Our Garden

So we have had a garden for the past 5 summers and have always had great success.  Well this year we weren't sure if we would be planting a garden or not.  With the house going on the market in early May we didn't even think about putting time into a garden as we were too busy finishing up last minute household projects so that buyers would fall in love with our home.  Well the house has been on the market for one month and no offers yet (plenty of showings though) so I decided I couldn't look at the empty garden beds any longer, just seemed like such a waste!  The boys and I went to the local green house and picked out our veggies, we decided to keep it pretty simple so that the new owners could maintain it in case we do get an offer in the near future.  We planted sweet white onions, Champion tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, jalapenos, cayenne peppers, bell peppers so we can make some awesome salsa.  And then knowing that we would still have space in our garden we decided to give Strawberries a try this year too! Gardening is something that I really enjoy and my boys do as well.  Mason helped weed the garden and we finished just before it started raining (at which time we headed inside to let the rain pass and Mason passed out on the couch, gardening is hard work)!! Colton helped me plant our new plants, although he did stop a few times to play with the worms that we dug up!  Mason couldn't stop talking about his pepper plants tonight over dinner (he picked out the bell peppers), he said they aren't ready yet but will be soon!  Here's to hoping our garden grows great again this year even if it isn't us who gets to enjoy the produce in the end.

Last Day of 2nd Grade

Today was Colton's last day of Second Grade!  He had another great school year in which he made huge improvements in his reading and writing and continued to excel in math.  He has made a few new friends and really started the whole playdate thing, I swear he gets more calls on my cell phone then I do (we don't have a home phone so he uses my phone number as he is almost always with me anyways)!! Colton really enjoyed school this year and was sad when it came to an end today, he said he even cried which I thought I was cute.  I hope he continues that love for school for a long time to come.  I still can't believe that my baby is going into 3rd Grade already.  

Colton you have grown into such an amazing little man, you are so caring, determined, loving, funny, outgoing, competitive (you get that from me) and smart!  But most of all you are mine, you are my son and I am so very proud of you.  Congrats on another great year of school, my 2nd Grade Graduate!

Academy Awards

Today was the end of year celebration for Colton's class.  The theme all year in his classroom has been Hollywood with the students as the stars and today was the Academy Awards!  Mamarazzi and Paparazzi were invited to the ceremony and encouraged to bring cameras and family members with them.  Well Mason and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  Colton had been practicing his acceptance speech all week and we were excited to see him accept his award.  The classroom was packed and then the show started.  They kicked it off with a slide show of behind the scene images taken throughout the year in his classroom.... I was crying in no time (I blame the song she added to the video)!  Here is a link to the video: Bahl's Hollywood.

Then came the actual award ceremony. Each student was presented with their trophy and walked down the red carpet to the stage to give their acceptance speech!  So much fun to watch all the proud parents tear up as their own child Thanked them for all they have done to help them throughout the year.  The entire ceremony is wonderful although hard to believe how fast my baby is growing up! 

 Congrats on your Academy Award Colton, I am so very proud of you!

Memorial Weekend 2014

Glorious!  I don't think I need to say anymore about this Memorial Weekend.  The weather has been just amazing and after what felt like 47 months of winter this is exactly what all Minnesotan's needed!  The boys and I headed to North Country immediately after school/work on Friday to spend the weekend with Grandma Yvonne.  We arrived at the lake around 7pm, ate a quick dinner and then headed outside to see our friends and of course enjoy some smores around the fire!  The rest of the weekend was pretty much the same kind of relaxing fun.  We enjoyed many bike rides (Mason and I just got a need bike/trailer combo and we were excited to test it out), we played at the park, enjoyed several dinners over the campfire and ate more smores than anyone will admit, went into town for pizza and the best ice cream ever and even enjoyed an afternoon on the beach!  This was the best way to kick off the summer and now I am praying for many more weekends just like this in the future!

 

One thing we love about this campground is the friends we have made.  Just two sites down is a family with two boys... one Colton's age and one Mason's age! It is prefect and the boys have so much fun playing together!  Actually tonight as I am relaxing on the couch with Mason I can see Colton and his friend sitting by the campfire playing games on their Kindle/Nooks and just telling stories to each other.  It reminds me that Colton is no longer my little baby but is starting to find his own way in life and explore and learn things with his friends instead of just his mom.  It makes me proud to see him be socially confident, adventurous and able to make new friends so easily.  

Cub Scout Lock-In

Colton and I went to our first Cub Scout Lock in a few weeks back and I wanted to share the excitement of our fun night. We arrived at the church at 9pm with our tent, pillow, blankets, camera, two giant Lego bins and a crock pot of Nacho cheese (and chips of course)!  We got our sleeping quarters set up next to some of the other boys in our den and then it was time to eat!  We enjoyed sloppy joes, chips, fruit, salads and of course candy!  After our late dinner the boys had some free time to do whatever they wanted. Some played video games (as there were 6 TV's and the boys were allowed to bring their own systems/games), some played dodgeball, others went to legos and some played board games such as Risk.  Now I will say that the video game thing kinda drives me crazy but I know that is part of this generation however I do not support boys playing games such as Call of Duty (hello, 7 year olds don't need to play murder games, they are rated M for a reason)!  Colton didn't get to bring his video games... I felt he should play with his friends instead of electronics.  He asked me once to play as another boy said he could use his system, but Colton knew he had to ask due to the game (Call of Duty or some other killing game), I said "No" due to the game and he didn't argue at all because he knows our family rules.  One of the other dads heard me say no due to the game and he said "I completely agree with you, way to stick to it".  It felt like that was a small parenting victory.  Sometimes I feel we might be a little too old fashioned but come on there is no reason a 7 year is playing those games if you ask me.  Anyways, back to the lock in.  At about midnight we started some of the games.  The boys earned a ticket for playing and another if their team won!  There were several games played between midnight and 2am.   We also went outside around 1am to play with bubbles.   At 2:30 the drawing happened for prizes, Colton won a Lego set as if he doesn't already have enough.  Colton had no intentions of going to sleep but this mama was quickly losing steam as I had been up since 5am Friday morning. At 3am we had birthday cake as it was officially one of the scouts birthday now - seriously cake for boys at 3am is not a good idea!!  After cake Colton found an age appropriate video game and him and his friend sat down to play for a while while I crawled in our tent and passed out almost instantly.  I woke up at 6am to start cleaning up with the rest of the group... Colton was still awake (he was the only boy from my den who lasted all night - he was hanging out with the older boy scouts)!  We cleaned up the church basement, packed up our tents and cleaned up the Legos, loaded the van and were on our way home just after 7am.  Now the church is only about 8 blocks from our house but that was a long enough ride for Colton as he was out cold by the time pulled into the garage.   I woke him up and he stumbled his way into the house and crawled into his bed and slept until after lunch.  I was able to get another hour of sleep and then Mason was up so that was it for me... time to start my Saturday!  Here are few pictures from our first cub scout lock in!  This being a Cub Scout Mom is actually a lot of fun!

 

Happy Easter!

We had a very busy Easter weekend.  Colton and I spent Friday night at the overnight lock-in for cub scouts (that will get a post of its own one of these days), Saturday morning/afternoon was spent trying to recover from our long night and deter Mason from destroying the house while we rested, Saturday evening I had to work the nursery at church and then Saturday night we finally got to color our Easter Eggs!  Sunday morning it was time to search for our Easter Baskets, go to Church and then head to my parents for a delicious lunch, an Easter egg hunt and of course a game of Mexican Train Dominoes and plenty of laughs.  It was a great and relaxing way to end our weekend.     Happy Easter Everyone!

 Don't mind Colton's Face! I swear it is impossible to get a good picture of both kids!!

 

Family of Four

I stopped at a friends house tonight to drop off our infant carrier carseat/stroller combo and a couple other baby items as she is expecting this fall and was more than excited to take these items off our hands and I was happy to give them to someone who appreciated them so much.  As I pulled out of her drive and started my drive home I started to cry a little.  This is it, we are finally saying that we are done having kids.  We are a family of four and that is it.  This idea all of a sudden seemed very hard to accept.  

Growing up I always saw myself with a couple kids, 3 or maybe even 4 of them to be exact.  I come from a bigger family and I loved having so many siblings to play with when I was growing up. My dad also comes from a big family and I love that I have so many cousins, many of us who remain close well into our adult years.  Frankie and I always talked about having kids and he had always said that 2 was a good number and I always said maybe more!  After Colton we knew wanted another but it took almost 2 years for us to get pregnant and when we did I once again dealt with some crazy morning (all day, everyday) sickness for the first trimester and then delivery was a quick one (barely made it to the hospital) and I lost a lot of blood and ended up passing out (twice) about an hour after delivery.  So needless to say, not the ideal pregnancy/delivery.  And since having our second child I have developed some crazy anxiety - finally went to my doctor about 11 months after delivery and now two years later I have it much better under control however still have moments of anxiety/depression flares.  

So when Frankie and I talked about stopping at two many things came into the conversation, the stress of trying to get pregnant was very hard emotionally on both of us and we didn't think we wanted to do it again, the pregnancies were hard on me for the first 12 weeks which of course was hard on Frankie too and the next one would probably be delivered in an aisle at Target if goes faster than child #2 went.  Also with my anxiety issues I know that pregnancy/post postpartum will probably just cause that to flare out of control and I don't want to go back to that feeling again.   Also, kids are expensive.  Two in daycare is about equal to our mortgage payment each month, sports and activities add up and putting two through college will be expensive no doubt! So we decided two was it for us.  

Now I thought I was okay with this but tonight as I drove away leaving behind my baby items and officially telling myself that I never get to feel those belly kicks again, never have that first amazing touch with my newborn child, never sit up in the middle of the night rocking my amazing baby in my arms and all the other things that go along with a new baby I started to think that maybe I don't want to be done having kids.  I cried it out for a while when I got home (a couple different times) and then I started to think about what I do have and that is two amazing little boys who are my world.   These boys have made me a mom, which is the only thing I have ever dreamed about being (I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up like so many people do but I always knew I wanted to be a mom)!  And I just want to say that I am so grateful that I have been blessed with these two beautiful boys, I know there are people who struggle to get pregnant and I know there are people who have lost their babies before they ever got to meet them so believe me when I say I am truly blessed to have to two healthy amazing kids in my life.  And now as we get ready to put our house on the market and hopefully purchase our dream home it is comforting to be able to put the wondering behind us about another baby and know that the next house just needs to fit our family of four.  We are excited to start the next chapter of our life. We are excited to leave the baby days behind us and move full speed ahead into a life filled with sports, outdoor activities, cub scouts, camping, bugs, dirt, wrestling matches and everything else that goes with raising two boys!  I am proud to say we are officially a family of four and that is how we will stay.  

Did I mention how much I love these two boys.  This is an old picture but it is one of my favorites.  I am happy that we were able to give Colton a little brother and while they may fight and annoy each other I know they love each other more than they can even understand right now!  And I will say it one more time, these two boys make me the happiest that I could have ever imagined and I love them more than I ever thought was possible - they made me a mom!  

Family

The last night on the island we decided to try to get some family pictures with the beautiful sunset.  This sounded like a great idea but it didn't go quite as planned.  Sunset happens right around dinner time so the boys were very hungry and they had been on the beach all day so they were a little tired but we did our best and ended up with some fun family photos!