For Joshua's Lego challenge I gave him an apple or a horse.  I was interested to see how he would combine them.  He made an apple and a catapult.  Obviously.

I made Joshua get dressed for the first time in..oh...10 weeks.  He wasn't happy and changed back into PJs and stayed in them the rest of the day.

We got his bike out for the first time.  I think we'll need to take the pedals off and use it as a balance bike.

Isaac's life skill was to put up the swing.  A small life skill, but he had to figure out how to do it.  He put it up in one place and we decided it wasn't a good place and he was so sad.  I moved it for him, but we talked about how sometimes you have to do things multiple times and it's really annoying.

Wednesday: goal failed

My goal was to wear pajama pants for the entire lock-down.  Today I failed and wore jeans the whole day. 

You see, I was actually supposed to see people today.  I gave blood in the morning.  It went so much faster than last time and I was back home within an hour.

I was also supposed to see the sprinkler people to get the sprinklers started.  (Yes, we know how to start the sprinklers.  But there are always several that need to be fixed and replaced and we just don't want to deal with that.)  Well, I've been unimpressed with these people so far.  It took them three tries to get to our house last year, and they usually didn't call to reschedule.  Let alone call to say they weren't coming.  They called this year and I called back to schedule.  They weren't available, so I left a message to call me.  They didn't.  When I called them later they said that they had got the message...

Anyway, after this long rant you won't be surprised to learn that they didn't show up nor did they call.  It turns out that Cheryl had the time slot before us, and it seems as though they got to her house very late.  Maybe when they were done they thought, "Oh, we just finished Hilldore.  We're all set."?  But at the same time, if you're running really late and suddenly you're not running late shouldn't that be a red flag that something is wrong?  Or the fact that you have two Hilldore's on your list?  Or two different addresses?  Or did something get mixed up on the scheduling side?

It doesn't matter.  I'm done with them.  Showing up to appointments 25% of the time and not communicating just doesn't do it for me.

Joshua and I conducted a scientific test to see what the most ticklish part of his body is.

1. Armpits
2. Feet
3. knee
4. tummy
5. Back
6. Chin

It involved a lot of screaming. :D

Isaac made an ice box lemon pie all by himself, including the crust.  Well, I got out some of the things from up high and helped with one stir.  But that was barely anything.

Monday: week 10 day 1

Art started out the school week.  Cheryl had brought some cars to put together, so the boys did that.  Isaac added a special twist and then they painted them.

Joshua was tasked with making a watermelon or a fridge.  He combined them.

I let Isaac work on some logic puzzles for math.  Ben and I have been working on the hard versions...and they're hard.  https://www.puzzle-star-battle.com/

Joshua also showed me how Horizon can turn into a donut.  It's so obvious.

Friday: walk

It was a beautiful day (and we had a bit of time to burn), so we went to some trails.  It wasn't too busy.  The trails were smaller and more 'trail-blazy' than most trails we've done recently, and the boys seemed to actually enjoy it.  They often don't, so it was a nice change of pace.  Maybe it was because Ben joined us.

We walked by a fast river.  The boys were a bit scared.

It was our anniversary.  We got a few pictures, but we didn't exactly dress up for it.

After taking assorted pictures Joshua wanted one with just Ben.

Isaac thought he saw a Venus flytrap in the water.  A minute after looking, Ben realized there was a frog.

We found a bench!  The boys immediately turned it into a toy.

Thursday: rainy day

Isaac finished up the shelves

A few years ago I had a crazy idea of collecting bubble wrap so that the boys could have a bubble wrap stampede.  I was cleaning out the basement and it was rainy today so it seemed like a perfect time to actually get them out.  They had fun, but it didn't last quite as long as I was hoping.

Joshua wanted to do sensory activity, so I got some quinoa out.  (It's been used as sensory before.)

Wednesday: life skills and Lego challenges

Joshua made a four scoop ice cream cone as one of his Lego challenges today.  I also challenged him to use color appropriately, and it worked very well.

Isaac's life skill was to put together shelves that we had just got.  He did an excellent job by himself, but the shelves themselves are rather large and unwieldy so he did get some help.

Joshua's next Lego challenge was a pirate ship.  He used colors well again and it turned out great!

It was also a nice day today, so I pushed Joshua in the stroller to pick up some cat food.  He fell asleep for the second half, which was the second goal of the trip.

Tuesday: Joshua

Let's start with Lego challenge.  Grandpa Paul gave him "make a big A, a little a, a happy A, and a silly A."  He changed it (of course) to "a big E, little E, happy E, and sad E."

He also made a treasure chest that opens when you put a key in it.

This evening Ben and I were in the office and the boys were supposed to be doing their chores.  Instead we hear a big thunk outside the office and Joshua says, "Oof, that definitely did NOT work as a parachute."  We laughed so much.  (It was a pillowcase, by the way.)

However, soon after that there were so many tears because I wanted him to feed the cats.  So many tears.

Monday: Happy Birthday

Today we celebrated Tornado and Horizon's 2nd birthday.

The boys got out all the special food and made Lego gifts and decorations.

They got wet cat food.  Horizon licked it quite a bit, Tornado ignored it.  Possibly the candles scared him.

Joshua opened his presents.  He had made them a heart out of their colors and a cat.

Isaac made a cake...

That could be cut into two pieces with a dull knife.

In other news, we started working on addition because number flash cards are boring.  Does anyone have a trick for telling the difference between a six and a nine?

This is what Joshua made me yesterday.

Today Joshua made a water park as a Lego challenge.  It was quite detailed, with a slide, water shooter to knock over a person, a pirate ship, and ...something else.  The something else came with a die and needed to be rolled in order to move it.

He also made a rather impressive tower out of Rhino Hero.

Isaac and Dad have been doing mail chess for a few months.  It's been a bit hard because we weren't sending a postcard back very quick and Isaac kept forgetting to move his pieces.  So we finally moved it on-line, because screen time limits are out the window right now anyway.  Isaac found several lessons and spent quite a while doing them.  He also pulled out our chess board and was doing something with it.

A few months ago: women

One day at karate there were a lot of women.  We're usually rather outnumbered, so we took a picture.

There aren't many adult females.  There's one near my level, but I haven't seen her lately.  I know there are some at the next higher level, but I just don't seem them because they're in a different class. There are some high-school black belts, and they almost count.  (Hmm, maybe they've graduated by now.)  There were several that have dropped out semi-recently for assorted reasons.

Good rambling, I know.

In other karate news we still get to test this cycle.  And we get to take it for free this time!  We've been doing virtual training twice a week.  It's going better than I expected; I'm sure we're not doing as well as we would in person, but I think we're doing ok. 

Friday: life skills

Today's life skill was chop sticks.

Isaac has been using training chop sticks for a while, so I graduated him to actual chop sticks.  I gave Joshua the training chop sticks.  Isaac did a lot better than I was expecting.

In other news, one of the boys is hiding the devotionals in Joshua's closet.  They both seemed surprised when I brought one out after finding them earlier today.

Thursday: shredded paper and a cloud factory

I finally figured out that I was allowed to recycle the box of shredded paper that has been patiently sitting in our basement if it was in brown bags.  We've been getting a lot of bags from the grocery store, so one of Joshua's chores was to transfer it. 

It was a big messier than I expected.  Not to fear, life skills are here!  Joshua's life skill today was to use the broom and dust pan to sweep it up.  He didn't do a great job, but it's better than it was.  He also seemed to be enjoying it and said, "We should make another mess so I can sweep it up!"  I'll admit though, this is the fun kind of mess to sweep because it is so obvious that you've cleaned.

We decided to feed this paper to the worms.  Instead of giving them each half the bag we collected, Joshua gave them both about 10 bits.  He was very worried about the worms escaping too.

Isaac wasn't completely feeling school today, so while he still had to do a few things I also gave him a Lego challenge of building a cloud factory.  (The cloud factory was given to us by one of our librarians.  She's been wonderful.  Not only has she made us a bunch of reading lists, but when I mentioned I was having a hard time doing my own searches for on-line books she sent me a nicely detailed way of doing it.  I haven't quite gotten the hang of figuring out appropriate books for the boys, and it's hard not being able to page through the book to see how many pictures there are.)

Wednesday: one more day down

One more day down!  They're not bad days, and they do go pretty fast.  But they're all somewhat the same.

Joshua was supposed to make a gigantic piece remover and a vacuum today.  He made a normal sized piece remover and a hand-held vacuum with a cockpit and a dragon skull inside it.  He also managed to fall on some Legos (I think) and got a pretty nice gash on his knee.

We packed a box for community action house.  I made the boys do a scavenger hunt through the groceries that we had quarantined from Monday to find everything.  The only thing we were missing was 2 cans of soup, but Isaac suggested substituting two cans of spaghetti-os. 

Tuesday: bored

I was a bit bored today.

The students of the lab I'm teaching this summer didn't finish their work early, as I was hoping.  (I hope every year.  Sometimes one or two finish something early, but never enough for me to nicely space everything out.)  So I'll have a lot of grading to do tomorrow when I could have been doing some today.  Oh well.

The kitchen got cleaned and the laundry was already done.  I worked on cleaning the guest room, which has gone from a disaster to a controlled mess.  I could have started a few other cleaning projects, but 1)I'm never really sure how long I'll have until a child needs me and 2) grading tomorrow so I didn't want to get into something and 3) I didn't want to.

Isaac's class had a "eat a snack and listen to a story".  I let Joshua join in while I went for a quick bike ride in the cold.  I'm not sure Joshua enjoyed it because I didn't change the video format and Ben didn't realize it was in a grid format.  Oh well.

Monday: no pictures

Well, the phone isn't showing me today's pictures, so ...I don't remember what happened today.

Um, I told Joshua to decorate a box to put food in for Community Action House and he decorated the inside, which was unexpected.

I got groceries.

Joshua's lego challenge (from me) was a dinosaur or something that was only blue.  He came up with a story about an octopus making a huge wave and the villagers going in their boat to fight it.

Friday: Lego games

For Joshua's Lego challenge today, I told him to make Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders.  He made a combo game.  Isaac really wanted one too, so I told him Outfoxed or Blokus. 

Joshua made a combo Candy Land/Chutes and Ladders game.  It was playing along about like those games go, and I asked him how one is supposed to win.  It turns out that instead of choosing one (or two or three or four) of the color pieces you could choose zero pieces which would trigger a special piece being put into your hand and that would bring you to the end.

Isaac made a pretty close rendition of Outfoxed, but added a volcano.  The volcano might go off every round or it might not, depending on how Isaac was feeling.  If lava hit you you zoomed around the board like a crazy rock and ended up in a new place.  As add-ons go, it wasn't too bad and could be used strategically.

Thursday:

For "Mom's choice" today we finally got out the robot that had been languishing, partly put together.  It turns out that Joshua had gotten stuck on a hard step.  (It was hard.  The instructions were not clear and it was a technic join, which he doesn't like.)

Anyway, we got about half way through it before school was done.  He kept going on his own and finished.  He was super excited about it and I'm glad we got it back out!  I wish I had realized it was such a small stumbling block, because we could have restarted it a while ago.