Letters

Karsten likes practicing his letters with these new dry erase cards.  He can trace the letters, and there are also 'games' like connecting the lowercase and uppercase letters.


Concentrating hard to trace an A.




Liam didn't like being left out of the fun so he read a Mickey book while Karsten worked on his letters.

Wordless Wednesday - Water

Monday Funday

What started with an attempt to get a shot of the boys in their new valentine's shirts turned into a fun evening of playing.

We told Karsten that he looked taller so he went over to the giant ruler to get measured.  He also had a tape measure that he tried to use to measure himself.  Liam really wanted to play with the tape measure.


Scott was doing funny things behind me in order to get these great smiles.


Then Liam decided that he was done sitting in the chair - he wanted down!


Liam showing off his dance moves.


Karsten and I started throwing balls at each other and Liam wanted to join in.  Neither of us were very good aims which provided endless giggles (on both of our parts!)






Liam was so excited - his expressions here crack me up!








I may not have gotten the perfect shot of the boys, but we had so much fun and I love the pictures of the boys full of joy and having a great time!

Mario MIA

On New Years Eve, Mario disappeared.  We searched high and low thinking he would turn up eventually.  When we took the Christmas tree down and Mario didn't show up, I got a little worried.  When weeks passed and he still didn't turn up, I began to lose hope.  When I saw that Liam likes to put things in the trash can, I began to think that Liam may have thrown Mario in the trash.

SO, we told Karsten that since he had been doing such a good job making it through the night without wetting his bed and if he was a good boy at church (which has been a challenge lately), we could go get a new Mario.  The stars aligned and we made a trip to Toys R Us for a Mario.



He's so happy to have Mario again!

Random Sunday Moments

I remember Karsten went through a phase when he was one where he had his tongue out of his mouth at all times.  Looks like we've arrived at that phase with Liam. His poor little chin is chapped from having his tongue out all the time.



I finally got tired of having a tumble of plastic water bottles attack me when I opened the cabinet.  So, I unloaded the cabinet so we could better use the space.  Luckily Karsten (and Mario) helped me by holding my phone with the flashlight app up so I could clean out the back of the cabinet.


Liam has been watching Karsten feed Madison every day and he wanted to give it a try.


Liam has learned that he could stand on his desk and reach things on the island.  Pretty resourceful little stinker.


After the cabinet was cleaned out, we had to find a new place for all of the reusable plastic bottles to live.  As soon as Scott got out the step stool, both boys immediately tried to climb on it.  Karsten hopped on the first step while Liam was still figuring out which foot to use to try to climb up.


This was the result - Karsten was on the ladder and Liam was crying because he couldn't get on.  He kept trying to climb onto the other side and got frustrated when he couldn't.

Blast from the past

Who remembers Lincoln Logs.  When we organized the toy closet, we found these in a box of my old toys we had kept for when we had kids.  We got them out tonight and at first Karsten was not too interested.  But when we showed him what you could build with them, he was a fan.

I remember playing for hours with these things - the sight and smell of them brought back all sorts of fun memories!

Simple Pleasures

I've posted before that the boys like playing with their swords (aka swiffer dusters - or they call them light savers depending on the day). Today they were having a parade with them - I sang 'The ants go marching' about 251 times as they went around and around.  Not sure why I chose THAT song - it was just the first to pop into my head.  I'm accepting nominations for new parade songs.  :)



And since I haven't tried a picture of them in the chair for a while, I thought it was worth a try.  I wanted a brothers picture in the cute valentines day robot shirts my mom made them.

Ring Bearer Practice

My cousin Brett is getting married this summer, and Karsten is lucky enough to be her ring bearer.  After reading a book one night, he asked if he could carry his green monkey from the barrel of monkeys on a pillow like he will for 'that girls' wedding'.  I was temporarily confused, then realized what he was talking about.  I wish I understood how his little brain worked - what sparked that memory for him.

So we got his pillow, plopped the monkey on it and he practiced going back and forth in his room with the monkey on the pillow.  So cute - at this rate, he'll be an old pro by the wedding this summer!

What Liam's Up To

Seems that I haven't been taking a ton of pictures the past couple of weeks.  Perhaps part of me realizes that I was behind on blogging and by taking more pictures, I would get even more behind.  No more of that - I'm getting caught up and plan to keep sharing more of our everyday pictures with you.  

• Liam has been into going up and down the stairs for a while, but recently he wants to go down the stairs facing forward on his bottom.  Talk about scary - I keep waiting for him to tip forward and go tumbling down the stairs.  
• With all the ick going around, we're being really cognizant of hand washing whenever we get home.  As soon as we get home and take our coats off, Liam is headed for the bathroom to wash hands before we can even say it.  
• We're officially done with bottles, even at bedtime.  A few weeks ago, I went to dinner with a friend and Scott put Liam to bed without a bottle.  Turns out he was ready - I was the one that wasn't ready.  
• He's a awesome eater and will eat almost anything you put in front of him.  Sometimes we wonder if we're feeding him too much, but the doctor said he's healthy and that's what matters!  
• He will bring his shoes to us and set them on top of his foot, then look at us like 'why isn't this working?'
• When he pulls legos apart he grunts like it's really hard work - it's hilarious!  
• He's enamored with Madison.  He'll bend over and look at her, then scrunch his face up and smile and look at us.  I think they have some sort of agreement - he also sneaks her food from the dinner table.  
• In the mornings, he'll sit on his desk in the kitchen and drink from his sippy cup and eat a few craisens (aka dog cherries).  While he's calmly munching away, I negotiate with Karsten to put his shoes on and rush around making my lunch.  
• He loves music - it can stop him in his tracks and he'll stop to listen, then he'll bob his little legs while he listens.  
• We just started to put a plate on his tray rather than putting several bits of food on his tray at the same time.  So far so good - no plates have hit the floor.  He has also transitioned to straw sippy cups.  Next up, hopefully we'll master silverware.  

Reading

We got Karsten a Tag Reader for Christmas, and he's recently taken more of an interest in it.  He thinks it's pretty cool that he can 'read' a book all by himself.

Scissors practice

You may remember that Karsten told Gail that he wasn't allowed to use scissors at home until he turned four.  We're still not sure where that came from because he's been cutting paper and making confetti with the scissors for a while now.  One day while cutting little pieces of paper into confetti, he nicked his finger with the scissors.  After that, he decide he was afraid of the scissors and couldn't cut.

Gail encouraged him during school to practice cutting and we did some practice cutting at home as well.  After a little bit of practice, he is a cutting pro! Gone are the days of creating confetti, we've moved along to shapes.  

Baby 'puter

Karsten used to call the iPad a baby 'puter.  We all adopted this phrase because it was so darn cute, and way more fun to say than iPad.

The other day, he informed us that it was not called a baby 'puter, it was a called a tablet.  Can't he just stay little forever?

Early spring?

I know Groundhog day is not for a few more weeks, but it sure feels like an early spring might be right around the corner.  The high today was supposed to be in the upper 50's, so after lunch, we put on coats and headed outside to burn off some energy.

He was off and running!


Last summer he was only crawling, so Liam didn't get to explore the backyard too much on his own so this is a whole new world for him!


I got the brilliant idea to put my camera on Manual to try out what I learned at the KJane Photography class (last August - ha!) and this was the first picture I took.  Looks like I need a bit more practice.


Karsten wasn't too thrilled to be my practice subject,  but he tolerated it.


After a few more practice shots, I think I got the settings correct.


Just in time to capture some fun swinging pictures.




They weren't all clear, so I obviously have some more work to do.


But I still love this one despite it's blurriness.


And what's an afternoon playing outside without fun going on the slide?  It only took Liam one time before he figured out that he had to scoot forward when he was at the top of the slide then he would slide down.


Weeeee!


Karsten had a good time watching Liam.




Then it was his turn - he wanted Scott to catch him just like he caught Liam.


Checking out his telescope to see who was approaching his clubhouse.


While I enjoy winter and wish we could have one HUGE snow this year, it will be nice when we can go outside to play more often.