Our Gingerbread House..

At least she paints inside the lines...mostly...

Did you notice her bottom lip?

Not Zoo Lights

Today we....

went to preschool..

gave Papa a workout...


and tried to go to Zoolights with our friends, the Clarks. This has become an annual tradition with our families and is pretty fun. Today happened to be a dry day and apparently everyone else in the Portland metro area realized this and so it became absolutely impossible to find parking there. We regrouped at a nearby restaurant for a snack and to wait out the crowds hoping that if we went later there would be less people. Uh. No. There were more. A lot more. So we quickly came up with a Plan B. In Portland there are a few blocks that are known for their annual Christmas Display, so we headed over to Peacock Lane to take in the lights.

We saw Santa...

Watched lighted trains and cute animals on seesaws...


And enjoyed the good company!

I think Zoolights would have been a better fit for our energetic 3 year old boys (and you can sit and sip hot apple cider), but taking a stroll down Peacock Lane was a good second choice for the night. It was dry out after all...

"Yook at Me!!"

We hear this phrase constantly throughout the day.

Often it sounds like "Yook at me dada. Mama yook at me!"

And then we have the opportunity to see Tyson doing something like this:

"I'm The Man"

(yes, he is wearing a plastic bowl on his head while helping Jason move the fridge)

"I'm a present wrapped under the tree. But don't open me yet."

I blame Word World

Word World is probably one of Tyson and Kaiya's favorite TV shows. They watch it together and dance, shriek and laugh. Tyson likes the catchy little songs about letter sounds, and honestly, I like singing them to him. Both kids love to read, and we read a lot. I guess I don't know how much other families read, but, every time our kids bring us a book, we read it to them. The other night I read Tyson two books, which took about 20 min and in that time Kaiya brought Jason almost every book from her room to read, one by one, and he kept reading each one she brought out as long as Tyson and I were reading. It was pretty fun...did I mention we love to read? :O)

Tyson wants to learn how to read. He WANTS to learn how to read. I don't know how to teach him how to read. He's 3 years old. I don't need him to learn how to read. I like to read to him. But he wants to..so he's learning how to read.

It's probably because of Word World.

This afternoon I was, um, reading with Kaiya, and Tyson came in with a letter d and a letter b. (He has a magnetic set of letters and numbers they play with on the fridge). He wanted to clarify which one was which. So we sang the song from Word World, ' a line then circle is the letter b, a circle then line is the letter d'. He smiled and walked back into the kitchen. A few minutes later he called for me to come see what he did. I walked into the kitchen to look at the fridge.

"Look! Buh-ed. It says bed!"

"What?!?! What are you doing?! You spelled that? Are you trying to spell and learn how to read?!"

Which, being a defiant 3 year old, makes him want to spell all the more...

I'm so proud of him. :O)

Besides, I haven't even read the book yet about how to teach him how to read...

Sick days...

We've been pretty sick here the past week or so...this is probably the worst cold I have ever experienced.


Tyson was the first to come down with it. It was a fever for 24 hrs, then coughing, sneezing and a runny nose that seemed to be trying to run to the south pole.

Day 1 with the fever was pretty great...he just laid around all day looking tired..

and occasionally making a nest to sleep in...

Once the fever went away the coughing started and continued to get worse and worse to the point of having to go get a prescription cough syrup with codeine. We were doing everything we could to help him, humidifier with eucalyptus, honey/thyme throat coat, over the counter cough syrups, etc, but the coughing was interfering with him even being able to eat..so we took him in. The doctor was momentarily stumped..he sounded a lot worse on the outside than he did on the inside, his lungs were clear and his throat wasn't flaming red or anything..so she agreed that it was a cold and that the cough syrup would give him relief. Well, the first dose certainly didn't, but by the second dose he was feeling better. They did tell us that the codeine would make him a little drowsy...we never saw the effect of that..but it was nice to have him breathing more comfortably, eating better and sleeping better.

And then Kaiya started..
And then Mama started, just the milder, more like the average cold, version...
And Papa is taking care of us all....

*cough, cough*

Our recent family pictures..

In November we had our family photos taken again by Tarena of Three Tree Photography. We LOVE having our pictures done with her, she does a great job during the photo shoot and we enjoy the results!!!

Here's a little taste of what went down..

As always...to see the picture bigger just double click on it...then use the browser back arrow to get back to this page.

To see more from our family photo shoot go to Three Tree Photography's website...

Reading

Just a quick note...
1. He is reading just the numbers. He doesn't have them memorized.
2. "Blast-off" is our own insertion. He's not reading it because it's not actually in the book.

Enjoy!

Ka-bonk

This took place the day before our family photo shoot.

She threw herself onto the driveway in protest. I was loading the stroller into the car rather than putting her in it to take a walk right that moment.

Her shirt pretty much sums it up, don't you think?

Walking

Kaiya started walking on July 10th. Here is a video taken a few days later.

"I'm workin'"

Tyson has been a helper ever since he started walking. Anytime Tenisha or I start a project, whether building something or cleaning, Tyson ALWAYS jumps in to help. Enjoy some photos of Tyson the Helper.

The Potty Train

This morning Tenisha and I were having a conversation about carpet...

Tenisha: We'll be putting in new carpet up here soon anyway.

Jason: I thought you wanted to wait until the kids are potty trained. That'll be a couple years, not soon.

Tyson: I want to go on the potty train.

Tyson's sentences.

"What's that right there on there?" -this is what he says when he's pointing to something to ask what it is.

"They're watching all the cars go by." -talking about the flock of geese sitting in the grass along the exit ramp. We thought it was interesting he talked about it from their perspective.

"I'm are done." -so an extra verb can't really hurt. actually it just makes the parents laugh..

Mini Winter Vacation

We took a 2 day trip to the coast earlier this month while Jason was on vacation. It was fun and relaxing, as any good trip to the coast should be! We hiked up to Haceta Head Lighthouse, though it was pouring rain and very windy, just to see a real working lighthouse. This was something that Tyson has been wanting to do for some time...

Tyson made the hike all by himself, as well as climbing the 3 stories to the top of the lighthouse to see the light. We drove up to spend the night in Newport and the following day we visited the Newport Aquarium...
The only thing that we didn't get to do was to fly a kite...it was too wet and windy to try to stand out and do it, but we had a great time and enjoyed what we were able to do. And of course...on the way home we HAD to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory to have lunch and ice cream!!

"CHEESE!"

Yes, this is her first bite of ice cream.

Remember when... part 2

Tyson: You learned how to be a Michigan Wolverine fan this year. You joined Daddy each Saturday during the football season to cheer on "Big Blue". You learned the chant, "Go Blue!" We bought some Wolverine t-shirts during our trip to Great-Grandma Herron's in North Branch this summer. We wore them each Saturday in anticipation of watching our team win. Unfortunately, the Wolverines had a rough year, but Remember, 2009 was the year you became a Wolverine fan. GO BLUE!!!


On a side note, at some point during the season, you thought up a funny joke. Daddy would often yell out "Go Blue!!" throughout the game. Most of the time you would repeat it back. On one occasion, you looked at the TV to find out the colors of each team. Then you said "Go White!" (Or whatever color the other team was wearing). Silly boy. Maybe you were just trying to get a rise out of me. Well, it did result in a "What?!", a tackle, and tickle-mania!

This must have been your punishment for cheering for the other team. ;)

Kaiya, you're a Wolverine fan too. You just don't know it yet. ;)

Mama's turn to remember....

I keep meaning to write this in your journal, but then forget..so it's going here for now!

On our way home from our Seattle Christmas 2009 we had no idea it was going to be snowing in Portland. When we were about 30 miles from home it started snowing and gathering along the side of the road. By the time we reached the I-205 bridge (about 20 miles from home) traffic was BACKED UP! It took us 4 hrs to drive the last 20 miles. During that time I was sitting in the backseat of the car, between your two carseats. At most we were going 5 miles/hr at any given time.

Kaiya: It was time for you to eat...so I just took you out of your seat and fed you. Unfortunately you had a big poop in your diaper and we had hoped to make it home to change it. A few hours later I finally just did it...in my lap. Fortunately everything stayed clean. It sure was stinky though!

Tyson: Remember when we were looking at the snow covered trees along the side of the road? I said that the tree branches looked pretty with all of the snow. You said "Those not trees. Those bushes. I tried to correct you and said, "Those are trees, just without leaves." You said again "Those not trees, those bushes."
"No they're not. They're trees."
"Those bushes."
"Ok..I guess they're bushes then..."
"Those not bushes....Those TREES!!!!"
Oh man...we had such a good laugh!!!! You have such a good sense of humor!!! We still laugh remembering back to that. How did you know that would be funny?

Later on we stopped at Home Depot to go to the bathroom and play in the snow..it was a fun time! You two did a great job handling being in the car for 7 hrs!!