Oh, boys!!!

When faced with hours upon hours of time inside, due to cold weather, etc, the boys continue to come up with interesting and creative ways of entertaining themselves. It's times like these that I am SO VERY thankful that they have each other! Of course, it goes without saying that their creative playtime usually involves loud decibal levels and much clean-up! :)

Yesterday, for example, after a good 15 minutes of letting the boys play upstairs, I wandered up to see what they were doing. They were singing, in unison, "We're organizing our books... it's organize time! We're organizing our books... it's organize time!" As I heard them, I smiled to myself. It's so funny to hear them making up songs and playing so nicely. THEN, I saw what "organizing their books" actually meant. My smile faded as I witnessed three near-empty bookshelves and two boys proudly filling their dresser drawers with story books. Eek!! "What are you doing?!" I asked, with the panic of someone who DID NOT want to be spending the next 30 minutes putting books back into the bookshelf. "Mommy, we're organizing our books! It's teamwork! It's time to organize!" They were so very proud of themselves... it took every ounce of restraint for me not to completely freak out. Instead, D.R. used this as an opportunity to fix the back of the bookcase and we slowly started the process of putting the books back.

This sort of industriousness is something I see as a good and a bad thing. I love the fact that the boys are NEVER bored. I LOVE THIS. However, their "projects" often overwhelm me!! :)

Here are a few of the other ways they're keeping busy, these days...

Their attempt at a rocket ship quickly turned into a space shuttle fort. WAY FUN. Forts are a daily occurence for us, lately. The bigger, the better. If Baby Shea is content to stay inside with the boys, that is the ultimate!! Here, Dex is captain.

Also a daily happening, the afternoon wrestling match... usually lasting a good 1-2 hours. Theresa can verify. It's like clockwork!!

Dex, as Spiderman, trapping me in another web.

I think it's a twin thing (maybe a twin-boys thing?!), but neither boys has any personal space. This means lots of cuddles/wrestling for any visitor. Here, the boys get as close to Grama as possible!

Dex, as Indiana Jones.

Jax, as Indiana Jones.

Rarely, are the boys actually Dexter and Jaxon, anymore. More commonly, they are Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman, Indiana Jones, astronauts, aliens, Chicken Little, Bruce Wayne, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Optimus Prime... the list goes on and on. It doesn't matter that they've never seen the movies, they've seen pictures and they've heard us tell them the stories. I think my new favorite is when they're Indiana Jones and they go on treasure hunts. At first, they would gather up toys while singing, "We're going on a treasure hunt.... to look for gold!" and pile them high up on the couch. After a day or two of this, we tried the reverse treasure hunt. At the end of the day, we would treasure hunt for toys and then place in the toy bin. A much better way of cleaning up!