A "first" for Brielle, John, & Tim

We rode the 4th Street Elevator in early November.

It's one of the shortest & steepest railroads in the world.

You pull this cord when you're ready to go...

We had this car all to ourselves.

Here is the view from the top:

You can see the Julien Dubuque bridge off to the right side.

Brielle enjoyed the ride back down, and was proud that she sat all by herself :).

"Birthday"

There have been several October & November family birthdays to inspire John... and playtime at Becky's where they pretend to blow out candles. He likes to stack 2 things on top of each other and say "birthday" or "birthday cake"

when Brielle first met her puppy

This shows when she saw her puppy for the very first time :)

Then after a few minutes, I asked her this...

Look how proud & excited she is :)

She has been giving her puppy lots of TLC over the past week: making sure he has a soft place to sleep, covering him with blankets, petting him, telling us all "shhhhh, don't wake him up..."

...and by turning off the lights so he can keep sleeping!

Everyone's been saying we should get one...

one more photo from Halloween

In case you are wondering if John is really strong enough to carry a pumpkin like that... it's an artificial pumpkin :)

When you leave them alone for awhile :)

A couple of weeks ago, Tim brought some seed corn home and filled this plastic pool. When Brielle & John got home, it didn't take them long to discover it! I was getting dinner ready and hearing a LOT of laughter from both of them, so I went into the garage and was surprised to see how much of the garage was covered :). So fun for them!

Happy Halloween

We had our annual family Halloween party this year on Halloween night. There were a lot of creative costumes! After trick-or-treating, everyone came over to our house for food & games. As always, Tim did a great job with the execution of the games. The games included "land-air-water", "ghost catcher" and "the assembly of marshmallow shooters." For that last game, the kids had to first go outside with headlamps to gather their color-coded PVC pipes. Then they raced back in to bring them to the 2 adults that were on their team. One adult on each team (Bob, Donny, & Jolene) had the directions on how to assemble the marshmallow shooter. They had to explain to their blindfolded spouses (Becky, Stacy, & Terry)--without touching them or the pieces-- how to correctly assemble the shooter. It was fun to watch the teamwork and the competitiveness! Then they tried out their marshmallow shooting skills on each other.

Here are a few photos of Brielle & John:

Our family costume theme was the 4 seasons: spring, winter, summer, autumn.

Grandma & Grandpa B and the 16 grandkids:

Pierce & Brielle

credit to Becky for the cute photos :) !

Little rocker

"I thought this was a rocking chair..."

"That's me.... a boy"

We showed this photo of Tim at age 5 to Brielle for the first time a couple of days ago, and our conversation went like this:

K: "Brielle, do you know who this is a picture of?

B: "That's a boy............ that's me, a boy."

We were all in the kitchen, and I looked at Tim quick as to ask "Did she just say what I think she said?" And it was confirmed. He heard the same thing. We thought it was pretty neat that she saw the resemblance herself!

I like the waaay he moves... da da da...

Becky shared this video of John with us!

And here's one from dinner tonight:

New headband

Brielle has been wearing her new lucy headband from Jenny a lot lately. Most often this is how she looks:

Her mom is definitely jealous because she really likes clothing from the lucy store and it sure is a cute headband! Maybe if she asks really nice, Brielle will let her borrow it once in awhile.

AND she wouldn't let me fix the way it was pushing on her ear. I tucked her ear under the headband and she said something like "No Mommy, don't do that. Want it like this" as she pulled her ear right back out. Which is okay by me, and not worth any attempt at changing her mind, I just thought it didn't look very comfortable!

Sisters

I've got 2 wonderful sisters, who were both in town last weekend. It was fun to be together for a few days. Brielle & John loved the extra attention and playtime. When we've gone to my parents' house since last weekend, Brielle asks, "Where's Jenny & Jef? Where's Alexia?"

Thanks for making the trip, Jenny & Alexia!

Little man

There's something about this shirt that makes him look older :)!

Buddies :)

I love "spaghetti faces"

Not sure how he learned to eat like this!

Hear him say "cheeese" for the camera?

What goes up...

"balloon, balloon, balloon, balloon!"

More photos from the zoo

Just a few more photos from the zoo that we went to a couple of weeks ago.

You know it was a good day at the zoo when they both sleep for the 1 hour drive home!

Lorikeet Landing

We had fun at the zoo last weekend. It was a gorgeous day, and the kids were so interested in all of the animals. Brielle walked through most of the zoo by herself, and learned about some new animals, such as emus, porcupines, and panthers. This part of the zoo was called "Lorikeet Landing." As the pictures will show, it sure lived up to its name for John!

For $1.00, you can buy a cup of nectar for the Lorikeets--- who will quickly find you as you enter their area.

The cup of nectar will last about 5-10 minutes, depending on the number of birds drinking from it.

These lorikeets definitely aren't shy :)

John was looking around to find out who was tapping his head.

"I think I know how to solve this problem..."

I love the look on his face in this one... as if he's thinking "Whew, whatever was on my head, bye bye, all gone" :)