We took the boys to their routine dental visits early this morning.  They were not too excited but cooperative, and we arrived at the office.  When we were called in to the chairs, Logan did not want to sit down.  It took Stuart to do some convincing and Logan finally sat down to watch the movie on the ceiling.  Because Logan was sitting down, Connor agreed to sit down too.  When the hygienist began to clean Logan’s teeth, he started whining and even some whimpering and started struggling to sit up.  Stuart ended up offering Logan to lie on him so the hygienist could do her job.  There were still some occasional struggles before the cleaning was finally done.  Connor was not very cooperative either, so I had to move him onto me as well in order to hold him still.  He cried through the quick cleaning, but as soon as it was finished, Connor immediately stopped crying and gave me a smile.  Then the dentist came by to take a look at both boys.  Their teeth looked fine and they both did not have any cavities.  However the dentist noticed a slight cross-bite on Logan’s right side.  He reported that the situation may outgrow, otherwise, we will have to consider an adjustment when he is 8-9 years old.

    We went to visit Karen and her family today.  The boys were excited to go see Kyle (who is now 6 years old), or more like the idea of visiting a boy’s house with toys.  Once we arrived, we exchanged the belated Christmas gifts, and the boys obviously enjoyed doing that.  Then Logan and Connor started playing politely with the toys there, and they were especially excited to see Kyle’s collection of lightsabers.  Initially, it was mostly Logan and Connor playing with each other, but finally the three boys warmed up with one another.  They were all carrying a lightsaber, giggling and running after each other.  Later Connor discovered Kyle’s toy kitchen and preferred playing there instead.  He would occasionally bring over some toy food for Stuart and me to eat.  Kyle and Logan were still having fun playing with each other, but they both had asked Connor to re-join them to play.  They wanted Connor to be the bad guy and chase after them.  Eventually Connor agreed and once again running after the other two.  After three hours of playing, chasing and laughing, we said our goodbyes to come home.  The boys must be tired as they went down to bed with no delays tonight.

These are the photos from our trip.  I had taken a total of 880 photos in those five days; now I have narrowed them down to 199 for our album.

These are the photos from the holiday dinner at the Tsaos.

    Logan might be growing out of his nap or we just had less physical activities the last three days of our break, as Logan chose to have quiet time in his room instead.  His attention is definitely longer lately; he can play with his Legos, Stormtroopers or soldiers for an hour during the quiet time.  When he comes out of the room afterward, he seems very pleased with himself when I asked about what he did. 

   This morning after Logan got ready for school, Stuart was complimenting him “What a nice shirt you have on!  You look cute!”.  Logan immediately said “Don’t say that”, then he added again “Don’t say that in front of other people”. 

    Since Connor was still having quite a bit of cold symptoms yesterday, we had planned to keep him home from school today.  Logan managed to go to school this morning without being too jealous of Connor staying home.  Basically, Connor improved a lot today; after the morning, his runny nose has stopped and he is having only the residual cough.  He is back to his happy and playful self again.  I took him out for a few errands, and he kept asking for “One more store?”  We also slept half of our day away too.  Connor and I probably broke our record for the longest nap together, we slept three hours! 

    The kids were happy to be able to bathe and play together tonight.  I have been off for the past 2 weeks and have been taking a nap almost every day during the break.  I am now ready to return to work tomorrow.

    Since the fever arrived after his nap the other day, Connor has developed more cold symptoms, runny nose and congestion, along with the existing cough.  He is still eating fine, but looking more flushed and tired.  We have been following him everywhere in case he needs a tissue for his nose.  Because of his illness, we had cancelled gatherings the past couple of days, and stayed home instead.  We did manage to take a couple of walks around the neighborhood to get some fresh air.  Logan did not mind being home as he ended up having more time playing with his new favorite Lego Batman XBox game. 

    Today, Connor seems more energized and less congested, but the runny nose and cough are still persistent.  I asked him to help me removing the Christmas decorations this afternoon, and he was glad to help.  While he was taking down the ornaments, he said suddenly on his own “Bye bye tree”.  So cute! 

    Lately Connor likes to place the foam letters into a very straight line on the bath wall and he tells us that it is Christmas light.  Today Stuart had taken down the outside Christmas lights.  At bath tonight, Connor removed all the foam letters from the wall and he told me “Christmas lights down, all done!”.