This Girl.

Aria was three months old last weekend! I took the pictures on the right day, it's just taken me a week to get them up here. :-)

Aria is this sweet little breath of fresh air to me. You simply can't have a bad day with her around. If it's a little rough, all I have to do is look at her and she gives me that beautiful little smile and totally relaxes me. She is just so sweet!

At three months she is smiling all the time, enjoying her play gym and giving great big, wet, open-mouthed kisses. And today she started laughing! It was adorable and she did it every time we tried to get her to. So cute!

Being a parent is weird. I can't quite explain how I feel about my kids growing up. I don't ever want Aria to grow, because I want her to stay little forever. I'm already sad that she's not a tiny sized newborn anymore, but at the same time, I love watching her grow and change and learn new things. And I can't wait for the next fun new thing!

Aria Grace you are a very loved baby girl. :-) Just look at how much these sweet boys adore you. :-)

When we were at my parents' house Aria fussed just a little and I made a comment about how she was having kind of a rough night. My mom's response was, "That's a rough night?!" And I thought about it, and it really was. She is just so laid back and so patient, almost all the time. And we are thankful for that! It makes adding a third child to this mix much smoother!

Tyler wanted to help with the pictures. :-) And I kind of love this one because it shows how tiny she still is!

Traveling With Three!

A couple weeks ago Carl went on a fishing trip.

He caught this guy on his first night!

So I had to decide which was better - six days at home with the kids by myself, or two 10 hour car rides by myself with three kids. We chose the second, because the long trip is worth it to get some extra time with Papa Joe Grandma Ronni (who is also known as Papa Joe by Carsten). And lucky for us, my sister ended up deciding to go with us, so I had some help along the way.

The drive down was completely perfect. We got there with only three stops, and one was just a quick ten minute one because Aria couldn't quite make it twenty more minutes without food. It was pretty amazing.

The way home... well it was not as perfect. The drive is eight hours of actual driving time, but usually takes us about ten hours. Like I said, we got to Kansas in three stops. On the way home we made eleven. Eleven. Eleven stops in an eight hour drive. And one was an hour and twenty minutes long because we may or may not have run out of gas. I will tell you what. I love our mini van, but it seriously has the worst low fuel signal in the history of ever. As embarrassing as it is to admit, this is not the first time this has happened since we got the van in September. Anyway, the trip took almost 14 hours, even though we ate both lunch and dinner in the car.

But it was still worth it! We had a great time with my parents.

Breakfast on the deck.

Aria's new camping chair!

Carsten and "Auntie Em's Woof-woof."

We spent our last afternoon at Papa Joe and Grandma Ronni's zoo. Tyler talks about this zoo all the time so he was really excited to go again!

The peacocks just wander around everywhere.

Watching the kangaroos!

 Carsten and his best friend.

When my parents were here a couple months ago Carsten started calling my mom Papa Joe. So on this trip we kept trying to get him to call her any version of Grandma. We tried to get him to say Nana, Nana Ronni, Grandma and lots of other things. But every time he just grinned and said, "I can't how." On the last morning he was praying for each person at the table. He listed every one of our names but when he got to my mom he just stopped and pointed at her and kept going. The rest of the morning he just looked or pointed at her. It was so cute. Since we've been home he's gone back to calling them "Papa Joe and Papa Joe." :-)

The boys had so much fun on this trip that they both melted down at different times because they missed everyone. In the car Tyler started saying he didn't want to go home and when I asked why he said he wanted to go back to Kansas because he missed Papa Joe and Grandma Ronni. As Carsten was getting ready for bed that night he burst into tears crying for Auntie Em's woof-woof... and then eventually the actual people. :-)

Celebrating

Sunday was a busy day at our house. It was Carsten's second birthday and Aria's dedication at church, as well as Mother's Day. 

We started the day heading off to church bright and early for the dedication. It's hard for us to get to church and have the kids all checked in by 9 on a normal Sunday. But we needed to be there early for the dedication. So it was really pushing it to be out the door by 8:15 looking put together, with food for lunch prepped, and our house clean and ready for company, but we did it!

It was fun to celebrate the day with some of our family who were able to come. And even though we celebrated Carsten's birthday the day before, he still got to open some presents from Grandma and Grandpa Hagen while they were there.

For me, a happy Mother's Day is just spending it with my happy, healthy little family, and I got to do that. :-) But they also managed to sneak away and get me flowers.

 I love this picture Carl took of them carrying them through the check-out!

That night after everyone left, Carl said we could go anywhere I wanted for dinner so I didn't have to cook. But to be honest, it had been a busy weekend and a lack of sleep had been catching up with me. It might sound lame, but I didn't want to go anywhere. I just wanted to stay home and relax with my family. So we did the best of both worlds. We ordered dinner from Olive Garden and Carl picked it up and brought it home. It was the best.

I told Carl that what I really wanted for Mother's Day was pictures of me and my babies. Pictures in which they were actually smiling and not making faces. :-)

Aria is the only one who didn't happily cooperate, but I forgive her. She's just little. :-)

In case I haven't had enough of these on here lately, I have a few more quotes from Tyler. They are like every other minute around here lately. (He's having quiet rest time right now and just as I wrote that he said, "Kristi, do you know what an aardvark is?" Kristi? Really?!)

Sometimes when Carsten wakes up he's a little grumpy and Tyler just wants to hug him and love him. So as Tyler tried to hug him and he threw himself to the floor with all sorts of attitude Tyler said, "Oh, Carsten. You are the most dramatic little boy I've ever seen!"

We went to the park and when we got there Tyler decided to keep his helmet on just in case he fell off the wobbly bridge. He's never fallen off this bridge and he's totally not afraid of anything. He's just super conscientious. He's the child who climbs to the top of things and asks if he's terrifying me before he jumps off. It's just not quite as satisfying to him if he doesn't think I'm scared. Anyway, after a little bit he jumped onto the bridge and fell onto his knees. 

Tyler: I hurt my knees even though I had my helmet on.

Me: Well your helmet only protects your head. You can still get hurt in other places, so you still need to be careful.

Tyler: I should have put on the gospel of peace!

We were talking about preschool and the possibility of homeschooling at some point. I asked him what he thought of me teaching him at home. He put both of his hands over his face and said very dramatically, "Oh. My. Goodness. I do NOT want to be home schooled!" How does he even know enough about it to have an opinion like that? Of course, the next day he told me he doesn't want to go to preschool, he wants to be home schooled. :-)

Carstenator!

Carsten turned two today! He kind of looks like he's two already and he definitely acts like he's two. He also has been telling everyone he's two (while holding up one finger) for awhile. So now he actually is the age I've been thinking of him as. :-)

This was a pretty busy day for us - Mother's Day, Aria's Dedication and Carsten's birthday. So we did most of our birthday celebrating yesterday.

Waking up to birthday streamers!

And birthday breakfast.

I asked Carsten what he wanted on his birthday cake. He said, "Candy cane!" Which is what he calls all candy. And really, what is the one thing that every yellow cake with thick, chocolate butter cream frosting needs? More sugar, obviously. So a candy cane cake is what he got. :-)

You should have seen his eyes light up when he saw it. He was a fan.

A sweet thank you hug for his birthday present. :-)

Carsten loved his gifts so much that he left this one sitting in the middle of the room. He was so excited about playing with his new "choo-choo" that he wasn't even interested in opening the big one that was left. When he finally came back to it he was super excited though. He couldn't wait to get outside and ride his new scooter.

Carsten is sweet and spunky. He either wants to do things completely by himself or he very sweetly says, "Help me, please." He has great manners. He says please and thank you almost always. And he always addresses people by name. "Thank you Ty-Ty." "Help me please Daddy." "Hold me please Mommy." He loves trains, animals and balls and he loves to play outside. He is also so funny! He is constantly making us laugh. He has a great sense of humor and the world's cutest laugh. And everywhere we go people comment on his awesome hair. In fact at Menard's there's an old man who works there who comes up to us every single time we're there to tell us how much he loves his hair that sticks out everywhere.

Here are few of my favorite things. He calls animals by the sounds they make. Dogs are woof-woofs. Horses, donkeys and monkeys are hee-haws. Lions and tigers and dinosaurs are rars. Roosters are cock-a-doodle-doos. But ducks he gets right, and he talks about them a lot. When he can't or doesn't want to do something, he says, "I can't how." Every single time I give him food - a snack, a meal, anything - he takes a bite and says, "It yummy Mommy." And he prays at every meal a variation of this prayer: "Ty-Ty eat, Daddy eat, Mommy eat, Eeya eat, My eat (sometimes he repeats a few of these and sometimes he says "eat food"), Amen!

I love this boy so much. He is not just cute and fun. He is so sweet, and loving. He can be so cuddly when he wants to and he gives the sweetest hugs. He is great with his little sister, always giving her a pacifier or sharing his blankets with her. He loves it when he can get her to hold on to his finger!

I am so thankful to have this sweet boy in my life. He is such a little blessing and answer to prayer. The time is going way too fast, but I am loving his little personality and watching him grow and learn so many new things. Carsten, you are so loved! Your brother and sister adore you and Daddy and I love you more than you will ever know. Thank you for being such an amazing little boy. We thank God everyday for the amazing gift he gave us when you were born. Happy second birthday little love!

A Couple More Quotes

The things that come out of this child's mouth totally crack me up.

Me: Are you guys hungry for some breakfast?
Tyler: Well, I'm not really hungry, but I'm assuming I should eat so I'm healthy.

Right now Tyler is only taking naps every other day and is having rest time with books on the other days. Until today he had been happy either way, but he really didn't want a nap this time. He was coming at it from every angle he could possibly think of., including trying to convince us that he sleeps while he turns the pages.

Tyler: Mom, can I tell you the truth? (Then he came up close and put his hands on my cheeks.) I'm gonna tell you the truth. For instance, I know that I can close my eyes while I read my books.

Laid Back Day

I don't know if it was the cooler day or the cloudy skies, but today was just super relaxed. We needed to go to the grocery store, but to be honest, I didn't want to ruin a good thing. And at one point Tyler said he just wanted to have a laid back day all day and not go anywhere. I totally agreed with him, so we stayed home. The boys went into their room and listened to a story CD while they looked at books. After a little while Carsten came back out and played with Duplos, and Tyler just kept on looking at books. And I got to spend lots of time snuggling with my baby girl. I'm not sure who needed this day more, me or them, but we all enjoyed it!

I took these pictures at noon, right before we ate lunch. All three kids were still in their pajamas and love it!

This one was from yesterday. I'm loving this girl's smiles. :-)

In the last 24 hours I've also gotten a lot of great Tyler quotes.

Tyler: Daddy, do you have any friends that losed brain cells? I have losed seven brain cells. But I still remember the things that I remember.

Me: How did you lose seven brain cells?

Tyler: I've been bumping my head, but I still remember everything I remembered before.

Mommy, the older you get, the weaker you're going to be. You're gonna get less strong. But I will be here to take care of you. But I'm going to be a fire fighter so I won't be here all the time because I'll be out there fighting fires. But I'll bring the fire fighters to come and see you when I'm driving the truck.

Tyler: Mom, can I watch Daniel Tiger during rest time?

Me: No, I don't think we're going to watch anything today.

Tyler: Mom. Are you sure? Because I'm really good at watching movies.

And then about ten minutes later: Hey Mom, can you apologize to me for not letting me watch a movie?

These three just make me smile. :-)

Last weekend we went to the zoo and I have pictures I haven't had a chance to put up yet. So I'll put them here. We always have fun at the zoo, but this time was especially fun! Maybe it's their ages, but the boys had such a blast and it was so fun to watch them enjoy their day so much. :-)