Cow

Liam is making great progress on his speech; however, he has held onto sounds to represent many words.  One of our goals in speech therapy for the next six months is for him to use words for things like car, truck, dog, sheep, cow, horse and pig.

Each morning as the boys and I drive to school and work, we talk about things we see.  I saw cows on one side of the road so I said - 'hey boys, look at the cows'.  Then Liam said 'tow'.

I asked him what he said and he repeated 'tow?' like he's been saying it forever. I can't wait to see what he's going to surprise us with next.

Welcome back!

When I get to Gail's to pick up Liam, he is occasionally watching for me in the window.  He gets so excited when he sees my car pull in and when I get out, I can hear him say MOMMY!  before he runs to the door to greets me.  I can't think of a better way to be reuited with him after our day apart!

Karsten's prayer

I was flipping through the papers in Karsten's backpack to learn about what what he did at school today. I saw papers about yellow, yarn and yoyos. I saw writing practice for the letter y.

Then, I saw this paper.

I'm guessing the teacher asked them what they would like to pray for, and this is what Karsten said.  Scott's sister, Kelli, was diagnosed with breast cancer and recently had surgery as the first step in her treatment.

He told us that this is a picture of Kelli. We're so proud of him!

Baby Bunnies

Scott pulled some planters out from their winter home under our deck and found four baby bunnies in one of them.  We were all enthralled with the bunnies and checked on them daily.  The second day we went out to check on them this bunny was getting brave and hopped out of the planter while we were watching.  We didn't touch him even though we saw that he couldn't hop back into the planter.

The next day when we came out to check on the bunnies, they were all gone.  After we were outside for a bit, we spotted two of the bunnies hopping around the yard.  Hope they keep growing and don't come back to eat our garden!

Easter Celebration!

Easter morning began with a visit from the Easter Bunny.  The boys forgot the Easter Bunny was supposed to visit overnight, so when we reminded them, they came right downstairs and were excited to find their baskets.


Karsten wasn't sure which one was his until he saw the Batman thermos!


Liam loved his duck-duck shirt.


After checking out their Easter baskets, we loaded up and headed to my parents house for breakfast before church.  My mom always has an impressive spread of Easter candy, so we all had to check out a few pieces before we ate breakfast.


After breakfast, we got ready for church.  Liam was not too crazy about the bowtie when we put it on, but thankfully we were able to distract him and he learned to tolerate it.


I know it's not a perfect smile but I still like this picture!


And I can't get enough of these eyelashes!


I think this is one of my favorite pictures of Karsten - ever!


They're so cute when they hold hands!


We moved the picture taking outside for some family pictures.


While Karsten and Scott struggled to get his shoes on - turns out I packed the wrong shoes (arghh) - we got a few pictures with Liam.


When Karsten got his shoes on (the tennis shoes are a good look, right?), we got a few group pictures before church.




We headed to church WAY early so we could get a seat in the church. We got there about 30 minutes before church was scheduled to start and it was already half full.  The church was packed at 10 minutes before church was scheduled to start, so the priest got started early.  Thank goodness!



While we were at church, the Easter bunny visited my parents house and left his eggs all over their backyard.  Can you believe that sneaky bunny - we didn't see those eggs while we were eating breakfast!


The boys were off and running as soon as they saw the eggs.


They didn't want to stop and put eggs in a basket because their brother would get more eggs.


Karsten still managed to juggle the eggs and see what the bunny left - coins!


While Karsten was checking out his loot, Liam was spotting more eggs!


We spent the afternoon playing, watching Frozen and I even snuck in a nap.  It was a perfect Easter!

Happy Easter

The Easter party was the last party for Karsten's class this year.  I enjoy going to his parties and watching him interact with all of his friends.  In just 30 minutes, I can see where he has learned so many things - both good and bad. :)

The Easter party started with an Easter egg hunt on the playground - they made these cute bunny ears for all of the kids to wear.  Unfortunately, they were a bit too small for some of the kids and went flying as they egg hunt began.


Off and hunting for eggs - trying hard to keep his ears on!


Then he ran past and gave me his ears for safekeeping.


His teacher was nice enough to encourage pics of the parents with our kids before we headed back inside.


Back inside, everyone sat on their name mats for instructions about what to do next.




Karsten and Sarah got to lead the class in the prayer before their snack.  I discovered a new song/prayer that Karsten knows - he holds out on us with these songs!  Occasionally, he'll just start singing a new song that we've never heard before.  They wanted to say the Batman prayer, but Miss Missy didn't think that was a good choice for the Easter party.   In case you're curious, I have a video of the Batman prayer that I'll share in another post - it cracks me up.


We made rice crispie eggs for their sweet treat. I thought about decorating the outside with frosting, but thought they probably had enough sugar already with all of the party goodies!


Everyone enjoyed the eggs - it was relatively quiet in the room for a minute or so.


Then it was time for a fun activity sorting and counting Skittles.




This look says 'seriously, you're STILL taking pictures?'


After the Skittle activity (where the kids miraculously only ate 1-2), they got in a line (boy/girl/boy/girl) and headed off to eat lunch.  As much as I wanted to be a fly on the wall and observe the lunch routine, I headed out.  It was another fun party!

Wordless Wednesday - Story Time

Babies

Where have my babies gone, these look like little boys?


In my mind, they still look like this picture from April of 2012 when Liam was 6 months old and Karsten was almost 3.
 

Puzzles

Puzzles are a go-to activity at our house.  If the boys ask to play the ipad or watch TV, we often encourage them to put together a puzzle.  That's not to say they never play the ipad or watch TV - that definitely happens, but we try to have a good balance.

Karsten used to ask for our help on puzzles, now he wants to do it on his own and doesn't want our tips about finding the flat pieces and building the outside first.


I remembered this animal puzzle the other day and thought Liam may enjoy it.  I think he'll need a few more tries to match all of the mom and baby animals with the correct pair; however, he was getting better at it after a while!

Visiting Aunt Kelli

Kelli had surgery this week as the first step in her treatment for breast cancer.  Scott and I went to visit her in the hospital on Wednesday while the boys spent the evening with my parents. She was able to go home from the hospital on Saturday, so on Sunday, we went up for a visit.

Upon the recommendation of a friend who has been through treatment, I had made her a few small bags and we made a few meals for them to have on hand in the freezer.  We weren't sure we would get everything done on Saturday, but thankfully everything fell into place and we got it all done.  That meant we could hit the road shortly after church on Sunday.

Kelli was doing great - really moving around well, even going outside for a walk!  Grandma and Grandpa were excited to see the boys and I think the feeling was mutual!





We visited for a few hours, then headed home to beat some storms and give Kelli the chance to rest a bit more.

Easter Egg Hunt

My work has an Easter Egg hunt each year for the children of employees.  We had been talking about it all week, so by today, the boys were ready to hunt for eggs.


We got there a bit early to make sure we got a good spot for egg hunting.


Checking out the eggs and deciding where they will start first.


Then I ruined the moment by trying to get them to look at me and smile.


But I did manage to get individual pics of each of them where they are kind of smiling.
 

 

While I was taking pictures of Karsten, Liam was standing next to me, I could see him out of the corner of my eyes.  What I didn't see was that he apparently decided to try to flatten his easter basket.  He took his round basket and was pushing it into the ground turning it into an oval rather than a circle. Oh Liam...
 

We quickly bent his easter basket back into shape because it was almost time to start hunting eggs.  When they sounded the airhorn he took off running like an easter egg pro.






They staggered the start times based on the children's ages, so while Liam got to start in the first group, Karsten had to wait for the second group.  When the horn went off he quickly gathered his egg quota.


He was excited to see what kind of candy he got in his eggs.
 

The easter bunny visited the egg hunt for the first time this year.  After hunting for our eggs, we made a beeline over to get a pic with the bunny.  Unfortunately, this was Liam's reaction to the bunny and Karsten also refused to get near him.  No bunny picture for us!


We took all the candy out of the eggs so we could return the eggs - until we started this, I don't think Liam realized there was candy inside the eggs!


Enjoying the candy he worked 'hard' to find.


Then we ran into a few friends.  This is Kylie, my friend Jill's little girl.


Kylie didn't hunt eggs this year, but I know she'll be out there next year!


Seriously - how cute is she?


While we were chatting, the boys were off exploring.  Karsten does a great job watching out for Liam, he made sure he stayed away from the parking lot and safely on the grass.


We also saw John and Vivienne who are just a few months younger than Liam.  John was busy checking out his loot and didn't want to look at my camera.


Vivienne and her mom, Mindy.


Me and Kylie!


What a fun morning!