Friday: balloons

We pulled the following out of the jars today: Balloons and make freezer meals.  We just got the balloons yesterday, so that one was good.  I was also looking forward to it.  (The nice thing about making the activities myself is that I look forward to most of them.)  Freezer meals...blah.  I wasn't feeling it.  I had the ingredients for some, but the kitchen was a mess.  I thought I'd see what happened.  We went to the park in the late morning with friends and by the time nap time was done it was too late.  Bummer.  I put it back in the jar, because I do want to do it sometime.

Anyway, balloons!  We had a good time with them.  (It should be noted that Isaac kept asking to take silly pictures today.  I guess they were a hit too.)  A nice thing about this activity was that Joshua could enjoy it too.

Isaac is hiding in there too.

There were two black balloons in the pack; they're Isaac's favorites

An untied balloon, about ready to be released.

And released!

Ben got in on some of the action after work.  He made a really big balloon.

Then we made a Joshua sized balloon.  And made his mohawk even mohawkier.

Throwing a balloon up.

We ended the day with many balloons in the room.  Maybe between 40 and 50?  Possibly as low as 30.  It's hard to tell.  It was a 100 pack and with a long weekend, we might end up finishing the rest.

Today we drew out "put up a curtain" and "take silly pictures".  We bought the curtain, but didn't put it up.  A few days ago we had drawn out "help with VBS" but didn't have anything to help with, and today we did.  So we tested about 400 tea lights to see if they work.  It was a really good activity for Isaac...I wasn't expecting to get through so many today.  There is about 1 in 20 that doesn't work and one silly one that won't turn off.  Guess it's a good test of the battery.

On to the pictures...there's a lot.  I set up the timer on the camera with burst, so each picture type had three options and I choose the best.  They're not as silly as I envisioned, but it was still a lot of fun.

1) Making sure it works.

2) Ties

3) Hats

4) Towels

5) The little red tabs from the tea lights.  Joshua has a baster bulb.

6) Flip flops

7) Puzzle pieces.  When looking back at the pictures, Isaac laughed the most about this one.  I didn't see why it was so funny.

8) Stuffed animals

9) A lot of stuff

10) Sitting backwards

Oh, then we took a break for nap time.  I also got a picture of Joshua standing by himself.  He's just starting to do this and not really very stable yet.

11) Duplos.  Isaac is playing the harmonica.

12) Silly faces

13) Backwards

14) To the right

15) To the left

16) More red tabs.  Sigh.  How long before I can sneak them in the trash?  I tried once already.

17) Throwing balls

18) Throwing balls again

19) Balls dropping from our heads.  Isaac followed his ball and did a face plant.

20) Paper bag heads

21) Screaming while standing in bags

21b) More screaming in bags

22) Jumping.  This was mostly just blurry, but you can kind of tell Isaac's feet were off the ground.

Wednesday: life

Today we pulled out "do a chromatography experiment" (link) and "weed".

The experiment was a flop.  I didn't have the recommended markers and the glasses we used were too big.  We could see the colors separate a bit, so I guess it wasn't a total flop, but they didn't look nearly as cool as the pictures.

But then we joined Aunt C for some weeding.  Ah, much more fun to do it with someone else.  We also were outside for the only two hours that was semi-warm today, which was really nice.  And the front of the house looks 100x better now!  We got Isaac some gardening gloves at the store.  They're still a little big for him, but not as big as normal sized gloves.  He's pretty funny because he doesn't want to touch anything unless he has his gloves on.  But I kind of feel like I was that way too, so I understand.

Tuesday: 42 weeks

Joshua is 42 weeks!  The thing I've noticed most this week is how happy he is to see Ben all the time.  He comes in the room and there is great wiggling.

Today we drew out of the jars "clean a room" and "read a Jesus Story and do an activity" (link).  We cleaned the office.  Or at least cleaned the floor off so the rumba could work and took up all the water bottles.  It really needed to be done.  For the Jesus story, we started with reading about God promising a son to Abraham.  The activity didn't sound super fun to me, but I thought I could find enough materials to sort-of do it.

While reading the story I came up with a different activity.  It still had the same concept, but was cooler.  The concept was how many descendants Abraham would have and how that's a really big number.  So we punched holes in a box and shown a flashlight through it to make stars.

At one point early on we counted the number of holes.  There were thirty-some holes and he counted them with only a medium amount of help.  I was impressed.  (The other day he also told me there was a 24 on his shirt.  I didn't think anything of it until he left and was surprised he knew the number.)  But then we made a lot and he couldn't count them...just like Abraham couldn't count the stars.

This was a good project because Isaac kept going back to it throughout the day and making more holes.

Joshua enjoyed his cottage cheese at lunch.

and he wanted to grab the camera.

Sigh.  Super cute but oh so annoyingly messy.

Monday: bag o' water

Today we drew out of the jars "clean the kitchen and bathroom floors with a rag" and "plastic bag & pencil".

Cleaning the floors went fine.  Isaac lost interest rather quickly, but the kitchen floor was clean by then.  I think he slipped and fell about three times while it was drying, but since he realized that I had recommended that he not walk on the wet floor he didn't say anything.

The bag and pencil experiment went much better than I was expecting.  I really thought it would last about two minutes, but we managed to stretch it out to about ten.  We used kabob skewers instead of pencils and they worked nicely.  We talked about what he thought would happen before putting the skewers in, what would happen if he took them out, what would happen if he put them back in, etc.

Sunday: 11 year pictures and a friend and thinking

Joshua woke up at 5:30 this morning and I dealt poorly with it.  After going in to his room twice I decided the best thing was to hide the monitor under my pillow.  Upon reflection this morning I decided that wasn't the best idea, but realized thinking straight doesn't really happen in the middle of the night.

We finally had someone around that was able to take some of our 11 year anniversary pictures.  However, it was kind of bright so I'm rather squinty.

We had a friend from New York stop by for the evening.  It was nice to see her.  I do miss all the friends from New York.

Saturday: pomegranates

We recently learned a good way to get arils out of pomegranates thanks to Alton Brown of Good Eats.  It was simple enough, so I though we would try them.

It's an odd thing...you bite down and get a squirt of juice and then have the sac left...it is kind of like when a kernel of popcorn hasn't quite popped all the way.  However, Isaac loves them!  Loves them!  Probably because they're juicy.  They were an instant hit.

And somehow, I'm not really sure how, he started paying for the arils.  He has a bunch of coins, and so it was one aril per cent.  Then he does some extra chores to earn his money back.  Yesterday I had him read Dear Zoo to Joshua (so cute!!), today he had to put all the shoes in the shoe closet.

So, somehow, pomegranates are teaching him about the value of coins (through a dime), addition, and work ethic.  It'll be good for as long as it lasts.

Friday: 11 years

Ben and I have now been married 11 years!!

We've had some ups and downs, but mostly ups.  It's been a good 11 years. God has blessed us abundantly.

In other news, today we drew "dust the baseboards" (it went ok) and "make a coconut tree".

Here is what the tree was supposed to look like (and here's the link):

Here's what ours looked like, modeled with a letter going up the tree and into the top:

Now, ours didn't look much like the example.  1) I thought I had disposable bowls, but didn't.  So that changed it a bit.  2) I don't have paints and didn't want to buy them for this activity.  3) Isaac isn't great about cutting shapes out yet, so in order to have him participate the leaves had to be more simple.

All that being said, it was a good activity.  However, realize that it's going to take all day...we needed a ton of glue to hold the paper towel cylinder to the cup and then it took a long time to harden.  I wished I would have realized that earlier.  But we read the book a few times and Isaac put the ABCs in the cup.  He didn't play with it quite as much as I was expecting, although part of it could be that I got play-doh out to help hold up the tree and then he just wanted to play with that.  So a better base might be useful.

Thursday: dumb monsters

So this morning there was apparently a monster in the house that made Isaac afraid to leave the room I was in.  I told him Jesus would go with him in scary situations, which lead to a semi-theological discussion about how Jesus is going home but Chico the monkey would help him.  I tried really hard to have Jesus help him too, but to no avail.

Anyway, next up on our list was Meijer.  I may have walked around the store after getting the few groceries that I needed because everyone was content and no one was crying about the monster outside the door.  Yes.  There were tears at one point over this imaginary monster.

Today's draws were to clean the bathrooms and invite someone over to play.  I know I need to clean the bathrooms more than just when I draw it, but I also know I need to clean them more than I do so there was a good chance it would work out.  And it did.  So now we have clean bathrooms.  As for the person to invite over, I started suggesting some of his friends his age, but he would have none of it.  Grandma Pat was available and willing to come over though, so it all worked out.

(I thought it was a nice smile...well, I think he was at least trying.)

Wednesday: this and that

Let's see.  Today's work activity was to clean under things.  We cleaned under the couches (which didn't really need it, but that's what Isaac suggested we clean under), the fridge,

and the oven.  I was kind of afraid of taking the drawer out...whenever we have an ant problem they come from under the oven.  I was basically imagining an ant nest made from Flurry hair and food under there and ready to freak out.  Luckily, it was significantly better than that.  There are currently no ants, but next time they show up I'll take the drawer out and see if I can find where they're coming from.

The fun item was to cut up magazines and glue them.  It only went ok.  Possibly because I wasn't there as much since Joshua needed to go down for a nap and was resisting.

Isaac also wore this outfit today, that he picked out himself.  Black.  It's kind of too bad it wasn't black day today.

And one last video...

At the end he says, "That was a lot scary."