our little artists

drawing big elephants and bananas!

(according to them)

home made play dough

We made homemade play dough with flour, salt, water and food coloring.

Milo and Aki enjoyed the whole process of it.

Look at them!

They were so soft and pretty.

Good job guys.

Then, they played with them and made a huge mess.

just like brothers

For the last two days, Milo and Aki played together pretty well.

They shared toys and they were so nice to each other.

They set up the chairs like the picture below and pretended to ride a train together.

They played with the train set together.

However, of course, this happened too.

They are growing up together just like brothers.

Yuri's birthday

September 29 is my (Yuri's) birthday.

Silas has been in South Africa chasing after wild giraffes 

and being bit by a lion (true story),

so Ayumi and Aki came over for the birthday pajama party.

We made some warm food

and had a simple but delicious dinner. 

Ayumi made this super yummy tofu chocolate pie.

She gave up putting the candle at the number 20,

but the 20 candles were enough...

See?

It looked like a campfire!

Thank you so much!

Also, I got this sweet gift.

Then, we watched ET in front of the fireplace with those boys in their cute pajamas.

This was so my kind of happiness,

I could not ask for anything more :)

Kip's new favorite spot

It's just perfect size for him.

at the Mexican restaurant

Today, we found a local Mexican restaurant/market in St. Johns.

Their food was so delicious but the cage fighting TV show was on their TV.

After Milo stared the TV for a while, he smiled at his mama saying

"they are hugging and saying 'love you' to each other"

(actually they were holding and punching each other...)

Oh, we love our boy!!!

a big see saw

We had so much fun on it!

Milo at his school

trains

Perfect activity for the rainy day.

first fire

All of sudden, it became super cold, so we put the first fire of the season.

School photos

It is still hard for Milo to stay away from his parents and go to school.

However, in the school, he played with his friends and does some art and craft activities.

Here are some photos from his teacher.

swift watch

In Portland, tons of Vaux's Swifts are using Chapman chimney 

as an evening roost during their fall migration,

so many people gather in the neighborhood and observe the birds gathering overhead.

We had wanted to do so for a long time, and finally we made it!

While they were still flying around above the chimney,

a falcon showed up for his dinner and we could watch a live "national geography" incident.

It happened at the dusk, so it was hard to take pictures.

It was just like this:

(the photos are from some websites)

family hike

Our favorite trail at Tryon park was reopened so we went for a family hike.

The leaves have been colored and we felt the arrival of new season.

Milo found some treasures along the trail.

X tree!

From the other side.

Milo made Silas sit on the log with him and pretended fire fighters on the "fire truck,"

ummm... for a while.

This is the photo of the day:

"face full of fall"