HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIDAN!

Happy Birthday Aidan! You are growing up so fast! You are such an amazing boy. You make me laugh everyday and you amaze me with your memory. You can quote many of your books word for word. I just told Daddy we need to harness that amazing memory for good...how much of God's word could you tuck in there? You are still as outgoing and friendly as ever! You continue to make friends at the park, grocery store and everywhere we go. Your friends at school are always excited to see you. You are a great big brother, too. Luke thinks you are the coolest thing ever and he tries to do everything you do. He misses you so much while you are at school and runs to the door when it is time to pick you up. You do not let him near your legos, though. He loves to have pillow fights with you on your bed and wants to be wherever you are. I pray you are always close.
You are still pretty easy going, although you are becoming quite the negotiator. Meaning, you don't like to be told "no" and you work very hard to get the answer you are hoping for. That is a daily challenge. You had another amazing year in soccer and are looking forward to T-ball in just a few weeks. You love school, although it is more the socializing that you love more than the learning. You have just gotten into Legos and I am amazed at how good you are at them.
You are still my cuddle bug and I love it. You continue to have a tender heart and are quick to offer a hug or encouragement. You are learning more about talking to Jesus and it makes my heart soar to hear you talk to him as your friend. You aren't so sure about heaven, though. You have a lot of fun here and are in no rush to live forever with Jesus. It is a lot to understand, so we just keep talking about it.
I love that you ask me to tell you the story of "the night you were born". You have been such a blessing in our lives and you fit perfectly! You have an amazing story with God's fingerprints all over it. I am so blessed to be part of it and to watch it unfold. You have the potential to do great things on this earth and my prayer for you is that you first trust God fully to lead you in those things. This journey keeps getting better and more fun. I know we have challenges ahead, but boy am I enjoying these days with you! I love you more than you will ever know and can't get enough of those big brown eyes! I love you to the moon and back.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!

Luke, Happy 2nd Birthday! You are so much fun at this age! You are amazing us everyday with a new word or a new antic of some sort. You LOVE music. Mostly guitars and drums. "Didtaaar" and "Bum Bum". You have amazing rhythm already! It has taken until about two weeks ago for you to go into the church nursery or MOPS/Bible study childcare without screaming your head off. A few months ago we figured out that if there was a toy guitar or video of the worship band, you'd settle down more quickly. You have learned so many new things this year. First off, walking, running and now a little bit of jumping. You quickly try anything Aidan does...walking along the curb, balance beam style; collecting rocks (raahk), checking out the baseball field at CBS and climbing on the couch. In the car you say whoa whenever I turn a corner...the same spot every time we take Aidan to school because Aidan said it one morning.

You absolutely LOVE Aidan. It melts my heart to listen to you two play together in your room at the train table. You get very frustrated when the trains fall off the track, but you are gettting it figured out. You love to play outside....with Aidan or by yourself. You have taken up golf (gaaah). You hit at the ball, kind of like a baseball, but you are persistent. When it is time to pick up Aidan at school and I say, "let's get Aidan at school," You run to the door and say "Nay Nay gaga cooool". Precious I tell ya! Aidan adores you as well. He is so proud of you and gets so excited when he sees you learn something new or say a new word. I pray you are always close. You make a great team.
I have to believe this love for music and your showy personality are going to follow into some sort of performance career. We'll see. You are quite the hamm. You have such great smiles and make the greatest squishy faces. You still have a bit of a stubborn streak, but it has dramatically reduced. Probably has to do with your budding vocabulary.

My favorite part of the day now is naptime and bedtime. Not for the reasons you may think. I sure need the break, but really it is so I can soak up your lovin's. You have only recently become a snuggle bug. You freeely give kisses and hugs. Although you withold them with a smile...again you're a hamm. We sit in the rocking chair and read books (buh), and then I sing. First Jesus Loves Me. Then you say "more baby". It comes from the book, "Love you Forever." I probably sing it 15-20 times. You will either sit facing out with blankie or will let me cuddle you like a baby. I love it because you never let me hold you like a baby when you were tiny. Then we give kisses, bonk heads and tickle a bit. It winds you up a bit, so then we have to rock more. You say more raah. I feel like I am catching up on 18 months of cuddling, so our bedtime routine is a bit lengthy. We will probably have to shorten it soon, because you are really starting to protest when I leave. You still have strong lungs. My only complaint is that you have been calling me Ma! from the start. It took me a very long time to realize you were calling blankie "mama". I knew that was what you called it, but I thought you also meant me sometimes. Several months ago you stopped saying mama for blankie, but I remained ma or mom. You have only in the last couple of weeks started to find a word for blankie...blah blah. In the meantime it has been a grunt with your hands out.

You still love to eat and most of your signs and words are related to eating or food. I'll be interested to see what your height and weight are next week at your dr. visit. You are not very tall....you're going to be like daddy...long body and very short legs.

You have made our family so much richer and lots of fun. We are so blessed that God chose us to be your family. I know God has amazing things planned for you and I pray that you make good choices throughout your life so that you can see all God has for you. I pray for your friends, for your future wife and that God will prepare you well for all the obstacles you will face. I love you so much punkin! You are an amazing blessing and never cease to surprise me. I love you!

Happy Anniversary!

Nine years today! What a journey! I am very blessed to be married to my best friend. I love spending time with him and he loves me very well. Who knew what life would hold when we "met" in the Hegstrom's kitchen that night? Lots of laughs, lots of tears and tons and tons of dreams! One big move, two Master's degrees, two beautiful boys and lots of memories later, I am so thankful for my many blessings. I get to live life with my best friend. He is so giving, helpful, thoughtful, seeking God and amazing! We have lots of ordinary days together, but lots of extraordinary days too. I joke about his shortcomings..you know, the chairs that never get pushed under the table, the many cups I carry to the kitchen....but I love Jim beyond words. He is awesome! I hope we get to be that old couple sitting together on the park bench holding hands and smiling. It is just awesome to be together, no words needed. I so look forward to what lies ahead. Still an unknown, what the future holds, but that's what keeps it exciting. I've surely been blessed beyond measure. I love you, Jim!

First day of School

Aidan started school last Wednesday and is loving it! I had no doubt he would. I must admit I cried. As I prayed for him on the way to school, Aidan could tell I was choked up. When I finished, he said, Mom, you don't have to cry, I'll be alright. I didn't want him to get nervous or scared, so I just told him I was going to miss him, but I knew he was going to have tons of fun. Of course he did. There are only three boys in his class, which I think is good. I definitely got lots of "I love you's" when he got home, though. We've noticed lots more of those and more hugging since school started. Although he has always been verbal and physical with love, it amps up when he is nervous or trying new things. We just enjoy it and give him more. I know the day will come when those hugs are few and far between.

Luke and I are enjoying our days together. We haven't started anything structured because I wanted to see how our schedule works out. I was going to start us with mommy and me gymnastics. Maybe in October. We are starting our other fall meetings, which will be tuesday, wednesday and thursdays. Fridays seem to be the day for errands, so Mondays will be our play days. Both boys are growing and maturing right before our eyes. It is cool to watch and makes mommy teary at the same time. We are blessed!

Legoland

Our summer started with graduation and continued while Grammy and Grandpa Jim were here. We had a great time at Legoland. Aidan and Luke enjoyed themselves and I enjoyed watching them. Luke is enjoying a chocolate covered marshmallow...thanks to Grandpa. Miniland is amazing and the boys check it out with Jim. The roller coaster ride didn't thrill Jim. I've already alerted Aunt Amy that she will be the designated roller coaster rider with the boys. If you look closely at the second picture, you can see Jim holding on for dear life and Aidan holding on, but a smile on his face. The only roller coaster I rode was the dragon and that was enough for me. I'm really not a thrill seeker. It was a really fun day and I realize my boys are getting so big so fast! Before I know it, they will be able to ride all the rides!

We had a great visit with Grammy and Grandpa Jim. Grandpa and Aidan had a day out and went to Boomers. I don't have any pictures, but I know they had a great time. They played video games and several rounds of golf. Of course they stopped at Old McDonald's on the way home and had food and ice cream. They were gone for hours. We were beginning to get worried and Grandpa left his phone at the house. They were just having lots of fun together. Grandpa did plenty of work, too, though. We have had a fence in pretty bad shape for quite a while and he fixed it....I think that was really his graduation present to Jim. He has plenty of other projects to tackle this summer. At least that big one is off the list.

We are looking forward to more summer fun. Aidan has asked to learn to ride his bike without training wheels. More to come.....

We made Jim go through the steps of getting rid of those highlighters in front of all the witnesses. He had a hard time letting them go and isn't sure he is totally cured, but we all committed to snatching any highlighter from his hands. Now to break his Starbucks habit!

Graduation!

Graduation went beautifully! Jim took his last final on Thursday night and had friday off to enjoy it a bit. He and I went to a graduation dinner that night and had a ball listening to his professors show their comedic side. They all roasted one another and it was fun to see that side of them. Over and over the graduates were applauded for their hard work and family members were nicely recognized as well for supporting them through such a rigorous academic pursuit. I have to say, and have on several occasions, I am so proud of Jim, not only for finishing, but for finishing very well. He took 36 classes (over 7 years) and never approached one with the attitude of "I'll just do what I need to do to get through it." Of course he enjoyed some more than others, but he always read his books and wrote his papers with the attitude that there was something valuable to be gained in the process. That's a student!

We had family and friends gather with us to celebrate this HUGE accomplishment. I gave a few words of appreciation and thanks to our friends and family, but also had to share some trouble that Jim got into while on this journey. He developed an addiction to yellow highlighters! I gathered all I could from the house, but am sure there are at least 30 more in hidden locations throughout my house. We had a highlighter burning ceremony to close out our intervention. It was a great relief for me to see those things go up in flames! We had a great time celebrating and we all slept until 9 the next morning. If you know my early bird husband, you know that has probably only happened one other time in his life. Luke still hasn't recovered. He wakes up at 9:00 every day now. He was the life of the party after 8:30 that night and had fun keeping us entertained between guitar hero and dancing by the fire pit. Now to enjoy life without homework.