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.

Fishing #2: Way better

Abe:  Mommy's friend Debbie took us fishing and this time it was the real deal, with real fishing poles and real fish.  Koh caught one right away and I got one too.  This time was way better than with just a stick in the river.

Fishing trip #1 - no luck what a waste

Abe: I don't like fishin' very much.  When we were camping this weekend on a famous river full of fish I spent almost FIVE MINUTES OF MY LIFE with this pole daddy made using the hooks i found and got nothin'.    POOEY ON THAT.

I'd rather climb a tree or ride my bike fast or trap neat insects.

Fun at Collins Beach, Columbia River

Koh: We just love beaches.  We went Sunday to this favorite one right near our home.  

Lots of sand, not lots of people, shallow water, kites, yummy picnic lunch, even an alien space boat.

Face Painting #1

Abe: We let the girl scouts touch our faces with paint for the first time.

Look at that big spider on my face!

Koh got fireworks.

Clear Lake camping

Koh: We went camping Saturday and found a beautiful campsite on a lake and my favorite part was Dad teaching me to walk on water.   I liked using our private family hole-in-the-ground toilet, too.  

Abe liked lighting the fire with a match even though he got burned.

We even found a banana tree and ate the bananas.

Our first 80th Birthday Party - Nana Jo's!

We don't get to visit our Nana Jo very much, so we all went this summer to see her and Aunt Susan for her 80th birthday bash.   Boy was it fun, especially since we had Jillian to play with so much.  Do you know we did all these things WE NEVER DID BEFORE:

• Played on a WII and and iPad
• Stayed up till after 10pm and slept all night in a girl's room (cousin Jillian)
• Ate candy, cotton candy and ice cream instead of fruit every day
• Went to Delaware
• (Koh) Pee'ed on a really big snake in the river - scaring everyone, especially our mom
• Caught fireflys and cicada shells
• Had campfire s'mores for lunch

We really like the big beaches and lots of SAND and warm water.   Click here to see all our pics and movies.

Warm water, warm air, I'm so happy I'm dizzy

Abe: Here's what we're doing right now on a Maryland beach (Atlantic Ocean. . . think warm water, warm air).

Barf bucket blog

Koh: (gutteral sounds)
"Daddy, it's colored red from the strawberries"

(buuuuuuuuuiiiik, get your buiuiuuiiick sounds)
"Daddy, can you smell that?"
(sweet apple juice aroma)

"Daddy, can you help me?"
(sounds of soft caressing my back)

I got sick today and threw up a lot of times, in the toilet and in the barf bucket, and I missed school and stayed in bed a lot.

I didn't think it was that bad, and I only cried once.   I've just been feeling sick and my yucky food has been coming up the past two mornings.    I just lean over and fill this bucket, then Daddy empties it.

When I'm done I smile 'cause I feel a lot better.   Daddy told me it's good practice for college, whatever that means.

Chicken washing - that's OK, right?

Koh: Mom and dad don't watch us like they used to, especially in our back yard.  We play a lot on the chicken farm tier and today we decided to wash the chickens.  Abe held 'em and I poured water all over them.   Dad came and snapped this picture while he laughed.

Chickens need baths too, right Dad?

Reef visit from Hawaii

Abe: Our pal Reef and his mom visited this weekend and boy did we have fun.  He slept in our room all night, and we went out and did a bunch of fun stuff:  Like OMSI, then rode the Tram, then played in the water park.   

And on Sunday we hung like monkeys at the playground, did an orienteering race and ate pizza, too!  Look here at these pics and flicks:

Look! A Green Booby!

Koh - Every day we look at the Willamette River from our home and seems like we're always driving by or playing by big rivers.   I like spotting the boats and ducks and logs and buoys out there.

Mommy thought it was funny when I saw this green buoy from our car on the bridge the other day.   What was so funny, Mommy?

Angel's Rest to the top!

Today we set our new "toughest hike ever" record by hiking all the way UP and DOWN this great Columbia Gorge hike all on our own two feet.  Well, we also each used our bellies and face once, but that was just to make sure we were COMPLETELY covered in mud!   We like running downhill only the belly smacker made us cry.

It was more than 4 hours long and 4 miles and the top was WAY UP so high we HIKED INTO THE CLOUDS!!  Over 1500 feet high above the river!

This was really fun and we got special treats at the top and bottom for being so tough.    We threw rocks and saw lots of flowers, waterfalls, slugs and a snail.   Plus we climbed on rocks near the summit just like the playgrounds only if we fell here we would keep falling and die.

We want to do this some more!    Click here to see 30 more pics. 

Alphabet

Koh:  I can write all the letters of the alphabet - see!

Meatballs

Abraham:  Mommy, that girl on your cup... look at her big... meatballs.  I'm going to eat her meatballs.

Big Boy Bikes

Abe & Koh:  Yesterday was just about the best day ever because we got new bikes.  Bye bye trikes and hello skinned knees.  We rode around the neighborhood after dinner and did just great.  Koh crashed a little bit, but he was tough and got back on.   The next day we rode them at the school playground because it wasn't hilly like at our house.  Mommy was surprised that after just five minutes we had already discovered how fun it was to ride our bikes straight into a brick wall.  We laughed and had fun doing that until Abe did it too fast and smashed a tender part of his body on the top tube.

 

 

Frog, Fountain, Flood Fun

Koh: On Saturday we went on a looooong hike at the nearby Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, whatever that means.    What was fun for us was the flooded trail which meant we had many side trip adventures on slippery slopes with broken glass and bugs and snakes to make it past the high water places.   

There were lots of ducks and geese and blue herons and fish jumping right out of the water! 

The frog pond was really cool 'cause it's tadpole season and LOTS of 'em were in the pond and we scared them away.   Then I fell in trying to catch one, so I wore just undies the rest of the day!   Nobody could tell 'cause I look so good in skivvies, especially compared to those ol' diapers. 

We kept walking and walking several miles and hours, even past the roller skating rink and the amusement ride park.   We ended with water fountain fun at the church where we saw mom and dad get married.   well... not really on the last part, but we do go there a lot cuz of that drinking fountain.   

Mother's Day

Koh: We gave Mom and Grand-Mom our best effort yesterday to show 'em how much we love 'em.  We worked all week to make two personal paintings for Mom, can you see?  We even made personal cards, too.  Then we fixed her a cake . . . see?   Then we walked her to the farmer's market to buy her some swiss chard and bok choy, see it in our basket?  Then we got her a latte at the bakery - look at that crowd!   We ended the day at Grand-Mom's where we fixed this heart-shaped pizza and played hockey and baseball.   What a great day for Moms (and for us, too!).