Saturday: mostly normal

It was a mostly normal day.  We played a game, worked on some Lego sets, and did some work.

I played a game with Isaac for his math homework.  It was one of the most boring games we've played in a long time.  It was a domino style match the percent/fraction/decimal, but there were only three options: 1/4, 1/2, 1, along with a blank.  On the up-side, we were able to speed through the game very quickly and can call it done. 

Isaac also blew up a balloon-in-a-balloon and was having a ball (a balloon??) with it.  The inside balloon often provides a suction and will stop the outer balloon from shrinking, which is not really what I was expecting to happen.  There were a lot of giggles.  He'll probably eventually knot off the outer balloon, but that hasn't happened yet.

a while ago: New Year's Eve

 Ah, New Year's Eve: 12.31.23  I keep thinking we'll run out of fun dates and then more show up.  I guess we'll run out of fun dates at some point, but then you just need to be a little more creative to get more.

We went rock climbing.  I thought the place opened at 10am, but it was actually noon.  It wasn't too big of a deal in the end though.

Evelyn and Dad bonded.  I'm not sure what they were talking about, but they looked cute.  JJ and Isaac played Dominion with me.  They even played twice during the day!

We rang in the New Year around 9pm with a ball drop (from a few years ago, but don't tell anyone that.)  The kids were pretty disappointed in the ball drop.

Cheers!

a while ago: Christmas

Merry Christmas!  It was a busy day and I didn't quite have the energy to blog when we got home.  Busy, but very fun.

Well, expect that I had to yell at the Baby Ruiners.  All the animals had finally found baby Jesus, as they were supposed to.  But then the Baby Ruiners stole him away!  That isn't how Jesus works!  Jesus is for everyone...Ruiners, SMTWRFSs, and animals alike.  We got them all together to worship.

We spent the morning at home.  I'll be honest, I can't remember what we did but my guess would be playing games and Legos and food prep.  We went over to Larry and Cheryl's for a late brunch (yum) and then opened presents.

They once again managed to get me my most unexpected present: a large canvas of me at the black belt ceremony.  (I haven't hung it up yet because it's still Christmas break, but we've figured out where it's going.)

Joshua's present theme was Minecraft, and he loved it.

a while ago: Christmas Eve

 After church, I split up the presents and the kids realized they were split even/odd.  They then had to do a small scavenger hunt to figure out that Isaac had evens and Joshua had odds.

The pictures are really in order, but it still works.

I received Minecraft as a gift so that I can play with the rest of the family.  Joshua made me a cute Minecraft bee.

The Ruiner babies showed up.  Along with some Ruiner Toddlers: bigger, but still only one eye.

Ben got several card sleeves with personalized artwork.  One was both to Dad and from Dad, because it had a picture of his Lego castle on it.  Isaac made some abstract art.

Joshua packed his box, a Lego wizard, in several other boxes with messages on them, such as "No returns" and "I am a box."

The cats didn't get anything this year, so we let them play with the tissue paper.  They probably enjoyed it more than any other gift.

Thursday: Space Base

Today had ups and downs.

Isaac and I played Space Base.  I won, but Isaac put up a good fight at the very end.

I read on the couch with Joshua.  I was excited that 1) he decided to read for fun and 2) I got to read next to him.

Joshua volunteered to play Space Base later in the afternoon.  Isaac and I were very excited about this, as our game preferences don't always align.  I won again, but Isaac had an awesome board with a bunch of left/right arrows.  Joshua was slightly playing his own game, but I was happy he was participating.

The boys were wrestling and bonked heads really hard.  They were both very sad/mad about it afterwards.

Isaac finished his cat from library clay.  The librarian made a huge deal about it and commented about so many of the little details.

Rock climbing went well.  I tossed a sock ball with Joshua and Isaac had team.  Isaac had a good time.

I brought Joshua to piano lessons, only to realize that there were no lessons this week.  Oops.  It meant I was a bit late to karate, but that wasn't a huge deal.  The karate schedule had also changed without me realizing it, but for the most part that just means it ends after forty-five minutes instead of sixty.  This will probably make things work out a little bit better overall.

Wednesday: fails?

Well, today we won some and we lost some.

Dad came over to help with our circuit breaker.  The owners before us did the basement improperly and while we've been fine we should be safer.

Fail: the first trip to Lowes I got the wrong breakers.
Win: the second trip I got the correct breakers and we were done within the time limit.

After snack time we were going to go rock climbing, but it was a fail: the gear was in Ben's car, and he went back to work today.

So we did some other errands.  We failed at Staples, but I was at least able to get a better feel for what I was looking for.

We won at the library!  Our favorite librarian was there, Joshua found a bunch of books he wanted to read, and Isaac got an interesting take-home art project.

We also won at the UPS store, but there isn't anything interesting to say about that.

Both boys were a little bored today, but both of them managed to find something to do so that was a win too.

Tuesday: home

Ben decided to take another day off of work today.  I thought it was a lovely choice.  We were able to finish Isaac's new game, work on some Lego sets, and both boys started a new video game.  It was relaxing.

Around 10:30, while raiding in WoW, we heard a door close upstairs and footsteps start to come down the stairs.  Joshua woke up enough to come find me, climb in my lap, and fall right back asleep.  Now, I absolutely love the cuddles.  At the same time, I feel like he could have just turned over in his own bed.  He's been doing this a bit more often for some reason, but it hasn't been a problem so I'm just enjoying it.