Kid updates

Here are a few updates of the various things the kids are up to these days.

• Maggie has been asking to see our attic, since she gets to play in Emma's. We poked our heads up there with a headlamp yesterday. I mentioned that there used to be rats up there, and that the insulation makes you itchy if you touch it. "Those rats must have been really itchy!"
• Went on a fun 2.4 mile hike to Latourell falls yesterday with Rob, Freya, Rowan, Aaron and Silas. Maggie hiked most of the way and chatted with Freya nearly the entire time. Chase hiked about 40% of the way and I carried him the rest of the way. For about 20% of the hike I was carrying Chase in the hiking backpack, Maggie on my shoulders, which is apparently possible.
• Chase is really into Mike Mulligan right now. He likes to complete sentences "more than a hundred men could dig in a week" and "a little faster and a little better" and points to Henry B. Swap and says "That's Henry?" every time he is on the page. 
• With Annie out of town in Reno the past few days, our pre-nap or bedtime reading routine is for Chase and I to sit side by side in the chair in his room and for Maggie to be in my lap, and for us all to be under the blanket. Before we read Mike Mulligan last night, Chase said "Maggie, you love Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel?"
• We did a scavenger hunt on our hike yesterday and when Maggie and Freya couldn't find certain things, like a fish, they took it upon themselves to build or draw one with sticks in the mud so they could check everything off.
• Back at home, we did a treasure hunt in the back yard with Henry and Auggie. When Maggie and Henry found the final treasure (mini marshmallows), they gobbled them all up.
• Chase likes to yell "Goodbye! I love you!" when people leave now. He yelled this to the Wilsons last night.
• Maggie, Chase and I made an apple crisp for dessert last night. They both helped to cut up the apples, and kept eating all the pieces of the apples from the dish after they'd cut them up. They also both wanted drops of lemon juice squirted into their mouths, and said "mmm, not sour!" after tasting the lemon juice.
• Chase riding in the cargo bike with Maggie - "I have a beard but I don't have a shaver. I don't have a shaver to shave my chin." Maggie responds, "You don't shave your chin!"