Last weekend's birthday festivities

Last weekend the big boys had a great time celebrating birthdays with two of their favorite friends, Chase and Preston. Saturday we hit Skyzone for some trampolining before eating lunch together and then heading out to the Burnet Park sledding hill. It was cold and windy and icy but we enjoyed the sunshine. And the boys enjoyed beating the snow out of a snowman and snowbaby at the bottom of the sledding hill.

Sunday Theo and Beckett celebrated Chase at Dave and Buster's. They have such a great time with these buddies!

Visit with Nitsan and family

MLK Jr. Day weekend Nitsan and family came up to Syracuse to get snowed in with us. It was very cold and windy and snowy but we did make it out every day to sled at our neighborhood sledding spots. There was also plenty of eating, baking, cooking, Nintendo Switch playing, and game playing. Also a bit of finger and toenail painting.

This is what we do when we're bored in the winter

Sledding

Five minutes from our house there is an awesome sledding hill, with parking 100 steps away and a lodge serving free hot cocoa and renting snowshoes for adults and kids. Last Sunday we went when the sun was out and it wasn't brutally cold. We met some friendly kids who had walked from their houses in Tipp Hill, as well as our neighbor Kam and his mom. Reed scraped his face on the ice on his first run but he rallied nicely and we all had a great time.

End of the crib era

The boys have been talking for a while about alternate sleeping arrangements. Over Christmas Reed slept in his inflatable travel bed (a Hiccapop--a fabulous product) in the boys' room and loved being in with them, and they all did pretty well. For a while now I've thought that Reed and Beckett would be good roomies, and Theo would be happy to be by himself. Reed and Beckett both sleep longer than Theo and mostly like being with people instead of by themselves, and Theo likes having his own private space. We had a conversation after school yesterday about where and how they'd like to sleep. Theo said he wanted to sleep by himself, on the top bunk, alone in his room. Beckett said he wanted to sleep with Reed. Reed said he wanted to sleep with Theo. We convinced Reed to try sleeping with Beckett and he agreed. We spent the afternoon disassembling Reed's crib, vacuuming and cleaning Reed's room, and then making up the futon mattress as a bed for Reed and Beckett. Theo ended up feeling lonely in his room by himself but was proud of himself this morning that he slept by himself even though it was hard. Beckett and Reed initially were goofing off too much to fall asleep but then slept great all night. Everyone was up too early this morning but it may just have been the newness of the environment. I admit I was a little sad to put away the crib parts and think we'll never set it up again, but it's been a good 7.5 years that we have had a crib in our house, and that's enough. Onward to bigger and better things (and boys)!

Meeting Santa

Santa comes to our neighborhood park every December, and makes a stop at the Firebarn. The boys were a little standoffish at first but then the pull of mini-candy canes became too strong, and they decided to approach. Except for Theo, who was too busy making ornaments out of popsicle sticks and hot glue.