Basketball "Hoop"

What a day! The boys had such a great time being outside today and Ty loved wearing shorts! We even set up our own basketball hoop. Click here to see the pictures of my wonderful invention. The funny thing is that at the end of the day we had 8 kids over in our backyard playing with our homemade basketball hoop. I thought it would hold us over for awhile and the boys were determined to play basketball. I told you, Julie, Ty is getting ready to take on Big Jon and Isaac told me that he needs to practice a lot because he is going to play for Ohio State. Anyways, it was a good day to be outside. We also went to the park to meet Katie and Johnny. After dinner the kids went back outside to play with all the neighbors kids. Did I mention they loved my basketball hoop? :-) Ty is getting quite a bit of attention and Kayla and Isaac are definitely noticing it, but they are being somewhat gracious about it! I just keep telling them that the novelty of him being new will wear off soon and their friends will be back playing with them again.

We are trying to get back in the swing of things, and today, when I walked into the kitchen and noticed a funny smell, I looked in the pantry and there it was... a rotten potato. I realized that I've been falling behind in some minor tasks. So, in addition to catching up on some of the cleaning, Kayla and I are also hitting the books again, and of course the boys love to bug her while she is trying to work. So I send them to the basement to play. Ty's favorite trick is to let Isaac go down first, he waits until Isaac is at the bottom of the stairs, and then he turns the lights out; as you can probably imagine, the result is Isaac coming up the stairs running and screaming at the same time. Ty then breaks out in his famous laugh. You would think that the trick would get old or that Isaac would catch on, but no, that pretty much happens daily. Ty also likes to unbuckle himself in the car and walk around in the car. He usually waits until I am going at least 65 miles an hour and am on the highway; or... he might decide to unbuckle himself and get out of the car while we are picking up grandparents and loading their luggage, at the airport. He has also learned how to say "No" quite firmly. I told El that it sure doesn't take kids long to learn how to talk back. This is all good though, because he is fitting in well and the boys are beginning to act like brothers. Ty is very good at telling on Isaac and has figured out that if you take food away from Isaac, that will make him cry, especially if they are chilli flavored Fritos! Isaac likewise knows how to make Ty yell for Mommy. He jumps on the back of his bike while Ty is riding it or just waits until Ty gets off for a minute and then jumps on the bike and rides away.

It's good to have things returning to normal!

Kara