RenFest

The Texas Renaissance Festival!! SO cool, we had a great time with the kids. I had no idea how HUGE it would be, you could spend all day there easily (if you didn't have three young children, that is). I wish I would have gotten pictures of some of the great costumes many people wore there, but in place of it, I downloaded this one above from their website to get the "effect" of the place.


Face painting a must!!


Cool dragon


Cora may have chosen this one from having watched "Bolt" a lot lately...


These boat swings were so cool!! They could pull a big long rope to go higher, the girls love it.

In the meantime, Soren had a blast running down this hill over and over again.


The girls getting harnessed up for a pretty thrilling ride...

An easy start, Isabelle was a little nervous at first...


This is Cora way up there. Pretty amazing, eh? Isabelle went up just as high also. They LOVED it. Before they had their turn, watching other folks flying up, Isabelle said she definitely did NOT want to go on. But when her little sister said she wanted to try it, well, she had to go too. They asked to go again the rest of the time we were there. I would have done it too if I didn't have my current issues with motion and nausea.


A fun elephant ride with just the girls. Brad took Soren on a camel ride, but the picture turned out too dark. We ended the evening watching fireworks as we trekked back to the van. What a day!!! Earlier in the day Isabelle had her last soccer game, a piano recital and the girls attended a birthday party before we went to RenFest. Needless to say, this happened on the way home:

Halloween!

It was hard to get pictures of the kids right before going out to trick-or-treat. Just a little excited! Isabelle and Cora helped make their fairy costumes. Cora also got to wear hers to her little pre-school a few days earlier and was quite thrilled with it all. Such fun. The girls were looking forward to Halloween all month! Soren really got into the getting candy thing. But he got a little mixed up as to what he was supposed to say. After "trick-or-treat," the girls would shout "Happy Halloween!" So eventually Soren would say something that resembled "Happy Birthday to you treat!" (he loves the Happy Birthday song), with a few other mumbled Sorenwords mixed in. His MO was to have me hold his bag while he reached into the candy-givers bowl and grab as much as he could with one little paw and put it in his bag, then attempt another grab before I would stop him. Our neighborhood was wild with kids and parents, lots of fun!

Cora gets ready to show off her costume at pre-school

My little green monster....

Ducks

There's a park not far from here with a man-made pond and lots of ducks. The ducks have no fear of people, and some aggressively approach if they sense food is available. It freaks out the girls a little, but Soren is totally unfazed. That expression he's got is not fear, he is laughing and chasing them!

Modeling

We had a little modeling session, mostly to catch Soren in his church outfit. He actually likes it and I had to trick him into taking it off. How about Cora and her modeling pose here, watch out with those big eyes and pouty lips! And Isabelle looks so grown up. Sigh...

Consensus is, cookie dough wins everything

I love it when they want to get up on the counter to help with cookies. Soren has lately discovered what we're all doing up there, so it becomes a little crowded :-) . Whenever all three are doing something together my heart swells to busting. They are so beautiful, I can't believe they're mine.

Supergirl!

So Brad's mother kept some key clothes from his childhood. One being this Superman shirt and cape that she actually made herself. Lately Cora especially has enjoyed watching the original Superman, the first on with Christopher Reeve. Has anyone noticed how long it is and even a bit tedious in several parts? But my four-year old loves it. And here she is in posing perfection. I love her squint and serious mouth in that one with her hands on her hips. Watch out! I could eat her up she's so freakin' cute.

Nanaimo, B.C.

A couple of weeks ago I went up to my grandfather's memorial. He is the last of my grandparents to die. It's very strange. My grandfather lived to be 90 years old and didn't suffer his last days, so it was a good passing. And it was wonderful to see relatives I haven't seen in years, many since my Nana's memorial four years ago. Here's a picture of the grandchildren that attended. My sister Paralee, Jeff and Joey (cousins), me and then my big bro Paul! We really look related don't we? It made me sad to think about how far apart we all live. I think about the relationship my kids are having with their cousins and it's priceless. In the end, though, even with the distance, when we're together it's nothing. It's beautiful, really. Family is timeless. Well, it's something. I can't come up with a more original word. The next picture is one of my grandfather in his younger year. Handsome, eh? Great hair.

We love our happy boy!

Swimming in the back yard

I wish I had a waterproof camera to take to our community pool, because Soren's behavior in water is much more effective when you see him plunging under deep water (to him), swimming (well, a baby's version) towards me, and pulling himself up with a huge grin on his face. He does this over and over, going under water with no trouble at all. It's really quite fascinating to see what a little fish he is. In any case, this is in our backyard little pool. Cora's practicing her face in the water with her goggles and Soren is just throwing himself around!

Snacking

I love it when the three of them get in on something. Soren reached up in the pantry where the crackers reside chanting, "caka, caka" I put down the box and had to run for something and when I got back, Isabelle and Cora had joined him, with Isabelle having added another box she could reach to the picnic.

Prayers

I forgot to record this earlier, an experience while my mother was visiting. One night while I was giving the girls a bath (Soren already asleep), my mom came up to give me the phone and while we were chatting in there, Cora decided to go around and lock both sides of the bathroom doors (they open to a different bedroom on either side) and close them after coming in with us. On our other doors there is always a clever way to unlock it if someone inadvertently locks it and Cora has lately been fascinated by locking doors. At any rate, all four of us (me, my mom, Isabelle and Cora) were locked in the bathroom! I didn't have my trusty little screwdriver to meddle with the door, mostly at our disposable were tiny hairclips and toothbrushes. So we tried what we had and my mother had the brains to see what kind of hook we had a picture on, which turned out to be one of those long ones you insert into the wall and twist around. Yay! But it still wasn't quite working. We took turns jiggling and prodding. The girls pretended to help and were having a little adventure, although I wasn't too encouraging about their efforts ("no honey, the plastic barrette won't do anything") I didn't notice when they sequestered themselves in the room with the toilet and bath (has a door to separate from the rest of the bathroom). They soon came out and announced that they did something to help us. "What did you do?" They beamed, "we said a prayer!" I nearly fainted. My 6 and 4 year old on their own deciding there was indeed something they could do and prayed! And sure enough, five minutes later as I found a way to wrench my little picture wire into the side of the door handle, it popped open the lock and we were free! It's always good to remember those little answers to prayers and I wanted to be sure to write it down!

our family :-)

"Bring Him Home"

Soren is fond of music, as we all know, and lately enjoys watching music videos on youtube, but most recently we discovered that he is most entranced by watching Colm Wilkinson singing "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables. He will sit on Brad's lap and watch the whole thing completely still with a very serious look on his face. Then nearing the end of the piece he'll shout "again!! again!!" Here's his glorious little boy face watching it...

Nana!

My mother (Nana) is visiting and one day we decided to go for a walk. We tried to leave early in the morning, but alas it was already ROASTING outside, so everyone was was quite red-faced by the time we got home, but we managed to fit them all into this sturdy life-saver of a double-stroller. I know I'm completely biased, but my children are SO beautiful I can hardly stand it. It's been fantastic to have my mother visiting, we've been having a wonderful time.

Erin's Birthday

We had a little birthday party for Erin (my younger sister) and per tradition, I gave her a big chocolate bar with a little piece already sampled (to be sure it isn't poisoned. Many years ago Erin sent me some Toblerone in the mail as part of a birthday or Christmas package and couldn't let it go without a taste. She included a little note taped to it letting me know it was not poisoned and was okay for me to eat. Ever since then, if we ever choose to give chocolate in our gift, it's always got a piece missing :-) ) Cora REALLY wanted to give her a Barbie for her birthday, so I relented. It was too sweet.

Swimming

The girls took swimming lessons at the local Y and really enjoyed them. That's what you do in the summer here. POOL.

Carl's visit

So Carl visited for a week last week and it was great fun. It had almost been 5 years since I last saw him-- he had never met Cora or Soren! So it was wonderful. The kids loved having him here. We went to the beach at Galveston, visited NASA Space Center, saw the Huntsville Prison Museum (the "sample" jail cell was the most intriguing for the girls - "They have to go to the bathroom where everyone can see?" Yep.) Here are a couple of pics:


It takes a Duerichen to meddle with the broken stuff. Soren's been trying to work the DVD player...

Soren's Monkey Sounds

While his Uncle Carl visited last week, he taught Soren how to sound like a monkey, so here it is! I wish I could have recorded Carl, too, it's quite brilliant :-)

Cuckoo!

Here is Soren upstaging his sisters while they perform "So Long Farewell" from The Sound of Music. It's their favorite movie lately and they actually sang the whole song with the actions almost all correctly without any direction from us (OK, so I've let them watch it every day for about a week...) I only put the beginning on here because it's kind of long. Notice that Soren chimes in on Cora's second "cuckoo" completely on pitch and rhythm. His subsequent "cuckoo" not so much, but distractingly cute nonetheless. The girls have also been singing the "Do Re Mi" song from the movie as well, totally learning it on their own from watching and mimicking. I have to say here too that I watched the pilot of this new Fox show which will air in the fall, Glee, that has to have been inspired by High School Musical (although I've never seen it), but it's great fun and I showed Isabelle the two musical numbers in it and she asks for it every day and has recruited Cora again to play out the boy part while she is the girl. It reminds me so much of Erin and I when we would make up plays for Family Home Evening or any other time someone would agree to watch us. Anyway, I LOVE it, they are such delights.

Summer!

The girls and boy love the water!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!

So Soren has turned out to be much more of a singer than a talker (isn't there a song about singing before you could talk. Abba! Yes. Well.) So Soren gets a lot of songs from music we play in the house and Kindermusik class, but especially his sisters. It's been awhile since they've both belted "Tomorrow" from Annie, but we were in Walmart a couple of days ago and suddenly Soren starts singing the tune. The words, well, it was more like "Ooh wawa, ooh wawa, I yaya, ooh wawa." But perfectly on pitch. And loud. We got a lot of surprised and delighted stares. It's a trick to get him to do it while I film him, so this is the best I could do....

Red Light Green Light

We had a little "red light, green light" game today after Isabelle and I were comparing what we each did in Kindergarten. I distinctly remember playing it outside our classroom, and Isabelle declares it one of her favorite recess activities. So 30 years and thousands of miles from my beginnings, it's lives on :-) Cora and Soren caught on pretty well too. You might not be able to hear him, but Soren is trying to say "red light."

Birthday girls

We're having two birthday parties together for the girls, the first one was this past weekend and we'll celebrate together with the cousins in a couple of weeks. They were so cute and excited and loved having Auntie Erin there too.

Soren LOVES toothbrushes. And I love making his hair do crazy things :-)

Visit to Utah

I took a little jaunt a couple of weekends ago to visit my good friend Mari! I hadn't met her daughter Eliza yet (Mari's first) and was so happy to see my dear friend be a mother finally. This picture is when we had lunch with Minnette, another old friend and her youngest daughter. I'm a giant, I know. And I felt naked without any of my children attached to me either. This other picture is another reason why I went to Utah, to take in the mountain air and view! Sigh...