Spoken From The Heart

Family Canoe Adventures

Happy 8 Months Sevi!

Power of the Bribe

As mentioned in the last post, Soren is obsessed with various rescue vehicles and the people who drive them. There is a fire station and police station within a half a mile from our home. So for entertainment Soren loves it when we drive through the police station parking lot to count how many police vehicles are there that day - bonus if we see a police officer getting in or out of a car. Now most of you also know that we have had continuing issues of Soren hitting, going back to when he was 18 months. After trying various methods of trying to get him to stop, from empathy to time outs to even stopping firemen and policemen on the road to ask them if rescue workers hit so Soren could hear it first hand, it took a prized bribe to get him to significantly tone it down. We are not expecting perfection, but I tell you it is nice to not wake up and have your day start with getting smacked by your child and him in a time out by 7am. It took two months on the "Do Not Hit" program, but Soren reached the 3 day mark of not hitting and earned himself the police outfit that he has so long coveted. That outfit did not come off for 4 days and 4 nights! With the outfit comes a ticket for vehicle violations. So the bonus to all this was that on day 2 of Soren's dress up vigil, Randy was driving home after a family dinner and was pulled over by a police officer. Soren was in high heaven and I swear that it was our little cute Junior Police Officer in back that got Randy off with just a warning!

July 4th Celebrations

With Soren really into any form of 911 service vehicles and people, this year's July 4th celebration starting with the fireman's pancake breakfast couldn't have been better. After filling up with pancakes the kiddies donned their costumes for the Kiddie Parade.


Trying on the fireman's helmet.


Soren and Lucienne on the fire truck.


The gang at breakfast.


Our Kiddie Parade theme was Sevi and Lucienne as the King and Queen of the Kiddie Parade.


Soren was the traffic cop directing the parade traffic. Our neighbor Tim made the awesome stop sign.

Friendly Gathering

We welcomed our dear friends Danielle, Sebastian and Lucienne from our days in Savannah up to the cottage for the July 4th weekend. Danielle and I were in grad school together at SCAD and they now live in Madison, WI. Soren loved having a playmate his age for an extended sleepover. Thanks for making the long drive and for such a great time. Happy 3rd Birthday next week Lucienne!

Riding Commando

Summer doesn't get any better than spending a hot summer day with a good buddy, getting drenched by a hose, and heading home sans clothing. Thanks Karla, Miles and Griffin for a great afternoon and photographic momentos.