making us smile :)

Here's how the Barkman boys are making us smile these days.....

- Cody loves to tell us stories. Here's a typical one: "Daddy, do you know what I fink is funny? A crocodile climbed into a tree and then put a peanut in a box and frowed it into the garbage can!" .... followed by a deep, fake and terribly amusing laugh which makes us all laugh, every time. 

- Every morning Makai walks to the fridge, points to the very top where the bananas are shelved and says, "nana" until I'm forced to drop whatever I'm doing and give him way too many deliciously sweet mini bananas. 

- Cody is taking swimming lessons with Tito Leon, who has also successfully taught the rest of the kids in our apartment complex how to swim. Cody's still a little hesitant to put his face under without coaxing, but he can swim the length of the pool by himself with his kick board. Not bad, hey?! Here he is with his swimming buddy, Stu (who happens to be from Vancouver!)...

- Makai loves playing with his "Quiet Book." This gem of a book (from Tante Evelyn- THANK YOU!!!) kept Cody quiet for remarkable lengths of time at this age (great in church- and I'm sure many of my readers helped me find missing pieces between pews!) and the book is now working its magic on Makai.... 45 minutes of non-stop QUIET! Yes please :) Also, notice the curly hair. He's definitely a Bartel boy right?

- Cody's been asking us a lot of questions lately.... Mommy, does Makai have nipples? Ate Reg, did you meet a sea lion? Tito Bryan, what is book (or any other random word) into Tagalog? Mommy, are you a girl? Are you an Ate? Does Uncle Jayco have a jumping motorcycle in Canada?

- We now have two boys addicted to trains, cars, trucks and motorcycles. Whenever Cody plays with his train set, car ramp or just drives a motorcycle or truck around the house, Makai is sure to pick up something with wheels and follow suit, with the appropriate sounds and all. I'm pretty sure, thanks to his big bro, that Makai has gotten into the whole driving scene much quicker than Cody did.

- We went to a great little amusement park in Manila the other week and Cody had the time of his life!  His favourite was riding a kids roller coaster in his very own truck. He thought he was driving it himself :) 

And Makai loved the little playground...

- One day after Ate Sam (our lovely helper two days a week) had watched the boys all day, Darnell and our friend Bryan and I met the kids outside and as I crouched down to say hi to Makai, he walked right past me, then right past Darnell and straight into Tito Bryan's arms. I think that explains how awesome Bryan is with our kids :)

- Largely influenced by his Daddy, Cody is very into cars and motorcycles. His latest love is dirt biking and he is VERY excited to try out the ATVs (or what he likes to call "jumping motorcycles") with us at the cabin this summer. In the meantime, he gets pretty stoked about this type of dirt biking....

- When Cody does something silly/strange that we've never seen before and we ask him where he learned that, the answer is, without fail, "Umm, Papa taught it at me!" And when he gives hugs to his friends, it often starts with, "This hug is from Papa." 

- Cody does yoga once a week. Yup, kids yoga! He loves it... a lot. The first day of the class, he must have said, "Mommy we're doing yoga, mommy. This is yoga!" about 20 times, even when the activities we were doing weren't really yoga at all :)

my friend Shari teaches it... she's great!

I could go on and on. But I'll stop here :) Needless to say, these boys bring us a ton of joy!