Update

OK, so the first night of bottle weaning may have gone a little too well. The last two days at nap time Karsten hasn't taken milk at all. He cries himself to sleep each time. He only cries for about 10 minutes off and on. Last night for bed time Karsen would not take his milk but after laying him down and tucking him in he quietly went to sleep. Tonight he fought me hard to not take his milk and is currently still crying himself to sleep.

I know this is a battle with a very strong willed little guy and the outcome is really best for him but it is still super hard for this mommy. I am already missing and looking forward to again having quiet rock time before laying him down for bed.

I have been a little anxious about the amount of milk he has been drinking (or a lack there of) so I looked up today to see how much milk he requires at this age. I am pretty sure that he is meeting that requirement or very very close so that makes me feel better. We also have been doing lots of yogurt and cheese. I think I may take the little juice he gets completely away for a few days to encourage him to drink his milk.

I am really hoping this battle doesn't last for too many more days. I feel so bad for my little man. :(

So excited!!!

OK, so Karsten is about three days away from being 16 months old and he up to this point has still been using the bottle. Well his New Year's Resolution and mine is Bye Bye Bottle!! Whenever we did the sleep training thing Karsten did great and he was falling asleep by himself just fine. He would drink his milk in my lap and I would lay him down, he would turn over and that was it. It was great for about 4 months. Well one morning I wasn't feeling well and I gave him his bottle to drink in his bed. I know, I know. BIG NO NO!! That has been the habit ever since.

Monday night I cracked down. I didn't have any more excuses. For the past month or so we have been super busy or out of town so it was not a good time to take the bottle away. I finally ran out of excuses and Monday night I started getting him in the habit of drinking his milk in my lap again. The first night he fussed when I took his bottle away for about ten minutes and then fell asleep. The second night I laid him down, covered him up, turned on his fan and then went to grab his bottle and he had already dropped it next to him. The third night He handed it to ME!! I was cracking up as I left the room. He is such a quick learner so we went without the bottle tonight. Granted it was a Nuby cup with a silicon nipple like thing, but it is still a cup nonetheless. He did great. Other than flowing a little to fast for him you couldn't tell a difference. I did the same routine and his little arm was in the air waiting for me to take the cup from him before I walked out of the room.

I am just so excited because I have made this to be such a big deal in my head. Maybe it was more me that was hanging onto the bottle?? I am so proud of him and the little man that he is becoming. Peter doesn't understand why this makes me so giddy. It is something that has been on the dreaded part of the to-do list for many months. So far so good but we will see if he seems to pitch any fit later on for the bottle.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas everyone. We had a great Christmas so far. Karsten had fun with his tent that he received from us this year. It is huge, I think it takes up a whole corner of our living room. His favorite gift is probably his little bag of lizards that only cost a buck. He loved his ride on horse from Grammy and his cool chair from his Nana.

It was kinda funny that we had to wake him up this morning. I am guessing that won't last too long. This was Karsten this morning when I went to wake him up. I thought it was too cute too not take a picture.

I also must have been a good girl this year. Peter got me a Dyson vacuum and replaced my awesome memory foam pillow that I left in Barstow California when we took our roadtrip this summer. I have missed it dearly. I got some other great gifts too that I can't wait to try out. A cool Shark steam mop and a red stand mixer. I have wanted one of those for about 5 years. I can't wait to clean and cook tomorrow so I can try out my new gadgets.

We hosted Christmas this year and had lots of fun. It was nice to have a stress free Christmas and not have to run to different houses and leave early because of Karsten's nap. It was a great Christmas. Peter and I loved getting everything together for Karsten too. I can't wait until he gets bigger and we can really explain to him what Christmas is about. I would love to start a tradition of reading the Christmas story from the Bible every year as a family on Christmas day.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!! Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Birthday Jesus!

Karsten playing his drums this morning.

P.S. I know I posted t his picture twice but for the life of me I can't firgure out how to take it off my blog. So if someone knows pass that knowledge on to me please.


Karsten sitting back in his easy chair that his Nana made for him. You can see his tent in the background. Let me just say that is not all of it. You are only seeing about 15% of it in the background. It is HUGE!!

O, Christmas Tree

We finally have our tree up!! I am so happy. We almost didn't put a tree up this year due to little hands in the house. Instead we put it on a box behind a chair. As of yet Karsten hasn't found a way to get to it.

It's only been a day though. Give it time.

I am very proud of my tree this year. This is the first year that I am using ornaments and lights that I really like. I love white lights on our tree because all of my ornaments are colored and the colored lights don't show off the ornaments as well as white. I will save the details of my tree, even though I would love to tell you about each ornament and where it came from and the meaning and or memory behind it. I will spare you.

If you know me well, you know that I am pretty dorky, uh-hum Kayla. If you came over to my house I would probably make you sit through all the details of each ornament. For now I will let you few blog readers off with a picture to admire, j/k. Admire only if you want to.

Oh, I made a fun wreath for the front door too. I love Christmas decorating because I get to have all kinds of fun projects.

Enjoy pictures and for those of you who may be wondering, Karsten's favorite part of the tree is the hanging glass balls. Anything that looks even remotely round is a ball to him.

He kinds likes the lights too. He waves his hand at them and says "ot ot". As we have instructed him not to touch them because they are hot.

I hope everyone if having a fun time decorating for Christmas!!!!!

Home Again

After a great 9 day trip to Minnesota we are HOME AGAIN!! There is nothing like being away from home for that long and coming back. Dorothy is right to say "There is no place like home". Don't get me wrong we had a blast. We got to meet our brand new nephew and get to know our little niece. Karsten also had alot of fun. He loved playing with his cousin and he slept better while we were away than he does in his own bed sometimes. We got to meet people that we had heard of and seen pictures. We also got to catch up with my Brother and Sister-In-Law that we really haven't gotten to spend much time with the last few years. I also have to mention what great hosts my Brother and Sister-in-law are. We really enjoyed getting to stay with them and they went out of their way to make us feel totally at home. All in all, it was a great trip.

The last day was probably the longest day. We got to the airport at about 9:30 in the morning for an 11:00 flight. I pushed Karsten in the stroller just to keep both of us sane while we were waiting. As we come back to our terminal when it should be about time to start boarding we notice that our plane is not in it's spot. Time goes by and the little screen still says our flight is On Time but there is no plane. About 15-20 minutes before our plane was supposed to leave the gate attendant announces that our plane has brake issues and had been fixed but they have to perform a 25 minute test then taxi over to our gate. (My question was, "Does a plane really need brakes?? They don't work in the air right? When we land they could just use a net and catch us.... I was pretty desperate at this point) Anyway I guess they thought that brakes were pretty important and it should only put us behind 45 minutes in the long run. We have a 2 1/2 hour layover at DFW so this still works. I even would be able to feed Karsten lunch before we get on the plane.

Peter goes for a walk to waste some time and look at a little airplane toy we were thinking of buying Karsten. (We decided against it, it was a little over priced at $8.) While he was gone I was feeding and entertaining Karsten, the gate attendant has an announcement. She starts with"OK, folks I've got some really bad news. This flight has been cancelled. You may get in line and rebook or I have a little stack of phone numbers you could call and rebook over the phone." I jump up to get in line with Karsten in his stroller and remember that I can't leave our luggage. I call Peter, tell him what is going on ask him to get back. He comes back and I immediately get in line. While in a huge line that is not moving at all I ask myself "Why don't I call the number??" I have this fear of talking on the phone to make appointments, order pizza and basically anything else that has to do with making decisions on the phone. This is quite funny since I used to work in a call center at a bank's customer service department. So I go grab a little paper with the number on it and make the call. Right away someone answers, there was no wait time. The lady on the other end of the line was super nice. She very quickly secured the last two seats on the next flight out at 1:00. She also had to change our connecting flight to Abilene. With everything considered it only put us in an hour and a half later than our original flight. The very nice lady on the phone also said that they seats would be two different middle seats. Any one with a child that is 15months old and very busy knows this is a difficult situation. After talking with the gate attendant we were able to get two seats together. They were the ones right behind first class and there was a wall in front of us instead of no leg room and seats. It was so nice. We ended up having a really nice flight. We also landed sooner than expected and were able to catch our original flight to Abilene.

That one was delayed about 30 minutes from being overweight. This is a long time considering that the flight it self only last about 35 minutes. We were able to keep Karten kinda entertained and unable to shake the seat in front of him. By this time Karsten had only slept 30 minutes the whole day so he was absolutely wired. We survived anyway. I guess the moral of the story is that a plane does need brakes and even though your flight gets cancelled the Lord can still orchestrate you to get home somewhere near your original time. Thank you Jesus!! I don't say that lightly. Friday was a long tiring day and I can't imagine how we made it through except by the grace of God!!!!

My little Explorer

Karsten is very content lately with exploring all aspects of the house. He loves the water machine on the refridgerator, he loves my kitchen drawers and just about anything else that is not necassarily considered a toy. He is so much fun lately. He repeats almost anything you say. His words lately have been "nandy" for candy, "bite" and my favorite is "nack nack" that is for snack snack. He is so much fun.

Notice the wet stain all down the front is his pajamas. Mommy forgot to lock the water dispenser.

I can't wait to see what he will think of his cousin who is five months older than he is. I think that they will be instant pals. We are so excited about our trip next week. We get to spend Thanksgiving in Minnesota with Peter's brother and his family. We also get to be there when they have their new baby!! Yay!! The only thing I am not excited about is the airplane. There will be a lot of praying on my part. Also we will have a lap passenger for two different flights. If you have been around a 15 month old baby you know they are not good at sitting in laps, at least Karsten is not. I am very nervous about keeping him entertained. Other than the flight I cannot wait!! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!!

Missing

The past few weeks I have been missing things, or people and places I should say. Almost a year after we were married we moved to an old dirty house outside of La Grange. It was really dirty and filled with bugs, but it was home. We found a church and settled into our little niche. I loved my job. Probably more than any other job I had before it. I love my friends. I say that in the present tense because I still love them, even if I rarely see them.

I remember dinners at our dirty old house out in the middle of nowhere. The friends who would drive just to spend time with us. I miss it so much. I miss friends that were so near and you could really share life with. Not just the in's and out's of your day.

Even though I know we are where the Lord has put us and that, that particular season of life is over, I still miss it. I also still feel like it is missing in our life now. I want that kind of friendship in person. Not just over the phone. I want to be such good friends with someone that I could just stop by their house anytime and be welcome and visa versa. The only thing I don't seem to miss is that dirty old house. Although the quiet of the country life was very pleasant and the views of rolling hills were great.

It makes me wonder if I will ever have that again. Making friends is just so hard. Not just casual friends. The really good ones that know all about you and still like you. I feel like we are "niche"less. I have two great friends that live in Dallas. One of them has known me forever it seems and still likes me. The other, we have known each other for a few years but are just getting to the really deep stuff. I don't just want that over the phone or for short visits. I want it here.

I know there are different seasons of life where we have different kinds of friends and friendships but tonight I am saddened that there are many great friends out there I don't get to see and talk to as much as I would like. To all my friends out there. You know who you are, and I miss you!!