Time for bed

I love when the boys are all showered and ready for bed, but not yet ready to fall asleep. More often than not we are rushing them to their pillows, knowing they have such an early start in the morning. But tonight, we had a few extra minutes.

We had a great day with swimming lessons (all three are taking them now) and a pleasant dinner. The afternoon snack was a bit of a challenge, though. Joshua is speaking plenty more words now, but it is not always clear still what he is trying to say.

Today, he kept screaming at me, "yenky toms," "yenky toms!!!" "YENKY TOMS!!!" What in the world is that? He continued to get more and more upset because I had no idea what he was talking about, but then Michael, who overheard, matter-of-factly said, "He wants Lucky Charms."

Oh. Lucky Charms.

So I asked him. "Lucky Charms?"

"Yeah. Yucky Charms."

"Yucky Charms?"

"Yeah. Yucky Charms."

Yup. That's what he wanted.

Jason wants more and more Beyblades. That is the toy of the moment. What happened to all the Star Wars, Legos, Bakugan that were the hot toys of yesterday? In the closet.



We think Michael may be onto something musical. He is learning a little bit about drumming from Doug. He certainly is enjoying one-on-one time with us.



Michael is definitely a funny little guy. The most bizarre things make him sit up and take notice. Like tonight, as I was kissing him good night and leaving the room, he says to me, "Good night, sweet woman!"

And good night to you!

Toothless Michael

Michael lost his first tooth last week, Jan. 9th to be exact. And he lost his second one today. The tooth fairy better start saving up. You could say it is about time they started falling out. His permanent teeth have already started to come in, BEHIND where his baby teeth were. In fact, I think they are both almost all in. I just look at his mouth and Jason's mouth and I think, I better start working harder! We'll be paying plenty of visits to the orthodondist!!!



We have been immersed in the winter sports here. For a few weeks after baseball ended and through the holidays, we took a bit of a break. But, new year, new sports! The boys, all of them, are back with swimming. Jason's teacher thinks he would make a good candidate for swim team, Michael is getting so much better and Joshua only screams for five minutes (as opposed to 15) when he is brought to the pool.

School is going well and Jason is adjusting well to his new one. He has an "interview" coming up because his class is opening a "restaurant." We love this school. It is a dessert shop and he wants to be a sous chef. Asked why he chose this job over, say, a manager, and he says, "Well, it doesn't look like managers do anything. I want to do something and I think I can do that as a chef. Managers just sit at their desk all day." Doug (of course a manager) was rolling, as was I.

Happy New Year!!!

It has been a while since I've posted pictures. Our Williamsburg trip seems like it was months ago.

We enjoyed the holidays with loved ones, I believe Santa did a good job this year and oh, yeah, a near-record-breaking snowfall came and went. All in all, we enjoyed a little bit of everything this holiday season...including a white Christmas.



In the last month, we have seen two accumulating snowfalls. This last one, I think we got about 14 inches of the white stuff. It pretty much shut our city down. The kids loved the snow, but were just upset it didn't happen when school was in session!

We loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa over the holiday break, and the boys got a chance to see a new side of Grandpa--on a sled!



Grandpa, Doug, Jason and Michael went sledding and those memories are something our boys won't soon forget. They had a GREAT time!







These pictures do a great job in showing the emotion of the day. Take a closer look at the sled. To be honest, we weren't truly prepared for this snowstorm. We don't even have a shovel. Our trusty spade and a dustpan did the job. So, if we weren't ready with the shovel, why would we be prepared with a sled?

Doug brought some styrofoam sheets to go sledding and from what I understand, a woman took pity on our motley crew and let them borrow her sled.



The snow added to an already magical weekend.



We had the chance to spend Christmas with Amah, Akong and Tim. Grandma and Grandpa came to join us afterward.



This year was so much fun because the kids were so into every part of the holiday. They couldn't wait for the arrival of Santa. They had a million questions about the REINDEER (!) and their path to our house. Here's what it looked like at our house on Christmas Eve. Jason left a pretty elaborate note for the man in Red and the trio made sure to leave a carrot for each of the reindeer.



On a side note, we are starting to call Joshua "the Dumpster." You remember that old Life cereal commercial, "Give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything." That hasn't worked on our Mikey in years. Joshua is another story. He'll try just about anything. Especially if it is sweet.



If you stop by soon, you'll get to catch this sight--a pretty decent snowman put together by Jason and Michael and the girls next door. Not bad, huh?



I'm surprised the boys had any energy. We spent our New Year's Eve at a neighbor's house. And two of the three stayed up to watch the ball drop.



It wasn't Michael. He conked out around 9:30 p.m.



You could say Joshua was the life of the party. Here he is, being passed around to be included in OTHER people's family pictures.




It was a challenging year for many people. We are hoping for better things to come in 2011.

Happy New Year!!!