The Growing Gray Family

Garbage Disposal

2012-01-27T06:07:00.004-06:00

When we first started living in our house, we knew right away that we would be putting a garbage disposal in. I guess it is one of those things that if you've never had one, you don't know what you are missing....but believe me, if you've ever had one, you definitely know what you are missing when you suddenly don't have one!!! Kristoffer was very eager to get it installed at the beginning of this month. All along I thought we were going to hire the job out, but he decided it was a project he thought he could do himself....he did work 2 summers in construction, so I somewhat trusted him to do the job! If all else failed, we thought we could get someone to come in if he got stumped...but he did the job amazingly (sorry I ever doubted you babe!!)!

Step 1: Unhook the dishwasher to gain access to the wall behind it.

Step 2: He played around with the electrical wires and split them.

Step 3: Run new electrical wires for the disposal. Does he think that cute smile of his is making me feel more comfortable with the wire mess he has going on there!?

Step 4: Unhook the drain and install the disposal. This step was a little tricky and I had to help unhook the drain. After years of hard water, the drain was very stuck!!

Step 5: Trim the pipes to fit and hook them all back up!

Step 6: USE THE DISPOSAL!!!

There were a few hiccups along the day and it may have taken much longer than we originally thought, I am extremely proud of Kristoffer for his hard work on this project!

I even got the honors of flipping the switch for the first time!!

Wordless Wednesday - Books From Minnesota

2012-01-25T07:00:00.002-06:00

Random Recap: After Christmas - Present

2012-01-23T05:55:00.008-06:00

The day after Christmas we loaded up our van and headed to the west side of the state to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. It started out with gifts and lunch at Mom's....who had more than enough help passing out the presents!

Our handsome nephew, Jonah and our very stylish and accessorized niece, Olivia!

After a day of practice, Kaden was finally into opening his presents!

But was still pleased to play with one thing at a time.

Big brother on the other hand was not very patient and wanted every new thing out as soon as he opened it!

Christmas at Mom's is very different (but much more fun!) with 4 kids 4 and under running around!!!

This is the only picture I took at the Miller Christmas at Grandma's, but we all thought the big boys sitting at the "kids table" was super cute!!

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A few days after Christmas Jake and his gang came to visit our house for a few nights. One day for fun we took the kids to the Children's Museum in Muncie.

Of course, the big hit was watching the model trains go around!

The new "Tot Spot" was open and all the kids enjoyed the slide.

Karter wanted to practice helping Papaw in the garden!

That evening I had a little bit of helping making (or tasting!) some cinnamon bread for the next morning!

Rub-a-dub-dub 4 babies in a tub!

Mmmm...our cinnamon bread turned out wonderfully! It must have been all the little hands that helped. :)

Jonah wanted to help make some cookies...so Karter let him borrow his whale apron.

This one is all about the tasting!

We had such a wonderful time with the Tomaw family and were so sad to see them go!

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Uncle Jake and Aunt Joscelynn gave Karter a box of 4 12-piece puzzles for Christmas. The first day we opened them, we went through them together once and after that he was putting them together so fast by himself! He catches on quickly, and loves doing puzzles!

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We are slowly turning our new home into our own and adding our personal touches. I have a thing for monograms and have made 2 already for our house with a couple more on my radar. I made this jute covered G and a 4 for our mantel. I love doing different crafts to add a bit of us to our new space!

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Karter and Daddy having a standing 7am date every Sunday morning...my two hunks make us delicious pancakes for breakfast! For Christmas, "the boys" gave Daddy a perfect pancake maker. Karter loves to help his Daddy!!

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We haven't ever had a TV in our bedroom and we really don't watch it very much, but it came with the house so we kept it in there. The ones who us it the most is the boys! A couple times a few weeks ago, Karter woke up way to early. So while I was busy doing something else he crawled up into our bed to watch a "Karter show".

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Karter is so sweet and innocent. The other day he told me he needed a pen and paper so he could write a letter. When he was finished writ ting he read it to me so I could write down what it said...I just simple wrote what my sweet boy said!

"Dear Lord, Thank you for making everything. For making the plants and all the food we eat. Amen."

"Dear Lord, Thank you for making all the children. And for blessing all the cars. Thank you for loving me. Amen"

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Last week I was working on cookies all morning and suddenly I noticed that the boys were WAY to quiet. To my surprise, when I found them they were just reading books to each other!!

I think we are pretty much up-to-date now...thanks for being patient with us! Hopefully tomorrow, we will be back to regular posting. :)

Smarty Pants

2012-01-20T06:15:00.002-06:00

Karterman never ceases to amaze me with the new things he is learning. Wednesday night I was making dinner while we was playing with his puzzles at the table (something he has done all day for the past week). When he told me he was going to do his state puzzle I told him to let me know if he needed help putting some of the states in their spots.

I got busy in the kitchen and didn't hear a peep from him, and then the next time I turn around he is putting in some of the last pieces! I was totally shocked that he could do it all by himself!!

He was so proud of himself, and I was so proud of him too! He not only knows where they go, but he knows about 90% of the names and can recognize the spelling.

This is a ~~little~~ long video I shot yesterday morning of the boys playing with the puzzle. Karter was a bit distracted with Kaden "helping". He is getting much faster...in the time it has taken me to type this post, he has already finished the puzzle once this morning....he will only do approximately 99 more times today!! Enjoy...

Random Recap: End of November - Mid December 2011

2012-01-19T05:38:00.009-06:00

This news is nearly 2 months old and I am sure most everyone already knows, but the day after Thanksgiving, Kristoffer and I made the ultimate Black Friday purchase...a new car! The weekend before he was driving the Tracker home and all of a sudden he lost all ability to steer it. I'm sure every wife does not want to hear the words "it feels like one of the tires is about to fall off" about the vehicle your husband drives over 100 miles a day to and from work. We have some amazing people in our lives who are in the car repair business, so we slowly drove the Tracker there and waited for the news. God was definitely watching over Kristoffer, and thankfully he wasn't driving on the interstate when it happened, because the cross member (part of the alignment that hold the front two tires in place) had rusted into two pieces and the wheels were basically just flapping around in there.

The Tracker had been a great car for us and made many long trips with us, but was old and had a lot of miles on it. We had been hoping that it would last "one more winter" for the past couple of years, so it came as no surprise when they said it would be more to repair than it was worth. Not pleased with the timing, but happy to find Kristoffer a safer car we set out on a quest for a cheap, fuel efficient commuter car for him.

Our search took us to a local Chevy dealer, thankfully it was close enough to home that we could leave the boys with some loving family while we did the initial leg work of buying a car. While they were finishing up the detail work on the car, we ran home to get them so they could ride in Daddy's new car!

The Tracker had definitely seen better days, but it was a bit emotional seeing it go! It had been Kristoffer's car since the day I met him, and I knew what to look for when I was waiting for him to get home. More than anything, we had really just enjoyed the luxury of not having to make a car payment for it for all these years!

It is definitely not our family car, but is the right size just in case we all need to ride in it.

source Google Images

We purchased a 2012 Chevy Sonic. Every day on Kristoffer's commute, I used to wait for him to call and say he was stranded somewhere (that's how unreliable the Tracker was!), but this new car offers a piece of mind that is priceless!!

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When we decorated the rest of the house for Christmas, Karter was super excited to have his nativity set out too.

He is so precious, and every day he called me in to see all the people that were coming to see baby Jesus!!

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My MOPS group had a cookie exchange for our last meeting of the semester. Each member was to bring 4 dozen cookies.

4 dozen Christmas cookies! This platter has drummed up quite a bit of business!!

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My boys!!!

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Back in August, Kristoffer took over as the teacher of our Sunday School class. He is an amazing teacher and I love to watch him grow in his faith. Our last two sets of curriculum have been video series, Karter loves helping Daddy prepare for class!

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The week before the big move we moved our TV into the house and had Dish come out to set up our TV. Our two very curious little boys kept wanting to "help" the guy set up the satellite, so I rented a movie on the iPad for them to watch.

When he was all done, the boys were just as excited as Daddy to have our TV set-up! Karter kept showing me our "new" TV...he didn't remember this one from MN.

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Kaden is NOT scared of anything, this boy grabs life by the horns and goes. He gave us a few scares when he was still in his crib and started climbing out. One time he climbed/fell out and we thought he had really messed up his leg and he hobbled around for a few days. After that accident we knew we had to move him into a big boy bed. The transition has gone great and he sleeps better than he ever did in the crib!!!

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We packaged up some of our raspberry jam we made this summer to give to Karter and Kaden's Sunday School teachers.

For our Sunday School class I made some Christmas tree cookies.

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The boys have loved the unpacking process and rediscovering some of their old toys.

This old Elmo has provided a lot of entertainment...

...and belly laughs!!

If you are still reading, thank you and congratulations!!! We are just about caught up on our lives and very close to having regular posts again!!

Latest Sweet Treats

2012-01-18T05:35:00.005-06:00

Even with the move and trying to get settled, I have still been finding time to stay busy in the kitchen baking up some sweet treats. While I've taken the time to make the yummy things, sometimes I have really slacked on documenting them. A week or so before the move I made a big Smurfs cupcake tower and forgot to take any pictures of it or the process, and then for Christmas (along with moving) I made over 6 dozen cookies to take to different family gatherings...and again, didn't take one picture of any of them! Here are a few (not so good) shots of the things I have made in the past month....

A wonderful woman at church always has a birthday celebration for Jesus with her family on Christmas, and this year she asked me to make a cake for her!

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My Grandpa collects Oliver tractors, so I decided to make him some cookies for Christmas. I asked around to try and find out his favorite, and I guess he has always wanted a Super 66...so I made him his very own Oliver Super 66!

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Keeping with the cookie gift theme, my Uncle Matt likes Harley Davidson's and I made him a collection for Christmas.

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We had a NYE party at our house this year, and at the last minute I decided to make some cookies for the event. Our niece and nephew were visiting and I have a hard time resisting their cuteness when they want to help Aunt Dana in the kitchen!!

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A boy from our church was turning 8 and his mom asked me to create an Alvin and the Chipmunks cupcake tower for him. This is what it looked like here, they arranged some of the Alvin figurines around it at the party and it turned out really cool!

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Last weekend Kim & Terry had a cabin warming party and asked me to create some cabin related cookies for them. Of course, I had to try to make one look like the cabin!

I ended up with about 90 cookies and arranged them on two platters, but I only took a picture of one platter. I think one of my NY resolutions should have been to be better at taking pictures....more pictures and better pictures!

Handy Men

2012-01-17T05:02:00.003-06:00

I am so far behind in our posts, I'm not even sure where to begin! Hopefully this week I can do a HUGE random post and get us back on track. We have been so busy, I just haven't had much time to slow down and reflect on the cuteness of our boys! Not sure where to start, I thought these cute pictures made a good jumping off point...

We had decided once we got things somewhat organized and put away, that we were going to put our elliptical in our bedroom. Not the ideal location, but we would be able to workout and watch TV without waking up the boys. Our plan was that I was going to cancel our Y membership and just do our workouts at home. I was really dragging my feet on cancelling, because going to the Y everyday was such a big part of our daily routine I really hated to give that up. About a week into our new arrangement, I was using the elliptical during nap time and about 20 min in it started making a terrible clanking noise. I immediately stopped and hoped that Kristoffer could fix it when he got home.

With the help of his trusty sidekicks, we thought it was fixed!

It may have taken the sidekicks every tool in the box, but it was fixed!

Or so we thought! Kristoffer got on to test it out and the entire right wheel broke off! A very large bolt broke into two pieces. Spending a year in the garage of our MN home during the winter, probably wasn't the best thing for the elliptical!

I'm sure glad we didn't cancel our Y membership!!

Wordless Wednesday - Big Boy Potty!

2012-01-04T18:29:00.001-06:00

Christmas at Home!

2012-01-03T18:31:00.006-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few weeks, but as most of our readers already know...we have spent these past few weeks MOVING!! "The Great Move of 2011" officially happened on December 17th. It has been kind of been a whirlwind since then between trying to make our "new" house our own and celebrating Christmas! We were all so thankful that the move happened before Christmas (even if just one week before!) and we were able to celebrate Christmas in our own home!! :)

We spent that whole week before cleaning and getting unpacked, and we got somewhat finished just in time for my mom to join us on Christmas Eve. She got here just before the boys woke up from their naps. When Karter woke up, we had received a special message from Santa. The boys were really excited to have Grandma Vicky here to help them decorate cookies for Santa...

...but of course, the best part was eating the icing and sprinkles!

Mmmm!!

Lucky Santa to get a plate full of these beauties!! All week when we would talk about making cookies, he would not let us forget the reindeer. So along with the cookies and milk for the big guy, we also left out a nice big carrot for the reindeer.

We woke up Christmas morning to Santa wishing us a Merry Christmas, and the boys were sleepy, but surprised to see all of the gifts that he left for them! Karter was SO excited to see that Santa and the reindeer had eaten the treats that he left out for them.

I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but before any gifts were opened, Kristoffer read us the story of our greatest gift from Luke 2.

After listening to the amazing story of Jesus' birth and prayer, the boys were ready to see what was in their stockings. Too bad we started with the stockings, because Kaden got stuck on his stocking and was very reluctant to move on to anything else. He got a 5 pack of Hot Wheel cars and was perfectly content to play with them! And of course his "two balls...I got two balls!".

What other day of the year can you eat candy at 5:30am!

This year was so fun and magical. Karter is at a fun age and really got into all things Christmas.

When all of Karter's presents had been unwrapped, Kaden's still sat in a pile unopened!

He would rather eat skittles off the floor! He was completely happy eating candy at 5:30 in the morning and playing with the cars that came in his stocking. When we would ask him to open anything else, he would say "no, I have cars".

After a lot of encouragement and Karter starting to open them for him, Kaden finally decided to get in on the action.

After all of the gifts from Santa were opened, Karter played elf and passed out all the gifts from under the tree.

Daddy had to help him pass out my pile (someone likes to use excessive packaging when they wrap!).

Kaden really got into open the packages from us.

What a precious morning with our cuties!

The boys were both excited to help Daddy open his gifts.

Santa brought Karter a shaving kit, and he was super excited to shave with Daddy before church.

Oh man, what cuties!

We quickly got cleaned up and headed to church to celebrate our Savior's birth, and then the rest of the day was spent with our extended family. We were extremely happy to have my mom visiting and celebrating Christmas morning with us!

Christmas at the Zoo 2011

2011-12-12T20:17:00.004-06:00

This time of the year is filled with so many things that we are doing to continue the different traditions that we have started with the boys. We were both super excited to take the boys to the Indianapolis Zoo for Christmas at the Zoo for our 2nd annual trip. The first Saturday of this month we made plans with Zach & Emily to watch the boys so we could do some shopping and then we picked them up and unbeknownst to them headed to the zoo. We didn't mention anything about it to the boys until we were getting ready to turn into the parking lot and Karter asked what the lights said. When we had him spell out the last part (Z-O-O), he knew we were at the zoo and got super excited! He said, "I didn't know we were going to the zoo, I thought we were going home!" It was precious!

Fortunately and unfortunately, the weather was perfect and everyone in Indianapolis had the same idea.

We had to wait in line to get into the parking lot and then again to buy our tickets, but besides not being able to see the dolphin show, the crowds didn't bother us at all.

The boys loved looking at all of the lights. Kaden kept ~~yelling~~ saying "more Christmas lights".

Santa was there, but the line was too long for our busy crew. So we opted to writing Santa a letter.

Kaden asked for books, balls and cars.

Karter asked for cars, books and games.

I love this crazy babe!

Our last stop before heading out was the marine life exhibit. We definitely saved the best part for last, both boys (and both adults) really liked trying to touch the sharks.

This little guy was a little crazy and I didn't want to get too close!

It was a beautiful night to spend with our boys at the zoo!!

Jonah's 4th Birthday

2011-12-06T06:06:00.006-06:00

This past Saturday our nephew, Jonah, turned four years old. We love that little guy so much and it is hard to believe he is four already!

While they were in Indiana for Thanksgiving, Jonah's mommy planned a party for him at Pizza King in Indianapolis. The located was picked, because Jonah has a slight obsession with trains and this particular Pizza King delivers your drinks by train (although, we were in the party room and this wasn't the case, the boys still liked watching the train).

A week before the party, Jonah informed his mommy that Aunt Dana was going to make him a blue train cake for his birthday. Not wanting to disappoint my train loving nephew, Aunt Dana got to work on a train cake!

I think he was pleased with the train cake...and the attention he got while we all sang "Happy Birthday" to him!

Cousin Karter was on hand to help blow out the candles!

Jonah really wanted to eat the train...and he did! He ate all of the green decorations off, and maybe one small bite of cake. The train was made of fondant, but wouldn't be all I would want to eat!

After cake it was time to open gifts. Karter was excited to help him open the gift he got for Jonah.

A PEZ dispenser!

(I love this picture!)

Who's more excited!?

Of course, our sweet niece Miss Olivia was on hand to celebrate big brother's birthday!

On Black Friday we got a new video camera and were eager to try it out. Check out our first video on the new camera...us singing to the birthday boy!

Happy Birthday, Jonah! We love you!!

One Big Cookie

2011-12-02T05:54:00.002-06:00

Hello, my name is Dana and I'm addicted to cookie cutters! On Cyber Monday my favorite cookie supply website (Karen's Cookies) was having some great sales and free shipping on their products. As I was browsing the cookie cutter selection (and kept adding them to my cart!), I saw a cute house cutter and thought I could use it to make some cabin cookies in the future. When the package arrived yesterday I was surprised when I saw just how large the cookie cutter was.

It is literally the size of Karter's head! A few of these cookies would take my entire batch of dough, needless to say we are getting a smaller house cutter. (Please excuse the cheese in Karter's teeth!) Next time, I will be sure to read the dimensions a little bit better.

New Family Tradition

2011-12-01T12:49:00.006-06:00

We are super excited this year to continue with some of the Christmas traditions that we have started for our family, and even more excited about creating new ones. For the past 6 years we have had a beautiful faux Christmas tree (including last year when we used Kim & Terry's). Now that we are (almost) in our house and will be here for Christmas we decided to get rid of the old one and start the tradition of getting a real one! We have always dreamed of getting a real one, but thought it was a waste when we lived in MN and were never home for Christmas. We decided that we will start the tradition of getting our tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving...and apparently that means rain or shine! This past Sunday was not the ideal weather for picking out a tree, but we bundled up and headed to the beautiful Whitetail Tree Farm.

Much to our surprise, when we went into the lodge, Santa was there! Karter had a tough time remembering what was on his Christmas list....and Kaden was hiding behind me!

He's still trying to remember!

After walking around checking out all the trees (in the rain), we finally picked this beauty! A Spruce tree.

Karter has clearly had enough of the rain!

This is one of the only times that Kaden would actually let us put him down. Whenever we would try, he would start yelling "boots are muddy!" First of all, he didn't have boots on, and second, he hadn't taken a step...how could they be muddy?!

After we decided on our tree, one of the workers came by to tag our tree and chop it down for us.

We promised the boys suckers if they were good outside, they were excited to pick out their suckers back in the lodge.

Sticky mess!!

The Boy Scouts helped strap the tree to the van and we headed home to start decorating.

Kristoffer made a fresh cut on the tree and then we put it in the stand.

It took us a bit to find our ornaments outside in the rec room. We knew they were out there someone in the pile of stuff that we have, but it took a little bit of digging to find them. We are still missing a few boxes, but hopefully soon(?) we will be able to find them when "The Great Move of 2011" happens.

Kaden is in love with the tree and really enjoys looking at the ornaments. In the 5 days it has been up, we have had 2 casualties...opps!

Karter was such a great helper with the ornaments.

The workers at the tree farm all wore shirts that said "Family memories that last forever" and we are glad, despite the rain, that we are creating those memories for our family!

My Karterman

2011-11-28T06:09:00.003-06:00

Karter is such a sweet, loving little boy. Everyday he says something that just melts my heart and makes me so happy/blessed to be his mommy. In preparation for Thanksgiving, last week at BSF they had the kids write what they are most thankful for. Of course, Karter can't really write yet, so they just wrote what he said. His teacher said that he insisted that she write what he his most thankful for (me!) in purple, since it is my favorite color! Sweet boy!

We have a bucket of letters, and whenever we get them out, this is what our living room looks like. The boys have fun getting them out, but rarely want to make any words with them.

Last week I got them out for Karter while I was doing something else (probably making cookies or something). He called me in to see what word he made, and was pretty proud to she me his name!

After he was tired of letters he came in to draw, and for the first time I actually knew what he had drawn! Our little Karterman is getting so big!!

Wordless Wednesday - Gray Man Syndrome

2011-11-23T05:02:00.001-06:00

He's Back!

2011-11-11T14:20:00.002-06:00

Today is the first day in nearly a week and a half that our sweet Kaden is back! (Which can be translated to, this is the first day in nearly a week and a half that he hasn't been attached to me!) After a pretty rough weekend of not being able to breath or sleep, I took Kaden to the doctor on Tuesday just to make sure that he was ok. Good thing I did...poor baby had a double ear infection!! On top of that, they were concerned that he may have had pneumonia with all of the difficulty he had breathing. Thankfully they didn't hear anything in his lungs that would have indicated that! So now after a few days of his antibiotic and sleeping with a humidifier in his room, our sweet, happy baby is back!! Praise God!

Wordless Wednesday - World's Best Daddy

2011-11-09T06:11:00.003-06:00

Cookie Orders

2011-11-07T14:54:00.003-06:00

Besides being a great place to waste time, facebook is also a wonderful place to spread the word about my little cookie "business". This past weekend I had two orders from people I hadn't seen in awhile, but saw my creations on fb. The first order was for a baby shower for a fellow NV grad.

She contacted me through fb and placed an order for 50 cookies for her sisters baby shower.

I love making girly things!

Thanks Amaria!!

The second order this weekend was for my sister in-law, Joscelynn's cousin, Rachel. Rachel was throwing a baby shower for a friend and asked me to make cookies, cupcakes and a cake....all pretzel shaped.

Her friend and her husband are not finding out the sex of their baby, so the just call it their little pretzel!

Mmmm...these cupcakes! I'm not a big fan of cake and actually I rarely eat any of my cookies either, but their is just something about red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting that has sucked me in! I LOVED the little fondant pretzels I made to go on top!

This cake was a big one! I started out with a 16 inch cake and carved it down to the shape of a pretzel and then covered it with homemade marshmallow fondant.

The whole collection! I really liked how they all turned out! Thank you Rachel, it was so fun!

And not to be left out...
...the boys are BIG fans of cream cheese frosting! :)

Sick Babe

2011-11-04T12:26:00.002-05:00

Our baby boy has been sick this week. It is so tough to see Kaden not acting like himself, but on the upside, we are getting a lot of baby snuggles this week! :) Please say a prayer for our little man.

It's In My Blood

2011-11-03T05:54:00.004-05:00

Growing up, my brother and rarely had store bought clothes until we reached junior high. Looking back, its pretty cool that we had one of a kind pieces made by Grandma and Mom. But of course, at the time we (at least I did) thought we were pretty lame. Now, I'm so glad that I was raised around such crafty women. We spent many summers and Christmas breaks playing around on Grandma's sewing machines, making our own master pieces. I will never forget the time she helped me make my Barbie's a quilt to match the one she just made for me!

Last month I braved the pile of our stuff in the rec room and found my sewing machine (passed down from Grandma) and started marking some things off my to-do list.

After reading my manual (I really should have payed more attention when Grandma used to show me how to thread the needle), I was ready to try to make my own headband. I have been seeing a lot of cute headbands in the blog world, but really hated to pay so much for something I could make for about $1. I took a picture of me modeling the finished product, but 1.) my hair style has changed since then and 2.) Kristoffer said it looks a little creepy!

My second project was making Karter and Kaden's Halloween costumes. Kaden makes a pretty good baby model!

Karter loved watching his costume come together, and loved the fact that his vest had gold trim, just like Jake!

My third project was some burp clothes for some pregnant ladies at church. When I was first pregnant with Karter and people would give me burp clothes I thought they were pretty silly. Then I had him and milk was coming from everywhere (him and me...sorry TMI) and fleece receiving blankets were the best thing to catch the mess....other fabrics weren't absorbent enough to be efficient! So I knew what I wanted to make for our pregnant friends, fleece burp clothes. I made the pattern out of an old grocery bag and got busy.

One set is for a couple who doesn't know what they are having yet.

And another set for a couple who just had a beautiful baby girl!

I just made three, but let's face it...I probably could have made sets of 10 by how quickly babies go through these things!

Sorry to bore you with a post that didn't have too many pictures of my cuties, but I had to share some of my sewing projects...it's in my blood!!

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-31T05:31:00.005-05:00

Last night our church had our second annual Trunk or Treat in the church parking lot. We had a lot of fun dressing up and spending the evening with our church family. This fall the Disney channel added a new show to its line up "Jake and the Neverland Pirates", from the moment Karter saw that first show, he has been pretending that he is "Jake" (the one with the red bandanna), Kaden is "Cubby" (blue bandanna), I am "Izzy" (obviously, the only girl!) and Kristoffer is the naughty "Captain Hook". He loves that show, so it was pretty easy to decide what our family was going to be for Halloween this year...

...meet Jake and the Neverland Pirates with Captain Hook!! I made the boys costumes and pieced together Kristoffer's and mine, while Karter made sure that I had all the details true to the show...down to the gold trim on his vest. We would be out shopping and he would make sure that I new Jake wore boots that practically covered his legs.

Our "Jake" was way cuter than the one on TV!!

Our "Cubby" had just woken up from a nap when it was time to get dressed, so he was a little unsure about the whole idea. (It didn't help that Daddy was walking around in a crazy Captain Hook outfit!) Thankfully, Aunt Kara (dressed as a baseball player) was here to snuggle our babe!

Gran-Gran and Papaw Bud stopped by to check out our pirates.

"Jake" and his pirate crew!

"Captain Hook" wasn't quite used to wearing his long hair, and needed a little help pulling it back!

"Cubby" loves candy (in real life) so he was all about getting candy from people.

They were polite pirates, thanking everyone after they got their candy!

"Captain Hook" had a great time passing out candy, and was a little horse by the end of the night...one to many "Rrrrrr's".

Of course, by the end of the night the boys had eaten WAY too much candy, and Kaden's white shirt was no longer white!

The event was a succes and a fun way to outreach to our Sulphur Springs community!

Sneaky

2011-10-25T05:42:00.002-05:00

Our boys like to "help" in the kitchen, so we always have a stool close by for them. One day last week, while I was talking to Gramaw, Kaden used his stool to help himself to some of my cookie icing!

He thought he was being so sneaky and we didn't know what he was up to!

He was caught red (well, purple) handed!!

Wordless Wednesday - Cookies This Week

2011-10-19T13:53:00.001-05:00

Beautiful Fall Day

2011-10-11T06:32:00.005-05:00

This past week we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. During the week the boys and I tried to play outside as much as possible, and Sunday after (another) disappointing Colts loss, we headed to Mounds State Park in Anderson for a little hike. Karter was our "leader" and thoroughly enjoyed leading the way!!

Unfortunately, we haven't done much hiking this year. So this was Kaden's first ride in the big backpack carrier, and next year he will probably be too big for it. Poor Kristoffer got quite the workout with Kado strapped to his back. Have you ever seen cuter thighs!?

He enjoyed his ride with Daddy!

We are really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates around here, so Karter (aka Jake) used his treasure map to explore the state park and found this cool treasure!

Gorgeous day!

The hike was beautiful and the smell of fall was intoxicating. That smell is my favorite thing about fall!

Sometimes Captain Hook (aka Kristoffer) stole the map away from Jake!

He was such a great hiker!

I am in the midst of a craft project that requires A LOT of acorns. So along the way Karter would stop and help my pick up acorns.

Kristoffer kept commenting on the beautiful sky next to the wonderful fall colors!

After our hike we refueled with a little picnic and then rounded out our evening with a little playtime. It was the most perfect fall day with my boys!!

Happy Birthday to My Love

2011-10-10T20:34:00.005-05:00

Friday was a big day in our house...it was Kristoffer's birthday! All day (while Kristoffer was at work) the boys and I talked about Daddy and the special things we wanted to do for him. The first thing on our list to celebrate daddy was to make some brownies. October is a big birthday month in the Gray family, so we are already going to get our favorite cakes (spice and jelly) this month, so Kristoffer requested brownies. If you haven't made brownies with 2 very eager to help little boys, I highly recommend it if you want to raise your stress level a little!!

Don't worry, I did have a pretty strict "once you lick the spoon you can't put it back in the bowl" rule!

This first picture I took of Karter he closed his eyes so I told him to open his eyes for the next one...Mr. Literal opened his eyes all right!

Our next project was something Karter saw in his Highlights magazine. As soon as he saw it he said that we had to make it for Daddy's party. Using toilet paper rolls and cupcake liners we made mushrooms with a candy surprise.

Karter carefully counted out 10 jelly beans to put in everyone's mushroom. It was supposed to be a surprise, but he was way too excited and kept asking when we could eat the jellybeans.

They turned out cute!

Who needs a card when you have a message written in chalk on the driveway!?

Karter even signed his own name! He needed help with the K, but did the rest himself!!

Kristoffer's "Special Day"

Kristoffer always picks spaghetti as his special meal. The boys don't complain about that choice!

After dinner it was time to blow out the candles!

Good thing Daddy has Karter to help him with all those candles!

Happy birthday, my love!!

It took a little teamwork to get all the candles!

Karter was so excited about Daddy's birthday, that he wrote a little song....

Happy Birthday, Kristoffer!!! We love you :)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-05T06:06:00.004-05:00

Fall Tradition

2011-10-04T22:00:00.000-05:00

We are back! Our computer is back up and running, and now we are just waiting for my genius, computer loving brother to help us get all of our files off our old hard drive. And no, we didn't have all of our documents and pictures backed up before this happened...and yes, we will be getting an external hard drive soon!

This post is pretty old now, but I started it a couple weeks ago before the crash. One beautiful Saturday in September, Kristoffer and I took the boys over to Greenfield to explore Tuttle Orchards. We have been going to an orchard every year since we got married, but not that we are back in Indiana we had to go much earlier in the year than when we were in Minnesota.

The orchard had a neat little area for the kids. It had several different play grounds to play on.

Karter loved climbing the rock wall. Kaden really wanted to climb too, but he settled for us helping him up!

What a big boy!

The slide was incredibly fast, but that didn't stop Kaden from going down again and again!

The next stop in the kid zone was the maze...where I had a slight advantage over the kids!

Karter had a lot of fun trying to direct Kaden in the right direction.

Me and my boys! After about 6 takes...this is the best one!

After the maze, Karter took me on a tractor ride.

Then Kaden decided to help Karter steer...maybe the next time he decides to drive, he should at least look at where he's going!

After a visit to the snack shack for an apple cider slushy and a caramel apple, we were finally ready to pick some apples. The orchard had little red wagon for everyone to use, and Karter was excited to pull Kaden in the wagon.

They only had two varieties ready when we were there. Karter was very particular about the apples he picked, but once our basket was finally full we headed pack to the front of the orchard to pay.

They also had a "petting zoo"...it only had 2 animals...and we had a really hard time actually petting them!

It was such a gorgeous day, we packed a picnic for dinner and headed to Pendleton to finish out our fun day. We didn't realize that Pendleton was also having some sort of festival that day, so Falls Park was extremely busy and we had a difficult time finding a free area. We walked across the falls and found a quiet place right by the water. I'm not sure who ate more...us or the mosquito's! The bugs were bad! Before heading home we took the boys to play on the "toys". A fun way to end our perfect fall day. I'm so glad we can keep up our annual tradition of visiting an orchard...even though we technically have an orchard just outside our back door!!

Crashed

2011-10-03T05:55:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week. We are experiencing a ~~minor~~major technical difficulty...our computer crashed!! After spending one entire nap time on the phone with Dell, they had me run a series of tests on our computer and they concluded that our hard drive was fried...bummer! We ordered a replacement and according to ups it should be here by this afternoon. So hopefully we will be back in business by tomorrow. Thank goodness for our iPad!!! It is great for everything...except posting, it takes much too long. Hopefully our next post will be from our computer with a fresh hard drive!

Handsome Face

2011-09-22T10:15:00.003-05:00

This morning has been kind of a lazy morning...if you can count baking and icing 6 dozen cookies by 9:30am lazy! I mean lazy in the fact that we don't have anywhere to go...all day! Usually we are running out the door to get to the Y or to BSF every morning, but today I knew I had an order of cookies I needed to do, so we have been hanging around all morning. In fact, we are still in our PJ's (at 11:30)!! We have had a good time playing, and the boys are really enjoying the slower pace of this morning. We just finished up a little photo shoot with Mr. Karter...which he asked me to do, wanted to see every picture after I took it and now demands that I put them on the computer!

He has such a handsome face!! When we used to ask him to smile he would give us a scrunchy face, but now I ask him to give me a "good face" and he looks normal!

He knows how to work the camera!!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-21T05:48:00.002-05:00

SOLD!!

2011-09-20T12:21:00.008-05:00

One year ago this coming Saturday, our lives changed and we Kristoffer accepted his new job back in our home state of Indiana. For the past 51 weeks we have been praying for our house to sell, praying for the right people to find our house and fall in love, and praying for patience as we wait for God to reveal His perfect plan. Last Friday our prayers were answered and we finally closed on our house in Minnesota...finishing up that chapter in our lives. Not only did we sell our house, but our first home is in the hands of a nice young couple who are so excited to make our house their home!

God has a plan for each of our lives, and it isn't for us to know at this time, but to trust in Him to guide us through each day...which is not always easy to do. This past year has really tested us and strengthened our faith, our love, and opened our hearts to the words spoken by our Lord, "Seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:33-34).

To celebrate, of course I had to make some cookies!! I have had these cookies in my mind for a couple weeks, but I didn't want to make anything until all the papers were signed!

I packaged (most) of the cookies up and sent them to our realtor in MN as a little "thank you". She should be receiving them today, and I hope she enjoys them!!

(For some reason blogger keeps rotating this picture...sorry!)

This "Thank You" goes out to...

1. Mandy, our realtor who has put up with us for the past year trying to sell our house.

2. Kim & Terry, my husband's wonderful parents (technically my in-laws, but I really hate that word!), who have also put up with us for the past year. We have been living under the same roof for nearly a year, and I am happy to say it has gone rather smoothly. Of course, none of us would like to live this way forever, but it has been really special watching the boys develop that special bond with their grandparents.

3. God, from whom all blessing flow!

We are so happy to close the book on our lives in Minnesota and to be able to keep on writing new chapters about our lives here, back home in Indiana! :)

Minnesota Adventure - Day 4 & 5

2011-09-15T05:26:00.004-05:00

I am finally getting around to posting about the end of our trip....two weeks ago!

On Day 4 of our adventure, apparently we didn't take any pictures, but the morning started out in our hotel in Minneapolis again. After a breakfast of cereal again, Kristoffer took the boys down to the pool so I could get our room packed up. It is amazing what the 4 of us can do to a hotel room after just 2 nights! We were packed up and on the road by 9:30, and needed to stop at our house one last time. Kristoffer took the boys across the street to the park, and I went inside to sweep and do a little cleaning. After about 45 minutes we were saying our final goodbyes to the house and then back in the van for the journey home. It was 50 degrees and raining...goodbye MN!

We broke up our drive home with a stop in Chicago, to visit my favorite brother and his family! We texted him as we pulled into our hotel, and they came out to the hotel to swim and have a pizza party with us. I really wish I had taken some pictures, Karter and Jonah are CRAZY when they get together....cousin love!

The next morning the Tomaw's came back out to our hotel and we all went to the nature preserve near by to do a little hiking. The path we were going on was paved, so the babies got to relax in their strollers.

The big boys saddled up on their daddy's shoulders...

The trail wrapped around an elk pasture.

Too cute!!

Why hello there Mr. Elk!

We walked for maybe 1.5 hours and it wore this little guy out! Just as we were finishing the path, his head started to bob and he was completely out by the time we made it to the van!

So out we were able to make the transfer to the van without waking him up! After a delicious lunch at Buona Beef, we were back in the van for the ~~LONGEST 4 hours~~ final leg of our journey. Even though we had an amazing time, after being on the go for 5 days, we were all so ready to be home. The drive from Chicago is familiar to us, but on this particular day it seemed to be the worst day of driving we had. Our time in the van had Kristoffer and I listening to a few too many "Karter songs" and Wonder Pets episodes!!!

Thankfully Indiana is our home once again, and our time in Minnesota will always hold a special place in our hearts!!!

Minnesota Adventure - Day 3

2011-09-13T05:04:00.005-05:00

Day 3 of our adventure started out in our beautiful (and very white) DoubleTree hotel room. Luckily for Kristoffer the hotel had a wonderful selection of coffee in the room, and luckily for me (who only drinks fru-fru coffee) there was a Starbucks in the lobby! The boys started there morning with a few "Karter shows" and some cereal. (Karter is obsessed with Kaden's feet. He is always saying "I just love his little footie, I think I will keep it forever!")

After breakfast, Kaden decided to practice his counting skills. He is getting pretty good and when he wants to, he can make it all the way up to 20! Please excuse the terrible video quality, my video camera got "toasted" and this is taken with my actual camera.

Today was our "fun" day of the trip. We didn't have anything that needed to be done with the house, we could just be tourists in the big city! So, since we live in the country now, we did touristy things...like, take pictures of really big buildings!

And of course we had to get one last picture with Mary Tyler Moore!

(Kaden baby, could you please not look so concerned in EVERY picture?!)

We mosied our way down the Target Field. And Daddy and his boys sat in the golden glove.

Oh family pictures are going to be interesting this year!

What a stud!!

Karter wanted to pose with this guy (some famous Twin...Rod Carew maybe?), but was a little scared to do it himself!

After one with me, he thought he was safe!

Before leaving downtown, he had to stop at one more place...Candyland! It is an old fashioned candy store and Kristoffer used to go by there to get special treats when he worked downtown. They had pretty much any kind of candy you could want...we walked out with our share of yummy treats!

Kaden loved the cheddar popcorn!

After walking all morning, we were all pretty hungry and tired. We got back into the van and headed towards the hotel, with "Betty" directing us towards the closest Chinese restaurant! After eating too much, we made it back to the hotel just in time for our afternoon naps. During our trip the boys had been so good, but running on very little sleep. They would sleep well at night, but for 2 days they had very short naps. So, on this afternoon they made up for and napped for nearly 4 hours! Once we reached the 4 hour mark, we kind of started being a little loud on purpose to wake them up...normally I wouldn't do that, but we wanted to go swimming!

Before we headed down to the pool, I took this picture of our iPad. I am always so leery about leaving stuff in the hotel room, so I took this picture as evidence!

For dinner, we went to Apple Valley and met up with some of our friends, Brian and Mary Davis. Their daughter, Martha, was one of our first youth group members, and later became Karter's first babysitter. During our 5 1/2 years in MN, the Davis family became like family to us. They have and always will be very close to our hearts! Unfortunately, Miss Martha had to go off to college and we didn't get to see her, but I'm so glad it worked out that we got to see Brian and Mary...even if Kaden was NOT in the mood to cooperate with us during dinner!

Before bed the boys had a little energy to burn off, so we let them run around the room for awhile. They came up with some crazy games, but their favorite was hiding between the wall and the bed. Karter decided he wanted to sleep there, and wasn't very happy when we made his sleep in a bed!

Minnesota Adventure - Day 2

2011-09-09T06:05:00.006-05:00

We spent our final night in the house on Thursday, so when we woke up Friday morning we were ready to get started loading up the house...well, after I went into Hastings and got us some coffee of course!

I really, really wanted to take pictures of every room before we took down any decorations, but of course I remembered that after we took all the pictures down...bummer! I know, its not like we are going to look at them everyday, but I just wanted to have pictures of what our first house looked like. I also really wanted a picture of our family in front of the sold sign in our yard, but while we were up there the appraisel hadn't come through yet so, so the realtor couldn't put that sign up. However, I am happy to say that our yard is now sporting a "SOLD" sign!! (Mandy is going to send me a picture!)

While I was out getting come coffee and bagels for breakfast, Kristoffer took a few pictures around the house. This is our entryway, taken from the front door. The sconces on the wall are the only thing we left. We thought if we took them down, that the nail holes would be too noticeable. So we left them as a housewarming gift for the buyers!

Oh, the downstairs...we sure did love that room!

The movers would pack and move everything, but they wouldn't take things out of crawl spaces or attics. Our crawl space was full of treasures! On Thursday when the boys were sleeping we pulled everything out. While we do have some things under there that we used a lot, most of it was just old college things that we haven't used/seen since we first got married. It was so fun looking through all the mementos we kept from when we first started dating. It was great to reminisce. Although, if anyone is interested in my old pt notes or random textbooks...just let me know!!

Karter's old room.

We wanted to make our movers job easy for them, so we took everything off the walls and made different piles for them. They were super impressed and couldn't believe all the work we did for them.

A few things accidentally got packed up (Karter's blanket), so we had to make the kitchen island the safety zone for our stuff. (Except for all the tp...that later got packed away!)

I remember when we bought the house how happy I was to have such a large kitchen! I was standing in front of that kitchen sink the day I told Kristoffer I was pregnant with Kaden!

The nursery. Kristoffer and I were walking around the house talking about old memories, and Karter picked up on it and said "Mommy, this is where you used to rock me to sleep." Then he wanted me to pretend like I was putting him down for a nap...so cute!

We had two guys show up to pack and help move, 2 people in the semi and two people came simply to build wooden crates to protect our fish tank and glass shelves for the entertainment system. We thought it was pretty cool how they come to your house and build crates for moving.

The semi was HUGE!!! The driver has some mad spacial skills and packed his trailer really good. The trailer as three different entrances...in the front doors (by the cab) was our furniture and elliptical, and in the main back was all of our boxes.

The cab was huge too! It had its own shower, toilet and kitchen...massive!

They sorted out all of our boxes into dolly loads for easier moving.

The semi had a little mover humor on it....crude mover humor!

All of the furniture got wrapped in plastic.

Our house was pretty hectic in the morning, and it was super hard to try to entertain the boys with so much going on. So I took them to Target (to relive our old routine!) and Kristoffer stayed at the house. We brought lunch back with us and then laid the boys down for a nap. There was so much going on around us, but we weren't doing ANYTHING! There wasn't anything to do...the movers had a system and they just rolled with it. Thankfully someone had an open wifi connection, so we could get on with the iPad. Kristoffer also snuggled with Rascal for a bit and...

...drew on Karter's magna-doodle.

Once everything was loaded, the driver asked the boys if they would want to come up in the semi. Of course, Karter was so excited!!

And yes, he is Kim Gray's grandson, so he went in barefoot!

We left the house right after the semi and headed up to the cities to check into our hotel. After a quick shower we were back out the door, off to meet up with our friends Mark and Katie. They had their son, Jack, back in March and we hadn't had an opportunity to meet him yet. He is such a sweet baby!

Karter was pretty fond of his new friend too!!

This has some random story behind it, but it was from their old college days...so it is really hard to tell with these two!

What a great ending to a busy day. We loved catching up with the Hokanson's!

Minnesota Adventure - Day 1

2011-09-06T20:12:00.007-05:00

Last Wednesday afternoon, we loaded up our van and headed up to the (not quite yet) Frozen Tundra for one final time! It has been a long road to selling our house, but God has proven once again that He is always in control! We were starting to really worry if our house was ever going to sell, and with it going into the fall/winter months, we were really worried....houses hardly ever sell in winter...especially in Minnesota.

So not only were we stressing over selling the house, but then came the realization that we were soon going to have to start paying taxes and insurance on our house here in Indiana. And then, we found out that our home owners insurance was going to drop us as of September 16th, because we don't actually live in our house that we are having insured. In the same week we got the letter from our insurance, we also got an offer on our house!! It all happened so quickly, they saw it on Wednesday, saw it again Thursday and wrote an offer, we countered on Friday morning, they accepted Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning we had signed the purchase agreement...and they wanted to close September 16th. Talk about God's perfect timing!

The offer was contingent on us putting a new roof on the house, so we had to make a lot of phone calls to contractors and our insurance company. The roof had damage from a strong wind storm that came through, but our insurance were not being very nice and wouldn't cover any of the replacement. So once we found that out we moved forward and hired our contractor. It is very difficult to make such a big decision with someone we had never actually met!

We have been planning to go to Minnesota for Labor Day for many months, and we were just hoping and praying that the timing would work out that the house would be sold before we moved our stuff to Indiana. When we moved last October, we left everything (except our clothes and some of the kids toys) so that the house would looked staged when people came to look at it. Kristoffer's company would pay for a moving company up to one year after his start date, so we picked Labor Day weekend to make a nice long trip for our family. God's timing worked out and we were able to move our stuff home without worrying about staging the house.

We drove up to Rockford, IL on Wednesday night and then the rest of the way up Thursday morning. We arrived at the house just in time for lunch and a little nap for the boys. After they woke up we decided to head up to IKEA and the Mall of America for a little fun.

IKEA is the perfect place to find little decorations or an entire room if you are just starting out...

...or a little nap if you are a little tired from your drive!

...or a little nap if you are the world's cutest 3 year old!

After surprisingly only spending $20 at IKEA, we headed to the MOA to have some delicious BBQ for dinner.

This was our strangest trip to MOA, because we didn't do any shopping! All we did was eat and let the boys ride rides.

We bought enough "points" for each of the boys to ride one ride. Karter chose the Wonder Pets ride!

This ride takes them up a couple stories in the air and then bounces them around before slowly bringing them back down.

It is safe to say that he liked the ride!!

Then it was time for Kaden's ride!

Daddy was pretty excited to ride the Blue's Clues ride!

Karter loves a good self-portrait as much as I do!

It is always hard to tell id Kaden is enjoying himself.

But once the ride started he was all smiles and had a good time.

While we were watching Kaden ride his ride, someone offered us the rest of their points. They were leaving for the night and had enough for one more ride. Karter chose to ride the Big Rig. When we got to the front of the line the machine wasn't working, so she let him ride for free. Which meant he had enough points to ride another ride yet.

Karter was pretty upset that he didn't get to ride the same on Kaden did, so that is the one he chose to ride for his final ride.

Not bad for paying for 2 and riding 4!

We couldn't pass up getting some ice cream!

Karter walked up to the counter and declared "I want the blue one". Can't argue with that, so he got his own cotton candy ice cream...which of course he ate maybe 10 bites of. Oh well, we were on vacation!!

We packed a lot into Day 1 of our adventure...after some fun at the MOA, we were back to Hampton for one final night in our house.

Community Days

2011-08-29T06:55:00.004-05:00

This past weekend was the Sulphur Springs Community Days. Our church helps out with a lot of the activities, which made for a busy weekend for our family! Kristoffer is part of the Fellowship Branch at church, and several months ago he volunteered to be the chairperson for a church wide rummage sale. He has been advertising for people of the congregation to bring their unwanted items to the church garage, and on Thursday when we went to sort out everything we were very ~~overwhelmed~~ surprised by home much stuff people had brought! We spent Thursday and Friday evenings organizing (the best we could) all of the items, and then Saturday morning at we got to the church around 5:30am to get everything set out and ready to go!

(Yes, my hunky husband has two cookies in his hands...that was his breakfast!)

Kristoffer made some neon signs to attract the crowds!

Which way is the sale?!

It took every table the church had, and much of the pavement, to get all of the items out of the garage.

Our friends Ryan and Mikka, who gave up their time on Thursday and Friday to help sort, showed up to man the sale while Kristoffer and I ran our church's "Run in the Son" 5K. Neither of us had run any sort of race since the mini-marathon back in 2004, so this was a different experience for us. Kristoffer finished in 27:11 (I think...I'm sure he will correct me if that is wrong) and I finished in 31:04. We both accomplished our pre-race goals...Kristoffer a sub 30min time and me under 40!

After the race it was back to the rummage sale for Kristoffer and I had to get the church float ready for the parade.

The boys and I road on the Pandamania themed float with some of the kids from our church, while other adults passed out water as we made our way through town!

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but had raised over $700 dollars at the rummage sale! All of the proceeds are going back into the community...50% to the community fund and 50% into the education fund for two of our kids at church, who tragically lost their dad in an auto accident two weeks ago. Our church has had a rough couple of weeks as we cope with the loss of one of our own, so it was nice to join together, have some fun, and raise money to help out part of our "family"!

This was my first community days, and I had a blast. I joked that maybe next year I will get more involved, since this year I just eased into things...but I wouldn't of had it any other way!! Our family feels so blessed to live in this community, and to be able to raise our boys with so many people who love us...and who we love!! What a great community we live in!!!

Operation No-Pacifier

2011-08-25T17:16:00.002-05:00

It seems like just yesterday we were ~~forcing~~ trying so hard for Mr. Kaden to take his pacifier to help ~~him stop screaming at the top of his lungs~~ soothe him. Now, fast forward 18 1/2 months and Kaden is desperately attached to his pacifier to sleep. Around the time he turned 1 we stopped allowing him to have his pacifier during the day. There is just something about a baby walking around with a pacifier in his mouth that rubs me the wrong way. Although he has been sleeping through the night since around 3 or 4 months, for the past few months we have had to get up several times a night just to give him his darn pacifier. Two weeks ago we had to get up SIX times in one night and the next day we decided that's it with the pacifier. So the following Monday when Kaden woke up, we said good-bye to the pacifiers and then through them away. Of course, he didn't know what that meant until nap time rolled around!

If you've ever meet Kado, you know he has a temper and is incredibly stubborn. So we were very nervous about how "Operation No-Pacifier" was going to pan out. The first day he screamed for 20 minutes. I had to go in twice to get his chubby little legs from between the bars of his crib, but after 20 min he was out....and napped for 3 1/2 hours! That night he cried for about 10 min. The next day he fussed for just a bit, but then we laid him back down and he was fine. We are still amazed at how easily he gave it up! Now, he really enjoys being in his crib, and we love the sound of his sweet voice as he talks himself to sleep on the monitor! And...we have all slept some of the best nights of sleep we have had in a LONG time!!!

Operation No-Pacifier = SUCCESS!!!

Wordless Wednesday - Show Me Your Muscles

2011-08-24T05:47:00.001-05:00

Hard Working Man

2011-08-22T20:06:00.002-05:00

Tonight I just have to brag about my handsome husband a bit! It isn't often enough that I thank him for everything he does for our family. Not only does he put in long hours at work, but then he also comes home and plays hard with the boys at night, allowing me a few moments of peace! He works so hard for our family so that I am able to stay home and raise our boys, and is setting such a wonderful example of a hardworking man for our boys...what a blessing he is!

On Friday Kristoffer got quite the surprise at work...the boys and I met him at his office after work on Friday, and as he was taking Karter into the bathroom he handed me a piece of paper and just told me to look at it. I was so surprised when I read the paper and saw had gotten a promotion!! His boss had just asked to meet with him and told him they wanted to reward his hard work...what a nice surprise!! I am SO proud of Kristoffer, and very happy that people at work are noticing all of his hard work too!

Of course, we had to have a little celebration, and Kristoffer got to pick a meal and enjoy it off of the "Special Day" plate!!

Congratulations babe...I am SO proud of you!!!

Olivia's 1st Birthday

2011-08-19T06:09:00.001-05:00

A few months ago my sister in-law Joscelynn asked me to make some cookies and the cake for our beautiful nieces first birthday. I have been planning for this party since the day she asked me! I love making fun things for my boys, but there was just something new and exciting about making pink things!!

The time finally came after vacation to put my plan into action! Jos wanted a girly ladybug theme, so I made some white flowers with ladybugs on the petals and big pink ladybugs.

The theme for the cake was a ladybug leaving its tracks around the cake, so I made some #1 cookies to match.

The Saturday before the party I packaged the cookies, made a large cake, cupcakes and a small cake for Olivia to smash. Most of the major work was done, and all I needed to do was the finishing touches when we arrived at their house. So the next morning we woke up early and loaded up our van for our journey to Chicago. We arrived at their house while they were still at church, so I was hoping to finish up my work and be done before they got home....

...that was until I opened the cake box and saw this! I had made a ruffle cake (inspired by this one) for Olivia, and apparently the icing didn't actually adhere to the cake. With all of the shaking it had to endure on the drive, the icing slid off the cake!

While I was trying not to panic, Kristoffer was being super dad and ~~kept the kids out of my way~~ occupied the kids in the other room!

I didn't bring the tip I needed to redo the ruffle, so I used what I had and "made it work". I smoothed out the icing and made the flower/ladybug track pattern that the big cake had.

Thankfully the top didn't get messed up, I loved the Olivia in tracks!

The big cake was white cake with pink buttercream. The accents were all made of fondant.

Cupcakes with fondant/gum paste flowers and ladybugs.

The larger cookies were packaged as party favors for the gifts, and these were out as a platter to go with the cake and ice cream.

All ready to dive in!

I am so glad that we were able to be a part of our sweet Olivia's birthday. This little cutie is totally smitten with her Daddy, and was making googly eyes at him when I took this picture!

She wasn't scared a bit and started out eating all of the decorations!

Who needs hands when you can just dive right in, face first!

Olivia sat contently for a long time eating her cake!

LOVE IT!!

She made quite the dent and ate all of the decorations!!

Happy 1st belated birthday to you, Miss Livi!!!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - The Green Lantern

2011-08-18T12:22:00.003-05:00

Beach Time Part 3 - Family Time

2011-08-15T12:52:00.008-05:00

Finally....the third installment to our beach vacation!! We have had some exciting and very time consuming things going on lately, and soon we will share some of our excitement (no, we are not pregnant!).

Besides enjoying relaxing and eating while on vacation, of course our favorite part was spending some much time together as a family. We loved having Kristoffer for 10 ful days and spending some quality time with most of our Gray family.
Kaden is a total Papaw's boy and loved playing in the sand and surf with his Papaw!

Papaw has a way of entertaining Kado that not many people can match!

Mama and her babe!

Ask Karter what his favorite thing was about the beach, and each time he will tell you something different. He really did love it all! But he spent most of his time picking up shells and throwing them in the water.

Kaden loves to honk noses, and Uncle Zach was his favorite target!

As the week went on, Karter loved being in the water more and more, but he hated to be knocked down by the waves. At the beginning of the week the water was real choppy and he got knocked down a couple times. Luckily Papaw was there to help him up!

We are read A LOT of books to the boys during the week. If you were seated in the living room, you were far game to read!

Brotherly love!

After dinner each night we came back to the house and took the boys back down to the water. Karter likes to keep attendance of where everyone is at all times, and asked everyone if they were all coming down to the water too. He was happy to play frisbee with Anique and Zach.

Playing in the sand with our little babe!

Karter and I spent a lot of time gathering shells together and then looking at them all, picking out our favorites. We liked to pretend that the broken bits of the scallop shells were chips! We had a little trouble convincing Kaden that we were just pretending, and they weren't actually food!

Daddy and his boys!

I was reading on the beach and saw Kristoffer heading to the water with the boys and thought I would go in the help him. As I got in the water, Karter told me to go sit back down, they were fine without me! The boys (and mommy) LOVED having Daddy around all the time!

Aunt Nique and Uncle Kamaron couldn't resist reading a few books!

Kaden ~~destroying~~ helping Daddy build a sandcastle.

Hanging out in our "pool".

Karter was showing off the curly shell Gramaw found.

We used to love napping on the beach "pre K", but that is a thing of our past! Both boys thought it was funny to harass those who were napping! Karter would always ask, "Mommy, why are they napping? It isn't nap time yet!".

Family time!

The boys had so much fun playing with Kamaron and Anique...we really wish we could see them more often!

Picking out shells.

Karter heading out into the water with Daddy.

What a wonderful week at one of our favorite places on Earth, spending quality time with our family!! Can't wait until next year!! :)

Beach Time Part 2 - Kaden

2011-08-12T19:50:00.010-05:00

These cute, sand covered, chubby little feet never stopped moving while we were at the beach. Kaden was totally in love with everything about the beach and we had such a great time watching him play in the sand and surf!

Beach Time Part 1 - Karter

2011-08-10T17:48:00.008-05:00

I'm finally getting around to posting some pictures of our little cuties at the beach. My plan is to break down our vacation into a 3 part series...hopefully life doesn't get in the way and I can actually complete the series in a timely manner!!

Karter was totally in love with everything about the beach this year, well, everything except being knocked down by the waves! One of my favorite things to do while on vacation was to just sit back and watch the boys use their imaginations and enjoy their surroundings. So sit back and enjoy a few, or 27, pictures of Karter loving life at the beach...

18 Months!

2011-08-03T20:39:00.004-05:00

Monday marked the 18 month mark for our little family of 4. It is so hard to believe how quickly our baby Kaden has grown into the curious, active, loving toddler he is today. What a tremendous blessing it is to have him in our lives...God is good!

12 months ago our chunky monkey had just started to show some of his personality. Little did he (or us) know that just after he turned 6 months our family would be leaving behind our lives in Minnesota for a new life, much close to family, in Indiana!

6 months ago we celebrated our happy boys first birthday with a terrible ice storm!

Oh that long hair!!

Today our baby has grown into this handsome boy!! He has the most beautiful blue eyes and is (almost) always smiling...and drooling! On Monday we went in to Dr. Richmond's office for his 18 month well-baby visit. She was impressed by Kado's abilities and declared (what we all know anyway) that he must be getting enough to eat! He weighed in at 29.8 lbs (98th %tile), was 36 inches tall (off the charts!) and his head was 19.5 inches (also off the charts!). He is a healthy boy, who is going to pass his brother's measurements soon!

Kaden definitely keeps us on our toes...

He is an incredibly independent and stubborn boy. When he gets something in his mind, he insists on doing it by himself and his own way. Karter has been buckling the top part of his car seat for months now, and Kaden has picked up on that and now he insists on doing it himself!

From the moment Kaden wakes up he is on the move...only slowing down long enough to eat! He loves to chase Karter, torment Rascal and climb on the furniture.

Being the youngest, Kaden has learned how to take care of himself. He and Karter wrestle all.the.time. and it is usually Karter who is whining because of something Kaden has done to him. Kade also knows how to take matters into his own hands. If I tell him no to a snack, I am not surprised when I turn around to find him walking around with something he got out of the pantry, begging me to open it. Today he also figured out how to move the dining room chair, climb in and then get what he wanted off the table. Resourceful!

Kaden is just like his big brother and LOVES books! If you are sitting in the living room, you had better be prepared to read ~~hundreds~~ a few books! Although we do read the same books over and over, it is amazing to see how much he is learning from all of the books. He is able to point out animals, colors and some shapes, he can also do almost every animal sound. Even though he will let anyone read to him, his personal favorite story teller is Papaw!

Kaden is almost always talking, although we don't always know what he is saying. He tries to imitate everything we say, and is getting very good at ~~demanding~~ asking for what he wants. He favorite words to say are "tru-CK" and "du-CK".

Kaden is a true Indiana boy...he loves tractors, corn and basketball!!

I know there is more, but it is getting late and my loving husband is asleep next to me...so I should put him to bed! :)

Happy 18 Months, Kaden!!!

We love you SO MUCH!!

Road Trip!!

2011-08-02T12:05:00.007-05:00

We are back and finally unpacked from a fantastic week at the beach with the Gray's! Our trip started early, 3:30am on Saturday July, 23rd, with the hopes that the boys would sleep for a good chunk of the morning.

However, it turns out, the boys aren't much for sleeping in the van. :(

They do like to be cute though!

We stopped for a crazy breakfast somewhere in Ohio. We had all been in the car for nearly 5 hours, and when we let them loose they were like wild animals. I feel sorry for the waitress who had to clean up all their messes!

After breakfast Kaden did give in and sleep for maybe 20 minutes!

We crossed into North Carolina just around lunch time. The NC Welcome Center made the perfect place for our picnic.

I think Daddy was just as happy to get out of the van too!

About an hour after lunch we arrived at our pit stop in High Point, NC. Kristoffer had told the boys that they could jump on the beds at the hotel, since it wasn't our bed, and boy did they have fun with that little freedom!

There is something about Karter's face that says he's up to no good!

We made a little tent out of blankets for Karter to "camp" in.

After our play time, we headed down to the pool to continue helping the boys burn off some energy!

After our swim, getting up too early and not napping all day finally caught up with us all. I woke up from a power nap with this little cutie snuggled up next to me!!!

Is it just me, or does my baby look HUGE in this bed?!

We all slept great that night and woke up ready to finish our journey to the beach. We decided to make a stop at the NC Zoo on the way...more on that later.

************************************************

After soaking up the sunshine for a week, sadly our vacation was over and it was time to load up the van for our trip home.

About 10 miles from Selma, NC we started counting billboards for JR. In that 10 mile stretch, we counted nearly 20 billboards!! We couldn't see that many and not stop! The boys were getting restless and it was a good timing to stretch our legs and check out this overly advertised place.

Who doens't want to shop at a place that comes with a warning..."Warning, Warning...."

"You are about to enter the ultimate shopping experience!" It was an interesting place, we were able to stretch our legs and let the kids run crazy, but have no real interest in stopping there again!

Our plans for the drive home were to drive until we felt like stopping and then finding a hotel room. Although, things didn't quite go as planned. We encountered some terrible traffic in the mountains and ended up crawling along for 21 miles, taking us over 2 hours. Once we finally started moving again, Kristoffer started looking for a place to stay in Princeton, WV, but every place he called said they were full. We arrived in town and decided to try one last place, but they were also full. They told us that every place in the next town(30 miles away) were also full. Kind of stressed out about where we were going to stay, we decided to go ahead and have some dinner (since it was past 7) and put on a movie for the boys. A little car movie can always help calm them down! After dinner I started calling around Charleston, WV (~2 hours from where we were), and after calling almost 10 places, we finally found a place that had 1 room left. Of course we snatched it up and paid the price for not making reservations...$140! The only room they had left was a king suite. Although it was a but more than we wanted to pay, the room was huge and very nice. Besides the king size bed, it also had a pull out sofa...which was the perfect Karter size!

The bathroom was huge too. I am standing in the shower trying to show you how big the bathroom was. The toilet was in its own room. The bathroom was so big, Kado slept in there!

The sink was too high for Karter, so Daddy told him to spit in the toilet.

It may have been nearly 11pm, but YAY! for good hygiene!

We all slept great and woke up ready to finish our 4 hour drive home!

Stay tuned for more posts about our fantastic beach vacation!!!

Wordless Wednesday - Got Books!?

2011-07-20T06:10:00.002-05:00

Stocking Up

2011-07-14T06:16:00.002-05:00

Last weekend Kristoffer and I decided to break out our preserving book and put some stuff up for the winter. We are thinking of this summer as our "apprenticeship" of canning. Kim and Terry have been doing it for many years and have all of the tools necessary, so while we are living with them we are watching and learning some of their tricks...like putting Crisco around the pressure canner.

Kim is a master gardener and this spring he let Kristoffer pick out a few different things that we would want in the garden too. We were amazed when we saw how many jalapeno plans there were and the different varieties he planted. However, we realized a little too late that they weren't all jalapenos...the long, curly ones are actually salsa peppers. So instead of putting up some jalapeno poppers, we just halved, seeded and froze those to make some yummy salsa when the tomatoes are ready.

Next up was the basil. We have lots of basil!! We love making dishes with pesto, but we can only eat so much pesto at one time.

So we mixed up a big batch and put it in the freezer for later!

The last thing we made was something a little more exciting and new! We canned our very first thing...raspberry jam!! We (Kim) have a very large raspberry patch, and we have always wanted to can something. While Kim and Terry were gone we took over the kitchen (literally, not one more thing could fit on that stove) and took our turn at canning.

We ended up with 12-4 oz jars and 5-8oz jars. We are hoping to be able to make a bit more later this summer.

Good thing I know 2 little boys and 1 big boy who love jam!!

Now to figure out what to do with all of the squash...

Wordless Wednesday - Cute Boys and Their Books

2011-07-13T05:57:00.001-05:00

Best Weekend Ever - Day 3

2011-07-09T15:47:00.003-05:00

We are a little behind on our posts, but most days it is hard to find the time/energy to post. Finally, here is the conclusion to our "Best Weekend Ever"! On the 4th of July, Kim and Terry heading to OH for the day, so we had the house to ourselves for the day. The boys (and me too!) loved having Kristoffer home for the day and just hanging out in the morning. Kristoffer played with the boys while I did a bit of cleaning and food prep for our afternoon festivities. Before we headed out for the day, we tried to have a little photo shoot with flags. The flags quickly became weapons and we couldn't get a great picture of them together. We did manage to get a cue one of each of them!

Mr. Busy was too busy to look at me!

Mama and her boys!

Daddy and his boys!

I love Kaden's face peaking out from under the flag.

After our photo shoot, we loaded up the van and headed to Chesterfield for their 4th of July parade. We got there pretty early to get a good spot and have a picnic lunch before he parade.

We parked a couple blocks away and then walked to our spot. Turns out we could have parked where we sat, but we didn't know. The locate was great, and the boys enjoyed running around the grassy area behind us.

The parade started right at nap time, so by the time it started Kado's patience were running a bit thin!

We always love a good self portrait!!

Who is this big boy!?

Kaden actually wore his sunglasses for the first time and he looks super cool!

Thankfully the road was shut down, because Kaden kept wanting to start his own parade.

He got really excited when he saw the parade coming and it was a fire truck. His excitement quickly faded when the first 30 vehicles were fire trucks/police cars/ambulances and each of them had their sirens on full blast. Sensory overload!

Karter loved waving his flag at all the floats. And of course, his bucket was always close by in case there was any candy!

We had a great time celebrating our independence at the parade and we were all ready for a nap when we go home!

Every 4th of July since we have been married I have made a flag fruit pizza. (Please excuse the crazy hair and sunburn!)

The flag is not an exact replica, because I had to try and maximise the fruit to crust ratio!

We forgot to document the next part of our holiday, but we all put on our bathing suits and washed the van. Karter was a very good helper, and Kaden was very good at playing in the water!

Kim and Terry made it home in time for us to put Kaden to bed and take Karter to fireworks. We felt that Kaden was just a little young to enjoy the fireworks. Kim warned us that the hill in New Castle was pretty full when he drove by, so we parked down the road and hiked to our spot on the hill.

We brought along some sparklers to help pass the time.

He looks a bit scared in this picture, but Karter really did enjoy them. He watched them the whole time and as soon as it was done he would ask for another one.

I tried out a few different camera settings while they did sparklers.

Finally it was time for the main event! Karter LOVED the fireworks!

All day long we kept telling Karter why we were celebrating the 4th of July and then we would chant "U-S-A" and in response he would chant "I-S-A"! Thinking we were saying "you" instead of "U" he would always say "I"...it was hilarious!!

While we were waiting for the fireworks I figured out how to take videos with my camera...so here is a little video while we were doing sparklers.

We feel our job as parents is to create memories for our boys, and this weekend I think we created some wonderful memories!! I love (all 3) of my boys!!!

Best Weekend Ever - Day 2

2011-07-07T05:45:00.007-05:00

Day 2 of our holiday weekend started out like a typical Sunday...Kristoffer making pancakes for breakfast and heading off to church. I had signed up to make cookies for the Welcome Table, so I made some cute patriotic sugar cookies!

Our family has a Sunday tradition of going out to lunch with Kim & Terry and Emily & Zach after church. We had to take a break from going for he past few months, because Kristoffer was teaching confirmation after church. Although Em & Zach were out of town, we went out after church anyway, and boy did we have an exciting time at our first lunch back. The meal started out with me spilling an entire cup of chocolate milk on my lap. Then about halfway through our meal, our waitress spilled my water all over my lap...it was a great lunch...haha!

After the boys woke up from their naps, we loaded up the van and headed to Losantville to take a bike ride on the Cardinal Greenway bike trail.

It is an excellent trail and really beats riding on the bumpy country roads we are used to. We biked 5 miles out and then stopped so the boys could run around for awhile before biking the 5 miles back.

The boys had a great time throwing stones into the creek.

After our bike ride, we loaded our bikes back into the van and headed to Grandpa Kenny's to go fishing!

Grandpa gave Karter a fishing pole for his birthday and he was pretty excited to use it for the first time. It must be a lucky pole...

...because he caught this beauty on his first cast with his new pole!!

Of course Kado was not scared at all to touch the fish...

...or helping dig around for worms!

We all got lucky with Karter's fishing pole...

...Kristoffer won the "best catch of the day" award!

When we finished fishing and catching up with Grandpa Kenny and Joyce, we headed into Hagerstown for a picnic at the park. Of course, Kristoffer and I were the only two that ate anything, because the boys were more interested in the toys. Kaden, who is fascinated with cars, spotted this beauty right away and maneuvered himself inside without any assistance.

Random bear at the park!

There weren't many people at church, so I had a lot of cookies left over. We decided to drop by Gran-Gran and Grandpa Bud's house on the way home to drop off some cookies. It was really just an excuse to stop by! By the time we got there it was 9pm, we had been going all afternoon and were very sweaty and dirty, but I don't think they minded snuggling our dirty boys!!

What a fun, family filled day!!!

Best Weekend Ever - Day 1

2011-07-06T06:44:00.003-05:00

Our long fourth of July weekend started off with a great surprise...Kristoffer decided not to go into work on Saturday! It was great to spend some rare time relaxing and hanging out in our pj's on a Saturday morning! Although we loved relaxing, there was still some work to be done! The boys and I changed our clothes and headed out to the Y, while Kristoffer stayed home to do some yard work.

All week we had been talking about what we were going to do Saturday after nap time...go see car movie! When Karter woke up Saturday morning, he said "I'm ready to see car movie 2", but he was a bit disappointed that we meant after nap, not bed. So when we woke him up from his nap, he was ready to head out to the movie.

We had two free movie passes that Kristoffer won at Target (3 years ago!) and a gift card from Uncle Kyler and Aunt Kara, so since we weren't spending any money out of pocket we splurged a little!! If you bought a popcorn and drink you could get any candy for $1, so we picked out some chocolate raisins...

...and we also got Karter his own kids pack.

This is only the second time the boys have been to a theatre, so they were both pretty amazed by the size of the screen!

Movie theatres don't really carry milk, so we let Karter have his own Sprite. His own pop + chocolate raisins + fruit snacks = one crazy boy!! That night when we got home, we definitely saw the effects of what too much sugar can do to a little boy!

Kaden sat really good for the 15 minutes we were there early, all of the previews, and the first 20 minutes of the movie, but after that he had been sitting too long and needed to run around. Luckily we sat in the back of the theatre and had pretty much the entire back row to ourselves. So we just let him roam the back row. The only real noise he made was the constant scream of "CAR" whenever he saw a car came across the screen...and since we were seeing a car movie, it happened quite often!

We finished our evening out with a trip to Target and a little Mexican cuisine! Movie nights are definitely not the relaxing escape of reality that they used to be, but I wouldn't trade our family date for anything!

Check back tomorrow for Day2!

Playing Outside

2011-06-30T20:10:00.006-05:00

We've been enjoying a lot of time outside these days. The boys and I always try to do something outside during the day, but in the evenings is sometimes when we have the most fun. Every night after dinner we head outside for either a bike ride or just some fun in the backyard.

One day last week we ate outside and then went straight to the swing set to play!

Of course, the boys don't like to use the stairs to get to the top of the slide, they both insist on climbing up the slide instead. (I thought this would be an issue when other people come over to play, but Karter is a good rule follower and used the stairs when we had other kids here last weekend. Kaden on the other hand...he doesn't quite follow the rules, even though Karter tries to enforce them!)

Yes, his pants are on backwards! It is all just part of trying to teach him to be a big boy and put his pants back on after a potty break.

WEEE!!

Kaden was happy when Karter went to play baseball with Daddy and he could have the slide to himself. When he first started doing this by himself it scared me to death to watch my baby climb up like a big boy. But now, he is really, really good at it so I don't worry so much.

He's pretty good at swinging his legs around until he finds the slide.

LOVE those chubba-wubba's!!!

Why yes, that is a trail of drool he left behind!!

One of Kristoffer's goals for the summer is to teach Karter how to swing a bat. He has the steps down, and is starting to put it all together.

Just a random shot of the babe!

I always get concerned when Kado comes at me like this, but thankfully he just had a wiffle ball this time! A few weeks ago he had a bocce ball, that was a different story...

Karter doesn't hit the ball as often as he would like, he always insists on playing "pitch" instead!

And Daddy doesn't mind showing off his skills either!!

We are loving our summer days....and nights!!

A Talk with Santa

2011-06-27T19:55:00.002-05:00

Before Christmas this year, I am going to have a little talk with Santa. I don't think he understands that with two little boys running around, our house has enough noise...we don't need to add super noisy/annoying toys into the mix too.

Kaden got this little lawn mower from Santa last year, and until recently it has sat unused in the computer/toy room. He discovered it last week, and now he loves to walk around with it. He just laughs as he walks, because he knows how loud the popping balls are in it.

The elves must have played with this toy before it was delivered, because (thankfully) the additional noises that it is suppose to make don't work.

(Yes, Kaden's shirt is covered in drool...that's just how he rolls!)

As loud as it is, I really love watching this little boy have some fun. Anything that can make my baby this happy, can't be that bad! Although, I am still going to have a talk with Santa this year!

That's all! Happy Monday!!

Karter's Pictures of the Week

2011-06-22T12:48:00.003-05:00

Taking a picture of Mommy taking a picture.

Gramaw and Papaw in their cabin.

Beautiful lilies blooming by the rec room.

For this one, he told me he was taking a picture of the apples on the trees...I think they are in the bottom right corner.

Karter loves taking pictures, but sometimes I don't think that he knows he is taking them. We end up with a lot of these...

The ground up at the cabin.

His shirt.

We have A LOT of the couch!!

#1 Dad

2011-06-21T12:41:00.002-05:00

2 amazing boys with 1 fantastic daddy!

Kristoffer is such a great daddy to our boys, and this weekend we had a great time celebrating him...and dad's everywhere.

We spent Saturday afternoon around the house. Everyone else was out for the day, so it was just the four of us spending some time relaxing after the past few busy, busy weeks.

Karter woke up from his nap a little early and wanted to go outside and help daddy mow. I wasn't sure how he would do, but he helped mow the entire back yard.

To say that he enjoyed himself would be an understatement...especially when he was chasing mommy with the mower!!

Happy Father's Day to my loving husband, and the best dad to our boys I could have ever asked for!!!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Karter!

2011-06-16T20:03:00.005-05:00

It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming our first baby into the world and in the blink of an eye our baby boy has just turned 3!! THREE...wow! Even from his first days, Karter has always been a sweet, happy, loving little guy. What a blessing he is to our family!

Our boy isn't a baby anymore, he has grown into a very handsome 3 year old. He had his 3 year physical this week and his stats are full of threes...3 feet 3 inches tall (90th percentile) and 33 1/2 pounds (65th percentile). This was Karter's first appointment with Dr. Richmond, and she was very impressed with his vocabulary and counting abilities. She said he is above that of a normal three year old!

Karter and I have a little tradition, every year on his birthday we go out to lunch at Applebee's. It started out when he turned one and it was the only restaurant in Hastings, and last year he chose it himself...and this year he picked it again. So I guess it is a tradition!

This year we invited Aunt Emmy and Gramaw to come along for our celebration!

And of course Kado was there too!!

Tonight we celebrated with a dinner at home just the 6 of us (well, Papaw was late, but he got home in time for brownies!)!

Karter had a little issue this morning swallowing the fact that he was getting older, we had a little disagreement and he insisted "but I really liked being 2!" By the end of the day he finally came to terms with getting older. He did wake up knowing he got to eat off the red plate today...I guess he remembered that from last month when it was Gramaw's birthday. (He has an AMAZING memory!!)

Just like Daddy, Karter gets spaghetti for his birthday dinner!

"SCRUMPTIOUS!"

Since we already had his party, I just made him a little pan of brownies for tonight. He insisted on putting his own candles on!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET KARTERMAN!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Wordless Wednesday - Karter's Party from His POV

2011-06-15T13:00:00.006-05:00