Cherry picker-squisher

We have a large cherry tree in our backyard. The cherries are small and have large pits...but the boys have discovered their sweet flavor. Cole is the ultimate cherry picker-squisher.

garden harvest

Our garden is very happy this year with the extra rain we have been getting.
The boys love to help harvest the bounty. Today the boys helped harvest peas, lettuce, strawberries (notice there are no strawberries in the basket...that's because Dylan ate them all!), purple cauliflower and broccoli.

Cole is showing off the broccoli he picked.

The fabulous thing about having a garden is that the boys will devour anything we pick. We sat on the deck and ate raw broccoli, purple cauliflower, peas and lettuce. What a great lunch! Once we bring the veggies into the house there is no guarantee that they will eat it...so we try to harvest every day!

Dylan is trying to talk with a mouth full of peas. And yes that is strawberry juice on his shirt. Any time we are outside he heads straight for the strawberry patch and eats everything he sees. If there are no ripe strawberries...he doesn't care he'll just eat a green one. He says they taste good and they are just a little bit harder than ripe ones. This boy is a fruit fanatic.

The guys are saying 'cheers' with their broccoli before eating it.

Wings of Wonder

Today we went to Wings of Wonder Butterfly Farm to check out the butterflies.
You walk into their 90 degree butterfly house and the butterflies are prolific (hundreds) and fluttering all around you. The boys, especially Dylan, liked shaking the plants to see the butterflies lift off.
Here they are looking into a small pond at the frogs.

So it was nearly impossible to get a picture of the boys and the butterflies together...so here is one of a beautiful and large butterfly. There were ones I tried to get a photo of, but after about 20 tries I gave up...but they were a brilliant blue and about as big as a salad plate.

There were butterfly gardens outside as well that the guys had a great time running down the paths and checking out the plants.

This was also one of longest car trips and outings without diapers. The boys have been doing great with potty training and only wear diapers for nap and bed time. Mom was a bit dubious as we realized the only bathroom at the 'farm' was a porta potty...but our small travel potty that we keep in the car sure came in handy! No accidents all day!

Lazy Sunday morning

We enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning this weekend.
Here the 'boys' are all relaxing on the couch reading and discussing the Sunday newspaper ads.

treasure hunt

This week we had our playgroup over for a fun treasure hunt. I took photos of things in the yard and printed those as the clues. They were all so excited about it even though they didn't even know what a treasure hunt was!

The kiddos had fun running from clue to clue.

I was surprised at how excited they were for the treasure of muffins and stickers. Little Victor in the back, was hungry after the 'hunt' and very excited about muffins!

The guys best bud, Mei Zhen, is also happy about muffins...it just happened to be snack time.

Then all the boys decided to do some coloring while the girls were playing on the slides.

Zoo Time

This week we took a trip up to Portland to visit the Zoo. What were the boys favorite animals there? The tractor and the train...and the 'construction zone' (and safety barriers) where the zoo is building new animal habitats. Do we have boys or what?! They were also super excited to see the elephants (there was a baby elephant too!), the bears, giraffes and tigers.

Here Dylan is so happy to be on a GREEN tractor...his favorite color!

The guys were so very excited to go on the Zoo Train! Dylan can't wait for the ride to start.

Good times!

The guys couldn't believe how good sweet vanilla soy milk could taste after a long day at the zoo.

After the zoo we stopped at Aunt Julie and Uncle Todd's house to see them and cousins Brooke and Miles. The boys and Brooke had so much fun pushing a wagon around and around the house. Each time they got to the same spot in the yard they would switch who was pulling and who was pushing. Then off they would go for another lap around the house. They were all so serious about it all...there was no talking except for discussing who's turn it was to pull.

We're talking serious business here.

salad fun

Tonight Mama made a great pasta dish and a salad for dinner...and to everyone's great surprise the boys devoured the salad and hardly touched the pasta! They have had a bite of lettuce here and there, but tonight they ate MORE salad than Mommy and Daddy. I don't know if it was because we served it with tongs tonight or that we talked about how the lettuce, carrots and cucs came from our CSA veggie box and a local farm...but it sure was a huge success!

Cole is showing us how his lettuce crunches when he chews.

Even Daddy liked it!

Since we ate so much lettuce for dinner we all headed out for some key lime pie and berry cobbler at one of our favorite restaurants! Yum!

Silver Falls Camping Trip

We took a mid-week camping expedition to a beautiful state park called Silver Falls. We reserved one of their small cabins (the main reason why we took a mid-week trip and for only one night...the cabins are booked months in advance and this is all we could get!). We were lucky that our friend Nicole and Jonah were also able to get a cabin the same day!

One of the best parts about this camping trip was the wagons the park provided to transport your 'special cargo' to the cabins...or around and around in circles and down all the trails!

The guys were ready with their sleeping bags and little lanterns. They ended up reading EVERY book we brought several times and playing until very late...but finally did fall asleep.

This park has many beautiful trails, waterfalls, and bridges. Here we are all watching where the river drops off the cliff forming the largest...

...waterfall in the park. Notice the trail down below that goes behind the waterfall.



The boys all wanted to go down to the waterfall, so we hiked down to check it out.

They liked playing in the caves behind the waterfall. Dylan said that he was so tall because he could reach the ceiling.

Then we had to get back up to the top!!


Even though we had two backpacks for carrying children AND a double stroller, Dylan, Cole and Jonah wanted to walk and help us get back to the cabin.