Today we drew out "put up a curtain" and "take silly pictures".  We bought the curtain, but didn't put it up.  A few days ago we had drawn out "help with VBS" but didn't have anything to help with, and today we did.  So we tested about 400 tea lights to see if they work.  It was a really good activity for Isaac...I wasn't expecting to get through so many today.  There is about 1 in 20 that doesn't work and one silly one that won't turn off.  Guess it's a good test of the battery.

On to the pictures...there's a lot.  I set up the timer on the camera with burst, so each picture type had three options and I choose the best.  They're not as silly as I envisioned, but it was still a lot of fun.

1) Making sure it works.

2) Ties

3) Hats

4) Towels

5) The little red tabs from the tea lights.  Joshua has a baster bulb.

6) Flip flops

7) Puzzle pieces.  When looking back at the pictures, Isaac laughed the most about this one.  I didn't see why it was so funny.

8) Stuffed animals

9) A lot of stuff

10) Sitting backwards

Oh, then we took a break for nap time.  I also got a picture of Joshua standing by himself.  He's just starting to do this and not really very stable yet.

11) Duplos.  Isaac is playing the harmonica.

12) Silly faces

13) Backwards

14) To the right

15) To the left

16) More red tabs.  Sigh.  How long before I can sneak them in the trash?  I tried once already.

17) Throwing balls

18) Throwing balls again

19) Balls dropping from our heads.  Isaac followed his ball and did a face plant.

20) Paper bag heads

21) Screaming while standing in bags

21b) More screaming in bags

22) Jumping.  This was mostly just blurry, but you can kind of tell Isaac's feet were off the ground.

Wednesday: life

Today we pulled out "do a chromatography experiment" (link) and "weed".

The experiment was a flop.  I didn't have the recommended markers and the glasses we used were too big.  We could see the colors separate a bit, so I guess it wasn't a total flop, but they didn't look nearly as cool as the pictures.

But then we joined Aunt C for some weeding.  Ah, much more fun to do it with someone else.  We also were outside for the only two hours that was semi-warm today, which was really nice.  And the front of the house looks 100x better now!  We got Isaac some gardening gloves at the store.  They're still a little big for him, but not as big as normal sized gloves.  He's pretty funny because he doesn't want to touch anything unless he has his gloves on.  But I kind of feel like I was that way too, so I understand.

Tuesday: 42 weeks

Joshua is 42 weeks!  The thing I've noticed most this week is how happy he is to see Ben all the time.  He comes in the room and there is great wiggling.

Today we drew out of the jars "clean a room" and "read a Jesus Story and do an activity" (link).  We cleaned the office.  Or at least cleaned the floor off so the rumba could work and took up all the water bottles.  It really needed to be done.  For the Jesus story, we started with reading about God promising a son to Abraham.  The activity didn't sound super fun to me, but I thought I could find enough materials to sort-of do it.

While reading the story I came up with a different activity.  It still had the same concept, but was cooler.  The concept was how many descendants Abraham would have and how that's a really big number.  So we punched holes in a box and shown a flashlight through it to make stars.

At one point early on we counted the number of holes.  There were thirty-some holes and he counted them with only a medium amount of help.  I was impressed.  (The other day he also told me there was a 24 on his shirt.  I didn't think anything of it until he left and was surprised he knew the number.)  But then we made a lot and he couldn't count them...just like Abraham couldn't count the stars.

This was a good project because Isaac kept going back to it throughout the day and making more holes.

Joshua enjoyed his cottage cheese at lunch.

and he wanted to grab the camera.

Sigh.  Super cute but oh so annoyingly messy.

Monday: bag o' water

Today we drew out of the jars "clean the kitchen and bathroom floors with a rag" and "plastic bag & pencil".

Cleaning the floors went fine.  Isaac lost interest rather quickly, but the kitchen floor was clean by then.  I think he slipped and fell about three times while it was drying, but since he realized that I had recommended that he not walk on the wet floor he didn't say anything.

The bag and pencil experiment went much better than I was expecting.  I really thought it would last about two minutes, but we managed to stretch it out to about ten.  We used kabob skewers instead of pencils and they worked nicely.  We talked about what he thought would happen before putting the skewers in, what would happen if he took them out, what would happen if he put them back in, etc.

Sunday: 11 year pictures and a friend and thinking

Joshua woke up at 5:30 this morning and I dealt poorly with it.  After going in to his room twice I decided the best thing was to hide the monitor under my pillow.  Upon reflection this morning I decided that wasn't the best idea, but realized thinking straight doesn't really happen in the middle of the night.

We finally had someone around that was able to take some of our 11 year anniversary pictures.  However, it was kind of bright so I'm rather squinty.

We had a friend from New York stop by for the evening.  It was nice to see her.  I do miss all the friends from New York.

Saturday: pomegranates

We recently learned a good way to get arils out of pomegranates thanks to Alton Brown of Good Eats.  It was simple enough, so I though we would try them.

It's an odd thing...you bite down and get a squirt of juice and then have the sac left...it is kind of like when a kernel of popcorn hasn't quite popped all the way.  However, Isaac loves them!  Loves them!  Probably because they're juicy.  They were an instant hit.

And somehow, I'm not really sure how, he started paying for the arils.  He has a bunch of coins, and so it was one aril per cent.  Then he does some extra chores to earn his money back.  Yesterday I had him read Dear Zoo to Joshua (so cute!!), today he had to put all the shoes in the shoe closet.

So, somehow, pomegranates are teaching him about the value of coins (through a dime), addition, and work ethic.  It'll be good for as long as it lasts.

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.