Christmas fun

The boys had so much fun on Christmas. They walked out into our living room on Christmas morning and saw presents under the tree and stockings filled. Cole said "what?" (it actually sounded more like 'what the?'). Then "PRESENTS!". Then I said "Did Santa come?"...and he shouted "it's Christmas!!". I didn't think they would quite get it, but they sure had fun!

Cole had fun dumping out his new blocks.
Dylan and Cole got special baby dolls from their Nana. They love carrying them around and giving them bottles.

Daddy is reading one of their new books from Santa. They can't wait for new books in the house. We have to go to the library at least once a week to update our reading materials!
The guys love dressing up in costumes, so they both loved their Captain Amazing outfit from their cousin Paige. Dylan puts it on with his fireman helmet and says he is a fireman.
Cole especially loves the wrist bands. He'll come out in the morning and ask "where are the wrist bands?" and put them on.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

crafty boys

With all the snow and bad weather we have been having we have had to find new projects to do around the house. The other day we pulled out some beads and pipe cleaners and got busy!
I was surprised at their concentration level.

Cole is showing how well he can put the beads on...

...and Dylan is showing how they pulled the beads down the pipe cleaner. We ended up making bead wreaths ornaments that we put on our Christmas tree.

We really do turn the heat on in our house...the guys just love wearing hats!

More Snow!

We got MORE snow last night! The guys were so excited to get to play in fresh snow again. This time the snow was perfect for making snow balls and snowmen. We kept trying to make a snowman with them but they had so much fun jumping on the first big part of the snowman body, that after the 3rd time we gave up. They liked standing on the mountain of snow and squishing it with their boots!

Here is Dylan with a snowball.

Cole is saying 'white snow'. That's what they call snow. They won't just say snow...they always call it 'white snow'.

Here they are piling up the snow in another mountain.

Then they discovered that they could eat snow. Boy was that exciting! Mommy told them to be sure to only eat the 'white snow'!

When I tried to get the boys to come inside for lunch they told me that they were eating snow for lunch!

After playing in the snow they came inside and got all of their animals from their room and lined them up on the couch and then sat down with them. I walked into the room to find this scene. I grabbed the camera and told them to smile. They wouldn't smile and I asked them where their smiles were and they both pointed to their necks and said 'here'.

Snow day!

It snowed a couple of inches last night! We were so excited to go out and play we put on our boots and puffy jackets over our pajamas!



Dylan and Mommy tried to 'shovel' the snow off of our walkway and driveway...but all we had was a big broom (usually it doesn't snow that much here and when it does it melts right away...but today was VERY cold and the snow stuck around)! But we were able to get most of it pushed to the side.

Dylan would say 'puuuuusssshhhhh' while he helped!

Oh Christmas Tree!

This weekend we all headed out to pick out a Christmas tree. We went to a local tree farm to cut down our tree. The farm had lots of fun activities for us like taking a wagon ride around the property, petting baby goats, going through a tree maze and sitting around a big fire. Dylan especially liked sitting on the logs around the fire. Here he is enjoying the warmth with Daddy.

When we went to pick out a tree Cole was totally enamored with the very first tree we looked at. Every time we said, 'well lets keep looking' he would scream that no, this was THE tree. Luckily for us (Mom and Dad) the tree was not too tall...and actually it is perfect. Here the guys are giving their thumbs up for the tree.

The boys were so excited to watch Daddy cut down the tree with a saw. Daddy had to saw real slow so the experience lasted longer than the 30 seconds it would have normally taken!

Once we got the tree inside and pulled out the decorations the guys knew exactly what to do. They put up all the decorations and then took them down rearranged them and then put them back up again...

...and have been doing that ever since! Cole had to take a break from dinner tonight to make some changes to the way the ornaments were being displayed!

Piano Player

The guys love playing our piano. Here we caught Cole playing a fabulous song! Have your sound on.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Or as Dylan and Cole say "Happy Birthday Giving!"
All day I tried to get them to drop the Birthday...but it just rolls off the tongue.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with our good friends Nicole, Matthew and their son Jonah. Rob's parents were going to join us too, but Paul came down with a cold (hopefully you didn't get it from the boys!!) and were unable to join us.

The boys were working on their second helping before Rob and I even got to sit down! It was a dinner of the guys' favorite foods. Dylan ate about half the dish of stuffing and cranberry sauce...good thing I put a lot of veggies and good stuff in there!

The guys were so excited to get sweet potato pie that Nicole made. Cole ate his one piece very slowly and methodically, while Dylan cut up and ate 3 servings. Dylan is big on cutting his food with his fork these days and cut his pie piece into about 4 pieces and put those huge pieces in his mouth! It sure was delicious!

Jonah decided to skip most of dinner and went right for the whipped cream! He knows what's good!

The gang!

Happy Birthday Boys!!

We can't believe the boys turned 2 years old yesterday!! Time sure does fly by.

We had a fun birthday party for the guys with 4 of their little friends. Grandma Fiegener did her magic with creating truck birthday cakes for the boys. They were amazed that they were going to get to eat these trucks!

Jonas, Leo and Lina all enjoying snack between playing and before cake.

All the kids were so well behaved while eating their cake. The room was so quiet!

Both Dylan and Cole kept asking for "more cake please." Like if they asked real nice they would get as much cake as they wanted.

Cole and his proud mama.

Dylan wore a party hat almost the whole day...even after the party. He also got a card that transformed into a birthday boy crown, which he insisted on wearing WITH his other party hat. I had to tell him the bad news when he also wanted to wear his fireman hat on top of the other two. We also got little party blowers that the kids had fun playing with. To make Cole's blower work I had to hold my fingers on his lips while he blew and he thought that was SO funny!

Their friend Leo got the boys these fabulous trucks for their birthday. They were the first presents they opened...and the last. They could not be distracted from their new trucks for anything...even with other presents!

Dylan is a happy guy. He just opened a birthday card from his Nana!

Here are the guys exactly 2 years ago! Dylan is on the left and Cole on the right.

Fall fun

We had a fun weekend enjoying the fall weather...mostly all the pretty leaves!

Cole had fun throwing leaves in our front yard...while eating a bagel!


Dylan is hugging the tree in our front yard. He went around the yard and hugged the pumpkin on our front step, the bushes and plants in our front garden saying "hugggggggggg" each time.

We went for a walk in a local forest to enjoy the fall colors.

The guys had a great time finding 'enormous' leaves on the path.

The guys are wearing their new rubber boots that we got at the local farm supply store. They had just about as much fun looking at all the farm supplies as they did getting new red and yellow boots.

The Dragon and The Lion

Happy Halloween!
The guys took us out this afternoon to haunt the streets of downtown
Corvallis. Dylan wanted to be the Lion, and Cole wanted to be the Dragon.

The downtown businesses all do Trick-or-Treat, but the guys had the most fun running around this small empty plaza in front of City Hall.

They kept running back and forth between two benches, roaring and growling.

Running through the empty bike parking racks was lots of fun, too!

It was another fun fall day! I expect they'll want to wear their costumes again tomorrow, and the next day!

Pumpkin Patch

This week we went to one of our many local farms that has fun fall activities.
Here the guys are waiting for the hay ride to the pumpkin patch to start. They were watching every move the driver made as he was helping people on the wagon and closing the back and walking to the tractor and then driving. They were so excited once things got moving...but as you can see were very serious before hand while they waited.

Here, in the pumpkin patch they are looking at an old squished pumpkin. After I took this picture they both started stomping in it...good thing they were wearing their favorite boots!

Cole's version of 'thumbs up'!

Dylan is commenting on the fact that this pumpkin is big and orange, has a stem and has dirt on it.
He said that about almost every pumpkin he looked at!

The farm also had these great bins filled with dried corn kernels that the guys played in for about a half an hour. It was like a big yellow sand box!
After playing in the corn, talking about corn and seeing tall corn stalks the guys really wanted to eat some corn. Lucky for us the farm was grilling some up that day! They each ate a whole ear and still wanted MORE!!

Cole checking out the scene while munching on some kernels.

Another favorite activity was the straw bale maze. It was only 2 bales high so the boys could see over them. They loved going down the little paths and when they would come to a dead end they would turn around and say 'other way! other way!'.

Dylan has also been getting ready for Halloween...or partially. If you can't tell by only the head piece...that is part of a lion costume. But yes it mostly looks like a bad wig! And he loves to wear it.