Carsten - growing like crazy!

Carsten has proven to be a constant source of entertainment!  He is getting more and more interested in how things work lately.  On Saturday 1/4/14, he discovered our lamp...specifically that it has an on/off cord.  This provided endless entertainment for him!  He seems to prefer leaving it off for some reason.

Carsten has also discovered (Sunday 1/15/14) that our television has a small on/off button as well.  This one is amazing to him....not so impressive to anyone trying to watch tv!  When he first discovered the button, he would push it over and over listening to it click.  After about an hour of this, he realized that it did something.  He would push it then look around to see if the tv actually went off.  Then, he would push it again, then check to see that it actually came back on.  Then, repeat.  Over and over and over again.  Good times.

We have been dealing with a huge winter storm since this weekend.  Even though we were supposed to go back to school on Monday, that did not happen.  We got the call on Sunday that school was canceled for Monday.  We got the call on Monday, that school was canceled again on Tuesday.  We will see when we return :)  We have really enjoyed just spending time as a family though, and are very grateful for the extra time off.  Jayden and Carsten have had a lot of play time as well.  Carsten has always adored his big brother, but he has recently decided that Jayden is about the funniest person ever.  Jayden was tossing around a pink golf ball, and Carsten thought it was hysterical...we enjoyed the baby giggles!

Christmas 2013

Christmas was a whirlwind this year, but we had a great time!  Matt, Carsten, and I went to the Walker's on Christmas Eve to spend some time with Bob and Karen.  We had a great Mexican dinner, and had fun catching up.  On Christmas Day, we all went over to Brad, Katie, and Jacob's house to open gifts.  After spending some time at the Jones residence, I left to pick up Jayden, while Matt went to visit Grandpa Crawford.  From there, we met back up and the Rogers residence.  It was a great to see to see everyone there, including James in from California, and Grandma Walker.  Jayden was really excited to get to see all of his Walker family people.  After a short while, we then headed down to Ferndale on Christmas Day night to see Todd, Lauren, Easton, and Jim and Debbie.  We opened presents with everyone, then had some great Chicken Fried Rice that Todd made for us.  Around 9:00 pm, we left and headed back for Hudsonville.  Santa was coming, since it was still Christmas day, and we had to get the boys in bed.  We had a wonderful time.  We wish that we had more time at each place we went, but we were very thankful to have been able to see as many family members as we did!  Here are a few of the highlights...

On December 26, Jayden woke up very excited to see what Santa had brought for him and Carsten.  He even asked in his Santa letter, if he would please bring something nice for his baby brother since he cannot write yet.  They boys loved their Santa presents and had a lot of fun playing with their gifts.  Matt and I had more fun watching them :)  After the boys were done playing with their Santa gifts, we opened the rest of our gifts to/from each other.  Jayden insisted we open his presents to us first, which was pretty cute.  We really had a great day!

Carsten really loves his Cozy Coupe!

Jim and Debbie were able to come over to visit with us 12/27/13.  We opened presents with them at that time. Unfortunately, I really dropped the ball and didn't take any pictures..oops.  We had a great time with them, and Matt even got treated to an early birthday dinner at The Derby Station...it was fantastic!

Jayden and Carsten visit Santa!

The Hudsonville Grille (a local restaurant very close to our house) was hosting a breakfast with Santa.  It was their regular breakfast, but Santa was there for the kids to visit with, take pictures with, etc.  When we first got there, Carsten was very intrigued by this white bearded man.  He kept staring at him from our table.  We happened to be only about 10 feet from Santa, so he had a great view from his high chair.  We ordered our food, and decided to get pictures before Carsten could get food all over himself .  Apparently, Santa was much more appealing from a distance.  It made for some great (not happy) pictures of him with Santa.  The whole restaurant actually got a good laugh over his unhappiness.  After Santa left, the boys had no problem hanging out in his chair for some pictures...oh well, maybe next year :)

Decorating our Christmas Tree

Last year we had our first ever real tree....this year we bought a new fake tree haha.  We decided with Carsten crawling around, the needles everywhere just were not very practical.  We found a pre-lit tree on Black Friday that we really liked.  The boys seemed to enjoy decorating it, and surprisingly Carsten wasn't too bad with the tree.  He did like to take the glittery round ornaments off of the tree and carry them around, but they weren't breakable, so it didn't matter.

Jayden created some gingerbread cookies.  This has become a tradition for him each year (a train, a house, a village), and this year he made the gingerbread men and women.  I think he ended up eating 2 out of the 8 he made (7 made it to completion, the head broke off of 1 of them).  Oh well, he had fun!

Thanksgiving 2013

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog.  We have been busy enjoying time with family over the holidays!  For Thanksgiving this year, we stayed at our house, and were thankful to host our first Thanksgiving.  Jim and Debbie Clouse, as well as Todd, Lauren, and Easton all came out to Hudsonville to celebrate.  We also did some Black Friday shopping (Brandy, Lauren, and Debbie), as well as a nice dinner out to one of our favorites, The Twisted Rooster.  We had a great time :)

 Carsten's first Thanksgiving!  Any holiday that involves eating is a great holiday for Carsten!!  Even though he's eating cheerios below, he tried almost all of the Thanksgiving foods, and liked them!  We're still searching for a food that Carsten will not eat....we love that he is the complete opposite of a picky eater!

Dad, Mom, Todd, Lauren, and Easton were also able to stay until Monday, 12/2/13, which was Jayden's Christmas Program with school.  He sang a total of 3 songs with all of the Jamestown Elementary 1st graders, and did a great job!