Monday: a hike

 The kids were off today because of MLK day.

I bribed them into a long hike with extra screen time.  They are also both doing something on the switch right now, so it felt like the TV was on especially more than normal today, even if they only had a little more screen time than normal.

Anyway, I think they enjoyed the hike.  Joshua especially enjoyed climbing all over this tree.

Sunday: graham cracker houses

 Last night Joshua slept in his castle.  It's cute.  I also left the door open to see if the cats would behave.  Horizon joined me at some point in the evening and nicely slept curled up by my legs.  (He does an excellent job sleeping with me.  However, he does not do an excellent job with Ben.)  After Joshua woke up the cats were chasing each other all over the room and I kicked them out, but happily fell back to sleep for a bit.

We finished our graham cracker houses in the afternoon.

Saturday: by ourselves

Ben left this morning for a work trip and will be gone several days.  I have a few things planned for the long weekend, but nothing special.  After the first half hour I was lamenting the lack of plans.

But then we fell into a rhythm.  Isaac and I played a game while Joshua set up his bed for a sleepover tonight.  It turned into a castle, with a gate, draw bridge, and separate rooms for him and Grey Bear.  

In good brotherly fashion Isaac went to check it out and before I knew it they were playing some imaginary game.  It went for a long time!  So I cleaned out another drawer.  Before you couldn't find anything but I could fit a lot of stuff in, now you can find everything but I couldn't fit everything in.  So something moved to a different drawer for the time-being.  I did get rid of some stuff, but not in the amazing way that some of the other drawers have changed.  I probably don't need all the pens/pencils/markers, but there's no real reason to get rid of them right now either.  They'll stay around until the next round of decluttering.

The planned activity of the day was graham cracker houses.  While usually a Christmas activity, it just didn't happen this Christmas.  (Also, there were plenty of treats during Christmas and we didn't need more.)  Both boys are getting much better in their creating skills.  Tomorrow is candy day.

Mine.  Small, like normal, to maximize the candy:graham cracker ratio.

Isaac's.  A modern take this year.  He lamented that a half graham cracker isn't a square, which makes building a bit harder.  He also has a non-modern well.

Joshua's.  The main person to try and cut the crackers this year.  (Ben often does something elaborate, but was ok not joining us this year.)  While his roof will be a bit leaky, I was excited to see how he put everything together.  Although you can't see it yet, there's also a fireplace inside.

Friday: cleaning!

Wow, two good cleaning days in one week.  I've realized that some weeks are slower with fewer errands or outings.  Errands and outings are great, but they disproportionally hurt my at home productivity.  Especially the errands.  They always take longer than I expect.

I got my "try to do this" list done by 10:30 and continued to work on the oven.  I now have the outside of the oven and the back wall clean.  I'm hoping to use the oven clean function next week.  I also need to clean the inside of the lower drawer, but that's a cleaning and organizing activity so I'm considering it to be like any other door/cabinet.  You can only tell in a few places that the oven is much cleaner, but you can take my word that it is much cleaner.

Before:

After:

Joshua also saw a heart Lego set in the catalogue that we got recently and decided to make it for me out of blue, since blue is my favorite color.  We pulled up the instructions for the original and he did a great job making substitutions when needed.  We hung it in the bathroom.

Thursday: not much to report

There hasn't been much to report the last two days.  I've been normal productive.  Classes were taught.  The house is semi-clean.  We forgot Isaac's birthday treat so stopped by Meijer after school for some cupcakes that he can bring tomorrow.

Yesterday Joshua worked on a challenge that involved putting a stuffed animal on his head while doing a tower traverse.  He really got into it.

Tuesday: first day

Today was the first day of classes; they went fine.  The first day is not really that fun.  I also didn't sleep well because I was worried that the morning wouldn't go well.  It went fine.  I don't know why I was worried; we've done this before and I had stuff ready.  Just an annoying brain I guess.

Joshua joined me at bedtime because he was scared of his room again.  While I love it when he falls asleep on my lap, I also wish he didn't get scared at bedtime so easily.  (I think it also has to do with the book he listens to.  It really needs to be of the super not scary variety and those can be hard to find.)

Monday: cleaning

I got so much done today!  As with most days, I went into the day with a plan and feeling ambitious.  That ambition doesn't always turn into actually accomplishing as much as I'd like (and sometimes things just take longer than expected).  But it went the other way today!  Things took shorter than expected, so I finished up the try-hard-to-do list and added several more things.

As part of O:CtH I started working on the oven.  After the first ten minutes of cleaning the top of the door I almost gave up...the stain was just not coming off.  It came mostly off with the fourth cleaner, so while it took a while I was excited to see it finally looking better.  I also realized that a butter knife is ideal for cleaning the crack between the oven and the counter.  I'm not planning on cleaning the inside of the oven very well, but I did vacuum it and got several charred pieces out.  Sadly, I'm expecting to stay with the oven for quite some time, because I really only got the door finished today.  Maybe things will go faster than I expect.