Friday: stuff

Today went by quickly.  I did a mix of fun and work, as expected.  I returned $24.90 worth of pop cans...quite a bit, but really only a small dent from a years worth of pop cans (and fizzy waters).

Tornado rested oddly on my legs for a bit.  He was still, but his tail was always moving so he didn't really settle.  (It's good, because it was rather uncomfortable.)

I exercised.

The boys spent over six hours in the pool today.  They only went in three times though, so I guess they haven't quite hit their goal of four times.

Thursday: and they're off!

 All the boys left today for a long weekend in Florida.  There were some plane problems and so they sat in the plane for an extra two hours before they actually took off.  But they made it and were excited to get to Florida and swim in the pool.

As for me, I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend at home.  Well, the seagulls were rather loud this afternoon so I guess it hasn't been too quiet yet.

I have several errands to run tomorrow, including returning at least a few of the pop cans we've accumulated over the last year.  Our garage is really too full of pop cans.  There's also some school work...I'm not really behind in grading but almost.  The other work thing I want to get done is to deal with the game closet.  It's hard to get in and out of it right now based on how the school room is set up, and so games have been getting put outside of it instead.

Of course, there are some fun things I want to do too!  There's quite a bit of quilting and reading and we'll see what else happens.  In the past I've done a good job putzing...a little work, a little play and I'm hoping that happens again this weekend.

 

...not much happened today.   Not much has happened this week, to be honest.  We're just going along.  School, work, naps, traps, screen time, Legos.

Sunday: Bible presentation

The kindergarteners got their Bibles at church today.  Since we're not going to church right now, we had Dad and Pat over to still make it a special time.

Thursday: Isaac

Isaac's continued to work on his...battle, I guess you could call it.

Blue finally won vs. red and put it in a cage.  Grey is the new opponent.

 

I feel like there are rules, but I'm not really sure what they are.

Tuesday: vaccines and holes

Vaccines: Ben got his second vaccine today!  He almost didn't get it because Joshua got a cold this past weekend and gave it to Isaac and Ben.  Since runny nose is on some lists as a COVID symptom, including Ben's employer, they went to get tested yesterday.  The results were supposed to come back in 24 hours, but it was 24 hours and nine minutes.  I know, I know...that nine minutes shouldn't be a big deal.  But Ben couldn't get his vaccine until we heard back and the babysitter was on standby until we got the results.  It was annoying.  Not really annoying for anyone else, but annoying for us.  But they came back in time, the babysitter came over, and Ben was able to get his shot.

In other vaccine news, I'm considered fully vaccinated now!

Holes: Isaac announced after dinner that my new laundry basket has 236 [side] holes.  Then he mentioned that it's really 238 holes because of the hand holds.  So I naturally thought it should be 239 because of the top hole.  Isaac disagreed.  I think Ben disagreed too.  I stand by my assertion though.  Hmm...it's my basket, maybe I should label it.

Monday: math

 Today Joshua realized that you can write 1+4 =5 as 5=1+4 and thought it was so funny!  It was a bit of a rough day due to some colds, so this laughter was appreciated.

Sunday: the Dragon Prince

 We recently finished a TV show called "The Dragon Prince."  It's one of the better ones that we've watched with the kids in a while.  The plot was good, the kids enjoyed it, and the adults enjoyed it.  It also had some complex characters and jokes that probably went over the kids' heads.

Pirate captain: "This is my boat.  Her name is Ruthless."

Pirate captain: "Because my wife gets sea-sick and doesn't come on the boat.  Her name is Ruth."

Saturday: early morning

 I couldn't fall asleep last night.  So I finally got up.  There were some bathroom lights on, but I had heard a child get up to go to the bathroom shortly before.  Then I noticed some lights on in the basement.

The children had managed to wake up at 2:30am and decide it was time to get up.  So they started their screen time!  Of course, then they had a terrible time getting back to sleep.  We finally all went back to bed around 3:30.  And then I woke-up early.  

I did go to Meijer first thing though before it got busy.  There were a few things that I've wanted for a while but finally hit a critical mass.  I also took a morning nap because it just wasn't working.

Friday: around the house - and butter

 Today I have a few houses from around the house...

I finally got flowers for Mom.  We also have some Lego flowers, a Venus flytrap (a la Joshua) and baby fly traps (a la Joshua too).

I moved both mattresses into Isaac's room and I'm pretty sure that I just made a large trampoline.

We put Ben's bike in Joshua's room. 

Joshua was really sad about having to do chores.  "You make me do them every day!"

We gathered for games again with friends and we didn't make it to actually playing any games.  This is in part because we spent an hour talking about butter.

Wednesday: tired

 I'm tired.  Again.  I feel like I write these posts on a regular basis, but here were are.  I'm going to try and go to bed on time today.  That's one of my problems: I've been staying up too late.  (But I also don't have to get up as early since the kids don't have to get to school, so it usually evens out.)

Weekend: Fort Wayne

The boys and I went to Fort Wayne this weekend.  We saw Nathan and family briefly for a hike last summer, but that's all.  The children woke up at 5:30 they were so excited to see each other.

It was also Mom's death day.  I haven't gotten her flowers yet, but will.  It seemed more appropriate to have all her grandchildren together.

The kids played very well together.  There was a ton of running around, but there was also some quieter play.  We did kick them outside for a little bit too. :D

We went to a playground in the afternoon.  There was a lot of follow-the-leader, even if they didn't do it on purpose.  Find one child and the rest would be following.

The children were exhausted by the end of the day.  Joshua couldn't handle the location of his sleeping bag and ended up sleeping in my room.  The rest of the kids fell asleep almost right away and they all slept until about seven.  (All the kids normally wake up in the 6:15/6:30 range.)

The next day we went to a different park.  There were some fun sticks...

...and some pictures to find on the sidewalk.

Their bushes and trees were abloom!  Joshua doesn't wear sunglasses anymore though, so I told him to just close his eyes.

The kids all managed to sleep in the same room, but the sleeping bags were moved around several times.  Nathan had to go in there after a while and tell them to go to sleep.  The laughter was so loud...but also indicative of a great sleep over.

Hmm, this was mostly about the kids.  But I had some great conversations with Nathan and Liz too.

Monday: back into the swing

 We took a long weekend to go to Fort Wayne.  It was a wonderful time and worthy of it's own post.  I'll get around to it soon.

...but if I don't start writing something I'm afraid I'll stop.  It's too easy to get a backlog of posts and then not write.

Today we went back to normal stuff...school, karate, etc.  I finally had the boys take down the fort in Isaac's room and am going to put both mattresses in that room.  Partially because Nathan is loaning us a bike trainer and I put it in Joshua's room because he doesn't use the room much.  But Isaac's mattress was taking up a lot of room so I'm moving it back.  And since I'm moving a few things around, I might as well move everything around!

Wednesday: vaccine day 2

My arm was pretty sore last night and I'm pretty sure I had a fever.  It was a good thing that Ben came to bed when he did because the fever was just starting and I can never convince myself to get out of bed to get medicine once it starts.  Today was pretty good.  I'm a little sore this evening, but I'm not sure I can blame it on the vaccine anymore.

Tuesday: vaccine 2!

 I finished my second COVID shot today!  It was a little bit surreal, honestly.  There wasn't a reminder to come get it, there wasn't a location confirmation, or any of that.  I showed up at the same place and was happy to see that I was in the system.  (I wasn't really worried that I wasn't, but at the same time...)

I got a button too!

My arm is a bit sore this evening.  I'm also rather tired, but it's also been a long day so I don't know how much is just normal tiredness.  Anyway, I'm off to bed earlier than normal, although I might stay up reading rather late.  The boys have a (mostly) screen time day tomorrow since it's spring break, so they'll be busy and won't need me as much.

Monday: egg hunt

 We did our Easter egg hunt today.  Wow, it feels like we did it two days ago.  Apparently it was a slow day.

The boys are getting older so we were able to hide the eggs a bit better.  It was rather fun to see the burst of excitement when they found one!

Saturday: in pictures

We took a walk to pick up cat supplies.  Surprisingly, it rated as the best thing of the day (after screen time, of course).  Isaac enjoyed using his scooter and Joshua got to ride in the stroller for part of it.  The stroller was needed more for transporting cat supplies, but he took advantage of it being empty on the way there.

I trimmed a new quilt for our bed.  It's the first time I've laid it out and I love it!  It's hard to see the quilting texture in this photo, but it adds to the design.  This quilt has been an idea for a long time, so to finally see the almost finished product was exciting.

Friday: The eyes have it

 More eyes were found (and put) around the house today.  It's been fun finding them.

A few days ago Isaac was emptying a box and found a bunch of the baby food containers that I had saved.  He mentioned that there were no lids, so I said I'd probably throw them out.  Instead they became toys (at least for a bit.)  They started with just stacking them, but then came into the bedroom and started throwing them and pretending they were ice cubes.  It was surprisingly fun.

Thursday: April Fool's

 We didn't do much for April Fools, but I did get some googly eyes and Ben and I put them all around the house.

When the boys woke up, Isaac took a lot of the Lego eyes and put them all around the house.  Between those and the one's Ben put out it was a lot of fun finding random eyes throughout the day.