Cole and Grant were having a perfect day in the woods. Running around....
teasing their favorite dumb dogs...
taking each others hats off, and fighting over the water bottle.
Yes, the water bottle - one of their favorite recreational activities. They both drank, and drank, and draaaank.... They drank so much they couldn't be called "crunchers" at all - too soggy for that.
But, they didn't drink it all. Cole insisted on carrying the almost empty bottle in the jogging stroller, while I naively stowed all our equipment underneath them, including...yes, yes I did - the camera. Once home, I found the bottle upside down, in between them. The water trickled down between their ultra waterproof mud pants, (leaving them comfortable and dry) and landed in the compartment below with the less protected and highly sensitive device we cherish. We tried drying it out with the hairdryer (only some condensation was apparent) and cleaned it well. But some tragic memory loss resulted, and and camera doesn't even recognize it's own lens. Horrible. For those sensitive types, you may want to avert you eyes for this next gruesome image.
So, we wasted a whole Saturday frantically trying to replace the lens and going to every overpriced camera shop from our house to downtown Portland, with whiny boys, but no one sells a lens like that - they're all upgrades for close to what we paid for the entire camera. We're not photographing polar bears, here, just boys - and they're fairly easy to get up close to without super zoom. So, we have to order it, pay $120, and we're back to our super slow, super annoying camera for now.
When the crunchers were born they were small. No, really, they were tiny. They could probably have slept in a shoebox. Okay, maybe not one of Ma's shoeboxes (size 7) but probably one of mine (size 12). 
In any case, they didn't sleep in a shoebox at all, they slept in a crib, crossways, side by side. That worked for a couple of months until they began to get too tall to fit crossways in the crib and we started slanting them little by little. It quickly became apparent that we couldn't keep that up much longer, and besides, they were starting to roll around and wake each other up. 
Cole, for some reason, drew the short straw and was displaced into the port-a-crib. In order to keep the boys from waking each other up with their middle of the night cries we moved Cole into the room next door. Eventually even that was too close and Cole was moved again to the spare room downstairs. Finally, everyone was happy. 
But the boys had continued to grow and Cole soon grew a little too tall to be comfortable in the port-a-crib. So we put him on a full size mattress on the floor. This worked but he started having trouble going to sleep. He has never been very good at going to sleep. Ma used to nurse him to sleep but as he nursed less and less it became harder to get him to quiet down and fall asleep. It got worse. Finally, he was taking up to and over an hour to get to sleep, which he would only do if Ma or I were in the completely dark room with him keeping him on the mattress. 
If we didn't he would cry until he was too tired to stay up any longer and even then he would only fall asleep if we were in the room. Maybe, we thought, he just needs the reassurance of another human being in there with him. Perhaps it's time to share a room with Grant again. Last week we started putting Cole in their old crib, which is in the same room as the fire engine bed where Grant sleeps. 
The first couple of nights Cole cried some but when he realized that Grant was there he stopped and went to sleep. The crying kept Grant awake and he would get out of his bed and walk over to the crib to comfort/entertain/tease Cole. Now, Cole rarely cries and, while it sometimes takes a little longer, they entertain each other while on the way to sleep. And they usually wake up giggling.
(Luckily, they were actually clean...this time.)
This photo was taken a few months after I turned one, and a few months before my brother turned three. Cole and Grant are currently in the middle of that age range. 
What do you think?
And where did my mom get those pants my brother and I were wearing? Well, it was the 70's. I suppose they were as common as cargo pants are today. Even Hillary had a pair. The Crunchers, however, are modeling some of Ma's famous handmade rain pants.
I guess this looked more dangerous (and thus more fun) to them. Of course, like the storied bed-jumping monkeys, we have the occasional head bonking, but what's the point of having a head if you can't bonk it?
Don't you have a potato sack layin' around there somewhere? I'll bet you have just the talent (and weight) to be a perfect sack of potatoes. And you have 2 eyes! Plus, you don't have to carry an extra bag for candy, just stuff it all in there with you. The lumpier the better.
Flavonoids? Even if you didn't make that word up, we think Dominoes established clearly that "noids" are bad. Bad for pizza; bad for people. Avoid the noid. And, finally, not addictive? We'd debate you on that one but our mouths are full of M&Ms.
Once you get past the handsomeness of the subjects, the second thing you will notice is that these are one-of-a-kind (well, two-of-a-kind) homemade Jedi Knight robes (and delicious light sabers.) This years' costumes are a closely guarded secret that we only tell people who ask politely. Here's a hint: it involves our favorite activity...DESTRUCTION!
Next, avoid the maze craze. Corn, straw, who knows.... As our Pop says, "Mazes don't impress me much." Good advice from a man who's been lost. Who wants to pay five bucks to get hopelessly confused in the flea ridden straw? Horrifying - that's what is is, and not in a good way.
When choosing a pumpkin, go for something vaguely round and orange, but avoid anything citrus. Really, it's hard to mess this one up if you stick to those guidelines. Of course, it's usually best to choose one that is smaller than you.
So for the past few days, we've been limiting our activities to strictly outdoors. Yesterday we went to the zoo, spent lots of time in the yard, and today we went to the trees. Isn't this a great yard? This should make any moss loving, rain seeking, tree hugging freak want to live here. (That's our way of encouraging friends and family to come to the great NorthWest.)
And although there is a significant increase in slips, falls, bonks, sticks in the eye, etc... it' s pretty hard to do any damage to the landscape. So the point is, they still have to be watched with eagle-like sharpness every second to avoid an even pricier trip to the ER, but at least they're not vandalizing anyone's furniture, equipment, or priceless family heirlooms (I think that's what they're going for next.)
