Cottonseed fun

The other day the kids were having a ton of fun playing in the cottonseed. Its a favorite thing to do after 4pm when the feeder is finished for the day. Dylan came in the house to ask me to come see his new trick. I went with expecting to watch him do a sommersault or a flip down the cottonseed. Needless to say I was surprised to see this:

We also went to Ripon Christian's version of the Harvest Festival, I don't remember what they call it, but just like Dave and I remembering doing we came home with a goldfish. After a day or two of sitting on the counter without any food we decided it was time to let it be "free." So Dave and Dylan brought it to the water trough. The next day Dave couldn't find the fish, so off to Pet Smart we went to buy it 10 "friends." Yesterday the kids and I took a walk out on the dairy and decided to look for the fish in the trough. We found only four and the kids did not even realize that over half of the fish were missing!!

I don't know how I got two copies of the same pic, sorry!!We could hardly get the kids to go to bed that night. All they wanted to do was watch the fish swim around.

Dave's Triathalon

As some of you may know, the first weekend of the month Dave did a sprint triathalon in San Diego. He had to swim 1/2 a mile, bike 9 miles and then run 3 miles. He did it all in 1 1/2 hours. Not bad for someone who 10 months ago could barely walk to the bathroom without getting very short of breath!! God's amazing power sure has been seen here!! Dave even said that he would maybe do it again. I was waiting for pics of him doing it to post the blog. But since the kids and I didn't go, I don't know when I will get the pics. We saw pictures of him doing it on the website and then the kids wanted to dress up like dad did. They "swam" all over the house for a few days after the triathalon.

Soccer

Dylan is about halfway through his soccer season now, and I finally remembered to take my camera along. He is the one in the red shorts. He thought it was funny that those "other boys" had to wear purple! He enjoys it very much and is constantly asking if it is time for his soccer game or practice. The last two years he played indoors, so it it really nice to be outdoors and see "real soccer" being played. Needless to say David and Dayna will wait until they are five to start soccer, so they too can play outside. Goalie, apparently is every kids' favorite position to play at this age. The kids argue over who's turn it is. We can't forget Dylan's biggest supporters. They go to every game and have missed only one practice.

Our corn garden

Dave and Dylan thought it would be fun to plant corn this summer in our backyard. We have an area in the backyard that has no grass because the sprinklers do not reach it, so they thought that would be a perfect place. Here they are planting their corn. David decided that he would help out. We ended up with some corn stalks not in rows!! Dayna thought that just carrying the seeds around was fun enough.
Here is Dylan showing us the corn that was just starting to sprout.
Dave said the corn was ready for picking. Dylan grabbed a bag and took off. Here is Dave and Dylan choosing which ear to pick.
Of course, only the most difficult ones to reach are the ones that kids choose!!
The kids ate the corn for dinner that night and they all said it was good. The kids thoroughly enjoyed watching the corn grow in the backyard instead of just the fields. We have been watching the choppers and silage trucks for the past week, we wish our corn was going to be removed from the yard that easily. Dave may not want to do it again after he digs these all out!!

Potty Training

We have decided to start the fun job of potty training the twins. I hate it!! I haven't even started focusing on David. He pretty much goes running to the toilet every time we take his diaper off, but does not tell us he needs to go nor does he go when asked. Dayna on the otherhand occassionally will tell us she needs to go, but does really well when asked. She is a lot like Dylan in the way of they want to know what every bathroom looks like in every store/resturant/house/etc. She will pee before we leave the house and by the time we get wherever she has to go again...sometimes twice. I guess, at least she is going on the toilet. My mom has some how got her convinced of two things. One is big girls go potty on the toilet and only babies go in their diapers...which I agree with. The other is now every time she goes poop on the toilet she gets this huge smile and says, "Now I go shopping with grandma!!" Sorry, mom, you started it and now you owe her lots of trips to the store!! Luckily, unlike Dylan, she still forgets things like that so you are probably off the hook. Speaking of shopping. Dave and I took the little ones to the store this afternoon so Dave could get a valve for the water trough and David was near tears and upset!! He did NOT want to go shopping like girls, he kept saying, "boys go golfing, girls go shopping." At least he stopped when he saw "boy stuff" in the store! Here is a pic that I caught of all the kids working on the potty training idea together! And for once Dylan has his shirt on while going to the bathroom!!

End of Summer...beginning of school

We have been enjoying these last few days of almost 100degree heat. It won' stay warm for too much longer. Almost everyday has been spent at the pool. Dylan has mastered the dive. Dave and Dylan had a competition the yesterday and honestly Dylan won!!

Dylan also had his first day of kindergarten the other day. He loved it. Here is a picture of him with his teacher Mrs. Zuidervaardt (Mrs. Z) on the first day of school. Dylan loves riding the bus. This is his first morning on the bus. He insists on going to the first bus stop option because it has less people there. I think he go overwhelmed the first time having lots of kids he didn't know there and then all of them being much older. Although they would keep their eye out for him because they were his babysitters!! Oh well we will take him where he prefers to go if that keeps him happy about riding the bus and we don't have to bring him all the way in to school!!

jumping on the bandwagon

Well, I've decided to give it a try. Some of you have been asking me to email you pics of the kids and I would love to but we still have dial-up, so it takes quite awhile to send each email out. I figured this would be a simple way of trying to avoid that and I enjoy looking/reading the blogs of people I know. This is a big deal for us to do because it was only a couple of months ago that we figured out what a blog was. It was such a foreign word/concept. Dave likes to remind us of our age and say that we didn't have computers when we were in school!! Speaking of school Dylan started school this past Thursday. He loved it!!! He is now counting down the number of days until he gets to go back. I have been asked if it was sad to drop him off for the first day...it was more sad to see that he didn't even need me there. He walked right into the room, put his backpack into the cubbie, and walked right back outside to go play. No good-bye. No I love you mom. To say the least, I think he was more than ready to go. David and Dayna had a very peaceful day without the ringleader here to instigate things, but they were definately happy to see him again. I have included just some random pics from this summer. We went to Carpinteria with Dave's family the first week of August. The kids loved it!!!(we did too) David was the only one apprehensive about the waves! Thanks Laura for your help with this thing, although it is still obvious it needs some work.