Missing Daddy and Alexander Beetle

Rowan talkes on the phone to her Dad. These three all miss Rob who is in India. Things move slowly there it took him several weeks to get the pass just to get into the airport. I guess that it would have been faster but the outside contact was on vacation. Rob went to his office convinced the second in command to let him look on his desk for the paperwork. Rob found his paperwork under piles of paper pulled it out and convinced to send it into the inside airport pass approval person. It got there just in time for that person to go on vacation! Anyway he now has his airport pass and is flying. Rowan and Dilly just got up on my lap, one on each knee and they want to blog also. ssdfqwertyyyadc25.023
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This reminds me of when my sister Diane and I were little. We are 15 months apart. When Grandma and Grampe West came to visit from Australia, Diane and I had to sit one on each of Grampe's knees, just like Rowan and Dilly do with me. Grampe would look at Diane and sing, "Beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, beautiful beautiful blue eyes, beautiful beautiful blue eyes, I'll never love brown eyes again." Then he would look at me and sing, " Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes, beautiful beautiful brown eyes, beautiful beautiful brown eyes, I'll never love blue eyes again." I often think of Diane and I when I see Dilly copying everything Rowan does. I copied everything that Diane did and learned everything from her. Thanks Diane! Rowan and Dilly also have a lot of fun together like Diane and I did. qwerrttyy.we are sending a a kkkkiss to dadddy we2 are looking at a beetle . I had a little beetle, Alexander was his name, but Nana put my bedebvcxzzxxcvbnnmmqwertyuiop oouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuvytrewqgubbrytotirvito5tbkk

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Dilly has said a lot of new words today. He probably doubled his speaking vocabulary in an hour period of time. He said, Jum (jump) , lala (lion-pointing to the lion on his onesey), plese (please, after I said say please Nana) and Wow!. He has been saying baba for baby for sometime. Today was the great leap forward for Dilly in speech.

That's Entertainment!

Rowan said, "OK, we are going to have a really great show!" Kirsten said are you on stage! Rowan said, "No, it's my performing arts center". Without even a thought, she began to sing. "There was a skunk up in a twee and everyone said Pee you! There was a smelly skunk up in a twee, everyone say pee you! Smelly skunk in a twee, pee you!" She holds her nose, sticks out her tush and says Pee you. Dilly makes a face and tried to say pee you. We have seen this performance many times the past couple days.
Dilly is like a sponge, soaking up and repeating everything Rowan does. He stands up beside her with his mic singing his little heart out. The tone of his words are the same, you just can't understand many of his words. He's really good saying "dang do" for thank you and will say "Dang do" "Dang do" over and over till you say you're welcome. He wakes Kirsten up in the morning by getting his, Rowan's and his Mom's clothes out of the drawer. He always gets matching clothes for Rowan. He throws the clothes in his Mom's face as if to say get out of bed you sleepy head! He says NaNa (covers both me and a banana). DaDa covers both his Dad and Papa. He loves the birds and says boi for birds and ni ni for night night. He wants to know the word for everything. Points to everything he sees and hears and is very persistent in wanting you to say the word for it. He loves to hug people and cats. Merlin (Moul) is very patient and tolerates hugs and kisses and an occasional tail pull from both Rowan and Dilly. CC is a scardy cat and terrified of the kids because they get so excited and squeel with glee whenever she shows her face. Tonight Rowan went in to talk to CC to tell her that she is not a monster and CC shouldn't be afraid. CC thinks otherwise and scratched Rowan on her face. Rowan cried and thankfully the scratches were very superficial. It was scary all around at the time.
The smelly performance goes on!
And On and on. The skunk up in the orange twee is smelly, pee you!
These are some of their favorite hats, tupperware. I just got rid of most of my tupperware and plastic storage containers because that new study connecting plastic to an increase in diabetes and heart disease. I now have glass pyrex which can be put in the oven, microwave and dishwasher. Over and out for tonight.

Where's the poop deck?

I brought home some brand new bath toys. So decided to do the honors and give the kids their bath. They were so excited. I ran the water, threw the kids in the bath and started to add the toys. I looked down, said, "Uh Oh, who pooped in the tub?" It was Dilly. He forgot where the poop deck is. I pulled both kids out, put Dilly on the toilet and called Kirsten who helped me clean out the tub. Then as we were cleaning, Rowan was tinkling on the potty. She got off and Dilly added insult to injury and peeed on Rowan and the floor! We finally got the tub and kids cleaned off and put them back in the tub. Well, they had a ball as you can see in these pictures.



This is our nightly game of Mexican Train dominoes. We keep a running tab. Who will win each night, who will win in the end.

Faye's Birthday Party

Rowan was so excited when she heard that Faye was coming for dinner and we were going to celebrate her birthday. Rowan discussed it for days before. "Tomorrow is Faye's boithday." "When it's Faye's boithday we will have a cake." "Mom and I are going to make a cake for Faye's boithday!" "First it was my Dad's boithday, now it is Faye's boithday." We are going to have a party for Faye's boithday." These are some pictures from Faye's boithday!
Kirsten made a spice cake from a mix I had up in the cupboard. Well, I think it spent too long on display in my cupboard and lost it's raising power. She took it out and it was about 1" thick. It became spice bars with brown sugar frosting. Kirsten also made fudgie yogurt brownies which are absolutely heavenly. This cake was made by Little Grandma (my Mom) who didn't even know that we were having a boithday celebration (it was over a week after Faye's real boithday). It was orange pound cake which was really good!
See that look on Faye's face, she's really worried that she will be stuck in Rowan's townhouse and have to eat her boithday dinner in there.
Ryan and Kristina

House painters and other daytime activities

Rowan painting her townhouse.

Rowan was very serious about the painting of her house. She wanted white shutters.
Look at that smile. Dilly wanted to paint Rowan's house.
They were covered with so much paint at the end that they had to run around in the grass to dry the paint, then their Mom partially washed them in the outside tub. Then they went inside and had to take a bath with the sewer roaches! Kirsten called up her Dad and said there are long cockroach feelers coming out from the overflow drain in the bathtub. What should I do? He wisely said, wait till Carol gets home she will know what to do. So, the kids took a bath under the watchful feelers of our friendly resident cockroach. Brave, huh. I got home took the overflow drain off, coaxed those evil roaches out and killed 3 large sewer roaches with Kirsten's shoe. We decided to leave their dead bodies for Jules to pick up and throw away because the rule is: if I kill the bug I don't have to pick up the dead body. Now, I don't want you to think that we have roaches running all over the house, this is really a rare situation. My worst roach story took place in 1970 or 71, I was taking a shower in our tiny shower when a roach came out of the drain and crawled up my leg. From then on for years I had to keep one eye on the drain when I showered. This was soon after I saw the movie Psycho for the 1st time, so I had to keep my other eye on the shower door to make sure that psycho wasn't sneaking up on me to kill me in the shower! One eye on the shower door, the other eye on the drain made for very speedy showers in those days. In fact, I showered so fast that I didn't get very clean till I borrowed my Dad's artifical eye, set it outside the bathroom door to guard against Psycho! My second worst roach story took place when I forgot to keep water in the trap of our little used shower. When I finally remembered I had to kill about 8 of the cuties as they ran out of the drain. I jammed my finger that time and it hurt for about 6 weeks!

This is Rowan's Dilly nap time activity each day. She has paper dolls who are triplets called Annie,Betsy and Carrie. She makes beds for each one out of blocks with bedside tables for their bottles and teddy bears. She makes her Mom speak in whispers for an hour while they sleep. They are actually modern paper dolls with magnetic clothes. Dilly knows that he is not supposed to play with them and helps put them away each day when he wakes up.

Fun with the cousins

Looking at these pictures you would think that the 4 boys, Rowan and Dilly are quiet children who build with blocks and play violin when they get together. Well, this is one case when a picture is not worth a thousand words. They used the blocks to build many fine and creative things from barnyards to castles, however they also used them as cross country skis to traverse the slopes of the wood floor. There is constant activity and noise. Their favorite place to get together is at Faye and Javier's house where they have fun fighting with swords and nunchucks. Needless to say Rowan and Dilly are thrilled, impressed and love joining in with the rough and tumble play.
Niko performing on his violin. Nathan lounging in the background.
Niko and Faye showing Rowan how to hold the violin
Rowan carefully trying out the violin
Nathan who plays the cello, trying his hand at the violin

ROWANS 1111ST BLOG

We had to find pine cones and then we made treats for the birds out of pine cones, seeds and peanut butter. Dilly was licking the peanut butter.
This was a sleepover. We were in the black diamond room in Flagstaff. nana took this picture..
we were picking pinnnnnnnnnne conwes.
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Hats, farmers and pilots

Farmer Rowan and Farmer Dylan are very busy working in the garden
Rowan really misses her Dad, Captain MacIntyre

Flagstaff and flowers

We went to this meadow in Flagstaff which has a prairie dog village. We didn't see any prairie dogs because it was mid day, but we saw a lot of beautiful flowers. We took a short walk and Rowan said, "I think it it going to rain, we should hurry back". The sky was very dark and it started to thunder and lightening. We headed back and made it to the car just as it started raining!
Papa and Dilly with matching shirts. Aren't they cute?

Rowan is pointing to the an entrance to the prairie dog village. When we were here before there were lots and lots of prairie dogs. I think I have some pictures of them. I will have to try and find them.
Rowan, Dilly and Tadbit (Rowan's frog friend) lounging in the wildflowers in front of our cabin.

Townhouses and Prayers for Sean's family in Texas

Rowan and Dylan each have a townhouse in the middle of the living room constructed by Kirsten Construction Company. The duplex shares a roof. Rowan was in her house, came out and pushed off the roof. She came over with a serious look on her face and said "It is incredibly dark in there!" The construction company was called back to put in skylights. Speaking of houses, please pray for Sean and the girls (who you see in the Australia pictures in the slide show to the right). They have just moved to Houston, Texas and are fleeing Hurricane Ike. They are heading for Arkansas to wait out the storm with Grandma and Grandpa Romey. We pray for them and all in Hurricane Ike's way. Speaking of prayers, Rowan became sick with a fever as high as 104 and a sore thoat. Her fever is much less today and she is sleeping a lot. Please pray for her quick recovery.

The Stars of the show

Dilly has this little car that both kids love to ride around the house. He loves to push Rowan if she can be convinced to go slow enough. Our house has a circular roadway they use. It starts here at the toy bench, goes through the living room, through the kitchen (which gets wild when we are fixing dinner), down the hall and back to the toy shelf. They have put miles on that little car since they arrived.
Papa and Dilly being silly with Trader Joe's stickers. Speaking of Trader Joe's, that store has kid sized carts that Row and Dilly love. They both get a cart and collect all the groceries. At Fry's they have carts which have little cars attached to the front which both kids can ride in. We can't go to Frys' without getting a car cart. Kirs has it down to a science. She drives up and down the parking lot looking for a car cart, they get out and claim it before someone else gets it. Jules and I went to Frys the other day w/o the kids, both car carts were taken by other families. I was so glad they weren't with us because they would have been heart broken.
Race car driver and the pit crew!
Here's the artist at work.

What a piece of work. Row and picture both masterpieces in purple!