double trouble...or just double

Early pictures...so I might have gotten a little carried away. I keep looking at these two and realizing that they aren't so little anymore. It's making me so sad.



Their favorite thing at Grandma Z's is to go out and see the cows. The moment we pull into the driveway and I get them down out of the car, they head over to look between the trees at the cows on the other side.

Claire with Grandma and Grandpa's dog - Shaurae

Ben loved it. Claire did not.

Ben got into the garbage and is chomping on a tomato he found. Yuck!

I have no idea who taught him that. I know I've probably done that in my time, but not lately so that he would have seen me do it. Silly guy!

Kickin back

Claire got a hold of a bag of chocolate chips and dumped them all over the floor. She proceeded to clean them up and was soon met with reinforcements.

Ben and Claire love to play with ( as if he were the toy) their little cousin Warren - roughly six months. They just love to have their hands all over him. I hope they'll be great playmates as they get older.

We love being outside.

It's the fastest way to eat cereal in the morning. I'm sure Claire is saying something like "Uh-oh." Even though she does it too.

I love it when they give hugs.

They have taken a liking to my pots and pans of late.

This one was funny. I threw a batch of cookies away one night because they were too brown for my liking - I forgot to set the timer. I gave the twins their bath and got their diapers on at least so I could round up pajamas and bed time paraphernalia. I come back into the kitchen to find Ben with his arms full of the cookies I had thrown in the garbage. I laughed as I searched for my camera. I tell you, that boy and the garbage...

I found them sitting together in the rocking chair as we watched a movie. So cute!

Benjamin dumped the bag of sugar on the carpet. Everyone came to play and lick up what they could. Apparently we like food off the ground.

Claire fed her baby some milk and then wiped her face with a towel when the milk dribbled a little.

Feed the Birds

We went with Grandma and Grandpa Erickson to feed the ducks at Columbia Park in Tri-Cities. The twins absolutely loved it. This was their first time. Emma and Paul had a fun time throwing their bread out over the water and watching the seagulls fly and dive after it. Claire and Ben ate more than they threw out.

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!

Jason was taking pictures of me while I was on the phone with the publisher. That's why my mouth is all crazy. He was very supportive, staying up with me until I finished. He watched the office online with headphones on. Like that was so hard for him.

I got my first article published in The Othello Independent this week. (Click on the link and click at the bottom of the pages to turn to the Schools page. Mine is the McFarland article.) I'm covering the school board meetings here in Othello. It was a lot of fun. Kind of stressful to attend the meeting Monday night and write the article the same night so it could go in this week's paper. But it was a good stress I think. It reminded me of being in school. I liked school so it was a good feeling. I got the article done around 12:15 am and then dreamed about all the changes that it would need in the morning. Monday night is when they put the paper together so it can be sent to the printers and picked up Tuesday to go out in the mail on Wednesday. I even got to take the picture. Cool, Cool!

I'm grateful to the Independent for giving me the chance to write. This first article wasn't perfect, I know. But I'm grateful for the trust they're putting in me and the opportunity they're giving me. (And I know it's just because everyone else was so bored of covering the school board meetings. :) I'll take it though.) More to come!

Our own herd of eggimals

The Family Fun magazine had these easy little animals in this month's issue. Emma has been in dire need of something to do, and with mom. So today we declared a craft day and left the dishes in the sink. Luckily we had the supplies to make some cute animals of our own. (We substituted craft foam for the felt and it worked just great.)

Emma's pig, kitty, kangaroo, chicken,
mouse, skunk, and elephant

Paulie's skunk, dog, elephant, pig, owl, and frog
(he has a fly on his tongue - hard to see)

I ended up cutting and gluing because we were cutting such small pieces and using hot glue. But they were excited with each new creation. And I had a lot of fun making them. They now carry their eggimals around in two gallon sized zip lock bags. :0}