Saturday: birthday

Today is my birthday!  It was a very nice one, although nothing all that special happened.  A lot of relaxing.

The boys and I finally finished the puzzle that has been out for a few weeks.  Ben and the boys finished his Lego truck.

Joshua did a good job with a small part of his Legos.  He found the pieces, looked at the instructions to figure out how to put them together, and did it.  We haven't had a lot of luck with this before, so I was rather excited.

The boys gave me some fabric for my birthday.  Joshua was sneaky and saying things like, "We're going to get you're present.  It's a surprise.  After we get it you can build it."  Isaac chose a bunch of blue fabric because he knows that blue is my fabric color.

Everyone also got a lot of stickers from Joshua.

Fort Wayne: day 1 and 2

Our camping trip was canceled for the weekend because Nathan broke his femur.  While he was doing good for having broken a bone, he was not moving very quickly or easily.  So we went down to visit them at their house instead.  It can be more chaotic with house guests, but the distraction can be nice too.  Ben and Nathan hung out at the house while Liz and I brought the kids places.

We got there Friday for dinner.  Isaac had strawberry pizza.

On Saturday we went to the zoo.  The weather was perfect.  Joshua was not in a mood for pictures the whole day.

My favorite part was the crane (not shown).  It clicked its beak for us and it was cool to see.

We got to feed giraffes.  It was neat to see them so close.

We rode the carasel.  Isaac really wanted a cheetah.  I think we ended up on a leopard, but I told them they go fast too.

Joshua's favorite was the jellyfish.  They were really cool.

Isaac's favorite was the penguins.  However, by that point he was sick of walking and told me that surprises with a lot of walking weren't so fun.  While I can understand that, many of the best surprises do have a lot of walking.  So he was a bit mopey in between exhibits and happy at exhibits.

The kids got popcorn and a movie at home.

chicago: day 2

On the second day we started with a ride on the Ferris wheel.  Well, actually we started by walking around a bit because we were up too early.

Then we went to the children's museum.  Once again, it was nice to have two people as the boys often wanted to do different things.

Joshua started out in the fire truck.  Isaac joined him for a bit.  (This did have a cute sign for the parents that said something like, "You're still at the fire truck?  Relax, it's good for kids to have the repetition.  If you don't get any farther today, that's fine."

Isaac started by climbing a ship's mast.  He did it several times throughout the day.

Then we went to the water area.

There were pipes to play with.

Ropes to pull and levers to push.

 
And there were walls to "paint" on.

Isaac and I went to the tinkery next.  There were a bunch of supplies and he got to make something that rolled (and didn't slide).  Joshua was not interested, so he and Cheryl explored some other rooms.

Isaac did a great job.  I wasn't sure it would work because the wheels weren't very sturdy or straight.  But he did an appropriate number of in process tests and it did end up working.  He was rather excited.  He also made a smokestack and thing on the front with beads and washers.  I'm wondering if some of the extra weight helped it work just a bit better.

Joshua finally went up the small part of the ship's mast.  After getting to the top they got to run down some ramps.

There was some dinosaur bone digging.  I think the dirt was recycled shoes.

Near the end we were at the play city.  The boys loved it; I didn't, but they were happy and content which is always a plus.  Cheryl and I got fed a lot of food (I get fed a lot of food at home).

Cheryl took several car rides,

a bus ride (while eating food),

 and another car ride.

The catapults were back out and Isaac had mentioned he wanted to do those.  It was almost time to go, so we did that for just a few minutes.

On the way out we got a picture of Joshua in his fire engine t-shirt by the fire engine.  He may have spilled all over his original shirt.

We stopped at the Lego store to buy Isaac his special 5 year old gift from Cheryl (and Larry).  He got a Lego train track.  I think he would have liked it a lot, but it probably wasn't what I would have picked out for him.  Then we saw the Lego boost - some programming and some robots and Legos, all put together.  He got that instead and has been loving it.  It has been the perfect choice.

We made it to the train back home with plenty of time to spare, but it didn't feel that way.  Traffic was busy because it was 5:45pm.  We stood in a line around a corner and thought we were going to have to go through a security check and that made us nervous (although everyone in the line was on the same train.)  It turns out they just hadn't opened the doors yet, but we couldn't see.

We ate a dinner of snacks on the train.  The boys loved it and no one went hungry. We had a lot of luggage on the way back.  We really only had one more bag, but for some reason it felt like a lot more.  I wasn't sure how we'd get all the luggage and a sleeping Joshua off quickly, and so I didn't take the screens away from them like I normally do a little bit after bedtime.  It worked; they were awake and walking when we got off the train.  I did, however, change their alarms so they didn't wake up so early the next morning. :)

Friday

This morning we ended up going to an indoor playground with friends.  We had been planning on doing something with them, it was just a change in venue.  The boys were super excited.  Isaac and his friend did a pretty good job of keeping Joshua with them, but Joshua also did a better job of keeping up.  They played hard for a while, and then it got rather busy.

This afternoon Charter came to do some work to...fix some signal loss...I think.  Anyway, the guy took a look at our wires and said, "This is the easiest job I've had in a while."  That being said, my children were very inquisitive but he kindly explained everything and seemed happy to do it.  (It probably helped that it was an easy job.)  It was cool to see inside one of those boxes in the yard.  He tried to open the other one because apparently it has lots more wires, but it was locked.

Chicago: day 1, part b

I got some of Cheryl's photos and wanted to document them here too.

train

At the robots

In the caboose

At the younger kids' area:

Joshua's creation.  He made pretty much all of what you see.

Thursday: water balloons

This morning I asked Isaac what he wanted to do and he said water balloons.  Not what I was expecting, but since we had some we did it.  Joshua was happy to be part of the making (he put them in the basket) but once he got his pants wet he stopped participating.

It should be noted that the pants got wet after a rain storm.  The boys ran inside when it started raining, and I had to urge them back out...we were going to get wet anyway.  Once the rain let up we continued with the water balloons.

Today's tantrum was that I wouldn't take a nap with Joshua on the floor of my bedroom.

Wednesday: quilt show

Today Cheryl and I went to the large nearby quilt show.   It was nice to see the quilts and the quilting. As expected, my favorite quilts tended to be solids quilts.

  (Color Play by Karlie Grable)

There were a lot of quilts with really neat quilting too.

There were a lot of fancy applique quilts.  Most of them, while amazing, were too fancy for my tastes.  However, I really liked this one of a door.  I liked how they did the bricks.

 (Papa's Door by Pamela Pandolfi)

 (Barbara's Circle by Beth Nuter and Clem Buzick)

We also did a bit of shopping.  I was looking for medium greys for a quilt that I probably won't make now.  I'm not going to make it because it was going to be for Joshua's new bed.  However, I also found a fabric pack with robots and rockets and circuits...and I knew that Joshua would like that so much better.  (I showed it to him at home and he did love it.)