Puzzled

Karsten got several puzzles for his birthday, he's a big fan of puzzles. He got an alphabet puzzle, a color puzzle and we got him this animal matching puzzle. You match the mom animal with the baby animal. I wasn't sure he would be into it, but he had a good time hunting down the animals and got excited when he found one that matched.

Searching for the right piece

Trying to make the pieces fit together.

Where is the matching animal?

Look at all the animals he matched up - he matched more than I thought he would before he lost interest.

Before it was time for bed, he needed a quick horsey ride. He said "Daddy, down. Me heeeeheeee". It took us a minute to translate that into english. :) He knows a lot of animal names; however, he never call a horse by name, it's always a heeheee.

HeeHeees

We walked over to see the neighbor horses the other night. We thought Karsten would be so excited to see the horses, and he was; however, as we got closer to the horses and he saw how big they were, he was scared.

The black horse sneezed then walked over to us. Karsten said "brown one heeeheee neeze, okay heeheee?"

He liked it when Scott petting the horse, but he didn't want to put his hand out and pet the horse. He later told us "the brown one heeeheee cared me" (translation: the brown horse scared me).

Warily watching the horse. We'll have to visit the horses a few more times to help him get more comfortable with them.

Feeding the puppy

When Karsten started talking we called our dog Madison, "the puppy". It was a bit easier for him to say and it has stuck as his vocabulary has expanded.

Karsten is a really good helper and we try to have him help us with things around the house. He helps set the table by putting the silverware on the table and we recently let him feed Madison. He'll carry or push her food over to the bowl and carefully pour her food into the bowl. We always remind him not to feed her too much so now he says "no puppy eat much'. Once he's done pouring the food, he stands back and proudly watches Madison eat. Such a good little helper!

Birthday Party!

The birthday celebration continued on Saturday with Karsten's birthday party. He's a big fan of Legos, so we went with a Lego theme. I love how his birthday invite turned out - design is by Jenn, we just supplied the cute kid.

He even had a lego shirt to wear for his birthday - grandma created this cool design.

He was a guy on the move for most of the day - he loved the balloons we used as decorations.

We wanted to 'try' to get some family pictures. It's tough to get everyone to look at the camera, so this was the best we could do. :)

Cousins!

David, Taylor, Kelly, Trent, Scott, Karsten and me

Gaga, Karsten, Shannon and I.

Jenn and Elam - Eden was too busy playing for a picture. :)

Karsten's first look at his birthday cake - he was so excited!

He had a great time holding the balloon up to his face - it would crack him up every time.

Getting ready to blow out his candle! He has started to put his head on his hand like this occasionally.

Huffing and puffing to blow out the candle.

But he didn't get the candle out after some more huffing and puffing - luckily Trent and Taylor were there to come to the rescue and help him out!

Yay - the candle is out! Happy Birthday sweet Karsten!

Then he said 'again, again...blow again'. It's his birthday, how could we resist? In the midst of all of this candle fun, we forgot to sing happy birthday to him - can you believe it? It hit me later that evening. Not sure how we forgot that important step!

Then it was time for every kid's favorite part - presents! Scott and I joked before his party that Karsten would probably open the first present and just want to play with that present. We may have jinxed ourselves, because the first present was this fun remote control car from Kelli, David, Trent and Taylor and he was a HUGE fan!

He caught on pretty quickly that this car was different from his other cars - Trent drove it around and Karsten had a good time watching and following the car.

This is what Karsten did when Trent drove the car right through his legs. Karsten said 'uh oh blue car, come back'.

Elam thought it was fun to try to catch the car as well. Karsten said 'no no no baby, my blue car'.

Then Karsten wanted to show Gail the firetruck that Papa had made him.

But he wasn't too happy when the other kids thought his firetruck was cool and wanted to play with it. Sharing is no fun on your birthday!

Elam managed to get some time on the firetruck while Karsten was busy with another toy.

Then it was time for Gail and Steve to head out - Karsten gave them both big hugs and thanked them for coming. We were so happy they were able to join us!

Karsten, Trent and Taylor were playing a game with Chuck where they would throw all of the small balls at him. I played referee and stopped the game a few times when it got too rough, but they were all having fun (as you can see from Chuck's laughter).

Examining one of the balls, perhaps pondering where he was going to throw it?

Karsten sat down on these steps and we thought it was a perfect photo opp for Eden and Karsten. eh -- nothing too great here, they both weren't even looking at the camera!

Then we decided to add Elam (after Eden agreed she wouldn't drop him).

Eden decided she needed to sing Happy Birthday to Karsten. She did a great job, I think Karsten was pretty confused about what she was doing, thus the funny look!

Gaga has the ability to mesmerize baby's by waggling her tongue at them.

I wanted to attempt a picture of Karsten with my parents. It took a few tries to get the balloon in the picture but out of Karsten's face, but I think we got it!

During one picture, the balloon flew away up to the ceiling.

Photographing Karsten and Gaga is particularly challenging. When you combine Karsten's quick moving ways that are difficult to capture with Gaga's desire to talk to Karsten rather than looking at the camera, it's a challenge. I was pretty happy with how this one turned out!

After a while, the boys went outside to play. It was sooo hot outside so they didn't stay out too long.

As the evening wound down, Scott showed Karsten how to drive his remote control car. We thought it would take a while for him to catch on. We were surprised that he picked it up very quickly.




Thank you to everyone for helping to make Karsten's birthday celebration a success!

The celebration continues

Since Gaga, Linda and Leland were all in town for Karsten's birthday, Shannon invited all of us over for dinner. Karsten had quite the captive audience - both sets of grandparents AND a great grandma. Sounds like a sure fire recipe for an evening of spoiling.

Entertaining Linda and Gaga with his plastic dishes - he said 'my fork, my poon, my pate'.

Then was had some drama when a wooden car fell on Karsten's foot. He cried and cried - he got hugs from papa and daddy. I tried to give hugs and kisses but he went right for his grandmas and Gaga and got plenty of hugs, kisses and sympathy. He had even stopped crying but turned the tears back on when he got into the kitchen.

Then it was time for dinner and more birthday cupcakes.

I think he enjoyed them - don't you?

Shannon and Karsten have a new game called sweep. He saw the broom in their garage one day after they came back from a walk and the game was born. They have the cleanest driveway in the neighborhood. He is very particular about which broom he uses - he also assigned a broom to Scott and Chuck.

Then it was time for a broom switcheroo - everyone rotated brooms.

It was a fun evening - when we took Karsten home he was one sleepy boy. He needed to get a good night sleep to prepare for his birthday party the next day!