The Dinner Bell

These photos are fairly typical examples of dinner around here right now. Miss. Anna likes to make silly teeth out of what ever food she can. Today she used a green apple to make the smile.



Sam likes to eat with both hands ... maybe a better description is eat with food in both fists.



Anna also likes to tell Sam that he needs to be more careful with great grandma's table ... her favorite dinner phrase right now is "she took care of the table her whole life, Sammy quite banging!"



And as a bonus, sometimes Sam get to play a little after his dinner, bath, and stories in his super cute new skeleton pj's.

Oregon Coast

We went to Seaside for the weekend. It was a "winding" a lot outside and we needed to keep bundled up. Anna and Sam spent a little bit of time on the sand looking at the ocean.





Most of the time was spent on the trike going up and down the prom.



Sam suffers a little bit of "motor mania", just like Toad from Wind in the Willows.

Sam's Inner Pollock

Sam was feeling a little left out of all the art that was going on yesterday and today. So I let him play with some crayons, he really got excited about the crayon's. Sam worked with them and then started to eat them ... and then fed a few to the dog. I think between the two of them they ate red and 1/2 of a yellow crayon.



This is mid way thru Sam's color session. The gray droplets in the corner are Sam droll from being super excited. The little pink circle's Anna added when she was trying to teach Sam how to color.



The finished piece.



Anna worked on a painting she told me was "Hawaii, where Stitch the naughty alien boy is from ... but he lives in Disneyland."

Tapping Into Her Inner Van Gough

Anna had a doctors appointment today to test her hearing. Her left ear is not functioning correctly, the ear drum does not move, and she will go to an audiologist to see what she is exactly hearing out of that ear and how to correct the problem. Charles thought it was a little funny she decided to paint so much today since Van Gough cut off part of the left ear ... Anyway Anna was a super productive artist today silent left ear and all. Her first painting she told me was "a mad cat biting a man while dancing."



The second painting is a representation of "three pigs in a circle eating."



Anna decided to paint whiskers and paws on herself before I took the paint away for a while. Once she starts of the body painting ... poor Sam gets the worst of it.

A Boy Playdate

Sam had his friend Max over for an hour today. Sam was really excited to play with him. They played with trains for a long time. Max has good train skills, his movement noise sounds like an "eee, weee, wee, wee" and Sam's were more of a "zoom, zraoom" sound.



They watched for anything to go by the window (mostly cats).



Sam took a nice nap afterwards.

The La La La Lions

Anna has been working on articulation with a speech therapist lately. Her "talking teacher" has Anna saying la la la and then a word that starts with an L to get her mouth used to being the correct position. As an incentive to practice, we told her we would take her to see the new lions at the zoo. This morning Anna work up singing "mommy's taking us to the zoo today, zoo today, mommy's taking us to the zoo today so we can see the la la la lion!" She is such a sweet girl and has been working so hard at talking school homework ... we are so lucky that she is such a la la la lovely little lady.







Sam did not really care about the new lions, he was more excited about snacks.

Mt. Angel Oktoberfest

We go to the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest almost every year. We go mainly to eat ... corn on a stick, sausage and sauerkraut, cotton candy, elephant ears. Anna wanted to do the chicken dance this year. We had to leave early, before all the dancing, due to rain. I think she is disappointed about missing the dance, since it has been her topic of conversation since we left ... "know what's sad? No chicken dance. I don't like the rain." Anna did get to do the pony ride. This year she wanted to go by herself with no helpers.



This year I ran the 10K instead of Charles. I am not a big fan of running in the rain or running up hills, so I am ok with my finish time of 1:05.

Duck Cookies

The beginning of autumn around here is signaled by the following three things:

1. Charles starts running a lot more to get ready for the Portland marathon
2. Nana bakes tons of cookies for the Oregon Duck football games each weekend
3. We get to see more of Nana and Pop pop's dogs (during the home football games)

Today Anna and Sam helped with the cookies. Anna rolled the dough in sugar.



Sam tested them out to make sure the cookies were football worthy.

Sam's Vacation

Since it was pointed out to me that I may have forgotten to mention much a very sweet little boy who was on the trip with us ...



Sam was always very excited to go into the Tiki Room



and to watch the show. Sam would clap and wiggle to the Tiki Bird Beat. We ended up going to see the show at least four times during the trip.



Yep, Sam is happy to be on the happiest boat ride ever!



Testing out the take out box for Flick's Flyer's.



The line for Tinkerbell was a little to long for Sam.



Sam with his very own set of ears.



Everyone dancing before the parade.



Pirate Sammy who does not like to wear silly paper menu hats.



Sam napping with his new toy.



Sam is not a fan of air travel. He spent both flights crying and trying to crawl down the center towards freedom.

Stitch's Trip To Disneyland

For most of our vacation, Anna carried a plush Stitch doll and a small plastic beluga whale everywhere she went. Anna would turn Stitch to face the photographer .. so almost every picture has Stitch in it. She would show her toys to the characters and it ended up being a great way for her to interacting with them (except Captain Hook ... she is scarred of the Captain).







Towards the end of our vacation, Nana won a horrible looking plush Timothy Mouse. Anna swapped Stitch for Timothy and everyone had to work very hard on convincing her that the characters were afraid of Timothy .. he was safer in the stroller. So several photo's have Timothy and a small plastic Minnie Mouse in them.



Nana bought Anna a plush Piglet and thankfully Piglet replaced Timothy Mouse. On the last two days of our trip every photo has a Piglet and a small plastic goldfish (Anna calls her Cleo) in them.

Going To Pixie Hollow

Meeting Tinkerbell was one of the magical highlights of our vacation. It is really sweet how the entire Pixie Hollow area is set up, it is if you are shrinking down to pixie size as you wait and walk up the path to Tinkerbell house. We visited the area two times several days apart. The first time Anna jumped up and down once she saw Tinkerbell .. and Tinkerbell jumped up and down to greet her. Anna showed Tinkerbell her little toys are talked to her about her firework flight.





The next time we went to visit Tinkerbell said to Anna ... "you came back to play with me!" and (to the photographer) "this is my friend Anna." They talked and danced around a little if front of Tinkerbell's house. It was so amazing to me that Tinkerbell would remember Anna after all the people she see's every day .. and for Anna it was just like visiting an old familiar friend.





The other fairy we visited were Fawn the animal talent fairy and



Iridessa, the light talent fairy. The other fairies were very sweet but they know the real reason to visit is to see Tinkerbell. Both fairies did a great job of keeping the magic alive for Anna and geeting everyone ready and excited to meet Tinkerbell.

Back Home!

We got back home from Disneyland late last night. It was a great trip. We are all very, very tired ... but I thought I might post a few photo's.