It’s been busy! And cold, so I haven’t felt like doing much of anything. However, day turns to night turns to day, and classes continue, so I do have to do something. It was a pretty good week at work, finally checked in with all my students I haven’t seen lately, so that was productive. I also got a lot of grading done. This weekend, we had a visit from my friend from North Carolina and her family. I took the boys to pick out donuts before they came for brunch, and that was a big treat!
On Sunday, my friend from the Bahamas visited for two days. She’s awesome and fun to have around with the kids. Seamus and Gilbert remember her from our visit there a few years ago.
On Friday, Patrick is off to Sacramento for a two day conference. Then it’s practically Seamus’s birthday, soccer starts, and the end of the semester races towards us!
In the meantime, the boys had gotten really shaggy, so I took them all for haircuts, including Harlan’s first time in the chair. So cute! He played with the toys while Seamus and Gilbert went first, then he started saying “Haircut!” and “My turn!” so we popped him in the chair. The woman cutting hair laughed at my attempts to get around his ears (I guess she sees that a lot!). She made quick work of him, turning a baby into a little boy in 10 minutes!
Finally, Friday we had a decent day! 65 and sunny. We made a beeline for the cul-de-sac, where Seamus and Gilbert played basketball with friends, Porter tried out his pedal bike, and Harlan went for a spin on the balance bike.
Porter keeps asking for training wheels, because in his favorite Franklin book, Franklin has to learn to ride without training wheels. We keep explaining to him that he already knows how to ride (and he does!), but he wants to ACT OUT the book! He had me hold his bike seat for a minute so he could recite all of Franklin’s lines….Meanwhile, he knows all he has to do is “Push, Push off, Pedal!” and he goes!
Academic Leigh Speaking 
Gordon has moved from Balance Bike to training wheels. Really bad idea. He balances fine on his balance bike and is scared to death of his wobbly training wheels. It’s weird. We’ll just keep trying though!