2 year pics

Kenna took Karsten's 2 year pictures and I couldn't be more thrilled with the outcome. It was a challenge to find a day for pics that wasn't super hot, but we lucked out with a morning when it wasn't 'tooo' hot. Karsten wasn't making it too easy on us with easily giving us smiles, but Kenna managed to capture some great expressions that represent his personality. Below are just a few of my favorites - I haven't figured how I am going to choose which ones go on my walls!

Helpful note for all of you other photo loving moms out there. If your child loves balloons, DON'T start with balloon pics unless 1. you want the balloons in a LOT of your pictures OR 2. you want an unhappy kid when you try to take the balloons away. After a while with the balloons we managed to distract him with another toy, whew!

What a great smile - love the dimple and the blue eyes!

He had lots of fun on these steps - I think Kenna took a ton of pictures here to get a few great ones!

We took a snack break and our snack spot ended up being a great spot for some pictures. He had a good time waving at the cars driving by on the street.


He was ready to explore some more after his snack break. Kenna saved the morning by bringing a snack he had never had before - dried mangos. YUM!

I love this one of him playing with his train on these steps.

Yes, those baby blues are just as irresistible as they look here. And he already knows how to work them.

In this one I feel like he's looking at us like 'What?!"

PEEK-A-BOO! I love how you can see so much excitement in his face!

I just love this one!

I think this was one of the last ones Kenna took. The grafitti behind him was so colorful but he was done with standing still. You can tell he's starting to get a little hot as his cheeks are getting pink. I think it's a great picture.

Hi Pigs!

Karsten has recently become enamored with his piggy banks. He likes 'feeding' the pigs so we've been hunting down all of the change in our house so he can feed the pigs each day. He moved the pigs onto this table and the other morning while I was getting ready for work I heard him talking to the pigs. I snuck up behind him and heard him say 'hi pigs, what doing pigs'.

Red high heels

Karsten loves to wear our shoes. He'll find a pair of my shoes or a pair of Scott's shoes and walk all around in them, he's usually pretty proud of himself when he does that. Lately, his favorite pair of my shoes are my red high heels. I think he loves to walk around in them because they make so much noise as he walks around on the tile floor.

The other morning he was walking around in my shoes and said 'mow in mommy's red shoes'. I quickly grabbed my phone because I knew this would be a photo opp to preserve!

I think he'll love me for this one when he's in high school, don't you? :)

Painting with Daddy

We're beginning the room preparations for the new baby, and part of those preparations include painting a new room for Karsten because the baby is going to move into Karsten's current room. I knew I wanted a green color that would match Karsten's current bedding; however, green proved to be a hard color to match. In the first picture, you can see snippets of the various green paints we tried. We finally landed on a nice, light yellowish green. Those little paint samples are the greatest invention!

Karsten was fascinated with the ladder. We let him climb it if one of us was there to hold it for him. We convinced him that someone always had to hold the ladder at the bottom, so when Scott got on it, Karsten held the bottom of the ladder for him.

Moving 'daddy's paint' for him. Don't you love the outfit? I couldn't find an outfit that was ok to get paint on, so I settled on a pair of PJs that he had just outgrown. :)

Karsten said 'uh oh mommy, mess my arm!" Turns out Karsten helps paint much like I do, we end up with as much paint on ourselves as we have on the wall.

He had a hard time remembering not to touch the walls with his hands or by leaning up against them. We asked him to touch the wet walls so many times that he started to say "no touch daddy's walls, messsss"

Each time we paint or do something in the room we talk about how he's getting a new room - hopefully this will get him excited. I'm sure it will still be an adjustment, but hopefully we're helping it make sense to him as we do things in baby steps.

Well I never...

I'm learning that Grandparents REALLY do allow the grandkids to do things that they would have never allowed their kids to do.

Exhibit 2,761: drinking melted ice cream from a bowl. This was NEVER acceptable when I was growing up. Now - grandma suggested Karsten drink the melted ice cream.

Yup, there she is encouraging him. :)

He was pretty proud of himself.

Just like daddy

Karsten and Scott were laying on the floor playing with this bead toy. Scott had his head resting on his hand and Karsten kept trying to lay just like Scott. He layed down and tried to figure out how to put his arm like Daddy's. He never quite figured out how to prop up his head - this was as close as he got!

Don't you love the slippers with shorts?

Salsa and a Cowboy Hat

We stopped by our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner and Karsten immediately dug into the chips. As soon as he saw us dipping our chips in salsa, he started doing the same thing. He loves anything and everything with 'dip'. Yellow dip (aka mustard) seems to be his favorite but he's also a fan of red one dip (aka Ketchup).

As Scott started cutting Karsten's enchilada, Karsten picked up his fork and started wiggling it around in his food. I'm sure to him, it looks like we're just waiving our silverware around when we cut his food.

While we were eating, a guy walked in wearing a cowboy hat. Karsten was excited and said Hat!! Scott said 'yep, it's a cowboy hat'. That was the last of the cowboy hat conversation at the restaurant.

When we got home, Karsten said 'where my hat boy hat'. It took us a minute to realize that he was trying to say cowboy hat. We convinced him that his hat was like a 'hat boy hat' which made him happy and he wore it all over the house for the rest of the evening.

A Fun Friday

Scott was off for several weeks in July so I took Friday off so we could have a family fun day. We wanted to do something inside and Jenn had just told me how much fun they had recently at Kaleidoscope and the fountains at Crown Center. I thought we could do Kaleidoscope, the Rain Forest area, lunch then fountains. When I checked the web site the night before we went, I discovered there were no sessions for Karsten's age group until noon. Sooo, we flipped everything around and did the Hallmark Visitors Center, Rain Forest area, fountains, lunch then Kaleidoscope.

Chillin' with a friendly ape at the Rain Forest area. I think this was more geared for older kids, Karsten kept getting run over and pushed out of the way by other kids. We didn't spend too much time here.

He was distracted by the 'mess' that the construction crew was making right outside of Kaleidoscope and The Visitors Center. He couldn't take his eyes off of it even for a quick pic.

Showing off the fun bow he got to make at The Visitors Center.

We told him that Grandma would like this tree and he said 'ooooooo' and watched it go around for a minute. He also liked the tree that had 'ho ho hos' all over it.

Then it was time to play in the fountains. He got so excited when we were walking over to the fountains.

When he could finally run into the fountains he was a bit apprehensive. There were a lot of kids there and the water was really tall.

But he quickly got into it - he would run into the water, squeal with delight then run out to say 'MOMMY - WATER WET!!!".

He saw all of the other kids sitting down on top of the water spouts when the water went away, so Scott sat him down and a few times Karsten jumped up before the water he was sitting on came on.

But then he stayed sitting and the water came on and soaked him. He was laughing so hard (and so were we!!)

Running away from the water!

Playing in the fountains is so much fun! Karsten says he wants to go back to the water - looks like we'll be making another trip there in a future!

After a quick picnic lunch, we were off to Kaleidoscope. We got there 15 minutes before our start time and they were already letting people in. It was a madhouse - so many kids of different ages rushing to make sure that they didn't miss anything.

Karsten enjoyed this wall where you could stick your head in and see a fun scene on the inside.

I couldn't get a good picture of the inside, but this gives you an idea of what the kids saw when they put their head through the hole in the wall.

Next he colored a necklace to wear. Once he had drawn a few 'o's', he was ready to move along to something else.

Showing off his necklace.

Then he colored a puzzle - I remember doing this when I was a kid. It was one of my favorite things about Kaleidoscope.

Taking a brief bathroom break - who knew the sink would be so entertaining. Both Karsten and this little guy were far more interested in the water in the sink than going back out into the art project chaos!

There was so much fun stuff to look at - Karsten enjoyed exploring and finding new things.

This magnifying glass was a hit - I showed him how we could color on it or tape on pieces of puzzle but he said NO and just wanted to leave it as is.

Moving along to explore another area - still hanging on to the magnifying glass!

This was one of those tables where you put your hand into a bunch of metal pieces and it forms to the shape of your hand. He wasn't quite tall enough to see what went on when he touched it but he seemed to really enjoy playing with it anyway!

The flag station was also a hit - he waved the flag all the way home. When we drove by Union Station and the flags, he said 'Look Mommy, big flag.'

What a fun morning we had - Karsten was a sleepy boy ready for a nap. We'll definitely be heading back to Crown Center in the future for another adventure!