A couple weekends ago, Brian and I discovered an ipad version of an oldie, but goodie – Battle Ship! Played between 2 ipads, it’s a blast! So much so, that we stayed up until midnight one Saturday, sitting mere feet from one another, playing several rounds. We taught the boys the next day. They played for like 2 days straight! It was hysterical because they started in the same room, then sat back to back, then one of them moved rooms…at one point Logan was in the office and Aiden was under the dining room desk area. The funniest thing was them yelling back and forth things like, “oh man – you got me!”. Not to worry, we did play several rounds of good ol’, standard, with a board and pieces, Jr. Monopoly this past weekend. But still…technology – wow!

This is round 1 in the office.

A view of Logan’s board. When shots are fired, it breaks to a picture of a big, giant gun shooting from the side of a ship. If an opponent’s ship is struck, it shows the kind of boat you hit….and of course you get to see the whole thing sink once you’ve landed the fatal blow. Not only is it graphically more interesting than the version we had as kids, you can also earn various new powerful weapons, decoys and even shields for your own ships.

In other news, we turn to our sports desk: Pictures daddy took last week (when he took the WHOLE week off of work – how glorious!) of Brady at his little kicker’s soccer class:

Brady LOVES his soccer class. The only problem is that he sees his older brothers go into this same building in full soccer socks, shin guards and cleats. If you notice, Brady is the only one in the class wearing actual soccer socks. He begs for cleats every week and I have to tell him that he’ll kick his friends and maybe hurt them.

And now for arts and entertainment…first arts: more gift bags I recently made, strangely for 2 different birthdays in two weekends at the same place, The Painted Penguin…paint your own pottery. One for a neighborhood friend, Grace and one for Aiden’s total preschool crush, Juliana. Not to worry, it’s a mutual crush so at least he’s not chasing unrequited love ;)

 

I did these same butterflies last year in pastels. I love them in black and pink with bling-a-bling!!

And last, in entertainment news, I am currently in the process of planning Brady’s 4th birthday party – a rock-star, dance-party theme craziness thing :) I made a play list and the boys (aka Brady and Logan) “practiced” dancing tonight in PJs. First we went over a few of the moves to the Cha Cha Slide then they made me play Dynamite by Taio Cruz over and over and over…what’s new! I’m turning the basement into a sort of kid’s-only dance club. As always, the entire concept currently resides in my head….so we’ll see how it actually turns out!!!!

And ahhhh…P.S. – the highlight of the Christmas season was delivered by Memaw tonight – our advent calendar! Grandma Maria started this for the boys last year and they thought it was such fun. She re-filled it and it’s ready for Thursday. I may have peeked a in a few of the doors (I thought I heard some money jingling around….who can blame me?!) Logan caught me, swatted my booty and told me to quit it! (what?! it’s not like it’s a surprise for ME!?) ;)

I think I already posted a bit about how Logan had an ear infection a couple weekends ago. Well, he was scheduled to finish his amoxicillin yesterday, but during bath time on Monday, I noticed some spots on his legs. They weren’t that major, but I suspected an allergic reaction to the antibiotic. We did a little ipad research (who needs a medical degree – HAHAHAHA <—joking obviously) and then followed up with a call to our doctor’s office. Being that it was after 8, I spoke with one of the nurses who suggested taking Logan to urgent care. At urgent care, the doctor said his reaction was mild, but to stop the medicine, give him benedril and put him to bed. So….yesterday morning, I was thinking that Logan had a late night and would probably be quite tired so I was all set to let him sleep in as late as he wanted before taking him to school. I was sneaking around his room getting his cloths ready to go when he got out of bed. He looked a little flushed and I thought it was from sleeping…until we went into the hallway. Poor kid was COVERED in dots…and the bumps on his legs from the night before had turned into basically hives. We went to the doctor’s office at 8:45 where he got a prescription for an oral steroid and an inhaler because of some wheezing in his chest (and his ear still looks red….that might have to be tackled next week). I had to take pictures of the rash because Brian was at work and I wanted him to see it…thinking it would be mostly gone by the time he got home (and it was MUCH better…and all the little bumps had almost disappeared). For how miserable he looks in these pics, Logan was actually in good spirits, not too uncomfortable and all-in-all, fun to have around one-on-one for a few hours in the afternoon while the little guys were at school.

 

Probably no one but mom would notice, but his lips are swollen…his ears too.

his poor face was all covered in bumps

top of one leg

even his feet!

The other leg

back (complete with sheet marks from sleeping!)

back of legs. When the doctor saw him, he said, “dude…you got slammed!”

The great news is that he is totally fine….off to school today per usual! I had to run into Michael’s yesterday morning so he picked out an easy model airplane kit with some money he had. He basically did it all by himself yesterday afternoon while I worked on invites for Brady’s upcoming birthday party. I was super proud of him…and tried to take a picture of him working, but my camera battery died! I would also love to post a picture of the plane, but it’s currently locked in his spy safe because Brady wants to play with it (aka: break it on accident) and I don’t know the code to get it out!

Things were a bit crazy last week. Brian wasn’t traveling for a change, but he was SO exhausted from his trip to China and ended up with a sinus infection. I was last-minute planning Logan’s classroom Halloween party and then I was madly rushing to finish the elementary school directory. The weekend was crazy busy, but fun. We TOTALLY cleaned out the garage and winterized the outside/back yard etc. on Saturday before a late birthday party. Sunday was the first day of lacrosse class for the older boys (so stinkin cute!) followed by errands and a drop in to the minute-clinic where we found out that Logan had the beginnings of an ear infection. What’s with all the ear infections lately? Brady had a double one 2 weeks ago!

 

Anyway, enough with the never-ending excuses as to why my posts are always so late :) Here are Halloween pics of the boys (aka: a zombie hunter and 2 ninjas!)

 

Logan walking in the parade at school

Logan’s class party

Logan working on his craft: a macaroni skeleton

My favorite picture from the mummy wrap game we played in Logan’s class

The boys had a blast handing out candy to the early trick-or-treaters

Blue ninja Aiden

Daddy & his camera must have looked like a zombie to our zombie hunter

Red ninja Brady

Ninjas ready to gather candy!

The neighborhood crew

Logan trick or treating

The kids really slowed down this year and realized that it wasn’t a race…better for parental picture taking since we didn’t have to sprint to catch up :)

Brady kept his mask on the whole time (maybe a compromise since he refused to put anything but underwear on under the paper-thin costume)

….Brady said the funniest thing. He was running around, talking non-stop per usual, and telling anyone who would listen that he wants a, “king cashew cruncher” for Christmas. It took a couple minutes, but we finally figured out that he meant that he wants the giant Nutcracker we saw at CVS yesterday (where we had to stop for the minute clinic to diagnose Logan with an ear infection – bummer!)

On a related note, Brady then went through all the toy catalogs that have been arriving in the mail by the dozens and started circling his “wish list”. It quickly became apparent that he thinks the mere act of circling a toy means he’s going to actually get it. He was telling me, on and on and on, about what he’s going to do with each thing and how much he can’t wait for each one. I had to explain that Santa & everyone else who gives him gifts will only bring a few of the things he wants so he has to narrow down his list a bit. We’re still working on that with all of the boys ;)