What Liam eats

I think I've mentioned in the past that we're making Liam's babyfood.  We did the same for Karsten and surprisingly, it was far easier than we expected.  Basically, we cook fruits and veggies, puree them, then freeze them into little cubes that we can defrost as needed for meals.

I think we're advancing through solid foods a bit more quickly with Liam than we did with Karsten.  I'd like to think it's because we're diligently introducing a new food every three to four days.  In actuality, we worked our way through the standard fruits and veggies and have started introducing little pieces of whatever we're eating.  I think you could call it laziness .  We started this trend with hamburger - we cut it up into tiny pieces and gave it to him.  At first he wasn't sure what to do with the texture, but he quickly got used to it.

I think we're a few months ahead of when we did this for Karsten, but we're trying to have Liam eat many of the same things we eat at dinner.  Sure, there are nights when it's not suitable for him and we'll break out the standard frozen fruit or veggie and rice cereal staples.

Tonight I thought dinner looked especially colorful.  We had salmon (cut into tiny pieces for Liam), cous cous (he could eat it as is) and summer squash (in a chunky puree) and peaches (not pictured - cut into tiny pieces for Liam).

Wide open spaces

Are you singing the Dixie Chicks song in your head after reading my subject line? Anyhoo - on Saturday, Liam's fever had gone away and he seemed to be feeling better, so we headed off to Topeka to see Kelli and David's new home.

Liam was in much better spirits today


Aunt Kelli pushed Karsten on this cool tricycle (I didn't get outside with my camera quick enough to catch that), so Karsten thought everyone should get a turn pushing him.


He could barely reach the petals enough to go around and around, which frustrated him.  An inch or two taller and he'll be off.







Trent and David were enjoying the nice day and playing catch.


Watching the boys play from the nice cool house!


I took a few pictures of Kelli, David, Trent and Taylor in front of their new house, so we all gathered outside to try to get pictures.  Karsten kept trying to join their family and be in the picture - he never wants to be in my pictures at home. :)

I think we got a good picture with everyone smiling and looking at the camera.  Their new home is beautiful and I know they will be happy there for many years to come!


Scott and Liam checking out the wide open spaces.


Handsome Trent.  I even had my camera on manual for this shot - there might be hope that I can learn!


They have this gazebo in the woods on their property.  I bet the boys will have fun making this a clubhouse for their adventures!

Under the weather

Liam came down with a fever after his afternoon nap at Gail's.  I went and picked him up and we headed home. He was kind of crabby and definitely wasn't feeling good. We had lots of snuggle time in the evening and thankfully he was able to get a good night sleep.

He still had a fever in the morning, so he stayed home with Scott.  He also decided that he didn't want to eat his bottle, but he would nurse and eat solid food. By Friday evening, his fever was down and he seemed to be feeling better.  Still not eating well, but hopefully on the road to recovery.

Wordless Wednesday - always watching

Practice

As you know, I take a lot of pictures of my boys.  I love taking pictures and capturing our family memories.  I have a digital SLR camera that I love, and it takes great pictures; however, I've always felt like I'm only scratching the surface of what it can do.  

When my favorite photographer, Kendra at KJane Designs, posted that she was going to hold a photography class, Jenn and I immediately signed up.  We were ready to take our camera's off the little green square and learn how to shoot manual.  

Kendra did a great job explaining the basics to us in an understandable way.  Camera manuals are so hard to understand, so simple directions and hands on practice made everything make more sense.  I think it will take a lot of practice, some trial and error, then some more practice, but hopefully I'll learn to get some good shots and make my camera work to it's full potential.  

Bath time

On vacation, we started to give the boys a bath at the same time.  Previously, Liam had been in the baby tub and Karsten was in the 'big boy' tub.  Once they had a bath together, there was no going back to the previous way.  Liam enjoyed splashing in the water and Karsten liked showing Liam all of his bath toys.

Liam typically gets out of the tub first but likes to crawl back into the bathroom in his PJs and watch Karsten finish his bath.

Swimming with friends

Jenn and her family came over to join us for a swim in the neighborhood pool.  We lucked out and the pool was almost empty - it's been so crowded most of the time due to the sweltering heat.

Liam loves splashing and kicking in the water.  He was getting all pruny, so we were taking a break from the water.


Eden was doing a good job making Liam laugh with her funny faces.  Go figure that when Jenn took this picture, neither of them wanted to smile.


Elam was quite the jumper and little daredevil in the pool!


Karsten was not too into jumping into the pool, but is doing a great job 'swimming' with his floaties.


And after swimming, it's snack time!




Eden was eating her snack when she fell through the slats in her chair and got stuck!


Scott and Liam getting dried off and ready to head home. Twas a fun night at the pool!

Super Saturday

We went to a small farmers market near our house this morning.  It was too hot to go to our favorite market because it would require us to be outside longer.

Karsten's favorite part of going to the market is samples!


Chatting with Liam


We finished so quickly that we decided to take a stroll across the parking lot over to this big bridge.


Karsten loved running back and forth.
 



When we got home we made this yummy Greek 7 layer dip with our purchases. Thank you Pinterest!

Karsten-isms

It's been a long time since the first edition of Karsten-isms, so I wanted to update you on some of the fun things he is saying and doing these days.

• He's doing a great job learning his letters (thanks Gail!) so while we drive and play I spy, I've started to ask him what letter the car (or truck or tree, etc) starts with.  One day he was NOT in the mood for my word games and said 'NO - I'm NOT lettering, mommy".  
• We were at his three year doctor appointment and before the nurse left the room, she said he needed to take off all his clothes but could leave on his underwear.  We were making a big deal of him showing his big boy underwear to the doctor since he is potty trained, so he decided to take them off so she could get a better look at Thomas the Train on his underwear.  He was waving them around as Scott and I were laughing and trying to negotiate with him that the doctor could see his big boy underwear when he was wearing them.  
• He told Scott that he has whiskers on his knees when he noticed there a little hair on his legs.  
• Mickey Mouse is his imaginary friend.  He'll tell us that his friend Mickey is going to be at our house in five minutes, or he'll say 'yesterday, when I was at Mickey's clubhouse'. 
• He said 'that cherry Popsicle makes me toot a lot'.
• He cracks up when Scott finds a 'tickle spot' and tickles him.  
• Asks if he can have three of anything....'because I'm three'.  
• Racing him can get him to go most anywhere.  We often race to bed, race to dinner, race to put our shoes on...you get the idea.  
• He has developed quite the whiny voice - we're working on only responding to him when he's using his nice voice but that's easier said than done.  
• He doesn't like to be dirty or wet - I think both of these things helped expedite potty training!  

A bite

Those of you who know me well are aware of my hatred for bugs. Unfortunately, when I'm outside, it seems that every biting bug in the area flocks to me and proceeds to bite me all over.  I end up with huge red welts from the bites, while Scott (who was in the same place) walks away unscathed.

Unfortunately, it seems that Karsten has inherited my ability to attract bug bites and then swell up in reaction. We started noticing this when he would get bites on his legs and they would swell to the size of a quarter and get bright red and warm to the touch.  There was even one on his upper thigh that caused me to call the nurse hotline at our doctor's office because I thought it was infected when it got to be as big as a half dollar and looked icky (a technical medical term!).

Today, Karsten was playing outside and must have been bit by something on his ear.  I noticed his ear was standing out funny during dinner but didn't think much of it until I was sitting behind him later and noticed how red it was.  As the night went on it got more and more red and swollen.  A call to the nurse hotline (yes, I'm that mom that calls whenever I'm worried) ensured me that unless there was a fever or his head and neck started turning red, it was likely a bug bite.  I've never (knock on wood) been bit on my ear, but apparently it's common for kids.

Poor lil guy - at least it didn't seem to hurt him, just itched a little.

Happy Anniversary

Scott and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary today. Now, if I were on top of things, I would have scanned in one of our wedding pictures to commemorate the occasion.  But alas, life got in the way.  Maybe next year - or perhaps I'll save that for 15 years. :)

We had a perfect celebration of the day - we went swimming at the pool with the boys, then we went out to dinner and a movie while the boys hung out with grandma and papa.  On Friday, these beautiful flowers arrived at my office.  I was so excited - they made my whole day!

Swimming!


Liam was fascinated by the water bottle and the cracking sound it made when you squeezed it.  Check out those eyelashes - why is it that little boys always have amazing lashes that make their moms green with envy.  

We went to see the Intouchables - great movie, but just an FYI - it's ALL in french with subtitles. Did we know this?  Nope.  The movie started and we looked at each other in surprise.  After a while, you forgot you were reading what they were saying and were able to focus more on the movie.

Our favorite sushi restaurant can be painfully slow at times, so we avoid taking the boys there.  We had a few stressful meals when Karsten was a bit younger, and now we've decided that we'll all have more fun if we hold off on this until they're older.  They do well at restaurants, they just get antsy when you have to wait a long time to get your food.

I meant to take a picture of the beautiful sushi on the platter before we ate it all, but completely forgot until we took the last bite.  So, here's the picture of where our sushi used to be.  :)

Potty training

We think Karsten has been ready to potty train for a while now, but until this week we hadn't fully committed to helping him get trained.  The good news is, that after a week at home with Scott while Gail was on vacation - Karsten has fully mastered potty training!  He still wears a diaper at naptime and bedtime, but he's often waking up from naptime with a dry diaper! He's doing an awesome job and we're so proud of him!  He's getting to be such a big boy!

Ball pit

You might remember that my Uncle Kevin gave Karsten a bag of 100 plastic balls a year ago.  We've kept close track of those balls because he promised (threatened) to get another 100 if those balls started to disappear.

Despite our attempts to prevent more plastic balls being gifted into our collection, Kevin gave Karsten a ball pit for his birthday.

So far it has provided a lot of entertainment - Karsten and Scott have created a game called monster ball and Liam enjoys sitting in the ball pit chewing on a ball and watching them play.

The blue fan at the top of the ball pit has a little motor with an on and off switch.  Karsten quickly learned that he could grab one of the yellow pillars and pull it over so he can turn it on. Resourceful little guy!

Wordless Wednesday - Playing cars

A leak

When we got home from vacation, we noticed there was a spot on the ceiling.  We looked at it when we got home on Sunday, but didn't climb up onto a chair and feel the ceiling until Monday.  It was wet.  :(

We tried to figure out what was right above the spot and the best we could figure out was that it was a water line coming from either the stool or the shower in the master bath.  We called a plumber and our insurance company because we didn't know how much water damage was inside the ceiling.


As we expected, the plumber had to cut a hole in the ceiling to find the problem.  The culprit ended up being a t-joint that had come loose over time.  The plumber said the pipe was cut shorter than it needed to be, so the lead was bound to happen at some point.  We've gotten multiple bids to patch the ceiling, and have learned a lot about drywall in the process.  Hopefully in a few weeks the hole in our ceiling will be gone and you will never know it was there.  Until that time, we'll enjoy Karsten's daily dinner observation of 'uh oh, somethins not right here.' Then we all look around confused and have a good laugh when he shows us the hole in the ceiling.

We have a crawler!

Look what Liam learned on vacation.  He was so close to crawling before we went on vacation and while we were at Gaga's house, he finally figured out the coordination between his hands and feet.

Ready or not, here he comes - not sure I'm ready to have him mobile!

Home Sweet Home

We had a great week on vacation - we traveled 1800 miles, did some sightseeing, enjoyed time with family members, had lots of laughs in the car together and made plenty of memories.  We'll definitely be road tripping in the future.

When we were driving home, Karsten asked 'whose house are we visiting today?'  He wasn't too crazy about the idea of going home - booooring!  We told him we were going to pick up Madison from her 'cation at my parents house and he was ok with that plan.

Madison was excited to see us but I'm sure she was sad to leave Grandma and Grandpa's house. She had a week of their undivided attention with no little ones in her way.  Sounds like pure bliss for a dog!

The boys had fun playing for a bit before we loaded up the car (again) and drove home.

Headed home

On Saturday, we said goodbye to Gaga and headed back toward home.
 

Linda and Leland's was a good 'halfway' point between Gaga's house and our house, so we stopped there for the evening.  I'm so glad we decided to split the long drive from Gaga's into two days.  It seems that about 5-6 hours in the car is our maximum, and we were just over that with this drive.  By the time we got to their house, we were all done being in the car.  I think I spent the last 30 minutes of the drive with my arm in the backseat feeding Liam a bottle.

This tractor used to be Scott's when he was a little boy.  Karsten rode in it when he was a year old - now he got to try to drive it.  I say 'try' to drive it because his legs weren't quite long enough to reach the pedals, so someone got to push him around.


Papa and Liam watching grandma push Karsten.




Liam enjoyed getting pulled around in the little wagon.  I foresee lots of future battles about who gets to drive the tractor.