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."

Tuesday: summer activities, Mother's Day pictures

This morning Isaac pulled the following activities out of the jars: draw a picture for Yameogo, our Compassion child, and beat the rugs.

Joshua had a picture, but since he really just wanted to eat the crayon I'm not going to send it.

Then the rugs...Isaac really enjoyed throwing them over the railing.

Then we beat them.  It was cold.  And the dust didn't really come out all that well...we quit before it stopped coming out.  I remember a character in some book hating beating the rugs (Laura Ingalls, perhaps?) and now I understand.

The Mother's Day pictures from church came out.  At least Ben and I look happy.

Monday: 41 weeks and first day of summer

Joshua turned 41 weeks today.  He's been in a better mood the last few days.

Today also started the beginning of our summer activities.  This morning Isaac drew two items, one from each jar.  (Ok, he drew three.  One we couldn't do today because it was rainy.)

Our fun activity was to have lunch with Ben.  Luckily, that worked for Ben so we met at Culvers, because Isaac really wanted to eat somewhere with chocolate milk.  Our work activity was to cut up / flatten the cardboard that has been in the garage forever and to jump on it.  So we started...


Joshua found the activity hilarious!  (Don't you just love the sound of his laugh?)  So it was a win-win.  Eventually we filled up the garage and, even though it was raining, started making a path outside.  More fun in the rain, right?

I told Isaac he could take a few pictures, and after taking the one above he started taking a picture of every single box.  Since Joshua was starting to get fussy, I ended that rather quickly.

We got the boxes back out after rest time, although it was windy (but sunny) and the boxes kept blowing.  I put a few in the recycle bin; it turns out that wet boxes go into it much more easily than dry boxes.

Sunday: Happy Mother's Day

It was a very nice Mother's Day.  Not that much different from normal, but I really like what we do on a normal Sunday.  Except that the boys slept in, which was awesome.  It seems to be a normal Mother's Day activity.

We went to church, I took a lovely nap, played a bit, and put the boys to bed early.  Isaac almost started crying when we were playing Uno and the color wasn't yellow anymore, so he obviously needed to sleep.  Also, Joshua played peek-a-boo with us.

Saturday: a walk

We ended up going on a walk late this afternoon.  I carried Joshua.  Ben and Isaac were in front most of the time, but then we went in front.  Joshua kept doing the following:


Then at the very end we found a log and were balancing on it.  Ben was pretending to have trouble, so Isaac went over to hold his hand.  Ben was still having trouble, so Isaac showed him how to do it.  Oh, by this time Joshua had also clearly shown that he wanted to be held by Ben.  Not sick of me, but would rather have Ben.