What Karsten says these days

Seems like every few days Karsten says something new. His new words are:

• Shoos (aka shoes)
• mmmball (we're not sure if this is 'my ball' or just 'ball' with an extra syllable)
• neigh, baaaa, mooooo (usually said in response to the correct animal)
• This
• Dat (aka that)

Where did my baby go - he's starting to become such the little boy!

Key lime fan

Karsten had a busy week - spent a couple of evenings with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma makes yummy cupcakes and has created a wonderful key lime cupcake. We got to take some cupcakes home with us 'because Karsten really liked them'. :)

The next night we had dinner and cupcakes for dessert. Karsten dug right into the cupcakes - he is definetely a fan!













After dinner we went for a walk - Karsten was sporting his super cute Mickey Mouse hoodie, complete with Mickey ears.

Our little reader

Sometimes while Karsten is playing he will grab a book and take it over to the coffee table and flip through it. Other times he will bring it over to you and try to get up on your lap to read.

Tonight he picked out a book to read before bed - he read it for a little bit before he brought it over to me. I was thrilled with his book choice. :)

Scrapbooking fun

Once a month, several friends and I get together to scrapbook. We were scheduled to scrap at our favorite scrapbook store on Saturday, but it was sold out so we decided the few of us that were still available would scrapbook at my house. We had a great time and were moderately productive as well. :)

Scott, Hadley and Seville stopped by to say hi and for the girls to play with Karsten for a bit. He watched them play for a bit, then he was comfortable enough to play with them. The girls were chasing each other around and around - Karsten watched them do a few laps then he took off running after them. His little legs did a pretty good job keeping up.

Lovin' this weather

Fall seems to be 'officially' here. Friday was gorgeous outside so we took a walk to our neighborhood park and played for a bit on the slide. We tried to get Karsten to swing but he wasn't interested in anything but the slide.


He would humor us and go down the curved slide occaionally; however, his favorite was the straight slide. I think his shoes kept getting stuck on the curves on the slide.


He loved to sit at the top of the slide and scoot forward until he starts to slide.


weeee - down the slide he went. He still does this funny thing with his tongue - twisting it on his side, I can't even do it if I try.


The playground was getting busy so Karsten had to take turns with other kids. He did pretty well, he watched the kids slide then went up the stairs to take his turn.


After we got back from the park, Karsten wanted to play with his blocks. He does a great job of helping us stack them.


Scott taught him how to try to blow the tower over - so this is what Karsten is doing. It's hilarious, he gets his face right next to the blocks and tries to blow. When that doesn't work (cause it rarely does), he just pushes them over...sometimes with his nose.




What a great Friday night - perfect start to the weekend.

Odd combination

As I chased a small soccer ball from my car across the parking lot at work today, I thought about the 'unique' contents of my car these days.

This particular day there was the aforementioned soccer ball 'ma-baaall' to Karsten, a wooden spoon, the lid to a shape sorter, the toy that we call Karsten's baby ipod, assorted board books, a tonka car, a stuffed teddy bear, a hoodie sweatshirt, a pair of Karsten's tennis shoes and several pairs of his socks.

When we leave in the morning, I'm all about the path of least resistance. If Karsten has a toy in his hand and won't put it down, it occasionally comes with us in the car. I have drawn the line at a few toys like the popcorn popper push toy...one day as he plopped to the floor crying because I took the toy away and tried to pick him up, I actually wondered if the popcorn popper could be a good toy for the car. LOL. Then common sense returned. :)

Who knows what else will turn up in my car soon - I can't wait to find out.

A bad night

I almost didn't blog this - why would I want to point out that Karsten got hurt - we are obviously NOT in the running for our parent of the year award anymore. :) But then I thought about it and realized it's not fair just to post the happy, fun pictures because everything is not always happy and it's important to remember both the good times and bad. So...here you go!

We were playing before dinner on Sunday evening - Karsten was walking over to get a toy when he got too close to Madison, tripped over her paw and fell on top of her. Madison was scared and angry and reacted by biting Karsten in the face. Karsten started screaming, Scott grabbed him and we rushed to the sink because Karsten's face was covered with blood. We started cleaning him up and could quickly tell that he was bleeding from cuts under his nose.

Poor lil guy - once we got him cleaned up he calmed down and was ready to play. When I saw his face I was heartbroken - I hated to see him hurt. He has the cuts under his nose and on his lip then he also has a small bruise on his cheek.


But tonight it was looking better - his lip is not as swollen and the cuts are starting to heal. Hopefully he will look much better in a few days.

Hot air balloons!

On Friday evening we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to the Overland Park Balloon Festival. We had originally planned to go on Saturday; however, we didn't want to pass up the beautiful weather and chance that the event could get rained out on Saturday night. Turns out it was a good plan as storms popped up Saturday night and the event was cancelled. WHEW!

We took sandwiches and had a picnic and watched the balloons get set up. My only criticism of the event is that they should have had a perimeter set up around the balloons. Everyone wanted to get as close as possible and we ended up moving back 4 times before we were set.


Once the balloons started airing up they took off very quickly. We were surprised how quickly they took off.


Can you tell that neither of them wanted to take their eyes off the balloons and look at me? :)


I took a ton of balloon pics and these are just a few of my favs.




As the balloons took off, Karsten kept saying "oooooo" - it was so cute! I don't know if he heard other people doing that or if it was just instinct.




Occasionally he would point at a balloon to make sure we saw it too!




Everyone would clap each time one of the balloons would take flight.




A nice backdrop for a pic of my guys. Too bad Karsten didn't want to look at the camera!


a family pic!


"Oooooooo"












Buh bye balloons!






Another attempt at a family picture...good try, right? :)


I love this one...






After the first group of balloons took off we had about an hour and a half to kill before the balloons would 'glow'. A second group of balloonists came in and set up to do the glow. Karsten had a good time pulling grass and bringing it to me, watching people and playing with the bungee chords we used to keep the chairs wrapped up.


We even had time to read Brown Bear, Brown Bear.


He was looking in the direction of the camera this time, but no smile. I'll take it! :)


Watching the second round of balloons get set up to glow!










The glow was so cool! I'm glad we went and I can't wait for this event next year!




This was the view of the glow from where we were parked - loved it! I had to stop myself from taking picture after picture because it was so cool!