More Swimmin'

Karsten is having a great time at swim lessons. Each week we ask him if he's ready to go swim and he says YAY!

Since Leland and Linda were in town, they got to come watch Karsten swim. Karsten enjoyed having an extra audience!

Hanging out waiting for class to start.

Jumping into the pool is his favorite part. He's not a huge fan of getting dunked when he jumps in so if Scott dunks him you'll usually hear Karsten say 'I'm done'.

We almost caught a smile here.

Karsten debated long and hard before choosing a toy. This is his teacher, Olivia. She does a good job, but as Scott says, 'she needs to find her teacher voice'. She's a bit soft spoken.

Floating on his tummy and practicing kicking.

Now he's practicing floating on his back. There is a lazy river in the pool so they float around it several times each week.

One last jump into the pool before class is over!



We even got a family pic :)

A night at the K

This week Linda and Leland were in town watching Karsten while Gail took a much deserved vacation. The Royals were in town for the weekend so we decided to get tickets to a game.

When we got to the stadium, the boys (Trent, Taylor...and David) were SO excited to see everything. We stopped at the first opening to the field and took a group picture. Unfortunately, I think this was also the windiest spot in the stadium. Check out the windblown look.

Hard to tell how excited they were because they were holding on so they didn't blow over!

In our seats ALL the way at the top of the stadium.

Karsten was a fan of these seats because there was no one sitting around us. He had a great time walking back and forth in the aisle. He also had the plastic water bottle in his hand the whole time, he couldn't put it down.

They were deeply engrossed in the game from the very beginning!

Karsten enjoyed watching all of the people walking around. When we pointed out what was going on on the field, it held his attention for a minute or so. Kind of like me. :)

You just can't beat a hotdog at a baseball game. He wanted to hold it himself and he didn't want the hotdog in the bun. Halfway through eating the hotdog, he saw that Grandma was eating something more interesting so he put his last bite of his hotdog down on Grandpa's lap and said "want some" to Grandma. Unfortunately she was eating peanuts and we haven't yet let Karsten eat peanuts to help mitigate the risk of a peanut allergy.

The ever present plastic bottle.

Having fun at the game! We had five seats in one row and four in the row in front of us which worked great. We were able to talk to each other and Karsten could climb between the two rows to be entertained. Taylor and Karsten spent lots of time playing and talking. I tried to get a picture of them sitting in the chair together but it didn't come out well.

I think this was Karsten's 'say cheese' face. :)

All three of the boys had a good time rotating on and off Grandma's lap.

We even got a picture of Scott and I.

Every Friday night after the game, the Royals have fireworks. I wasn't sure how Karsten was going to last through the game since it was going to be a late night. Fireworks didn't start until almost 10pm, but Karsten was still going strong so we decided to stay. He LOVED the fireworks and wasn't scared at all - he kept saying BOOM, OOOO, BOOM! It was so cute, he couldn't take his eyes off of them.

A Cooking Tip

Since Chuck and Shannon headed out of town for Mary Kay's funeral on Easter, Scott made a yummy Easter dinner for the three of us. I thought that my contribution to dinner could be an angel food cake.

My mom always makes one at Easter, so it just wouldn't have been Easter without it. So I got out the box of angel food cake mix (you didn't think I would make it from scratch did you). I followed a few simple instructions and the cake in the oven smelled divine.

The directions said as soon as the cake came out of the oven, you needed to turn it upside down on top of something. I remembered always seeing my mom turn the angelfood cake upside down on top of a pop bottle.

All was going well until I started to hear a hissing sound from the pop bottle. It was like something instantly clicked and I realized that the pop bottle was melting. Whoops! I tried to pull the cake off the bottle. I asked Scott's help but he couldn't get the cake pulled off the top of the bottle.




All the twisting and pulling would not get the cake off the bottle. Finally, Scott had to get out a wrench to get pop bottle top off.

LOL.

The good thing was that the cake still tasted great - I had some minor frosting issues, but I'll try again and I'm sure it will be better!


Lesson learned - don't put a hot pan on a plastic bottle. :)

Easter Sunday

Our plans for Easter Sunday were shifted slightly when my mom's cousin, Mary Kay, passed away and they headed out of town for the memorial and funeral. Mary Kay had been valiantly battling cancer for over 15 years. Please keep Mary Kay's three children and family in your thoughts and prayers.

We met my parents at church before they headed out of town. We got Karsten to pose for a quick picture before we left for church. Note that he has not one, or two, but THREE toys in his hands and he clutched them like this until we got to church and he saw my parents.

Once we got to church he held tight to the stuff in his hands until grandma told him he could them in the pocket of her jacket and she would keep them safe. They only stayed in her pocket for a few minutes, note they're back in his hands while they read a book.

Grandma and grandpa brought Karsten this light up Easter bunny. He pushed a button and the bunny twirled around and lit up. Endless entertainment!!

I had brought the stickers that we had left over from dying eggs. He put about 6 stickers on his shirt, then he started to hand them out to the rest of us. Grandpa's stickers decorated his watch - nice look!

My parents and Karsten - as much as we tried to make him look at us and smile, he was having none of it.

Again - still not smiling or looking at the camera! Note that he's traded the three toys in his hands for the super cool light up bunny.

When we got home, Karsten wanted to play outside.

We tried to get him to smell the flowers we had bought the day before but hadn't planted yet. We showed him how to smell them and this was his interpretation - he scrunches up his nose and breathes in and out quickly then moves on to the next one. It's hilarious!

More smelling the flowers

Seriously, how is it possible that he's this tall? I think he's grown an inch in the past month!

We tried for pics again - he looked at the camera this time. That's good enough, I'm happy! :)




Then we headed inside to see what the Easter bunny had brought Karsten. We were excited to give him a Super Why toy because he is a huge Super Why fan. He played with it for a few minutes, but the Easter bunny really chose wisely when he brought Thomas the Tank Engine with his easter car. He LOVES the 'choo choo train'!


Overall a great day with the family! Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Saturday morning we went to an Easter egg hunt at my work. All of the kids and families lined up on a sidewalk and waited for the signal to run into the grass and hunted the eggs.

Karsten waited so patiently to hunt for his eggs, even thought it had to be torture because there was an egg just inches away from where he was standing

And finally he could get started and claim his first egg.
\

Scott was the official basket holder because Karsten emptied his basket a few times when he bent over to gather eggs. :)

He was getting good at finding the eggs, unfortunately the big kids were a bit faster.

He was also a bit slow gathering eggs because he tried to open each egg he picked up to see what was in it. He wanted "nee-nee" (aka candy).

Then finally all of the eggs were gathered and we could open all of his eggs and have candy.

Once all of the eggs were open, he had to have a few pieces of candy. We tried to distract him by heading back to our car and talking to a few friends we ran into; however, he was focused only on candy. Once we got home we quickly hid the candy - that didn't really work either. :)

Practice hunting eggs

Since it was supposed to be a rainy day on Easter, we took advantage of the nice evening and had an easter egg hunt in our yard.

He got his 'bucket' and was ready to go. What you can't see is that there is a choo choo train and a car already in the bucket - they absolutely HAD to come along on the egg hunt.

He was excited when he found his first egg. Then he wanted to find 'one more'.

Then he was ready to hunt the rest of the eggs.

Where are the rest of the eggs?

Whew, the game isn't over, there's another egg!

At this point we were running out of eggs for him to hunt so Scott would sneak up behind him and grab the egg out of the basket and throw it down for Karsten to 'find' it again. It worked pretty well until Karsten caught Scott throwing the egg then he wanted to throw the eggs.

After a few throws, the eggshells were pretty cracked and poked Karsten when he picked it up. So, he was done with the eggs and we moved onto sidewalk chalk.

Scott traced Karsten's feet, then Karsten wanted each of our feet traced as well.

Karsten looked at Scott's hand and said "Uh-Oh, dirty daddy".

Then they took a walk down the hill to get the mail. The plan was for Karsten to ride in the blue car, but you can see how well that worked. He wanted to push it!