Our growing Carsten

I was sitting and watching Carsten today and realizing that he is suddenly within the past two weeks doing so many new things. I wondered before I had him if I would be as excited when a second child did their "firsts" as I was with my first born. Well I have my answer because it is just as exciting! Here are a few of Carsten's new tricks:

• He waves hello and goodbye by opening and closing his little hands
• He blows kisses and even makes the sound "mm-wa"
• He throws a soft baseball (basically lets it fall out of his hand, but fully knows what you are asking him to do)
• He "moos" when he sees Rylan's little cow
• He is starting to say "ball" and he says "mama, dada, bubba and nana"
• He claps whenever he does something he is proud of or if someone says "yeah"

Carsten enjoying his sled ride

Carsten and Grandpa enjoying the outdoors

Demolishing a teething biscuit

He is so much fun and is really starting to show more and more of his little personality!

Merry Christmas!

We miss you all and really wish we could be there to celebrate this glorious day with you! Thank you for the many gifts and cards that have been sent to us! We love you and can't wait to see you again...in person! Here are a few photos from this morning and yesterday when we were out on a walk.

Carsten watching daddy and brother play in the snow!

Carsten and daddy coming in from the cold

Carsten and Auntie Ju-Ju out for a walk

Rylan got lots of "Cars" toys!!

Carsten got his own "Cars" to play with big brother!

Our world is white

This picture gives a taste of what it has been like here lately. We have been getting snow storm after snow storm. At times it feels like we are in a human snow globe that continues to be shaken! We are really enjoying the weather except for the road conditions that follow. It is hard to drive in the snow and now we are a bit fearful after the accident. It sure is beautiful here and I never really get tired of sitting in the house watching snow gently fall to the ground!

Pictures from Papa & Nana's Visit

Parent's visit and an accident

My parents came into town on Wednesday evening of last week. We have had a wonderful visit with them. It has been such a joy to spend time together. Watching them with the boys is so fun. Rylan was giggling as we got close to the airport and has been loving on his papa and nana since they got here. Carsten took about a day to warm up to them. He sort of just stared at them with a look that said, "who are you and why are you in my house?" He got over that and has now been loving on them as well!

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas. We had a big breakfast in the morning, then opened gifts and had a nice dinner with all the fixings! We had a pumpkin pie cake like thing that I made for dessert. It was delicious! Then we played a few rounds of Carcassonne which my parents got us for Christmas!

Today we left in the morning for our Sunday group. It was snowing pretty good when we left, so Jeff was taking extra precautions on the road. On the way (about 1/2 mile from our house) we began to slide down a hill and were unable to stop. We were only going about 5-10 mph thankfully. We hit the rear left side of another car which sent it tumbling down into a ravine. As soon as our car stopped Jeff and I ran to the other car. My parents stayed in our car with the boys. We were all okay and unharmed in our car. When we got to the other car it was on its side. I opened the door and unbuckled the woman's seatbelt and helped her climb out of the car. Her husband was still in the car and complaining of chest pain. My mom called the paramedics and they were on the scene within about 10 minutes. Around an hour later they finally got the man out of the car. He was alert and talking the whole time and it appears that he will be fine. He did go to the hospital in the ambulance and they told us he was going to be okay.

We have our Father to thank because this could have been a lot worse. It really shook us up, especially Jeff who felt very responsible. Everyone including the police reassured him that he did everything he could and these things just happen sometimes. They blamed it completely on the road conditions. Think of Frank & Marianne (the couple we hit) and our family as we deal with the aftermath of this accident. Jeff is renting a car tomorrow to take my parents back to the airport. Think of them as they drive in what is supposed to be not the best weather conditions.

Free rides for Carsten

Rylan pushing brother around the house!

I'm not sure if Carsten liked it or not!!

A family gave us this sled for Carsten it is awesome!

We have plenty of snow to play in!

The ornament burglar

Being a naughty boy and climbing under the tree

Getting stuck under the tree

All worth it to chew on an ornament

Yummy!

A cookie story

Last night I made cookies. Yes, we do on occasion make cookies and no, they were not vegan! Anyway I was making cookies while Jeff was putting Rylan to bed. I went up to say goodnight to Rylan after having taken a bite of cookie dough. When I gave Ry a kiss he says to me, "I smell somefing in you mough mommy, what you eating?" I was just laughing during this little monologue of his when he continued on by saying, "Can I have a cookie?" I never even told him it was cookie dough, but the boy has a sniffer like a hound! He can smell anything on our breath, especially if it is of the sweet nature! He really makes us laugh!!

Christmas Decorating

Rylan being a goofy boy!

Rylan loves listening to Great Grandma Burns read him this story!

It has her voice recorded into it. He thinks it is great!

Carsten wearing a Mickey Santa hat!

We finally got the chance to decorate for Christmas this weekend! Rylan was so excited. He was giggling as we opened up the Christmas tub. Carsten was in bed, so it was a good time for us to spend with Rylan. We even made some cookies to make it an extra special event! We had music from the Nutcracker on in the background and it was a really joyous evening!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for everyone who follows our family happenings. Thank you for your support of our family. It means so much to know you are thinking of us on a regular basis. We are so grateful to have family and friends like you. We wish we could be there to celebrate Thanksgiving with you in the states, but our potluck dinner with the other students and staff here will have to suffice! We hope you all enjoy time together with your families today!

Whirling by

 My blog updating has been lacking lately...sorry! Life just seems to whirl by me sometimes and I can get so caught up in the day to day routine that I forget important things like our blog. A lack of sleep has not been helping either. Carsten is teething again (we think) and therefore has been pretty fussy and waking up some nights for an hour or more at a time. Add that to late nights and early mornings and it makes for a tired set of parents. Things are going great, just busy as we get more in more involved in life here in Canada. Here are some recent pictures of the boys.

Carsten recently learned how to clap!

 

 

 

Rylan loves to ride his horse.

Carsten was desperately trying to get outside where brother was!

Having reading time together before bed.

Being a "helpful" big brother...without being asked!

Potatoes & a sick baby

We have been so fortunate to receive a lot of food donations lately, so we are trying to make the most out of it. Recently we were given lots of apples which I previously mentioned, but we were also given tons of red potatoes and some butternut squash.

Today we spent most of the day peeling, cutting, cooking and freezing the potatoes and squash. We decided to make french fries that are similar to what you buy in a grocery store frozen and then you bake them. Basically you blanch the potatoes in oil for about 4-5 minutes, just until they are barely brown. After that you dry them off and then freeze them. Then when you are ready to use them, you just put them in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. We really don't eat fries very often, but figured we could store some for future use. We are also making up large batches of mashed potatoes and freezing those as well. We cooked the squash up for baby food, which Carsten loves!

We feel so fortunate to have received this food. We are making everything we can think of that uses potatoes so that we can freeze them before they go bad. All that to say we have been busy and I am tired of cutting potatoes!

On another note entirely, I am pretty sure Carsten has an ear infection. He has been fighting a cold the past few days with a fever. Just noticed to day that he seemed to be in pain anytime I got near the one ear. Hopefully we can take care of it quickly. Think of him in the next few days!

Bath time

Carsten loves taking a bath each night!

Rylan will literally stay in there until the water is freezing!

 The other night we gave Carsten a few pieces of banana to see how he would do with it. Well it ended up all over him, so we opted to throw him in the kitchen sink for a quick bath before dinner. Once Carsten was in the sink of course Rylan wanted to be as well, so we filled up the other side and let him take a quick bath as well. He looks huge next to Carsten!

November already

It is amazing how quickly time flies by. It is hard to believe that it is already Temperatures are dropping here and we continue to see little glimpses of what lies ahead...snow and more snow :) We can't wait!

It was lightly snowing this morning when I took Rylan down to preschool. He was so excited. He kept saying, "look mommy there is snow on your jacket." When I told him there was snow on his jacket, he just laughed. When he got into class he ran up to his friend Elroy and said, "Elboy (how he pronounces it) it is snowing outside, Elboy,  you see the snow outside?" They were both giddy about it.

This week has been a busy one. Someone donated several boxes of apples and several bags of potatoes to the school, so we have been processing a bunch of those. With the apples we have made raw apple sauce to freeze for Carsten and we are drying out a bunch of them in a borrowed dehydrator. With the potatoes, we are making a bunch of meals that use potatoes and freezing them for future use. It has been a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it!

Happy Halloween!

I took the boys around where we live tonight for some trick or treating! Jeff stayed at home to hand candy out. They got a lot of candy even though we only went to about 10 houses. One house that we went to the gal said to Rylan, "here is a bag of candy for you, one for your brother and here is one for your mommy." Rylan said to her, "how about one for my daddy too." She said that is a great idea and gave an extra full size snicker bar for Jeff.

Happy Cowboy

Grumpy Cowboy

A little Carstensaurus

A happy little dino

Carsten the stair climber...sort of

 "I learned how to climb up one stair, but then I got stuck there. When mommy told me it was a no-no I laughed and thought I was pretty funny!"

Family fun day

Here is a picture of Rylan and his friend Caleb who stayed with us last weekend! They really had a good time together, especially when I set up the tent and tunnel for them to play in! Carsten loves it too! We put him in there with Rylan and he just giggled like crazy. Their relationship develops more each day and we are excited to see them play together as brothers and friends!

Today was a day off from classes, so we decided it was time for our family to leave the campus and venture out for some fun together. We went up to Owen Sound (about 45 minutes away) to see a few waterfalls. We found the first waterfall, which was not really that amazing, but still fun. We spent time there letting Ry run around and we took some pictures of both boys there.

 Then we went looking for the second waterfall and stumbled upon this really fun park instead. Rylan was so excited to get to play at the park. The weather was perfect today which was awesome! It has been raining almost everyday, but today it was clear skies, gusty winds and about 60 degrees. Not bad at all. It was a very refreshing day, just what we all needed! (We never did find the second waterfall)