1st phrase

Carsten has started stringing words together! The first couple phrases have been: truck please, Mama towel (referring to the towel hanging up in the bathroom), and bye-bye world. He has repeated 'bye-bye world' quite a few times in the last few days, and I should probably explain that this is part of our naptime routine: we close the blinds right before nap and say 'bye-bye world. See you in a couple of hours!'. So now, he says the phrase by himself and it melts my heart...

I have to post a picture, so here you go! :)

this kid loves his blankie :)

Fun in the sun!

We had super nice weather last week, so Carsten and I spent the majority of the afternoons out on our play ground. Carsten definitely enjoys going out and there's even a couple of nice older boys who will play a bit with Carsten, which is nice. On Saturday, Andy took Carsten to the store and got some groceries and flowers to plan in our box on the patio. Carsten was really interested in helping Andy to plant the flowers, so we pulled out his Tripp Trapp and let him sit and help. After that we had our first patio lunch of the year, which was so fun! We even ended the day with a trip to the zoo. I love family time! Here are some photos:

digging in the dirt!

please note the super fancy plastic toys we are using for gardening :)

patio lunch!

yum!

18 month stats!

I forgot to add Carsten's 18 month stats to the last post.

Weight: 29.9 lbs, >90th percentile
Height: 34 in, >90th percentile

The doctor complimented him on his proportionality, or aka he's a big kid :).

18 months!

Carsten is 18 months! Where does the time go?! :) Here are a couple of Carsten at 18 months:

Playing outside our apartment.

Sleeping in his stroller. So sweet!

Bouncing on his ball on top of the futon. There have been a few more spills lately due to this new adventurous stage.

Most of what he's been up to in the last month has been expanding his vocabulary. He's started really trying words when we ask, which is pretty fun :). Here's our attempt at what is probably an incomplete list:

Dada
Mama
Grandpa
Grandma
all done
more
please
drink
milk
eat
hot
trash
tractor
truck
train
crane
dump (as in dump truck :) )
digger
key
tree
giraffe
elephant
shark
turtle
clock
pickle

yessit

stroller
ball
book
blankie
bar
baby
box
bye bye!
cheese
banana (sounds more like baba, but it means banana)
apple
empty
circle (yes he correctly identifies circles)
star (and yes, he also correctly identifies stars :) )
fish
duck
dat! (his word for his beloved spatula)
up 
down
no
tic toc
block 

open

sock

uh oh

teeth

brush

stuck

help

kick

pepper

bowl

spoon

fork

sounds: 
meow
baa
moo
neigh
woof woof
elephant trumpet
roar! (like a lion)
vroom


Random accomplishments at 18 months: 


Some other major accomplishments that I'm not sure that I've mentioned before is that he can correctly do all of his wooden puzzles. He will even remove pieces that we incorrectly place and put them into the correct place. What a kid :). He also likes to stack blocks and then knock down his towers. He can identify different body parts like eyes, nose, ears, mouth, elbow, hair, head, toes, and knees. He's also very good at identifying nouns in books and elsewhere in life (like the zoo or store). Carsten's favorite toys are his spatula, laundry basket, ball, bucket, truck, and digger. He also really likes his books, and has enjoyed doing some craft time this month which is usually coloring or playing with play-doh. Carsten is also proficient with a spoon and fork, making mealtimes pretty easy lately. He is generally not a picky eater and will even eat his vegetables, and Carsten's favorite foods are bananas, apples, chocolate, pasta, bacon, and granola. Lately Carsten really enjoys attempting to brush his hair and teeth; in fact, he asks to brush his teeth multiple times a day. We have also started letting Carsten climb up and down our 3 flights of stairs by himself, which is much slower overall but is a big help in terms of carrying less weight up and down :). Climbing furniture isn't that interesting anymore, so he's added a new twist by sitting on the ball or a laundry basket on the furniture; this has caused quite a few big falls lately, which has not been a fun highlight.

Sitting on his ball on the futon - not exactly a 'safety 1st' type of situation.

Carsten spends most of his time on our train looking for construction equipment and trains, which really helps to make our 35 min train ride to feel a lot shorter :). He gets very excited and usually knows where the aforementioned vehicles are located along the train line. Here's a video of Carsten on our train ride: 

A day in the life of Carsten

Here's a video of 1 afternoon with Carsten. He's saying words, enjoying the construction across the road, and playing with a box and laundry basket. Enjoy!

Konstanz

Our friends lent us their car while they were out of town two weekends ago (so nice!), so we took the opportunity to drive an hour to Konstanz, Germany. If we took the train to Konstanz, it would take us about 2.5 hrs, which is why we haven't made the journey previously. Konstanz is the mecca for cheap shopping for those of us who think Swiss prices are too high. Additionally, Konstanz has an aquarium which we knew Carsten would enjoy, so we went! We arrived before everyone else did, which meant that we had no problem finding a parking space by the aquarium, which is right downtown by the train station and mall (gasp - a MALL!). Since we right by the aquarium and we wanted to let Carsten run a bit before lunch, we went into the aquarium. The aquarium was was pretty small with the main attraction being a large tank with sharks, rays, turtles, and other fish where you could walk through a tunnel. I've never been to a 'one-way' aquarium, but this was definitely one-way only since it was typically only wide enough for 1 stroller. Carsten enjoyed it very much and even learned a few new words like 'shark!' and 'turtle'. We managed to get 'shark' on tape, so please see the video below!

Carsten and Andy looking at the aquarium.

This weird fish kept doing a dance for Carsten with it's nose out of the water.

Carsten looking at the penguins :).

The aquarium was right on the Bodensee. 

After the aquarium, we went across the railroad tracks to the first mall we've been to in Europe. It was BUSY, and low and behold, prices were quite a bit cheaper than the Swiss country just a few miles away. For example, my shampoo costs about $7 here but only costs $4 in Germany. We took advantage of cheaper food and had thai food for lunch; Carsten was not impressed by our selection, so we got him a cheese and ham croissant instead (yummy bakeries!). This was indeed a special treat because as a rule, we do not eat out in Switzerland due to the insanely high prices (at a sit-down restaurant we would expect to pay $75+ for the three of us just for entrees and drinks). We then decided to take a walk around the downtown area of Konstanz so Carsten could nap in his stroller. Thanks to all the cobblestones, he napped for an hour while we walked around. Andy and I took turns going in the cathedral in the center of town because for some reason, when you stop walking the stroller, Carsten will immediately wake up, which is what happened around the 1 hr mark when Andy stopped to adjust a blanket for Carsten. This is a massive improvement over a year ago when it really wasn't a sure bet that he would sleep in his stroller at all, and we're hoping that this will continue when we go on our many vacations coming up in the next few months :). After Carsten woke up, we went back to the mall area where we found ourselves at H&M. We got Andy two new shirts at what we consider ultra-cheap prices, and this marks the first clothing items that we have bought in Europe since moving here. Clothes are much, much cheaper in the states, so we do most of our shopping in the US, especially for Carsten since last year alone he went through 4 sizes of clothes.  Here are some photos of our time in downtown Konstanz:

Exploring Konstanz

Beautiful building and sleeping baby :).

our sleepy buddy

Konstanz and the cathedral

Cathedral

Front of the cathedral

organ :)

it's old!

The front doors were carved wood and were pretty.  Makes me think of my Dad :).

pretty cathedral!

A rare site: an empty square.

After the mall, we headed back to the aquarium again since our ticket was good all day. Carsten loved going through again, and it was really nice to be able to let him run before we drove back home. Such a fun day! It's amazing the difference in the range of places you can go with a car. We were spoiled to have a car 2 weekends in a row!