Happy 17 months to Carsten!

It's been a good month back in Switzerland with Carsten. One of my goals for this year for us is to do something 'special' every day. This is basically to encourage us to get out of the house and Egg for activities and socialization, which is something that I think was lacking for us 1 year ago. Special activities that we have been doing are: going to the gym in Egg where they have free daycare in the mornings, joining a kindermusik class in Egg, joining a women's group at our church in Zurich that has daycare, and trying to meet up with friends 1-2 times per week. Grocery trips had previously counted, but I now will no longer count those towards our special activity time because despite the fact that it takes us over an hour to get groceries every couple of days, it is not 'special'. We've been doing great at accomplishing this goal, so much so, that I actually had to back off our activities this week because we needed some rest to recover from colds. These increased activities has meant that we're not home as much, which has also meant that I am now behind in things like keeping up with our blog... sorry! Here's a brief snapshot of our month in Switzerland:

Carsten loves trucks, tractors, cars, cranes, planes, trains, diggers, and construction equipment. He loves to play with them. Also a favorite this month are balls - he loves to kick and throw them. Here's a photo of Carsten playing in the cabinet with a construction truck.

We took a walk outside of Egg to see the lovely Alps at sunset. :) So pretty! Carsten enjoyed himself until the last 20 min, which I think was because his hands were getting cold. He has a very nice stroller bag that keeps hims very warm (see photo below); Andy and I are often jealous :).

Swiss Alps at sunset!

Carsten in his comfy stroller bag.

 Carsten learned to climb our kitchen chairs and loves that he can now get at everything on our table, including my laptop. These new climbing skills have caused a few areas of the house to be 'no climbing zones' to help ensure his safety as well as my sanity. For the most part, he listens and pays attention to the rules we have lined up for him, which is nice. I realize that he will always keep testing his boundaries :).

Carsten needed a new sleeping arrangement this month because the pack n play mattress that he had been using for the last 6ish months had seen better days. Carsten bounced in his pack n play such that he caused the mattress to kind of fold in on itself and then Carsten ended up underneath the mattress a few times, which was bad for safety and sleep. We ended up being able to borrow a crib from Andy's advisor, which has been an excellent solution. Carsten seems to enjoy the bed and the only problem we've had is that he can remove the removable rails (2 rails come out when you want the toddler to be able to get out of the crib by themselves), but for the most part he leaves them alone. We're waiting to see when he's going to climb out, and neither of us are going to enjoy the inevitable battle of keeping him in bed once that happens. Here's Carsten in his new kinderbett!

Andy's advisor also let us borrow some blocks, and Carsten has really been enjoying playing with them. He's gotten quite good at putting them together (I helped with this arrangement), and it's been fun to watch him learn how to do them.

One of our special activities during laundry day last week was to put together this toy from Ikea. Carsten helped me put the blocks on, and he's been enjoying this toy a lot :).

We've been trying to brush Carsten's 12 teeth twice a day. When we started a couple of months ago, he was very receptive. Now we have a bit more trouble getting him to brush for more than about 20 seconds, but we're trying!

Carsten loves riding the train, and he's getting to the point when we can put him next to us in the seat. He loves to see other trains, go through tunnels, and spot the construction equipment along the way. Carsten is very observant and frequently will see things and point them out (like he is doing in the photo).

Carsten likes his rubber boots. And yes, he brought them to me and wanted to wear them around the house, so I just had to take a photo :).

We've been trying to do some craft activities like play doh and coloring. Here's Carsten coloring a modern masterpiece:

Eating has been going pretty well for us with Carsten. He's a pretty good eater, although he's definitely starting to express some preferences for different foods (i.e., he doesnt' always want his veggies now). We've been trying to really let him eat on his own with his spoon and fingers; this has resulted in a messier baby. The photos below were achieved with pasta with tomato sauce and what was supposed to be chocolate pudding, but was really more like chocolate syrup. Also, Carsten likes to stick his fingers in his ears, nose, and sometimes his eyes.

Messy baby :)

Wedding slideshow photo :)

 Carsten still has his 'cheesy baby face' and I love putting him in overalls. :)

One morning Carsten got into one of his toy baskets and proceeded to play in and out of it for the next 20 min. The best toys are really not toys at all :). In fact, one of his favorite toys is still a rubber spatula; he plays with it all the time.

We met our friend Bre and her son Asher at the ETH geological museum, which is a free museum less than 1 block from Andy's work. Carsten loved all the buttons and I loved looking at all the rocks and earth science stuff - I could have spent some more time reading, but alas, Carsten kept on moving!

Pushing buttons

Learning science in German.

My favorite demo: watching sand settle. Carsten thought it was pretty sweet too :).

 We're starting to plan our European vacations for the year, which means that Carsten has to get used to his travel tent if we want him to sleep well. In an attempt to get him to come into the tent, I curled up inside. It worked, but it was definitely tight quarters :).

We got to go bowling this weekend with Kai, Vanessa, and Eleanor. It was very fun, and we really enjoyed doing an adult activity. Carsten and Eleanor seemed to have quite a bit of fun, and the most interesting part was that the pins were on strings and were retracted back up to be reset. I had a lot of fun doing something competitive - I miss my competitive sports :). Here's a photo of Andy, Kai, and Carsten in the bowling alley.

It's been a fun month, and Carsten is getting to be more and more fun every day. He definitely understands what we're saying, and he is really well behaved most of the time. Sleep has been fantastic with the new crib, which has translated to one of the more restful months we've had with Carsten. Carsten is definitely trying out new sounds and it's getting harder to remember which words are new for this month, so I'm not going to include them here.

All in all, we're enjoying all the activities we're getting to do and we're trying to make the most of our remaining time in Switzerland before we move to New York in December where Andy will be taking a job at Union College (near Albany) as a professor.

Christmas in Michigan!

Air travel has its ups and down, but when we flew to Michigan, it was definitely a down day. We got to sit in the Sioux Falls airport for 5+ hrs while they kept pushing our flight time back and back. In the end, we got to Chicago, but since we would have been on separate flights or very late into Grand Rapids, our champion, Jed, drove down to Chicago to pick us up. Andy and I were very grateful not to have to fly on another plane that day, and it was very depressing to realize that we could have driven faster to Holland than it took us to 'fly'.

Anyway, we did make it, and we got to spend a lot of time with our Huisman family. I feel blessed that we got to have almost a full week of everyone being home. One of my favorite things is trying to get photo opps with all the grandchildren. There's just something fun about 6 squirming children in 1 photo...

Look, they are all reading a story with Grandpa and Grandma!

Christmas jammies photo :)

Carsten had a lot of fun with his cousins, and I think he especially enjoyed playing with Linnea and Eliana, who as the oder cousins, did a lot of interesting things. Linnea got to decorate a cardboard house, and Carsten absolutely loved going in and out of doors and windows :). Here's a few photos:

Coloring the house

Peekaboo!

Playing with Linnea.

We also got some snow in Holland, which was fun because we all got to bundle our children up and let them play in the snow. For Carsten, this was his first time really playing in the snow, and I think he probably would have enjoyed it more if he could have figured out how to walk around (between the deep snow and bulky winter clothing he mostly just sat in the snow). Carsten did enjoy being pulled around in the sled :).

W. Michigan snow!

Loves the sled :).

Jeff, the twins, and Eliana :).

 We went inside and Lisa did some music playzone with the kids. Carsten loved doing this so much we actually signed him up for a kindermusik class here. Thanks for introducing us to the concept Lisa!

Music playzone.

I think one of Carsten's highlights were the tubs on wheels at Jeff and Amanda's house. He LOVED being pushed in it. At one point, we had three children going at once in three different tubs. It was fun to watch :).

loving the tub with wheels :)

 We went to the Grandville mall and rode the carousel, which Carsten thought was pretty fun :).

Grandville carousel

Carsten helped us pack by filling one of the suitcases - with himself! He thought it was pretty fun to dismantle my carefully placed piles (note the items strewn about on the floor).

Carsten discovered the guitar right before we left and requested that Grandpa play him 'the cat came back' quite a few times. I think Grandpa is lucky he didn't discover the guitar earlier... :)

Grandpa playing for Carsten.

 Mom and Dad Huisman drove us down to O'Hare to catch our flight, and Carsten once again enjoyed the children's museum at O'Hare. I'd have to say that O'Hare is one of my favorite airports at the moment because of this amazing play area. It really lets the kids run around and explore, which is very necessary with air travel.

We had a fantastic Christmas visiting family and friends. We miss you all!

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!