What's wrong with this picture?

Koh:  I lost my leg today, I know hard to believe.    And daddy saw it happen, so he took this picture.   Wow is that art museum sculpture garden cool.     Good thing I found my leg later and re-attached it.

"Daddy, can you pause Barack Obama?"

Koh: Last night we watched TV with Dad, the annual state of union address by our president.  Daddy seemed surprised that we knew Obama's name and even more-so when we actually sat quietly together on the sofa for 30+ minutes before adjourning to the floor to build a train track.  After another 30 mins, Abe apparently was ready for something new and went over to Dad to ask . . .  

"Daddy, can you pause Barack Obama?"

That one made Daddy laugh out loud and fall down on the floor, and neither of us could figure out why. 

Love Letter from Dad #10

I read every night to you in your bedroom from the rocker and watch you fade away to dream time.  You still both sit on my lap in that small chair, a pretty funny and crowded scene now that you're 5 and weigh 40+ pounds.

"Harold and the Purple Crayon" was our book tonight, a book I like as much as you do.   You cracked me up tonight, Abe, and I believe we laughed together louder and longer than ever before.   It just made me laugh the way you commented on Harold's one-tree forest: "THAT would be a bad place to play hide and seek."  It was just such a funny comment, and it cracked you up, too.  We just sat there laughing together, you on my lap, till tears came out.   Koh didn't mind, he just waited for us to finish our joy jam.   That was a really special moment for me.  Thanks for the laughs and the love.   -Dad

Sleep over #1

Abe: Our neighbor Jacob came over for the whole night and THAT was fun 'cause we stayed up late and all slept on the floor campout style.   We want to do that again.

Birthday #5

Koh: We had a really fun party for our fifth birthday at The Circuit bouldering gym. We got to run around, climb high, slide fast, eat cupcakes, open presents - all with our friends. Then we went to Grandma's house and had birthday cake and presents. Then we came home and Jacob came over and we had more birthday cake. That was a lot of cake. Check out the fun photos and videos.

My first Egg McMuffin

Abe:  Daddy took us to McDonalds today for breakfast and we ordered these egg sandwich things.   Koh wouldn't touch his, but I always try new foods.   See how I liked it:

Christmas Elf

Koh & Abe: There's a little elf in our house.  He usually sits in the tree and watches us so he can tell Santa that we were very good and not to put coal in our stockings.  The crazy thing is that he has started moving around the house at night. Every morning we get up and find him somewhere else. We found these pictures he left us that show he hung out for awhile on each of our pillows while we slept one night. Today he's in what is left of our gingerbread house.

Abraham

Koh

We love December

Koh: We love December because it means its Christmas.  And we get to do all kinds of fun Christmas-y things like making this gingerbread house, cutting paper snowflakes, and decorating the Christmas tree.

Meet our new chickens

Abe: I love our chickens.  Do you know they're very social animals?   We just got our second set of new ones, and they're really cute now since they're just 2 months old and it's just nice having some more girls in the family.

Our old chickens had to go 'cause they stopped laying eggs and Mom and Dad said they're not pets, they're egg producers.  

My favorite is "Lily", who is going to lay BLUE eggs - how exciting!   The white one is "Snowflake" and the red one is "Foxy Roxy."

Come on over and you can hold one, too.

Update: Foxy Roxy fed the neighborhood raccoon family.  But don't worry, we replaced her with "Dinah Blue"!

Turkey Day

Koh: Jody and Martin came over for Thanksgiving this year, and of course Grandma, too.   So we got this BIG turkey and Abe prepared it, Mommy roasted it, Daddy carved it and everyone else brought pies over.   We ate lots of yummy food then had ALL THREE pies for dessert!   Look at this nice table for 7.

Afterwards we played a new game, Candyland that Jody brought over as a gift.   We like that game, especially me 'cause I won.  

We went on two hikes today and found a newt and a big downed tree we had to clear from the trail by everyone pushing.

 

Halloween

Koh: I'm a pirate ARRRRRRGGHHHHHHH!

Abe: I'm a super hero Buzz Lightyear!

But scariest of all is our mom - LOOK AT HER!  

Get away, quick!

Bad boys

We don't always listen well. 

Here's what mom made us do for 4 minutes the other day.   Then we had to apologize, then we had to hug her. 

We don't like time out much, but we go there a lot anyway.

Our first football game

We went to our first football game tonight - wow under bright lights.  But the Wilson Trojans lost so we were sad, and tired, too. 

Pumpkin Pickin'

Koh:  Know what the best part about going to the Pumpkin Patch is?  It's not the corn maze, but that is really cool.  It's not the animal barn, even though we saw the duck taking a bath in the swimming pool.  The best part is you get to get dirty.  Mommy said she was really proud of us because we were the dirtiest kids getting back onto the hay ride after picking out our pumpkins.

 

"You get to get all dirty if you want to"

Top 10 List of Things We Love about Camping at Ft. Stevens

Abe & Koh:  We camped at Ft. Stevens in a yurt again.  We love doing that.  We love it so much, we made a list of our 10 favorite things we did this trip:

1. Smores.  And not just smores, smores with our buddies Ethan and Aiden who visited our camp.
2. Uno.  We learned to play a really long card game.  
3. Sand.  We've said it before.  Especially Koh.
4. Kites.  Lucky us it was so windy that first day.
5. Dad's Birthday.  So we got to have cupcakes.
6. Bikes. We love riding them around the camp.  Abe wasn't going to be shown up by the 4-yr-old girl who didn't have training wheels, so his came off this trip.
7. Donuts.  Mom brings yummy donuts for breakfast.
8. Top bunks.  Enough said.
9. Jiffy Pop.  Who doesn't love watching that thing grow and bulge.
10. Sand.  Worth two spots on this list, that's how much we love it.