and being very fussy. I was worried that he was having trouble breathing because of all the coughing and congestion.

I called the doctor's answering service and a nurse from Children's Mercy called me back (that's such a nice thing btw). He listened to all of Karsten's symptoms and said it would be best if we took him in to Children's Mercy Urgent Care to get checked out. Poor lil Karsten - I felt so bad for him and I was scared that something was really wrong with him.

Off we went to Children's Mercy - when we got there and checked in, the nurse at the admitting desk immediately listened to Karsten's chest and said she would get us into a room right away. We probably waited five minutes before a nurse called us back to a room. I'm assuming we got called back quickly so he could get out of the germy waiting room.

He did the coughing, sneezing and gasping bit for the nurses but by the time he saw the doctor, he was asleep and not doing ANYTHING. Jeez. The doctor said by the sound of what we were describing, he had a cold. His lungs sounded clear so she wasn't worried about that. She said the cold just needed to run its course.

We went home and put lil Karsten to bed. Poor lil guy. I think I checked on him a million times that night because I was worried about how he was breathing.

I think the whole experience was far more tramautic for us than it was for him. I was very impressed with the Urgent Care at Childrens Mercy South. The doctor and the nurses were all fantastic. Plus, we were only there for about an hour.

On our way home

First Trip to the Dentist

I've been going to the same dentist since I was in elementary school - when I went for my last checkup and told Connie, the hygenist, that I was pregnant, she said I had to bring Karsten to my next appointment. She scheduled both Scott and I for appointments at the same time so we could bring Karsten and show him off.

Karsten slept at the beginning of the appointment but started to fuss shortly after Connie started cleaning my teeth. He sat on my lap for a while but I don't think he was too comfortable because of the angle of the chair. Luckily, the receptionist was a grandma who was anxious to hold him while we got our teeth cleaned.

No cavities for us and Karsten had his first trip to the dentist!

Time for a walk?

It was such a nice night here we thought we would take our first walk. In retrospect, it was way too close to time for Karsten to eat to take a walk. We got the stroller out, put Karsten in it - then I realized it was kind of windy so I asked Scott to get a hat for him. By the time we got the hat on Karsten and got him buckled into the stroller he was NOT happy!

Our idea of a walk turned into a quick stroll down to the mailbox and right back to the house. If any of our neighbors were watching it was probably pretty amusing. We took longer to prepare for the walk than we did to take the walk.

Lesson learned - walks should be taken with plenty of time before the next feeding.

Happy One Month Birthday Karsten!

Karsten is one month old! Hard to believe it's already been a month - he's already grown so much. I want time to slow down!!

We went to his one month doctor appointment yesterday and he's still gaining weight and growing well. He now weighs 9lbs, 6oz which is in the 50th percentile for his age. He grew an inch in height and is now 21 inches tall which is in the 30th percentile.

We've learned a lot in this first month:
*Completing simple tasks takes much longer
*You can make plans, but they need to be flexible in case Karsten has other plans
*The day can fly by and leaving you wondering what you accomplished
*Running errands takes strategic planning between feedings.
*Never leave home without multiple outfits for Karsten.
*We will get peed on, pooped on and spit up on but we will survive.
*We now ask questions about diaper contents after the other person has changed Karsten.
*Giving a drowsy baby a bath is not a good idea - it will result in a MAD baby.
*Teamwork is important.
*I can get ready a lot faster than I used to.
*Continuous, uninterrupted sleep is more important than we realized.
*The food network, travel channel or HGTV usually has something on worth watching. If you miss it in the evening, you can watch it in the middle of the night.
*Getting out of the house once a day is an event - even if we're just going to Sonic.
*Karsten gives you a five minute warning before he is very unhappy that he's not eating yet.
*It's important to ask for help when it's needed.
*Grandmas have a special knack for quieting an unhappy baby.
*All of the classes we took and information we read was helpful, but we needed to be flexible for what works best for Karsten.
*If you take enough pictures, he'll get used to the flash.

Happy Birthday Jenn!

Tonight, Jenn and Eden came over for dinner to celebrate Jenn's Birthday today. Scott made Lasagna and we made a lemon meringe angel food cake - yum!

LOL nice bow.

Eden was a BIG fan of the lemon meringe cake. She heard the word lemon and she started to lick the cake.


Karsten slept through the birthday festivities in his bouncer.

Eden passed some time coloring.

Birthday Bash

Saturday night we went to a birthday party for my boss. The weather was gorgeous so we took Karsten and hoped it would go well. He fell asleep when we were almost there and I thought for sure he would wake up shortly after we got there as various people held him but he was a champ and slept soundly as he was passed around.

He woke up briefly to have dinner then went back to sleep again! We were able to stay at the party for 4 hours! Karsten must have been worn out from entertaining all of our friends!

It was fantastic to see everyone and get caught up on everything going on! I will bring Karsten into the office soon - I promise!

Karsten and I


Jill and I


Scott feeding Karsten


Relaxing after Dinner


Rick


Jill

Mindy

Karen

Clara

Julie

There were old pictures of Dan blown up all over his house. This picture was a huge hit with everyone - obviously taken in the 70's, Dan is wearing a Hugh Heffner leopard print robe holding his baby daughter. LUCKILY, Dan was able to find the robe and modeled it for us. LOL

New Discovery

Karsten was in the swing tonight and started to look around more than he had in the past. He looked up and saw the mirror on the swing. He stared at it for quite a while - he's becoming more aware of what's around him!

8th Anniversary!

On July 14th Scott and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe it's already been 8 years. We started dating our second year in college, so we've been together for almost 11 years. We've had a great 8 years and I look forward to a lifetime more of love and memories. Now that we've added little Karsten to our family we're going to have a whole new set of adventures.

To celebrate our anniversary we went to dinner at Bonefish. Karsten spent the evening with my parents and had a great time. It was the first time we had left him since he was born - I think we all did pretty well.

Getting ready to depart


This is what Karsten was doing when we got back - he looked pretty comfy.


And this is what Karsten (and Madison) were doing when we left. Both 'grandkids' had lots of fun.

'Adventure' and A Growing Boy

Today Karsten and I went to a Breastfeeding Group - it came highly recommended from a friend and seemed like it might be a good way to meet a few other people who are doing both formula and breastfeeding. There were several new moms there doing the same thing - it made me feel better! :)

Karsten started out great - towards the end we quickly went downhill. In the last 15 minutes, he managed to pee on the onesie he had on, poop on the replacement onesie (and my shirt), spitup on himself, me and the changing pad (luckily he had no clothes on by now). SIGH. I was so done - ready to get us both home to get cleaned up. Luckily Scott had dropped us off so he came in and helped me get all of my stuff gathered up (scattered about me on the floor by now).

The high point of Tuesday morning was weighing Karsten. Drumroll please...he now weighs 8lbs, 9oz!! Last Thursday he weighed 8lbs - this growing boy gained 9oz in almost 5 days! I think he's having a growth spurt - we've increased the amount of formula he's getting and he still wants to eat all the time.

Play Gym

We love to show Karsten the fun toys we have for him, so when he was awake yesterday we got out the Play Gym to see what he thought. It still might be a bit early for it, he seemed to be able to see the bugs hanging in front of him although he wasn't too interested in watching them. I'm sure he'll be grabbing for them in no time.

Church

We decided to go to church this morning - we allowed plenty of time for all of us to get ready and right on schedule we were putting him in his carseat to leave. He was starting to get fussy so Scott was trying to calm him down. Suddenly Karsten spit up on himself and on Scott. Back upstairs we went for a wardrobe change. Guess Karsten didn't approve of the first outfit I chose for him.

He settled down once we got him in the carseat and we thought he would fall asleep on the way but nope, he wanted to stay awake to check things out. About 10 minutes into mass he fell asleep and didn't wake up until we put him back in his carseat. Then he realized he was hungry and it was time to eat - he was ready to eat RIGHT THEN. :)

New Baby Smell

One of Scott's students got us this adorable onesie - I think it's so cute. I couldn't resist taking some pictures of Karsten in it.

Karsten's Photo Shoot

You may remember the maternity pictures our friend Kenna took of Scott and I in May. We just got the prints back and can't wait to hang them in our house - they look fantastic.

Kenna also took pictures of Karsten - it took several attempts to get a happy baby or a sleepy baby (depending on the photo) but Kenna was fantastic and came over several times to get the perfect shots.

Today she posted a sneak preview of Karsten's photo shoot on her blog - you have to check it out, I don't know how we will decide between the photos, they are all wonderful. I think I've looked at them about 10 times in the past hour. Thank you Kenna!!

Story Time

I love to read and really hope that Karsten will inherit my love of books. When I was little, my mom taught me to take good care of my books because if I didn't, "they wouldn't tell me a story". I've remembered that forever and love sharing that with others. Now, I will tell Karsten that he has to be nice to his books so he can enjoy the story they have to tell him.

It's never to early to begin story time - we even took a book to the hospital with us and Scott read Karsen his first book when he was only three days old. Now that we're home, we try to read at least one book a day. When we get into a bedtime routine we'll do it then, for now, we use anytime when he's awake and happy.