Bentley & Steak

Because it is summer time, Daddy & child camp fire trips have been occurring.  Jake?  Jake would like to go out and build a campfire every night.  Viva?  Viva thinks it's fun (although I'm not sure she's gone yet this year - we'll have to work on that!).  Bentley?  Bentley has some issues with camp fires.  Camp fire sounds too much like camping, I guess, even if we promise the tent is not in the car.  Camp fires, he tells us, are too smokey.

Daddy finally figured out how to get Bentley on board with the camp fire fun idea:

Bentley loves steak. Loves it so much he took a picture of dinner, in fact!  Every Sunday night, when we head up the hill for time with Grandma Karen & Grandpa Tim, Bentley asks "is there steak?  where's the steak?!".  He's obsessed.  Not a bad thing since he doesn't eat much else!

Once he learned that steak could be cooked over the campfire, he hopped in the car and headed off to the store and the woods with his Dad.  A happy camper.

That big smile in the picture is for a graham cracker.  Matt tells me Bentley never did decide to try a roasted marshmallow.  His loss, I guess?!

4th Accessories

The kids got a package in the mail from Grandma Vicki, with some flags, fun headware, socks and books to celebrate Independence Day!  Unfortunately the parade was at the same time as church was, so we missed it this year.  We're looking forward to checking it out again next year though (and to hopefully better weather?!).  For today?  The kids modeled their 4th gear, and looked cute doing it.  Even if they didn't all want to look at the camera!

One last Birthday Post...

Everyone's getting "in" on the Ipad fun!  We love this digital art created by Urompa and sent to the twins on their birthday.  :-)

Birthday Blankets

Grandma Vicki sent Viva & Jake some VERY cute blankets she made, for their birthdays!   I'm no good with yarn, so I am doubly impressed with the time and skill it took to make these.  The twins are quite in love with them, they are definitely a big hit.  Aren't they gorgeous?  Thanks again, Grandma Vicki!  The blankets are being carried around/cuddled/well loved!

Look at Them Grow!

3 Year Olds in the Chairs

I had a somewhat delusional (obvious after two separate attempts) idea: how about having another go at twins in chairs, to show how they've grown in the past year?  You would think that older children would be easier to work with, and I'd quickly have a lovely picture to add to my collection... right?

Or not.  Here's a look at the photo shoots with two 3 year olds who have some trouble listening... !

At least they're cute!  In the morning, they were NOT in the mood...

All smiles!  Just wish those hands were in the right position.  I think... lets take a few more, we'll get it, right?!

Oops.  Lost eye contact.  Goofy girl.

Funny face Viva!  And Jake?  He's lost interest.

He's back... with attitude.

Moooom... are we done yet?

REALLY losin' the girl!

I made her fix her dress.  She was a bit irked.  Jake?  Pulls out the big smiles, of course.

This might be as close to perfect as we're going to get, although they do look a bit long suffering... !

And a few more outtakes.  Because I love their expressions!

Look at her goofy grin!  And he's raisin' his hang, saying it's time for a chocolate break...

Double trouble, for sure.

Birthday Fun: Take 2!

Next up?  The actual birthday!

Because Viva & Jake celebrated their birthday on a Saturday this year, I thought it made good sense to start off the morning with the cake & icecream & presents, and then go from there.  Why make 3 year olds wait all day for the fun part if they don't have to, right?!

Viva wanted a pink cake, and Jake... well, Jake kept changing his mind.  Sometimes he wanted a brown, a blue, a red, a blue and red, a pink, a black... he just couldn't decide.  The day before the birthday he seemed pretty settled on black though.  So I decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately... black is hard!  I bought black powder, and started with a dark chocolate cake base, but was leery after I read the label on the food coloring that warned of permanent stain to teeth/skin if too much dye was used.  So I tossed that plan, and decided to just go for dark brown.  The 3 year old didn't seem to notice... or maybe he was distracted by the peanut butter cups on top of the cake?  Either way it worked!

We enjoyed our cake for breakfast, and then moved on to presents.  Then, of course, time was spent playing with the new presents!  After nap time we took the kids out to see Toy Story 3 - our first family movie with the 5 of us!  Popcorn and candy galore, of course.  The kids were all VERY good and enjoyed it, it was a fun way to end the evening!

3 monkeys:

The birthday girl (in her new birthday dress, isn't she cute?!  too bad it wasn't WARM so she could go with one of the warm weather models... ah well!):

P.S. - more pictures to come when the other 2 camera cards get uploaded!

I can't believe Viva & Jake are 3.  Or maybe I can.  Sometimes they certainly act like 3 year olds.... :-)  However they act, of course, we are so lucky to have such precious children to celebrate!

Birthday Fun: Take 1!

The twins are 3, it's crazy!

On Friday night, the 25th, we headed up the hill to have a birthday evening with Grandpa Tim, Grandma Karen, Tyler, and Un.  G&G were heading out of town early Saturday morning, so we figured we'd kick off the birthday weekend early and celebrate with them!

We had some good meat (always a highlight with the kids), and watched one of their new birthday gifts - 101 Dalmations!  A fun evening, I only wish I'd remembered to actually put the recharged camera battery back INTO the camera before heading up for the evening.  I got one picture and the camera died.  Oops... !

More of Bentley's Art

last week during Sacrament meeting, Bentley drew this picture with colored pencils:

Nice, right?!  He tells us it's the Old Lady who swallowed the fly.

And here's a more abstract picture, another masterpiece from the Ipad:

Good-bye Twos :-(

No more two year olds. Today is the last day we will have two year olds in the house. It's sad. Two year olds are delightful. They are excited about each new day and have lots of good ideas about what to do. They have awesome vocabularies and pick up new words with incredible ease. They like to cuddle and hug. They like to be read to. They like to be the center of attention. They like to help (sometimes).

I know Jake and Viva will be great three year olds, but I'm still going miss the two year olds.

Here the twosome is in the last hours of their twodom:






F.Y.I. In these photos Jake looks significantly taller than Viva. That's not the case. Usually they look very close to the same height with Jake just a little taller. During this photo shoot Jake had his hair spiked (giving him additional height) and Viva was slouching a little.

Two Monkeys and a Cheetah

Mark and I took the grandchildren to the playground this evening. As usual Bentley ran the entire way there (a half mile), Jake struggled to keep up with his big brother (his running form needs help), and Viva rode in Bob (no sense in wasting energy!). When we got to the playground, Bentley asked to detour to the high school track and do two laps. He hit the track running and was soon a quarter track ahead of Jake, who was trying to keep up. Viva, to give her credit, did climb out of Bob and put her little feet on the track, but she lost interest in the enterprise after twenty steps. Unfortunately for her, the rest of us had moved on and she had to do almost a half lap (under much protest) to rejoin us. Bentley did a lap and started on his second. He was distracted then by Viva (3/8 of a lap completed) and Jake (5/8 of a lap completed) leaving the track. He cut his proposed run short and rejoined the group. He didn't complete two laps on the track, but he did the equivalent distance by the time we got back to the playground.

The little ones then demonstrated their monkey talents. All three of them love to climb, love to slide, and love to swing. They are ready for the jungle.