Week of Jan 22

Katsu was out of town until Friday afternoon, so it was a busy / not busy week.  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I had to teach at 8 am, so we all had to be up and ready and out of the house by 7:15 am which is not much fun.  Andrew and Seth go straight to school, but Logan and Noah went to a friend's house Monday / Friday and she took them to preschool.  Wednesday, everyone was out of school so they just went to a friend's.  I also still had my cold all week and spent at least the first half of the week coughing until gagging and waking myself up from coughing all night.  Good times.  No one else had anything but a mild cold, thankfully.

We spent most of the week with the kids whining, whining, and playing outside - it really was a lovely warm week which was very nice.  The boys spend hours outside.  Sometimes, I can read or sometimes (rarely) grade on the front porch while I watch them play.  But, whenenver they move somewhere else, I basically am Noah's shadow.  And that is most of the every afternoon, so until 5:00 when we come in to start homework / piano / viola / dinner, I can't really get anything done.  It's great we can play outside so much.  Noah is a pro at his tricycle and rides it all around.  There was a lot of fighting about playing with Logan's ziggle (Noah will go running outside yelling "My Yiggle, my yiggle"), but Noah is usually content to do his tricycle.  He tips over quite a bit, but he's pretty tough.  Logan is on his ziggle.  They all like playing with our neighbor Harris.  Andrew likes to organize giant Nerf gun games.  Our driveway is always full with a plethora of boys, and some occasionally girls.  Cars always slow down and drive on the other side of the road by our house.

Seth has been driving me crazy.  He keeps sneaking screen time.  I hide remotes or DS and he finds them.  I had to change passwords on everything and get rid of any automatic time.  It is driving me crazy.  Seth enjoys playing with friends, but just for a while and then he needs some alone time.  He is a tried and true introvert.  If he can't find some screen to sneak, he will read or maybe sometimes draw.  He probably tells me 200x times a day how everyone else gets more screen time than him.  His favorite convo is as follows:

Seth:  Do you believe in God?
Amanda:  Yes
Seth:  Then, that means I should be able to do whatever I want because you aren't the boss of me, God is.

Or something to that effect.  And of course the commandment about honoring your parents refers to Heavenly Parents only.  And anytime he whines or misbehaves, he tells me it is actually  my fault because I am a bad mother.  Oh, the joys of parenting an intelligent child - his arguments are clever, but wrong, of course.  We did get a good Monopoly game in on Friday.  Seth freaked out at the beginning because he felt I was winning, but I made him finish and he ended up beating me fair and square.

Noah has been going through craziness lately.  Just those terrible twos.  He whines about everything when it isn't done exactly like he wants and then he throws a big fit.  Good thing he is super cute.  He talks so much and it's fun to see what he is thinking.  Cute convo this week:


Noah:  I burping boy.
Amanda:  Why is everyone in this house a burper?
Noah:  Burping is cool.

Noah is now obsessed with Paw Patrol cars.  They, of course, are Logan's and now Logan is suddenly interested in them, too, so we spend a good portion of the day fighting over the toys, trying to figure out how hold as many toys as possible, etc. etc.  Most of church today was the same - "Mama, where is my paw patrol?"

Logan is starting to show some anxiety.  He was starting to have some nervous tics where he would rub his face all over in the certain pattern - he did it during the primary program.  Having glasses usually stops it because he can't wipe his face as well.  I was trying to convince him to stop doing it and if he did, he could earn a skateboard.  He gets really stressed out at tennis because the teacher is not consistent and he doesn't know where he is supposed to go, even when I go onto the court with him and make sure that he is in the right place and settled.  He was super nervous to go to Primary today - we missed the last 3 weeks due to illness, snow storm, and traveling - because he wasn't sure which row he should sit on.  I am hoping it is just a phase, but it reminds me somewhat of Seth.

We are haphazardly doing reading lessons with Logan.  I think he knows most of his letters now and so it is going just fine.  He knows the sounds for probably about 10 letters and is starting to sound out two or three word sentences.

Andrew is busy with so many activities, it is hard to fit all the practice in in the evening.  Trying to tell Andrew what or when to do anything is virtually impossible, but he is pretty good about making sure it all gets done before he goes to bed, with the exception of possibly piano, as he tells me it is not as important.  He can pick up on it pretty quickly though and usually goes along with piano since I told them it wasn't optional.  True to form, he built an enormous form using every piece of furniture, sheets and blankets he could find that drove me completely bonkers.  Thankfully, Noah and Logan are sleeping together (they even just wake up and chat together some morning instead of just crying for me - so cute) and Andrew and Seth sleep together, so no one was sleeping in that room anyways.

Monday - normal-ish day with Katsu gone.  Boys had tennis - huge fits getting them there, but we did and it went well and it didn't even rain!

Tuesday - after dropping Logan off, Noah and I went to the library and looked at books and played for a while and then we stayed for story time.  I don't know if Noah has gone to story time before, but we loved it, so we'll have to do it again every week.  He learned about mice and was answering questions the whole time and was one of the only engaged kids.  He didn't want to stand up during the songs or rhymes, but none of my kids has ever wanted to do that.  We also went to Krispy Kreme and got a dozen donuts because we had some time to kill.  We picked Logan up and had lunch and played at the new playground.  It was a lot of fun and the kids want to do it every day.  It was super windy,  Logan has been begging me for a week, so I finally felt well enough to make him a pumpkin pie which he spent the week eating (I had a couple pieces, too).  My visiting teacher was sweet and brought over dinner, so I didn't have to cook anything.  Someone else took Andrew to cub scouts because we had a presidency meeting at my house.  Only Logan fell asleep before the meeting (sigh), so Seth tried to put Noah to sleep and just ended up playing with him.  He was livid that he didn't have time to play computer games.  I ended up just holding Noah and he fell asleep while we had the meeting.

Wednesday - school was off, so after I taught, the boys just played, mostly making that super massive fort (I appreciate the creativity, but it drives me nuts!!!!!).  They watched a movie in the afternoon while Noah napped and we all sorted clothes and socks.  We had massive laundry.  After tennis, we went to another friend's house whose husband was also out of town and made mini pizzas together.  It was fun.  Hurry home to finish homework and music.  Even a day off seemed full.

Thursday - Seth somehow had the screw fall out of his glasses on Wed. night, so I had to get them fixed, which was a huge sort of drama.  Seth did not like his options of 1) no glasses at school, 2) Andrew's old glasses at school, 3) going into school late and was trying to fight for no school.  He has been begging to stay home all the time lately.  I finally convinced him to go to school and so after we dropped of Logan's at preschool, we got the glasses fixed and dropped them off to school and then just played at home until it was time to pick Logan up.  By this time of the week, we were getting creative because we hadn't been to the grocery store (we usually go on Monday or Tuesday) and no one wanted to go and I didn't want to drag a whole family of boys who didn't want to go.

Friday - not much happened until we picked up Katsu from the airport around dinner time.  We did disassemble most of the fort so that Katsu wouldn't freak out.  We had pizza and watched a lame kid movie (yay!)

Saturday - we spent the morning cleaning and I finally made it to the grocery store.  Last week Aldi's will be open while they remodel - not quite sure how we will afford to eat the next couple months.  I finally got a run in (yay!) and did some weight lifting, the boys spent the afternoon playing video games, and after looking for a bill after getting a bill for glasses in the mail (arg!), I decided I might as well file and then decided I might as well file taxes, too.  It was painless and I even went through a different site to save some money.  Overall, a nice relaxing weekend - didn't go anywhere or really do anything.

Sunday - finally made it to church again.  Had a primary meeting after church and have to go visit teaching this afternoon.  Boys were awful during sacrament meeting - so over Katsu not sitting with us.

Week of Jan 15 (really Jan 17 - Jan 22)

Tuesday was back to school for all but Noah.  It was a super busy morning.  Seth's timeline project was due, but he left it in Katsu's car and so we had to make time for grocery shopping, working out, and going to Katsu's work, catching him between all his student interviews, and get the timeline.  Then, after doing preschool carpool, we dropped the timeline off at school.  Then, we went and picked up Logan's new glasses.  I wish I had gotten a good picture of him.  He has been really good about wearing them - much better than Seth.  At first, he wore them just a bit, but he wears them all the time.  I am worried they are going to get broken quickly - they already got bent a little today when Seth kicked him in the face (sigh) and the warranty only works once for replacement.  But they are cute.  The evening was busy again with a PTA meeting and then Andrew at cub scouts.  They are working on their race cars for the pinewood derby.

Wednesday - boys had tennis, but otherwise, it was a pretty unremarkable day.

Thursday - our first day in quite a while that Logan didn't have a ride to preschool.  So, Noah and I took him and I didn't want to drive back home (it's like a 20 minute drive - nice because it is close to my and Katsu's work, but inconvenient when I have Noah and have to go back home.  So, we drove to the new park downtown and tried it out.  The park was pretty wet with dew, but it was awesome.  Noah wandered around quite a bit, tried a couple slides, but then loved the zip line.  Since there were only a couple other kids there and no one else was interested, he got to ride it over and over for like 45 minutes.  The park is really amazing and makes me feel a little more hopeful for Greenville.  He and I both were coming down with a bad cold (I have it the worst, for sure, though), so I popped him in his stroller and went on a walk on the greenway.  It was the first time I had been on that part of the greenway.  At first, I wasn't sure because it goes through the neighborhood a bit, but then I got on the main part, and it was surprisingly really nice.  There are interpretative signs and long paths and it is just pretty, even for winter.  I was surprised to find out there is Spanish Moss in Greenville - I hadn't seen it before!  Noah fell asleep pretty quickly so I went walking for an hour or more.  It was really nice and relaxing and about all I could manage in terms of a workout with my cold.

We went to Andrew's science olympiad in the afternoon, but then they didn't even really have time to meet with me so it didn't seem worth it.  I don't know if we will go this week or not.  I feel like I am always at school lately.

I had book club in the evening, so I managed to make up some brownies, but no one ended up coming.  Oh, well.  I was planning on just giving up on the whole thing, but several people told me they were sad they couldn't make it, so maybe not.  I had a lot of work to do anyways as did Katsu, so  we had a fun working evening.

Friday - Katsu brought home a pizza because I was just not feeling up to cooking at all, and we were out of flour.  Then, the 3 older boys went to see Alice in Wonderland at ECU.  Katsu said it was okay - I guess they had only 4 actors which he didn't like.  I think the kids liked it.  Then, they went to McDonalds and played chess, I think, until they ended up coming home because they were fighting or something like that.  It was a late night for them.

Saturday - I finally got a chance to go for a run again, which was nice.  I was worried that between missing a week and being sick it would be too hard, but it wasn't too bad.  I think I should still finish the couch to 5k program before our 5k in March, no problem.  Then, I helped the kids pick up and Katsu did the rest of the cleaning (kids cleaned their bathrooms, too), while I went out and bought some new shoes and ran some errands.  Katsu was excited because he officially got his big R01 grant, so he celebrated by getting lots of Chick-Fil-A for all of us for lunch.  Then, we went and all checked out the new park.  Everyone enjoyed it.  I had a birthday dinner for a friend in the evening, so the boys had some homemade Japanese food, played video games, and watched a movie.  Another late night, bu tit was a good day for everyone I think.

Sunday - I really felt under the weather this morning - this cold is just something awful and all the kids but Seth have some mild variation of it, so we stayed home from church (Katsu went to most of it but came home early to get to the airport in time).  Of course, I felt awful, but the boys were only mildly sick and drove me insane today.  Anyday we are all home and don't leave the house the whole day, they are insane.  Constant begging for screens, rough housing, etc.  Totally driving me crazy.  Not a stellar day, but at least they are all asleep now.

Week of Jan 8, 2017

Sunday - due to the snow / sleet / ice cold, we were out of church.  The boys were kind of crazy, it just seeemed a bit like a crazy day, plus Noah was sick, so we watched some TV for him.  We watched the 4th wise man - which was a nice way to end the Christmas season. And we did a lesson on peace, our theme for the month - the boys were crazy, but we got through it.  Part and parcel for over here.  We also did loads of laundry.  Noah had been throwing up the night before from coughing too much.

Monday - ECU and the kids were out of school.  The roads were pretty clear though from melting on Sunday, so Katsu went into work the entire day, so just me and the kids again.  It seems like we have spent a lot of time at home lately with school off this year.  And the kids still haven't had a Monday in school in January.  The boys played a lot outside and nerf gun fights and such.

Tuesday - the kids still didn't have school and at this point, I was annoyed.  It was in the 50s, the roads were all clear, and I had things to do.  Boys played with friends in the morning, but in the afternoon, we had to run errands.  We started off with an eye doctor appointment for Logan.  Yes, Logan.  And yes, with all 4 boys.  They know us very well in there - I swear we are in there all the time.  Logan failed the eye part at his well visit, so in we came.  They did a very thorough exam, even including eye dilation which Logan was quite scared of.  It is somewhat hard to tell, when he is that little, but they said they could tell from looking at his eyes as well as just what he was saying from reading the charts.  They mostly did numbers, but some pictures at the end.  His eyes looked super healthy, but he was about 20/40, I think (past a -1 in both eyes), so they want us to try out eye glasses.  3 boys down in less than 2 years.  And just in case you wanted another reason to find Seth and Logan harder to tell apart at a glance ... although Logan picked out some dark plastic thick frames, so they will look a lot different.  He was too big to wear the little tiny kid frames.  We then had to go the library (fine, till we tried to check out and the boys knocked over the line barrier thing), and Target, and the grocery store.  Let me tell you - it was a doozy of a day.  I don't know if it will ever be easy to take all 4 boys out.  And just to round out the day, Andrew had cub scouts and I had to go to a committee meeting.

Wednesday - Finally started teaching.  Day went pretty well.  Boys had a good day at preschool - Noah was surprised when I came to pick him up and was sad that he hadn't had time to finish his snowman and couldn't wait for Friday.  And was feeling mostly better.  I keep having to put him off and on his inhaler this week with his coughing.  We were getting some dinner in the crock pot when Andrew called me on his teacher's phone and told me he was sick and I needed to pick him up ... like 30 minutes before school got out!  Surprisingly, they let me pick him up.  He didn't seem too sick - but he complains about being sick almost every day and it is so hard to tell if it's true or not.  In fact, he spends most of his time telling me that all the kids at school get all their sicknesses from him - when, he has missed like maybe one day of school to being sick.  Of course, they were rough housing and being crazy, so we ended up going to tennis and Andrew was just fine.

Thursday - Typical day until we had to go to Andrew's science Olympiad practice.  It went pretty well although Noah was climbing all over me.  I forgot all the papers, but I was able to teach Andrew and the other participant a little bit anyways.  Seth was freaking out, but I guess the parents are supposed to go to science Olympiad most of the time, so I guess we will be going every week we can. We had an HOA meeting in the evening.

Friday - normal day.  School, playing with friends, Noah keeps trying to steal away Logan's Ziggle calling it "my yiggle".  Logan was just laying around and didn't look good.  It was super warm and the Kona Ice truck came around, so we got a couple with all the change we had.  Noah shared with Logan and Seth, but then Logan started getting sick and threw up all over the front lawn over and over.  So, he and Noah went upstairs to rest and  watch TV while the other kids had some epic nerf gun battles.  We put the little boys to bed early since they didn't feel so well and Andrew and Seth and us got to watch one of the new Unfortunate Series of Events.

Saturday - since it was a long weekend, we wanted to take a little trip, but we weren't sure (based on Logan yesterday), but he seemed alright by Saturday morning, so we did some cleaning, some packing, booked a hotel, and went off on a trip to Hampton Roads, Virginia.  We drove straight to the NASA museum.  Free (thanks to our pass).  It was different than I expected, but fun.  They had a lot of interactive things for the kids.  The kids loved the play area, loved the flight simulator and didn't want to leave.  We saw some moon rocks and learned about Langley's role in the Apollo missions, saw a live cast of the sun.  Played in a kid space station (until Noah got in trouble for hitting a little girl - ay ya yay!  Seth got scared out of his mind at the catwalk looking down at the space ships and planes.  The boys liked to pretend to fly the planes, learn how planes work, and look at some of the actual modules from some of the space missions.  It was overall pretty fun.  We still had time when it was done, so we went to the Virginia Zoo.  Noah feel asleep and he slept through the first half, but we couldn't find any animals, so it was just as well.  He woke up in time to see the giraffes.  We also enjoyed the bears and the lions, who were roaring up a storm.  We enjoy the zoo - you can see the whole thing in less than 2 hours, which is great, and free with our pass.  We drove to our hotel.  We momentarily tried to find Trader Joe's, but decided it wasn't worth it.  We stayed at a Best Western on the beach at Norfolk.  Our original room had smoke detectors without batteries.  They kept beeping and beeping and they wouldn't come and fix them.  Finally after an hour and a half sent batteries up, but the smoke detectors still kept beeping.  We finally switched rooms.  Lots of drama, but the boys were so busy watching TV and playing with their DS's that they didn't mind at all.  We had a hard time finding food - but Katsu got some dinner food at a 7 Eleven, so we cooked some food for dinner.  It was a good day - a little crazy at the end, but a good day.

Sunday - We woke up late, like 8, too late to be ready for church with our friends.  We had a large breakfast.  We went and walked around the beach.  Noah HATED it.  It was cold and windy.  The other boys didn't mind too much and enjoyed looking for things - we found several jellyfish, a horseshoe crab shell, and a skate egg case.  But it was pretty cold and windy, so we didn't walk around the seashore for too long.  We drove to a grocery store and stocked up on lunch and snack food and then got to Nauticus just as it opened.  Seth spent most of the trip whining about how he wanted to go home.  Poor Noah was also pretty upset about the trip.  I don't think he slept well the night before - I think he fell off the bed and then slept on the floor - so he kept asking to go home.  But other than that, we all enjoyed Nauticus.  We had been before, but it had been a couple years.  The boys especially liked the boat simulators and then a play area where you could run through water and then based on your shadow, sharks would appear and try to eat you.  Then, there was a fishing area.  Then, the boys enjoyed the water play area where you could guide boats through the water.  They liked touching the crabs in the touch tanks and seeing the sharks, but they weren't able to touch those.  Next, we toured the battleship Wisconsin.  Seth was freaking out about heights and crying his head off, poor thing.  But we made it through and saw all the rooms in the bottom without losing anyone.  They had more rooms open than last time, so we were able to see the kitchen area.  We spent more time playing, especially in the naval museum area where the older boys played several games of chess.  Finally, we watched a 3D movie about aircraft carriers.  Then, we drove over to our friends' house for dinner.  The boys all play really well together, and we had a delightful dinner chatting while they played before we made it home to the hotel.

Monday - We woke up, had another huge breakfast at the hotel and then packed up and drove to the Virginia Living Museum.  It was nice - smaller than I expected, reminded me of the NC Aquariums, but it was really nice.  We saw the special exhibit on wolves and then went to the touch tank.  We went outside and enjoyed seeing beavers, otters, birds, a big dinosaur exhibit (same one we saw in Dallas Zoo), wolves, coyotes, deer, and turkey.  Inside, they had the typical exhibits - underground exhibit, nocturnal animals, piedmont, coastal plain, swamp, mountains.  It was really nicely done with lots of interesting facts and easy to see animals.  We ate some lunch int he car, and then drove home.  It was a lovely trip.

Week of 1/1/2017

• Monday was another day off of work and school.  The boys did lots of video games until the fighting started and then it was time to put away the video games.  Up till this day, the break was really going great and I didn't want it to end but after all the bickering, boy, I was sure ready for them to go back to school on Tuesday.  Katsu had a celebration of sushi, tempura and sukiyaki.  Yum!
• Tuesday was back to school - Andrew and Seth were off.  Logan had preschool, too.  Poor Logan - he thought that he was starting kindergarten and he was so scared and I didn't realize it till that morning when he was wondering why Katsu didn't take him to Ridgewood!  He went to preschool with his friend Kate and seemed to have a fine day.  Then, we went to the library and picked out books (well, Logan mostly played on the computer).  Otherwise, it was normal day.  Katsu made some Japanese food and then took Andrew to cub scouts.
• Everyone was back to school on Wednesday.  I had a rare morning off - I had grand hopes to get a lot done, but after going for a run, going to the grocery store, and going to Target, it was time to pick up the kids.  The boys had tennis and they seemed to have fun.  It was getting cold by the end and we were glad to go home and have some yummy Japanese food.
• Nothing notable on Thursday except Andrew had Science Olympiad and his gifted class, so a good day for him.
• Friday was another morning off for me - I had lots of time to think, plan and organize and another run.  Noah was not excited about going to preschool, but I think it was because he was starting to feel sick and he wanted me to drive him there.  The boys were really excited for the forecasted storm - we were supposed to get lots of snow.  But it turned out to just be a lot of rain, and then sleet and wintry mix, and then an inch or so of snow on Saturday morning.  We celebrated Epiphany by doing a reading with candles and having some Three Kings bread.  Yum!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We stayed in all weekend due to the ice.  We cleaned the house, played games, watched movies, and took care of poor sick Noah.
• Sunday - church was cancelled, so again we stayed home and watched movies and played games and spent time together having a little lesson about peacefulness.

December 2016

Well, the month got away from me between Christmas, family visiting, grading finals, and all the end of year festivities.  So here is how December went:

Fun Things

- Katsu and the boys took cookies to a widow while I had to go grocery shopping (cause you know, by Monday, the kids basically are dying from a lack of food!).  They had a good time.
- Andrew worked on the tool belt loop in cub scouts this month.  He always loves cub scouts and has a great time.
- Had a parent teacher conference with Seth's teacher.  She is back from maternity leave - is going to try to advance him in math, but we'll see how that goes.  She wants to video tape him explaining things in math because she thinks he does it so well.  I still am not loving her, though.  She sent home a long homework assignment over Christmas break that was too hard (requiring multiplication and division) and of course, Seth freaks out but won't use multiplication (which he knows) because "we aren't supposed to.  I also think a lot of the grading coming home is unreasonable and Seth is not being challenged.  Oh, well.
- Kids keep going on tennis and Logan especially loves it.  Noah has found a couple friends to play with while they have lessons and has been having fun.
- Noah & Logan had a birthday party and made some art work - they seemed to have fun, but I think it was a few too many people for Noah.
- Andrew was supposed to march in the Winterville parade, but of course, it was the one day that it was cold, so he didn't.  Instead the boys went to Buffalo Wild wings for a fun lunch (courtesy of the free gift card Andrew won at the 5k).  Instead, we went to see the Greenville Christmas parade at night with lights.  We brought hot cocoa and popcorn and the kids had a blast.  But then, Logan and Seth both had crazy.spewing vomiting spells in the night - we think food poisoning, but who knows.  We all stay home from church (except Katsu) to be safe and catch up on Christmas movies.
- Book Club at my house - it was fun!  We read a book about WWII - I didn't love at first, but ended up enjoying it in the end).
- The morning of my final, Logan was laying lethargically on the floor, and we realized he was running a fever and sick.  Katsu stayed home with him.  It was movie and pajama day for Noah at preschool, so he went anyways.  Logan slept all morning and I was able to grade my finals super fast while they rested and watched Christmas movies and get grades up by that evening.
- Logan was still sick and missed his preschool program.  We were able to make it to Andrew's orchestra performance.  He was pretty nervous and said he slipped and missed a lot of notes, but I think he did a good job.  So glad he is enjoying the viola.
- Friday we picked up a pizza and spent about 5 minutes at Chick fila seeing the live nativity.  Andrew was being a pill and sat in the car, but the rest went.  Noah was kind of scared of the animals if they were too close.
- Saturday, my parents came into town.  We mostly spent the week low key, though we had tons of parties in the evenings.
- Sunday, we went to Katsu's work party.  It has tons of good food.  Logan and Noah were tired and stayed home, but the older boys came.  I erroneously thought we could let them be and go and socialize together until the boys knocked over a lamp (!).  Then, Seth went outside and got soaking wet, so it was time to go home.
- Andrew and Seth still had school through Wed, but the little boys were off preschool.
- Monday night we had a Christmas family home evening at our neighbors and the boys acted out the nativity.  It was great and we didn't have to do it at home later in the week as they tend to get wild and it all goes off track.
- Tuesday, Logan had a dr. appt - which went well.  He is about 75% for weight and is pretty tall (75% - 90%), so he is growing well.  Then, we left the boys with my parents and went to the beach for a day.  It is the first time in almost 10 years that we have had a night alone without kids!
- We drove to Manteo.  The drive seemed fast without any kids.  The Inn we stayed out was on the waterfront and very cute.  We walked around and saw the lighthouse and all the decorated boats.  We had the afternoon cookie snack, did some Christmas shopping, had the evening cheese and crackers (skipped the wine) and then drove around trying to find anywhere open to eat.  Out of luck, we ended up at an Italian restaurant and slowly the other three sets of people staying at the inn all ended up there, too.  We ended up falling asleep at 8!  How boring are we!  We had gone so we could see the lights at the Elizabethan gardens, but of course, it was closed because it was too damp!  Isn't it always damp at the beach ...  The next morning, we drove down to the beach and went walking down it collecting shells for awhile.  We drove over to the Jockey Ridge state park and walked up the dunes.  Then, we drove up the outlet store and decided to drop by since it was deserted.  Then, we drove home.  The kids survived and it was fun.
- We got home in time to finish up our cookies to go to the caroling and cookie party at our friend the McCraes.  We delivered several plates of cookies and then came back to their house and ate lots of food.  It was lots of fun.
- My dad got sick the next day, so he took it easy.  I had a dentist appt and then we went to dinner at our friend's house that we were carpooling with.  The kids had a blast.
- The next day, we went to our neighbor's house from church for an open house.  Almost everyone else there was family, but there was tons of food.  It was great that we didn't have to really cook for a week!  We also had a friend over for Andrew in the morning and had nerf gun fights.
- Saturday, we went to Brother's Keeper in the afternoon and served the homeless.  Then, we had some Christmas Eve fun.  We watched Home Alone 2 before dinner, then we had some appetizers for dinner and did our Advent and caroling and opened our book/chocolate presents. Then everyone went to bed.  It was a great evening.  Perfect.
- Christmas morning was kind of crazy, but to be expected.  Lots of present opening ...
Katsu - big present was the PS4 and associated games
Amanda - big present was some painting and cookbooks.
Andrew - big present was Nerf guns and a circuit set.
Seth - big present was video games and a coding game.
Logan - big present was a dragon, nerf guns, and a telescope.
Noah - big present was a laser gun with lights and some super hero pajamas.
Also, we got a new Japanese game called Tookaido and Booche (a kid version that is pretty fun).
We went to church for an hour and then spent the afternoon watching Christmas movies, playing with games and toys, and having entirely too many screens.  Actually, a theme of two weeks - we bought a whole bunch of movies from Clo and Dick's Christmas money and have been watching one a week and then going crazy this week and the next week.  Plus the screen time - they got games for the DS which they love.
- Monday was the last day with grandparents.  We went to mini golf at the new place with lots of pirate and Christmas presents.  It was so fun!  Even Noah wanted to try but he couldn't really do it.  Then, we went off to Bojangles for some lunch.  And then, we had to say goodbye to grandparents.
- We wanted to do more experiences, so we got less presents and then, went and did something fun the rest of the week.
- Tuesday, Katsu and the older 3 went ice skating while I worked and Noah napped.  Andrew kept trying and had a bit of hard time getting it, but Logan and Seth really enjoyed it once they got the hang of it.  They are already asking to go back.
- Wednesday we took a little road trip to Wilmington for the day.  We are hoping the boys are more game for road tripping now that they have the DS to play with.  We went to the history/science museum (a lot more history than science), Cape Fear and the boys had a lot of fun, for the most part.  The museum had a lot of interactive parts, so that was nice.  Then, we went to a restaurant that was highly recommended - Amy's Flaming Burrito.  The kids were apprehensive, especially Andrew, because he didn't want to eat  there and Seth was whining since we got out of the car that he wanted to go home.  But in the end, it was awesome - great portions, cheap prices and fun.  I got the Flaming Burrito - which was so hot that my lips went numb and then I couldn't taste for awhile.  It was quite good then.  We stopped at a nature park next to the elementary school.  It had a carnivorous plant garden.  Wilmington area is the only place in the world where venus fly traps are native.  It was pretty cool to see them - there were hundreds everywhere.  We drove to the North Carolina battleship and took some pictures outside.  We didn't feel like paying to go in, especially when it is pretty similar to the battleship we saw in Virginia.  There were signs for alligators and the kids didn't want to leave until we saw one, but we convinced them to come back.  We drove to a National Park battelfield (Moore's Creek) nearby that was for the revolutionary war.  The kids had fun watching the movie and looking at the display (well, Noah loved the guns, Logan was interested, Andrew was doing the junior ranger program, and Seth wanted to leave the second we got there).  We enjoyed walking around the battlefield and then it was time to drive home.  It was a great road trip, though the boys would have been as happy staying home and playing on screens.
- Thursday, I took the older boys to Air U - a trampoline jumping place.  The boys have been wanting to go forever.  We bought them t-shirts so they can go and jump for $10 for two hours on special days.  Logan was crying because he didn't want to go by himself so I paid to jump with them for an hour.  It was fun, but a woman who has 4 children can just not jump that much!  We spent a lot of time on the obstacle course, some on the trampoline jumping, and also jumping onto the big balloon / cushion.
- Thursday was also Katsu's birthday.  Sadly, he was sick so we didn't get to celebrate as much as we would have liked to.  We had a little breakfast and sang with candles in his french toast.  He rested and played video games most of the time.  After Air U, we stopped and picked up an ice cream cake at Dairy Queen and sang again and enjoyed it.  He cooked up some steak for dinner.  That was about it ... too bad he didn't feel well and we didn't get to really enjoy it.
- Friday marker the start of celebrating New Years.  We watched movies during the day, Katsu made curry for dinner.  I decorated the house for New Years.
- Saturday, we cleaned the house nicely to get ready for new years.  We had udon for dinner.  We had some special cookies and made bread rolls that looked like 2017.  We had bags that we got ready, although then we pretty much ignored them.  We played a new game - Tookaido while I read books to the littler boys.  We played Just Dance and then we put on a movie, Naussica which is apparently our tradition, although it always puts me to sleep.  We stopped and did a countdown for Logan who was dying to blow the horn.  He promptly feel asleep, I feel asleep about half way through.  Noah made it almost all the way to midnight and Katsu, Andrew and Seth did.  I woke up for the last 3 minutes before the countdown.  It was a pretty good evening.

Other Notes

- The most notable thing is how fast Noah is growing up and how much more he is talking.  He just talks and talks and it is so interesting to see what he is saying all the time.