Friday, November 16, 2018

Thursday: a conversation

I finally put the batteries in the alphaberry again and Joshua's been enjoying it.

Joshua: How do you spell monkey?
Amanda: M
alphaberry: N R P O S W A M
Amanda: O
alphaberry: O
Amanda: N
alphaberry: Z V B D G H K L G F W A I B C X R W M Q I P E F X L N
Amanda: K
alphaberry: B H I W E K Y T M W F E X Z K
Amanda: E
alphaberry: W T B D E
Amanda: Y
alphaberry: Z Y
Amanda: Yay!  You spelled monkey!

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Wednesday: typo

I was grading this morning (yawn, yawn) and I found this typo...

"For the potential energy of the spring the x0Pos had to be sued  for position..."

Oh dear!!  X0Pos had to be sued!!  I thought this was a physics lab.  (They meant to say 'used'.)

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Tuesday: laughing

We watched some funny cat videos at dinner today.


Sunday, November 11, 2018

Sunday: home

Ben came home today!

He had gone with his Dad and brother for a long weekend.  He had a great time but I'm also very glad that he's back.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

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, November 9, 2018

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, November 8, 2018

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.