Both boys got new bikes last weekend. Adam is growing out of his little bike, and we thought the excitement of a new bike would encourage Zach to start riding. It did, until a few seconds after getting on his bike, he totally wiped out!

Zach was so anxious to start riding his bike (his has training wheels)…so he pedaled out on the driveway and started to turn, and fell flat on his back. He got really upset and said he didn’t want to go outside “ever again!” and refused to get back on his bike and start riding again.

Adam was a little better, although his new bike is bigger than his old one, so his feet are not flat on the ground when he’s not riding. He crashed a few times too, but in the end, decided that his new bike was “way cooler” than his old one. It even has a HAND BRAKE!

By the early evening, Zach decided he wanted to try again. So this time we went across the street to the sidewalk, so he could get used to riding in a straight line, without having to navigate the turns. He crashed a few more times (one time he said he hit his eye, one time he got his hands wet in the grass, and one time his shoe fell off) and there were plenty of tears, but each time he did get back on and continue riding. By the time we went inside, he said he was riding his bike so fast that FIRE was coming out the back!

I have to get better at updating this blog. Time just gets away from me. We recently took the boys skating for the first time. It took about 20 minutes to go around the rink once, and they were done after that and said they didn’t want to go skating again. We played space invaders and skee ball and then called it a day.

Soccer starts next weekend. Scott is coaching again and we already know everyone on our team. Two are returning from last season, and the others are friends of ours. The boys are excited to get out on the field again…at least they SAY they are. Hopefully having all their friends on the same team won’t be a distraction!

We just finished a six-day game of Monopoly. Each day was about an hour or so of playing. Zach played on Scott’s team and Adam was the banker. They really picked up on buying property and how to count money. It’s amazing what their little brains absorb. One of Zach’s favorite things to do is "type letters’ and "make words" on my laptop. I open a Word document and he chooses a color and font and then sounds out words and types them on the screen. He knows how to backspace, make the letters ALL CAPS and start a new line by pressing enter. He thought it was so cool when I showed him the webdings font and instead of typing letters, he could type pictures! The joys of technology!

We've had a few nice days of 60-70 degree weather. This weekend Adam and Zach had lots of time to play with their friends outside. They climbed trees (our neighbor's tree who then told them they had to get down), rode bikes, played tag and hide and seek and played in the sand. We even grilled out on Sunday night. Tonight after dinner we went to Sedgwick County Park to play until the sun went down.

I've included some of the boys' art this time (I haven't taken any new pictures). I'm a bit concerned about who has been filling Adam's head with images of Jayhawks...as you can see from his picture! He does know who he should root for between KU and K-State, though, so I'm not too worried about it. Zach’s picture is a “picture of our house with our fireplace on in a storm.”

Zach says he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up, and Adam switches between soldier, scientist and artist, depending on what we've been doing or talking about that day. When we talk about space, planets, fish in the ocean, etc, he wants to be a scientist so he will know all the answers to his questions. When we've had a day of coloring, he wants to be an artist. And when they've been playing with their transformers or wearing camouflage, it's the solder he's more interested in!

We’ve been pretty busy since my last post. Our Christmas lasted through Jan. 6 this year as we made a trip up to KC to see Scott’s sister and her fiancé and Scott’s parents. January was a blur as I’ve been pretty busy at work, and the boys started their winter sports. Zach is taking his 2nd tumbling class, an activity that is right up his alley. He gets to climb, hang, and jump! There is even a foam pit that they let the kids run and jump into...I think that is the highlight. Adam is playing basketball and like it a lot. Watching four and five year olds play basketball is pretty amusing. Luckily the ref’s do not call them on a lot of things…it helps keep the game moving.

We made a little overnight trip to Hutchinson and stayed at the Grand Prairie hotel, which has an indoor space-themed waterpark. The boys had a blast...they thought it was so cool, not only the water park, but the fact that we got to spend the night in a hotel! The pool had slides you could go down on inner tubes, fountains, a lazy river and a pool with basketball goals so you could play basketball in the water! The slides were the highlight, but the boys were not tall enough to go by themselves, so Scott and I had to make trip up the stairs with them. I can't tell you how many times we went down, but we finally had to tell them that we had to "rest."

Right now Adam and Zach are playing Hullabaloo, a gift from Grammy and Grandpa at Christmas. I told them I was Hullabalooed-out, because we play it almost everyday. It changes between Uno (a gift from Aunt Lisa and Jason) and Hullabaloo, so if you come to our house, you'll be asked to play one of those games.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope everyone had a great holiday season. The boys enjoyed playing with their cousins and looking at all the Christmas lights. Santa is still a bit scary to them--Adam and Zach wouldn't even look at him when we saw him at the mall.

The Saturday before Christmas we had a huge blizzard…white out conditions. You couldn’t even see the road when driving. So we had the bright idea to go bowling! Actually, we had already planned to go bowling with some friends at a bowling alley on the east side of Wichita (which usually takes about 20 minutes to get to). We decided to brave the weather and headed out. It took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get there, and then nearly two hours to get home! There were cars off the road everywhere! And if you weren’t following the cars in front of you, you had no idea where the road was. It was quite an adventure. Adam and Zach thought it was funny that Scott had to get out a bunch of times and scrape the window and windshield wipers. It’s probably not the smartest thing we have done.

We had two more episodes of snow this month. We went sledding twice and built a couple of snowmen and even a tunnel and fort. I’m ready for it to melt, but the boys keep asking when we’ll get to go sledding again. It’s been really cold here, so we’ve had cabin fever. How much longer until spring?

Zach starts tumbling this month, and Adam will be playing basketball.

The holiday season is in full swing...the tree is up, the lights are outside and the cookies have been baked. We saw Santa at the mall (but no one wanted to stop and say hello) and bought gifts for the Angel Tree. We've even discussed how Santa knows you are asleep...magic, of course. Adam thought maybe he shined a flashlight through the window into your room. Zach's continued fascination with our singing/dancing/annoying snowman singing "Holly Jolly Christmas" just adds to the holiday spirit. And I heard Adam tell Zach "if you keep doing that you're going to get coal in your stocking!"

We've added a new favorite game to our list...monopoly. Not jr. monopoly, regular adult (for ages 8+ is says on the box) monopoly. Two nights last week we played for an hour and a half (that took some patience on my part). We all made it around the board twice. It is actually a great learning game (counting the dots on the dice, identifying letters and numbers on the deeds, and counting money). Scott and I were very surprised it held their attention that long. Adam even got sent to jail! What excitement! It was better than Candy Land, which I can only take in small doses.

Last weekend we went to a glass studio (what were we thinking???) and designed an ornament and then got to watch them make it. But the best part was there was a front end loader in the back where they were blowing the glass. We had to go check it out, which according to Adam and Zach, was much more thrilling than seeing a glass ornament being made.