Winter!

Winter is here! Complete with the extra 10 minutes it takes to get out the door, the dozens of mittens we left the house with but will never see again, the craziness of being a band director with 3 concerts in two weeks, and that wonderful "hockey bag" smell that fills our house each winter season. :)

No, really. All the good stuff is here, too. At this very moment I'm sitting on the couch, listening to Josh Groban sing Christmas carols, feeling the heat of our fireplace, and looking at our beautiful Christmas tree. Bob is at hockey, and the boys are sleeping upstairs. Ah, quiet. ("Silent Night", sings Josh as I type this...) I wouldn't change a thing.

Here are some recent pics to keep you up to date with these little boys who are not so little anymore.

We did an informal photo shoot of our happy guys, the day of our first snowfall. They were so excited! :) 

It's not often that we catch Jakey in a full smile like this! What a grin :)

He's really turning on the charm, here.

Robbie is NOT hard to catch in a smile... but still, what a great moment caught on camera!

Note to self: when allowing boys to play with Christmas decorations for the "photo shoot", it may be important to prepare oneself for several weeks of little guys demanding to play with said decorations. Worth it, though. So cute!

They say a picture says 1000 words. This one, though, looks much more innocent than it was, so I'll elaborate a bit...Very long story very short: Our dear friends the Larsons invited us out with them to a Christmas tree farm to choose our trees this year. It was later than we planned. It was colder than we'd planned. We got lost and went to the wrong tree farm. We made the best of it and got oversized Charlie Brown trees anyway. One of them fell off the van on our way home. 5 miles later, the other one fell off. The men said lots of words that we had to edit for the 3 tired, starving children under the age of 2. But let me tell you: these trees have CHARACTER! :)  And we have a story we'll never forget.

The city of Mound has a tree-lighting event every year. We bundled up our boys on a very cold evening, threw them in the wagon, and walked the 3 blocks to the event (gotta love our small town!)

The boys weren't feeling up to sitting on Santa's lap, so we had to settle for this! Not bad for a first pic with Santa, though.

Robbie, all bundled up and enjoying the Christmas lights.

Jakey, all bundled up and... well, I don't know. Telling us where we can go for bringing him out in this cold?!?! :)

Halloween 2011

So, we've spent the last week looking at adorable pics of other people's kids on Halloween. In those photos, kids are all lined up, shoulder to shoulder with their siblings/friends, proudly displaying their costumes. At our house, we had a hard time getting both of our guys in the same frame, much less looking at the camera at the same time while not covering up their costumes with a blanky or a sippy cup. But, they had a great Halloween, and we still got some cute pics :)  Presenting, "Thing 1 and Things 2", from "The Cat in the Hat"

Robbie. "Thing 2" because he's 14 minutes younger.

Jacob. The "older brother" got to be "Thing 1"

Robbie was not a fan of keeping his hair on his head. I was going to use blue hairspray, until I read the can: "Do not use on very fine, or very blond hair." Yikes! So, we sacrificed a super-cute scarf a friend made me a few years ago (Sorry, Suzy. It was for a good cause!)

Jakey, giving us his very best goofy "Dr. Seuss" face!

Robbie, showing off his "hair"

The whole gang: Audrey the kitty, Jacob, Robbie, Joey the ladybug, Cooper the chicken, and Emily the bug.

A few weeks ago, we spent a great weekend in Door County, while our boys enjoyed a great weekend with their Green Bay cousins (thanks, Green Bay Chilsons!) We got to take some of the fun home with us, when they sent us home with their bouncy castle! The boys have had a blast with it...

Video: Bouncy Castle

End of Summer, and Fall

Where does the time go? Here's some photos/videos to get you caught up...

We wanted to sell some of Merfy's stuff, so we set up the kennel to take photos of it. The boys spent an hour in and out of baby jail. They had a blast!

This is Jakey doing "the falcon." It's a long story -- has to do with the name of our sand volleyball team a couple years ago, "Falcon Crest." The name was a sort of cross between a cheap beer and an old TV show... At any rate, Bob dug out the falcon pose a couple weeks ago, and now the boys do it all the time on their own!

Spaghetti. Robbie. Need I say more?

As it turns out, we have a FABULOUS apple orchard very near our house. With the exception of a short trip home for an afternoon nap, we spent an entire day there! We hung out with our friends the Hensleys in the morning, and Grandma Kathy in the evening. We loved it so much, we went back a week later with Grandma Jean and Grandpa Don. Here are some highlights...

The boys found a mini-haystack just their size.

Grandma Kathy tickled Jacob until he giggled himself right back into the haystack!

Jakey does his Frankenstein impression.

Push, Jakey! You're so strong!

That one might be too big to pick up by the stem...

Robbie is saying "jump!" to indicate his next move!

Sticking that tongue out definitely makes Robbie stronger - so he can pick up this pumpkin!

Obviously, the bigger the pumpkin, the more tongue needs to be hanging out!

Here's an example of the many attempts at our fall family photo. We have approximately 15 pics similar to this one. The littlest people kept crying, or wandering off, or getting distracted... :)



Anyway, here's the best of the bunch. (Thanks, Laura, for taking this photo!)

Now for some video entertainment:

Jacob has what we call "crazy face." He used to do it when he was angry/frustrated, and it looked so scary, like he was having a seizure or something. Once we figured out that he was OK, we realized it was hilarious! And then Jakey figured out that we realized it was hilarious...so he added a smile to it, rendering it the new and improved crazy face you see in this video!
                                             Jakey's crazy face

So there we were, at the apple orchard, hanging out at the petting zoo. Bob was teaching Robbie to say "llama." Robbie's version sounds exactly like "mama" so it is unclear at the beginning of the video exactly who he's looking for... Until he turns to the animal pen and you can hear his excitement at seeing a furry white "mama" :) 

Mama Llama

This video requires no introduction. Enjoy! 

Robbie chases chickens

By the end of summer, Jacob was showing his rocking fish who was boss... 

Jacob rides a fish

Summer!

It. CANNOT. Be. Mid-August.

Our last post was Mid-June, and we haven't had a moment's rest since then. The good news is, we've been busy having fun :)

Several of my teacher-friends and I have been trying to get together with our kids for playdates once a week or so. This beach day was probably the highlight...

Here's the whole crowd (I'm the one balancing the two kids who love water but refuse to touch sand!)

I LOVE this photo. It looks like he's punching him (which happens, don't get me wrong!), but here Robbie is actually feeding Jacob grapes. Adorable!

Bonus of the boys hating sand? Really easy to keep track of them. They wouldn't take a step off this blanket :)

We spend a lot of time just hanging out in the yard. Here's the guys relaxing one afternoon...

Jakey, hanging out in the cool grass!

Robbie, getting ready to show off his skills on the slide!

We took a trip to Chicago to visit Grandma Jean and Grandpa Don. If you ask the boys, though, the highlight may have been playing in the suitcases the day before we left...

Look! We both fit in the big one!

This was not staged, I promise. Robbie just climbed in and started doing some gymnastics.

Monkey see, monkey do!

 

Hmmmmmmmm. We don't seem to fit in this one as well as the big one!

 So we finally got packed up and went to Chicago. The boys LOVED playing at this park with fountains that shoot up at random...

Jacob looks like he's not enjoying himself, but he kept coming back for more - for a while he sat right on one!

Robbie showed no fear and RAN around the park, getting as wet as possible.

Taking a water break!

 Grandpa Jack and Grandma Sara held "camp" again this year in Aberdeen, complete with "water park", "movie night", and "field trip"...

The water park was a big hit.

OK, so here our boys demonstrate their differences: Robbie is happily yelling at the water while hitting it...

...Jakey is enjoying a quiet moment in his own "hot tub"!

Proof that daddy did spend the summer with us! Here's the whole family on the carousel.

 These boys LOVE their little red wagon! Unless it's pouring rain, we're in it every day, many days more than once a day. Once again, Grandma Kathy wins for best gift -- they'll love it for a long time!

Taking a break from practicing "sledding" down the hill in our yard.

Here's grandma Kathy with the boys. While we ran all over the country to see most folks, Grandma Kathy came to us many times. YAY for fun visits with Grandma :)

 Our sad news for this summer: We had to say goodbye to Merfy, Bob's canine "baby" of almost 15 years. We wanted to make sure we had some photographic memories of the boys with Merf, so here are some cute moments...

Jacob enjoys a tickle with Merf.

Robbie hugs Merfy. So sweet.

 We took a trip to Omaha so Bob could participate in his company softball tournament, and we could all visit Suzy, Robbie's Godmother and my good high school friend. Suzy treated us to a trip to the fabulous Omaha Zoo!

Robbie, in his monkey shirt, compares his height to that of various types of monkeys.

Jacob, in HIS monkey shirt, has lots to say about why we left the stroller in the car (don't worry, we went to get it!)

THIS is why we LOVE the boys at this age. They make a normal, boring drive into something hilarious!

Here, the "Suitcase Show" in action.