On the Side...

We just added and changed a couple of things on our sidebar! Our Canine Cousin Otto now has his own website - and we linked Aunt Debbie's name to it. Check out Aunt Debbie's new and improved link or click the Lucky Otto button on the side!

Coming Right Up!

We always put lots of pictures on here, and we've heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Tonight, though, we have to share some of the words that you can't put in a picture. :)

One of our new favorite toys (as posted below) is our play kitchen! We put shoe laces in pans and call them noodles and constantly bring anybody who is in the vicinity cups and plates and bowls of food and drinks. Some of our specialties are dumplings, hot cocoa, and tea. We like to bring cups to everyone and say, "Cuppa tea!" Mommy thinks we are ready to go work for Martin and Patrice! One of our new phrases is, "Coming right up!" We like to surprise Mommy and Daddy with things that we know like that. It's especially funny when they can't figure out where we learned those sayings. :)

Mommy decided the other day that we are really smart. We were fighting over a toy (not the smart thing) and she told us, "Somebody needs to go play in the kitchen or Daddy is going to take that away." My (Jonathan) innocent answer was, "Daddy go play in the kitchen!"

We love playing outside, but it's been rainy so we've been stuck indoors. One of our new toys is an outdoor slide that is inside because of the weather. Mommy asked me (Jonathan) if I liked it. I told her no. Mommy asked what we should do with it, and I told her we should take it outside! She saw right through my plan, but I think I almost had her!

We don't get time-outs very often, but sometime Daddy and Mommy make us do them. Once in a while they'll give us an option of doing what they say or having a time-out. Sometimes we just choose time-out. What's even more confusing for Daddy and Mommy is when we give ourselves time-outs. Every so often we'll just go and sit in the corner and wait for them. I (Josiah) prefer to offer up suggestions for when my brother needs a time-out. Daddy and Mommy don't generally take my advice (yet)...

Well, it's late and we should be in bed. Mommy and Daddy don't like it when we sneak into the den and get on the computer. We tried sending some of their files via e-mail once. We've also tried getting information from Ford. They're amazed at our intelligence. Just wait til they see what we really have in store for them!

Love,
J and J

One more thing that we forgot to add last night...

We love to eat! At the end of our meal we always ask for dessert - sometimes at the beginning, too. :) Mommy always gives us options for dessert. Lately it's been oranges (cuties), cookies, or ice cream. She always expects us to say ice cream, so we always choose Oranges! We love our fruit! The newest thing is to ask for more dessert after we've had our first dessert. Sometimes we just go down the line...after we eat our fruit we ask for cookies. If that doesn't work we ask for ice cream. If that doesn't work we ask for a bowl (to put the ice cream in). Eventually we'll get what we want, right?!

Funny Reindeer

That's what we say when we see this picture, "FUNNY REINDEER!!!!" We just want you to know that we're not genetically related to these two...Mommy was adopted. We really hope that nature rules over nurture. Anyway, here is a picture of Papa and Uncle Larry. Do you think this should be next year's Christmas card?!

Christmas Night

We did our traditional Christmas dinner at Uncle Larry's house. There was so much good food there, and of course friends and family. We got these fun kaleidoscopes, which ended up being some of our favorite toys that night!

We love Christmas!!

Party of 900, Please

On Christmas Day Daddy and Mommy were part of planning a Christmas Dinner for those who didn't have any place to go. We stayed home with Aunt Mary, Grandma and Grandpa Chang, but Mommy brought these pictures for us to see what they did. They served over 600 people, plus had around 300 volunteers. That's a lot of people! Our friends in the food serving line:

More of our friends with things to give away to the guests:

Greeters...and Andy

Valerie, Kris, and Sam

Miss Rochel

Kris with our friends Madalyn and Joe Daddy and Mommy with John, Rochel, Madalyn, and Joe

It was a super busy day for Daddy and Mommy, but they said it was well worth it. They did miss us, though. Maybe next year we'll be old enough to help, too!

Christmas Morning

Christmas this year was so much fun! We got to give presents away to our friends and family, and they gave us stuff, too! We really loved opening our gifts - and each of us in our own way. I (Jonathan) was meticulous and very clean about it. Josiah, on the other hand, just ripped into everything! Here are some pictures of us from Christmas morning: An empty box?!
No, the present was in the tissue paper! It's Curious George!

"I've got mail!"

What's in this one?

Look, an ornament! I know what to do with that!

Ornaments go on the Christmas Tree:

This one is huge!

We love playing in our new kitchen!

You can't tell the extent from these pictures, but we got spoiled by our family this year. We love it, but hope you'll remember that the best thing about Christmas is Baby Jesus! Hope you had a Merry Christmas, too!!

Finishing the Job

These are pictures of us finishing the job we started the night before. The cookies that we helped Mommy mix up had to sit in the refrigerator overnight. Then we took the dough to Nanny's house and helped her and Grandma Sharon roll them in powdered sugar, put them on the pans, and bake them! We had lots of fun and hope we get to do it again soon!

Here is Grandma Sharon helping Josiah: Check out the powdered sugar in Jonathan's lap!

Here's Josiah helping himself:

There was powdered sugar EVERYWHERE!!

Here we are helping Nanny lick the beaters after making another batch of cookie dough:

Helping Mommy

We got to help Mommy make the cookie dough for another kind of cookie for Christmas. These were chocolate cookies! We counted the number of cups of things that went into the cookies. It was lots of fun and we were very good helpers. Every time Mommy turned off the mixer we'd ask if she was all done. When she finally said yes, we asked very politely and not at all eagerly to, "LICK!!" Here are the pictures of us enjoying the fruits of our labor:

Haircut Day!

We got hair cuts before Christmas so that we could look extra cute. Of course, Mommy wanted to take pictures. Here are some she took, and some that we took!!

First, Mommy and Jonathan:Then Mommy and Josiah:Jonathan:Josiah in the back, "No more pictures, please!"

Josiah, "Fine, then I'll make a face."
J and J, "You really think we look alike?"

It's our doggie, Chloe!

Jonathan, "I don't know where Josiah is..."

Action shot:

Josiah, "Ok, I'll smile once more!"
Jonathan, "Yeah, I'm cute."

Josiah, "I told you I was done with pictures."Josiah, "Say Cheese, Jonathan!"

Jonathan, "Now it's your turn, Josiah. Why won't you smile?"

Our Second Public Appearance

Here is the second try at singing in public. We did much better this time, right?! (Josiah is on the left, Jonathan on the right.)

Our First Concert

Here is a video of our first public concert. It was much different than our private, in home concert we gave a few days prior. Hope you enjoy...and no, the screaming isn't us - it's the girl next to us. :)

Not So Silent Night

Today we put on a concert for Mommy, Daddy, and Aunt Mary. The first video is us singing Away in a manger. We think it will be the most rousing version of that song you've ever heard!

This video is us singing Jingle Bells:

It's Officially Christmas!

This year we got to help with decorating the Christmas Cookies! It was so much fun!!! We were really good at shaking the sugars onto the cookies. We made some beautiful creations. If you're in the neighborhood, we may even share them with you. Here is a picture of the process:

Taste testing for quality assurance:

Clean up:

The finished product:

The cookies are not only pretty, they're really yummy! Thanks, Nanny and Papa for helping us decorate today!

That's It?!

The other day Mommy made four batches of cut-out cookies. This is what it looked like when she was finished:

Mommy thinks it doesn't look like a lot - Daddy put them in stacks of 10, so there are more than it seems.

On a side note: There were complaints last year about only having circles. Mommy told them to file a formal written complaint to the Cookie Making Committee and they'd take other shapes into consideration this year. No written complaints were filed, and no other staff was added to the kitchen this year. Therefore, there were no changes in shapes, quantities, or flavorings this year. If there are any issues you would like to take up with the management this year, please use the aforementioned system to file your complaint.