Winter 2015: Family Update

In no particular order.... here are some photos/stories of what we have been up to.  In short, everyone has settled into our new house, their new schools, and our new routine.  I love all the time we get to spend with family during the holidays, but am always when that first Post-NYE Monday rolls around, and life gets to go back to normal.

We kicked off 2015 with Lena on vacation in Miami and most of the kids sick.  So, after much time at home with the kids during the holidays, I started the year being-less than productive at work.  These are some photos we sent Adam while home that day (Alex upset that Oliver is touching him).

Everyone has 1-2 parenting skills of varying importance that they really excel at.  Adam is awesome at making bathtime fun, a chore that I dread.  I have two parenting skills I'm pretty proud of: 1) I'm awesome at answering Oliver's random questions in succinct answers that don't over explain or dwell on a subject (I always find it amusing to listen to Adam's over-explanations)  2) I'm an awesome fort builder!   Here's a photo of the largest fort constructed to-date in our house.  A king-sized sheet didn't fully cover it!  One of these days, I will get a photo where all three kids are simultaneously looking at the camera, that is not a blurry photo.

We are having fun exploring our new neighborhood -- can't wait until it is finally warm enough for us to spend more time outside and make new neighborhood friends. 

Oliver is taking a gymnastic class on Saturday mornings -- our first kid activity that throws a wrench in weekend plans.  So far, it hasn't been a huge inconvenience, but it's unlikely that I will schedule things on Saturdays when the weather gets nicer.  Adam has been taking Oliver to the class, and then out for lunch and I have been doing fun stuff with Alex/Lukas.  On one of the first Saturdays, the weather threw off my plans, and the boys and I ended up salvaging the outing, with a trip to the local candy-store.  No complaints there!  We also met our twin-friends (the girls are just 4 days younger than Alex/Lukas) at the zoo.  

I don't know what got into me, but on a Friday afternoon in early February, I thought it would be a good idea to take all three kids with me to Target to pick out their Valentines for the class and then to A.C. Moore for craft supplies.  I don't know how we did it, but they were all reasonably well behaved -- of course the lollipops MAY have had something to do with it!

I mentioned this in an earlier post, but we are seeing more and more examples of the kids getting along, and it is such a welcome relief!  

After dinner, we tend to play with the boys in their room for 30-45min before starting the bedtime routine.  It's great that Alex/Oliver's room is big enough to be a fun playspace.  I really want to decorate/design the space to be a real fun boy room....

Meet "Spider-Eagle" and "Super-Santa".

Last week, I was on bath-duty while Adam was out.  The boys were being particularly fun and low-maintenance, which gave me a chance to snap some photos.  Check out the cute towels they got for Christmas!  When bathtime is wrapping up, Lukas always hollers "Lukas, Shark!  Mine!"  Everyone loves the shark towel, so he's worried that it will be swiped from him (it does have HIS name on the back!).