Someone set us up the Connect Four

(If you're not familiar with the meme, see this.)
The boys have been enormously enjoying Chanukah this year. On the minus side, when I announce it's time to light the candles, O often responds "presents!" And there has been a fair amount of present jostling and fighting when we give each boy a present; for the past few days we've gone down to a single present for them to share (possibly with enough components that they can both have fun without noticing the other one is playing with something clearly more interesting than what they have). To prove that they can play nice, here's more fun at the train table (which sports a new Chanukah-gifted set of tracks, bridge, and station):

Today's present was Connect 4. As I assembled the board, I was a bit bummed to see that even our childhood games are getting updates; there are now variants for making the game into a "5 in a row" version, as well as specially marked checkers that do special things like giving the player a bonus turn. Each of these checkers is actually named for its obvious icons: anvil checker, wall checker, and so on. Except for the one that knocks out an opponent's checker, which has the obvious classic bomb logo on it, but is simply described in terms of playing "this checker". Oh how the times have changed. Anyway, the boys enjoyed taking turns putting checkers in, but they've removed the most fun part of the game - the little switch that drops all of the checkers out. Now it's a weird twisting hinge thing that a grownup has to manipulate. Still, it was fun to have a family game day!
O's got a new tooth or two coming in, so he's been a bit under the weather. Zachary's fighting a cough that seems to mostly appear in the evening and first thing in the morning. And I'm recovering from allergies after visiting some friends for a Chanukah party last night. Meh's been doing a good job of taking care of us, but I think we'd all love a nap. Over the last few days that I've been home alone with the boys, we've gotten closer and closer to landing the communal nap, but still no dice - either Z will get bored and start to turn on the radio or O will be a squirmer (or push me out of the way to try to snuggle Z, keeping both of them awake). I still have hopes for the stars to align one of these days!