And just like that, another year bites the dust...

Because I'm big on recaps this week, here's a photo recap of the very end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 (otherwise known as yesterday and today).

Boo.

G.K. Woo has started sleeping like this in her old age.

Schaf is fearless.  #Athena
She bounced, climbed and slid down the slides with the big kids.

Such a weird photo but love my lil batman.
He was so excited to have a "paint face".

After bounce houses and face painting, we briefly visited a friend of mine who - kid you not - has a bounce house set in her living room.  My kids now have life goals.

None of us made it until midnight.  In fact, none of us made it until 10:30 PM.  Which was a good decision because there is nothing quite like dogs, small children and fireworks to keep you up pretty much all night.  The best sleep of last night came in the hour and a half BEFORE the ball dropped (note to self, I don't care how beautiful it is outside, NYE is not the night to sleep with all windows open).

New Year's Day was spent circuit training, nature walking, fort making...

Banner made a fort and asked Haskell to guard it during nap time.
Haskell took one look a blanket and two over-sized pillows on the floor and was all over it.  🙄

...brunch eating, coffee drinking, nap taking, grocery shopping and BIKE RIDING!

That's right.  Today was the fateful day that - just three days before turning 5 - Banner made the decision to take the training wheels off his bicycle.  And I mean that literally.  I walked out to the driveway to discover the kid pulling the training wheels off of his bike with his bare hands and tossing them into the grass.  The Hulk is strong with this one.

After a little air in the tires and a push from Trev, Banner was off.

I don't know why, but I assumed it would take awhile for him to get the hang of it.  But no.  Less than thirty minutes later, he was a regular expert.  At least as far as pedaling and steering were concerned.  

Now, getting ON the bike without training wheels is going to take some practice, but if the kid applies the same perseverance to bike riding that he has applied to learning to snap and whistle this fall (omg, the kid is persistent), I think he will conquer that in no time as well.

Happiest of New Years to you and yours from the four of us in Big D!