Dinosarumpus

One of Matthew's favorite books recently is a book called "Dinosarumpus." It's a long poem about dinosaurs dancing and making noise. The poem is really long, but Matthew has such a great memory that he almost has the whole thing down. He told the story to everyone in San Jose at Thanksgiving, and he gave the encore performance tonight at the Goodwin family dinner. We had to capture it on video to share with everyone. We missed the very beginning of his performance, but you get the picture.

Here are the real words to the poem so you can follow his craziness:

There's a quake and a quiver and a rumbling around.
It makes you shiver. It's a thundery sound.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.

Donk! Donk! Donk! Here's Triceratops
jumping up and down doing dinosaur hops.
He wears three horns on his big, bony head,
and blunders along with a Bomp! Bomp! tread.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.

Watch out for Deinosuchus with her snip-snap grin,
as she perches on her tail and twists in a spin.

Apatosaurus stops for a slushy, mushy snack.
His tail starts swinging with a Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.

Pteranodon dives with a swift, sharp swoop.
He shrieks out an Eeeeek! as he swirls in a loop.

Stegosaurus stomps along with lots of her playmates.
Clatter! Clatter! Clatter! go their bony back plates.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.

Styracosaurus shakes his collar and his spikes.
Rattle! Rattle! Rattle! is the noise that he likes.

A pack of Deinonychuses go running by fast
with a Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! so they won't be the last.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming. Get ready to romp.

Donk! Bomp! Snip-Snap! Twist! Thwack! Eeeeek!
Clatter! Rattle! Zoom! Zoom! Come and take a peek.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
Everybody's doing the dinosaur romp.

Roar! Roar! Roar! What's making that sound?
The dinosaurs stop and there's silence around.
Roar! Roar! Roar! Now we're shivering with fright.
What can make a sound like that in the night?

Tyrannosaurus crashes in, gnashing his jaws.
Wallop on the ground go his big back claws.
He's huge and he's heavy, but all he wants to do...
is join in the romp, so why don't you?

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
Everybody's doing the dinosaur romp.

Get romping with T-Rex and Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Wave your arms madly, make your feet go Bomp!

The dinosaurs won't scratch us, or bite us, or thump us.
The just want to holler up a...dinosaurumpus!

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
Everybody's doing the dinosaur romp.

A dinosaurumpus gives a sizzle and a zing!
It makes you want to shout, jump, jiggle, and sing.

Shake, shake, shudder near the sludgy old swamp.
Everybody's doing the dinosaur romp.

But soon all the rompers grow sleepy and slow.
The rumpus calms down and the sound drops low.
The rompers drift together and tumble in a heap...
till finally the dinosaurs are all fast asleep.

And now the only noise in the deep of the night is...
dinosaur-snoring till the next day's light.

Speed Racer

One of Matthew's favorite things to do at Grammy's house is to drive the electric, kid-size Jeep that they bought for the grandkids. Matthew especially loves that it is red (his favorite color). These are some of the many pictures we got of him driving.


The last time we were out in San Jose, Matthew had a tough time controlling the car. Stepping on the pedal and steering the wheel at the same time was tough to master. He had a lot more success this time, although he still has some driving skills to master--we're not handing over the car keys any time soon.

Thanksgiving

We just got back from San Jose for Thanksgiving. Julie and the boys flew down last Saturday and spent a whole week there. Jon worked the first part of the week and came down Wednesday afternoon. The week seemed to fly by so fast; it's hard to believe that we are already back in Seattle.

This week was our first chance to meet cousin Lilly. She is just 11 days old than Seth, so they are just about the same ago. Julie found some "Baby's 1st Thanksgiving" outfits for them to wear. They were cute as twins. While we were taking pictures, Seth kept trying to grab Lilly's hand.



Matthew had a blast with Heidi and Grammy. He loves playing with them, goofing off, and showing off for them. Heidi even slept on the couch so that Matthew could use her bed. He felt like such a big boy getting to sleep in her bedroom all by himself. Matthew and Grammy made a gingerbread train together. We didn't get very many pictures of Matthew playing, but we did get some of him with their train before he ate it.



We had all of the family there, except for David, Kim and Molly. Jon tried to get Matthew to make a video for Molly, but it didn't turn out the greatest.

Even though the video didn't turn out the greatest, we hope David, Kim and Molly know that we're sad that our schedules are off this year (we were in SJ for Thanksgiving and they will be there for Christmas). Hopefully we can work something out to get them together.

We hope everyone you all had a good Thanksgiving and were able to enjoy time with friends and family.

Matthew and Madeline

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but I've borrowed the Twilight series from my friend Kimberlee and every free minute has been spent reading. I need to finish it so I can get on with my life. Hopefully I'll eventually write the post that I've been thinking about. But, in the meantime, I thought I'd share this little story with you about Matthew and his "girlfriend" Madeline. I didn't hear it first hand so I don't feel qualified to write about it but you can read the story here.

Look at Me and My Crafty Self

After Halloween was over I was quick to remove the Halloween decorations from the front door. I didn't want to be looking at them in December, like last year. Our Halloween decorations were so plentiful (thanks to Jon's mom), that our door was looking so bare after I took them down. In the past we left our pumpkins out past Halloween and eventually made them into pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie, but since Jon and I are dieting, that didn't seem like a good option. (I do realize that you can make things out of pumpkin that aren't bad for you, but those options don't seem worth the effort.) So I decided to decorate our pumpkins as turkeys for Thanksgiving. I wanted to do some sort of decoration that Matthew could participate in and that we could do for family night, so I decided that we would write something that we were thankful for on each of the feathers. We made the feathers out of foamie sheets, adhered them to popsicle sticks, and stick them into the pumpkin. I thought that they turned out pretty cute. To top it off, while we were picking up the craft supplies for the turkeys we found this adorable wreath for 70% off. Apparently, when they put the Halloween stuff on sale they also put the Thanksgiving stuff on sale too. Hooray!

Halloween Festivities

We celebrated Halloween in several ways these last couple of weeks. We decorated cookies, went trunk-or-treating, and went to the animal farm. Last Thursday Matthew's preschool class had a little Halloween party and costume parade. On Halloween we made a trip to the Seattle Childrens Museum where Matthew went on another parade (okay, he actually didn't end up parading, but we attempted) and decorated another cookie. After a nap, we headed up to my parents where Matthew and Grandpa carved a pumpkin and we trick-or-treated around the neighborhood. The boys and I then headed home to stop by some of our own neighbors' houses. I'm thankful that Halloween is done . . . on to THANKSGIVING!