Wednesday: snow

 We finally got a bit of snow!  It was rather warm, so the snow was nice and sticky.  Isaac played outside for a good two hours.

Tornado escaped at one point.  He wasn't really sure what to do with the snow and tried to dig a hole.

He also enjoyed his inside snow.

Isaac was using the screen to help make assorted shapes and the cats were having a really good time too.  Every once in a while a big chunk would fall and they'd lunge after it.

Tuesday: adventures

This morning started with grocery adventures.  There were a surprising amount of "limit X" signs around.  It makes me wonder a bit if people are hording or if it's a supply chain issue.

 
I woke up after my nap to find the boys in a competition to jump through the most hoops.  They both ended up around 412.

Besides that, I did a lot of housework today.  Our housecleaners are in quarantine, and it is an especially bad week for that.  (No weeks are all that good, but some don't matter as much as things can be skipped or I have a bit more time.)

Monday: Joshua

I was brushing Joshua's teeth in the office last night and he said, "oh, I like the curtains."  I told him they were just the blackout portion and we'll cover them with something prettier.  "oh.  I like these.  I don't like windows.  I never make windows in my Minecraft houses."  I didn't realize he had such strong opinions on windows.

Then as I was brushing his teeth this evening I noticed his bangs.  Hmm...something looked off.  I asked, "Did you cut your hair?"  "Yes." "Why?"  "I felt they were too long."  This is the first time it's happened and I suppose it could be worse.  I told him I either need to teach him how to do it properly or he can just ask me next time.  We're going to fix it tomorrow.

Sunday: day after Christmas

 In the morning Joshua made a Glitch.  It's the animal(?) that goes with one of his presents.

We also put up the kitty-sil.  I like how both sets of brothers look in this picture.

Saturday2: Merry Christmas

In the afternoon we went over to Ben's parent's house for Christmas celebrations.

Saturday: light

I woke up this morning with the thought: today we celebrate a light coming into the world.  It might be a tiny pin-prick of a baby today, but the light will grow and overcome the darkness.

Also, the animals also finally found baby Jesus.  We notice that all are welcome to find Him, including animals of the wrong scale, present-smashers, and Christmas destroyers.  It's been an interesting advent.

Friday: Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve!  We worked pretty hard this morning; Isaac finished his pie and I made the deviled eggs.  We moved Ben's and Isaac's computers back in the office.  The computer filters also got cleaned and the cords were stowed properly rather than just shoved in a corner.  I also got some blackout curtains up.  Next week we'll go to Joann's and find some colorful fabric to put on top.

It's nice to have Ben back in the same room as me at night.  We don't always interact a lot, but it was boring upstairs by myself.  (Although I did learn that Joshua comes out of the bedroom a lot in the half hour after he goes "to bed".)

After lunch we opened presents.

The cats easily figured out which one was theirs and were quite obvious about it.

Thursday: productive morning

 It was a very productive morning.  We did our errand and got donuts first thing.  We finished wrapping presents.  Isaac made a graham cracker crust all by himself.  Joshua made a scavenger hunt, which started with a cute note in a bottle and then went to a pirate ship.  I got my computer and sewing machine set up in the basement, although not much else moved back in.

Wednesday: house

The office is finished!  Well...everything needs to be moved back in and set up and new curtains, but the painting is done.  I'm very happy with how it looks.

Isaac and Joshua went to Dad's house to help take apart an old organ today.  It sounds like it was a successful day; the boys actually helped and enjoy it.  It was an especially good day because I has having problems with one of the plugs I was replacing and Dad helped fix it when dropping the boys back at home.  (My desk couldn't be moved to the right spot until it was done, so while it wasn't urgent it was important.)  (Also, why paint over plugs?  I don't think I've ever seen a painted plug that looks good.)

Oh!  We shouldn't forget about the grocery adventures.  I went today (thankfully by myself) and it was so busy.  I had been hoping that I was still early enough to beat the crowds, but it didn't really happen.  However, I pared down my list to just the actual things we needed this week and used the checkout app and it wasn't too bad.  This week there were pretty much no cinnamon/crescent rolls.  I'm still not sure where the vitamin C is that I'd like...I'm being picky with that one though because there are options.  Still no pretzel bites, so I think those might be all gone.  There were also no dried chives.  Isaac wanted to make deviled eggs and Ben and I love them, so that idea was quickly approved.  I need to look in the really old spices or we'll figure something else out.

Tuesday: better

Today went better than yesterday.  

Joshua settled down for a surprising amount of the day with some Lego sets and podcasts.  He listened to the one on Bees twice.

Isaac and I made banana bread.  He did the dry ingredients, and with the exception of needing another bag of brown sugar just did it.  He'll be able to do all of it before I know it!  He also has been making a lot of sliding puzzles out of Legos, and he watched a video on how to solve them.  He worked on them for quite a while.

Sunday/Monday: houses

On Sunday we finished our graham cracker houses.  Houses is a loose term.  It really was a castle, house, stable, arrow.

Yesterday the boys were a bit bored and it was obvious.  I was trying to finish grading.  They were just a bit bored so they still had stuff to do, but they also kept talking to me.  I finally finished at 11:30, which was really later than I had hoped but not too bad.  

The afternoon went a bit better.  We wrapped some presents and played several games.

Early evening we had a heater issue.  While the heater did manage to fix itself (at least for the night), it made us concerned.  Someone is coming in the morning to look at it, but we also increased the temperature of the house so it would have longer to fall if the heat didn't come on.  Needless to say, it was quite warm all night.

Saturday: games, houses

Today was a rather normal day, but it felt a bit odd.  Maybe because the boys played differently than normal. There were a lot more games and coloring than normal.

We also started our graham cracker houses.

Friday: the morning

It was a wonderful morning.

*I was stopped in the parking lot by one of Isaac's friend's dad to let me know that Isaac is the only friend she feels she can trust and that he's funny.  While this saddens me for many reasons, I'm also really glad that Isaac is a safe person and a good friend for her.  (And the thankfulness goes both ways.  This is the first year I'm confident that he has friends to play with on the playground.  I don't think he was ever lonely before, but it's nice to have friends.)

*We had our mom's group at church.  It's always a nice time with good food.

*I continued grading when I got home.  There had been one student taking the first exam that uploaded the wrong file and I caught it will I was giving the second exam.  I had my USB stick with me, so I just found the file in the recycle and brought it home with me, thankful to have found the problem before I left.  However, while I was at the computer I threw on the files from the second exam's student too...I was there, it only took 30 more seconds, whatever.  Today I found out that the second student had completely neglected to upload any files!  But I had them!  I didn't have to email her or quick run to Hope and hope they were still on the computer.  Hooray!!

Thursday: exams

Today I had two exams, back to back.  It wasn't quite as bad (i.e., boring) as I expected, but it wasn't really all that much fun either.  I was able to get a lot of grading done today though, both before and during the exams, but there's still more to do.

It makes for a tiring day.

On the upside, I realized that Hope doesn't start classes until the 10th.  The boys start on the 3rd, so I feel like I get an extra, unexpected week!

Wednesday: grocery adventures, again

Today's grocery adventures.

1. There was still no chicken bouillon cubes or granules, but there was a powder.  I probably would have grabbed it had I still needed some.

2. There were no soft pretzel bites this week.  I picked some up about two months ago thinking they were a one-time thing that would be at the store, but then they remained out every week.  I'm hoping they come back, but I'm not all that optimistic.

3. I saw more people with masks on at the store.  We still still a definite minority, but at least it was only uncommon instead of non-existent.

Tuesday: office

We finished cleaning out the office for painting.  Some of it I just threw in boxes to deal with later, but some of it I went through more closely as part of O:CtH.  I got rid of a surprising amount of nursery schedules...dating back to 2012.  Ben has a surprising amount of empty phone boxes.

Here's a close up of the wall paper.  I wonder if it started as a white, textured wall paper and they colored it some way.

Anyway, it's all gone now!  The desks were rather easy to move too, especially since we had removed everything from them.  It was easy for two of us to do it.  The kids were excited to go down and see the progress after school.

Horizon was quite sure that he wanted to sit in my lap tonight.  Usually he goes to Ben, but Ben is sitting in a temporary place too and it might not be as comfortable.  I even moved quite a bit and Horizon just stayed on the red blanket.

Monday: painting prep

I started moving everything out of the office today because we're getting it painted tomorrow.  While I like the purple, the blue wall paper looks like someone just did a poor paint job.  We're also going with a light grey to lighten up the room a little bit.  It won't be as colorful as any of the other rooms in the house, but I think the end result will be nice.

I'm a little worried about moving the desks, but we'll see what happens tomorrow.  Worse case we can take them apart a little bit.

Sunday: vaccinated & Nutcracker

 The boys are fully vaccinated today!  We celebrated with cinnamon rolls.

Isaac and I went with some family to see the Nutcracker Ballet.  I've never seen a ballet before, and it's been years since I've seen the Nutcracker play.  We both enjoyed it, although the first part was more enjoyable because it had more of a storyline.

Saturday: a good day

Isaac finally finished this year's advent calendar...we're going to go past Christmas.  He made some nice insides for each square.

Joshua made a cup game for some Pokemon that he had made.  What he didn't realize is that all the cups were different, so it was especially easy to find the Pokemon that I wanted.

While we were making lunch Isaac pointed a rubber band gun at Joshua...
Isaac: Surrender!

Joshua: Why?

Joshua: Ouch!
Isaac insists that the rubber band didn't hit Joshua, but everyone was laughing at the whole exchange so it didn't really matter.

Friday: video call

 As we do many Fridays, we played Kodenames with some friends this evening.

Then we watched an airplane tracker for way too long.  It was a bit interesting, but really mainly due to the comments as we all watched it together.   (In other news, it was tracked by 264 people at the end...it was #1!)

Thursday: Grocery surprises

Dad sent me a text this morning that said there was a present in my mailbox.  It's nice working in the same building as him because it's easy to get things...a birthday card for Ben, some Halloween candy for the kids, etc.

So I went up right before classes and found some bouillon for me.  I laughed.  It was a weird and unexpected but thoughtful present. :)