I suppose I should get basketball out of the way first. The NCAA tournament started last week, with Duke’s first game coming on Friday night against North Dakota State. They won that one 85-62, but it wasn’t even that close really. Duke was only leading by four at the half, but they pushed it out to something over 30 points before Coach K put the bench in.

They played against nine-seeded Central Florida tonight, and that one was a lot tougher than it should have been for the overall top one seed. They’re coached by former Duke player and assistant coach Johnny Dawkins, whose son had a monster game. The final score on that one was 77-76, and UCF had a near miss and a putback that rolled around the rim in the final seconds that would have put it away. Quite frankly, they deserved to win, but I’m glad Duke pulled it out.

Outside of that and an overtime Tennessee game, most of the games in the second round didn’t have a whole lot of drama.

Our weekend kicked off with a visit from Blake and Leslie.Tristen works with Leslie, who is also pregnant and due around the time Tristen will be heading back to work. We’ve been over to their place for a Christmas party and a baby gender reveal party (it’s a boy!). Blake and I have been chatting a bit lately. We ate some salad and pizza for dinner and watched the Duke game. I really enjoyed hanging out with them. Blake wanted Leslie to check out the PlayStation VR headset. He tried it on Eagle Flight and it was pretty funny watching him play some of the levels.

Tristen took Fawkes and Phoenix to her parents’ house after their first nap the next morning to get them out of the house so we could do some room-switching work. Nonnie took them on a bike ride through Hugh MacRae Park.

Oh, Phoenix started clapping that morning. I’ve shown the boys clapping and tried to get them to do it before, but this morning Tristen and I were clapping and encouraged the boys to do it and Phoenix just started doing it like he’d been doing it his whole life. Fawkes isn’t too interested in it yet though.

Tristen convinced me to sign up for a test to get a chance to play on Jeopardy. She’s suggested it a few times, but I finally did it today. We’ll see if anything comes of it.

Torrie came over to help out before Tristen got back. It was particularly sweet of her to do that because Sebastian had a birthday party that afternoon. She had, fortunately, already got pretty much everything set up already. Torrie helped me move Milly’s desk (which used to be Torrie’s) to the road and started moving boxes and such.

Berkley came over to help too. He and I took Milly’s bed and the cribs apart then moved them and set them back up, then he helped me put together New Baby’s crib, which is also in Milly’s former room now.

The reason we did all that, of course, is that when Milly was an only child it was fine for her to have the biggest non-master bedroom. Once we found out we were having twins we knew she’d have to switch at some point, but there was no rush while they were babies. When we found out we were having yet another boy though, and it was going to be hard to fit three cribs in my former office, we knew we would have to make it happens sooner than later.

For her part, Milly has said she’s kind of excited about it. I hope that holds true once she realizes how much less room she has. I mean, she doesn’t play on the floor much anymore, mostly sitting in her bed to play with her iPad or read or write or draw, so the tighter space shouldn’t really impact her much. The only big thing I think is that I’m not sure if we’ll be able to put the TV in her room, which she plays Minecraft (and sometimes some other games) on.

As of this writing, on Sunday night, we’ve still got a lot of stuff to put up and away in both rooms, hers in particular. The boys’ new room is relatively settled, though we need to put away some things and hang stuff on the walls. It’s very echoey right now.

In one sense, it’s nice having the boys’ room further down the hall. I used to not flush the toilet unless it was something necessitating it, just because the bathroom is right across the hall from that room and I’d worry about waking them up. On the other hand though, there’s now only a wall and a closet space between me and Phoenix when we’re all sleeping, and while sound carried before anyway, it’s hard to escape now.

There was actually some crying last night. (There has been a bit here and there lately, but I think we’v only had to go in the room once over the past few weeks.) Tristen and I were both awake for a while around 4:00. I read to her, which I haven’t done in a while.

Back to Saturday.

So we moved things. Tristen went to get the boys and took them to Torrie’s for their nap, since it was getting close to time for Sebastian’s party and that way they could just wake up there at the party. Berkley left to go get Sam and Curren to bring them back to the party, too. We struggled a bit with the new crib as it seems to be missing a few things, but we ended up getting it together.

Sebastian’s fourth birthday party was fun, even if Blippy didn’t make an appearance this time. The bounce house was set up and kids spent time between that and Sebastian’s room, where a lot of them wanted to play with Legos. Almost all of the Legos had been here until recently, a mixture of ones Torrie had given Milly to play with and some that had been given to Milly. That included some that she had spent her own money on when we went to Disney World a couple years ago. She had donated them to Sebastian because he’s interested in them now (and there’s not much room for her to have them on her floor like she did in her old room).

This was actually the first of Sebastian’s birthday parties Milly didn’t make it to. She was with her mom this weekend and also had been invited to a sleepover party with her friend, Ella. Tristen got a text from a lady she works with who has a kid at Milly’s school, though her kid is a few grades below Milly. She had never met Milly, but heard her kid, who is friends with Ella’s younger sibling, get introduced to a Milly. She didn’t want to seem weird or anything so she didn’t say anything to Milly, although I don’t think Milly would have thought it weird if she asked if I was her dad or, more likely, if Tristen was her stepmom. Milly would probably have just said, “Oh cool!” when told of the connection.

Back to the birthday party. Sebastian and Logan had a lot of fun. He’d the son of Danny and Aaron. Danny is Berkley’s sister. They’ve gotten together a few times before and always seem to get along really well. Towards the end I was tossing them both up the bounce house. I was a bit alarmed the first time I did it because I tossed Sebastian all the way up and over the part at the top, right onto the slide. He loved it though, as did Logan. They kept getting right back out and running around for me to toss them again.

Hmm. Maybe that’s why my shoulder is sore. I thought it happened when I was celebrating Duke’s win tonight because I was jumping in the air and windmilling my arms (trying not to be too loud so as to not wake the babies). I didn’t feel it until after I was doing that. I don’t know.

Anyway, Fawkes and Phoenix enjoyed the bounce house, too. They figured out how to go down the slide. Fawkes has leaned to go down things backwards on his stomach because he’s such a climber, and that’s how he kept going down it. Phoenix would just bumble down, usually head-first, but sometimes he’d just do a floppy roll.

Both of the boys got their second taste of cupcake after Sebastian blew out his candle on one. Cousin Gabriel got his first taste of cupcake as well, thanks to Nonnie. I mean, it was his brother’s birthday, so why not, right?

Bash has been into the moon lately after learning about phases at school, so Tristen picked up some books on the moon at last week’s library sale as well as a tapestry of the phases. Torrie said he insisted they hang it up and had to read the books before bed.

I think his favorite gift, though, was a keyboard Torrie and Johnny got for him. He was enjoying jamming out to the presets on it and at one point said, “Take it to the max!” while sliding the volume up on it. (He also said “Take it to the minute” at one point, which I assumed was his interpretation of the Min volume setting opposite the Max setting.) It was great watching him dance to that.

Tristen woke up this morning with a sore neck. I don’t know if it was how she slept on it or something else from last night, but it was really bothering her this morning. She had planned to go to Pender Pines Nursery today, but, partly because of her neck, that didn’t pan out.

Fawkes definitely made the sign for eat or food today. Tristen was asking the boys if they wanted to eat and signed that, and he signed it right back a couple times.

Tristen and I took the boys for a walk because the weather was so nice. Fawkes and Phoenix took naps when we got back and Tristen and Torrie went to Ivy Cottage to look for a dresser for the boys’ room.

My parents bought the house next to theirs a little while back with the goal of redistributing the property lines. In that time they’ve considered renting the second house out, selling it, and moving into it. They finally decided for sure to sell their current house and move into the other one. It does make sense for them, as they don’t need all that extra space except for when all their kids and grandkids come to visit, but it will make visits more interesting, even if they do set up a living space in the barn like Mom mentioned tonight. Sleeping 14-16 people (depending on significant others) into a three-bedroom house will be an interesting prospect.

That’s about it for now, I guess. I’m trying to last through the final game of the night, a game between Oregon and UC Irvine. It was pretty close for a bit, but with a little over five minutes left, Oregon has stretched the lead out to 11 (after a three made while I was typing this).