Michael's Crafts

The past month we've gone to Michael's store to do some Halloween crafts. I love these craft days because you can use all their craft supplies for free...and they clean up after you! One Saturday they had decorate your own pumpkin. We just had to purchase the pumpkin, $3 each...the rest was FREE! Thank goodness they do the clean up because Timo was all about the glitter glue!
Cameron decided hers need feathers...and glitter glue too...
A few weeks later we went back to make Halloween T-shirts. Again, we just had to buy the shirts (2/$5) and they had the rest of the supplies. The shirts were a little different in that the kids wanted me to draw the spider web on they they would do everything else.
I thought it would be fun to put the kids' hand prints on the shirts...little did I know the shirt paint doesn't wash off very well, oops! We had to scrub and scrub and scrub. Cameron ended up drawing a spider and a ghost on hers while Timo painted a mommy spider, daddy spider and two twin spiders...all of which are "friendly".

I'm all signed up for their emails so I can plan on the Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts too!

Can I Get Some Help, Please??

So the word G.U.N. has made it's way into our house...much to my strong, strong disapproval. It started so innocently this summer while playing with water guns with their older cousins. Then seeing some older boys play "combat" at the playground, running around shooting with fake guns...that really didn't help much. Timo had found a whole new world of boy toys. I managed to get him to start calling them "shooters" instead of "guns"...just hearing my little boy say that word made me cringe! Now Timo has taken to "shooting" in a big way and has been obsessed with them. He can turn anything into a shooter....he was playing with his Lego's and figured out how to piece together a gun and how to hold a Lincoln log like a shooter...ACK!

I really worked overtime to talk to Timo about shooters being for grown ups, not very fun to play with, there are lots of other toys that are more fun to play with...so on and so on. And luckily, like most things, it was a phase and now he hardly says anything about guns...until last week when he opened his policeman safety coloring book a very nice policeman gave them. Looks innocent enough, huh?
He opened it up and got so excited to see this...ugh! Come one, can I get a little help, please!!!

Cameron Sleeps

Cameron has always been a crazy sleeper. Each night we go in and check, cover up and give kisses to the kids before we go to bed...and typically find Cameron in the funniest positions that leave us wondering what she was doing before she fell asleep? This one was when she had bronchitus and the doctor really wanted her to sleep sitting up and drink lots of fluids..as well as warm liquids helped sooth her throat and cough. I would make warm milk for her to sip in bed and this night she fell asleep holding the cup...she just couldn't put it down...
One night I came in and found her on the floor sleeping...what on earth?? Did she just not like her bed? Did she sleep walk and get out of bed? Was she playing with toys before sleep overcame her??
I love when I find her sleeping backwards, almost like she was sitting up, getting sleepy and just fell over into slumber.
And this one?? Did she fall asleep, then wake up, sit on the edge of her bed and fall backwards? Or was she having deep conversations with froggy and wowsie and fell asleep mid conversations?? Crazy girl...

One thing that is constant in all these pictures is Cameron's blankie...wherever or however she sleeps, blankie is right there with her!

Pirate Imagination

Here is an older video I came across when I was backing up files before the new hard drive installation. This was one day during "nap time"...instead of sleeping they were sailing the high seas raising pirate flags and dropping anchors! I snuck in the room hoping not to get seen but those sneaky pirates spotted me right away...

Clancy Pumpkin Patch

The kids had a school holiday along with their buddies Caleb and Evan, so we decided to do trip to another pumpkin patch...you can never visit too many pumpkin patches! And we don't get to hang out with Caleb much these days because everyone is in school so this play date was a really long one!

You got a free tractor/hay ride if you purchased a pumpkin so we picked out a $3 pumpkin (cost of the hay ride) for each child and then then loaded them in the car.
After the pumpkin pickin' we took the kids to the park. No more playing in the playground..it's all about the balance bikes now. Caleb, Timo and Cameron did races all afternoon. Ana and I heard "on your mark, get set, go!" at least a million times that day!

Ardenwood Farms

We hit our first pumpkin patch a few weeks ago down at Ardenwood Farm's annual harvest festival. We didn't actually make it into the "farm" because the line was sooo unbelievably long to get in. We hung out in the pumpkin patch waiting for the line to die down, but after an hour it was still over a 30min wait to get in, so we decided we didn't really need to see the cows and pet the sheep. The kids didn't really know the difference either, they had a blast in "the patch".
Some highlights...the hay mountain and hay maze...




Each of the kids found a "pumpkin seat" that they wanted their picture taken sitting on.
I found this picture from last year...and compared it to the kids growth this year. Look how they have grown!

We had a very educational hay ride through the veggie fields. Our driver stopped a few time to show different veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, etc. He even passed some around the trailer for all the kids to touch and see. Well worth the $3 ride.

"The driver on the bus goes beep, beep, beep..."
We finished off our morning with the yummy picnic lunch I packed. Since my plan of a picnic "on the farm" was out, we had to regroup and spread our blanket under the shade of a tree in the parking lot. But hey, at least Timo found a lady bug in the grass! A successful morning to kick off the 2011 pumpkin patch season!

Magic Trick

So our has been acting up the past few months, freezing up and then shutting down. Young dug a little deeper and figured out it was our hard drive...which was great because that meant it was covered under the warranty. The bad news is we had to replace the hard drive, basically giving us a brand new computer with nothing on it...like pictures. We had to back everything up and now reload it back on the computer. But I'm so thankful to have an amazing husband that spent 4 hours working on it to make it good as new.

Long story short, I haven't had a chance to reload photos yet so you're getting a recent video from online...Timo the Magician! Young has been doing simple magic tricks with the kids like penny behind the ear and the dissappearing quarter. Here is is Timo's version of that trick...

(fyi, the "monkey munch" is actually Gorilla Munch cereal)

Bye Double Stroller

This was the last trip in the double stroller...it has moved on to a new family that will love it just as much. And as you can see, not a minute too soon either. The kids were getting too crowded riding, fighting over arm and foot space and we were getting TIRED of pushing upwards of 60 pounds of toddlers uphill! So bye-bye stroller, you were a good and trusted friend...you will be missed. Just another sign that our babies are no longer babies...

Balance Bikes!

I can't think of any other toy that the kids have asked for over and over and over than a balance bike. We have a few friends that have one and it's all they want to do when we see them, ride the balance bike. We were thinking of maybe getting them for Christmas but when I saw them come up on Zulily.com for 50% off, I had to jump at the chance. And holding on to them for 4 months was just way too long to keep it a secret. And now life is all about their balance bikes. Everyday they ask if they can ride their bikes after school, when we head to a park/playground they ask if we can take their bikes and even are asking if they can ride them to go Trick or Treating!

We put them together and headed out to the park. I was so suprised to see how well they were already balancing on them...

We took a little break to check the map and see where we wanted to have our snack...and enjoy the view of the roses in the Rose Garden.

Big Brother

I just wanted to mention a little tidbit about Timo today...Cameron was having a hard time saying goodbye to Mommy this morning for school and Timo came up and said to her, "don't worry Cameron, I'm here with you. I'll protect you." Oh, melt my heart! What a great big brother he is...even if he is only one minute older...

Timo Writes His Name

One of the traits my son got from me is his sense of perfectionism...not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. In most cases it causes him extreme frustration because he can't do something perfect. This leads to a lot of melt downs and tears over not being able to replicate exactly what he sees in his mind. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for keeping at something over and over until he can do it...perfectly. (This also includes not singing a song out loud until he knows all the words.)

Each day at their school the parents have to sign out their children on a sign out sheet. The teacher made one for the kids to sign out too because they are always wanting to write on the parent's sheet. Once Timo saw some of the 4 year olds writing their name, he absolutely HAD to learn how to write his name. I'll admit, we've had our share of tears and crying "I can't, it doesn't look right..." but it was all worth it today when he sat down and wrote his name perfectly for the first time! I was so proud of him and you could tell he was proud of himself. He has been practicing and practicing for weeks now, most days at his art easel....here are his stages.


Almost as soon as he wrote "Timo" tonight he was asking how to spell "Timothy Ko" so I helped him write his big full name for a little extra credit...