She's Hilarious!

One of our favorite things we've found about raising kids is just learning who they are as individuals. Hannah and Cailyn are so much fun and interesting. In so many ways, they're polar opposites, but they're also similar at the same time. Lately, one thing that's really been coming out in both girls is their sense of humor. Hannah is in school and we can tell that she's developing a social sense of humor and likes to joke around with her friends and with us. Cailyn though, her humor is a little more under the surface if that makes sense. Well, Jen was talking with her the other day and realized that she does impressions! Well, she does ONE impression - of her daddy. So, Jen pulled out the camera and got this footage of "Daddy speak." Enjoy!

Sunsets

The other night, me and the girls and a friend went for a walk at about 4:30. Here at that time of day and this time of year, means sunsets. We're living in the middle of short days and darkness, but when we do get the chance to see the sun, it's pretty amazing. Here's a couple of shots of the sun setting over the bay.

More Fall Colors

As we're moving into the winter time, the sky is growing very dark. Here, it's fully dark by 5:15, and over the next few weeks, that will get a little earlier even still. From our last post, you read that our favorite time is Fall. Not because of the impending darkness coming with winter, but because of the colors and beauty that is found. Plus, it holds the promise of rejuvenation that only comes from going through darkness. Here's a few pics from our trip to Colorado last fall. A couple of these may have been posted before, but they're worth seeing again if they were! Enjoy!

Fall Colors

There's a consensus around our house that Fall is our favorite time of year because of how beautiful it is! Of course the other seasons are great too, but Fall is the best. The colors produced by falling leaves, the coolness of the air and the stillness that seems to come over life after crazy summers is great. Jen took this picture a couple weeks ago when she was out with one of our groups.

Candles

We were in the Cologne Cathedral recently and inside there were many candle set-ups, as you could imagine being a Catholic church. There's always something beautiful about candles I think...

Torrential Downpours

So, we had an interesting event the other day: It was the middle of the afternoon around the house. I was busy in the office doing some paperwork, Jen was doing some things around the house, Hannah was playing Indiana Jones on the Xbox (she loves that game!), and Cailyn was napping. When Jen decided that she needed to go to the store, I thought, "No problem!", so she leaves. within just a couple minutes, I hear Cailyn in the room right above the office starting to wake up. She sounds like something's wrong, which usually means that she's really ready to be out of her room. So, I send Hannah up to open her door, simply because that's usually all she needs and she loves it when Hannah gets her up from nap. The next thing I hear is Hannah coming down to tell me, "Daddy, Cailyn pottied in her bed," and she returns to the Xbox. (We'll hear from her later.) So I'm thinking to myself, "uh oh." Apparently my idea of letting Cailyn sleep without her trousers on was a bad idea because apparently she decided she didn't need her nappy either. And of course, there was a pool in her bed. Oh well...this stuff happens, and it's a part of her starting to potty-train, so I set out to take care of it. We have a little potty-trainer seat on the toilet, so I'm thinking she needs to get on that and make sure she's finished. Thinking she's ok doing that, I proceed to get sheets off the bed and find out what else was taken out with the mess. At this point, I hear Hannah cry out, "Oh no!" and then her feet patter into the bathroom downstairs. Since I have a load of sheets already, I decide to take them down and see what's going on with Hannah. Turns out the pee signal was still blaring in the house and Hannah had wet her pants while playing Xbox. Man...this just keeps getting better!! Well, in the mean time, I hear Cailyn starting to freak out upstairs, so I run back up there to see her now standing in the bathroom in the middle of another pool of pee just paranoid about the whole situation. To make matters worse, she now realizes that she was supposed to be on the toilet and turns to run the 5 feet to get on the toilet. The only problem was that she wasn't only standing on a tile floor, there was a plastic bag on the floor where she chose to pee. Inevitably, her first step was right on the bag. This made her foot slide right out from under her, and she fell back, landing right on her head. So, now she's laying in her own pee, freaking out and hurt. The poor girl! I picked her up, cleaned her up and put on a fresh nappy and some clean clothes while Hannah too got the same treatment, minus the nappy of course. All calmed down, sheets were ready to be washed, and life was normal again...for those 10 minutes, life was pretty crazy!! Life with kids...never a dull moment!

Thatched Cottage

Jen took this shot of a thatched cottage.