On Monday morning I had Carsten with me at my office for a while. We decided to look at the old books of airplanes that I had from my childhood. Carsten was really impressed by the different kinds of fighter jets, and we had fun learning about camouflage and afterburners. He was really excited to find a picture of an F-14, since Colin got him a toy F-14 that he likes to fly around the house.
Carsten has no idea what the air force does, though. Today, when we were getting out of the car:
C: "Daddy, I want to go to your office. We can look at pictures of fighter jets. They have extinguishers."
A: "What? Why do they have extinguishers?"
C: "So they can fight fires! They are fire fighter jets!"
A: "No, son. They fight bad guys."
C: "Why?"
A: "To keep us safe."
C: "Why?"
and so on...
There was a photo of a bomber dropping bombs in one of the books and Carsten was very concerned. "DADDY HE DROPPED SOMETHING!" "Yes, he did that on purpose." "Oh. He did it. On purpose."
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Christmas 2013 - Iowa
We flew to Iowa on Dec 18, which was Grady's official first flight. Both boys did really well (although neither really slept but we are used to that since Carsten rarely slept when we had 18+ hrs in transit) and Andy and I were both amazed at how short the overall travel time was (we're used to international long-hauls!). The only problem we really ran into was that the play area in O'Hare was closed for maintenance which was NOT ok with Carsten. Here's a photo of us on one of our planes:
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| Grady's first flight! |
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| Sleepy Carsten. |
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| Sleepy Grady baby. |
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| Kids sleeping on the way home from the Sioux Falls airport. Poor Andy got stuck between them. |
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| Grady's cranky day, but everyone else is happy! |
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| Grady playing with the toys I played with as a kid! |
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| Carsten's buddy :). |
My Dad stayed home from work on Thursday to play to play with the boys which Carsten LOVED! However, Grady was super cranky ALL day long which we think was because his ears had trouble adjusting from the flights. Poor guy. My Mom and Dad spent a lot of effort getting their basement ready for Carsten and Grady to play in, and we were grateful to have such a nice space for them to romp! I took Carsten up with me on Friday to Sioux Falls to pick up Ashley from the airport. On the way up Carsten fell asleep while eating puffs from his cup-holder, and when he woke up after about 30 min, he started sleep-eating the puffs again which I happened to catch on video :).
Grandma Hoogeveen came over on Saturday to help with some baking projects we had planned, and we also played a wonderful couple of games of Yatzee where we had LOTS of Yatzees.
Luke and Leah arrived Saturday evening, which meant the real party could begin! Ranschau Christmas was on Sunday afternoon at my parent's house which was a ton of fun. We got to see a lot of our cousins, aunts, uncles, and my Grandpa. It was such a joy to see family again.
We had a "girl's day" on Monday with Aunt Lori, Cousin Sarah, Mom, Ashley, Leah, Carsten, Grady, and I where we went shopping in Sioux City. It was SUPER DUPER cold, but other than that, very fun and we snatched up some great deals!
On Tuesday (Christmas Eve), Uncle Nate, Aunt Vicki, Thor, and Dane came over to play with us, which was lovely. In the afternoon, we celebrated my Grandpa Hoogeveen's birthday in his new nursing home.
We celebrated our family Christmas on Christmas morning which was super fun and included duck with orange sauce for dinner. On Christmas afternoon we celebrated with our Hoogeveen family at my Grandma's house which was a blast with so many little boys running around. She of course also had amazingly delicious food and it was so fun to be able to see everyone there (nearly the whole family was there!). Thanks so much Grandma!
It was such a blessing to be able to spend Christmas with family after not being able to come home the previous year due to our move back to the U.S. Also, I should mention that Carsten is one extremely lucky grandkid. Dad would get up early most mornings to play with Carsten until he had to go to work (which was SO nice for us because we could sleep in with Grady), and one morning Dad even got up early and sat outside Carsten's door until he woke up, which I think meant he was sitting outside his door for about 30 minutes. I think Carsten brings out the kid in Dad!
Grandma Hoogeveen came over on Saturday to help with some baking projects we had planned, and we also played a wonderful couple of games of Yatzee where we had LOTS of Yatzees.
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| Isn't she beautiful? :) |
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| Grandma fixed Grady's shoe. |
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| Carsten helped Grandma roll. |
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| The kids' table. :) |
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| Aunt Lori and Mom! |
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| The adults' table. |
We had a "girl's day" on Monday with Aunt Lori, Cousin Sarah, Mom, Ashley, Leah, Carsten, Grady, and I where we went shopping in Sioux City. It was SUPER DUPER cold, but other than that, very fun and we snatched up some great deals!
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| Grady, Sarah, and Leah! |
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| Ashley and Mom! |
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| Me, Carsten, and Aunt Lori! |
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| Aunt Vicki and Grady! |
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| Andy, Nate, and the boys! |
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| Playing with cousins is fun! |
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| Happy Birthday Grandpa! |
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| Birthday happenings. |
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| Lovely cake cutters. |
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| The boys and Aunt Vicki. |
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| This is why we didn't put up a tree at our house... :) |
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| Brothers! |
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| Grady with Aunt Ashley and Grandma Hoogie! |
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| Leah, Luke, and Andy! |
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| Carsten and Andy playing with new legos. |
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| Grandma Hoogeveen's Christmas with Thor, Dane, Aunt Vicki, and Uncle Nate! |
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| Hoogeveen Family Christmas! |
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| Grandpa Ranschau got to come too! |
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| Grady and Grandpa! |
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| Cheeseball smile. :) |
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| Auntie and Carsten! |
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| First Christmas as a family of four! |
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| Obligatory baby + tissue photo! |
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Grady at 9 months
It seems like I just won't be posting much of our current lives, but I do want to give an update on Grady since he's the one who is changing most rapidly. Here is a random assortment of photos from the last couple of weeks of our Christmas travels.
Sleep:
Grady was a champion night-time sleeper while Andy and I were both teaching in October and November - he typically slept about 12 hours per night and rarely woke up. His bedtime was routinely about 6:30 pm which helped us out a lot because I would go back into campus two evenings per week for office hours. So yay! However, since Thanksgiving (so for the last month) something switched and he now will get up 1-2 times per night which leaves us a little puzzled and well, quite tired. But he's still a fun loving kid and we know that this too shall pass so we're trying to give him time to get back on track. Naps so far are still typically 30 minutes long, although this last week he did have about four 1-2 hour naps (amazing!) which we are praying will start to be the norm rather than the exception. Carsten started taking longer naps at 9 months so we are hoping that Grady will follow suit.
Eating:
Grady eats almost everything we give him including all of his foods all mashed up into the same bowl, for example: sweet potatoes, blueberries, apples, peas, turkey. We have actually found that he doesn't really eat straight fruits like peaches because it's just too sweet for him at the moment. He has been doing really well with finger foods (he loves puffs!) since about 8 months and now at 9 months he is very proficient and makes them disappear rather quickly. Grady has also been doing pretty well with a sippy cup the last month which has been great because he doesn't take a bottle. We are excited to try some new finger foods soon!
Teeth:
Grady has had 7 teeth since he was 8 months old (4 on top and 3 on the bottom). I'm not sure where that 8th tooth is, but he's been cranky the last couple of days which is unusual for him so perhaps we'll see that 8th tooth soon!
Playing:
Grady loves cords. I mean it. The kid will make a beeline for cords any time he sees them and well, he's fast and determined. :) Grady is really good a free-playing and loves to play with Carsten. Carsten and Grady are starting to be able to interact more which has been a lot of fun to watch. Grady also usually knows exactly what he wants and will go for it which is fun to watch.
Movement:
Grady started army crawling at 7 months and now at 9 months is a super fast army crawler. To date he really hasn't crawled on his hands and knees yet. Just this last week he started sitting up on his own, and instead of backing up onto his haunches which I would guess would be easier, he sits up using a true 'sit up' from laying down on his back. So, kudos little man - you have abs of steel :). Grady is also attempting (with marginal success) to go up the step at Mom and Dad Huisman's house, so I guess we better get our babygate up on our stairs at home once we make it back to NY.
Size:
Grady has been in 12 months clothes for a couple of months now, and they fit him pretty perfectly, so I'm guessing he'll move up to 18 months clothes sometime in the next 1-2 months. He seems tall when we have him next to other kids, but he is skinnier than I remember Carsten being and he is skinnier than most of the other babies we have had him next to lately. He doesn't have the wrist and ankle rolls that I remember Carsten having, and actually, he has slimmed down quite a bit since he started crawling.
Personality:
Grady loves to play and interact with others and really doesn't like to be left alone in the room. Recently, he went through a little separation anxiety phase, but thankfully all of our traveling to Iowa and Michigan this Christmas seems to have cured him of that for now. Grady also seems to study things like Carsten did so it can be difficult to capture a smile on camera (even though he's a very happy guy!) because he just wants to know what you are babbling nonsense with that box in front of his head.
We love our little Grady baby!
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| Our handsome 9 month old. |
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| 1st Christmas! |
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| Happy baby! |
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| Grady with Ava Parrott who is only 10 hrs older than Grady :). Lovely babies! |
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| Grady's first official flight! |
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| Grady playing with my baby toys at my parent's house. |
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| He's a trooper and does really well when we drag him lots of places! |
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| Aunt Ashley and Grandma Hoogie with Grady! |
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| Grandpa Hoogie and Grady! |
Grady was a champion night-time sleeper while Andy and I were both teaching in October and November - he typically slept about 12 hours per night and rarely woke up. His bedtime was routinely about 6:30 pm which helped us out a lot because I would go back into campus two evenings per week for office hours. So yay! However, since Thanksgiving (so for the last month) something switched and he now will get up 1-2 times per night which leaves us a little puzzled and well, quite tired. But he's still a fun loving kid and we know that this too shall pass so we're trying to give him time to get back on track. Naps so far are still typically 30 minutes long, although this last week he did have about four 1-2 hour naps (amazing!) which we are praying will start to be the norm rather than the exception. Carsten started taking longer naps at 9 months so we are hoping that Grady will follow suit.
Eating:
Grady eats almost everything we give him including all of his foods all mashed up into the same bowl, for example: sweet potatoes, blueberries, apples, peas, turkey. We have actually found that he doesn't really eat straight fruits like peaches because it's just too sweet for him at the moment. He has been doing really well with finger foods (he loves puffs!) since about 8 months and now at 9 months he is very proficient and makes them disappear rather quickly. Grady has also been doing pretty well with a sippy cup the last month which has been great because he doesn't take a bottle. We are excited to try some new finger foods soon!
Teeth:
Grady has had 7 teeth since he was 8 months old (4 on top and 3 on the bottom). I'm not sure where that 8th tooth is, but he's been cranky the last couple of days which is unusual for him so perhaps we'll see that 8th tooth soon!
Playing:
Grady loves cords. I mean it. The kid will make a beeline for cords any time he sees them and well, he's fast and determined. :) Grady is really good a free-playing and loves to play with Carsten. Carsten and Grady are starting to be able to interact more which has been a lot of fun to watch. Grady also usually knows exactly what he wants and will go for it which is fun to watch.
Movement:
Grady started army crawling at 7 months and now at 9 months is a super fast army crawler. To date he really hasn't crawled on his hands and knees yet. Just this last week he started sitting up on his own, and instead of backing up onto his haunches which I would guess would be easier, he sits up using a true 'sit up' from laying down on his back. So, kudos little man - you have abs of steel :). Grady is also attempting (with marginal success) to go up the step at Mom and Dad Huisman's house, so I guess we better get our babygate up on our stairs at home once we make it back to NY.
Size:
Grady has been in 12 months clothes for a couple of months now, and they fit him pretty perfectly, so I'm guessing he'll move up to 18 months clothes sometime in the next 1-2 months. He seems tall when we have him next to other kids, but he is skinnier than I remember Carsten being and he is skinnier than most of the other babies we have had him next to lately. He doesn't have the wrist and ankle rolls that I remember Carsten having, and actually, he has slimmed down quite a bit since he started crawling.
Personality:
Grady loves to play and interact with others and really doesn't like to be left alone in the room. Recently, he went through a little separation anxiety phase, but thankfully all of our traveling to Iowa and Michigan this Christmas seems to have cured him of that for now. Grady also seems to study things like Carsten did so it can be difficult to capture a smile on camera (even though he's a very happy guy!) because he just wants to know what you are babbling nonsense with that box in front of his head.
We love our little Grady baby!
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