A New Game!

The boys have made up a new game this week. I'm not sure what their official name for it is, but I like to call it "clean up!" How the game works is the boys dump out either their tub of Thomas tracks, or their box of toys, then they put it all back into the box. Doesn't that sound like fun?

They play this game over, and over, and over (as you can see by these two pictures as the tracks are piled in two different spots, meaning they've done this a number of times in this one sitting). Sometimes the switch it up a little by putting the box in a different part of the room so they have to walk from where the toys were dumped to where the box is.

As you can see by this next picture, it's a game that doesn't really get old either. It can be played all day long (in the first two pictures Deacon was in his jammies showing off his "Rico Suave top button unbuttoned" look, in the last one, he's in his clothes for the day). Or, as is more often the case, it can be played at any time of day for any amount of time. You can always stop once all the toys are in the box, then play again later on.

It can also be a solo activity, but it's usually more fun when they're both playing together. Now we play it every day before they go to bed. It's wonderful.

Dodge This!

That's what Josh yelled at this teeny, tiny, 12 year-old girl today, as he wailed a ball directly at her during the dodgeball tournament our church's youth group held today. I think the ball left a bruise on her back. There might have been tears. It was hard to tell in the flurry of the game. When asked about the incident later on Josh said, "Hey, she had it coming. She was mocking my age."

Okay, that's not really how today went down. Our church's youth group did hold a dodgeball tournament today. Each person who played gave $10 to do so, all proceeds going to an orphanage in the Congo. Once there, you could also buy t-shirts and/or refreshments. It was a pretty sweet set-up. Two guys from his work (one being Matt, who had us over for Thanksgiving dinner, and one being one of the other guys from dinner) played too. The boys and I went out to watch for a little bit. We got to see them play one game. Then Zeke had had enough of the noise and crowds so we went home for some pbj's and naptime. Josh's team "The Leftovers" (because they were made up of all the people who signed up without teams) didn't win the whole thing, but Josh sure did have a lot of fun.

Here's what the t-shirt looks like (front [left], back [right]):

Thankful

As yesterday was Thanksgiving, like most people, I took a moment here and there to reflect on some of the things that I am thankful for. Obviously there is so much that there's no way I could list them all. So, I'm not going to list any. Especially since I'm sure you could guess a bunch of them on your own. Instead, I'm just going to recap yesterday and today for you.

Even though it snowed a good portion of the night on Wednesday, we did make it to Thanksgiving dinner, and we had a lovely time. The boys were well behaved. Of course, they did hang out in the basement watching movies all day with the two other children who were there, but still, they didn't get "slap happy" (as in "gently" slapping not only each other, but the poor, sweet other boy who didn't want to play that "game") until it was close to leaving time. But the food was great, the company was fun, and the drive was exciting, to say the least.

On the way out the roads were a bit messy and slippery, and there was a portion of road with no mountain coverage, so the wind got a little intense. The ride home started out a little better as the roads had been plowed while we were eating, but about halfway home it started doing this weird raining, but not really raining thing. However, we made it safely there and safely home thanks to Josh's superb driving.

Of course, the only two pictures we have from that day have the other two kids in them and I'm not entirely comfortable posting a picture of someone else's kids without their knowledge or permission. So, I apologize for no actual Thanksgiving pictures this year.

I do, however, have pictures from today (which would be the ones running down the right side of this post). Today, like Josh said after dinner, was a good day. We didn't really do anything special, just relaxed around the house. It snowed all day, giving us another 4 inches on top of the 4 we got Wednesday night, which is now sitting on top of all we had before. Yay! So, after the boys' naps we bundled up and went out to play in the snow again. And after that we made a fire in the fireplace and had leftover turkey and stuff for dinner. A pretty good first half of our holiday weekend.

Here.

Some pictures of my boys and me to hold you over until tomorrow, as we had a long, wonderful day, and I'm too tired to do anything else.