Playing football

There is a new favorite game in our household–Christopher is obsessed with his version of playing football.  The game is played daily, and it is about all he wants to do on the weekends.  (Those of you who are familiar with my weekend tv habits will not be surprised by this.)  The game is always played on the big green area rug in our living room (the field).  Everyone is assigned an identity–Will is usually Felix Jones, Christopher is usually Peyton Manning, and I’m usually Darren McFadden.  Then we run around pretending we have the football and getting tackled (with an optional tickle-tackle technique developed by Mommy).  Last weekend, Christopher added an interesting aspect to the game–before we played football, we had to stand in the kitchen, near the doorway to the “field”, while Christopher sang the Razorback fight song and then we all ran onto the field.  I guess he’s been paying better attention to the football games on tv than I thought!

Will is getting into football season by learning new words . . . last Saturday (in preparation for our embarrassing loss to Kentucky), Will started saying “Razorback,” pronounced “back-ee-back.”  Adorable.  Christopher thought so, too, and he spent most of the day trying to get Will to say it.  Let’s hope the Back-ee-backs’ season improves from here!

The Beach!

Last week we took the boys to Florida for their first trip to the beach. We met some friends there, and Christopher and Will had a great time with their 3-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter. One highlight of the trip was that we got to ride on 4 “big jets” (2 each way), and Christopher got to take a look at the cockpit of one. When we boarded our 3rd plane, Christopher was so excited about the potty at the front of the plane that one of the first-class passengers asked if it was his first time on a plane. No, sir, he’s just one thrilled three-year-old!

Once we got to the beach, Christopher was a fan, but Will was not. I sort of saw that coming, since Will doesn’t even like to walk in the grass. He was fine as long as no sand was touching him, which meant he wasn’t fine most of the time. He did like being held out in the ocean and lounging on beach chairs under the umbrella. Christopher wasn’t so sure about the waves but didn’t mind as long as we held on to him. He loved playing in the sand, digging holes and building castles with Daddy.

We had a great time relaxing on the beach, by the pool, and at the house on the bay where we stayed. We rode a ferry, fed the birds, threw pinecones into the bay, and flew a kite with our friends. We also ate a lot of yummy food–it cracked me up one evening to hear Christopher and our friends’ three-year-old son discussing how much they like shrimp.

Now that we’re back home, we’re settling into our weekly routine of preschool and Awana’s for Christopher, music class and mother’s day out for Will, and storytime at the library for everyone (and often with friends). In fact, Christopher and a friend from church made the front page of the local paper when a photographer came to take pictures at the library two weeks ago!

Will is continuing with his language explosion–he is fully enunciating all 5 letters in his favorite word, “drink”, and will raise his hands and say “I don’t know” if you ask him where something is. When Christopher was this age, he answered every question with “yeah”. Will seems to have a slightly different outlook on life–he answers every question with “no”! Possibly because for most of his young life, he has heard that word screamed at him by Christopher hundreds of times a day when Will reaches for a toy. It is pretty funny to see him starting to stand up for himself with his own emphatic “no!”

Christopher’s YouTube debut

Since I aim to exceed the expectations of my blog readers (especially Aunt Amanda!), I put video of Christopher singing the fight song on YouTube (see post and comment below). It was Grandpa’s idea, actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41kyBTxM9yY

Now I need to capture video of Christopher watching the video of himself, because it is almost as funny as the video itself.