Monday: in reverse

 Well, the pictures were imported backwards.  So I guess we're doing this backwards this time.

Isaac was giving us a Minecraft play with the little set that we just put together.  At one point I said, "Did that minifigure just kick the other minifigure [that was laying on the ground]?"  Isaac replied, "Yes.  He wanted to see if the other one was dead."  I responded, "Kicking dead people is not appropriate."  This sent Isaac into a fit of giggles.

We have a firm rule in this house: no playing on the stairs.  So what does Joshua do?  He starts sliding around on some cat stairs.

I've seen a few "my life as a stay at home mom" videos lately and they never seem to be true.  I mean, I can't clean the whole house when my kids are gone, let alone if they're around.  I don't do videos, so I did many pictures today.  It stopped around 2:30ish because the kids were about to be back home.

2:15pm: I made potato soup for dinner.  I had to get out a new container of garlic powder and it's a lot larger than the last ones.  I've been using it a lot recently.

1pm: nap time.  With my two buddies.

12:45pm: a late lunch while dealing with some emails.  I usually read during lunch but needed to send out the email.

12:30pm: leaving the dojang.  While do people always make videos in their cars?

10:45am: going to the dojang.  I offered to sew the patches on uniforms.  It can be hard to do if you don't have a sewing machine.

10:15am: trimming the wire shelves to fit a bookcase in.  We measured it prior to ordering the shelf and it should have fit.  The white leg is obviously crooked though, so maybe we measured at the wrong place.  Anyway, the shelf fits in now.

10:00am: The roomba was having none of the floor plan today.  It took a few tries to get it started, moving things around so that it could figure out where it was.

9:50am: I got my block ready to send out for my quilting bee.

9:45am: I was looking at the disaster that is the banister.  While I remind people to bring things down, I don't enforce it and so things get ignored.  I realize that people don't know where everything goes, but there are several things that they could figure out.

9:30am: raspberry picking.  The crop is amazing right now.

9am: doing a little bit of work to get ready for work tomorrow

8:45am: getting Joshua's quilt ready for quilt picture day

8:30am: taking a break from laundry to finish getting ready for the day.

8:15am: breakfast and devotions finished

8:00am: breakfast about to start

7:35am: first day of school pictures.  Isaac (6th grade), Joshua (3rd)

7:20am: working on the kitchen

I didn't get all I was hoping to get done finished today, but I did get everything I was expecting to get done.  I'll call it a win.  The kids had pretty good first days.  Joshua more so than Isaac.  Joshua loves his teacher and was all sorts of talkative.  Isaac, I think, had to deal with three teachers telling them the rules.  I don't really love the first day of classes either because of that, so I think that was part of the issue.

Sunday: last day of summer

 School starts tomorrow!  We just had an easy day today.

As I reflect on the summer, it was a pretty good one.

Downside: I heard "Mom..." too much.  It's the first time it's every really bothered me.  Most of the times it was followed by a reasonable statement or request.  The rest of the time...well, would you rather be eaten by a shark or a cat?

Upside: I felt like the summer was well balanced.  There were plenty of things to do, but it wasn't overwhelming.  I only infrequently heard the kids complain about being bored.  

Downside: we didn't play as many games as last summer.  

Upside: we saw a lot more people throughout the summer

All that being said, I am ready for them to go back to school.  During the summer I don't do as much house work and I'm starting to go a little crazy.  (It's still the correct choice, but it can be hard to feel productive if the house looks exactly the same in the morning as the evening.)

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Today during snack time Isaac and Joshua were talking nonsense as normal and I heard the following:
Isaac: Which is louder?  Eating the Lego alligator or the pretzel?
Joshua, immediately and with absolutely no hesitation: I'll try the pretzel.

Saturday: change of plans

The day started out as planned.  Ben and I slept in, got McDonald's, and played Dominion.  We dealt with a few things around the house.  We finished our movie.  As we were having lunch we learned that Isaac wasn't feeling well and that the kids were going to come home early afternoon.

It was fine, but it was a bit sad to not have the extra day to ourselves.  There might be plans to do another night soon, but nothing is on the calendar yet.

Friday: out and about

 This morning we were supposed to go on a walk with Aunt C.  We get about a third of the way there and the car starts making a weird sound...a grinding sound in the front left.  We get about two thirds of the way there and I decide that this is not a good idea anymore.  I cancel on Aunt C and call the shop to see if they can take a quick listen right then.

They can!  So we go to the car shop.  Of course, I wasn't planning on this so I don't have things for the kids to do.  They did an amazing job over the next 30-40 minutes though, taking turns with my phone and being patient.  The people did hear the noise, but everything looks ok.  The boot that covers the axle joint was still in good condition and there weren't any vibrations so I was given the ok to keep driving.

Aunt C texted me just as we were about to leave the shop so we ended up restarting our plans with her!  We were going for a walk at the Discovery Center and it was a beautiful day to do so.

There was a hawk sitting on one of the pillars in the playscape.  It was at the same place I'd put a hawk statue, so that was cool.  Joshua was excited to show Aunt C the eagle nest.

And we saw the birds of prey, walked around for a bit, enjoyed the playground a little bit more, and just had a lovely time.

We got back home, misunderstood each other a little bit as chores were getting done, and then I brought the kids to Larry and Cheryl's house for the weekend.  Ben and I had a very relaxing night: pizza and a movie, two games of Dominion, and no wrangling of kids.  It was wonderful.

Thursday: mostly Joshua

It was a rather busy day.  I got a few things finished, but there were several that didn't.  Oh well.  We went grocery shopping this morning.  By the end of the trip I was rather done.  I'm not sure why...grocery shopping is usually tolerable.

Isaac and I played my new Dominion set.  It was the easy intro, but still a lot of fun.

Isaac went rock climbing.  He enjoyed himself much more than last night, but he was by himself.

It was meet the teacher night.  We had piano lessons right afterwards, so there was a bit of a time crunch.  We made it though!  The whole place was busy, which was a little rough.

Joshua's room was nice, as was his teacher.  Ben got a cute picture.

Isaac's stuff was definitely geared towards older kids.  He put his stuff in his locker and has a schedule and I'm slowly feeling more comfortable.  I know they've done this transition lots of times, but I don't completely know what to expect.

As we were praying tonight, I started out with some adoration: "You are the King of kings" and a few others.   The Joshua jumped in: "Oh, I've got one.  You are like a killer bunny."  "Oh?" I asked.  "Yeah, God's dangerous like the laser eyes killer bunnies have, but He can also be soft and cuddly."  I'll be honest, it seems like a very apt description.

Wednesday: kids

It felt like the day was all about the kids.  It's ok, and I still got some other work done, but it was just a fine day.

Isaac was ready to work on a Minecraft set, so we did that in the morning.  It was only missing one piece!  And it was an easy to find 2x2 brick...all the fiddly pieces that are usually missing were present.  It was pretty exciting.

Joshua and a friend went to Urban Air this afternoon and stayed for 3.5 hours.  We got home and Joshua crashed, but he had played really hard.

Isaac tried out the dev(elopment) team at rock climbing.  I was really hoping he'd love it and he definitely didn't.  The timing was even going to work out no problem.  So now we have some questions we need to ask...does it get harder/more challenging?  Can he try a few more practices and then decide?  Ben and I don't want to force him to do it, but at the same time there are a lot of good parts about being part of a team.  Stay tuned.

Monday: Detroit

We were in Detroit today.  We had a small mismash of things planned, and the plan worked pretty well.  There was a bit of extra afternoon downtime in between things, but the break was nice too.

We started with Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum.  It's an arcade with a mix of old things (think talking heads and old arcarde games), pinball machines, and new arcade games.  Ben and I were expecting a bit more old games and fewer new ones, but we still had a fun time.

Hit the dots was a favorite game and got played several times throughout the time.

There was also a Japanese drum game.  Similar to rock band, but Ben said that the drum heads were better.

My personal favorite was the bus one.  It is pretty much one of those silly drop a coin in and get tickets out if you drop it in the right place.  But, it was only a penny AND instead of tickets you got pennies back out, so you could drop them in again.  It was a lot of fun for only 25cents total.

Next we went to iFly, an indoor skydiving place.  Isaac has wanted to go for the last several months and Ben was excited to do it again.  It was a lot of fun!  Joshua even conquered his fear of going up high in the wind tunnel and decided to do it last minute.  Let's see...the first time Isaac got in the wind tunnel his legs pretty much flew over his head, but he got the hang of it really quickly.  Ben was able to go a bit more advanced and was able to steer himself around a little bit.  And I was happy with just being stable...or as stable as one gets in a wind tunnel for the first time.

Then we went to our hotel in downtown Detroit.  It has a little sitting area separated from the beds and I'm rather excited by it.  I'm currently sitting with the lights on, not worrying about waking up the kids.

The last surprise of the day was dinner at the Sugar Factory.  It has been Isaac's favorite restaurant (that he had only been to once prior) for a long time, although when I asked him at lunch time today he didn't mention it.  It's been several years since we've gone and I think he had given up.  Ben and I split a cajun pasta that was amazing.  (Side note, at lunch Joshua had a grilled cheese that he didn't like, but everyone else  thought it was amazing.  So we knocked it out of the park with food today.)  Then, of course, we had desserts.  In no particular order:

Joshua didn't think I'd let him get this one because of the sucker.  But since I had already told him he couldn't get the King Kong dessert that serves 12, I told him yes to this and he was rather excited.

And now we're back in our room.  The kids are asleep...Joshua told us he wanted to get to bed at a reasonable time tonight.  I'm exhausted, but it's only 9:30pm and a bit too early for me to go to bed.  I didn't sleep all that well last night as the air conditioner was really noisy when it turned on.  I woke up a lot, but at least I was also able to quickly go back to sleep.

Sunday: poem and Joshua

 I forgot to share my birthday poem from Dusty:

Happy Birthday to a girl named Amanda,

with more moves than a kung fu panda,

She's sweet as can be

And heals as a tree,

With better shade than my house's veranda.

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We were driving in one of Ben's work vehicles today and it alerted him that he should keep his eyes on the road.  (He was trying to get the error on purpose and was being very careful.)  Joshua responded with, "Ouch, that would hurt."

Saturday: birthday

 Happy birthday to me!  I received some nice presents this morning and did mostly normal Saturday stuff.  

This evening we visited with some friends.  These are the friends that only have boys...the kids ran around a bunch and we all had a good time.

Friday: orientering

 We tried an orienteering course today.  It was a fun time, but only went ok.  Some posts were really easy to find and we got them easily.  Other ones we couldn't find at all...but since we could get some of them, I feel like our methodology was sound.  It was also at the sledding hill, so the kids ran up and down it a few times until Joshua got hurt.

We had to stop at Meijer, and the south side Meijer made more sense to go to.  Mom always parked by G, so I obviously needed to do that too.

I put Isaac's yellow sheets on, and he had his yellow pajamas on, and he wanted a picture with those and his yellow giraffe.

Thursday: a normal summer day

 Today was a pretty good day.  As I was relating my day to Ben I realized I didn't get a lot of stuff done that was on my list for today.  Although that's pretty normal for the summer, it felt like even less than normal.

However, I did get a lot of stuff done with the kids.  Joshua's twinkle lights are up.  Isaac and I finished another Minecraft set, and in doing so found all the missing pieces to the first set we did.  I'm happy because the missing pieces are found!  However, I'm also a bit grumpy about it because it was a little annoying to look for all those pieces earlier.  We also cleaned the basement in advance of some guest coming.

Some guests came in the afternoon.  Natalie and I played several games while the kids played with Legos.  Joshua said he only had an ok time, but he seemed to be rather involved the whole time.  Isaac got into the play too and seemed to enjoy himself.

Wednesday: birthday month

 Joshua finished out his birthday month with a party with the grandparents.  He did an amazing job helping get things ready.  He was happy to help with the cleaning, even doing some without any prompting.  He also cut all the strawberries.

Isaac went to Michigan's Adventure for most of the day with church.  It's the first time he's gone on a trip like this, and I was a bit nervous but expected he'd be fine.  He was, and he had a good time.  He came home rather tired though.  

Horizon went into the cat backpack for the first time, so Isaac took him on a quick walk.

Tuesday: less annoying

Today was less annoying, although still not as amazing as most days.  I suppose that it was a normal amount of annoying, but the rest of the day was rather boring.

We'll try again tomorrow.

Monday: annoying

While not a bad day, it was an annoying day.  There.  I said it.

*Ben had his pain injection this morning and it was extra annoying.

*Joshua made a "shop" out of stuff that he's supposed to be decluttering.  Shops annoy me to begin with, but then when we weren't caring enough he got mopey.

*I was extra tired this afternoon.

*We were trying to stay quiet while someone was sleeping and it was hard and I wanted to do loud things.

*The school initially sent the wrong information for Joshua's 3rd grade class.  When we got the right information, it was the welcome packet from last year.  Did the teacher not care enough to do a quick edit?  Did the wrong file just get sent?  Add in a 'you're' instead of a 'your' and it still was a poor first impression.

We did have a lovely rain storm though.  Once Isaac and I cared more about Joshua's shop he bounced back.  I still had time to make banana bread.  I have the supply lists for grocery shopping tomorrow.

Saturday: Amy and Brian

 Amy and Brian came over for most of the day today.  We've been playing games with them about once a month so it wasn't the "catch up for the last year" that it sometimes is, and that was really nice.  We played Space Base and Isaac joined us...and won.  After lunch we went outside.  The kids played in the water for several hours.  The adults mostly sat in the shade enjoying our time together.  It was a beautiful day and very pleasant to be outside.  Near the end we wanted to play a game but there was still a child swimming.  So we did the responsible thing and played a game on our phones so we could still watch the child.  It seemed a bit silly, but at the same time was just want we needed.

Sunday: time stop

Isaac took the pictures for a time stop earlier this summer.  We finally got the stop motion video put together.

Friday: another new hike

 We went blueberry picking today, but the season is getting close to the end and the picking wasn't as good.  It was a bit disappointing since store-bought blueberries are rarely as good.  We have some though.

Then we went on a small hike with Cheryl.  We explored a new trail.  It was this crazy small trail and the trail head had a really small sign and parking was just some squished weeds in front of it on the road.  (It was obvious that it was a place cars parked though.)  Anyway, I loved the place.  It wasn't a long hike, but we saw lots of mushrooms and some bat houses and we were in the woods.

The only other excitement of the day was when Isaac slammed Joshua's head into a corner of the wall.  Joshua was so nice about it and the first thing he said to me was that it was an accident.  Anyway, it swelled up nicely and Joshua went to lay on the couch.  And proceeded to lay still for the next ten minutes.  Then he almost fell asleep.  While he only had one sign of a concussion, the phone nurse recommended that we get it checked out.  We went to urgent care.  By the time we got there Joshua was closer to his normal self but we went in anyway.  Long story short he may have had a very mild concussion but the only thing we really need to do is keep him away from activities that could further hurt his head.  So no wrestling or traps for a week or so.  Joshua's a bit bummed about the traps, but it doesn't make a huge difference in his life.

Thursday: success

 Today felt like a successful day.

I've never been to Mt. Pisgah (near the beach) before, although I've wanted to do it for a while.  I didn't know much about it, other than it had a lot of steps, so it was an adventure for everyone.  And a wonderful adventure it was.

We enjoyed seeing the area from up high.

Then we went down a side boardwalk only to find a trail system.  There were a lot of hills and "root steps" and the boys loved it.  (I may have taken the picture below from ground level to make it look steeper though.)  And we didn't get a treat with this outing!  I feel like we've been getting lots of treats lately.

At home we did home things.  There was some circuit work.  Some Legos.  Some chores.  I recently purchased a new fan because three of our fans have died in the last month.  We have a box fan for noise in the bedroom, but it's loud.  The new one is so nice and quiet but still blows air well!  Now I just need to get the boys to stop touching the buttons.

I took a nap!  While I had a very short one yesterday, today was the first normal one of the week.  I've missed them.

Isaac did a great job at rock climbing and Joshua did a nice job working on school chores during that time.

I cooked up some Italian sausage to go with our spaghetti tonight and it was delicious.

Wednesday: busy-ish

Today was an odd busy.  There were a bunch of things on the calendar, but I didn't have much doing.

Anyway, Dad came over in the morning and spend almost two hours answering questions for Isaac.  I learned a lot too.

Joshua had a playdate at a playground with a friend.  He had a blast.  The parents of the other kid were much quieter and they had several younger kids to watch, so it sometimes felt a bit awkward.  I don't mind not talking, but I also hope they weren't expecting more from me.  Afterwards we went to DQ to continue to celebrate Joshua's birthday.

 

Tuesday: pñt

 J: Mom! Runs into my room

A: yes?

J: Piñata without the vowels is just pñt

A: yup

Joshua runs out of the room

Sunday: normal

It was a pretty normal Sunday for us.  The weather was cool.  I've been opening up the house lately because we're not being hit by the heat wave affecting the rest of the world, but today I only opened up the slider a little bit.  It was too cold at 64F to open it up the whole way.

We watched church from home.  I enjoy doing it that way, although I'm not sure it's always the best plan.  However, it's summer and then we can worship with Ben.

I finished my puzzle today.  It was an odd one: it was pretty easy to find all the pieces within a column that I needed, but there were several times I had a hard time with the fit.  Sometimes I'd have a group of two pieces connected to two other pieces and thought it was completely correct only to realize it was incorrect.  It is a pretty puzzle though; I'll probably keep it.

Isaac chose Magic: The Gathering as his family game.  Not too far into the game I thought we were getting close to being done and got him out instead of just hurting Ben or Joshua.  Well, after that the game dragged and I felt pretty bad about having got him out so early.  He dealt with it as well as I could have hoped though.  It's annoying but he stayed at the table for almost the rest of the game and there were no tears.

Saturday: details

Today was a screen time day.  So for most of the day there's not much to talk about.

However, we met Nathan and family for donuts this morning.  It was Liz's birthday and the cousins had fun together.

I talked to Dad a bit today and mentioned that I didn't sleep well last night: I was out of bed three times, once for a CO alarm.  He mentioned that it's normal!  The batteries don't work as well when they're colder, so if they're on the edge and cool slightly at night that's when they beep.

We've been getting texts from the school reminding us to check our email.  They did it last year too...it was a bit annoying then but I sort of understand why they do it.  This year I get a text about an email and then it takes 36-48 hours for the email to show up.  Please note that the text just gives the subject of the email, not any details.  We haven't even started the school year and I'm over this method of communication.

I worked on Operation: Clean the House a small bit over the last week.  The next room is the small storage room.  It has the Lego sets.  The instruction manuals were in a big box and took a while to find the right one.  They're now in magazine holders by numbers.  However, in order to fit them on a shelf I had to move other things into the big storage room.  But the big storage room needed to be slightly cleaned before I could do any of that.  Oof.  Things need to get messier before they can get cleaner.

5000!!

 This is my 5000th post! 

It seems like a lot of posts, but I guess they just add up over the years.

Here's to another 5000...in 17 more years.

Thursday: rocks

All morning we played rocks.  Both children had a rock.  Each rock had a baby.  Isaac's rock pooped a lot.  They loved it.  I put up with it...I could at least get some work done at the same time.

Below is the picture of the rocks family.