Monday: the big day

Joshua has been so excited for his birthday party.  So excited.  We finished hanging the decorations this afternoon and I'm pretty sure the rest of the afternoon dragged for him as I was doing the last minute preparations.

He choose a meal of chicken nuggets (I picked dino-nuggets), carrots, strawberries, and blueberries.  And, of course, cake and ice cream.  Ben also picked up some potato wedges and mac and cheese to round it out.  He was excited that Scarlet was going to be there and was pretty sure that she would love the chicken nuggets too.

Presents!  He got two new Duplo sets.  While Joshua is easily doing Legos, he still uses Duplos all the time.  These sets were chosen with care to have some interesting pieces.  One has a shooter and the other has slides and spinning gears.

Did I mention he was excited about his cake?

Isaac was pretty excited about the two Duplo sets too, and so they put them together together.  Joshua also showed his cousins his Police Lego set.  He finished it yesterday, and did a ton of it by himself.  I think his biggest problem was that he sometimes missed a few pages, so Ben and I had to go back through the police station a few times and fix something.  He did a great job doing it mostly on his own though!

Sunday: preview

Joshua's pretty excited about his birthday party tomorrow.  I hope it lives up to his expectations.

I picked up his cake this afternoon.  He requested the name 'Puppy'.

Vacation day 1: Legoland

On Wednesday we went to LegoLand in Auburn Hills.  This was a great choice for our family - we stayed from 10am-6pm and really could have probably stayed a bit longer. 

The first ride is something like 'Kingdom Adventure', but, as with most games, it got renamed to 'Baby Dragon'.  Joshua was scared the first time on it, but semi-willingly went on it a second time when Isaac was excited about it.  After that it was a breeze; we visited it several times throughout the day to save the baby dragon.

The next thing is a Miniworld of Detroit.  It had fun buttons to push and a search and find, so the boys stayed in there longer than I expected.

Then on to the main room, which at first glance didn't look very large.  At second glance it wasn't very large either, but they packed things in.  Isaac and I started with the second ride, while Ben and Joshua made a fast race car and seahorses.

We did the master builder course next, which was again just someone walking you through how to put a set together...and not even taught by the resident master builder.  We had a bit of time at the beginning, so we made things out of blue pieces.  There were also a bunch of lovely pieces in the room.  I think I'd be quite happy decorating the house with such decor...

There were 4 4D movies to watch too.  Joshua was a bit scared with all of them, but held it together through the first one and wanted to go to the others.  Joshua and I probably could have skipped getting wet; it added to the scariness for him and made me cold.  However, the movies were fun.

The kids also loved the playground area.  It was rather nice because they could play a bit and then we would do something else and they would play a bit and we would do something else.  It was rather busy in the early afternoon, but by late afternoon it had cleared out.  Some other kids had moved all the giant lego bricks up to one of the high spots and Isaac and Joshua and another kid spent about an hour...doing something.

We got some more Legos at the end and went on to the next hotel.  The boys took naps in the car so they could play Legos when we got to the hotel.

Overall, it was a lovely day.  The boys, especially Joshua, loved having Ben around and was sure to let him know it...it was super cute.  Both of them want to go back again too.

Friday: two tired boys

We got home from our small vacation today, and we have two tired boys.

I about to read to them at bed time and Joshua didn't have any water in his cup.  The normal routine is to fill it after reading so that he can hide under his covers, so not having any isn't that much of a surprise.  He bursts out crying, "is anyone going to fill my water bottle???"

Isaac had a hard time getting to sleep due to a nap, so I let him stay up a bit later.  He was playing in his room with a ThinkFun game.  (They do a lot of the single player logic puzzles that Isaac likes.)  He comes downstairs crying after a little bit..."I read 'ThinkFun' and I [didn't want to]."  I'm not sure exactly what he said as it was rather difficult to understand.  I'm still a bit confused as to why this would have been a problem...

Wednesday: Lego

We went to Meijer today to see who exactly was the crazy drivers...me or the boys.  Turns out, we're all good drivers!  Ben must be the crazy one.

Then we went to a mall with a Lego store. This mall also had escalators, and that is what the boys seemed most excited about.  We did that before going to the Lego store.

We took some pictures at the Lego store and all filled up a bucket from the pick a brick wall.

We got to the hotel and let the boys stay up past their bedtime to play with them a bit.

Tuesday: mattress/cleaning

Today was a semi-relaxed day.  We played and did some work in the morning as we were waiting for someone to pick up an old mattress.  I didn't have a pick-up time, which was a bit annoying.  Anyway, around 11 I was done with waiting so we slide the mattress outside and made a quick trip to Lowe's.

Both boys still fit in the race car carts, and they had a grand time.  I kept telling them they were terrible drivers as the cart swerved this way and that way.  They insisted I was a terrible driver, and the game kept going all day.

We had our new house cleaners today.  It went well.  It was a bit slow, but there is so much to learn the first several times that I was expecting that.  I finished a few quick things after they left and tada!  The main area looked wonderful.

During this time Isaac and Joshua were supposed to clean their rooms.  However, Joshua had other plans.  He cleaned his room during rest time and was all done by the time the house cleaners arrived.  Ha!  I bet that isn't what you were expecting.  It isn't what I was expecting either.

Joshua had his quilt pictures taken today.  Google is rolling out a new thing called color pop, which I rather like.  Oh, I just noticed that there is a bit of color under his arms on the quilt.  But it is still rather fun.

Monday: zoo

The boys and I, along with Dad, went to the zoo today.  The first time we stopped at the bear enclosure it wasn't moving at all, but it started moving while we were next door, so we headed back.

Grey Bear had been in the backpack, but came out to see the bear.  (We stopped by again at the very end, and the bear was pacing right next to the glass.  Joshua and Grey Bear jumped every time it got close.)

We visited a lot of animals.  Isaac could have stayed at most of the exhibits longer, while Joshua was ready to go pretty quickly after spotting the animal.  They both did a good job of leaving or waiting as requested though.

We stopped for some playing at the natural playground and Isaac started pulling the wood around and said he was going to make a lever.  He then told us the parts of a lever and identified them for us...science camp taught him something!

After the zoo the boys had a Klondike Bar at Dad and Pat's for lunch.  I hadn't really be expecting the zoo to take quite so long, hence the ice cream for lunch.  They then invited us to stay for rest time, so the boys got to play with some 'new' toys while I took a nap on a nearby bed.

Joshua and I played Duplos for a little bit, and he gave me a bunch of pieces and told me to make a statue in the middle of the house.  Then he told me it should be a statue of a seagull.  I finished it and he made a few tweaks to make it just right.  Needless to say, I don't think that building seagulls out of Dulpos is my strong suit.