Thursday: gifts and parties

I finished wrapping presents today, although they still need nice name tags and there are a few extra small ones to do but the "hard" part is done.  I had some helpers.

This afternoon I helped out in Isaac's classroom for his Christmas party.  It was rather chaotic and you could tell the teacher was a bit overwhelmed because there were a few things that weren't quite working and the kids were extra ...excited.  However, everybody did all the fun things and the kids had fun, so I'd call it a win.

Tuesday: brothers

We let the cats into Joshua room for a short time tonight.  Both boys really wanted both cats to be on the loft at the same time, and they finally obliged.

I also got the last of my grades in this morning.  Woo-hoo! 

Monday

Well, Joshua stayed in his loft all night.  He wasn't very happy about it several times, but fell back asleep within a few minutes.  He was up about a half hour early though.

Joshua went to gymnastics today with complaint.  I'm not sure what changed over the last few weeks, but he doesn't want to go.  This time he said he didn't want to do the beginning song, and I said that was ok.  So he just stood there while others walked around.  After that he started participating again.

Annual picture

Isaac came home with this in his folder.  I found it a bit...absurd.

Sunday: kitties and loft

The kitties did a much better job of behaving themselves in the office tonight.  They are slowly learning the few rules that we have.  Tornado 

I also got Joshua's loft all put together and Joshua is sleeping in it tonight.  I had some pictures, but they didn't get automatically uploaded yet.  We talked about how he should try really hard to stay in it all night.  We'll see what happens.

Saturday: still more kitties

There was some playing and some cuddling.  Joshua and I took a nap with the cats today after Isaac and Joshua wore the cats out.

In other news, the boys were gone for the morning and part of the afternoon, so I got a bunch of stuff done.  The loft frame is finally put together but we still need to move some things before Joshua can sleep in it.

On Friday Isaac's class did a STEM activity that was building a marshmallow and toothpick chimney.  Whoever had the tallest chimney and could hold a Santa chocolate won.  As Isaac's teacher wrote: "Isaac clearly knew what he was doing."  When I picked him up from class he said that he won because he used triangles, and those are the strongest shape (knowledge courtesy Hope College Science Camp!)

Friday: more kitties

First of all: names.  We're tentatively going with Tornado (grey) and Horizon (black).  (Both are disasters if you get caught in them, with Horizon being the event horizon of a Black Hole.)

Joshua had a great time playing with the cats, but didn't really like it when they got close to him.  In some ways this makes sense; Flurry pretty much ignored the kids and now they need to learn how cats act.  They also have their claws, and Joshua is deathly afraid of getting scratched.  Isaac had some good play time too, just not as much.

Ben and I both got quite a few cuddles and head-butts.  These cats really seem to like to butt your head with theirs.  A bit odd, but rather cute too.  Which one is more cuddly at a given time seems to go back and forth.

We cleaned up the office this evening to give them a larger area when we're around.  They lasted for about ten minutes before trying to go up somewhere we didn't want.  I really expected them to chew cords and have that be the reason they had to go back in the bathroom.  It's been a while since we've cleaned up, so it's nice to have at least one place in the house look decent.

Isaac and Joshua are at a sleepover tonight.  While we didn't go out (kitties!), we did order food, watch a movie, and weren't interrupted a gazillion times while trying to talk.  We also didn't have to deal with Joshua and his problems getting to sleep.  (Hopefully he didn't have problems today anyway because there wasn't a nap, but still.)

Thursday: grading, gingerbread, kitties

Today was a grading day.  I didn't finish grading.  :(  It was close, but I didn't quite make it.

We went to an event at the library that was building graham cracker houses.  It went pretty well.  We only had about fifty minutes, which was more than enough for Joshua and a tad bit short for Isaac.  We also used icing instead of frosting.  It was nice how quickly it hardened up...but I'll probably stick with frosting at home because I like frosting with graham crackers.

Surprise number 2 of the day was bringing home some new kitties.  Ben, Joshua, and I had visited some last night.  They were a bit younger (7 months) than we wanted, but they are brothers and handled being around Joshua's loudness well.  The name suggestions from the boys so far have been Tornado (for the Grey one) and Lightbulb (from Joshua).  I keep expecting him to want to call one Puppy since that's what he names everything, but that hasn't come up.

They get to hang out in the downstairs bathroom for a while.  It turns out this is a really good space for cats as there are lots of levels and it is big but not too big.