Stuart had to work some hours both Saturday and Sunday plus he is recovering from the cold, so we did not plan to go anywhere other than to Connor’s classmate party.  Staying home is what the kids would love to do anyway if we give them a choice.  This morning I decided to take the boys for a walk to the Farmer’s market to buy lunches and few other things.  Sometimes getting the boys going is tough, but today I used Connor’s current interest, Christmas things, to get him engaged in a conversation while he walked which made it slightly easier.  When we arrived at the market, the kids were drawn to the artist singing and playing guitar, so they sat to watch while I shopped and kept my eyes on them.  They took a snack and spent a little bit of time there before we headed home.  I was trying to see if we should consider the Turkey Trot, so I encouraged them to jog so our return way was much faster.

    This afternoon Stuart and I wanted to take a walk, but the boys asked us to play soccer first in our backyard.  We took turns being the goalie, then later Connor decided to take out the other goal too.  So we ended up having a mini soccer game.  Logan was aggressive trying to make goals against me and Connor tried to guard his goal from Stuart.  Later we switched; Connor and I teamed up, and Logan and I were the goalies.  The game got more exciting as Stuart could finally try shooting harder toward me, and Connor and I did our best to score against Logan.  Connor seems to have some good potential and have some nice kicks.  We had a great time and we were up to 5:5 when Connor suddenly got grumpy.  We ended the game to go for the walk then.  Connor chose to ride his tricycle and we were surprised that he still fits in it.  Logan ended up walking and running with a flashlight with Connor riding right behind him.  For once, Stuart and I had to keep up our walking to catch up with them.  With these little exercises today, I am exhausted but surprised that the kids did not seem to be affected at all.

    I accompanied Connor to attend one of his classmates’ birthday party on Saturday morning.  Connor was excited about it and he was looking forward to playing with two of his best buddies from class (2 girls).  But when he found out Logan was not going, he initially was slightly disappointed but quickly got over it.  The party was held at the new Pump It Up and it was nice and cleaner there.  We were the first guests to arrive, so Connor played briefly with the birthday girl and I captured a picture of the two of them.  Shortly after the introduction, the kids were led into the first room to play.  Connor jumped right in to play, so I just hung out to chat with other parents.  Later we were moved to the second room.  Connor and one of his buddies Haritha started to play with each other in a tall bouncy house.  Connor had difficulty climbing up until Haritha’s dad went in to give him some guidance, then Connor went up and down without any issue afterward.  However once he came down the slide, Haritha quickly followed him and bumped into Connor.  So Connor had a big cry for awhile.  He calmed down just in time for the group photo, then they were moved yet again to the third playroom.  Connor enjoyed playing at a ball toss bouncy apparatus, but so were many other kids, including Haritha.  The kids were quite rough reaching for the balls.  Therefore, Connor tried to go to the opposite and quieter end to toss balls, but Haritha kept trying to follow him, and Connor ended up saying some mean words to her.  I took him away to take a quick break until he promised to be nice again.  They returned to play together nicely afterward.  Finally the play time was over and we were moved to the party room.  The kids sang to the birthday girl and sat down to have pizza.  Haritha rushed over to sit next to Connor, and they were quite chatty with each other while they ate.  The kids then had cakes and received a party favor, and everyone was happy to say goodbye to each other.

    Logan’s league team had a celebration pizza dinner tonight.  I rushed home after work to pick up the cake and met up with Stuart and the boys at home to head out to the restaurant.  We were the second family to arrive, and all the kids were drawn to the few game machines next to our reserved tables.  The restaurant was busy and slow.  It took every family quite some time to get their orders placed and food to arrive.  Once the food was on the table, all the kids came back to start eating.  Everyone enjoyed the pizza.  Then the coach got our attention to give his speech.  He made a statement and awarded a trophy to each kid individually.  He was pleased with Logan trying his best at his first time in soccer league and thought that Logan had improved over the weeks.  He also shared that Logan was always willing to do the drills but often would come up and ask the coach quietly to do the drills with him.  After the presenting, we cut up the cake and everyone enjoyed a slice.  Logan was very happy and proud to have the trophy.  Connor was quite envious of that trophy; he kept asking when he could get one of his own too.  With the sugar high, Connor also kept bugging us for coins for the game machines, so we felt that it was time for us to say goodbye to everyone and head home.

     Connor was under the weather last week for a couple of days; he was congested with a runny nose.  I then had a sore throat over last weekend and felt quite tired too.  I recovered by the start of the week, but my voice was a bit scratchy.  Logan and I had a great day off together on Tuesday, but suddenly he complained of being cold and not well at dinner time.  He did not eat as much of the dinner but it could be that he ate lots of popcorns at the movie theater.  Logan then took a shower early and stayed in bed while I read to them.  He woke up feeling better but complaining of sore throat.  However at the end of school, Logan was the usual self when Stuart picked him up.  He told Stuart that he felt fine, and since then he never complained of anything and did not show any symptoms.  The next day it was Stuart’s turn to have the sore throat.  Now he is coughing a bit and feeling congested.  Hopefully Stuart will get over this quickly like the rest of us did and wrap up this round of colds.

    Logan had a day off today and so did I as a result.  We took Connor to school in the morning and he never even found out that Logan was off.  Logan and I spent a packed day together and we started with an hour at a coffee shop to get some work done.  I had Logan work on the assignment by the room parents, a handwritten note; the intention was to make a book for his teacher with a page from each child.  I helped Logan brainstorm what to write and he came up with the words.  He also drew his recent favorite things, Minecraft, tanks and planes.  After that, Logan did some math while I worked on my recertification materials.  We then picked up some grocery before going home.  We both were hungry so we had an early lunch before Logan worked on his school computer programs.  He did well with the spelling one all on his own, but needed help with the math one.  But I do feel that he is at an advanced level with the program, two digits adding and subtracting, so I had to help break down the question so he could figure out.

    
      Before 1pm, we got ready to go to Logan’s eye appointment.  He followed the optometrist’s instruction and answered the questions to the best of his knowledge.  The optometrist reported that his vision worsened a bit but not too aggressive.  She talked about options with long term benefits and I agreed to try bifocals.  Logan and I went to the optical department and got fitted for a new pair of eyeglasses.  Then we quickly left to go to the movie theater.  We made it right at the showtime but unfortunately Big Hero 6 was sold out.  Since Logan was excited, I bought the tickets for the next showing and it happened to be a 3-D one.  We took our time buying and enjoying popcorns while we waited in the theater.  Logan thought it was cool wearing the 3-D glasses over his regular glasses.  Once the movie started, we both enjoyed it very much.  Logan laughed several times and hugged me when he was sad toward the end of the show.  Everyone clapped when the movie was over, including the two of us.  Then we drove home and joined the other half of the family for the evening.

    Logan likes to draw.  Logan has been enjoying to draw soldiers, castles, tanks, knights and airplanes.  He was happy when Stuart borrowed some drawing books from the library so he can draw better tanks and knights.  He is proud of his drawings that he has been asking Stuart to tape his big drawing papers up on the wall in his bedroom.  Now Logan is gone on to drawing Minecraft.  He had made a few drawings at CDC last week.

    Connor loves to draw too.  Watching Logan drawing castles, he is copying him and doing the same.  His drawings are bigger in scale and more colorful.  He too wants Stuart to post them in his bedroom.  Connor is so excited to see his own work and he loves getting praise from us.

    Logan checked out a chapter book from the library on Friday and he loves “reading” it.  He claimed that this is his second chapter book as he has checked one out at the school library and keeps that one in the classroom.  We saw him tracing the words with the finger quickly and appeared reading it.  He spent his quiet time reading the book yesterday too.  He has his bookmark quite far into the book.  Honestly we don’t think Logan is truly reading it as he has not answered us when we tried to ask him questions about it.  But for now we don’t want to ruin his excitement with reading.

   Logan is not the only one excited about chapter book, Connor is blindly into it too.  When we were at Ikea this morning, he grabbed hold of a display book and pretended to read it.  Since then, he kept asking us to get him a chapter book; later he just found a programming book on Stuart’s bookshelf and was happy to hold on to it.