Little Shepherd Boy

This past week our church presented a Live Nativity, and our little Karterman was the cutest little shepherd boy in all of Bethlehem! He was bundled up pretty good and could barely put his arms down (think A Christmas Story), but he thoroughly enjoyed wearing his costume Gran-Gran made.
The animals were a big hit...

Karter had fun with his church friends, Abby and Anna.

Earlier in the day he didn't really want to wear his costume, but we promised Uncle Kyler would be wearing one too and he was fine with it then...he always wants to do what Uncle Kyler is doing!

Papaw Bud and Gran-Gran stopped by to see the Nativity.

Aunt Emmy was the master mind behind the whole event, and did a great job organizing everything!

Daddy made a pretty cute shepherd too!

The Nativity was the perfect event to set the mood for our Christmas week, and to remind us of the reason for the season.

Merry Christmas!!

Kaden's Learning to Walk

This morning Kaden has started to take an interest in walking. He has been cruising the furniture for some time now, and will occasionally let go and stand by himself for a few seconds. For Karter's first Christmas Santa brought him a walker, and today Kaden has been cruising all around with it. (I apologize for the terrible camera work. When the screen goes black for a bit I thought I had turned it off, but apparently I had not!)

Right after he fell in the above video, he got right back up and tried again. After he realized the gate to the stairs was down, he abandoned the idea of walking and seized the opportunity to climb the stairs!

Christmas Cuties

This morning I downloaded a new program (Picasa 3) onto our computer and I have quickly become very obsessed with it. I love the collage option! To play around with it I took some of my favorite shots from our Christmas tree photo shoot and made a cute collage...oh the possibilities are endless with this program!!

Wordless Wednesday Part II

Wordless Wednesday

Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers

Sunday morning we loaded up the van and headed down to Bloomington for the day. The purpose of the trip was to take in a basketball game, but we made a day of it and went early to spend some extra time with Kyler and Kara. It was so awesome to be back in B-town and taking in some of our favorite sites again. We may have mentioned on a few occasions how much fun it would be to live there, and also how much we love the town because it is where we feel in love!

We took in a lot of old sites, but Kristoffer was really excited to take in a new one too...Cook Hall. Besides checking out the new building, he was pretty excited to teach his sons about IU's basketball legacy...

...and showing them the National Championship Trophies.

Our seats were up in the balcony, but of course there isn't a bad seat in Assembly Hall. The balcony was only about half full, so it was nice to have plenty of room to move around and not have to climb over anyone.

Karter was in complete amazement most of the time. For the first 30 minutes he looked all around asking questions about everything and pointing out every IU that he saw.

Kaden was really good for most of the game and loved all the clapping! Whenever the crowd would clap he would look around, smile, and then start clapping too!

With about seven minutes left in the first half, Karter started to get a little antsy, so I asked him if he wanted some popcorn and a pop. Of course, he jumped at the opportunity to have a snack, but I started to rethink giving him his own pop. However, once you mention something to Karter he does not forget it, so no matter how hard I tried he was adamant about having the pop too. In the end, we got a popcorn and a pop...and I would do it all over again. He sat still for a long time eating his snack, and polished off half the popcorn by himself!

Kristoffer has always loved the 8 minute time out in the second half...

...and he wasn't disappointed this time either!

Kaden was such a good baby the whole game, but towards the end, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stay awake.

The Hoosiers played great and blew South Carolina State out of the water, winning 102-60. We had a blast being on campus again, cheering on the hustling Hoosiers, and look forward to taking the boys to more games in the future! Thanks Kyler and Kara for a great day!!

Go Hoosiers

We are gearing up for a weekend of family fun! Tomorrow, for the first time in a long time, we don't have anywhere we need to be (except Kristoffer has to go to work in the morning) and we plan on playing in the snow and making Christmas cookies. We are most excited about our trip down to Bloomington on Sunday. We will be spending the day with Kyler & Kara, and going to the IU basketball game in the afternoon.

Karter already knows he will be going to college at IU, so to prepare him for the game we have been teaching him the school song. He is pretty cute and will randomly sing "for the glory of old IU!" Last night we were talking about IU and he started doing some cheers...of course, by the time I got the camera he was done, but I did manage to get a cut video...

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Elf

Karter is very excited about Christmas this year, and he is really into all of the decorations. Whenever we are driving at night, he loves to point out all the Christmas lights he sees along the way...he loves it when a house has a "Frosty". At home, he is as equally excited. Every morning his job is to turn the Christmas tree on...he loves his job, and takes it very seriously!

On Sunday Karter got to play the role of a Christmas Elf as he helped Daddy wrap my gifts! He has the perfect little finger to help with the ribbon, and I guess he found the tape and wanted to help with that...I try to hide the tape from him while I'm wrapping!

I wasn't allowed in the room they were wrapping in, but Terry snuck in to catch two of my cuties in action!

Kaden didn't like being left out, so when Gramaw went in to take a picture, he snuck in too!

After the boxes were wrapped, our little Christmas Elf would run the package out to put under the tree.

He took his job very seriously and had a lot of fun helping, but something he didn't take very seriously...not telling mommy what was in the boxes! He spilled the beans about one of them, but I can't wait until Christmas morning to open them all!!

Hand-me-downs

A lot of the things Kaden wears are hand-me-downs from Karter. It is one of the biggest advantages of having two boys! Although they were born in different seasons, up until now we have been able to use a lot of the same things. Today I pulled out this IU sweatsuit and it is the only winter thing we have in 18 months. We have a lot of summer things, but I fear he will be too big for them come summer.

It is so hard to believe that Karter wore this same outfit just 5 days before Kaden was born. How is my baby big enough to wear it already!?

Great Grandparents!

One day last week our play date with some friends got cancelled, so we tagged along with Gramaw to have lunch with Papaw Bud and Gran-Gran. As you can see...Kaden was super excited to hang out with his "great" grandparents for awhile!

We had lunch at a small town restaurant in Hagerstown. Karter has been there only one time before, but he remembered his chocolate milk came in a cool cup!

Karter was busy most of the meal stealing chips from Gran-Gran's plate, and Kaden spent his lunch time smiling at Papaw Bud.

After lunch we went back to their house so Karter could get measured for his costume.

Karter is going to be in our church's live nativity next week, and he is going to get a custom made costume. (I think it is pretty neat that both of the boy's great grandma's do a lot of sewing!)

When he was finished getting measured, Karter didn't waste anytime digging into Gran-Gran's pile of toys. She had gotten a book in her cereal, and of course Karter was into reading it.

Kaden was feeling a little left out, and decided to join in...

...and then he was on to something else!

There were so many new things to get into, Kaden didn't know where to go next. Shortly after this picture was taken, the coffee table was cleaned off!

We love so many things about living in Indiana again, but being able to spend time with family is at the top of the list. It makes us so happy that our children will grow up knowing our grandparents!!

Wordless Wednesday