Saturday: Grey Bear

Joshua's Lego challenge for us today was to make Grey Bear or a grey bear.  Joshua ended up making a throne for Grey Bear.

The Grey Bears.  Mine is on the left and Isaac's is on the right.  I spent most of my time on the head, and while it's a bit hard to see I had some really cool building right above the eyes to get the ears at a nice angle.  Isaac concentrated more on the droopiness of Grey Bear's body.

Ben's grey bear and the throne.  He ran out of time to fix the one hand, but has since updated the claw and changed them to black.

Friday: to do list

 Last night I realized I had a bunch of really short items on my to-do list.  So this morning instead of ordering things by importance, I put the <5 minutes ones at the top.  I knocked out so many things today!  It was amazing.  (I wasn't going to get many things done today anyway because the kids were home from school.)

Isaac and I also hung up a display for his rocks.

And we went to the library.

And apparently Joshua made a video.

Thursday: rules

This summer, we have a new rule in the house: no spraying the hose into the house.

Now, I think this should have been a rule that goes without saying.  But a few months ago Isaac sheepishly told us that the carpet by the basement slider was rather wet and it was partially his fault.  While not soaking wet, it was damp for a few hours.  Ok.  Everyone laughs about the rule and we move on.

Yesterday Joshua was by the upstairs screen door and I had to remind him of this rule!  Twice!  I don't think he actually sprayed water in the house, but he did stomp away after I reminded him that it's a rule the second time.

Wednesday: this and that

I made curry today.  I almost only made a single batch and then half way through I remembered I wanted to make a double batch.  I was just going to deal with it, but then realized I had a half onion and a half bag of carrots and plenty of meat and potatoes.  So I started the next batch.  And I ended up with eight meals.

I continued through my to do list.  It's slowly going down, but never fast enough. :)  Cleaning the bathrooms took longer than expected so I didn't get quite as much done as I was hoping.  It was close though.

Joshua used Isaac's guest pass at rock climbing and had a good time.  It involved him climbing up the same route over and over because he enjoyed how I dropped him down on the rope.  There was some swinging and some hovering and then the owner came over and I thought we were going to get in trouble but instead Joshua learned some spinning!

I forgot to even get the rice cooker out for the curry.  Usually I just forget to turn it on, and once I forgot to put the rice in.  It's a real problem.  What I haven't done yet is forget to plug it in or put the lid on, so there are still many ways I can mess it up in the future.

I went to my first black belt karate class. :D  It was about the same as the other classes, but blacker.

Tuesday: black belt!

Tonight was the black belt banquet and I finally got my black dobak and belt.  I had a good time.  I think the kids were bored but they held it together very well.

We have some before pictures:

Raelynn and I work together a lot.

We then had dinner and it was delicious.  Mrs. Galli sat at our table and was personable as always, but mentioned that I was one of the strongest candidates of this class.  That felt nice...I had put a ton of work into it.

During:

The presentation of the certificate and dobak

Not shown: They talked a little about things they appreciated for each person and it was super nice.  Mrs. Galli had my acts of kindness from several years ago and commented on how it show me balancing being a wife and mother and teacher along with helping out in the community.  How happy she is that we've become friends too.  Mr. Galli commented on how I ask questions, but that it allows them to talk more about why we do something the way we do.  (I do ask a lot of questions.)  I also ask a lot of technical questions, making sure my forms are just right.  (Or at least, that's what I imagine in my head.)

Opening of the belts

                                                 

After:

I made it!  It was a long wait from the test to the ceremony, but I am finally official.

Monday: in reverse

 Well, the pictures were imported backwards.  So I guess we're doing this backwards this time.

Isaac was giving us a Minecraft play with the little set that we just put together.  At one point I said, "Did that minifigure just kick the other minifigure [that was laying on the ground]?"  Isaac replied, "Yes.  He wanted to see if the other one was dead."  I responded, "Kicking dead people is not appropriate."  This sent Isaac into a fit of giggles.

We have a firm rule in this house: no playing on the stairs.  So what does Joshua do?  He starts sliding around on some cat stairs.

I've seen a few "my life as a stay at home mom" videos lately and they never seem to be true.  I mean, I can't clean the whole house when my kids are gone, let alone if they're around.  I don't do videos, so I did many pictures today.  It stopped around 2:30ish because the kids were about to be back home.

2:15pm: I made potato soup for dinner.  I had to get out a new container of garlic powder and it's a lot larger than the last ones.  I've been using it a lot recently.

1pm: nap time.  With my two buddies.

12:45pm: a late lunch while dealing with some emails.  I usually read during lunch but needed to send out the email.

12:30pm: leaving the dojang.  While do people always make videos in their cars?

10:45am: going to the dojang.  I offered to sew the patches on uniforms.  It can be hard to do if you don't have a sewing machine.

10:15am: trimming the wire shelves to fit a bookcase in.  We measured it prior to ordering the shelf and it should have fit.  The white leg is obviously crooked though, so maybe we measured at the wrong place.  Anyway, the shelf fits in now.

10:00am: The roomba was having none of the floor plan today.  It took a few tries to get it started, moving things around so that it could figure out where it was.

9:50am: I got my block ready to send out for my quilting bee.

9:45am: I was looking at the disaster that is the banister.  While I remind people to bring things down, I don't enforce it and so things get ignored.  I realize that people don't know where everything goes, but there are several things that they could figure out.

9:30am: raspberry picking.  The crop is amazing right now.

9am: doing a little bit of work to get ready for work tomorrow

8:45am: getting Joshua's quilt ready for quilt picture day

8:30am: taking a break from laundry to finish getting ready for the day.

8:15am: breakfast and devotions finished

8:00am: breakfast about to start

7:35am: first day of school pictures.  Isaac (6th grade), Joshua (3rd)

7:20am: working on the kitchen

I didn't get all I was hoping to get done finished today, but I did get everything I was expecting to get done.  I'll call it a win.  The kids had pretty good first days.  Joshua more so than Isaac.  Joshua loves his teacher and was all sorts of talkative.  Isaac, I think, had to deal with three teachers telling them the rules.  I don't really love the first day of classes either because of that, so I think that was part of the issue.

Sunday: last day of summer

 School starts tomorrow!  We just had an easy day today.

As I reflect on the summer, it was a pretty good one.

Downside: I heard "Mom..." too much.  It's the first time it's every really bothered me.  Most of the times it was followed by a reasonable statement or request.  The rest of the time...well, would you rather be eaten by a shark or a cat?

Upside: I felt like the summer was well balanced.  There were plenty of things to do, but it wasn't overwhelming.  I only infrequently heard the kids complain about being bored.  

Downside: we didn't play as many games as last summer.  

Upside: we saw a lot more people throughout the summer

All that being said, I am ready for them to go back to school.  During the summer I don't do as much house work and I'm starting to go a little crazy.  (It's still the correct choice, but it can be hard to feel productive if the house looks exactly the same in the morning as the evening.)

*********************

Today during snack time Isaac and Joshua were talking nonsense as normal and I heard the following:
Isaac: Which is louder?  Eating the Lego alligator or the pretzel?
Joshua, immediately and with absolutely no hesitation: I'll try the pretzel.