The Coombs Family

Took my little princess to go see Disney on Ice with my sister and her four girls. It was a pretty cute show and just perfect timing for Shelby. She has been obsessed with Cinderella lately. She is going to be Cinderella for Halloween so we used the costume early. She loved it. Here are some pics with my phone to show her face. She was thrilled. I loved the mommy/daughter bonding night. Dinner at Bridgeport, ice cream afterwards, and lots of giggles.  She danced during a lot of the songs. Luckily our seats were right by the landing so she could have space to twirl her dress around! Her face was so cute when Cinderella came on.

Hard to believe that Shelby just turned four. She has been growing up so fast. Here are some of the new things that she loves to do: She loves to do her homework now (activity books) She can put away some dishes now  She loves to help me cook (noodles, snacks, sandwiches) She is obsessed with counting and is pretty good at adding and subtracting She still hates the alphabet and will rarely even sing the song with me Stays up too late and usually puts on at least 4-5 outfits over her pjs She talks to Calvin like he is a dog. Always yelling "Hee-Hoo, Hee,Hoo" (her own calling for Calvin that she made up She loves to play with her friends and is always asking for them to come over or go to their house We had a party for her and planned some indoor activities since it was suppose to be pouring rain. It turned out to be good weather so we got some pumpkins and ended the night with some carving. Here are some pictures of the activities: ...

Calvin officially hates the English language. He really refuses to repeat sounds, words, or even sign language. I don't know what it is with this kid, but he can totally communicate without a word. Somehow I know whether he wants milk, water, snacks, or food by him saying the word "go" with different tones. He only says about 12 words right now and even some words he used to say, he has since stopped using. For example, he used to say ball, dog, bubbles, and apple. Now he won't. He just looks at you with this shy smile and runs away. His pediatrician referred him to Willamette Education for a test to see if he would qualify for their services. After two hours of testing we learned that he has great hearing, problem solving, cognitive development, socialization, and knows a lot for his age. The evaluators were very impressed. High marks on everything but speech. In order to qualify you have to score between 75-85 in two categories, or below 75 in one. He got a 65 in ...

Caleb and I decided to take the kids to Opal Creek for a hike. It's been a couple of years since we have been out there and it is a very easy hike so the kids could do it on their own. We brought two hiking backpacks for the kids to be carried if they got too tired. Caleb was following a really slow car and he almost ran them off the road. After a lot of yelling he found a side trail that he decided would be better. This way we didn't have to go all the way to the end following the car. He basically found a trail that went straight up the side of a mountain. Not the easy trail we had planned. I didn't bring my asthma inhaler so I was pretty useless. We carried the kids on our back almost the whole time. Shelby had to stop to poop twice. Calvin fell asleep drooling. It was really windy and cold. It took us over two hours to go to what should have been the top. It was so steep that we couldn't even sit down to eat our lunch. All that aside, it was beautiful, and fun...