TRAINS TRAINS TRAINS

Trains and cars and trucks. These are the most important things in a young boy's life. And maybe ice cream. Here we are downtown, by the side of a train track. We were parking, going to the Aquarium, but who cares about fish when you can stand outside in the drizzle and watch an entire train go by for 10 minutes. I asked the boys what they thought was inside the boxcars. "That one has toys!" "That one has cereal." "The tank car has milk."

Kari

Field trip to fire station

We went to a fire station, on a field trip with the boys' preschool class. Sitting inside the firetruck, of course, was the hightlight. Jackson is the top two pictures; Sam the bottom.

Kari

Let's try on Mommy's boots!

Everyone has rain boots, except for Jeff. Sam and Jackson have blue monster boots, Chloe has yellow and black striped bee boots and I have orange, yellow and green heart boots. Of course, mine are the most fun to try on. Jackson loves to discuss what numbers are on the bottom of the boots, "I got a 9, Sammy has a 10, Chloe has a 5 and Mommy, you have a 9 too!"

Kari

Coffee on a rainy day

Coffee is for everyone at our house. I think Sam and Chloe are drinking hot chocolate and Jackson is drinking hot milk with a splash of coffee. Chloe says, "toffee, Toe (she can't say the "c" sound of her name yet and pronounces them as "t's") drinking toffee."

Kari

Chloe's new swimsuit

Chloe and I went shopping for her new swimsuit. We were in Old Navy and she was sitting in her stroller singing the ABC's and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I found 4 suits for her that I liked. I contemplated buying several of them, then taking them home to try them on and returning the rejects. Then I looked over at the fitting room and thought, "why not try them on." So we went in the fitting room and tried them all on. I said, "Chloe, let's go out and look in the mirror." She proudly walked out of the room and looked around at the people. Then she walked up the mirror and checked herself out. This is the one we chose. She didn't really have an opinion.

Kari

We babysit Hudson

Finally, at almost 4 months old, we get to babysit for Hudson (Traci's baby). It had been 16 months since I've hung out with a 4 month old baby. He came over to our house and after figuring out how to hold onto a baby of that age, things were just fine. Hudson smiled at everyone and he laughed at my jokes. I fed him a bottle and he let out a huge burp. We put him in Chloe's crib; he really liked the fish aquarium music- I think it was playing twinkle, twinkle, little star. He sat in there for the longest time. Then Chloe got mad, she wanted to get in her crib, where all the action was. I told her it was Hudson's turn. She didn't really like that answer. But she did like to cover him up and gently touch his head. Sam stood by the crib a lot and was talking to Hudson, trying to get him to smile. Jackson checked in occassionally, then was off- he had all the toys to himself while we had our visitor.

Kari

Sam & Jackson love to spell!

The other night, around 9 pm, I was walking by the boys' room. They were of course, still awake, even though their bedtime is 7 pm. They were playing with this puzzle that has wooden pieces of all the letters and discussing something. "Sammy, that spells doors." "Yeah, that spells doors!" I walked in there and asked what they were doing. They looked at the six letters they had pulled from the puzzle to spell their word. Jackson said, "U-V-X-Z-Q-G, that spells doors!" They were so confident that they had spelled "doors" that I said, "yeah, that spells doors."

Kari