Christmas with Papa Bernie

Christmas day we went to the nursing home to visit Papa Bernie and have lunch with him. It was also the first time he had seen Bercan. It's so sweet to see how much Bernie loves these boys. You can tell that it just brings a twinkle to his eyes to see his great-grandsons. We gave him a photo book for Christmas this year as I know that he loves them. It's great to watch him thumb through the pages and see all the photos from the year.

The oldest and youngest of the family.

He is such a sweet man. They are just too cute together.

Vaughn LOVES Papa Bernie. It's fun watching fun just talk and hang out with him.

Auntie Cole giving Bercan a toupee :) It's so funny how bald my babies are and how different they look with hair on their little baby head.

Auntie Cole and one of her boys

Winter Fun

Bercan fell asleep right away in being outside and Vaughn didn't really want to be outside so I guess it worked out that Bjorn and Torin were building the snow fort!

I love that Bercan is smiling in this picture. He obviously loves his new snow suit.

Bercan sleeping in the stroller outside.

Torin and Daddy in the snow fort. It's a yearly thing to build a snow fort at the end of the drive way. The boys love it, Bjorn included :)

Christmas with the Larson

Christmas is such a fun time for the boys. It's all the things before Christmas actually comes, like decorating the cookies, picking out and decorating the Christmas trees. Decorating the house making snow flakes out of paper. They boys love it all! However, the best part is going and spending time with our family, of course and opening presents too. I will say this year both of the boys were really into the fact that it was Jesus's birthday. They wanted to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and honestly I have to admit it melted my heart a little. We ate dinner at Nana's and Papa's with the whole family. The boys had a great time playing with Cooper and Alaina. It is getting to be quite the mayhem of four kids ripping into presents this year. I can only imagine what it's going to be like when Bercan and Brooks start getting into it. It was a great night of fun with family!

This is what a Christmas Eve night with the Larson cousins will do to you. Seriously, we only live 15 minutes from Nana's but Vaughn was able to pass out so much that he was bent in half.

This was the best! We had propped Bercan in the corner of the couch AWAKE and amidst the noise of 4 other kids ripping through presents he decided that we were just too boring and fell asleep. Once we noticed that he had fallen asleep we of course had to take pictures of it. I kind of joked that he was taking Papa Bernie's place as he usually he's the one who nods off during all the commotion as well.

One of Torin's favorite presents was a White Bear Lake hooded sweatshirt. This is the school district that we live in and Torin loves being a "Bear". His other favorites were a pair of heely's and his nintendo DS.

The Larson clan. Starting from the left (Brooks, Cooper, Alaina, Vaughn, Torin and Bercan)

Torin of course wanted to hold Bercan.

The "middles". Pretty cute, aren't they! Vaughn's favorite presents were Bahkagons, his white bear lake sweatshirt, his treasure chest and the Jungle Book. I have to post about this one. One of our Friday babysitters had bought The Jungle Book VHS movie for Vaughn. Well it was not a cartoon, it was a real movie that was not so appropriate for Vaughn. After having nightmares about the movie, it was hidden and had been hidden for almost a year. When we took the boys to Santa in Door County and Vaughn asked Santa for the Jungle Book. It was the last thing that we thought he would ask for since it had been so long. We did have the movie and we could tell that Vaughn really wanted it. So Bjorn and I decided to wrap it up for Santa. Vaughn was SO excited about getting the movie that he continued to sleep with the movie for the next week along with asking to watch it every other second of the day. Vaughn was a really cheap boy for us this year. I guess he is that typical middle child of being easy to please :)

More Hockey

Torin at the face off. It's funny how these kids race to get back to the bench after their shift to be the first one back on the ice to fight for the face off position. I really don't know what position this is, maybe forward. Who knows? Not me :) I call it the face off position. I'm sure once Bjorn reads this entry he'll let me know the correct terminology. Torin is so funny with hockey. Some days he will be super focused and really into the game while other days he'll be skating in circles, literally, watching the puck fly by with no cares at all. When he is focused I will say that it is fun to see him play. The best thing so far this season is seeing that he is actually "getting" the game. A few times I will notice that he is not chasing after the puck but anticipating where the puck will end and skating to that part of the ice. It's just fun to see him progressing.

Finally his efforts to race to the bench paid off...

I just love the back of the jersey's with their names on it. Holt (Jacob) is one of Torin's friends from his class at school. Jacob and Torin really love to play hockey together along with anything else. Bieniek (Christian) and Torin played clinic together and went to the same preschool. Christian's Mom actually was Torin pre-school teacher. It's just fun to see these boys grow up and play sports together!

Ice Fishing and Outdoor Hockey

If any of you don't know our friend Dave just ask one of our boys about him and you'll begin to realize just how important Dave is to these boys. Dave is pretty much the best thing in their lives. I asked Torin one time what the order of breakdown was for him and I received this response, "Well Mom, it's God, Dave, our Family and then all the other people that we know." After a little bit of thinking he decided that maybe Bercan should come before Dave. Well at least one of his blood relations made it before Dave :) We love it though how much they love him. Dave asked us if we wanted to go ice fishing. The boys were of course SO excited to go ice fishing and with Dave. We headed out to our friend Andy's Moms' house who lives on a lake. It was a great afternoon for the kids and the parents.

Torin playing a little hockey out on the rink that they made.

Bjorn and Jaylin playing hockey...

Torin and Jaylin against Bjorn. I think the kids took him down :)

Yes, there was ice fishing too. I know that they caught a few fish

which was the highlight of the day for Torin.

All gathered outside except for Siobain and I. Neither of us had any desire to be out in the cold.

Amelia and Vaughn

Amelia and Vaughn are really just too cute together. They love playing together or in this case watching a movie together all snuggled in. The best is that Amelia is not afraid to make sure that Vaughn is behaving. She will put him in his place without missing a beat! I absolutely love it, as it is too cute!

Is she not the cutest little girl? I love her super rosey cheecks in this picture.

Getting warm, watching a movie after playing outside.

Smiling for Mom to take a picture....they really are too sweet

Christmas Cookies Made Easy

We decided to do things easy this year, okay really it was my decision. I may not have been working but I was running a house and a crazy schedule on very little sleep from Mr. Bercan so at this point in life it's not going to always be what's cute, creative or awesome but more what is easy. I mean after all the boys don't really care how the cookies or frosting get to the table just so that they can decorate them. The grocery store by us had premade cutout sugar cookies and these awesome premade frosting bags. The boys loved that there was no prework and so did Mom. Actually, I think that Dad was also pretty excited that there weren't two messes in the kitchen as well :) It was so fun to get creative with the boys and to see the different decorations they did with the cookies. I usually think in some of these situations that I'm the one who is having the most fun but I think that Bjorn had a ton of fun decorating too. It was a great family night together that ended with us eating one of the cookies that we had decorated. Nothing like eating your hard work!

Aren't these bags the best. Already mixed, cut the tip and you're ready to go.

They were really easy for the boys to use which they loved.

The boys and Mom after the decorating craze...

Vaughny so proud of his cookies

Torin was really cute in wanting us to take pictures of his cookies.

He really came up with some neat things I will say that he

gets that creative side from his Dad and the Larson side.

The finished work...I personally think that we did a fabulous job :)

My favorite one of all is the one that Bjorn did with the beginning letters of our names. I will say that it was the last one that was eaten as we thought it was a pretty cool idea from Dad. He's so clever :)