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!

Random Photos and Videos

Carsten is really growing up all of a sudden!  He is starting to walk all around the furniture.  He seems to crawl only to get to his next destination so that he can stand.  He also decided to wait until visiting Grandma and Grandpa Walker to start clapping.  It was awesome that they got to witness a few of his firsts with us.  He also mastered crawling over their step up from the living room.  We had never even saw him attempt anything like this before.  We managed to get the clapping on video while we were at Aunt Katie and Uncle Brad's house.

Jayden and Carsten have really been developing a close brother bond.  As Carsten gets bigger and more mobile, they actually play together now.  It is really cute to watch.  Jayden is an amazing big brother, and Carsten just adores him!  We could not have asked for a better situation.

Jayden also recently participated in our school's Turkey Trot.  He raced against the other 1st grade males in Hudsonville.  They ran for approximately 3/4 of a lap.  He had a great time!  He is somewhere in this mob of boys :)

Carsten is starting to find things really funny these days!  He is very adventurous and loves getting swung around, spun around, tossed in the air, etc.  He finds all sort of things hilarious as well, which causes everyone else to laugh right along with him.  I seem to never have my phone or camera handy when he really gets to laughing, but here are a couple of samples.

Jacob's 3rd Birthday

We had the pleasure of enjoying Jacob's 3rd Birthday recently.  Carsten and Jacob had some great cousin bonding moments.  It was wonderful to see all of the family and get to spend time with everyone.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time this year for Halloween.  Jayden wanted to be Luigi (from the Mario Bros. Game) and Carsten was a dinosaur.  Jayden told everyone that Carsten was actually Bowser (the bad guy from the Mario Bros. Game, that happens to be a dinosaur).  I surprised Jayden, and showed up with Carsten at his school Halloween party....we all had a great time!

A couple other random Halloween pictures from our house.  One picture is of Jayden with his fake mustaches...he was really excited about that part of his costume!

9 Months Old!

Carsten is officially 9 months old today, 10/21/13!  It doesn't seem possible that he is already that old. However, to look at him, you would believe it.  In the last 2 days people have thought he was both 1 (in person) and 2 (in a picture)!  Apparently, he looks "healthy."  We're pretty sure that's the polite way of saying fat and/or huge haha :)  After he learned to crawl, within a week he had figured out how to pull up on things.  He currently cruises all around the furniture, and has even perfected standing up against the wall, a door, etc.  We fear that walking may be just around the corner, which in Carsten's world is more likely to be running.  Overall, he is a very happy, fun-loving little guy.  He is hardly ever un-happy unless he's hungry or tired, or possibly if his impending teeth are bugging him.  We've said it before, but we are very blessed to have such a wonderful child.  He feels our hearts will joy daily! 

 Jayden is also doing well.  He is having a great school year, and had a great football season as well (ok, not great, but he did improve quite a bit).  His last game went out with a bang....low 40s and raining (hard), but his team stuck it out and lost...again....to keep a perfect losing record.  Oh well, there's always next year.  He seemed to have a lot of fun.  The next activity that he wants to participate in is Ice-Skating lessons in the winter, followed by Baseball.  

Here are a few pictures and movies of Carsten over the last few weeks.  I need to be better about getting more pictures of Jayden, sorry.

 Carsten enjoying Jayden's football game last weekend (not the rainy one).

 Look Mom!  I'm standing in the tub!!!  (Scary!)

 "This is so fun!  I'm really impressed with my new skills!"

One of Carsten's favorites....taunting Hank from inside.

 The best possible seat for watching the Tiger's game....REALLY up close (this was a first, he still ignores tv for the most part).

Yep, this is a 12 month pants outfit (not capris like it looks)...just bought some new clothes for him, all 18 months.

The first day that Carsten pulled up on the table.

Carsten playing in the tub today, 10/21/13.  He's getting sooo big!  He really likes reading his Curious George tub book (thanks cousin Jacob for buying that for him).

For those of you that haven't heard of Bucket Fillers...the concept is that doing good things for people makes them happy, but also makes you feel good too.  Jayden wrote this message for me on his white board yesterday.  It melted my heart!  He can be such a sweet boy!!!  The picture is a heart letter with wings, next to a mailbox.