Karsten exploring the deep depths of his nose!

So yesterday I put Karsten in the bathtub for a bath. After washing him down, I left the bathroom and told him he could play for a little while I went and did a little cleaning. After he'd been playing for a time I hear him start crying about his nose bleeding. So I come to the bathroom and find him with a bloody nose. I asked him how it happend. At first he said he didn't know, but then I asked him if he was picking at it. He then told that there was a lego in his nose! He had stuck one in each nostril. The bloody nose was from him digging one out. Apparently the other nostril still had one in there! So we dried him off, pulled out the good ol' tweezers, and got the little sucker out! This reminded me of when I was little and stuck buttons up my nose. Fortunately for Karsten he did not have to go the ER to have them removed. His weren't that high up!

Letting Go!

So Kate decided she wanted to do Emily's hair this morning and Emily was in agreement with this, so, what the heck! I come up stairs after they had been up there for awhile and Kate has Emily's hair in six braids! Then she ties all the braids back. It wasn't too bad, but I had laugh to myself because I remember putting six pony tails in my hair and going to church that way! I know, it's all practice, and eventually they will get really good at it. I love that the girls aren't self conscious, and I hope they never get that way. Kate's personality is more like that, she doesn't care what others think, she does what she wants. Haven't decided how Emily is in that area yet.

Healing

When you've gone through a traumatic experience, does the pain of it ever end? It is true that time heals all wounds, as it is over time that you actually deal with it. I love Seth, and I am thankful he is part of my life. How fragile life is, perhaps this is why I worry so much about him. I think it is much harder looking back on all that happend than it actually was going through it. That is probably why when we read of other people's trials we don't understand how they make it through. Heavenly Father is with us when we are facing these things and that makes all the difference. Perhaps if we remember Him as we mourn for those around us, He can help us through theirs too. I hug Seth, and all my children, a little tighter now, and give them a few extra kisses as other angels return to Heaven, some a little early. "Oh what songs of the heart we shall sing all the day, when again we assemble at home, when we meet ne'er to part with the blest o'er the way, there no more from our loved ones to roam! When we meet ne'er to part, oh, what songs of the heart, we shall sing in our beautiful home. Tho our rapture and bliss there's no song can express, we will shout, we will sing o'er and o'er. As we greet with a kiss, and with joy we caress all our loved ones that passed on before; as we greet with a kiss in our rapture and bliss, all our loved ones that passed on before."

Seth the Crawlin' Machine

So here is a some footage of the little guy crawling. He is 2 days shy of being 15 months old. His adjusted age would be 2 weeks shy of 12 months. Hmmm, when do we stop counting adjusted age? Heck, if we count it forever we could always celebrate two birthdays!

A quick update!

I'll have to make this quick as it is really late and I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to get Alex up and ready to make the school bus! Seth just saw the audiologist yesterday and is doing fantastic. They were measuring his hearing levels at mild to moderate. This wasn't an ABR or anything, just inside the booth while they play sounds and analyze his responses. It's great. Seth is crawling all over the house now and get this, he is starting to climb stairs! Scary! He will also pull up to stand in his crib as well! He wants to be up and moving so much, but he forgets he has to work up the strength to do so. His physical therapist said it best this morning: he's a 15 month baby in a 7 month old body and he wants to be doing so much more than his little body is letting him. It's like a window opened this past month and Seth has gone from baby to almost a toddler. I know Sandra and Sarah will find this hard to believe as he wasn't doing much while they were here. Well, I guess he was dragging himself around on the floor when Sarah was still here. Ok, I will go to bed now.

Assateague Island

Last week we went to Assateague Island, Maryland for one last outing with Ed and Sarah before they left for Japan. We had a lot of fun! We arrived there Thursday evening and set up camp and spent a good part of Friday playing in the water. I wish I had taken so many more pictures! But you just get caught up in the beauty of the beach and water that you forget! Oh, and crossing over the Chesapeake Bay was really cool as well. The bridge was so long! And because of the humidity in the air, you couldn't see the other side of the bridge at first when you get on. We will definately be returning next year. It's only about a three hour drive there. Here are some pics or our outing!

Here is our campsite. We brought along our grill because we had no idea what kind of cooking we'd be allowed to do. We slept in our canopy! It was so cool to have the cool breeze of the ocean blowing on you all night! Unfortunatley I had nightmares all night about the tide rising so high that we would be flooded! Or that it would start raining! Silly!

There are wild horses that roam Assateague Island. You have to keep everything locked up or they will get into it! We had several horses visit us. Here is a pic of one of them trying to kick our box open! Luckily we had it secured under the table bench and he couldn't get in.

Todd firing up the grill to do some dutch oven breakfast cooking!

The kids enjoying lunch on the beach!

My beautiful sister, Sarah, holding Seth and her son, Dallin, sitting next to her.

Todd playing in the water. The next member of Bay Watch? :)

Dallin lost his tooth while eating lunch! We had to get a picture of it!

Enjoying the water!

Seth and I. The weather was very interesting. You could feel the humidity, it was so thick, yet there was always a cool breeze. It was mostly cloudy the whole time, which was nice. We sure loved it! The humidity made my hair a lot more wavy than it usually is. That's how it was in San Antonio as well.

Emily collecting some shells. The small shells that were closed had something living in them, clams perhaps? Anyways, if you set them back down on the wet sand you could see them bury themselves back in! Alex brought a whole bucket of them home, and unfortunatley they all died. He thought he could keep them alive with home-made salt water. Oh well!

Dallin, Kate, Hannah, and Sarah waiting for a wave to come in!

Hanah and Dane got knocked over by this wave! Oh no!

Karsten

Seth enjoying the sand while sitting in his Bumbo that we got at the thrift shop for $2.98! I don't know if the store knew what they were selling, but I grabbed it. He's much too independent to use it now, but I'm sure someone else would love to have it!

He drug himself off the blanket because he couldn't resist the sand!

We were so glad to have Sarah and Ed and children stay with us! We had so much fun! We loved the beach as well! Camping in the sand takes a little getting use to as I'm use to dealing with dirt and not sand. But it wasn't that bad. Plus they had showere to clean the kids up in before we went home. I loved it and hope to do it again next summer as well!

Growing up

So, Kate decided she wanted another perm. She wants to wear it long and curly. So Sarah and I decided to give the spiral wrapping a try. It actually wasn't all that hard, except for the fact that you use a lot of rods! We had fun. I can't believe how old Kate is getting! This will be her last year in elementary school as middle school starts in the sixth grade here in Maryland.