Saturday: Spark!Lab

Today we visited the Spark Lab at the Holland Museum.  I thought it was a pretty good place overall...which is good, because I bought the yearly membership.  It wasn't an expensive yearly membership, and it could be a nice place to stop even for an hour.

We tried making creations that would hover in a wind tunnel.  No one succeeded by the time the music marbles were free, but we all made several attempts and refined our designs.

Then we went to the sound scapes...It's pretty much a marble run with some percussion.  Since the boys love marbles, it was a hit.  Isaac even did something that the assistant had never seen before, by putting the marble into the chime circle.

They also made some vehicles...although Isaac's might have been a sink.  We didn't spend much time there as Joshua was getting tired.

Friday: in pictures

We had our first snow, and it stayed around for a bit.  (It then melted, and came back.)  Joshua was excited to get out in it ASAP.  Last year we never made a snowman because he didn't want to when there was good snow, and he's been looking forward to it for most of the summer now.  He has big plans.

We brought in the loft stairs to paint.  I was going to wait to paint them until the loft was all ready, but it ended up being a good day for it.

Joshua made a dance floor for the bad guys.  Isaac's been making one for the good guys.  We then made furniture to go around Ninjago City, but I think he meant furnaces because they were about that size and you used them to warm up.

Then we went to the Duplo area.  There's a bad dragon and the animals were guarding him and he still got away.  Luckily, the traffic cones stopped the bad dragon since you can't go past those.

Puppy the mouse was flying a plane for one of the horses to get the bad dragon.  (Haroldena is photo-bombing.)  The horse was then sad because it didn't have a name.  It finally decided on Book.

Isaac had a half day of school, so we went to IHOP, his favorite restaurant.  He had sugar for lunch.

We started painting!

The boys did better than I expected, but didn't stick with it quite as long as I had hoped.  I did another 10 minutes after they finished and it probably needs one more quick coat.  Joshua's painting style left a lot to be desired, but he did do a good job of getting a first coat down.  It also kept him occupied.  :D

In the middle the couches came back!  They're a bit blacker, but no longer leave black stuff all over the house.

We finished Aladdin tonight.  Joshua's main concern was that Abu, the monkey, remained as an elephant for so long.  Jafar turned into a super evil bad guy and that was still Joshua's main concern.  Jafar finally turned him back into a monkey which almost made him a good guy in Joshua's book.  Joshua also wasn't sure that the good guys were going to win, but thankfully they did.

Thursday: surprise

After teaching today, I had a long list of things to remember to do.  Some of them sort of overlapped, and I found myself going over and over them, making sure I didn't forget anything.

1. Go to the bathroom (hey, it was important.)
2. Go the long way to pick up Joshua due to construction
3. Pick up Joshua.
4. Pick up Isaac
4.5.  Hand off something for Lego League
4.75. Pick up fund raiser things
5. Go to Meijer to turn in pop cans
6. Go to the library

When we got home, there were no couches.  We're finally getting them reupholstered, and the company was able to pick them up today instead of in two weeks.  Isaac and Joshua both looked around the whole house, trying to figure out where they were.  Isaac wanted to play the hot and cold game, which I refused to do.  Joshua finally asked me straight out where they were and so I had to tell them.

Tuesday: voting

I voted today!  I was #531 at 3:30pm.  The room was full, but there wasn't a line...which was nice, as I had two boys and it was raining.

Earlier in the week I went to isidewith.com to figure out how agrees with my views the most.  Most of them were not surprising.  However, at the end it gave some possible candidates for 2020.  Again, not many surprises.  However, I was rather surprised at how much I agreed with President Trump (45%).  (That put him about in the middle of the Republican group.)

Monday: Joshua

Oh, Joshua was not in a happy mood this morning.  We needed to bring Isaac to school and then we were going to go grocery shopping.

As it was time to put his shoes on, he suddenly got "too sleepy" and was crying all over the place.  He's pulled this before, but usually he'll come get his shoes on.  Today my threat of 'putting his coat and shoes on him myself and having neither of us happy about it' didn't work, so I had to do it.  Of course, I put the wrong shoes on.  (They're the shoes that he prefers, so that was obviously a stalling tactic.)  I was right...neither of us enjoyed it.  I felt most bad for Isaac, who had to deal with a screaming brother and no other recourse.  Once in the car he calmed down and was downright happy by the time we got to the grocery store.

I did want to mention a cute quote from Joshua on Thursday though.  He was putting Grey Bear in his backpack for school and said that Grey Bear was going to sleep because, "he's a sleepy little guy."  He said it in his little voice and it was just so cute.

Sunday: DST

Oh, today was Fall-back day.  Before kids, I loved fall-back day.  As a parent, it is so hard - spring forward day seems to be easier.  I know, it's only one extra hour...but somehow, that extra hour makes the day long.

It didn't help that the kids only sort of got along today.  They got along in bursts, and then didn't get along in bursts.  Isaac really wants to play Settlers of Catan.  I played it with him as a two person game to teach him the rules and he caught on very quickly.  However, it really needs to be a three person game.  But spending that much time 'ignoring' Joshua doesn't have a great chance of succeeding.  The plan is to get someone to spend an hour with Joshua, but Isaac can't seem to get all of that through his head.

Saturday: shadow puppets

Today we went to an event at the library for shadow puppets.  I was hoping it would be more of a presentation with someone very knowledgeable in making shadow puppets showing us the coolest stuff you can do with them.  Instead it was a make-your-own-shadow-puppet.  And while it was well put together, it wasn't really what I had been hoping for.  (It wasn't what Joshua was hoping for either; he wanted froyo.)


I made several monsters for Joshua; they all look about the same.

Isaac made this monster, that can fly...

 ...and a bush.