November Beach Day

Saturday we decided to head out to the coast for the day...

...we were rewarded with a fabulous beach day! There was no wind and it was sunny...and in the 50's which was warmer than Corvallis. The boys were especially happy because we went to the aquarium and brought their big garden shovels to dig with at the beach.

Daddy had the camera and caught how happy Mommy was to see the sun! (Dylan was distracted by Cole working on digging their BIG hole!)

Mom and her digger boys.

We couldn't have asked for a nicer November beach day!

Little Chefs

Happy Thanksgiving!

This fall we have been having cooking lessons with our two little chefs...

...they believe in the practice of always tasting your creations.

...and tasting after each ingredient is added and after each time you stir the ingredients

...and just to make sure you haven't forgotten the flavor you were working towards.


The chefs attire has evolved over time, here is the current dress code...their chef hats (aka working man's hats and truck driver hats and construction man hats), and aprons. They still need to work on presentation and portion sizes. (Cole served himself...can you tell he likes mashed potatoes?)

Dylan & Cole's 3rd Birthday!

On Sunday we had the boys' birthday party with 4 of their friends. They called it their pretend birthday since Monday was their REAL birthday!

We did some crafty things like decorating little wooden boxes...

...and making pasta necklaces, decorating party hats, and playing with flubber (which was Grandpa Fiegener's favorite activity!).

Here Dylan said he was "just waiting for my cake." He sat like that until his friend Jonas finished making a pasta necklace. Cole kept asking every few minutes when they could eat their cake too...

...you can understand their impatience with cakes like these!

Grandma Fiegener outdid herself with the cakes...the boys were so excited! They were very specific about their request to Grandma this year...down to the exact color.

As soon as the Happy Birthday song was done and the candles were out, Cole jumped down grabbed a butter knife and cut into his cake. As soon as a piece was free he shoved it in his mouth! There was a surprise with the cake since the 'cake' part was made out of rice krispies treats!
After Dylan saw what Cole was up to he also grabbed a knife and decided that his piece was going to be the entire head of his dinosaur.

All the kids were very quiet while they ate their cake!

Cole is not singing opera to praise his new wagon from Grandma and Grandpa, but demanding that Daddy take them out for a walk!

We were all so lucky to have Nana come back to celebrate the boys birthday too!! She brought the boys some fabulous art supplies that the boys just loved. Here she is working with them on their painting techniques...from one artist to another!

On their 'real' birthday Mommy, Daddy and Nana sang their Happy Birthday song again and they got to blow out candles in their birthday muffins before school!

I can't believe we have two 3 year olds!!!

Grandpa Phil and his friend Karen came to visit us last week. We welcomed them with a large marching band. It was the least we could do.

The OSU Beavers had a big Homecoming carnival that we took our visitors to. Cole and Daddy really enjoyed the big bouncy thing!

Grandpa Phil and Karen really know how to entertain the boys...or was it the other way around?
With playgrounds...

Climbing walls...

Reading...

And stacking (or shall I say knocking down) blocks...
We took the boys and Grandpa Phil and Karen to the movies. It was the boys first time in a movie theater and they loved it! It was at our local independent theater and on the first Monday of the month they show a 'free' 1/2 hour show for kids...as a fundraiser for local non-profits. We got to see Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving. It was perfect...they had free popcorn and they didn't turn the lights all the way off. Several of the guys friends came too! Here is Dylan with his hand in his popcorn bag sitting next to his friend Mei Zhen.Thanks for the fantastical visit Grandpa Phil and Karen! We can't wait for your return!!

Nana's visit

Last week we were excited to have Nana visit us...unfortunately, we were all still trying to recover from our 2 weeks of being sick. So we all tried to take it easy and treat our selves to good things...like the boys favorite snack - mung bean sweet buns from a French-Vietnamese sandwich shop in town. Delicious!

We did have some energy to play in the beautiful leaves and in our garden here and there...but we also spent tons of time doing one of the boys favorite past times...reading stories! They are so excited to have someone new to read stories to them.

We also got our Halloween decorations in order with a pumpkin carving evening.

The pumpkin seeds were coming out of the pumpkins mouth and Dylan thought it looked like the pumpkin face was eating the seeds. The one feature of the pumpkin the boys were adamant about was that it have 'wavy' teeth.

Thanks for a fabulous visit Nana and we can't wait to see you for the boys birthday celebration!!