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.

Santa Fe

We just got back from a great visit with Nana Suzanna in Santa Fe. We first met Nana in Las Vegas for the boys' Great Grandfather's 90th birthday party (where we forgot to bring our camera). We were all in Las Vegas for one night and then traveled to Santa Fe.

Dylan was worn out from all the traveling and got real cozy on Nana's comfy couch...and took a nice nap!

While Dylan was napping Cole had some fun playing in Nana's kitchen sink.

Nana scoped out all the BEST playgrounds for us! Thanks Nana!

This brand new park had a fun mini-spinning thing...what are these called? Well the boys loved that it would go round and round!

Mama got some spinning time in herself! Make it stop!

We all enjoyed an afternoon on the downtown plaza eating quesadillas and tamales. The boys are giving their version of 'thumbs up'.

Then Nana treated us to mango sorbet. A definite favorite!

The boys loved going for walks around Nana's neighborhood.

And they were so excited that Nana had a library with great books about trucks!

We ended up having to get Cole a new pair of shoes...since we lost one of his. The boys got balloons from the shoe store...and afterward we got to walk around on a parked train. Oh what fun!

Our flight home was not very full which meant that we got to take over 2 rows! Dylan was like a little adult traveler...he wanted to sit in his own seat with a seat belt on and he sat there looking through the on-flight magazine.

Thanks for a great visit Nana! We can't wait to see you again!!

East coast visitors

We had a great weekend with our east coast visitors. Grandpa Phil and Karen came all the way from DC to visit with all of us.

The boys were so excited when they found out that Grandpa Phil and Karen could read their library books!

The guys were happy to have other people to play with. They didn't want Grandpa Phil and Karen to be out of their sight, even for a minute...they would even wait outside the bathroom door for them!

Dylan tried on one of their Halloween costumes for Grandpa Phil and Karen to see...he is just finishing a roar in this photo. They keep calling this dragon costume a dragonfly or puff like in 'Puff the magic dragon'. And they like to point out that it has a big belly!

To distract the boys from being sad over the departure of our visitors, they got to help put away the vegies from our CSA farm box...and lucky for us there were potatoes in the box! It was just over a year ago when we first reported on the boys' excitement over potatoes.

The fascination continues to this day!

Hats

Mama just brought home some fire chief hats for the boys to play with...

...and Dylan liked them so much he kept trying to wear both at the same time.

The boys were excited about helmets after the fire ones, and kept asking to wear their bike helmets. So I got them out and they wore them around the house for at least an hour...while they had some snacks, played with their toys and wrestled with each other. I guess head protection can be a bonus for some of those activities. I just wish they liked to wear them that much when they are "in" their bike trailer!

That was an exciting day because that night Grandma and Grandpa Fiegener came over for dinner and stories! Grandma read them one of their favorite library books about an enormous carrot.