Did I already say BUSY DAYS?

The zoo was a very hot expedition, so when we got back to Ben and Mindy's house the boys (including Ben) played in the sprinkler... Carsten mostly giggled at Ben's antics.

Our good friends Ben and Mindy wanted to take the boys to the zoo for their birthdays, so that is what we did on Saturday. Convenient since Carsten was free! We all enjoyed ourselves--hot sun, funny animals, very well-behaved boys, and good friends. Many thanks to B & M.

We needed to go back to IKEA this weekend as we weren't able to get all our flooring the first trip. The prices are liable to go up after Monday, so we were anxious to get most all the big purchases made before then. This trip we planned well, called ahead, made lists, knew what we were getting and how to get them. It went very smoothly and we were out in record time. Just had to throw that in so that IKEA doesn't look so bad. We are starting to put together our cabinets as I write (well, Jim and Reese are starting).
Update on the house: windows are almost all in and the roofing is almost complete. The electricians come Monday...

Busy Times...

Jim had business by an IKEA on Wednesday, so we thought it would be a great time to also get our kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry room cabinets. Throw a little flooring and a hutch in there too... Everything that day took hours longer than planned. I dropped Jim off for his meeting and then met our good friend Mindy for shopping/lunch. Jim was to call when he was done. Well, the lunch place we picked was noisy, so I happened to not hear the phone... until 45 minutes after Jim started to call... whoops. We raced over to get him (he had walked a mile to get himself some lunch). We then headed to IKEA. The road we picked took over an hour to get there due to an accident. I should mention that we had tried in the morning to fax over all the parts we needed, but they were not open and did not have the fax on... so, when we finally got to the place we had to go over the plans (took about and hour) and then the nice people ordered them (this took a half hour), then we came back to their department and paid, then we were told it would all be ready to pick up in an hour... great. Thankfully Mindy was with us and she would take the kids off to play throughout the store while we stressed about all the cabinets. We took the hour and tried to get a few other items and then went to check on our order... another hour! At this point we were running out of time... Mindy had to go and that is another story--her car across town... her husband came and rescued her. I won't go into much more detail other than to say that the kids were beyond tired, oh, and the parents too. It took a couple of hours, yes, hours to load everything on our trailer and to check everything off the list (they suggest you do this as you load). Jim sliced his finger on the second box and Carsten fell three times hitting his face each time. We got home at midnight. End of story. Wait... now we have to put it all together!
(note: the picture above is only about a quarter of the boxes in our garage to put together and make all our cabinets...)

We found out last week that one of our good friend's (and a previous roommate of mine) mother passed away. We headed over for the funeral... We found out on Thursday and the funeral was to be Saturday, so we hit the road on Friday. It was about a 9 hour drive. We stayed with other roomies of ours and had some fun times. The kids had a great time although Reese said that he, "did not have fun because it was only two days", he would, "have fun if next time if it was ten days".
Probably the most exciting portion of the trip was in the first two hours... we were going over a very curvy pass and low and behold Carsten became carsick. This was our first experience of this with either kid, so we were a little shocked. Reese immediately started to yell that he was also going to throw up so I started yelling for Jim to, "roll down Reese's window, pull over, Carsten is throwing up all over, pull over NOW!" Jim found a little patch of gravel on the side of the road and we attempted to clean up a 2 year old and a
carseat with just wipes. The rest of the trip we had to roll the windows down every few minutes to try to rid the car of the smell. The only thing we can figure is that usually Carsten is asleep when we are in the mountains, we had rented a small car to get better gas mileage so the kids really couldn't see the road, Carsten had just drunk a steamer... maybe the milk was bad?

We spent last evening over at the property doing a little clean-up. We collected a bag of recycling and a couple of bags of trash... lots of nails. The boys had fun putting nails in their buckets for us to throw away. The roofing is coming right along... today they are going to finish framing the front patio so it can be roofed. Speaking of roofing... they had a little visit from OSHA yesterday. In the picture of the back of the house below you will notice the boards they put on after the visit. Whoops. They got a little talk and a little fine.

Last day with Lane...

Today is our last day with Lane... tomorrow they pull out in a moving truck. We are going to miss you Lane--your easy smile, your happy nature, and your ease of amusement on the couch. It's been a great six months watching you and we are going to miss your parents too!

Coming along...

We headed over to the property today at Reese's request. The boys collected nails and hammered to their hearts' content. Our house is really taking shape! This picture is from the street aimed at the front and garage end.

From the back.

Aimed at the garage.

The Great Outdoors

We went over to Jim's dad's house today and spent the day working on getting the place ready for company. Jim and my mom, Oma, worked outside while Alicia and I worked inside. The boys ended up outside all day. They couldn't have had a better day... outside. At one point Alicia and I caught them playing--evidence in the picture.

2 years ago today...

Our second newborn.

One

Two
This morning eating breakfast...

Dear Carsten,
You have got to be the happiest boy we know. You have a fabulous smile and you hand it out often. You wake up happy and can be woken up happy. You are starting to use so many words it amazes us. Our favorite thing you do is copy whatever we tell you to say, which leads to some pretty funny words. Some good ones are; bumpzky, pot pie, toot, and Reese. Carsten, your brother loves you bigola and you love him the same. You are a little more rough and tumble, but you both get along amazingly. We don't want you to grow up, but it is quite fun to see you grow and change. You are getting more fun each day. I love that you smile at everyone and are willing to wave and give smiles to friends. You don't seem to have a slow speed or a walk speed, you run everywhere. Your favorite color is blue and you are quick to point out anything blue in our day. We love you bigola and hope you have a happy day today!
Love, Mommy

To answer some of your questions today is Carsten's birthday and Monday was mine. The construction zone cake was for all of us this year... We are going to make cookies or something simple to share tonight after Bible study, but other than that we are going to keep it low key.

The boys' cake...

Reese requested a strawberry cake for his birthday, so we made a strawberry excavator cake. The cake is strawberry cake and the rocks are chocolate covered strawberries--yummy.

Info

The service for Paula will be this Saturday, June 7th at 11:00am. If you need more info (address, etc.) please email us...
Thank you for all your kind comments and thoughts going our way--we appreciate all the care and concern.

We are going to miss her...

Paula passed away this morning...

Paula

I am sure you are all wondering how Jim's mom is doing... she is declining. She hasn't eaten or drank in almost a week and she cannot communicate. She really doesn't wake up anymore, but at times she'll open her eyes and almost get a smile if you are talking to her. She doesn't appear to be in any pain (she is on pain meds and they seem to be doing their job). We don't know how much longer we'll have her with us, but it won't be long.
Jim has been spending the nights at his parents and tonight Alicia got here, so they both went out to their parents. All three kids will be home tonight. Thank you for all your kind comments and thoughts... we appreciate all the care we get.

Starting to look like a house...

Ta-da!

Posing in daddy and mommy's bedroom.

Carsten pounding nails.

Jim giving the "this is where we'll..." talk

My parents got here this evening and so we were itching to go out and see the progress on the house... we actually had something to show! So fun when it starts to look like a place to live!

Heartache...

This is something I haven't wanted to tackle on the blog, but I know there are those of you out there that care and so I am going to try...
Jim's mom is not doing well. She is failing every day in small ways and it is becoming more evident that the end is very near for her. Our hearts are aching, but there is a part of us that wants to let go too.
Jim is losing his mom, I am losing a very special mother in law and my children are losing a grandma that loves them dearly. She still gets a grin on her face when Carsten comes in the room. The other day Carsten would keep going over to her bed and putting his hand in hers... breaks your heart, but warms it as well.
Not sure how to put in words the tears streaming down our faces...

4 years ago today...

Our newborn...

One

Two

Three

Four
(I should mention that this picture was taken this morning when Reese got up discovered that his very special daddy had gotten up early to go and buy him balloons, treats, and a frisbee!)

Dear Reese,
You are the cutest 4 year old I know... I enjoy watching you learn new words and new ways of doing things. Two days ago your new word was, "awkward". You wouldn't stop repeating it. You actually don't stop talking for much... Your favorite animal has morphed into favorite animals, which we call, "people". You take about 8 people to bed with you every night and they all must be accounted for. Since you are the older brother it is nice that you have patience (most of the time) and are not a fighter. You allow Carsten to tackle you and you just lay there. I love that you have such a great love for the special people in your life. Oma probably tops the list, but you have quite a list. Amazingly your infatuation with hammers has not dimmed. You cry when we forget to take a hammer to the property and most days a hammer is not far from your hands. It is great fun to watch you grow Reese and we love you to the moon and back again! Happy Birthday!
Love, Mommy

Updates and Fiascos

No pictures to go with this one...
Updates...
The house is not being worked on at the moment. Our contractor had other obligations, so our house is still the same...
Carsten's tooth is fine. We went to a very nice pediatric dentist and she filed it down so it will be smooth. She was concerned that the part of the tooth that broke off could be in his lip since we never found it, but after x-rays and a consultation with an oral surgeon he was deemed okay. The pediatric dentist was very kind and they went out of their way to make Carsten comfortable. He laid on my lap and the dentist's lap to have the work done. He still cried, but not out of control.
Fiascos...
Swimming lessons. We thought we were quite brilliant in thinking the boys would like swimming lessons for their birthdays. Hmmm... tonight was the first class and Carsten screamed/cried the whole time. Reese clung tightly to Jim and cried for a bit as well. We are going to keep going and not give up, but getting Carsten in next week will be a challenge.

What are you doing with YOUR incentive check???

$$$ Well, Carsten has dipped into our incentive check... $$$
This afternoon Carsten tripped and fell against a chair and his tooth hit a chair tack (I think that is what they are called). Off to the dentist... kind of. I could not find my keys to the Suburban. The van was in the garage, but the Suburban was parked such that I could not get it out. I called Jim and he had the spare set of keys to the Suburban. Jim came tearing home to take us to the dentist. The dentist pulled a broken piece of tooth out of Carsten's gums and deemed him okay. Next week we get to go to the pediatric dentist to get it "fixed".

Bit by Bit...

We returned home to a little more progress (the contractor would probably not like the word, "little"). I'm sure there is more work being done, just not obvious. Some plumbing has been done, the heating/air ducts are in, they have leveled off the dirt piles, and started the floor. The boys were excited to run around on top of it last night.

The Pacific Ocean!

We decided to take a little break this last weekend and we took off for the coast. Andrew, my brother, met us there. Reese liked to tell people that we were going to the Pacific Ocean. Carsten was very cute and learned to say, "beatsch". These two pictures were on our last morning there...

Jim had to work on Monday, so Unc and I took the boys to the aquarium. We always enjoy it there and Carsten especially liked it this time. Amazingly he was content to stay in this hilarious stroller. It squeaked and rattled something fierce, but he liked it. We had forgotten to take our stroller and I really didn't think he'd stay in it anyway. This stroller was free with our passes.

Unc and Reese.

Carsten was pretending to walk with a stick/cane... don't know where he got the idea.

The dad and mom...

We took our trailer and camped at a little place right on the beach. We were steps away from the water. We scoped out the best spots to park next time, but our spot was pretty good. I should have taken more pictures, but... We had dinner one night at our favorite coast restaurant with our friends Truman and Elinor (who happened to be spending the weekend at the coast as well). Then we met some great people on Sunday, Lee and Lisa. They invited us over to their place Monday night and we had a great time getting to know them! (We talked about you Callie and Darci).

And today...

We have a floor...

Progress

Stem walls are done... now the floor joists are being done.

Auntie Alicia and Justin are here (no pictures yet...). We are enjoying our time with them.

Pumper Trucks, Concrete, and Little Boys...

Today we spent the day out at the *property*. We didn't have Lane and so we just packed up and went to watch the action. They poured the stem walls today so that involved a pumper truck and two concrete trucks. The boys had a great time just watching. The guys working were very nice to the boys and let them get close to watch and explained what they were doing. After the first picture Reese wanted to be in charge of pictures, so here they are...