Merry Christmas!!!
Well where has the time gone again?!?!?! I looked at the calender and low and behold it
is DECEMBER!!! We have had a VERY busy year to say the least!! But when is it not??
We have been busy with a few things that I would like to touch on :

1.)We have been doing alot of stuff on the house (Of course!!) that never seems to be
boring. We put a new driveway in this summer, did some landscaping and more recently got
the garage heated!! We have some addition plans that we have been sitting on that we will
hopefully be able to take advantage of in the near future (I quit setting dates for when
we will start it because it seems that those dates always come and go, so, no dates, no
disappointments!!! )

2.) We are EXPECTING again (probably for the last time!)!! I only have 54 days left at the time of this letter!!! Feb.16th I am scheduled for a C-Section, if I make it that long!! So that will be another change for us, as both of our boys have been in the summer and this one will be
smack dab in the middle of the winter!!! We do not know what we are having as we chose to
keep it a surprise, so we are all getting very anxious to meet the new bundle :)
Both of the boys are very excited about the new baby as are Nate and I!!! :)

3.) Gavin started Kindergarten this fall!! Kenyon-Wanamingo has All Day/Every Day
Kindergarten, so my 5 year old has now started his full time school career already!! He loves it
and is excelling!! At his conferences his teacher said that he is one of the top readers in his
class and also LOVES math!! He is really coming out of his shell, which I am glad about because I was worried about how shy he seemed around people he didn't know. But he is doing great in
that department also!!! He has also picked up a LOVE for WWE wrestling which is SOOOOO funny to see!!! Cracks us up!!! He has to watch it every Monday night (also Fri night but that is Smackdown not Raw:))

4.) Reed is in the process of Potty Training , which is going.........Well as good as it can go I
guess!!! It is the one thing about parenting so far that I wish that I could send them away for!!! He is really doing very well for only being 2 1/2 years old, I cant (Or shouldn't)complain!! He has the BIGGEST imagination that I have every seen! He can pretend about anything, anytime anywhere. He is our little entertainer for sure! Reed is very excited to be Mommy's big helper
with this new baby, He practices all the time with anything that he can find that resembles a baby :)He has a great big heart and loves to "Make Mommy Happy"!!! (His own words!!)

All in all it has been a GREAT year for the whole family and I hope it has been and will be for
yours too!!! :) Till next year Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!!!

( I cant figure out why this is posting so weird with all the sentence breaks and stuff?? Very frustrating!!!)

Yearly Pictures (Well not the only ones:) )

Brothers!!!

Gavin~ 5 Years old

Wow Gavin!!! Like I said 5 Years old :)

Reed (Aka: Reeder Rabbit!!! Thanks Grandpa :) )

2 Years old

Always checking something out!!! :)

Time gets away from you............

Wow where does the time go?!?!?!? I think I say that every time I write again!!! Well the summer has been filled with lot to keep us busy!!! We have done alot of outdoor projects on the house as well as some not planned inside projects too ;)
We have put a new driveway in and done some landscaping out front and down by the garage and then in the middle of this driveway project our ONLY bathroom decided to spring a leak also, so that brought us to our unplanned indoor project which included tearing up the WHOLE floor to find where the leak was coming from, which also meant pulling the vanity, toilet and shower out as well!!! So we decided to go ahead and do it the way that we would want it to be for good instead of doing a quick fix and then having to redo it again some other time!!!


Also if you have not heard, we are expecting again!!! Very exciting time for us :)
I am due in Feb. and will have a scheduled C-Section again so I am hoping that it goes as good as it did with Reed!!! should prove to be a very busy time as it falls right in the middle of school season and I have always been off in the summer?!?!?! We will make due, thats jsut what you have to do :)
I have the big ultrasound on Fri. but we are not going to find out what we are having, keep with the surprise theme I guess!!! :) I have asked Gavin what he thinks would be good and he thinks that we should have a sister because he said that I am the ONLY girl!!! Awww.......He is always thinking of his mommy!!! :)


Gavin has also started All Day EveryDay Kindergarten!!! Of which he LOVES!!! I was very nervous about this I think for myself more than anything but it has been a very good thing!!! He went on his 1st fieldtrip yesterday (10-7-09) to Tweite's Pumpkin Patch in Byron and I was lucky enough to go along :) It was a fun day, it is really cute to see him interacting with his classmates!!! Too Cute!!! Here are some pictures of the day!!! Enjoy!!! :)

Sun. Night visit with Griffin :)

Ben and Bekki's Nephew Noah Sjoblom, He would stare at my camera and I would go to take a picture and my flash would stutter and this is the face I would get :) Too funny!!! He is really getting a fun personality!!

Cheese!!

Updated picture of baby Griffin, I went over to visit on Sun. night and snapped a few pix.

Griffin Benjamin Bakken

Ben, Bekki and new baby Griffin :)

Reed was lovin him up!!

Griffin Benjamin Bakken

5-28-09

My cousin Ben and his wife Bekki welcomed there 1st child into this world on Thurs. May 28th at 11:00pm. He is a total keeper!!

Where has the time gone???????

Well I don't know what to say!!! I was so good at this before and now I have just really been sucking it up in the blogging dept.!!! Well there has been alot that has happened since the last time that I posted but I don't think I will be able to get to it all this time!!!

Gavin is getting ready to wrap up Pre-School '09!!! They have a "Graduation" for them on the 20th of May so I will be sure to post pictures of that, he also has gotten his Teacher assignment for KINDERGARTEN!!! I know, that's right I said Kindergarten!! My Baby boy is going to be going to school ALL day EVERY day in the fall!!! He has a Mini-Kindergarten class this Fri. in the morning that he gets to go to! They have like a little class time, snack, ride a school bus!! I think it will be fun for him!!

Reed is turning into quite the "Little" man also!!! He is almost as heavy as Gavin, I know that my not seem like much because Gavin is such a twig but there is 3 years between them :) He is very independent and last night and this morning he has had no bottle to go to bed or for his nap!! So we will see how this weening thing goes?!?!?!?!?! :) He just would not let go of that bottle, but he bit the top off the nipple yesterday so I told him he could not have it anymore because he broke it, he just wanted to see it and then he hugged it and he was fine with not having it anymore!! so we will see how the rest of the week goes!!!

I am puttin some of our Easter pics on here as that is the last Family one I have!! and then some other just cute snapshots!! Enjoy the GREAT day outside!!

Conversations with a 4 year old

So Gavin and I were in the kitchen the other day talking over a snack of crackers and he proceeded to have this conversation with me :

Gavin: Mom is God the good one or the bad one?
Mom: The good one, Why?
Gavin: Just wondering...........does he have a HUGE clock up there or something??
Mom: Hmm.......I don't know why??
Gavin: Well....so he knows when people should die??
Mom: Oh well I think he just knows when it is our time........???
Gavin: I cant wait to die!!!
Mom: WHAT????? Why??????
Gavin: Well then I get to meet GOD!!!!! That is going to be AWESOME!!!!
Mom (under her breath) : Well I can wait for you to die!?!?!?!
Gavin: Mom cant you wait till you die???
Mom: Yeah I am excited to meet God and it will happen in his time!!!

Jeepers Creepers!!! How do you have these conversations with a 4 year old and how do they come up with these things?!?!?!?!?!?
I thought this was too cute not to document!!! And it also makes me very happy to know that my child wants to meet God!!! :)

Christmas Stockings!!!!!

Nummy presents from Harriet :)

Stocking time!!!!! :) Reed checking out what "Santa" brought!!!

It cracks me up how Gavin still try's to figure out how Santa gets in when we dont have a fireplace!!!! :)

SWEET INNOCENCE!!!!!

Christmas at Aaron & Kari's

Solomons 1st Sled Ride!!!

Having some playtime in the new Snow that we were getting that weekend!! (Good thing Daddy likes to play in it, because Mommy doesn't!!!)

Our God-Son Solomon........What a little doll he is!!! :)

So this would be what happened......oh........about 1 hour after we got to Nate's Cousin Aaron's house for Christmas on the 19th of Dec. Apparently it is way fun to run and jump on and off other peoples stairways even after Mom tells you to settle down!! Well he was running to jump onto the stairs and I heard a loud thud, we turned and looked at him and asked if he was alright and he was laying on the step holding his head and said that he was fine ( I think he was embarrassed..) I asked him like 3 more times and he kept saying he was fine so we went on with our conversation and about a minute late Gavin cam up to me holding his hand, that was completely covered in blood, out to me and he said that something was wrong!!! I tried to remain calm and get the bleeding under control and apply pressure so I could tell how bad it was and then Nate & Aaron came back from the store so we assessed the situation and also Aaron & Kari have a DR. that lives in there development, so Kari called him up to ask his opinion on what to do and he said that what I was doing was exactly right and that they really only stitch for 2 reasons 1) To stop the bleeding (which I had done) 2) For Cosmetic Reasons (no big deal there he has enough scars to show & his hair would cover it anyway) So after we got that out of the way we decided that we were not going to have it stitched and sent the boy's out to get some Steri Strips at the drug store and we just threw some of them on (after a small haircut with Aaron's electric razor!!) and he was good as new!!! but WOW what a start to the holidays!!! :) Never a Dull moment!

Solomon opening his 1st Christmas present EVER!!!! :)

"OK.....I think I have had enough of this present stuff!!! "

Reed taking over Murphy's bed!!! :)

"What is going on here????????"

Murphy getting his Christmas Present!!!

The Start of Christmas!!!!

This was the 1st year that we had a REAL Christmas Tree in like 8 yrs!!! And it was the cutest little 5 footer I've seen :) So the boy's were helping me put the decorations on after I got all the lights on (700 lights on my little tree!!)

It was SOOOOO beautiful!! Nothing makes me smile more than sitting with no other lights on but the tree during Christmas!! I LOVE IT!!!