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!