Christmas 2011

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

We waited until Karson turned 3 to let him meet Santa, hoping the first time would be a good experience. His big smile says it all! We thought he may hesitate from sitting on his lap but he jumped right up there and told Santa he wanted the Dinosaur Train for Christmas. He's sure trying really hard to be a good boy. He has learned the words to a few traditional songs this year, it's cute to hear him when he doesn't know you are listening.

Christmas Cookies

Monster Jam at the Mall of America Field (Metrodome)

Karson, Andrew, Jeremy and Patrick intently watching the monster truck show. Must have ear plugs, these trucks are insanely LOUD!

This is the first time we've taken Karson. He was so excited, seem to enjoy it. Many of the trucks flip over and crash. He wasn't sure what to think of that at the beginning but by the end he was cheering when someone would flip over.

Looks close - truck is in mid air.

He also liked that the bulldozers and loaders would come out onto the track to clear off the trucks. So fun for little boys!

First snow of the season fell the beginning of December. The sun goes down so early now that during the week there is no time to play outside unless it's the weekend. He's been talking about the snow for weeks, wanting to play in it and eat it. We have been telling him not to eat yellow snow because that means Duke was there. He says to me randomly tonight "Mom, I like snow. I like to eat it, but only the white stuff. I can't eat the yellow snow because it's bad for me, yucky. Duke must have went potty on it. I just like the good white snow."

He has learned how to play Mario Kart and Monster Trucks on the Wii. He's darn good for a 3 year old.

He likes to be the camera crew much of the time, always wanting to just take pictures of us doing silly things.

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Halloween 2011

Karson loves aunt Sharon, he was excited to hear she was coming for a visit. He went with Grandma Pat to Great Grandma Rosanna's in Rochester to help decorate her Christmas tree. The report I got back was that he was talking to all of the residents at her apartment complex, shaking their hands and entertaining them. I can only imagine.

Orange Beach, Alabama

Nothing better than morning beach walks

Each morning there were hundreds of jellyfish washed up on shore

We stayed at the Enclave condominium. In the picture we were on the 7th floor far left corner unit. Very nice place!

One of many sand castles created

KK's first try at the game of Sorry. Granmda won. Grandpa put his hands on his face and said "BOO!" really loud. Karson thought that was hilarious. I'm still hearing him say it out of the blue. He will say, "You know what Grandpa Ron says?" "He says BOO!" as KK puts his hands on his cheeks. Too cute!

Alligator Alley!

Alligator farm with over 200 alligators. We watched them feed and then walked around the swamp area and fed them some dried food. It was fenced off with a walking bridge. When we were on our way Karson said he needed his fast shoes so he could have fast feet to run away from them.

Aaron and soon-to-be Aunt Brenna holding the baby alligator
(Look closely, she has a new sparkly on her left hand!)

KK thought this was awesome!

The waves came crashing into the shore almost every day. Some days they were not quite so rough, others when the wind was strong were almost too much for Karson to swim in.

Gorgeous to be walking on the beach in the early morning. We collected hundreds of seashells that washed up on the shore

We made friends with the family that "camped out" on the beach with us every day. Their little girl found a starfish that was still soft and wanted to show it to Karson.

We found this race car sand castle while walking along the beach. Cool!