Joshua: 57-61 months

Hmmm...I thought I had done an update recently but I guess time has flown.  Here's a bunch!

57 months:

(I love the hands in the pockets!)

58 months:

(He's on his tippy-toes.)

59 months...the first time I haven't gotten quilt pictures.  Between VBS and vacation, I decided not to care.

60 months: Birthday!  He was so excited to turn 5.

61 months:

Friday: home again home again

Isaac is off from school for the weekend, so once again we were home.  We didn't do much.  The boys played well in the morning.  We went to the store, which didn't go so well.  They were sort of pestering each other and so I said that I got to choose the ice cream flavor and Isaac cried.  He was trying to hold it together, I'll give him props for that.  We came home, reset with lunch, and had a good rest of the afternoon.  I sent them to play outside for a bit and they played longer than I expected.  They hadn't really done that in a while, so it was newish again.

I went in and out a bit.  Here I am sitting on the front porch while Joshua tells me I'm mama puppy and I sleep at night and am awake during the day.  Puppy dog sleeps during the day and is awake at night.  It's currently night time.

I think Puppy proceeded to get lost or something.  I wasn't really playing, so I missed most of the plot line.  The one time I did find Puppy he told me that he didn't want Mama Puppy but instead he wanted his friends.  (What??  I know it'll happen eventually but it isn't true yet.)

Thursday: Question 88

Question 88: what's the most depressing meal you've eaten?

Probably orange jello and chicken broth.  Colonoscopy prep!!  The first meal of the day it's sad.  By the third meal of the day I didn't even eat the green jello that I had made because I was over it.  As a side note, uneaten jello does eventually mold if ignored in the fridge.  It took a surprising amount of time though.

For posterity, here is Joshua's first day of school report. 

Wednesday: Day 2

Day 2 of school went well.  While Joshua still may not have loved school, there was more neutral items today.  He was also quite excited to get a blanket from them.

Isaac...he still had a good day.  He played with someone at recess.  He did some writing and didn't finish (shoot!).

I got some work done today.  Not as much as I hoped, but realistically about the amount I expected.

We got some seeds from the library.  We've really only had mixed results, but there is a pretty sunflower.  Joshua woke me up the morning it bloomed he was so excited.

I ended up putting a face on the bear.  It was a good choice.

Tuesday: First day of school

Today was Joshua's first day of Young 5s.  It only went ok.  The teachers said that transitions were hard and in the car Joshua noted that when it was time to clean up he had forgotten where to put things.  He was almost in tears right before I left too because he didn't know what he was supposed to do...he had left my side and wandered off a bit while the teacher was helping me put things in the right place.  But he's ready to try again tomorrow.

Isaac had a good day of second grade.  He was old enough to find his spot before school without any help.  He reminded me of one thing when he got out of the car and suddenly was gone!  Last year it took about five minutes of good-byes before he left; this was rather abrupt.  I didn't really hear very much about his day besides that he likes his teacher and he had art.

My day went well too.  Something happened to the side of my tongue a few days ago (like I bit it, but I don't remember it) and it feels like my mouth is full of cotton balls.  It makes it a bit hard to talk.  I was feeling ok with it by the second class and then I had five minutes of stomach cramps.  Maybe something I ate?  I pushed through though, hoping it would go away because I didn't want to take a break.  I didn't know how pick up would go with the kids and I wanted every extra minute.  I was a few minutes later than I wanted to be with Isaac, but I was not late by any means.

Monday: the day before school

It was an interesting day before school.

The cats were cute, as they always have been lately.

Isaac had a bit of a hard day.  I made him do some writing and there were tears.  I was pretty much laughing because he had to write all of about twenty words.  What is he going to do in school tomorrow?  (I didn't even make him fix obvious spelling errors, except for "and".  It isn't spelled "dan" and he should know that one.)  (He also fixed "toys", because he originally had "toes" and since it's a real word we laughed about it a bit.)  I also made him clean ALL of his room.  I've been telling him that it needs to be done all weekend, so I didn't feel bad about making him finish.

Then we learned that Isaac has a new teacher!  His old teacher (kindly) quit before school started and a teacher that has previously taught second grade stepped in.  We had to go to the school anyway, so we were able to say hi while we were there.  The room looks much more ready than "meet-the-teacher" day so that made me feel a little better too.  In a weird twist, Joshua knows Isaac's teacher's name better than Isaac does.  (However, no one remembers Joshua's teacher's name.)

As a end of summer celebration we went to get FroYo.  Isaac was over-the-top excited.

We came home and Joshua immediatly went to the puzzle he was working on.  I had him start around 12:30 when I needed him to be doing something and he worked on it straight until 2pm.  He kept going back to it and now it's almost done.

Since Joshua was content I dominated Isaac in a game of Dominion.  I got a King's Court (3x) and a witch (curse) twice and poor Isaac had a deck full of curses.  It is one of the first games where I thought he could have made better choices with what to buy, but it can be easy to make mistakes when someone is throwing three curses at you.

Sunday: question 27

It was again a pretty normal day, except that Joshua hurt himself about ten times. 

So, on to question 27: what was the last photo you took?

This is an example of loop-de-loop quilting.  The fabric is Kona Sand, a light brown fabric.  This is a pretty easy and fast quilting design.

It is part of the tummy from this bear:

I used the loop-de-loop because teddy bears are supposed to be fuzzy, even if it is supposed to be a Lego teddy bear.  I like this quilt a lot more once I laid it out at the end, but it is still not one of my favorites.  Hmm, I just realized I didn't give it a mouth.  I'll need to ask Ben if I should do that.

Saturday: question 8

It was a pretty normal day, with extra donuts, and so I found some "random" questions to slowly answer on slow days.

8. What are some red flags to watch out for in daily life? 

1. A sore back out of the blue...it means that I might have a fever coming on.
2. The children not moving...it means that they're actually sick.
3. Red flags at the beach...don't swim (hahaha.  I actually don't go to the beach that much so I don't need to watch for it.)

Hmm, I guess that most of the red flags that I look for are health related.  I'm sure there are several personal safety ones that I just watch out for semi-automatically, but I don't think I have any specific items that I watch out for.

Friday: Sandy Pines

Aunt Sue invited us over to visit Sandy Pines with her again. 

We played by the playground.  It was a fun looking playground and the boys did a lot of playing in the sand and making me meatballs from different kinds of sand.  I guess that Joshua did swing for quite a while, but both boys also "rolled" around in the sand more than I was expecting.

Then we played mini-golf.  Joshua was able to start each hole with the correct form.  After the first putt both boys sometimes went a bit crazy.

Even though it was a bit cool out both boys still wanted to get their swimsuits on for the water area.  (It was actually the first thing that Joshua was excited about when I told him we were going.)  They played in the cold water table for a while and in the pool for a bit.  Then we went back for lunch and then out again for ice cream.  Isaac was really hamming it up by this time and Joshua followed.

It was a lovely day, and by the time we got home and did screen time and rest time it was time for dinner!

Thursday: meet the teacher?

Tonight was Meet the Teacher night for Isaac.  Unfortunately, her little one was sick and she wasn't there.  Someone else read us the handbook.  Ben and I both thought we could have left after the open house where Isaac saw his room.

Since Isaac was meeting the teacher tonight and we were going to the old Timbertown, we also stopped by Joshua's new school for a very short meet the teacher.  (We waved at Leah!)  The teacher made small talk for a few minutes but also mentioned that all the kids that we saw today would be gone next week and new kids would be moving in...so it will be a new(ish) routine for all of them.

Then we went to Timbertown.  It was busy, but the boys played hard while I read my book.  It was a lovely day to be outside.

The cats ended up being the funny part of the day.  We found Tornado in all sorts of interesting places.

And while Joshua was eating ice cream Horizon decided he had to sit on this chair.  This cat really does like to sit on our chairs, but usually when we're not there.  Horizon also did an excellent job of cuddling during lunch, but my phone was too far away for a picture.

Wednesday: easier day

Today there was nothing on the calendar...but there was still plenty to do.  We got groceries and school supplies.  We made blueberry muffins.  We worked on my puzzle.  I made bacon for the first time...I think ever.  One reason I love going on vacations with other people is that I learn so many different or new ways to do things, including bacon.  It's not that I didn't think I could make it, but I didn't know how to make it easily.

 

Tuesday: cats and swimming

The cats found a new perch and the boys wanted pictures.

Oh, this one ended up blurry.  I'm going to leave it in since it's the only one of both of them.

It was also the last day of swimming.  It's not a super interesting video though.

Monday: Happy Birthday!

The day was nice today.  I wasn't feeling all excited about my birthday, but I also wasn't "dreading" it...I was mostly planning on it being another day.  And for the most part, it was.  We did enough stuff though that it went along rather quickly.

Joshua made me a Lego shooter for my birthday first thing when I got up.  We did our normal stuff, then some cleaning (although I think the boys just pretended to clean), and then got ready for swimming lessons.  Suddenly they wanted lots of pictures taken.

We stopped for donuts after swimming and Cheryl took us out for dinner.  (It was especially nice since I really had no idea what we were going to have for dinner.)  I got some Legos and a puzzle after that.

(Do you like Joshua's shirt...er...dress?  Theatre camp didn't do a very good job with sizes, and Youth Large was the smallest option.)