learning is fun!

Happy late fathers day to all you fabulous Dad's out there! We all got a 24 hour bug on Father's day weekend...making for a quiet weekend at home together! What fun.

Cole and Dylan are becoming amazing readers.  Here Cole is reading a book to friends.

At the library with pals.

Mom took the boys up to Portland this week to go to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) to go on a tour of "a real-life Navy submarine" as the boys put it.  Here Dylan is looking through the periscope.

Cole said he could see traffic on the Marquam bridge!

They like sitting in the control seats!

You are looking at the space where 12 men slept!

This sub had a brief roll in the Hunt for Red October and Hawaii 5-O.

The favorite activity, other than the sub, was operating the cranes!

They played with this and a larger crane for over an hour!

Paddle boats were fun too!

And getting to sit in a space capsule topped the day off!

Running for friends and strawberries

It's been a couple of weeks since our last post...but not due to lack of activities!

We started the month of June off with a Run for the Hills!  A benefit for the Greenbelt Land Trust (where Mom works)...and a great kids race!  Mom thought she would have been able to run along with the boys and take photos of them running and crossing the finish line.  But when the starter buzzed they were off like a bullet and Mom was left in their dust!

Victory cookies with pal Anders.

Then we had our best friends visit from CA for the weekend!  Here is Jonah and the boys...happy to be together again!  It is still quite cool here in Oregon, but not quite cold enough for the boys attire.  But they were given these winter jackets by a friend Rob works with...and they LOVED them and wouldn't take them off for several days.  Cole got in the winter coat mode and also was wearing gloves and a hat.  Perfect for a fun game of hitting the birdie!

The boys were very interested in slinkies...

Cole was giving everyone instructions on how to do this trick.

Dylan was concentrating hard on his trick.

We had a big reunion at our favorite playground...and the highlight of the day was sending all the sand trucks/toys down the slide!

The highlight for mom was to get to spend time with Nicole!  We miss you guys!!  Move back soon ok!?

This past week we celebrated the last day of school for the boys!  To celebrate a great year we went strawberry picking with some friends.

This is a picture of Cole intent on picking as many strawberries as he possibly could!

We picked over 13 pounds of strawberries!!!  We froze a bunch and made strawberry jam...enough to probably last until next strawberry picking season!

To top off our weekend we took in a Corvallis Knights baseball game!  

The summer fun begins!

Beach weekend

We went up to Oceanside, OR (near Tillamook) this weekend to stay with some friends and had an amazingly beautiful and fun-filled weekend.  It was actually sunny there!  I heard it rained most of the weekend in Corvallis.

The boys were thrilled to be at the beach AND with their good friend Anders.

Why is Dylan smiling so big you ask??

He discovered the joy of flying a kite!  They had a tiny little kite that was perfect for the kids to fly on their own...and the wind was just right!

The boys brought their new red shovels and put them to good use making dams and side channels of a small creek that was flowing across the sand towards the ocean.

Side note**After we got these new red shovels Cole brought his inside the house and got a towel and started polishing his shovel...he polished and admired it for quite some time before getting it dirty!

Here are the 3 boys working so well together to divert the water away from a group of older boys that kept yelling at them to stop.

Cole also discovered the joys of kites and wind.

Day 2:  Not quite as sunny but still a great day to dig!

And to build huge pyramids and dams.

We went through this long dark tunnel to get to another beach!  Right through the cliff!

Such a cute family!  Wait those are our boys and not Rob or I! 

A pre-bedtime walk on the beach to check out a fort built out of driftwood and to throw a Frisbee around a bit.

...and to drag around a very long bull kelp that was rotting and decaying in front of our eyes!

The boys...and the top of Cole's head.

Day 3:  Another sunny day...perfect for a wonderful hike that Cole and Anders ran nearly the whole way (aka Mom also running the whole trail!).

They did slow down to checkout the Octopus Tree...

...and the Cape Meares Lighthouse.

We were sad to leave!  And even sadder when we got back to Corvallis and it was RAINING!

Farm Party

 Last weekend the boys had a fabulous time at a friends (another set of twins!) birthday party...they had it at a local farm and it was fabulous.  Even the rain held off until after the party!
They got to check out and feed a menagerie of birds...geese, chickens, ducks, guinea hens, and turkeys!  They even got to pet and hold baby chickens and ducks.
It's a gaggle of birds and children!

They got to pet a milking cow...the boys comment on that was "Yuck! She had a HUGE wet nose!"

They got to drink apple juice out of real tea cups...and got to eat pizza and ice cream cake (a new favorite!).

The absolute highlight was getting to ride on the farm's pony!

Big smiles!

Happy guys.

Busy two weeks

We sure have had a busy couple of weeks!

It all started with the painting of the toes.

Then a neighbor cut down a big tree in their yard and we asked the 'tree guys' if we could have the chips.  Little did we realize the neighbor had 2 big trees cut down!  So we still have a mountain in our driveway!

Then Nana and Alwyn came for a visit for Mothers Day weekend!  We picked up a bag of clay and the boys and Nana had a blast creating with their hands.  Mom also got a great nap since she was recovering from a cold!  Thanks Nana!

Story time with Nana, Alwyn and the boys.

Nana opening her Mothers Day presents.

We said our goodbyes to Nana and Alwyn and headed up to Portland to celebrate Mothers Day and cousin Brooke's birthday.  6 of the 8 cousins got to play together!  And yes, that is Cole in the red with his back turned to the camera (on purpose!) and yes it took him about 30 minutes to get out of the car because he didn't believe me that the only children at the party were his cousins.  But to his credit he didn't want to leave and as we were walking out he said he wished we could sleep over!

Mom had a birthday and the boys baked and decorated a cake all by themselves (except for the oven part!).

Oh sprinkles!

Mom only gave the boys 4 candles to put in the cake...they said "you aren't turning 4!?"  Alas no, but if I put the correct number of candles on the cake it would be a fire hazard!

They were very satisfied...

...with their baking skills.  They said they wanted to make a cake everyday!

We topped of these two weeks with an exciting bike race.  The boys got new, bigger bikes this week and were very excited to use them in their first ever bike race.  Actually they didn't race against each other but rode around the track (a square block) as many times as they could, and would receive a raffle ticket each time they passed the start. 

They were so determined!  They rode around the block 9 times in about 40 minutes!  They wouldn't stop to take a drink or take off their jackets...even though they were saying they were so sweaty! With all the raffle tickets they earned they won 3 out of about 10 raffle prizes!  They won a new helmet and two gift certificates for frozen yogurt!  And the best part...they each got a race shirt!  In red no less...already a favorite.

The boy of many shirts...

Doesn't Cole look like he has beefed up the weightlifting routine lately?  "Put on a few pounds?" You might ask?  But no... Cole has turned into the boy of many shirts.

A boy in Cole's class, an older boy that is, came to school one day last week wearing 4 shirts.  Cole came home and told me all about it, several times.  The next morning he came out of his room after getting dressed for school, wearing 9 shirts.  Yes, 9 Shirts!!  Not sure how he managed that one, but he sure was proud.  The one on the outside is a new 5T shirt that is just a little too big...under normal circumstances.  He went around all morning with all 9 shirts on, but Mom and Dad made him settle on 4 shirts to go to school in.

A few days later he asked, mostly to himself I think..."I wonder how hard it would be to put on more than one pair of pants?"