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.

Snowing Thanksgiving

Happy Snowy Thanksgiving! We woke up this morning to 2.5" of the white stuff. 

The boys were out about 8:30 am with Grampa building a snowman, having a snowball fight and making snow angels.

They came in for about an hour, but then saw the neighbors having fun outside, so it was back to the coats, snowpants, long underwear, socks, hats, gloves and warm pullovers.

Being the smart mom I am, I had thought this might happen, so I'd put all their wet stuff in the dryer.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. Scott's parents arrived on Thursday morning.

After we ate, some watched the football game, some went on a walk, some took a nap and some were busy surfing the net.

Friday we went to Y. The boys (big and little) burned off some pumpkin pie by climbing on the rocks, playing foosball and air hockey and enjoying a game of basketball.

Then it was off to the "Bee Movie." When we came out of the theater it had started snowing. Adam and Zach were so excited.

Tomorrow we'll "haul out the holly" (Sherry-I know you can't help but sing the rest of line of the song...) and decorate for Christmas.

Trick or Treat! This Hallween, Superman and Batman roamed the streets protecting citizens from evil...oh and collecting mounds of candy while doing it!

Halloween has been the main topic of conversation for the last week. The boys debated endlessly about who was better, Batman or Superman. Superman can fly, but Batman has the Batmobile. Superman can run faster than a locomotive and has x-ray vision, but Batman has cool gadgets on his belt and is techno-savvy. Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne? They are both leaders in the Justice League so it was decided they each have something to offer, and are cool in their own ways.

While we are on the subject...Why is it that EVERYTHING is a competition? I'm constantly hearing "I got dressed on before you", "I washed my hands first", "My picture looks better than yours," "I can write my name better than you," "I got in my seat before you." I'm waiting for them to break out singing "Anything you can do, I can do better; I can do anything better than you." I just googled that song and it's from the Broadway hit Annie Get Your Gun, for those of you who didn't know (Scott). I have a feeling it's only going to get worse.

So back on Halloween, Scott and I were able to attend the preschool parade. Afterwards the parents helped the kids make a couple of crafts. The boys came home with a bunch of candy, like we need any more sugar. Tonight we went trick or treating with our neighbors. In addition to Superman and Batman, we had two Ninja turtles, a sting ray and a shark. After going through our candy and picking out the "good" stuff, the boys enjoyed answering the door when we had trick or treaters. We had to remember who got to hold the bowl last time, to ensure everyone got an equal opportunity to hand out candy.

We are taking a break from sports until after Christmas, when Zach will take tumbling again, and Adam is going to try his hand at basketball.

I guess that's all the news.