When Karsten's away...

Karsten had a play date at a friend's house this afternoon, so we got some one on one time with Liam.  Since it's a dreary, cold day here today, we played a few board games with a warm fire burning in the background.

We started with the game Swamp Sum - it's a pretty cute game where you either add or subtract the two dice.  Liam really likes math and does an awesome job, so he enjoys this game.

Next up, the family favorite, Sorry!  Liam is serious about Sorry!, there's no sympathy or playing nice with him.  If he can send you back to Start, he's going to do it and throw in a bit of trash talking for good measure.  

After a few games of Sorry!, I switched to blogging while the guys built some Quixels.

There may have been a brief water fight with this spray gun - guess who started it?  Here's a hint, it's not the one holding the gun in this photo. :)

It was the perfect relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Knock Knock

We're trying to find books that Karsten is excited to read.  He's enjoying the Flat Stanley books, but the chapter books are still beyond his skill level, so we read those to him.  We've found some beginning reader versions of Flat Stanley which are working out great. Let me know if you have any book tips for first grade boys!

He was trying to tell me a joke the other day, and it didn't go so well, so I suggested that we find a book of jokes at the library.  I brought this book home on Friday afternoon and he's been reading us jokes at every spare moment.

Since he doesn't know all of the words in the jokes, it often plays out like this:

K: Knock Knock
S: Who's there?
K: Mommy (whispers: what's this word, then we work together to sound it out)
K: Tells the joke to Scott

We'll get there. this is a good start because he's even wanted to take the book in the car with us so he can keep telling jokes.  Scott and I get a good chuckle, because it seems like 'Mommy' is always the answer to 'Who's there'.

Work Holiday Party

The company I work for hosts its annual holiday party each January.  It's a huge event since there are so many employees in KC, plus each employee can bring one guest.  With the forecast all week for a terrible ice storm, everyone was on the fence if they would be able to attend.  

Luckily, the weather held off and we were able to attend without having to deal with treacherous roads.  It's always fun to meet your co-worker's significant others and chat for a while.  

Scott and I look like we're at a conference with our white lanyards on - we should have taken those off for the photo!  Darn!  

We took them off this time for a quick photo before the event started. I was hoping that with a smaller turnout at the event, maybe this would be the year I would win one of the prizes!  No such luck...hoping for next year!

Finishing the Pine Wood Derby Cars

My dad worked with the boys to cut their Pine Wood derby cars (or Hine Wood if you ask Liam), and today was the day for stickers and wheels.  Scott borrowed a scale from work so we could ensure that Karsten's car didn't go over the weight limit.  

We started with a few lessons about how to run the triple beam scale.  They'll now be ready for reading scale results in middle school science!  I bet their subjects at that time may not be Lego dinosaurs.  

Putting on the wheels was no small feat; however, Scott figured out how to get them on without splitting the car.

Karsten's car was well underweight so we're going to add some weight to the bottom to help make it faster.  Thank Goodness Papa knows about Pine Wood derby, because we didn't know any of this!

Although Liam isn't racing his car, he still wanted to build one to be part of the fun!  Thanks to Papa for getting Liam his own car!

Wordless Wednesday - Homework

Karate

We signed Liam up for a few Taekwondo classes, and he keeps insisting that he doesn't want to take classes.  We were having this conversation at dinner, then all of a sudden, Scott jumps up and starts pretending a paper towel is a board, and seeing if the boys can break it with their hands, feet and of course head.  

This had all of us cracking up.  Perhaps a few more of these kind of karate sessions will get Liam excited for his classes!

Liam's Teeth

During a meal over Christmas break, I thought Liam had a piece of lettuce on his tooth, so I told him to wipe it off his tooth.  He wiped off his tooth, but it was still there.  On closer look, I realized it wasn't a piece of lettuce, it was a space between his teeth on the right side (his left side)!

At Christmas, his teeth didn't have this space.  You'll see the missing tooth on the bottom, but his teeth are nicely aligned on the top row.

Upon closer inspection, it looks like a permanent tooth is ready to come in and is pushing the baby tooth out of the way.  Hie upper tooth is a little loose, but not too much.  I think we have lots of wiggling that tooth before it's going to come out.  

Shoe Horn

Everyone uses a shoe horn to put on their slippers, right?  Ever since Scott helped Liam get his church shoes on using a shoe horn, it's been a popular 'tool' in our house.

Resolutions

Time to get back to meal planning, healthy eating and routines.  It will be a tough adjustment to reality after all the fun of Christmas break!

Christmas Celebrations Continue!

We love to stretch out the Christmas celebrations to enjoy the Christmas spirit into January.  This weekend, we celebrated Christmas with Linda, Leland, Kelli, David, Trent and Taylor.

Trent and Taylor were able to come up on Friday evening and spend the evening with us to kick off the celebration.  All week, Liam and Karsten asked how many more days until Trent and Taylor arrived.  I think they were almost more excited for Trent and Taylor than presents!

Unfortunately, I didn't get too many photos of all four boys playing together on Friday night.  They played Legos, played hide and seek and had a great time together!  Karsten ended the night with a story from Trent.

And Karsten even ready to Trent too!

They were like this all on their own, when I saw this I ran for my camera.

They passed some time on Saturday afternoon with board games.

Then, after lunch, they finally got to open presents!  Karsten was excited for this batting helmet from Grandma and Papa!  You'll see him wearing it as he opens his other presents. :)

After Trent opened his vivofit 3, he told Karsten to watch out - Karsten wasn't going to be the daily step winner any longer!

All on their own, Liam and Karsten colored or drew pictures for everyone and wrapped them up.  Every few days, we'd notice a new small package under the tree that they had wrapped up.  Karsten liked to use regular wrapping paper for his, but Liam would just use a sheet of white paper and fold it into a little envelope for his drawing.  It was pretty darn cute.

Liam was ready to stop opening presents and play with this new Imaginext guy from Aunt Kelli and Uncle David.  He was so excited!

Karsten has some new 'lucky' baseball socks.  He even wore them to his basketball game today!

The boys each got Slugger's Blue Crew which gives them a hat, jersey, two tickets to a game and a few other goodies.  They were pretty excited!

It was a fun day and the perfect celebration to end the Christmas season!

Basketball Continues

I have so much watching Karsten and his friends play basketball each week.  This week their coach tried to have the boys run some basic plays (or so I'm told, I know NOTHING about basketball), and it seemed to work pretty well.

Karsten had a great game and scored 3 or 4 times. He had a big cheering section today with Kelli, David, Trent, Taylor, Linda, Leland, Scott, Liam and I.  Each time after he scored, he shot a glance over to the sidelines where Trent and Taylor were to make sure they saw him. It was the cutest, and Trent and Taylor were awesome and super excited for Karsten.

Lego Build with Grandma and Papa

Linda and Leland are visiting this week, so they got to come with us to the Lego build.  The boys really enjoy doing this every month.  This month the build was a Narwal.  I forsee that pointy nose popping off a lot as the Narwals fight each other.