Driving

Lately Karsten asks if he can drive the car when we get home.  He knows all the important things - you turn on the 'weepers' when it rains, you push the red arrow (hazard button) to make the car go fast.  Really, what else do you need to know?  :)

Scootin' Along

The beautiful weather we've had lately has given us lots of time to play outside.  Karsten is getting braver and more stable on his scooter.  For the first few days, his right foot would hover above the ground, ready to stabilize him or slow down if he felt like he was going too fast.  He's now putting his right foot on the scooter.


And he's pretty proud of himself.  I don't blame him, we're pretty proud of him too!


Liam had fun finding various rolling toys and sending them rolling down the driveway.  Our driveway is pretty steep, so when we ran to catch the toy before it went in the street, he would laugh and laugh.Not sure why his shoe was off in this picture.


We convinced Karsten to try going down the driveway with me holding onto his handlebars to keep him from going too quickly.  He loved it!  We went fast, but he felt secure with me holding on.  He was having so much fun.


After several trips, I asked him if he wanted to try it by himself.  I was barely holding on, so I knew he would be fine.  Turns out I was wrong.  He got going too fast and wiped out.  He got some concrete rash on his leg and was very upset.  Poor little guy - hopefully the scooter will not meet the same fate as the bike and he will be afraid to ride it after falling off.

Slowly but surely

Our garden continues to produce yummy vegetables a little at a time.  We've learned more about gardening this year and have some ideas about what we will and won't do next year.

We're finally starting to see some tomatoes which is exciting.  The green beans are also starting to produce which is a good thing because the squash plants are getting ready to overtake the green bean plants.


We were having leftovers for lunch on Saturday, so I decided to use up the last of the baby spinach from our garden with our first tomatoes and some blueberries that we picked.  It was delicious - such a great summer salad!

Blueberry Picking

We headed out to pick blueberries bright and early on Saturday morning,  Picking blueberries is harder than picking strawberries because it takes so many more berries to fill your bucket, which means you are out there a lot longer.



Liam doesn't quite get the idea of only picking the blue berries.  He would just grab a handful of berries regardless of what color they were.  At first he would put them in the bucket but when he realized he could EAT them, he just shoved the handful of ripe and unripe berries in his mouth.


Karsten didn't want to let Liam eat all the blueberries.


Look, he actually found some blue ones.


Finding the perfect berries!


Liam was getting cranky because we kept trying to keep him from grabbing handfuls of berries that may or may not have been ripe.  He was standing in between aisles of bushes crying when Karsten came up and gave him a hug.  So sweet.


All better now - let's find some blueberries.


Here's some good ones!


After the boys rallied briefly to pick some more blueberries, but then Liam was done.  He was hot, thirsty and frustrated that he couldn't pick everything in site.  The boys and I headed back to the car to get a drink while Scott finished picking blueberries.  After a drink, we headed over to the playground and Karsten had a great time riding these trikes.  I tried to put Liam on one and push him around, but he wasn't into it.




When Scott came back, we went in to purchase our blueberries and purchase blueberry muffins for dessert.  We had packed a picnic lunch to enjoy at the farm.


We had some more time playing before we headed home.




We had to check out the dinosaur before we left.  I'm sure every child who visits the blueberry farm wishes they could climb up and ride this dino.  I know Karsten sure wanted to!


And here's the result of our blueberry picking - 8 lbs of blueberries.  I see blueberry pancakes, smoothies and other goodies in our future!

Little fish

How cute is our little swimmer?

All About Liam

It's been a while since I've shared an update about what Liam is doing these days.

• He knows his body parts and can point to them (or yours) when you ask him. 
• He wants to do everything that Karsten does.  
• He knows what he wants and gets frustrated when he doesn't get his way - he has mastered throwing himself down on the floor and subtly looking up to see if you're watching and being concerned.  
• He's become picky about which vegetables he will eat.  This is new territory for us because he has always been a great eater, but lately, he is not a veggie fan.  We're hoping it's a passing phase.  
• He's expanding the animal sounds he can make - new this week is MOOOOO!  
• He must have his turquoise minky blanket (that I made) to sleep.  
• While he's still not talking a lot, he's learning a lot of sounds and using actions/signs to communicate what he wants.  
• He's very vocal when Karsten takes a toy he's been playing with or does something that he disagrees with.  I call it his 'I've been wronged' screech.  I'm sure it will become NO before we know it.  
• While he likes to play with Karsten, he's also content to play with a puzzle or train by himself.  
• He's ticklish with a contagious laugh.  
• We think he has a corn sensitivity, so we're avoiding corn as much as possible.  
• He typically runs when he's going somewhere - going to find Karsten, he runs. Walking down the hallway, he runs.  You get the idea.  
• Likes to wave and say hi to people, but if he's put on the spot to say hi, he'll clam up and be shy. 
• He'll mimic our intonation when we say something.  The other night, Scott was calling Madison by saying 'Maaadddiiisoonnnnnn' and Liam repeated sounds in the same singsong tone.   He clearly thought he was calling Madison.  

The Guys

As you saw, Karsten got several new Mario characters for his birthday.  He's gone beyond being able to clutch Mario, Luigi and Koopa in his hands.  Now, the characters all travel together in the new backpack that Jaiden gave him for his birthday.


These guys can entertain him for hours - it's fun to listen to how he makes them play together and the adventures and battles the characters have.  And, Liam is not allowed to play with any of the guys which can cause problems from time to time.


The lineup - Bowser, Toad, Luigi, Princess Peach, Mario, Goomba, Koopa Troopa, Yoshi

Wordless Wednesday - Belly Button

Garden Harvest

"Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden?"
-Robert Brault

We all have a good time checking on the garden and seeing what has grown.  So far we have enjoyed baby spinach, tiny strawberries, a few sugar snap peas, and now finally - our first tomatoes!  These are cherry tomatoes and we hope there are a lot more to come, because they're quite tasty.  Our green beans are almost ready as well - can't wait!


The peppers and eggplant are still growing.  Scott had to move the eggplant because it was being over-run by the squash and zucchini.


Hopefully all of these squash and zucchini blossoms and leaves will lead to a lot of veggies.

Speech therapy

We're continuing to meet with Liam's speech therapist every few weeks.  After she left the first time, Karsten said 'I don't think that lady did a good job.'  When we asked him why he thought that, he said 'well, Liam can't talk yet."  LOL

He's making progress, we've been working on vowel sounds, signs and repeating the same sound (ex. OH OH rather than uh oh).  On tonight's visit, she said we would go outside so we could have him in a captive audience in the swing and see what activities we could do outside to help him learn.

After we swang and practiced things like up and weeeeeee, Karsten wanted to show her his new bubble blower.  She suggested that we work with him on POP and UP with the bubbles.


Karsten did a good job keeping the bubbles coming.


Waiting to POP some bubbles.


Bubbles are so much fun!






Since Liam is so young, she says it's key to try to work on words associated with what he's doing now.  In watching him interact with us, she can tell he has great receptive listening skills, we just need to get him a good foundation of sounds that he'll be able to use to talk soon!

4 year stats

We had Karsten's four year well check today and he got a clean bill of health.  She was impressed with his vocabulary, knowing his letters and numbers, knowing his address and phone number and doing well writing his name.

We didn't think he would get a shot today, but he ended up getting one.  He was sitting still so well for the nurse, and was watching her get the band-aid ready, so I thought the shot was going to be a breeze.  As soon as the nurse put the shot in his leg, he tried to jump away then screamed and screamed.  I don't think he realized that the shot was going to hurt.  Poor little guy.

The stats:
Height: 41 inches - 75th percentile
Weight: 38.5 lbs - 75th percentile


Photo by KJane Designs

The 'real' birthday

As you've probably seen, I like to make a big deal about birthdays.  Although we've been celebrating for several days, today was actually Karsten's birthday!  After breakfast of egg scramble tacos (his choice), Karsten got to open one of his birthday presents from us.  We planned to give him his presents throughout the day to spread out the fun.



His Mario towel was a big hit.  It was a Mario kind of birthday.  There were a few other things in the bag but they were not near as exciting as the towel.




After breakfast, we went outside to play with his new tball set from Kelli and David.  Anyone see an issue with this picture - will Liam get a baseball to the head?  Luckily, Scott was just showing him proper form, they didn't actually hit the ball yet.


Success!


A bit more help from dad - again with poor location choice from Liam.


Showing him how to hold the bat.  Karsten kept try to use it like a golf club.  I think there's much more practice in our future.


After church, we headed to the pool for a bit.  We had to give that new Mario towel a try.


The present he opened at lunch was this new K-State hat.  Now we're officially ready for football season!


After a busy day, the boys went down for a nap.  After naptime, we unveiled Karsten's big present - a scooter.  This isn't just any scooter, he had a very specific request for a YELLOW scooter.  I tried to prep him for a red scooter because I didn't think yellow scooters existed.  Amazon to the rescue - a quick search and this yellow scooter shows up.  VOILA - I love online shopping!  The look on his face when he saw the scooter was awesome - he was so excited!


Giving it a try for the first time.


Practicing stopping.


Once he figured out he could step on the orange part and stop it, he had a hard time keeping his foot off that wheel.




Happy 4th Birthday Karsten!  We're having so much fun watching you grow up!