Thursday: Isaac can go fast

Ben is working on getting the wands from Great Wolf Lodge working with one of our smart lightbulbs.  The blue wand turned the light blue and the red wand turned it red.  The boys were rather excited.

Ben told Isaac he could help do some programming and stuff once his chores were done.  I don't think I've ever see Isaac do his chores so fast.  He did a whole bunch of laundry in 10 minutes.  He did the dishwasher in five.  I was expecting all of those to take about 45 minutes, and so was amazed.

Wednesday: midterms

Yesterday I mentioned that I was productive, but didn't get as much done as I needed to.

Today's odd thing was midterms.  And finishing some of the things I didn't do yesterday.  Wednesdays are supposed to be set aside for lab grading, but I didn't start until about 10:15...after putting in midterms and dealing with handouts for tomorrow.

Luckily, lab grading, the little that I did, was going faster than normal.

In other news, we got some more fish.  We now have Golden, Big Tail, Sunset, and Rainbow.

Ben filled the closet with balloons.  Joshua wasn't expecting it.

So we filled it back up for Isaac.

Tuesday: work

I was rather excited to go to work today.  I didn't have...

...any emergencies to deal with
...any sick kids with me
...any kids with me due to snow days

I was going to be so productive!  Well, I was productive, but there is still a lot of the list to do.  Oh well.

We finally finished all the Disney puzzles.  Joshua did a great job with the smaller two (300 and 500 pc), but lost interest with the last one.  I don't know if it because we had been doing them for a while or because it was too big.

Monday: flashback

A few weeks ago the boys and I were talking about...something...in the car.  I mentioned that Isaac had once put an apple slice on his head and left it there.  The boys thought it was hilarious.

After a bit I finally found the picture.  Even after several days waiting for the picture the boys still thought it was funny.

Friday: balloons

Isaac went to a cadet lock-in tonight.  He was *so* excited.  I heard him tell his karate teacher, the teacher that brings them out at the end of school, and the doctor.  Who knows how many other people he told.  Ben went with him for the first two hours because dads were invited.  (Moms weren't, because we would make the kids go to bed.)  Not many people showed up, but in some ways that might make it even more fun.  The bounce house wouldn't be busy!

Joshua and I needed something special to do too, so we put a bunch of balloons in Isaac's room.  Joshua played hard with them.  We might add a few more tomorrow; it depends on what time Joshua wakes me up.

Thursday: rough week

It's been a bit of a rough week.  I think the problem is mostly taken care of, but there's still some fallout that needs to be dealt with.  Besides some stress I don't think there will be any lasting repercussions.  Hopefully.  I've learned a lot this week.

I know it's a vague post, but it's a public blog.  I want it to be recorded, but...not for all the world to see.

In other news, I killed the female fish.  No one wanted them.  I feel a bit bad for the femicide, but then I remember they're only fish.

In other other news, I was on the computer today after school/work dealing with good news for once, and Joshua came into the office.  He climbed up on a step stool near me and asked, "How are you doing?"  I ask the kids that all the time, but it was almost like he came down just to check on me and it was sweet.

Monday: home

We spent all morning at the resort before heading home today.

It started with a delicious breakfast.  When we were waiting for Isaac Joshua decided he needed to sit on my lap.  I'm cool with that.

We did some more MagiQuest.  The boys finished everything but the silver dragon.  We found a time when there was a one-person line (to our astonishment) and tried a few times.  It was harder than we wanted to deal with.  So the silver dragon won the day and we were left a bit disappointed.  We're fine with a hard game, but then the lines need to be short enough that we can actually do it.

I packed up the room while the boys (and Ben) finished the arcade points.

We took a stop at the water park because the boys really wanted to go.  We had a good time.  Isaac was super sad when we said it was time to leave.

We got the glitter tattoos before lunch and leaving.

Here is Pikachu-Puppy with his Pokeball that he got from the arcade.  I was voting for an inflatable sword or hammer, but instead we ended up with another stuffie.  Joshua is pretty excited about it though.

Sunday: vacation, continued

Twas another (mostly) fun filled day!

After a delicious breakfast and some mage training, the boys filled up their cups-o-candy.

Then we went to the arcade.  Joshua managed to do an amazing job on the "get the ping pong ball into a cup" and scored 1300 points.  (To put it in perspective, the super awesome jackpot was at  1500.)  They both played several fun games though.

We then defeated a goblin to get the princess' jewels back.

We went bowling with small balls.

Surprise!  Grey Bear got to go on a magic quest!  Air decided to come too.

Then came the sad part of the night.  I finally convinced Joshua to go down a water slide.  He was going to go down by himself and then I went down with him.  Well, I was too big for the slide and we crash hard at the end.  We both ended up with skinned knees and I felt so bad.  They patched up us and we rode the lazy river for a while.  Isaac and Ben did all the slides and Isaac did the lily pads.

We did a bit more magic questing because the line for the portal wasn't *too* long.  But then it wasn't working well and was being rather sensitive.  Both kids (+parent) failed it once and then Isaac and I failed again.  It is annoying to have to wait in line for something that doesn't work well.  (The portal has three different quests go to it and each person takes a total of about three minutes if things go well.  We hit the line when there were only two or three people ahead of us, but it was often seven to ten kids throughout the day.  That's a long wait.)  Oh well.  Isaac did ok.  I might have been more annoyed than he was.  I decided it's a good character building experience for him...and it sounds like for me too.

Saturday: a tour of McDonalds

We took a vacation day today.  The boys were super excited about it, until we told them we were going on a t

our of McDonald's.  We were going to try out a whole bunch of them and rate them on the food and how the looked, etc.

The boys were not amused.

So we stopped at another McDonalds (drive through this time, to get a cookie).  The boys were very not amused and possibly worried; it was hard to tell.

But we finally reached our true destination, Great Wolf Lodge, and gained some wolf pups.  Joshua wore his ears for quite a while.

We elected to do some of the non-water park things while waiting for our room to be ready.  In hindsight, this might not have been the best idea as they had to switch our room and then it took about an hour for them to clean the new one.  I'll admit...I really wanted to get into a room by the end.  I'm not sure why I cared quite so much, honestly.  Ben and I both had headaches and that wasn't helping anything.

Anyway, enough ranting.  Besides not having a room, we had a good time.  The boys especially loved the magic wands, as we expected would happen.  Joshua is ready to fight the bad guys and didn't stop telling us.

We made stuffed dragons.

We ate ice cream.

And watched a science show.

We waited around a bit longer, looking at the water park, and finally our room was ready.  We took a brief rest and headed out for dinner.

After dinner we were getting ready for the water park and the boys were being so silly.  It was crazy.  Joshua was looking for his swimsuit, stepped on it, and still couldn't find it.  So...fun stuff like that.  We finally all managed to get ready and left for the water park.

We all had a good time.  Isaac is big enough to go on the slides unaccompanied if he desires.  (How did that happen?!?)  If he was able to go with a parent he did that though.  The nice part about doing the water park "late" is that the lines were pretty fast.  Joshua did a lot of laps around the lazy river, but seemed to have a good time still.  I'm hoping he'll go down one of the little slides tomorrow; I think he'd enjoy it.

The boys managed to fall asleep even though there was a ton of noise in the hallway.  Phew.

Friday: congrats

*Dad had a very nice write up in a magazine from Hope.

*Isaac leveled up from level H to K in reading.  It was odd because Wednesday I was wondering how he was going to get to K (the goal by the end of the year) if he only goes up a level or maybe two every testing.  But suddenly it happened!  Phew...Isaac remembered to read all the small words.

*I spent quite a bit of time on the phone today.  This is a kudos to me because I don't like talking on the phone.  The people helping me were very nice, so that made it easier.  It also wasn't what I had been planning doing, but ended up being necessary.

Thursday: Happy Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!  Luckily, the boys did a bunch of fun things at school because we didn't do much at home.  They came home with a bunch of loot though!  (Including a magnifying glass that had a weird focal length.)

Joshua joined us for karate today as my special person.  He wasn't thrilled about it, but he said that he liked escaping from the traps.  (I.e., self-defense)

This evening Isaac was reading a silly book to Joshua.  I aligned the camera so that I could see them and Isaac heard it moving.  He proceeded to look at the camera a while, wondering why I moved it.

Wednesday: break

Today Joshua was at school all day and I had my break day.  I got some work done, some fun stuff done that I needed to do, and took a nap.  The nap was a bit longer than it should have been, but I just could not wake up.

Tuesday: snow day

Today was another snow day.  It was somewhat expected, as they were calling for ice.  (Ben and I heard the ice and it helped us not sleep well for several hours.)

It ended up working out ok.  I was on break today, so I just changed Joshua's daycare schedule.  I'll still get my break without kids.

Isaac played with play-doh for several hours.

We got out the Jell-o molds from Christmas.  We need to make some modifications to the procedure, but the boys had a fun time playing with them.  My non-jello-eating boys even ate some Jell-o.

Soon after this I went to snow blow before Ben got home.  It had started snowing beautiful big flakes and really quite quickly.  So afterwards Isaac joined me outside for some excellent sledding...he had such a great time.  He kept playing outside when I went in...Joshua had been working on a small Lego dragon the whole time.  He continued working on it with me sitting nearby and finished it.  He did a great job concentrating and getting the pieces in the correct spot.

Isaac: 81-85 months

I've still been taking monthly pictures, much to the chagrin of my children, even if I haven't been posting them on a regular basis.  I have it down to almost a science and if the children cooperate it can be done in less than a minute.

I'm not going to right as much stuff about the individual traits, but Isaac is still a wonderful kid to be with.  He's doing well in school, plays with his brother, and is super silly.

81 months (Sep 18)

82 months (oct 18)

83 months (Nov 18)

84 months (Dec 18)

85 months (Jan 19)

(high block)

This is the smile when something really hits his funny bone.