Mr. Dangerous

Tyler. Such a funny little boy, I have a lot of his quotes written on random pieces of paper and in my phone right now, so it's time to get them on here.

Tyler has named our baby and is 100% sure that her name is Polly. He calls her that whenever he talks about our family. Daddy, Mommy, Tyler, Carseten and Polly. I was trying to tell him that Carl and I would think of a bunch of choices that we like and then choose our favorite. I was trying to prepare him for when he finds out what her name really is. So he said, "Ok, here are your choices. Window, kitchen, block, watermelon, Goliath, link, frisbee, pumpkin, Cubbie Bear, farm, turkey, lion, phone, or Polly." He's a smart boy. Polly sounds pretty good at the end of that list. Actually, to be honest, Polly is starting to grow on me. It's so cute when he calls her that. I told him it could be his nickname for her.

We had a turkey hanging up in our kitchen in the week leading up to Thanksgiving and every night we all wrote what we were thankful for. Carsten just colored them for this year. Tyler wrote on his and then told us what they said. I just loved the things he came up with.

1. Our house
2. For our new baby coming
3. People who are shouting for joy
4. The coffee shop and my kids coffee
5. Sparkly cookies
6. Real turkeys
7. My mom and dad

Tyler is literally a monkey. Truly. I made the mistake of telling him he belongs in a jungle the other day and it only encouraged his constant climbing. Anyway, he has decided that his name is Mr. Dangerous. Whenever he's playing and it gets quiet, I ask him what he's doing. And when he says he's being Mr. Dangerous, I know I need to run.

I asked Tyler to go get dressed. A few minutes later he came out of his room shouting, "Mommy, look! I have a big butt!" And he did. He was wearing not one, not two, but seven pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks. And nothing else. We had to run to the grocery store and I convinced him that he was going to be uncomfortable sitting in his car seat and a cart. So he took them off, but the second we got home he ran into his room and put them back on, plus two more. He wore nine pairs of underwear the rest of the day. And he kept taking his pants off to show people who were at our house. He did this for several days. He kept running out of underwear.

He has a bunk bed in his room and soon Carsten will be moving in with him. For now Tyler still sleeps on the bottom, but for nap one day I let him try sleeping on top. The only thing was that the ladder wasn't up yet. So I told him he needed to stay in bed and that if he needed anything to call me and I would come in. I told him multiple times, very intensely and I really thought he would listen. I mean, he's a climber, but he's smart about it and usually knows when to show caution. But about ten minutes later his door opened and he walked out.
Me: Tyler, you were not supposed to get out of bed! That was so dangerous.
Tyler: Well, I did it! I climbed down all by myself and I didn't die!

This one was when he was going to bed the other night. I was saying goodnight to him and he grabbed on to my arm and told me he was going to keep me in there with him forever.
Me: I want to keep you forever!
Tyler: Well, I'm going to get married someday, so you can't keep me forever.
Me: Well that's true. Can I keep you until you get married?
Tyler: But I'm going to go to college. And you can't keep me when I go to college school.
Me: Well can I keep you until you go to college?
Tyler: Yeah. But you certainly can't keep me when I go to college.

This is how I found him when I checked on him during nap: He put his touch light under his orange blanket to make a campfire and had all of his animals sitting around it.

I just love this boy. He is so sweet, and loving. He loves to use words like certainly, surely and absolutely when he's talking. He sings continually. There are few things I love more than hearing my boys singing. Especially when they do it together. Their favorite time for duets is in the grocery store at the very, very top of their lungs. It's hilarious. And loud. And most people love it. :-)

One of the sweetest things he does is put Carsten to bed. He would prefer to just do it himself and not even let us come in. He goes in there and turns on his lamp and sound machine, tells him a story and then prays with him and sings him a song. Then he gives him a hug and kiss and tells him, "Goodnight Carsten. I love you so much in the whole wide world!" It's completely adorable. And Carsten just lets him do it. So sweet.

I am so thankful that I get to spend my days at home with this guy. He brings us so much joy and laughter!

Fall Catch Up

So my computer broke. As you have probably figured out if you read this often, technology and I often don't get along. I can't tell you how many times I've told Carl something is broken and his response has been, "Seriously, what do you do to your computer/phone/anything electronic?" Yesterday when he came home I told him my phone only works on speaker phone now. Because I dropped it in the sink while talking and washing dishes. So there you have it. These things just happen to me. Anyway, my computer is fixed now and I'm back.

Unfortunately, we've had a really fun fall and I've completely missed it on here. So I'm just going to do a quick little photo catch up here. Watch out, I narrowed them down and skipped a lot, but there are still a lot. :-)

Watching our giant tree getting cut down. Two days of entertainment and a new career ambition for Tyler. He got one of his toy saws and everything in our house became a tree to be cut down for at least a week.

Cousins!

They loved every moment they got of raking this fall!

A really fun day at the corn maze!

Watch out for these two!

Ever since Halloween face paint has been the cool thing to do at our house. :-)

We went to a wedding in Milwaukee and had a great time!

This was after the reception. When they should have been sleeping. But instead were completely, 100% wound up and hilarious. And a little on the dangerous side.

Followed by this sweetness.

And then we headed to Appleton for a night with Great Grandpa Dave and Great Grandma Gerda. Tyler is still talking about them. They loved visiting them!

Putting up the first Thankful Feather!

They are pretty excited to start sharing a room next month!

Cousins again! They don't sit well for pictures together.

Loving their time with Papa Joe!

We've spent lots of time with family over the past couple of months and have really enjoyed it! And we are excited for more fun family time next week already for Christmas!

Pumpkin Day!

We picked out our perfect pumpkins with the boys the day before Halloween and had planned on carving them during trick-or-treating time the next day. I'm not sure why we thought we would have time to do that with everything else going on? Luckily we realized that before we started and saved them until Saturday. The boys woke up so excited to start. They loved every second of it - and it took a long time!

Pumpkin Hunting!

I'm not actually sure why their hands are up. And they both did it!

Starting to dig out those seeds!

We were a little surprised at how much this little neat freak liked putting his whole arm in the messy pumpkin.

The look on Carsten's face shows that this was going against all of his own neat freak tendencies.

Getting ready to paint!

Cheesy smile!

And the painting moved on from pumpkins to hands.

The finished masterpieces!

Carl is a pumpkin carving genius. :-)

Happy Halloween!

I probably say this every year. Halloween is definitely not my favorite day. But I love seeing the excitement of my kids! Just not the creepy stuff.

Wednesday was dress like your favorite Bible character day at Cubbies. Our whole family had been taking turns being sick for a week before that and I was still putting our house back together from getting absolutely nothing done other than continual piles of laundry. So honestly, thinking of a good costume wasn't the first thing on my mind. Which meant I was really happy when Tyler thought being David as a shepherd boy was a great idea. I knew how to make that one!

He was the cutest little shepherd ever. He loved his outfit and actually kept it on the whole night. And he was SO excited about the beard. Like really, really, really excited. He felt like such a little grown up. :-) And now being a shepherd is the cool thing to do at our house. Today both boys were running around with purple Vikings pants, no shirts, and blankets over their heads pretending to be shepherds. It was hilarious, but of course I couldn't get either of them to sit still for a single second for a picture.

Tyler's favorite part of Halloween is going to Carl's work. He has been talking about this for weeks! They always set it up for the employee's kids to trick-or-treat and it's so cute.

I just can't get enough of them in their cute little costumes. :-)

That night we mostly stayed home. After dinner we went to just a few of our neighbor's houses for trick-or-treating. The boys loved it! At home Tyler flew to the door every time some one came. He loved seeing the costumes and helping give out candy.

Carsten had a little costume change before we went out in the cold. :-)

Such a fun night for these boys!