Opa and Oma...

Opa and Oma came to visit us on Wednesday night through Saturday morning. One of our young ministers died and the funeral was Thursday here in Oregon, so my parents came up. They ended up staying until this morning much to the delight of Reese. He begs to go to their house whenever they leave.

Nothing much...

Here is our sweet little Carsten enjoying tummy time.

So, it is supposed to be in the 100's or something today and it is approaching 80 degrees in here and this is what Reese decides is necessary to wear. Hmmm... Hope he doesn't get too hot.

By the way--I keep meaning to mention that you can click on the pictures to see them bigger...

Smiles...

Here are our boys dressed in Eric Carle... I really enjoy the author Eric Carle. Reese's room is decorated with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Thank you to Nana for these two outfits.

We are trying to stay cool today. Translated that means not doing very much.

Our day at the coast...

We went to the beach and played today. Reese wanted to see the ocean, but was scared of the waves so they just tested the water and then we found a little spring that provided entertainment for the rest of the time. Reese was content to scoop water and sand and splash his feet around. He discovered he could let his sand toys go in the water and they would float away, which meant he would have to run after them...

After about an hour we decided to head to the aquarium and spent a little time there.

Reese didn't want to leave the beach, but did admit he was tired. So, we packed them up and headed out.


The funniest part of our day involved Carsten... First you have to be informed that his last bowel movement was on Tuesday. Today was Saturday. That would make it about four days since the last BM. So, on that note... We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner in Newport and I was going to stay in the car to feed Carsten. Jim got Carsten out of his car seat and declared that the BM had occured. We got out all the equipment and made the diaper change. There was quite a lot and Carsten's clothes had to be changed. I fed Carsten while Jim and Reese went in and got our dinner. We then ate a nice dinner in the car. While eating Carsten appeared to have another BM. We finished eating and then proceded to get out all the equipment again. I got him mostly cleaned up when he continued his business... kept wiping and got ready for the big diaper switch at which point he let go of the rest that he had been holding onto for four days! Mind you, there was no diaper under him at this juncture. So, poop was everywhere. I declared that now all that was needed was for him to pee. Well, we cleaned off the pad we were changing him on and our hands, etc. when all of a sudden... yep, he decided to pee. My first reaction was to worry that he was getting pee in my water which was right below in the cup holder, so I wasn't doing anything but screeching. Jim grabbed a blanket and covered up the offending fountain just as it was stopping. We finally got Carsten all cleaned up and dressed in his third outfit after much laughing--we decided we haven't laughed that hard in months! Carsten just hung out and smiled sweetly at us.

If anyone was wondering about Reese... He was exploring the backseat and taking apart anything that would come apart.

Being positive...

This is to make up for the negativity of the last entry...

Things I love about our two year old...

• He says "cheese" every time you tell him to look at the camera.

• Little things make his whole day--eating a marshmallow, getting to sleep with a new toy, playing in his sandbox, reading a book, getting to use a spray bottle...
  

• He says "thank you", "please", "I love you" without any prompting quite often.
  

• He breaks out in "Happy Birthday to me" randomly.

The list could go on and on... Now I just need to refer to these items when the tears start to roll.

Arggghhhh...

Here is my reality... These tears are all about the wrapping on a fruit bar coming off the wrong way. Reese wanted it to be a different way. Then when things had calmed down and he tried again to eat the fruit bar it broke in half... Life is so hard. Everything is wrong and difficult in the life of a two year old... at least today.


And then... the pleasant one at the moment. Carsten is sleeping through this whole episode. I am still waiting for Reese to stop crying so we can go on with our day.
Anyway. .. Carsten had his 6 week appoinment on Wednesday and he weighed in at 12 lbs. 11 oz. He was a very good baby again for the doctor and only cried a little for the shots--even those few tears break a mother's heart!

Funny boys...

Time to wash cars at the Hamiltons--ALL the cars. :)

Couldn't resist posting this picture... Reese had put a washcloth on the top of the wiggly chair and then I put Carsten in the chair so I could answer the phone. When I turned around to check on him at one point this is what I saw... a washcloth hat. It would have been fun to see the look on his face when it dropped onto his forehead...

We are at the stage of two year oldness that any decision is the wrong decision. This picture was taken after crying for 10 minutes over whether to come downstairs or not...

We usually recover quickly from our little emotional bouts...

This weekend...

We went to a wedding of Jim's cousin this weekend and Reese was the ring bearer. He was provided with a tuxedo and all the fixings. He got a nap in the car on the way to the wedding and ended up performing quite well the whole afternoon and evening. What a ham!

Reese with the bride and groom in his tuxedo. There is something about a little person in a tuxedo...



Reese thought he was the star of the show.














Reese playing with the groom.









Aunt Alicia meets Carsten for the first time.

Fun evening...

Callie and Carsten this morning... We are enjoying our time with Callie before she moves even farther away from us (Georgia). Callie is being her usual beautiful eating wierd breakfast foods self. This morning it was bread with applesauce and pizza dip--yummm.

We all had a great time last night with Siena and Remy (oh, and thier parents too).

Lazy day...

Nothing too much to report today... I caught Carsten smiling here. He smiles all the time, it is just hard to catch it on the camera. Callie came today and Estrems are coming over tonight. Lots of excitment!

I thought I'd put a picture of Reese at his table. He loves this table and we end up eating breakfast and lunch at it. This works out since it is on the vinyl and our dining room table is on the carpet (my close friends would understand this dilemma). Here he is eating "cottage" and applesauce.

We're going to give this a try...

It seems that everyone has a blog these days, so I thought I'd try it out. Today Reese had his two year old check-up at the doctor and he did great!!! He quickly responded to all the doctor's questions and performed wonderful for the developmental test. Reese had one shot today and there were no tears... What a guy. Now we are home and ready for naps. Reese finally decided to try out the baby's wiggly chair and he declairs that, "Reese likes it".


Carsten still sleeps a lot and is doing that at the moment. Here he is asleep in his car seat. He is growing like a champ and there are no complaints on his temperment--mellow!