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.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve brings our annual celebration with Jenn's family.  All day the boys kept asking how long until Jenn and family would be at our house.  They were excited to play with Eden and Elam....and to open more Christmas presents! 

 Jenn brought these fun glasses for the celebration.  

We tried to get a group shot with the selfie stick and I think this was the best one we got.  It looks like David's eyes are closed, but we got everyone else looking AND smiling.  WIN!

The kids were excited to open their gifts, Karsten was thrilled with his magic set and Liam's board games were a hit and got opened right away!

We had a delicious dinner - Scott smoked pork, Jenn made eggrolls and Oreo truffles, David brought a delicious selection of cheeses, and I....well, I coordinated. When there are so many great chef's around, who am I to interfere?

Why is Karsten getting so darn tall?  

This week, Google has been showing me the past New Year's photos of the kids....time seriously needs to slow down, they're growing up far too quickly!

Here's my PSA for the year - drink more water! Happy to add you to the distro if you like - you too can get a picture of my smiling face reminding you to drink more water.  Also, coffee, tea or Vitamin Water does not count as water.  :)

Friends since eighth grade - wow, that's a long time. That means 2017 is our 25th friendaversary!!

Jenn was concerned that we were not looking right at the camera's lens, so she kept trying to point to where we should be looking right when I would click the photo.

I would say that the guys thought we lost it, but they're likely used our random hilarity.

Happy 2017 friends. I hope this year brings you much good health, happiness and time with your loved ones!