Thursday, January 7, 2016

Thursday: birds

The birds have finally found our bird feeder.  Over the last two days we've seen several sparrows, a chickadee, some cardinals, and a mourning dove.

The male cardinal has also repeatedly flown into the sliding door.  I changed the position of the screen door hoping that it will help him realize that he really can't go that way.  Or at least cushion the impact.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Wednesday: Joshua communicating

Joshua communicates best on the changing table.  Maybe because there are no other distractions?




He can sometimes do button, but it more frequently has only one syllable instead of two, and so I didn't get a good one today.

I have also gotten several "please" motions yesterday and today (after prompting) but he seems to finally be understanding it!

Tuesday, January 5, 2016



Today I also met a friend at Rivertown and the boys played in the play area.  They had amazing stamina!  They kept playing and playing for about an hour, at which point we refueled with some cookies and then Isaac wanted to go back for a bit longer.

Joshua almost stayed awake the whole way home, but fell asleep with about ten minutes left.  It messed up the whole afternoon.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Monday: Isaac

"The spinning Bible turns you into soup!"

"My songs are at [Disney] World.  They're invisible.  I have 69 songs now that I'm four.  When I'm five I'll have 100!"

"My song is really loud and it is 13 years long."

"I drew a picture of a person yelling 'NO!!!!' "  (I still don't understand if that's what he actually did.  It was a bit confusing.)

We also tried out his bike in the garage.  He is still having a hard time getting the pedals around when they're vertical.  He had one good round though.


In Joshua news, he said "please" for the first time.  It was a pretty pathetic please, but I'll take it.  I'm hoping it wasn't a fluke.

Sunday: confession

I wish work started this coming week.  I'm ready to be back to our slightly busy schedule.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Saturday: lost and found

We been losing a lot of things lately.  We've found some...

1. The $10 and grey card for the play cash register.  (Found about two weeks later in an unused bathroom drawer.)

2. Three library books.  (Still MIA and accruing late fees)

3. One plastic frog that makes noise when air goes through it.  (Found about two hours after we realized it was missing because I saw Joshua dumping other things into the hole between our mattress and bed frame).

4. Our Thomas the Train DVD.  (Still MIA.  Ironically, we had been missing the case.  Once we found the case we haven't been able to find the DVD.)

5. A flash drive.  (Found about 10 hours later in a golf caddy.  Joshua had last been seen playing with it.)

6. The DeYoung picture of the cousins.  (Found about three days after it was missing.  It was in plain sight on the fridge.)

7. Our racquetballs.  (Found about ten minutes later.  They were in a bag pocket was not thoroughly searched.)

8. A cow from a nativity.  (Still not found, but I haven't looked for it either.)


Sigh.  It's kind of annoying.  But it seems as though these things just grow Joshua's legs and walk away.

Jan 1: sledding

This afternoon, after naps, we realized that we needed a plan.  So we decided to go work on the driveway.  You see, on Monday there was a snow storm.  (It was an odd storm as the temperature was about 32 deg, making it almost more sleety.  It hurt to go outside.)  The forecast said that it was supposed to warm up, so Ben and I ignored the driveway, laughing at the people that shoveled while secretly wondering if we should have shoveled too.

We should have.

I still have hopes of the driveway melting in the coming week, but based on this past week it might not happen.  So we at least shoveled the snow off of it.

Joshua wasn't having a great time, so Ben gave him a shovel ride.  That's rather hard, so then he got a sled ride.  Then Isaac wanted a sled ride.  It turned out that it was the perfect conditions for sled rides.  There wasn't too much snow and it was rather icy and slick, so pulling the sleds was a breeze.  Isaac went down our hills several times, a few times alone and a few times with us.  During most of this time Joshua was stoic.  We finally got a few smiles at the very end, but had to work pretty hard for them.  He wasn't crying or trying to get out of the sled, so I'm assuming he had a good time.  Isaac had lots of laughs, and I know he had a good time.