beds and boys

Our friend Jonah and his Mommy Nicole were having dinner at our house the other night. After dinner the guys (Dylan and Cole) decided that they wanted to be naked. So they ran around playing for a while then they all wanted to get in the boys cribs to jump. They all probably jumped non-stop for about 20 minutes. Once they were thoroughly tired out they wanted to lie down and cuddle in bed. Here Jonah kept trying to get under Cole's blanket, but was finally satisfied to get his own blanket.

Dylan had the luxury of having his bed to himself. Just prior to getting in his bed Dylan's attire was a fireman helmet, one garden work glove, and socks on his feet. That's it.

This weekend we brought out their 'big-boy-beds' that Grandpa Fiegener made for them. They were so excited and spent a good amount of time laying down on them and playing on them. But when it came to sleeping time they INSISTED that they get their cribs back. So we obliged. I guess if they love their cribs so much why push it? But I really think it's because the mattresses are not as bouncy on the big boys beds!

Fun, Friendly Visitors

This past weekend we were visited by Grandpa Phil and Karen. We showed them our favorite dog...

devoured delicious French pastries and a baguette...

and partied at one of our favorite playgrounds. Grandpa Phil kept the riffraff at bay with his tough guy posturing.

We loved having another tall set of shoulders to ride on

and enjoyed several strolls along the waterfront.

And of course, we're always delighted to have visitors that can read us stories!Thanks so much for the great visit Phil and Karen!

Rainy April

Well we have had a rainy week so far. Normal Oregon April weather. But it starts getting hard to deal with all this rain when the temperature is a bit warmer and all the spring flowers are out. You just expect some sun too! The boys are true Oregonians...they like to go outside in any weather condition.
Here the guys all decided to go for a walk in the rain around the neighborhood. The next time I looked out the window they had all ditched the umbrellas (even though it was still raining) and were looking in the yard for worms and sluggies.

Another fun rainy day activity has been the creation of a marching band. The trumpet doesn't make any noise other than the humming that the boys provide and the drum makes a nice plastic tap tap tap sound...but the guys LOVE playing with them. They will march all around the house together and then say 'switch' and they will switch instruments and go marching again.

Little Egg Hunters

Today we had some of the boys' friends over for some playtime and for an Easter Egg hunt. Here they are all getting their baskets ready.

Cole was so excited to find little eggs and put them in his basket.

Dylan was an expert egg finder...

...or maybe he got so many eggs in his basket because he was a good egg 'snatcher'!

His friend Lina is showing him that she still has more eggs than he does.
After it took the kiddos only about 3 minutes to find 6 dozen eggs, we all sat on the deck opening them. Here Mei Zhen is discovering the hidden stickers in her egg.
Cole was so excited because he had an egg with money (a quarter) in it.
It was funny that none of the kids asked why they were finding eggs. We just said here is a basket go find eggs! None of the Moms could come up with a great explanation, for 2 year olds, why a bunny hides eggs on Easter. Lucky for us none of them asked why!

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.