Friday: GR Children's musuem

Today we went to the Children's Museum with Dad, Pat, Landon and Greyson.

Oh, but first I got this from Joshua today it is, "To help you remember that you love Dad."  I'm not sure why I need the help, but the sentiment is cute.

Ok, back the the Museum.  Isaac loved the silver mirrors outside as we were waiting for it to open.  He does obsess about his colors a bit.  If it is silver, he loves it.

This museum was a lot of fun, but there was more free play in it than Impression 5.  (That one is more play to learn.)  It was right up Joshua's alley though, and he played rocket and fire truck for quite a while.

Isaac's favorite part was the spinning wheel.  I could have spent longer there too, but was called to a fire.

I got a short puppet show.

Isaac did some bouldering; Joshua tried and was getting the hang of it but then gave up.

We played with bubbles.

And built stuff.  We built several domino runs too, but those didn't get any pictures.

The boys found the diner/construction zones and played at those for quite a while.  I was happy to have missed the diner; I get fed so much pretend food that I'm often pretend stuffed.  We finished out the trip with making some bridges.  Joshua was in charge of hammering all the bolts.

actually Thursday: this and that

We started out with a short walk with our neighbor and then playing with their kitchen.  My boys sure do love feeding me, but they don't like eating their own cooking very much.  During this time Holland Rescue Mission also came to pick up a bunch of toys.  I got rid of several large toddler toys.  The toys were loved, but haven't been played with a significant amount lately, so they can be passed on to someone who will love them better.

After that, we worked on taking the paint of Joshua's loft for a bit.  I finally found tools that seem to work well, so the boys are more willing to help...it is rather addicting to get the paint off when it actually comes off.  Then we still had some time, after playing Uno and Sleeping Queens, so I decided it was time for our yearly "clean under the fridge."  First of all, there was so much less this year...a comb, a receipt, and a magnet.  The boys are getting older.  Secondly, after I pulled out the fridge they pretty much took over.  I finished a small part at the end, but they did most of it.  I guess behind-the-refrigerator is a cool place to be.

Joshua still loves playing with Voltron.  During rest time I heard him say, "dear lion, please help us find a trick to poop on the bad lion's head."  I can't remember what the context was, but it was still hilarious.

I gave blood today.  The needle poke hurt more than usual, but it also seemed to go faster than usual.  I was in and out in about thirty-five minutes.

Thursday: around

Today we stopped by Hope College.  I confirmed that over the summer CIT upgraded all the computers to Microsoft Office 2016.  This is a bit of a problem as I ordered the 2010 book again.  Now, it isn't a huge problem because there are only a few things that really change, but...it would have been nice to have been notified.  I was hoping to keep using 2010 one more year and then jump to 2019.  Students have been doing their homework on 2016 for quite a while, so I think we're going to use 2016 and deal with any problems as they arise.  I've also been using 2016 at home, so I more-or-less know my way around it.

We also finally took pictures of Joshua's quilt and picked up a card holder for him.

We played one round of sleeping queens and one round of Uno.  Uno was a bit more fun because Uno is much better with three players, but Joshua only tolerated being on his own team, even with a lot of help.

We've been reading "The book with no pictures" a lot lately and at one part I have to say, "my head is a blueberry pizza."  So today we made a blueberry lemon pizza and it was delicious.

Note the flashlight.  In the middle of baking the light bulb on top of us burned out.  Joshua immediately said, "I got it!" and ran off.  I had no idea what was going on.  He returned with his flashlight so that we would have enough light.

Let's see...we have a broken house and splash pad on the table, a cruise ship over to the side, and a playground next to Joshua.

We got some fish.  The yellow one is Isaac's and the working name is "Yellow" and the red one is Joshua's and it's name is "Sea Patrol."

The other arm of Voltron was made tonight.  This has provided hours of entertainment, especially for Joshua.

Monday: busy day

We had a busy day today.

It started at Crazy Bounce.  The boys put this at the top of their list of things they wanted to do this summer, and we finally made it.  There was bouncing.  There was crazy.

We came home for screen time and rest time.  Haroldina, my mouse, had her birthday party.  Apparently she was supposed to have it yesterday during the birthday party time but somehow she didn't.  I guess yesterday she played too much and so didn't do any eating.  From Isaac's mouse, Mouse, I got a rainbow power.  From Joshua's mouse, Puppy, I got fire power.  After eating we went to fight a birthday boss.  Joshua had been very concerned all day that we wouldn't do this.

We went to the playground.  Isaac mainly did his own thing...even Joshua didn't follow him around as much as normal.  But Joshua played with our friends a bit.

Both boys were quite tired by the time we left.

It is also the release of the next Warcraft expansion today!  Here is Amalle by a broken down robot.

Sunday: froyo

It was enjoyed by all.

Saturday: made it

We made it through the day.  Joshua was extra...grumpy.  In retrospect we probably should have gone out of the house and done something.

Friday: Perseid meteor shower.

Today's plan was to go to the beach to watch the Perseid meteor shower.  The astronomy club was putting on an event.

The boys took naps.  Joshua decided to take a nap on the floor.  It was a bit weird, but he did sleep.

We got in the car and started traveling.  When we were two miles away from the beach traffic started to get rather busy.  I didn't think that all those cars could be going to the beach...surely this event wasn't that popular.  When we were 1.5 miles away the traffic turned into stop and go traffic.  As I rounded the corner all I saw were taillights.

We turned around.  A mile and a half of traffic trying to get into the beach!  There isn't that much parking!  The s'mores would be gone!  It would be a madhouse!  Where did all these people come from???

So the boys got their pajamas on and we made s'mores at home.  The marshmallows didn't get very warm.

Joshua was done with star gazing pretty much right away.  Isaac and I lasted about an hour, but I only saw two and Isaac said he saw two while I was inside checking on Joshua.  Either it was too light out on the deck or they just weren't really showing up.  I was very disappointed.  However, I got the star chart out and Isaac and I had a really good time looking for the constellations and the stars.

Vacation day 2: Impressions 5

We went to Impressions 5 for the second day of our little vacation. 

The first thing we did was played with water blocks...that looked a lot like Legos...

There were several other fun water things to do, and by the end their pants were soaked.  Luckily, we had yesterday's clothes in the car.

We then went upstairs and played dentist for a bit, but that area soon got busy and we moved on.

They found a space station to play in for a while.  My favorite quote was when some other kid said, "We're about to launch into space!"  and Joshua corrected with, "We're already in space!"

We did some cool light things and throwing things and had a lunch of junk food.  Joshua was being a little (lot) grumpy by this time so we went to our tried and true favorite: blocks.

First we built a chimney.

Then Isaac made some stairs and Joshua just climbed all over on the blocks.  But he was happy, so it was good.

Then we moved over to the pipes.  Joshua had (sort of) wanted to play with the water pipes so it was nice to instead have some dry pipes.

We finished off our time by building a bridge.

Both boys fell asleep on the way home...we completely wore them out.

Thursday: life

Joshua had his four year old check up two days ago.  He is in the 16% for weight and 22% for height.  These follow his growth charts pretty well, so no worries there.

This morning we did water balloons.  The boys enjoyed them, although we went through them pretty quickly.

This evening we went to the playground with one of Isaac's classmates.  They're in the same class next year, so that will be nice.  We started to take a walk with them and then turned around because Isaac's stomach was off.   (It was also bedtime.)  He ended up throwing the biggest tantrum that he's ever thrown.  He wanted to show me something on a map, but since it was after the car I said no.  (If we can't finish the walk, we can't look at the map.  It made sense to me.)  It did not make sense to him and I had many tears and several times that he stopped walking.  Joshua and I kept walking, always keeping him in sight.  The last time to the car he stood still for a respectably long time, but then "decided to make the right decision" and walked to the car.  It was a good decision, because I was going to uncomfortably carry him if I had to go back to get him.

We had a few other issues when we got home, and it ended up with me telling Isaac that he couldn't eat his carrots because it was time for bed.  It felt like a weird thing to say.

I had Ben put Isaac to bed.  I kept my cool, but was rather done with it all.

Wednedsay: birthday gifts

Joshua has been enjoying his new bubble blower.  Coupled with seeing the neighbor across the street, we've been doing quite a bit of bubbles lately.  Isaac likes to swat them.

We went to a play this afternoon that was given to us for Joshua's birthday too.  The kids enjoyed it, and it held their attention the whole time - a sign that it was interesting.  It was called 'Dragon Pack Snack Attack', which is why Dragon is with us.  Grey Bear got to come too.

Monday: the big day

Joshua has been so excited for his birthday party.  So excited.  We finished hanging the decorations this afternoon and I'm pretty sure the rest of the afternoon dragged for him as I was doing the last minute preparations.

He choose a meal of chicken nuggets (I picked dino-nuggets), carrots, strawberries, and blueberries.  And, of course, cake and ice cream.  Ben also picked up some potato wedges and mac and cheese to round it out.  He was excited that Scarlet was going to be there and was pretty sure that she would love the chicken nuggets too.

Presents!  He got two new Duplo sets.  While Joshua is easily doing Legos, he still uses Duplos all the time.  These sets were chosen with care to have some interesting pieces.  One has a shooter and the other has slides and spinning gears.

Did I mention he was excited about his cake?

Isaac was pretty excited about the two Duplo sets too, and so they put them together together.  Joshua also showed his cousins his Police Lego set.  He finished it yesterday, and did a ton of it by himself.  I think his biggest problem was that he sometimes missed a few pages, so Ben and I had to go back through the police station a few times and fix something.  He did a great job doing it mostly on his own though!

Sunday: preview

Joshua's pretty excited about his birthday party tomorrow.  I hope it lives up to his expectations.

I picked up his cake this afternoon.  He requested the name 'Puppy'.