Thursday: halloween

I made it through Halloween.

I did a lot of chauffeuring today.

The normal church that we have trick-or-treated at in the past didn't do it this year.  We went to a different church and it wasn't the same.  They had games for candy instead of trick-or-treating.  This would have been ok, except that the weather was terrible and so it was packed.  Very packed.  We played a few games because we got there near the beginning, ate our hot dog, and left.  I couldn't quite handle it.

We went to Meijer and got some bags of candy.  I told Isaac he needed to go around the table and say trick-or-treat to get it.  It turned into a grand game, as always.

Tuesday: hmm

We'll start out with the funny.

We'll move on to the hmm...excel on my teaching station likes to crash.  There doesn't seem to be a reason behind the crashing, other than after I've been teaching for a while.  I've put in a help ticket and something was done, but it didn't seem to fix the problem.  And since it's a hard one to troubleshoot, I usually don't know if it's been fixed until it does it again.  Anyway, it became unusable during my first class.  I switched to Google Sheets for a little bit, but Sheets isn't 1) the same or 2) as good as excel.

I also feel a bit like an old grump.  There are several things coming up in the rest of the week that I just don't want to do.  They're not bad things or hard things, I just don't want to do them.

Joshua decided that he wanted to write "No, don't go downstairs" out of Legos.  He got the O in no very easily.  And then...I'm not sure what happened.  He wouldn't even try the N.  It took about an hour of tears and a little bit of help and more tears and some snuggles and more tears before it got finished.  It was something I at least wanted him to try first, because he's often been able to succeed if he tries, but he refused.  However, he got through the W by the end of the night.

Monday: donuts

We got donuts at the grocery store, as normal.  Every time I put the donuts in the bag I think I should write a blog post about it.

You see, I always put my donut in last.  This way the chocolate doesn't smush and melt to the wax paper.  Sure, I try to make it so that the frosting doesn't come off on the wax paper, but I don't really have a good system.  So I just put mine on the top and the kids have never said anything when their frosting isn't perfect.

Friday: shots

We got our flu shots today.

Joshua was nervous.  He gave me a hug and the nurse said, "OK, I'll count to three.  One."  Poke.  "Two.  Three."  Joshua was then quite confused as there was no poke after three.

Isaac wasn't nervous.  The nurse said, "Ok, count to three."  Poke.  Isaac said, "One, two, three."  And then I laughed because he counted after the poke.

To be fair, the poke seemed a lot less pokey than it has in the past.

Thursday: Joshua

Joshua has been especially cute lately.  He's been giving extra hugs and thinking a little bit more about how other people are feeling. 

Tonight Joshua and Isaac both sat next to me while we prayed.  Joshua realized this shortly after everyone sat down.  His response?  "I could get Grey Bear for Dad to sit with."

Last Sunday: Shedd aquarium

We started out the last day with a trip to the pool.  Luckily this hotel had wonderful pool hours...6am-10pm.  We got there shortly after opening, due to the time change and kids that don't sleep in.  Going down the elevator a father commiserated with me about the early wake up.  (Note: I don't need them to sleep in much.  But it was a busy day and they got to bed late a little bit of sleeping in would be nice.)

On the last day of our stay we went to the aquarium.  In the past Isaac has not enjoyed aquariums, but I've never been to Shedd and I though Joshua would like it.  We told him to have a good attitude about it.

Well, after a bit of a hassle getting there due to the marathon we made it.  We went to see the dolphin show first and everyone loved it (even Isaac).

We watched the dolphins from under the water for quite a while too.

Besides the dolphins, there were four animals that really caught my eye...the Weedy Seadragon,

Jellies (although they're always a favorite),

Isaac and Joshua (oh, just kidding),

and these...I forgot what they were.  They're like tube worms and hid in the sand and would slowly come back up.  Once a fish swam by and they all disappeared down into their holes.

Joshua really wanted to take my picture on the sea turtle.  I has happy to oblige.

This is more what we're like though...Joshua squinting because he doesn't have his sunglasses on and Isaac going crazy.

After a late start on the train we took away the boys' screens.  They fell asleep pretty quickly.

Last Saturday: Chicago Children's musuem

Everything in Chicago starts later than I would prefer (especially when you have two kids that wake up at 6am).  However, that was part of the reason for going to the Lego store the night before.  We were able to take out the pick-a-brick Legos and enjoy them.  There were some special Halloween pieces, including spider webs, spiders, and bones that we don't see very often.

We got to the Children's musuem a few minutes early, so the boys rode the escalator...a lot.  There were a few times I wondered if they were having more fun in Chicago riding the escalator or actually doing the stuff.

One of the first things we encountered was the fire truck.  We didn't stay all that long, but I did notice that Isaac preformed a great experiment.  He wanted to know if the lights flashed on top of the truck when you pushed a button in the truck.  He pushed the button and looked.  He didn't see anything.  He had Joshua push the button while he stood outside.  He still couldn't see anything, but also realized he couldn't see very well.  He climbed to the bucket which is higher on the fire truck so that he could see the lights, but then he didn't know if anyone was pushing the button.  So finally he had Joshua watch and he pushed the button.  Joshua said, "no lights".  Isaac then looked at us for secondary confirmation.

The special exhibit was Mo Williams.  This 'give the cookie to Pigeon or Duckling' occupied both boys for quite a while.

Both boys climbed the schooner several times, but Joshua especially enjoyed it and did it a few extra times.

We then had a snack and a short pom pom war.

Then to the water area!  Isaac probably could have stayed longer, but Joshua got attached to this funnel.  (It was odd after the attachment to the red balls the day before.)  He enjoyed playing with it for a little bit, but after that he felt like he had to play with it but was out of good things to do with it.  Then he used it to get himself quite wet...and that was the end of that.  We took off his socks and he wore Isaac's sweatshirt the rest of the time.

The other problem Joshua might have been having was that he was hungry.  It was quite a bit after normal lunch time and the snack wasn't really that big.  We found a pretzel place and split some pretzels.  They were delicious.

We took a quick outside break to ride the ferris wheel.

We went back to play a little bit more.  There wasn't a ton of time and Cheryl and I wanted to skip the town portion...so we hit a few places including the giant dominos.  They started doing pom poms again, but it wasn't working quite as well as the first time so we decided to call it just a bit before we had to.  However, the ride back took a bit longer than expected, so it was a good choice.

On the taxi ride home we were talking, trying to keep Joshua awake, and I asked him what a difference was between him and me.  The first thing he said was that when he is tickled he shrieks and when I get tickled I don't.  Isaac piped in with I'm taller and Joshua's shorter.  Joshua finished with I work more and Joshua plays more.  While these are all true things, I was surprised that boy/girl differences didn't show up.  We had a fairly quick turn around and then went out for dinner at a nice grown up restaurant.

Monday: Joshua

I get to spend Monday's with Joshua.

He spelled his name for me.  While he's been writing it for a few weeks now, this is the first time he's spelled it out loud for me.  It's a good thing that H is this week at school, because that's the one he's been having the hardest time remembering.




Then we went to the store.  The crazy kid didn't realize he had is coat on upside down until I told him.

Then to gymnastics.  Joshua had written a note for his coach and it seemed like she was having a bad day so it was especially appreciated.  He also really liked pushing this block back and forth.

Saturday: spark lab

We went to the SparkLab at the museum today.  After last rotation I had been expecting to not really go back, but we had a sneak peak of what was there this past Wednesday and they had some interesting stuff again.  I'm still not sure what I'll do when our membership is up...maybe let it lapse for a little bit and then go back?  We'll see.

Anyway, they had marble run stuff.  Isaac worked so, so hard for two hours to make his work. (And he did!)  He also found out the some marbles had a hollow inside and some had something slightly shaky inside.  One type of marble worked on his run but not the other.

Joshua stayed at the marble run the whole time to, but explored it much differently.  It started with building a run, but decayed into...random experiments I guess.

Friday: day off

Isaac didn't have school today.  We spent most of the day at home.  We cleaned off the table and got some new Legos out.  (And yes, the table is now messy again.  I almost took a picture of it for the five minutes it looked nice.)

Joshua got out his new robots.  I don't think he had fully appreciated them before, but as he started to look at the box and realize that it was a Boost set, kind of like Isaac's, he got very excited.  He worked all day to put R2-D2 together.  (And by all day, I mean every spare moment he had.  He took a few breaks to eat, have screen time, etc., but otherwise he was working on it.  I was rather impressed.)  He almost has it done.

Isaac decided to play with the pick-a-brick cups.  I was a bit surprised, but that has been a bit more up his alley lately.  He spent most of the morning doing it and some of the afternoon.  (I did make both boys clean their rooms.  Joshua has it down to a science.  Isaac decides to play with everything while putting it away.)

We're trying to make rock candy.  I don't think it quite worked...we might need to reboil it tomorrow.  However, the boys loved the super saturated sugar water.

The new dryer came today!  Yay!  People were starting to run out of clothes.

This evening we went to the library for a small pumkin fest.  We painted pumpkins and listened to some stories.  I'll admit, I've missed story time with Mr. Rob.

Thursday: fashion show

Wednesday: meh

Meh.

I could have done better today.

I'll try again next time.

Last Friday: on the way to Chicago

It was a busy day.  I woke up too early, afraid that we'd miss the train, but then everyone else woke up early too.

The boys were super excited...for everything.  For Chicago, for the train, for not going to school.  (Isaac only had a half day though.)  One of the things that I thought was cool is that as he was looking out the window Isaac was figuring out what kind of a community it was...rural, suburban, or urban.  They had studied it a few weeks ago in school, so it was cool to see it being put into practice.

Once we were almost to the train station Joshua decided he wanted to start counting the roofs of the houses we were passing.  ...well, he and Grandma counted as fast as Joshua could, which wasn't very fast.

We stopped at the hotel to drop off our stuff.  There was a bear.
Joshua: Is the bear real?
Isaac: No, it's wearing a shirt.
Later when I asked Joshua if it was a real bear he told me it wasn't because of the shirt....not because of the many other reasons that it might not be real.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry and stayed pretty much until they kicked us out...and we still didn't get to everything.

There was a large bucket with balls that tipped over every few minutes.  Joshua was intrigued/worried about it.

Joshua carried around these two red balls a lot longer than I would have thought was fun.  Sometimes he let go to put them in the river or what not, but then always got them back again.

My favorite part was the large Tesla coil.  The boys' favorite part was "everything" (including the movie Joshua fell asleep during.)

After dinner we had reservations at the Sugar Factory.  Oh my goodness, Isaac was so excited.  Joshua was excited too, but Isaac went a bit crazy.  Everything, the food and the desserts, were delicious.

And what trip to Chicago would be complete without a stop at the Lego store?  Joshua got Kai as his Mini-fig match, which was pretty cool.

Phew.  A great day, but by the time we got to the hotel I was exhausted and fell asleep quite promptly.