watch out for falling tires

well, we thought about going to copenhagen this morning but changed our minds.  greg was still feeling down with his cold.  and it was just as well that we didn't, because in the hours surrounding henry's nap, he was feeling pretty sick too.  the only outing then was a trip to the grocery store by henry and me.  and the temperature then still felt safely below freezing, though it is above freezing now, or at least it was an hour ago, when snow turned to rain.

yes, snow.  whatever i said yesterday about no new snow on the ground is now outdated.  we woke up to new snow and sometime in the afternoon it began snowing again.  all in all, it was just enough to make us feel slightly guilty for not shoveling our part of the sidewalk.  wishfully thinking tomorrow's forecasted mild temperatures will just take care of things for us.  we'll see.  but today, it was coming down, though not even the prospect of catching falling snow on his tongue could convince our older one to get outside.  he's always quite busy with his toys or playing with his brother.

today he created a lego game that he played with greg.  he built a lego game board, gave them each hats as tokens (and he's never even heard of monopoly!), and built a little lego top as the spinner.  they took turns spinning and going around the game board, accumulating points (first to reach 17 won).  if the top fell down after being spun, it counted as a number (apparently decided by the players based on how many revolutions they thought the top made) and they'd go that many spaces around the board.  a player might land at the mailbox where he could hang his hat on the 'tusk of doom' (a stinging horn), at the ATM machine at the bank where he could look inside for a letter.  or he might land at the coffee machine and have a cup of coffee, but he'd have to watch out for dr. octopus's arms that might get him (wrenches for hands!!!).  after the coffee machine was a spot with a flame, a fire extinguisher, and a sign that would say one of three things each time someone landed there: "watch out for falling tires"; "watch out for rolling tires"; or "you're free to pass."  if the player got one of the first two messages, william would drop (or roll) a bunch of lego tires onto that part of the board.  if the player's hat fell off the board, he had to go sit on spiderman's slide in the middle of the board and wait for his next turn.  after the sign/tire obstacle, at the next space, he'd have to jump over a wall, which would land him on a spring which would 'boooiiiiinnnngggg' him onto the top of a map.  the map said 'flyv hvor du vil' ('fly where you want'), which allowed the player to go directly to any place on the board, including to lego spiderman, which is where they collected their points.  if the top stayed up after being spun that meant the player got a 'trip around the world' which could get him all the way to spiderman for a point, but on their way the players always had to stop and read the sign to see if they were free to pass, or to see if they had to watch out for tires, which could land them up on the slide. william was the first to reach 17 points, so he won the game.

right now they're working on a helicopter that's been long in the making...

henry is sleeping peacefully for now.  hopefully the worst of his cold will be gone when he gets up in the morning.