To the Grandparents...

In 1978, President Carter declared the second Sunday in September a national holiday for grandparents. So Karsen just wanted to tell all of his grandparents...

HAPPY GRANDPARENTS DAY!!!

I love you Grandma Kitti!

I love you Grandpa Herb!
I love you Grandma Dana!

I love you Grandpa Brad!

Love, Karsen

PS - Here's a website just for grandparents - grandparents.com

Back to the Grind

So I made it thru my first week back at work, not that I wasn't expecting to or anything. But it was hard.

The first day was definitely the hardest! I cried the entire way on my drive to work in Seattle from my parents' house in Redmond. I knew I would cry so I didn't put my make-up on until after I had parked my car at work.

It was a little strange to be back at work but as the day went on it almost felt like I never left. And it also seemed like my life was before Karsen and getting pregnant, just because I didn't have him with me and I didn't have a huge belly either. But I still thought about him ALL day!
Luckily we have cell phone cameras that allow me to see him during the day!

I took this one with my phone the first morning that I dropped Karsen off with my mom and sent it to Tim.

My mom sent this one to me the first morning. The caption read: "Already peed on grandma. hence the new outfit. love Karsen"
Tim sent this one to me after he had picked Karsen up and brought him home on the first day. The caption read: "Dreaming of mom coming home!"
I took this one on the second morning and sent it to Tim. The caption read: "Activity center at Grandma's"
My mom sent this one to me the morning of the second day. The caption read: "Hey mom, just woke up from a nap and wanted to say HI. love karsen"

Later on the second day, I got a text from my brother asking for my email address to send me a video. At first I thought it was going to be one of those funny videos that get sent around by email. What I got was WAY better! Thanks Brandon!

Here's the video of Karsen that Brandon took with his iPhone:

On Thursday morning (the third day), Karsen and I were running a little late because he hadn't slept that well the night before. When I went to get him ready, he was still sleepy so I decided to keep him in his pj's and just give my mom his outfit for the day to change into later. It was a good thing that I did it that way...

First I took this picture and sent it to Tim with the caption: "Still in my pjs!"

After I took that picture, my mom turned him around and said that she thought he felt wet.

This is what I saw:

He had pooped so much that it went up his back and all over the back of his pjs! I had to lay him on the changing pad on his tummy so that we didn't get poop everywhere! Like I said, it was a good thing that he was still in his pjs and was going to change into other clothes anyway!

I took that picture and sent it to Tim with the caption: "Blow out!"
His response: "Holy crap! :)" (Ok so he actually used the 's' word instead of crap but I don't want to use swear words on my blog.)

By the time Friday came I was so ready to stay at home with my little boy all day! Three days of work this week was hard enough, but next week I have to do four! Thank goodness I get Fridays off tho! :)

Maybe one day I will get to be a stay at home mom, but until then at least Karsen is with his grandma!

Love, Michaela

To Grandpa Brad...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA BRAD!!!

Love, Karsen

To LeAnn...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEANN!!!

Love, Karsen

First Night in the Crib

Up until 2 Sundays ago (August 30th), Karsen slept in his pack'n'play in our room. Now he's a big boy and sleeps in his beautiful crib in his own room. That Sunday was the first night.

Here is the crib all set-up and ready for him:

The crib in his room:

All swaddled and ready for bed!

Looking at me like "Mom, what is this place?"

Checking out the mobile:

He didn't do too bad sleeping in this crib for the first time. We only had to get up a handful of times to plug him with a pacifier or for me to feed him. Luckily, we have a video monitor so that when he makes a sound we can just look at the screen to see if he's really awake or just dreaming, that way we don't have to go running to his room if he's still asleep.

I must admit that I cried after we put him to bed in his crib for the first time. I didn't cry because I was upset that he wasn't sleeping in our room anymore, I think it was because I was thinking about how fast the last 3 months have gone by and how he as already grown up so much in that period of time.

Speaking of the last 3 months, which is how long my maternity leave was, tomorrow I go back to work. As much as I love my job and the people I work with, I am really sad about having to go back to work because I am going to miss being with Karsen all day. At least he will be at my mom's house and not a daycare where I don't know the people who would be watching him. He'll be in good hands, after all she raised me well! ;-)

I will be getting up earlier than I used to before my maternity leave for two reasons; 1) to make sure I have plenty of time to get me AND Karsen ready for the day (it was hard enough getting just myself ready before!), and 2) I will have to drive to Redmond to drop Karsen off at my mom's, which is about 45 minutes from my house - not anywhere near my way to work, but totally worth it!

Tim gets off work at 1:30PM each day and he will be heading to my parents' house afterwards to pick Karsen up, so at least my mom won't be stuck with him ALL day (although I don't know if she considers it being stuck...).
At least I will have Fridays off each week to be with my little boy!

Tomorrow is going to be a rough day...

Love, Michaela

3 Months!

This boy turned 3 months old on Friday:

I can't believe how fast these last 3 months have flown by! And I also can't believe that I have to go back to work on Tuesday! :(
I'm definitely going to miss being with my baby all day, every day.

I tried to do a little photo shoot of Karsen for his 3 months, which is what the picture above is from. I will post more when I'm done editing them.

Love, Michaela

Evergreen State Fair

This past Sunday we got a call early from the Brooks Family inviting us to go to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe for the day. I love going to fairs and hadn't been to one in a few years, so we decided to go and at least walk around with the boy since he likes being outside.

One of the first things we saw when we walked inside the gate to the fair, was the pony ride. Tiffany really wanted Kai to take a ride so we went to check it out. Turns out you have to be at least 9 months old to ride the ponies - dang, Karsen is about 6 months too young. Oh well, I guess he can go next year! But at least Kai go to do it!

He had no problem going for a ride:

I think his saddle was starting to slip to the side, luckily one of the guys working the ride fixed it:

We started to just walk around and we found a few tractors, so Walker and Kai got up to "test" one out.

Just as happy as can be!

The day started out overcast and very mild, but then the sun came out! Time for sunglasses!

Kai wearing Tiffany's sunglasses:

Me and Karsen wearing sunglasses. I'm wearing a pair of Tim's because I couldn't find mine and Karsen's don't really seem to want to stay on his nose:

We stopped for some food and then we found the animal petting area! I decided to take Karsen out of his stroller so that he could get a closer look at the animals, but I didn't let him touch any of them since he's still so young.

Getting a look at a baby cow:

Up close and personal with a baby goat:

Checking out the little pigs:

Kai wanted to check them out too:

More goats - Karsen's facial expressions reads "Can we get away from these stinky things now?"

They had a kid's area setup at the animal petting area, so we took the opportunity to take some pictures of Karsen...of course!

He didn't want to look at the camera:

I got in one of the pictures too:

After walking around all the farm animal houses, it was lunchtime for Karsen:

We strolled around the fair grounds some more and this is what Karsen did most of the time:

At 2 PM there was a Clydesdale show that we went to check out, plus it gave us an excuse to sit and rest our feet for a bit.

Just outside the arena for the show, the Brooks Family took a family photo..haha!

Just inside the arena was an equestrian shop of some kind, so Walker tested out the cowboy hats:

We sat in the stadium style seats in the front row so that we could keep an eye on our strollers. Kai turned into a monkey and was hanging on the railings:

Kai is such a little cutie!

As we were leaving the fair, we got some family pictures to remember the day.

The Brooks Family:

The Freitag Family:

What a fun and tiring day! It was so fun taking Karsen to the fair! It will be more fun when he actually knows what's going on, and when he's able to go on rides! At least I got cotton candy and an elephant ear! Yum!

Love, Michaela