The Minton Family.com

Bill was watching a science show the other night that talked about black holes.  Levi got pretty interested in it.  The next night he had the iPad in hand and pulled up the show “How the Universe Works” on Netflix.  He kept asking me questions and I kept sending him to Bill.  I told him, “your dad loves to talk about that stuff, go find him”.  And he did.

The next night..Levi and Jonah are on the couch with the iPad. Levi-”Jonah, I want to teach you about black holes.” Jonah-”Nooooooo”…Levi proceeds to get on Netflix and begin the show he was watching last night about black holes.  Then he starts explaining things to Jonah while they watched it!

It’s funny because he has all kinds of sound effects that go with his explanations!  I think Bill sees a future theoretical physicist in the making!

Like that headline? It’s December 26, 2011, so the Christmas festivities (chaotic activities) are on a downward slope. One of the stocking stuffers the kids received was a bottle of Ski. It’s a citrus style drink similar to Sprite or Mellow Yellow that I’ve never understood the big deal about, but Jackie’s family goes nuts over it. In any case, our kids got them from Santa and given the bottle is shaped about like a beer bottle, I guess that was enough to convince Levi. Jackie was in the kitchen when Levi walked in carrying his bottle of Ski and asked “Mom, will you open my beer?”. We both cracked up. I don’t drink (never have) and Jackie drinks very rarely, so we’re not even entirely sure how he made the connection. The request was funny nonetheless.

As is typical, amongst the splattering of smaller gifts, the kids each got big gifts from Santa this year as well. The boys got Nintendo DSi’s and the girls scored iPod Touches. They had been asking for cell phones for months, but given their ages; 8 & 9, a monthly bill for calling and texting the one or two people they’d talk to didn’t seem like a good idea (to Santa as well it would seem).

The boys also got a race track that Jonah punished within a couple of hours, a few DSi games, a couple of XBox games, and several trucks, both remote control and not. They’ve bounced around from toy to toy, not spending a lot of time with any given one, but Levi has played the DSi quite a bit.

The girls however, seem to love their touches. Even though they’ve had access to Jackie’s old iPhone 3G which worked like a touch for over a year now. I set them up with their own Apple accounts so they could learn to manage money a little bit and so far…we all love it. They each got $15 iTunes gift cards, and quickly learned that even .99 apps have tax applied, which makes them cost a tad over a dollar. I pointed Jada toward a better photo app than the one that comes with the Touch and her first question was “Is it free?”. I said “No.”, and she said “Then I don’t want it!”. It’s funny to hear her change her tune when she has a finite amount of money to spend and knows the supply is no longer unlimited (Daddy’s money).

Madelyn (next door) also got a Touch for Christmas, so they’ve been texting and calling each other quite a bit. The girls spent the night at Madelyn’s house last night and Jill (Madelyn’s Mom) took them out to buy cases for the Touches this morning. They seem to really enjoy the Touch and everything they can do with it. I think given their own accounts to buy things with, they feel a little freedom..and they needed that.

Jackie got several vegan cookbooks and I got some photography stuff (Photoshop CS5, a photography book, lens cleaning pen, etc.) which seems to be my new love since needing the latest and greatest gaming gear is no longer a requirement given the slow-down in gaming (Unreal Tournament) time. Levi has been playing UT2004 on the computer though, which he seems to really like (and I of course love watching him play a game I enjoyed so much).

I got some really good pictures, both at Mom’s and at our house. So far…still lovin’ the new camera hobby. I’m not as good as I want to be yet, but I’m definitely getting better.

It’s that time again, well, ok, it’s a little after that time. School pictures have been available for awhile now, but basketball pictures haven’t been! Jonah and Levi just got their basketball pictures this morning, so those aren’t late at all! In any case, here are their ugly mugs, and if you want to see some half way decent pictures, don’t hesitate to look here.

Jada Fourth Grade 2011

Lana Third Grade 2011

Levi Kindergarten 2011

Jonah Preschool 2011

Jada Basketball 2011

Levi and Jonah Basketball 2011

Levi and Jonah Basketball Team 2011

Levi and Jonah Basketball Team Silly 2011

Jada Basketball Team 2011

Jada Basketball Team Silly 2011

Levi T-Ball 2011

Levi T-Ball Team 2011

Based on this conversation, I believe the boys were playing hide-and-seek….

Levi: Jonah,  count to 90.

Jonah: Okay…1, 2, 3….Levi, pick a different number.

Levi: 80

Me: Levi, Jonah can’t count that high.

Levi: How about 21?

Jonah: How about 1? 1, Ready or not here I come!

We have GOT to start posting stories more often! So much goes on, so many cute things get said..if you don’t post quickly, you forget things!

So, what has happened lately? Well, Levi beat Lana in arm wrestling awhile back. That wasn’t expected for a couple more years, especially by Lana!

We walked into K-Mart the other day and the first words out of Jonah’s mouth were “I smell toys Dad.”. That kid is good.

Levi told me last night when I got ready to shave his head that he wanted hair like Ethan’s. Evidently, Ethan’s hair angles up at the front by using mousse. So, we ended up not shaving his head and put a little mousse in it instead. Jackie ended up calling someone to give him a haircut, because it still needs trimmed!

We’re going to go to Mimi (Pam) and Uncle Mike’s house to get family pictures done during the Thanksgiving holiday. Mike is doing some photography work on the side and the results are good!

I just got back from a work trip to Boston. I don’t travel for work much, but it’s looking like I may be starting. Not sure yet if that’s good or bad!

The house still isn’t on the market. We had it inspected, and that came out good. Now we just need to bite the bullet and get it listed I suppose.

I got a new DSLR camera recently; a Canon EOS 60D. Below are some of my favorite images so far.

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.

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.”.

The light was reflecting through the decorative glass on the door which created several little rainbows on the floor in the foyer.  Jonah says to Levi, “Don’t step on the rainbows”!…and of course, Levi stepped on one with each foot.  Jonah freaked out yelling, “Levi, you are going to make the rainbows bleed”!

Levi wakes up a lot at night.  Usually, he wakes up before we have gone to bed.  Last night was no exception.  We are in the living room watching TV and we hear him calling for us.  Bill went to check on him only to find him digging through the pillows on the bed searching for us!

The other night, Jonah wanted to sleep with me.  I told him that he had to talk to Daddy about it.  He went to Bill, who was on the phone.  Bill said for him to wait a minute because he was talking.  So…Jonah went to Jada and asked her!  I guess we should be grateful that we still outrank Jada.  It won’t be long and we will be at the bottom of the totem pole.

A few weeks ago, Bill took Jonah to lunch at Burger King and to Toys R Us.  I had the rest of the kids at the skating rink at the time.  A couple of days after the event, I had both boys with me in the van.  Jonah said to Levi, “Hey Levi, Daddy took me to Burger King and the toy store”.  It isn’t often that Jonah is the one who gets something special and he just had to rub it in.

Christmas was  a crazy time here!  Did you expect any less?  All of the kids got skates from Santa.  We haven’t been skating yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long.  Levi got his coveted “water building”, but the pots and pans work better for him.  The girls got Build-a-Bear dogs and a couple of games.  Jada really likes playing Yahtzee.  After we checked out our gifts and had our Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, we headed to Grammy’s.  We came home on my birthday and we all went out to dinner at O’Charley’s.  The kids went back to school last week, much to their dismay.

Lana started gymnastics again last week.  She really had a good time and is excited to go this week.  The other 3 have swim class at the same time.  Last week, the small pool heater was broken, so the boys didn’t have class.  Jada got to swim though and she was thrilled.  Jada and Levi start basketball next week.  Levi doesn’t really “get” that he will be doing it, but Jada keeps asking “When does basketball start?”.

Mom and I went to Columbia, MO to watch Gail’s team play Mizzou.  Texas lost, but Mom and I had a great time at the game and visiting with Gail.  We went to dinner with Sonny, Jan, Colleen, Glen, Devon & Sean afterwards.

While we were gone, Bill was on Daddy Duty.  He packed the kids up and headed to Marion for the weekend.  It sounds like the kids had fun shopping and playing with Aunt Tracey’s dogs.  I think Daddy had fun playing x-box games with Ben.  He said the kids were really good while they were gone, which is so nice to hear.

According to the weather report, we are supposed to get 3-5″ of snow tonight, so I bought the necessary ingredients for snow ice cream…so BRING ON THE SNOW!

After Daddy, Jonah, and Levi get hair cuts this morning, we’re going to go to the mall to see Santa Claus and tell him what we want. Hopefully it won’t be too crowded, Jonah isn’t a big fan of waiting in line for things. Patience isn’t really his thing.