Magic Baptism

On Sunday I was baptized. It was quite the experience and one that I am very happy that I did. I've been wanting to for awhile now and just felt the urge that this was the right time to do it. I know that I made the right decision and feel very blessed to have gone through this experience as an adult to make that public declaration of my belief, faith and love for the Lord.

In that the boys would be joining us for this event. I told Torin what we were going to do and tried to explain it. He of course said right away that he wanted to be baptized too. I told him that I was so excited to hear that but that I wanted him to pray about it. That I had prayed about it for a long time before making the decision to do this. I asked him why he wanted to baptized as I was curious as to what his response would be. He told me he wanted to be baptized because he didn't want to sin anymore. Pretty cute respone from a 6 year old. I explained to him that baptizm was a washing away of sins but that it didn't protect me from not ever sinning again. He looked at me a little disappointed and said "You means, it's not magic. I thought it was magic." It was something that I definitely wanted to jot down to not forget.

He did have a great time at the baptizm and I could see him wanting to take the step in the near future even with him knowing it's not magic :)

Getting Ready for Tator Tot

Setting up the crib for the third time we are now experts at it. Even Torin remembered how a few of the pieces went together. He was pretty excited to set up and get it ready for his little brother. The boys are SO excited for this baby. We are too but have a different type of excitement. I'm really beginning to wonder what this little baby will look like. Torin looks so much like my side of the family but is Bjorn's twin in the personality department where Vaughn is literally Bjorn's clone from childhood pictures but was blessed with my temper...yes I'm joking on the blessed comment :) So what will this one look like, will he have my curly hair, a mix of our personalities. Only time will tell and yes it is down to 8 weeks left...YEAH!!!

4th of July

We had an AWESOME day on the lake. Growing up on a lake it brought back a lot of memories for me of the Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day parties that my parents used to throw when we were kids. The kids ate pretty much all day long, swam, tubing, pontooning, fishing, sliding to name of a few things that were done. We ALL had a great time and it actually made me consider selling the house and finding somewhere close that has lake frontage...dreaming of course...Here are a few of the pictures of the day..

Torin with his first fish of the day. Don't mind the princess pole that he is fishing with. I guess he is going with the real mean don't mind pink :)

Torin getting to drive the pontoon. He thought he is was pretty cool.

Wouldn't it be great to know what he is thinking :)

After a few bribes my cautious babe jumped off the pontoon into the water. He had a good time and only went back in when there was a race to see who could swim around the pontoon fastest. His little competitive spirit couldn't be held back by being cautious.

When the tube first came out he told me that he wanted to go. Bjorn took him out to it only for him to fight NOT to go. Bjorn threw him in and he did end up having a good time. For as much as Bjorn and I were the dare devils as kid we are not sure where he gets this reserved side from.

Off to White Bear Lake for our annual fireworks watching. The traffic is a little crazy but the fireworks are awesome and the kids just have a great time....so do I :)

We went with the Loots this year. I think that the kids are having a great time too...

This is the first video that we took with our new camera. The best is at the end when Vaughn lets out a huge burb. The kid is quite amazing with the volume that he can get. Just one of the many little things that makes him Vaughn. I'll post more but am using this one as a test.

Enjoy!

Vaughn's 1st Bus Ride

Yes, you read the title right. Vaughn had his first bus ride yesterday. He is in a program for his speech that provides transportation to the school and since we both work this really is a HUGE
benefit for us.

I started the conversation with Vaughn about a month ago about getting on the bus and he quickly responded "Me no wan go on da us". I left it alone and we talked about his class and that his speech therapist Lindsey would be his teacher. That he was very excited about!!

So yesterday morning we all went out for breakfast as it's a tradition that when we start something new we start the day off together at breakfast. We brought up the subject about him riding the bus and Torin helped explained all the rules. "If there are older boys wrestling, don't join them. Just stay in your seat." and "You can't get out of your seat until the bus comes to a complete stop". It was pretty cute the rules that he was "teaching" Vaughn and Vaughn just listened so intently.

We finished breakfast and headed to daycare as that is where the bus will pick him up. We walked to the end of the driveway, took a few pictures and you could tell that Vaughn was excited for the bus. Then the bus pulled up and his face explained it all. He wasn't really sure about this whole thing. He got on while holding my hand, looked back, walked back for one more kiss from Mom and then went to his seat like a big boy. As for those of you wondering, I did very good too...no tears. It wasn't until Bjorn and I got into the car that I started to panic. "Maybe we should follow the bus to the school, just in case." Bjorn obviously wouldn't allow it but he was an awesome husband by going to Sandy's when the bus got off to make sure that he was alright. The school did call saying that he had a great day and had lots of fun.

These milestones are hard for Mom's. I'm so excited for him and Torin to be doing these new things and growing up but at the same time it's hard for me to see them growing up so fast.

Here are a few pictures....

Tator Tot

In order to not forget this I am journaling it here. Each of the boys has a nickname that has been assigned to them by me. Not sure how it happened or why but it is what it is. Torin was so tiny when he was born that I started to call him my little bug or bug-a-boo. When Vaughn was born, even through he was a pound bigger at birth than Torin he was such a peanut compared to 3 year old Torin. Thus peanut or peanut butter became his nickname. As we have been talking about names for this baby, and trust me this is not something that we have done a lot or have shared with hardly anyone, the name Tate was one that I have kind of liked for awhile. It's going to be hard to come up with a name to match Torin and Vaughn. It's not like we can name the kid John or Bill. It needs to be something original, right??? Well I told Torin that I liked Tate to get his opinion on it and when I said it the name Tator Tot came out just naturally. So we have been calling him Tator Tot and everytime that I say it Torin will tell me "Mom, if you want to name him Tate you can. It's alright." It's pretty cute and I'm using this blog as a way to journal it to not forget how it came to be.

Family Golf

The weather was so nice Friday afternoon that we decided to cut out of work and make a tee time for 4:40. We took the boys with us as they now each have their own set of clubs. They are learning how to be patient with golf and were so good for us the first 8 holes and Bjorn and I
were hitting horribly. I think that we lost about 12 balls between the two of us so we decided to let the boys do the last hole. Torin thought that was the most awesome thing ever. He teed it up and we were both surprised how he connected with it. A couple of times he hit 40 yards so we were pretty impressed knowing that he's left-handed kid that is trying to learn with right-handed clubs. Vaughn on the other hand is just kind of all over the place. The pictures were just too cute not to show...

Strawberry Patch

Well I had a day off with the boys today so I decided that we should go to the Strawberry patch. I remember going with my Mom and sister when I was six years old and thought that Torin would really like it. My assumption on that was correct the boys had a great time picking strawberries and were really good about. We got to take a tractor ride to the patch and were told to follow a lady who would show us to "our" row. As Vaughn was starting to follow her, he was quickly distracted by a rock that he literally held the entire time while picking. I think it is in the bottom of my purse as I type. Silly little man, there's a picture below. Torin was very concerned about not throwing the berries into the box but to lay them in there. His reason was that he didn't want them to get bruised, not sure where he learned that but I went with. Vaughn followed suit with "laying" the berries because that's what Torin said. At the end we got to take the tractor back and purchased strawberry rhubarb rollovers along with our strawberries. I will have to say that there is absolutely nothing better then fresh picked strawberries. Here are

some of the pictures from our day. I can't wait to make this a
yearly tradition with our boys...

Tractor ride out to the patch

Vaughn picking

All DONE...

YUMMY strawberries

Vaughn trying to carry them like Torin

Tractor ride home with our berries

Nothing like a little bit of a break for playing dandelions

The infamous rock :)