New Year's Eve

We planned to ring in the new year with Jenn and fam; however, Elam got sick at the last minute so we had to take a rain-check on the fun.

Since we had a lot of yummy food prepared, Chuck and Shannon came over for the evening.  Karsten was bummed that his friends Eden and Elam weren't coming, but perked up when we told him that Grandma and Papa were coming over instead.  

Karsten was obsessed with Madison's elephant toy - he liked watching the tail and elephant unroll each time he squeezed it.  

Liam hanging out while we ate.


Karsten and Papa playing with the firetruck.  An empty wrapping paper roll makes the perfect fire hose.  The current game with the firetruck is to have one of us sit on the back of the firetruck while he drives to the 'mergency'.  He'll turn the siren on and turn the steering wheel back and forth furiously.


Karsten had a few too many appetizers so he didn't eat much dinner.  Shortly before bed he decided he was hungry.  He had a lot of fun with Grandma while they were having a snack.  


Grandma, Papa and Liam.


The hand wreath gives me a nice crown doesn't it. :)

Christmas Break

We enjoyed having Scott home from work over his Christmas break from school.  Just when we got into a routine of having him home, it was time for him to go back to work.

We didn't do anything too exciting during his break - we did lots of hanging out at home and enjoying each other.  It was so nice outside that Karsten and Liam played outside a few times.

We tried out a few new recipes from a cookbook I got for Christmas - they were super yummy. Liam liked to be close to the action so we set the bouncy seat on the island.


Karsten still loves his baby brother and regularly asks to hold him. I have lots of pictures like this, but they're so darn cute I can't resist. Someday I'll just flood you with pictures of this pose of Karsten holding Liam.
 

Daid Daids

Karsten is a big fan of band-aids (aka daid daids).  They're mostly decorative rather than functional. When I saw a box of Christmas themed daid-daids, I knew they would be a hit at our house.

Snuggles

Is there anything better than snuggling with a sleeping baby? I can't think of too many!

Christmas Continued

After we got out of the hospital and back to my parents house, we decided to pick up Christmas where we had left off the day before.  Unfortunately, our trip to the emergency room ruined my parents trip to see Gaga, Kevin and Nancy.

We finished opening presents.  Looks like Karsten may be a bit worn out after entertaining Grandma and Papa the day before.


Finally, Karsten got to open the cool train/lego table that Papa made him.  With Grandma's design consultation, they decided to make one side of the table a track for Thomas and the other side has a lego base.  All of the pieces live inside the table.  Karsten was so excited (so was Papa).


Scott opened one of Liam's presents - Grandma made him this beautiful train quilt.  Love the colors and the cute train fabric around the border.


The train/lego table is so much fun - I love how Karsten and Scott have similar expressions on their faces as they play with the legos.


We ended the day with a yummy Christmas dinner of ham and all the fixings.  Hard to believe Christmas was over now - we loaded up all of our stuff and headed home.

Christmas day detour

Since Liam wasn't feeling well, we headed to the emergency room. He was only five and a half weeks old so it was scary that his cough sounded so bad and he occasionally was having trouble breathing.

Thankfully we got right into a room so we didn't have to wait long in the waiting room with all of the other sick kids. They took his temp and it was 100.4 - at his age, they worry about a fever of 100.6 and typically run a whole battery of tests, including a spinal tap (WHAT?!!).

The doctor thought he had croup but he didn't want to give him steroids (the typical treatment) because it could mask the symptoms if he actually had something else. So, Liam had the whole battery of tests ran, except the spinal tap, to see what was going on. They deep suctioned his nose (he held his breath for them on that one - NOT fun to watch), drew blood and urine, took chest xrays and probably some other tests I am forgetting. Thankfully all of the results were negative which indicated that he didn't have any other infections. However, they said that some of the tests can take a few days to show critical infections - EEK!

The doctor wasn't comfortable sending us home not fully knowing what was going on and knowing that if it was croup it would get worse in the middle of the night (I know the rest of you mom's whose kiddos have croup know what that horrible sound is). So, Liam was admitted to the hospital and we spent the rest of Christmas getting settled in our room. Thankfully, Karsten is still too young to understand that we were missing Christmas. He spent the rest of the day and evening with my parents, happily playing with all of his new toys.

Not exactly how I envisioned Liam's first Christmas. Thankfully, he won't remember it. They gave him a little gown that didn't stay on worth a darn but gave them easy access for all of the tests and readings they needed to take.


Trying to get some rest with Dad.  See, that darn gown wouldn't stay on.


After a while, we were able to put some PJs on him, we just had to have the pulse oxygen meter coming out of his PJs and the snaps made it easy for the nurses to take his temp and other measurements.

One of the nurses built this little nest for him in the crib.  It allowed the bed to be at a 45 degree angle without him sliding down.


He had a good night - his temperature started to drop and while he still had a deep barky cough, he didn't have any more stridor, that horrible gasping for air sound.

Children's Mercy was great - Liam got a Christmas quilt and bear in the emergency room and he also got a bear before we left the next day.  The staff was all very kind, they didn't act unhappy about working on Christmas.

Christmas day

Christmas morning started with Karsten checking out the M&M's and milk he had left for Santa.  Those silly reindeer didn't eat all of the M's, they left part of one on the plate.


Then he turned around and saw that Santa had left him presents.


Just what he wanted - a blue dinosaur with a long neck!


Giving the dino a ride in his wagon.


Excited that he also got some little dinosaurs!

Helping Liam open his presents.




Shoeing off his new Cars slippers from Grandma and Papa.



Papa made Karsten a workbench with nails he could hammer in.  He loved it and does a great job hitting the nails!


More of Papa's handiwork - some new cars to join the fleet.  Aren't these cool?  I keep telling him he should sell these and my mom should sell their shirts.  Don't you agree?


At this point, Karsten was having a lot of fun with the toys he had already opened, so we decided to have an intermission.  Late on Christmas eve, Liam had started to have a really deep cough and occasionally had a high pitched gasp for air.  We called the pediatrician and he said unless it continued and he was having trouble breathing, we didn't need to go in right then.  He said to watch him and take him into the emergency room if it got worse.  After a night of not sleeping much as I listened to him breathing, we all listened carefully to each sound he made while we opened presents.  When he started to feel warm and seemed listless along with the coughing, we decided to take him in.  Better now then in the middle of the night.

My boys

Karsten likes to sit on my lap when I'm holding Liam. He's still doing a great job as a big brother, we're not seeing any signs of jealousy yet (knock on wood!).  On the other hand, we are seeing LOTS of signs of Karsten being two. He certainly has his moments of the terrible twos, but that's to be expected.

Christmas Eve

Before we had kids, our Christmas eve tradition was to go to midnight mass. It was beautiful - the beginning of mass was dim because the lights were out and it was light only by the Christmas trees on the altar and candles. Now that we have kids, we're trying a couple of the earlier services to see which one works best for us.  This year we tried the 4pm mass.  We headed over to my parents house after lunch so we could put Karsten down for a nap before mass and get all of the presents and Madison unloaded.

Karsten thought the Santa versus Trees checkers game was fun to stack. He would also tell you that those were not Santas, they were frostys.  Don't try to disagree - you'll never win. :)       

Beautiful tree! We must have all been very good this year (although to be fair, there were gifts under the tree for two other sides of the family for future celebrations).


Liam hanging out in the swing before church.


Then we headed to mass.  The church gets so crowded for Christmas masses that we have to go WAY early.  By WAY early, I mean that my parents left at 2:30 (for the 4pm mass) to save seats for us.  We showed up at church around 3:15 and by 3:30 the church was full so father started the mass.  

After church we always take family pictures while we're all still dressed up. Madison even made it into the picture - and she looked at the camera!  Well done Madison. :)




I love this mischievous smile.  He got such a kick out of Chuck's dancing santa hat.


Looking handsome in his sweater vest after church.




We had happy hour while we waited for dinner to get done.  I don't recall chocolate being on the happy hour menu; however, Karsten has a way of getting a 'special' menu from Grandma!




Enjoying happy hour with Papa.  Karsten was eating a Milky Way candy bar - he called it a yonky yay but when we laughed and started calling it a yonky yay, he did NOT approve.  He could tell that we were saying it wrong.


More fun in the dancing santa hat with some evidence of that yonky yay around his mouth.


He even got a festive new cup for happy hour.  He really enjoyed drinking milk out of frosty.  We sang frosty the snowman a few times to go along with the cup.


Chatting with Liam.


Liam's second picture with Santa.


Then it was time for Karsten to get ready for bed.  Santa had asked for milk and M&Ms for the reindeer, so we put it out and went to bed.  I'm not sure Karsten really understood why we were leaving milk and candy out for Santa, but he went along with it.  Next year he'll get it more.

Checking it out

Liam got this fun snail toy as a gift when he was born and both Karsten and Liam have been enjoying it.  Karsten will turn it on and set it RIGHT next to Liam so he can play with it.  We usually scoot it back a bit, I don't think Liam can focus with it so close. :)

Liam likes looking in the mirror and Karsten likes rocking it and turning on the music for Liam - perfect toy that makes everyone happy!

 

First Smiles

Liam has started smiling - so cute!