boys and their outfits

Thank you Nana for the fabulous Santa Fe train aprons!! We tested them out while making banana muffins! The boys love cooking. They pretend to cook when they are playing in the mud, when they are playing in their 'play' kitchen, and even when they are taking a bath!
They call themselves (and their Daddy) the muffin men.

This past week Daddy was away for most of the week on a work trip...even without Daddy the boys managed to entertain themselves and Mommy. Here they are all dressed up in their safety fireman gear. They were telling Mommy that they were wearing their safety helmets (Dylan is wearing a stripy warm hat under his and Cole decided that his helmet should wear the stripy warm hat), safety gloves (which are their socks!), safety pants (at this point they are just calling what ever pants they are wearing their safety pants...we'll see what they come up with next!), and safety boots. And of course they also have trucks at the ready. When they aren't calling themselves the muffin men, they call themselves working men.

Rock star

This past weekend we decided to spend a day in Portland. We spent the morning at a fabulously fun place called OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). They have a large area dedicated to young kids.

We have been there several times already...so the boys knew to head straight for the water play area. They get to put on rubber boots and a smock and then get to work. Here Dylan has figured out how to turn a wheel to get water to come out of a pipe...and stretch his arms to fill up his watering can.

In the water play area they had a flowing river with animals and trees that you can move around. Cole had so much fun finding the perfect places to put the animals and then would sprinkle them with his watering can.

After the water they were off to play with the balls! There were several ball activities...but their favorite this time was the one where you put the ball in the whole in a pipe, close the flap and the ball would shoot up out of the top of the pipe and land in a funnel that would take the ball back down another pipe that was right next to them.

Dylan said he was driving a kite with this activity. By turning this steering wheel a large kite looking structure way up at the ceiling would spin round and round.

Cole loved this table of activities. He got to measure things and they had a scale that he got to weigh things too!

After a great morning we stopped in at the boys Auntie Julie, Uncle Todd and cousins Miles and Brooke's house for a quick visit. Luck for us it wasn't raining and we got to play on their new playground equipment! Dylan has never sat in a swing as long as he did this day...I think it was the special person that was pushing him the whole time that had him sitting for so long!

Auntie Julie giving good bye hugs to...who is that guy?!

Dylan Blue...the rock star! It must be the glasses!...or maybe he was born a rock star!

Friends, slugs and fire trucks

This was one of our weeks to host one of the 3 different playgroups the boys are involved in. We have been meeting up with these friends every week for about the last year. These are the guys best buds. They were all excited that it was snack time!

Later that day, for lunch Mommy pulled out some yummy apple butter that the guys got to spread on corn pancakes and then on toast. They didn't actually eat much lunch this day...I think they were too distracted with the fun of spreading and the tasty apple butter. They would get some on their knife and spread it on the toast, and then the next time they would just spread the apple butter on their finger and lick it right off. (That was after I had to explain to them why they shouldn't lick it right off the knife!) They wanted more, more, more!

The guys love finding slugs right now. They will carry them around the entire time we are playing outside. This morning Cole named his 'sluggy'.

Today was a special treat for the guys...Daddy took off a couple hours from work and we went to Sparky the Firedog's birthday celebration (at a local kids hands-on science/art center). They got to check out a real fire truck and fire fighters...and they even got to sit inside the fire truck! They had all these questions ready to ask the fireman, but as soon as they were inside the truck they were so star struck that they hardly said a word.

As we were leaving, the fire truck got called out on an actual emergency and we got to watch it drive away with its sirens and lights flashing! Now that was exciting!

This center has some great outdoor play areas too, so after we dragged them from the fire truck they played on this little truck (they called it their little blue fire truck).
They kept wanting Mommy and Daddy to sit in the back of their truck. Dylan is making truck sound effects.
Once we convinced them to try something else we had fun with the large outdoor xylophones.
Cole is getting good at double fisting it.

Our little artists

Today was a beautiful sunny and almost warm day! We haven't had many of those lately so we took full advantage. We pulled out the paints and easel and got to work...

Cole is double fisting it here. He said he was painting a rainbow!

Cole was excited to figure out that he could make the color purple from his red and blue paints.

Dylan was very excited about his green paint. After I took this picture he decided to paint both hands green.

After dinner the guys discovered the joys of a sheep skin rug.

Happy Birthday Nana!

We had another visitor this past week...Nana Suzanna!
We had fun playing and eating and of course reading library books. Here Nana is reading to the boys while they eat lunch...what a treat!

We all went to watch Daddy play indoor soccer...and while Daddy got his soccer shoes on the boys decided they needed to take off their pants and put white socks on their feet and hands. Oh yeah, their firefighter hats too!

What lucky boys, they had 3 people (mom, dad, nana) ready to read to them...morning, noon and night. (Thanks Grammy Carol for the great PJ's!)

We took Nana to a local farm to see all the newly born lambs. We met up with the boys' friend Mei Zhen...the three of them were ready for anything in their colorful hats, big coats and rubber boots.

Nana celebrated her birthday with us...so we HAD to make an apple pie!

The boys practiced singing (and playing the piano) Happy Birthday Nana all day...then finally we sang it when it counted!
Thanks for such a great visit Nana!!

That's what I'm talking about

Mama's collage friend, Deadra, came for a visit this week. Mommy and Daddy loved hearing stories of her travels to southeast Asia and India! One day we can travel again...right!?
The guys had fun entertaining Deadra with their different coloring techniques.

The guys 're-discovered' their ABC blocks after Mom and Dad put them away for awhile (since all they would do with them would be to dump them out and not put them away!). They got real good at making tall stacks!

Then they discovered that they could stack them even higher if they stacked them on books instead of the carpet. We recently got the book you can see in this picture, Mr. Frumble's Worst Day Ever, and after reading this book Dylan will come up to me and say 'I'm having the worst day ever!' or just 'I'm having a bad day'. He will say it with the most serious look on his face. Then he'll crack a smile and run off giggling!

Here is a glimpse into Mommy and Daddy's evening entertainment at the Fiegener house.

Special Visitors

Grandpa Charlie and Auntie Lesley came for a visit this weekend. The boys were so excited to have other people to play with and read stories with. We are all finally just about over this nasty cold that had us house bound for the last 2 weeks. With a house of 4 it usually takes at least 2 weeks for everyone to recover. No fun! So visitors were a welcome change! Good thing because we have a friend visiting mid-week and then Nana Suzanna is coming next weekend!

We took Grandpa Charlie and Auntie Lesley to the guys favorite restaurant to eat burritos. The guys can practically eat a whole burrito EACH from this restaurant!

If you haven't noticed over all our postings, the guys always convince our guests to read them story after story after story. So almost all of our photos of the boys and family also involve a book!

Thanks for all the stories and fun times Grandpa Charlie and Auntie Lesley! Come back soon!