Spring in October?

It's been so nice here lately that sometimes it seems more like May than October. It's regularly been in the mid 70's. We've been spending lots of weekends and evenings playing outside and enjoying the great weather and knowing that sooner or later fall will arrive.

Karsten's enjoyed helping Scott plant grass seed, mow the yard and do other outside fall cleanup projects. This day after church Karsten wanted to play outside for '2 minutes' (which is his favorite new saying) before we got ready for lunch.

I thought it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a couple of cute pics. No smile from Karsten in this one, although I must have been waving my arms around or doing something silly above my head since he is at least looking at me. :)

Karsten has been great with Madison lately - he pets her very gently, puts his head on her back to give her hugs, and feeds her dinner every day. Although he's still not her favorite person, she 'seems' to enjoy him much more now than he used to. She will have quite the adjustment period coming when the new baby comes home.


Even the plants are confused by this weather. Plants that had stopped blooming in the heat have started blooming again. Karsten was smelling the flowers here.


It seems that he looks more grown up each day - he's definitely gotten taller lately and there is NO doubt that he has the attitude of a two year old. He's a big fan of the word 'NO' and the saying 'I DO IT'. He's still overall very good natured and we're very thankful for that!

Hey bear

Scott and Karsten were playing outside yesterday morning and when they came inside for lunch, Karsten grabbed his favorite red bear and the baby bear to tell them all about the fun they had missed. I should have recorded the 'conversation' - he told them about how they played hopscotch, went for a walk, found bugs, watered the grass...they were busy!

The 'puter'

Karsten sees Scott and I working on our computers a lot and the other day he said 'need my puter'. He got it out, put it on the chair and banged away on the keys very intently for a while. I'm sure to him that's what it looks like we do. :)

My reader

I've loved books ever since I was little. I remember getting gift certificates for my birthday to a bookstore and coming home with a stack of books. I loved reading them, then organizing them. :)

We've been reading to Karsten since he was a baby. I hope he gains my love for books and reading. Lately, he'll just grab a book then climb into a chair or plop onto the floor then read the book. I snapped this the other night while he was reading the ladybug book to himself.

Cider Fest

We have a long 'to do' list to complete before the baby arrives in a month or so. After church on Sunday, we had grand plans of getting things done and cleaning around the house. We were eating lunch when Shannon called and asked if we wanted to meet them at the cider mill. Sounded like a much better way to spend the afternoon, so off we went - cleaning can always wait. :)

Karsten was excited to see Grandma and Papa - he wore his shades for a while just like Papa.

Turned out it was Cider Days at the cider mill, so it was PACKED with people. We weren't anticipating the crowds. Inside this barn you can watch the process they go through in order to make cider.

One of the best parts of going to the cider mill is cider donuts. The funny face Karsten has here is because he has a mouthful of donuts.

Apple cider slushes are also pretty great!

And then it was time for another donut. :)

Scott and I enjoying the festivities.

While we were eating our donuts, they started to dump apples from a truck into the washing area before the apples go into the process of being made into cider.

Karsten and Scott really enjoyed watching all of the apples get dumped out of the truck!

And of course we had to visit the pumpkins. Karsten really liked to sit on the pumpkins.

One of the booths in the festival area was for kettle corn. Grandma got a sample and shared with Karsten.

After spending a couple of hours at cider fest, we headed home with one tired little boy. He had so much fun seeing and watching everything.

Cooking Faux Pas

I've blogged before about how Scott is the chef in our household. I can bake a few things and I 'usually' do a good job.

I decided to make rice crispie treats for my friend Jill's birthday - easy, right. I followed the recipe, put them in the pan and smashed them down. About a half hour later I walked by the rice crispies and for some inexplicable reason decided to tip the pan almost upside down and see if they were set up yet.

Did you just say 'uh oh'? You should have. :) As soon as the pan got tipped upside down, all of the rice crispies started to side out of the pan and onto my shirt. Since my pregnant tummy is out there and in the way, it caught quite a few rice crispies.

Luckily Scott was closeby and could help me rescue the rice crispies and get them back into the pan. By the time we got everything back in the pan, we were laughing SO hard. Hilarious - not my brightest moment.

Those darn rice crispies are so sticky - and they show up nicely on my shirt don't they?

Karsten's new room

We've been re-arranging a few rooms in our house to make room for the new lil guy. Karsten is moving out of his 'old' room and into a new, bigger room that was previously my craft room. My craft room has been combined with Scott's office. The baby will move into Karsten's old room.

Today we made the big switch to Karsten's room. He spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa while we moved all of his furniture and decorated his new room. I had a picture in my head how I wanted it to look and it turned out pretty close to that. We had to make a few adjustments once we saw how furniture fit in the room, but it all worked out.

Karsten seemed excited when he saw it. He walked around and looked at everything then he wanted to immediately crawl into his bed - glad he wasn't scared by his bed without the other side rail. We'll see how he does in the morning!

View from the doorway. (The light spot to the right of the curtains is a reflection from the lights)


View from his chair in the corner. There's room for growth in the bookshelves. I have some books from when I'm a kid that I want to get out on the shelves, so that will fill some of the space. I bet I might also have a few more pictures I could add. :)


Photo shelves near the door.