The Minton Family.com

Bill beat me to the post about Levi learning to ride without training wheels.  The truth is this….The other day he wanted me to help him get started on Jada’s old bike.  He knew how to ride, but he just couldn’t get started.  I was in the middle of doing something and I told him that I couldn’t go outside to help him at that time.  He simply went outside and taught himself how to start and stop unassisted.  I was pretty impressed.  When Bill got home that evening, the training wheels came off of Levi’s bike!

Jonah has also learned a new skill!  He can now snap his pants.  I think he spent about 10 minutes earlier this morning working on it.  He would not let me help at all.  He finally got it though!

Both boys have been sharing their knowledge of numbers with me a lot lately.  Jonah will see numbers when we are out and about (they particularly like school buses).  He will tell me that there is a 4 and a 0.  Levi and I will then have a discussion about 4 and 0 being the number 40.  I love it hearing about all of the things that they are learning!  Levi should be a genius at this point because he asks A LOT of questions!

A couple of days ago Levi had me take the training wheels off his bike. As of today, you’d think he’s been without them for months. He starts, stops, and rides like any other biker out there. It’s crazy how fast he picked up on it.

Yesterday, we were playing ball and I had he and Jonah getting rebounds. Jonah started crying because Levi was getting all of them. Out of the blue, Levi says “Oh man, I missed it, get it Jonah!”. It brought a pretty big smile to my face to see him big brothering Jonah like that. It was a nice change from the usual bickering that goes on between the four of them.

Jada turned 9 last week on Thursday and she has been enjoying a long celebration.  On Thursday, she look cookies to school to share with her friends. When she got home, Grandma Nita took her to buy flowers to plant in the yard.  They also bought a tomato plant and a strawberry plant.  After that Daddy to her out to eat at El Xochimilco, which is one of her favorite restaurants.  When they got home we opened gifts and had homemade cupcakes.  On Friday, Jada used her new garden tools from Grandma Nita to plant her flowers and plants.

Her birthday party was on Saturday.  She had several friends show up for her party at the YMCA.  They all enjoyed gymnastics, swimming and lots of junk food!  It was a great day!!!

Jonah was taking a bath and rediscovering parts of his anatomy he’d not yet seen. All of a sudden he says “Daddy, I’ve got a ball!”. Given that he’s typically got a handful of toys in the tub, I didn’t think much about it, and kept doing whatever I was doing on the iPad at the time, replying with a typical parent reponse; “you do?”. “Yep, right here.” he says. At this point I looked up thinking I’d be nodding in agreement with him, but I couldn’t see what he was referring to from where I was so I said “show me”. He stood up to show me and that’s when I found out what he was truly referring to.

I’ve tried to put more “user friendly” names on his boy parts so if he breaks out a reference to them in front of a little girl that has no brothers at school or something, he won’t be introducing her to terms her parents aren’t yet ready for, so in the past, we’ve settled on “hang down” and “jewels”. Classy, I know.

When I saw what he was referring to, I said “Those are your jewels”, to which he quickly replied (while shaking his head) “Boys don’t have jewels Dad. I’ve got balls.”.

While laying in bed the other night, Levi asked what was inside our walls. Here’s how the conversation went:

Levi: What’s inside the walls?
Daddy: 2×4′s (two by fours)
Levi: What are bufors?
Mommy: Hahaha!
Daddy: (thinking… ah!) I pronounced it “two bufors”, he thinks there are 2 bufors in the walls. lol