Thursday: Joshua's last day of school.

Today was Joshua's last day of school!

This was Joshua's first day of school...apparently I forgot to take a picture at home so it isn't a great comparison.

To celebrate the last day of school, we went through the car wash!!  Joshua always asks to do this, so it was a bit of a treat.

We also got some ice cream with Dad.  It was mainly to celebrate his birthday, but had the side effect of celebrating school being out too.

Wednesday: gymnastics, babies, ice skating

Joshua had a gymnastics class today.  He did quite well, although he was afraid that he'd have to do the monkey bars by himself.  It might be a very small class, which would be nice.

When we got back home, we saw a mother turkey and her poults.  (I had to look up that word.)  Then we were driving to have lunch with Cheryl and saw a mother duck and her ducklings.  Both of them had quite a flock of babies.

During ice skating tonight I challenged Isaac to take big steps.  He did, and his form looked so much better!  There was some gliding and I think I saw the foot turn a bit to push some too.  He's getting it!  Joshua didn't seem to have as much visible improvement, but I'll also admit my expectations for him are quite a bit lower.  He is slowly skating forward and trying to skate backwards and doing things with the group though.

Joshua: 44, 45, and 46 months

45 months

Joshua had gotten a red balloon monkey at Isaac's school and was excited because it matched the other red monkey (stuffed animal) that he had gotten from his teacher.

Letters: In the past few months Joshua has started putting sounds with letters quite well.  He only recognizes a handful of letters still, but it is improving.  (To me this is weird because it's the opposite way that Isaac did it, but I'm happy to do whatever works.)  He's also been rhyming up a storm.

46 months:

This month red monkey left the scene.  We have seen dragon come out a bit more than previously.  Otter made an appearance for a week or so.  Grey Bear is still the best loved animal though.  Grey Bear is always wearing his pajamas, which Joshua has been telling me several times per day.  It's hilarious that Grey Bear always gets to wear his pajamas.

Joshua still pretends to be a puppy a lot (see the above picture). 

Playing: Joshua plays with Duplos at his Duplo table a ton.  He often makes things for his animals...a house for Blue Bear, a castle for Grey Bear, etc.  There have been a few other really cute ones that I have now forgotten.  He plays with Legos quite a bit too, although we haven't put together any sets in a while.  He loves to play with Isaac.  He loves to jump on Isaac's bed.  (Side note: we kept the crib mattress around and Joshua uses it for sleepovers.  It also doubles as a trampoline, but it easier to store.)

Pajamas: Joshua wears slippers to bed if he doesn't have footy pajamas.  We lost one of his slippers recently.  It's been hot out, so he has on a t-shirt and shorts along with a raccoon slipper and an alligator slipper.

46 months:

Joshua got a hair cut this past month!  It's one of the best I've done.  I also got a ton of poses from him quite quickly for once, although not a ton of the smile ones turned out.

Eating: Joshua still eats well at breakfast and lunch.  He does not always like what I'm making for dinner and then just doesn't eat.  Sometimes he doesn't eat anything for dinner.  He always has great concern for his snack in the afternoon.

Napping: Joshua has been napping just a bit more lately.  He naps at school and will often fall asleep when we go to pick up Isaac at school.  He sometimes understands when he is tired and will put himself to bed.

School: Although Joshua doesn't complain about school and seems to enjoy it after the fact, he would much rather have a 'home day.'  I get asked multiple times per day if it is a home day.  (Oddly, he often asks this around dinner time, by which point he would be home no matter what.  I usually tell him what tomorrow will be.)  There is only one day of school left and he's rather excited.

Attitude: Joshua is usually quite sweet.  The other day at ice skating he tried to help the other little girl.  He often understands when Isaac wants a toy and while Joshua doesn't give him the toy immediately, he will often give the toy to Isaac within a few minutes.  That's not to say we haven't had any battles...there is still some throwing of things once in a while.  He does understand the rules that we set forth though (especially concerning eating dinner & treats and cleaning his room & screen time) and adheres to them well.  When he doesn't get screen time because he didn't clean his room he tries to walk around with his eyes closed or a hand over his eyes so he doesn't accidentally watch.  It's super cute.

Monday: sandals

I got some new sandals today.  It turns out they are exactly the same as the ones I am replacing.  I thought they looked rather familiar, but they were comfy and about half the price of the other ones I was considering.  The ones I had lasted several years, so while it's a rather boring purchase I will be happy with them.

A few pictures of Joshua from our day:

Sunday: this and that

The morning started off with me pretending to sleep in because neither boy had cleaned their room yesterday.  Isaac cleaned his pretty quickly though. :)

They continued to play a game they were calling "pussy cat."  I really have no idea what the rules were, but they both said it was a really fun game.  I think it involved a lot of running and yelling "pussy cat."

We all went to Joshua's class for Sunday school today and Ben and I were in charge of leading it.  It went well for the most part.  At one point we were playing red light green light and Joshua was taking super tiny steps, so Ben put him on his shoulders to help him get to the stop light.  I'm not sure he understood the point of the game.

This afternoon Isaac and I played Battleship, a game I picked up at a garage sale, and it was not as much fun as I remembered.  I don't remember it being all that fun, but I thought Isaac would still like it.  Well, the pins to put in the holes were a bit to hard for him and it made the game drag.  We found a few other pins from Mastermind to use and that helped, but still...ugh.  I think it could work for us if we think of something different that we could use.

Saturday: bike, Paw Patrol, not cleaning

This morning we went to look for a new bike for Isaac.  It turns out that he's big enough that to get a bike that will last for a few years he needs to get a bike that doesn't support training wheels.  So they converted a bike into a balance bike for him and he rode around the shop for 15 minutes.  He had definite improvement and with a bit more practice we should be able to get him the bigger bike.  (He was a bit upset though, because there was a silver bike in the smaller size that he apparently set his heart on.)  Tomorrow I'll see if he wants to convert his current bike to a balance bike and ride around the lake for practice or go back to the store.

We went to get our picture taken with some Paw Patrol characters.  It went quite fast, so we popped into the Peanut Store too.

 This afternoon was cleaning time.  Neither boy cleaned their room today, but instead they played with each other for about three hours.  I'm not really sure what they were doing, but there was a lot of laughter.  Since they didn't clean their rooms, they couldn't watch TV during dinner and instead ate outside.  They were rather excited about that and it didn't really feel like a consequence.

Friday: a nice day

Today was a rather nice day.  Joshua and I visited some garage sales in the morning and came home with some puzzles and some games.  Then we took down the Lego minifigure house, which I still didn't get a picture of.  This version had a few cookie rooms, an umbrella room, a sun, a bird shooter, a few monster shooters, lots of stairs, and a maze.  We started to make Lego marble runs instead.  Joshua's goes straight down.  Apparently he was thinking that it was a race (both making it and for the marble) and he wanted to win.  Mine is still a work in progress.

Pat came over for a dress fitting that went much easier than expected.  We had a treat after that. :)