California in January

Mom and I took the boys to California for a week to visit my grandparents. We didnt' do anything special....just spent time playing inside and going for wagon rides to the playground, weather permitting. It was probably the coldest I've ever seen Redwood City, but it's still warmer than Indiana! :) The boys enjoyed getting to go outside and run around---although they did a lot of running around in the house too. :) Uncle Johnie even made the trip to us (thanks again!) on Sunday and spent a couple hours playing. It was almost like having Papa there to play!

Adam enjoyed being so close to the road to watch traffic go by the house. But the highlight of the week was garabage day. We have garbage trucks in Indiana, too. But not like these! For one, you can't see ours from the house very well. But their garbage man doesn't even have to get out of the fancy trucks. He just uses a robotic arm that reaches out and grabs the garbage cans and dumps them in his truck! So yes, we followed one poor fellow for a good 45 minutes. The boys were facinated. He was slow because people put their trash cans too close so the guy had to keep getting out and moving them apart before he could grab them with his truck. Otherwise we wouldn't have been able to keep up with him. :)

Johnie and the boys

Grandma and Adam


Adam and the cast-iron play kitchen

Uncle Bruce and Alex

Alex watching TV

watching for trucks

driving Grandpa's old truck

Birthday and Christmas

Alex turned 3 a few days before Christmas. It's quite a fun week for the boys since they both get to open presents (Mimi makes sure Adam gets a present or two for Alex's bday). Alex got Lincoln Logs for his birthday, and he loves playing with them. He even hurried to take a bath one night so he could build a house with out little brother ruining it. :)

We drove up to Nappanee for Christmas. The boys opened gifts on Christmas Eve morning (they dont know the difference from one day to the next!) so that Andy's family could all be there. They did pretty good about keeping on task and opening gift after gift. However, when Adam got to a particular present that was a Thomas the Train toy and book, he ignored every other gift. So that was his show stopper. Alex, on the other hand, would have opened everybody's gifts it we'd let him. The things he uses the most are his vacuum, the Nerf guns, kitchen stuff, and tools. I made the boys matching aprons and oven mits. Alex wont cook unless he's wearing the apron. And he calls himself a "cooker" instead of a chef. Alex always wants Adam to wear his apron too, so I put an apron on Adam to humor Alex. But usually Adam just plays with his trucks instead of cooking. :)

On Christmas Eve evening, the Rummel side always has their family get-together.

Adam was just taken with Cailin, who is 3 months old.

He was very interested in the baby and would stare and grin at her for quite a while.

On Christmas day, we made the short trip from Nappanee to Mentone.

At home using the new food and aprons.

The boys were so happy to get home! They really enjoyed their time at both grandparent's, but there's no place like home. :)

Lately, Alex has been saying things like: "I snorted, Mom!" "Dad snorted loud." "I just had little snort." It didn't take too long before I realized his "snort" was really breaking wind. :)