Probably the biggest delay in getting a blog update out, but right about the time I'm getting ready to type one of these guys up, we start having all kinds of laptop issues and modem issues simultaneously, so this has been a long time coming. So without further adieu, here is a really long, backed up blog update.
To start us off, let's talk about Billy's 4th birthday. Antoinette put together a nice cake for him made out of candy and cake/cupcakes made into a really long train, complete with Oreo cookies for wheels. She put a lot of hard work and effort into it and I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out based on what she was describing, but at the end of the day, it was pretty cool. Billy loved it and that's what matters most.
For Billy's birthday, we decided to take him to Chuckie Cheese for the first time. We had perfect weather for a day inside (heavy rain), so the timing worked out perfectly. The boys had a blast in there. They were a little reluctant at first, but after a little bit, they were running around and trying every game they could find. Neither Antoinette or I had been to a Chuckie Cheese in about 15-20 years, and it was very different than either of us remembered, but still similar in many ways. The boys got to ride on a bunch of rides, play a bunch of virtual reality games, climb around in ceiling mounted climbing tubes, played a little Skee-Ball (very dangerous putting those heavy wooden Skee-Balls into A.J.'s hands, but we managed), and at the end of the day, the boys got to pick out a couple toys from all the tickets that they won.
For Billy's birthday, his big present was a new bike with training wheels. We've spent so much time learning to swim since he bought the bike that we haven't really pulled it out much, but that's going to have to happen soon now that the boys are getting the hang of swimming (which we'll talk about in a couple weeks in the next update). Billy had a chance to pick from several bikes when we took him to the store, but picked a red one because it was "The Ohio State bike". That's my boy!!! More updates as he continues to learn to ride.
Easter also came and went and in between these blog updates, and with Easter, we have Easter Bunny's and Easter Egg Hunts. We also had a visit from Grandma and Aunt Laura to spend time with the boys. The boys got a chance to do the annual egg coloring with Mom and that's always a fun time for them, although once again, A.J. with unlimited amounts of food coloring in glass dishes is a little concerning. He's still a hundred miles a minute and that's a recipe for disaster. Luckily we dodged a bullet with that and there were not massive disasters.
The boys had a couple Easter Egg hunts, starting with the Easter Bunny's visit to our house, and that meant colored eggs all over the inside and outside of the house for the boys to run around and find. They had a blast, but you never really know if they got every last egg. Hmm... They also had an Easter Egg hunt at a local park and that was a debacle. Antoinette and Grandma were holding the boys as we waited for the whistle to blow so the kids could run into the center of a field with about 18 million other kids and try and find as many eggs as they could. Just before the whistle blows, some idiot lady next to us tells us that only the kids can go in. Right at that moment, the whistle blows and so Antoinette and Grandma turn the boys loose. The problem is, apparently nobody else got the memo about kids only and so 18 million kids and their 18 million parents rush into the center of this field and my two kids disappear into the crowd. I'm freaking out and luckily we found both of them in about a minute or two. But if you want to see out of control parents, go to one of these things. These people were out of control, practically knocking toddlers over to pick up eggs for their kids to fill their baskets. Wow!!! Insanity!!! To top it all off, just when we are getting ready to put the boys on some kind of train that drives around parking lots, the train slams into the back of a car and 10 minutes later there are cops all over the parking lot trying to figure out how a train that drives 5 MPH with kids on it could somehow crash in a parking lot. So we had to take a pass on that one.
Speaking of little trains, we went to our friend's son's birthday party and the boys had a great time there, but they had to the most fun on a little train that was set up. It was pretty impressive. Basically a train engine that had about a dozen cars attached to it that they could drive around the neighborhood. Billy got to ride with the Engineer in the front car and practically refused to get out of the train. A.J. on the other hand, could really have cared less. He took one ride, didn't like being out of view of Mom and Dad for 30 seconds, and wanted nothing to do with it again, preferring instead to run around the field across from the house.
There's a lot of zoo pictures in here, too. The biggest update from the zoo was that A.J. now climbs around in the Jungle Gym with the other kids by himself. That's a big leap for him considering the play set is for kids that are 4-10 years old and he's just 2, but he wanted to play with his brother, so we turned him loose and he had a blast. Antoinette went up with him to make sure he was OK, but he's probably OK from here on out.
On top of getting his first bike and both boys beginning their swimming lessons, we are also starting to teach Billy how to read. He knows the alphabet pretty well, but we are working on the sounds that each letter makes and hope to translate that into simple reading by the end of the Summer. Antoinette has also started some schooling of the boys at home. They won't be home schooled, but we are going to get them used to having designated time for school work. Billy's work is now on display on the fridge. A.J. occasionally helps with some projects and gets his own work on the fridge, but he still has a hard time staying focused enough for that.
A couple other quick items. The boys got a chance to have a couple of unique experiences over the past couple months. The first was we took the boys to The Players Championship PGA Tour Event at Sawgrass Country Club in Ponte Vedra Beach. The boys had a chance to see a bunch of professional golfers, but we didn't see Tiger out there. Who we did see though was Michael Phelps, the All Time Olympic Medalist who drove past us in a golf park with a young lady riding shotgun. Beautiful course, beautiful day. The boys also watched the NFL Draft with me this year and the Ohio State Football Spring Game. We sing "We Don't Give a Damn About the Whole State of Michigan" pretty much every night and the boys sing along, which is pretty funny.
As a final note, Dad competed in a strongest arm competition at the Jacksonville Sharks Stadium (Arena Football) and I won, which meant I got to give the boys a Jacksonville Sharks official Championship football from their Arena Bowl Championship, which was pretty cool. A keeper for the boys because they're pretty big in Jacksonville since they keep winning Arena Championships and it's a fun game to go watch. The boys have been to a game before.
The last couple items on here are a couple quick hitters for the boys.
Antoinette got a tub of coconut oil and jokingly told Billy that it smelled so good it was going to become her new perfume. Billy's response after smelling it:
"Ew, Mom. That doesn't smell good. It smells like monkey balls."
OK, then.
No comments:
Post a Comment