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. :)

Wednesday: grocery adventures

I asked the kids if there was anything they needed from the grocery store today.  Lemon yogurt and potato chips was Joshua's response.  Potato chips?  He proceeded to tell me that he just prayed that I would get potato chips at the store, so how could I not?  I did compromise and get the baked kind though; we'll see if he likes them.

In other grocery news, there's still no chicken bouillon.  I didn't get it last week because there were no cubes, and this week the granules were gone too.  There looked like there was still some fancy bouillon, but I just wanted the boring stuff.  I'll probably regret not getting the fancy stuff next week when that is gone too.  Spicy peanut butter cracker packs are still gone, canned lemonade is still gone, and I don't know to where they moved the canned pineapple juice (assuming they still have it).  I finally decided to get a different laundry detergent than the one I wanted, but I don't care about that too much.

It snowed today!  The birds came to the feeders for the first time; Tornado enjoyed watching them.

Tornado also climbed all over me while I was doing some work at the computer.  He rested here but never really settled that much.

O:CtH is still in progress.  Today I cleaned out a few drawers.  Ok, ok.  Two half drawers.  But I also dealt with some of the stuff that needed to moved somewhere else.

Tuesday: long day

It was a long day today.  Work was fine, but it's work.  Piano lessons were cold.  They've asked families to stay in the car due to COVID...this was fine in the summer but my toes felt like they were about to fall off today.  I've ordered some of those snap hand warmers for my feet for next time.  The heated seats are nice too, so hopefully between those two things Joshua and I can stay a bit warmer.

Karate (via zoom) happens shortly after we get home, but the teacher didn't show up for the lesson.  (There's several good and plausible reasons for this.)  But it meant that I had to lead the exercise...it ended up being pretty short.

I then found out that Ben was dealing with booster side-effects in the office.  So I got him medicine while trying to deal with Joshua's hurt eye.  Joshua couldn't open his eye for about an hour because he got something in it.  It took rinsing it out and a call to Nurse Pat for it to feel better.

Isaac and I then had karate...but it was again short because I didn't want to do it.  I probably could have followed directions, but I couldn't make the directions.

That was mostly the end.  Not completely, but it got easier from there.

Monday: sleeping

I woke up in the middle of the night last night due to a weird dream: the boys and I were going to go on an international trip and I could not get my act together.  I finally got back to sleep only to continue the dream.  It wasn't really a bad dream...more like one of those annoying movies where everything goes wrong and you want to strangle the characters because they're making dumb choices.

Tornado joined me for my nap.  I wasn't going to take a picture of them every time, but this looked so uncomfortable.

Sunday: Bible Study

Today our Bible Study was extra small due to illness and Christmas parties.  While I'm glad that people with colds stayed home because no one wants to be sick right now, it was also rather sad.  We were decorating bags for Kids' Food Basket and we had been looking forward to getting to know some of the other "new" members a little better.  That being said, it was nice to catch up with these two people too.

Friday: busy but good

Today was rather busy, but it was a good busy.  I went to the mom's group at church.  I donated blood.  We had our karate test.  (It wasn't a great test, but I thought we did well for doing most of it via zoom.  It's been a while since the instructors saw the kids, and they said that they've gotten stronger.)

The annoying thing of the day was that the yard waste company didn't come and pick up the container like they said they were going to do.  So now I need to make a phone call.

Wednesday: weird grocery day

Well, in today's grocery adventures I found some Fresca!  Larry has been looking for it for a while.  That being said, there was no canned lemonade.  We really enjoyed some lemonade without added sugar over the weekend, but there wasn't any.  There was some bottled lemonade, but nothing canned.  So I just added it to the list of things I check for every week but aren't there.

Both cats joined me for my nap.  I was surprised to see Horizon there when I woke up.

Tuesday: parent teacher conference

We finally had Joshua's parent teacher conference today.  Joshua's doing great!  He's come out of his shell and plays with other kids, does well in class, and is doing well in academics, especially reading.  His reading score was 92 WPM and the goal for the end of first grade is 65 WPM.  It seems to have jumped up during this last testing cycle, but even so it was in the sixties.

It was almost a boring conference, but at the same time hearing good things about your child isn't that boring.

Monday: Tornado

Tornado followed me around a lot today.  It was nice to have a friend while doing chores.  I had a ton on my list and I almost finished everything!  A lot of them were short, but still important.  I also got some O:CtH done...it's been a while and I was "excited" to get back to it.

Isaac came home from school with a terrible headache.  He said it had just exploded right before the end of school.  He got to the car and crashed.  He made it inside, took some medicine, and then took a nap.  I expect it was a reaction to the vaccine.

Sunday: second shot

Isaac and Joshua got their second COVID shot today!  We were there for longer than I was hoping, and there were all these signs saying "expect a long wait" and "Vaccines after 4:30 canceled due to staffing".  I don't think the wait was as bad as they were advertising, but I was glad the boys had screens along.

To celebrate I let them pick out a treat.  They were rather excited...about the treat.

Saturday: box

 Boxes are so fun.

Friday: birthday

 Ben had a birthday!  It was pretty low-key, but still a lovely day.

Wednesday: Christmas decorating

Today we started decorating for Christmas.  There's really way too much Christmas stuff up now (and we still have one bin to go), but the boys are at a perfect age.  They want to help put the stuff up and they can do some of it themselves.  So...we go a bit overboard.

It's an old tree and some branches are falling off.  We gave them to the cats, hoping, rather fruitlessly, that they'd choose on those instead of the actual tree.

We did have to take down a lot of the Halloween/fall decorations.  While I made a few of these, the boys are getting very good at making things that you can tell what they are.

Also, the last two weeks saw a significant decline in O:CtH work due to a busy week and now no school.  Therefore, I'm initiating O:CtH - Christmas edition, in which we get rid of some of the decorations that we never put up anymore.  A bit sad, but we also keep getting new things and it's time. 

Monday: life

I finally remembered to move Mom's turtle inside for the winter.  Look at how happy it is to not be in the cold anymore.

 
Joshua decided to make an Easter Egg hunt.  Some of the eggs had candy, but some of them had exercises.  It was actually a rather fun mix.

Ben has been hanging up a piece of yellow yarn in our bathroom, so I took it to an extreme and had Isaac make a spider web.  He also made some spiders.

Sunday: overheard

Between yesterday and today, the kids said some surprising things.

1. Joshua made a tiny fort out of his small soft chair and a blanket.  Then the fort collapsed on him.  Instead of tossing these light things aside to escape or calling for help, he cried silently.  (Seriously, real tears.)  Afterwards, when I happened to find him, he said it was too heavy and his voice wasn't working.

2. I overheard Joshua singing a song.  The only lyrics were "They will perish" over and over and over again.  The tune was rather upbeat though.  I asked him about it a bit later, and he said that the bad guys are bring the ultimate bad guy to destroy the good guys.  The ultimate bad guy was pretty much undefeatable, although there was a chance that Mouse might be able to defeat it. 

3. We were talking about airlines and Isaac asked where we go when we fly southwest.  I said to Florida.  He countered with, "I thought that was south."  I responded with the fact that the airplanes can fly in multiple directions, although in hindsight maybe he didn't realize Southwest was the name of the company.

Saturday: crafts

Isaac made a snowman.  The top is a bit blurry because he used a lot of tape.

Joshua worked really hard to set up a jellyfish craft for the two of us to make.  We got it started, but are gluing on tentacles one at a time so they're taking a bit longer.

Friday: COVID

It was a good day today...I went to a Mom's group at church, had lunch with Betsy, and got my COVID booster.  

For posterity, I'd like to note there was a lot of COVID talk that happened today.  Several schools in the area are canceling school for next week, which works well since it's Thanksgiving week.  But they're closing school due to too many staff and students being sick.  Michigan is the worst state in the country, again, and Ottawa county is one of the highest counties in Michigan right now.  The hospitals are full and they're begging people to get vaccinated.  (I just saw the numbers of new COVID cases in Michigan and they either broke the record or are in second place.)

And yet it seems like many people ignore this.  While the CDC does recommend masking for all people in public right now, some vaccinated people choose not to mask.  While I don't agree with this, I can also understand it as the risk is significantly lower and everyone chooses a different risk level.  I think I'll get off my soap box right now, as I also doubt that anything I say here would change anyone's mind.  For that matter, most of the people that read this I think are vaccinated, so then it's like preaching to the choir.

As for my COVID booster, I'm feeling surprisingly well right now.  My arm is just a tiny bit sore, but otherwise I feel ok.  I'll make sure to have some medicine by my bed tonight just in case though.  I can never convince myself to get up and take it once I'm in bed.

Thursday: socks and cats

I put my boots on today at the last minute because my shoes were still wet from yesterday.  I quickly realized while walking into work that I had a problem: my sock were falling down.  It's that annoying thing when they scrunch near the front of your foot instead of staying in place.

After thinking about it a bit, I decided to take off my socks.  It was definitely the right choice, but it felt weird.  I was happy to get home and put on my socks and slippers again.  I think the problem is that the boots are slightly loose.  Next time I'll try either two pairs of socks or my tall socks.

When we got home, while I was thinking mainly about my socks, I noticed one of our cupboard doors open.  I found it strange, because it is the high one going into the kitchen.  I try to close all the cupboard doors if I leave the kitchen and Ben is really good about closing them.  It's also in the way, so it gets closed faster than many of the other cupboards.

Fast forward a few minutes, as my feet were warming up, and I find Isaac looking in all the low cupboards for a cat.  Tornado likes to go into the cupboards, so he was looking for him.  Yeah, it turns out that Tornado had opened the cupboard and climbed into it.  I'm not sure if he was stuck, but maybe.  We opened it up all the way and he jumped out.  Silly cat.

Wednesday: tires

My tires were changed in 15 minutes this morning.  It usually takes at least 45minutes if things go well.  I was pleasantly surprised.  I had been planning on getting caught up on some work, but ended up going to Hope finish the work instead of trying to do it on the laptop.

After that Aunt C and I packed some sack suppers with Kids' Food Basket.

Tuesday: new database

We started the Microsoft Access portion of class today.  It's not my favorite portion, but when the queries work it is satisfying.

Anyway, we're using a new database this semester.  It's based on imdb, and it's nice because everyone understands how the relationships between movies/actors/roles/etc work.

The last database was also based on imdb.  However, it was made in 2000, it is was getting obvious that it was dated.  Even when I tried to use actors that are still well known or movies that are classics, I would get a lot of puzzled expressions.  Hopefully, now that the database isn't older than most of my students, that will be resolved.

(Also, it means we're getting close to the end of the semester!  This is always a nice milestone because it means there are only six more classes to go, which doesn't sound too bad at all.)

Monday: polar bears

 Joshua was making a Lego polar bear today, so Snowfoot joined him.

Last night Snowfoot was called into duty since Grey Bear was lost overnight.  (He was found before bed tonight though!)  I'm not sure why one of Joshua's other four special animals can't help him out, but at the same time I'm happy to lend out Snowfoot for such a vital role.

Sunday: Isaac

 Giraffe joined us for church today.  He seems to enjoy sitting on heads.

I was taking apart Legos and sorting them during our dinner show, as normal.  I got to one that, after I took a few pieces off of it, had a piece of paper in it.  Isaac had hidden a sweet note inside, and it was probably the highlight of my day.

Saturday: Happy Birthday

Grandma Hilldore had an open house celebrating her 90th birthday today!  There was a delicious brunch.  It was nice to see some family that we haven't seen for a (long) while.