Christmas in Iowa!

This blog post is long overdue, but I still wanted to share a little about our Christmas adventures in Iowa. We flew in on December 14, which was one of the longest days of our lives especially since we were traveling with Carsten. Carsten only took three 1 hour naps on each of the three legs of our journey, but once again, his inability to nap in places other than his crib paid off by allowing him to seemlessly adjust to Iowa time. We were all feeling pretty crabby and tired after our long journey, so we were very grateful to my parents who graciously came and picked us up from Sioux Falls. We basically took it easy for the first week while we finished adjusting to jet-lag and got some much needed rest. We also spent time with my grandparents and parents, which was a lot of fun. My brother and sister came into town right before Christmas, and we really enjoyed the few days that we were all together again :). Ironically, I think we've spent more time all together in Switzerland than in the states (go vacation!). We all very much enjoyed spending time with our family during the Christams Holiday. Here are some photos of our time there:

 We took Carsten to a free train ride in the Sioux Center mall. It wasn't very busy, so Carsten rode it for ~45 min! He absolutely loved it and was asking for 'more' (see next photo) before the train came to a stop (he knew the route after a couple of rides). 

Carsten loved all the toys at my mom's house. There were some new toys and some old toys that used to be ours when we were little. I think Carsten's favorite was the horse :).

Cheesy baby

Carsten enjoyed the tree at my Grandma's house, and he also loved playing with the toys at her house with Grandpa. We got to spend some time at Grandma and Grandpa's during the week leading up to Christmas. Grandma schooled both Andy and I at Scrabble - good work Grandma! :)

Carsten got to have some fun playing with his Grandma and Grandpa. He rocked on the horse and the teeter totter with Grandma and then got to play with the toy toolbench and go on tractor rides with Grandpa. He had so much fun!

Carsten got to have some fun moments with Grandpa Ranschau who we got to see on several occasions.

The Hoogeveen family all dressed up for the Christmas Eve service!

Carsten started getting the hang of opening gifts, and he came away with some really fun gifts from our family :). We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve, and then had Swiss fondue that we had brought back from Egg.

Sometimes when I take a photo, I think 'this is totally going in the blog.' This was one of those photos.

 On Christmas Day we had the Ranschau festivities at Mom and Dad's house in the afternoon, and then went to have Hoogeveen festivities at Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen's house in the evening. It was a busy day! Carsten and Uncle Norm got the award for most similarly dressed :). Carsten also entertained every one with enthusiastic bouncing on the horse.

Santa came to Grandma and Grandpa Hoogeveen's house, and Carsten was given a nice riding toy that we unfortunately did not have room to take back. However, he did enjoy it before we left :). Carsten and Andrew looked pretty cute (sorry Megan!).

Megan's expression makes me laugh :).

cute photo

Daddy helping Carsten open gifts :). 

Carsten with his Great Grandparents!

We had a great time, and as always, it went by way too fast. We miss you all!

climbing on chairs!

I posted this on facebook already, but Carsten is now climbing onto our dining room chairs. He's really quite thrilled and usually sits for a minute to enjoy the new view of the room before climbing off again. Carsten is quite proficient at getting on and off our furniture now, and the only rule that we haven't quite mastered is sitting at all times on the furniture. We're at the point when he knows that he is not allowed on the furniture, but when he's feeling punkish (happens several times a day now) he stands up and intentionally gets my attention by making noise. So, now timeouts happen for him if he doesn't sit down at my first request. For the record, he usually does sit down, and ironically, he responds better to a quiet tone of voice rather than an elevated tone of voice. An elevated tone of voice just seems to make him more excited and punkish, so quiet voices it is :). Here's a photo of Carsten on the chair:

Carsten is 16 months!

Carsten is 16 months plus a few days... :)

16 months!

Well, we had a great month back in the US seeing all our wonderful family and most of our friends. I'll write some separate blog posts about our time there. Right now, I'd like to write a post about Carsten because he's starting to try out words! :) Here are words that we've heard him say:

Dad
Mama
Grandpa
Grandma
all done
more
hot
trash
tractor
truck
dump truck
tree
giraffe
clock
yea (as in yes)
sit

Yesterday afternoon, he walked around the house saying 'trash' over and over again. So cute :). He's also starting to make animal noises upon request: woof woof, roar (yes, like a lion), neigh, moo, and meow. He seems to go in phases as to which ones he'll actually say. Carsten has learned a few more signs as well and now his repertoire includes more, all done, please, help, bathtime, and thank you. It's surprising what you can communicate with just these signs. For example, if there's something Carsten is not supposed to get into, I can tell him 'all done' and he understands and usually listens :).

Making the sign for 'more' indicating that he wanted more train rides :).

Carsten is also starting to interact with other kids more, and we saw him enjoy playing with his cousins quite a bit, which is fun to watch. We unfortunately caught some pretty nasty colds in the last couple of weeks, so in an attempt to not pass it along and to not catch something else while recovering from jet-lag, Carsten and I are laying low this week. I think we're getting ever so slowly better, which is a nice change.

See, he had fun ;).

We're also trying to encourage more self-feeding at meals, so yesterday I attempted to not help Carsten at all, which went great. He fed himself pasta using mostly his hands and he seemed to get more than enough to eat. He also seemed to enjoy feeding himself and made 'num' noises when he shoved a handful of pasta in his mouth. I must admit, the mess on his face was much greater than usual, but surprisingly there was very little mess on the floor indicating pretty good accuracy in my book. I couldn't resist a few photos of his pasta face.

I'm sensing some slideshow photos someday in the future :).

Love this kid.

In other Carsten news, he's now had 3 haircuts, and I'm actually enjoying cutting his hair (it doesn't look too shabby either). We also have a visual on 12 teeth (4 molars, 4 bottom, and 4 top), and hopefully we'll get a break from teething for a while. He's still climbing furniture, but he now seems to understand that he needs to sit on the furniture instead of stand. He's not climbing nearly as much as his twin cousins, but honestly, that's ok with me :). Since coming back from the US we've starting watching a few minutes of video (like veggietales) where we all have been enjoying some snuggle and relaxation time; snuggles are hard to come by with Carsten so we love the rare opportunities.

When we came back to Switzerland after being gone for 3.5 weeks, we noticed that Carsten was a lot taller than when we left because he was now able to reach the light switches with ease and now his nose is as table height instead of his eyes. It's fun to see that kind of growth and it corroborates my observation that his 24 month clothes that were quite big 2 months ago, are now the right size. He's really been growing out of clothes fast! Carsten also enjoyed his old toys again, so we put away some of the new ones for a rainy day. He also remembered the playground and wanted to play in the sandbox which we did not do since it was wet.

While we were in the US, Carsten definitely was putting names with faces because you could ask him where '_____' was and he would point or look at the correct person. He's also been doing that with objects and saying 'DA', which we translate as 'look at that!' or 'whatisthatit'ssoexciting!'. His favorite things right now are his blanket (which he asks to go into his crib during non-sleep times to snuggle it for a few minutes), trucks, tractors, construction equipment (especially diggers), most animals, the laundry basket, books, and spatulas.

Here's some more photos of Carsten:

wearing Daddy's slippers

playing

cheesy baby in the laundry basket

he fell in. :)

cheesy baby on top of the laundry basket :)

climbed on the futon to read books to himself

I think that's all for now about Carsten. Next up will be details of our holiday time in Iowa and Michigan!