Easter

I know I've said this before. Probably a lot. But I really love starting new traditions with our family. And so it was fun to plan our weekend and how we would celebrate Easter with our kids. Like Christmas, I don't want it to be about Easter Bunnies and candy. I want our kids to truly get what it is.

The "popcorn guy" at the mall, as Tyler calls him, started that really nicely for us a couple weeks before Easter. We were going to the play area, but there is a popcorn stand at the bottom of the elevator. Although we have never gotten popcorn there, Tyler thinks the guy who works there is the coolest. He waves at him from in the elevator and likes to walk by the stand to say hi. That day Tyler waved at him as we walked by and the guy waved us over and asked his name. Then he asked my permission to give him some popcorn. I expected like a tiny little sample cup/bag. No. He gave him a great big bucket and filled it half full! But the cool part was that the bucket had an Easter egg design on it. He told Tyler he could eat the popcorn and then use the bucket as an Easter basket to put eggs in. And then he said something to the effect of, "Now you'll see lot of Easter eggs and candy and that kind of thing at Easter, but that's not really what Easter is all about. Easter is something really special." When we left we talked about what Easter is about. Since then anytime Tyler sees something or hears something about Easter, he says, "Is this what Easter is all about?"

So anyway, I have a set of Resurrection Eggs that I used when I taught. And we got them out to use them with Tyler for the first time this year. He loved them! He was so excited to see what was in each egg every night and listen to the part of the story that went with it. It's a really fun way to slowly take apart and teach the different parts of the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Saturday night we colored eggs. Another first for our family. It was a big hit. Tyler had fun coloring the eggs, but for the most part he played "manager" and told us what colors to put them in and then put stickers all over them. It was very fitting. He doesn't like to get messy. :-)

And after dinner on Sunday night we made resurrection rolls. I've made these a few times, but never thought to do them for Easter. It's so easy and it was a fun learning activity for Tyler. All you have to do is dip marshmallows in butter, cinnamon and sugar. Then wrap them up in crescent rolls. The marshmallows disappear in the oven. It was a great visual as we talked about the tomb being empty.

Sunday morning we went to church and the boys wore their adorable suits. Tyler was quite disappointed that they didn't have a green one at the store to match Carsten's.  It was pretty sweet.

Tyler insisted that he needed to wear his red hat and blue flip flops with his suit. He said, "But I have to wear my hat so I'm more fancy." He did not win this one, but he made a great effort.

We tried to get some good pictures of each of then on their own. But Tyler was pretty busy pretending he was a squirrel and crawling all over the yard. So this one of him hiding behind a bush was the very best we got. :-)

Carsten on the other hand, was a little ham. We always say his little helmet makes him look like a little skater dude. But maybe it's not the helmet. Here's our little skate boarder.

Waiting For Baby B

Last week we got celebrate our soon-to-be niece or nephew at a baby shower for Laura. It was so fun. I am so excited to finally be an aunt. And Tyler is really excited that he and Carsten are getting a cousin!

Just a few pictures of a fun day. :-)

Now we're just sitting around waiting (sort of) patiently for baby to get here. :-)

11 Months

I can't believe how close we're getting to one year of knowing Carsten! I don't know how he can possibly be eleven months old, but he is!

He is this adorable little ball of sunshine mixed up with a whole lot of spunk. You wouldn't think the sweetest baby in the whole world could also be the feistiest baby in the world, but somehow he is both. And it's a pretty funny mix.

Carsten loves to "sing" at the top of his lungs, imitating almost any song he hears. He loves to clap, dance and give high fives and fist bumps. He moved on from baby toys a long time ago and prefers to play with Duplos, blocks, Lincoln Logs, cars, balls, play food and musical instruments.

He can walk, but doesn't usually. He's able to take about 15 steps at a time. But he's a lot faster crawling and has a lot more fun pushing his walker around at ridiculous speeds.

He can also say Mama, Dada, Tyler, more and uh-oh. He doesn't say them consistently, but he can when he wants to. He tries to say ball too, but it comes out a little more like Ma.

He is still wearing his helmet but he really, really doesn't like it. He learned how to take it off a few weeks ago and it was impossible to keep it on him. So they baby-proofed the strap at our last appointment and now he's even more frustrated. As soon as it comes off he always starts smiling and rubbing his head all over. We all hope he's done with this soon! Even Tyler notices that it's bugging him and feels bad for him.

Carsten is very serious about food. It's his favorite thing.

He climbs everything. All the time. He climbed onto the open door of the dishwasher when he was eight months old, so I don't know why I'm surprised. But he uses toys as steps to climb onto couches. He climbs in and out of laundry baskets, into the toy box, bath tub, and anything else he sees. He is determined to break through the baby locks to get into cabinets and he often wins. Baby locks are no match for this boy.

He is a very good sleeper. But when he's falling asleep he likes to play little games. Like 'throw-the-pacifiers-out-of-the-bed-and-then-cry-until-someone-comes-into-get-them'. He has to sleep with at least two pacifiers and then a minute or two after we leave his room he stands up and throws them. He usually throws one in his laundry basket, one in the middle of the floor and any others just evaporate into thin air. It's weird.

And he does not sit still for pictures. Ever.

He is active and busy, and into everything, but he will also melt your heart right to pieces if you aren't careful. He gives the best little snuggles and big, sloppy, wet baby kisses. We love watching him grow, and we're excited to see what he does this month!

Unpredictable Spring

I love spring. I really do. It kind of makes me laugh. You just never know what to expect when you wake up.

This is the first day of spring:

Then it all melted. And came back again. This was April 4:

And this was today, three days later:

To be honest, our April 4th snowstorm was a treat. There's been snow all winter, but it was almost never warm enough to actually play in it. So we had a great time building our snowman and playing in the snow. Then that afternoon we watched him melt.

But today was bliss. Playing outside. No coats. There were random snowbanks all around us, and the pond was still frozen, but it was perfect. When we came home Tyler said, "That was so much fun! I had a really, really, really, really lot of fun!" We are so excited for this summer of "really, really, really, really" fun park days.

The Big Birthday Bash

Saturday was Tyler's Birthday party. He was so excited about his construction party for so long! That morning he even got to go to the zoo with Carl and Carsten so I could bake and get ready.

We had a lot of fun spending the afternoon with our small group friends and some of our family. It is really cute watching Tyler and the other kids becoming friends who love to play together.

Here is a glimpse of the fun day we had celebrating Tyler.

Tyler was a very happy, and very blessed little boy. :-)

A Couple More Quotes

Tyler just never stops giving me good quotes.

We had a problem with Tyler's door not fully shutting for awhile. Carl fixed it a few weeks ago while we were in Kansas. This was part of Tyler's prayer before bed tonight:

"... and thank you that my door is fixed and closes really nicely, and please help Daddy not have a beard."

There is a song Tyler loves to sing where the lyrics are "Clap your hands, all you people, shout to the Lord with a voice of triumph..."

This is Tyler's version. And he sings it all the time. "Clap your hands, all you people, shout to the Lord with the voice of China. Hosanna, Hosanna, all the people shout to China! Shout to the people of China!"

He makes me laugh.

My Boy

Tyler. Where do I even start in describing my sweet boy these days? He is my hilarious, creative, adventurous, action-packed, energy-filled little ball of joy. He is so sweet it makes my heart melt, and so sneaky and creative that I have to always be on my toes.

As a big three year old, Tyler loves to look at books, build towers, play with cars and play mobiles and he is constantly pretending to be different people or animals. He is usually on the move and very busy, but he still loves to snuggle sometimes, especially if he gets to watch a show. He loves to sing and knows so many songs. Most of his favorites are Christmas songs. This morning (six days after his birthday) he walked sadly out to the kitchen and said, "You forgot to sing 'Nature Thing' to me on my birthday." It took me a minute to figure out that he was talking about Joy to the World. Of course when I sang it to him, he told me it's not his birthday. :-) I don't know how I could have forgotten to sing him a Christmas song on his March 26 birthday! But I should have thought of it. Because we have been singing Christmas songs at our house every. single. day. since October at our house. :-) We are the family walking through the grocery store - in April, yes it even happened today - with Tyler belting out Christmas songs at the top of his lungs and Carsten doing his very best to imitate him, also at the top of his lungs. We are quite a sight.

Tyler loves his brother so much. They are lucky to have each other. He definitely has his moments, but he is such a good big brother. Even with all of his new birthday toys he is very willing to share with him. He calls him his best friend. And the other day I even saw him spontaneously give him a hug and tell him, "I love you so much in the whole wide world. You are so special to me." He is just so sweet with him.

He had his three year old check up last week and he was quite the little conversationalist. Right before the doctor came in he started loudly (I mean very loudly) telling/shouting a story. I don't remember what it was about, but it started like this, "Once upon and time in a land far, far away, there lived a little boy named..." The doctor came in mid-story and had heard it from the office next door. :-) During the appointment Tyler proceeded to tell her all about how he loves to feed his tigers and raccoons milk and that he's not actually Tyler, he's Daddy. He also told her he's a kangaroo.

Just like Daddy

It's been awhile since I've posted some of his many write-downable moments, so here are a few.

As we were driving home from church:
   Tyler: Are you having trouble driving Daddy?
   Carl: No, does it seem like I am?
   Tyler: Yeah. You're supposed to use two hands. Not one.
Busted! :-)

We are constantly reminding him that he needs to answer us when we talk to him. Specifically when we ask him to do something, or ask what he is doing. Lately when we tell him to do something (not every time of course, but often) he has been enthusiastically shouting, " Ok, I would LOVE to do that!"

There is no way to describe his half fake, half real laugh without you hearing it, but it is contagious and makes me laugh almost every time. And lately he does it while saying, "I'm so excited!!" About so many things. It's just cute. :-)

Tyler has become a professional bed time avoider recently. He is getting more and more creative. He's long since moved on from asking for water or saying he needs to go potty again. Here are a few of his excuses for coming out of his room:

"I'm just showing you where your room is."
"I'm just checking on you to make sure you're ok."
"You forgot to tell me what I will lose" and "You forgot to tell me what my rule is if I come out." We always tell him he will lose a stuffed animal for coming out of his room when he should be sleeping.

Last night I thought he was calling me so I went into his room. I think he had just been talking to his animals though. But when I got there he figured we should talk for awhile. I asked if he needed something. "Yes...I need... something...kind of like... I just have to tell you....something...like...I'm just kind of thinking...about something... I have to tell you...so I need you to be in here... so I can kind of tell you about something...so I have to think about it...it's kind of...something..." This went on for quite awhile. Clearly whatever he had to say was very important. :-)

And here's the best one. We were happily eating lunch a couple of weeks ago. I started cleaning up and Tyler decided he wanted more food. So while he should be eating, I looked up from the dishwasher to see he had climbed out of his chair and pulled his pants down.
   Me: Tyler what are you doing?!
   Tyler: I'm going potty like a dinosaur.
   Me: Tyler, pull your pants up. You need to go potty in the bathroom!
   Tyler: (stands up a little taller) No, I need to go potty like a dinosaur.
   Me: Do not go potty out here. Go to the bathroom.
   Tyler: (bends his knees) I'm going potty like a dinosaur.
   Me: STOP IT! STOP, NOW! TYLER STOP RIGHT NOW! STOP!!! (as I am running across    the room watching him "go potty like a dinosaur" all over the kitchen floor. Yep. That    happened. He lost all of his dinosaur toys and books for quite awhile for that one.

This picture was taken last night. Apparently some woodpeckers decided to take up residency in our furnace vent. While Carl was outside taking care of it, Tyler decided he needed to go out too. I told him that we didn't have safety goggles and work gloves to keep us safe like Daddy, so we should stay inside. He immediately took off running to his room and dug through his dress-up drawer saying, "I have those too!" and put these on. It was hard to argue with that logic. :-)

Tyler you make us laugh constantly. You are a complete joy and a blessing and we are thankful for you every single day. Happy third birthday baby boy!