Thursday: surprise

After teaching today, I had a long list of things to remember to do.  Some of them sort of overlapped, and I found myself going over and over them, making sure I didn't forget anything.

1. Go to the bathroom (hey, it was important.)
2. Go the long way to pick up Joshua due to construction
3. Pick up Joshua.
4. Pick up Isaac
4.5.  Hand off something for Lego League
4.75. Pick up fund raiser things
5. Go to Meijer to turn in pop cans
6. Go to the library

When we got home, there were no couches.  We're finally getting them reupholstered, and the company was able to pick them up today instead of in two weeks.  Isaac and Joshua both looked around the whole house, trying to figure out where they were.  Isaac wanted to play the hot and cold game, which I refused to do.  Joshua finally asked me straight out where they were and so I had to tell them.

Tuesday: voting

I voted today!  I was #531 at 3:30pm.  The room was full, but there wasn't a line...which was nice, as I had two boys and it was raining.

Earlier in the week I went to isidewith.com to figure out how agrees with my views the most.  Most of them were not surprising.  However, at the end it gave some possible candidates for 2020.  Again, not many surprises.  However, I was rather surprised at how much I agreed with President Trump (45%).  (That put him about in the middle of the Republican group.)

Monday: Joshua

Oh, Joshua was not in a happy mood this morning.  We needed to bring Isaac to school and then we were going to go grocery shopping.

As it was time to put his shoes on, he suddenly got "too sleepy" and was crying all over the place.  He's pulled this before, but usually he'll come get his shoes on.  Today my threat of 'putting his coat and shoes on him myself and having neither of us happy about it' didn't work, so I had to do it.  Of course, I put the wrong shoes on.  (They're the shoes that he prefers, so that was obviously a stalling tactic.)  I was right...neither of us enjoyed it.  I felt most bad for Isaac, who had to deal with a screaming brother and no other recourse.  Once in the car he calmed down and was downright happy by the time we got to the grocery store.

I did want to mention a cute quote from Joshua on Thursday though.  He was putting Grey Bear in his backpack for school and said that Grey Bear was going to sleep because, "he's a sleepy little guy."  He said it in his little voice and it was just so cute.

Sunday: DST

Oh, today was Fall-back day.  Before kids, I loved fall-back day.  As a parent, it is so hard - spring forward day seems to be easier.  I know, it's only one extra hour...but somehow, that extra hour makes the day long.

It didn't help that the kids only sort of got along today.  They got along in bursts, and then didn't get along in bursts.  Isaac really wants to play Settlers of Catan.  I played it with him as a two person game to teach him the rules and he caught on very quickly.  However, it really needs to be a three person game.  But spending that much time 'ignoring' Joshua doesn't have a great chance of succeeding.  The plan is to get someone to spend an hour with Joshua, but Isaac can't seem to get all of that through his head.

Saturday: shadow puppets

Today we went to an event at the library for shadow puppets.  I was hoping it would be more of a presentation with someone very knowledgeable in making shadow puppets showing us the coolest stuff you can do with them.  Instead it was a make-your-own-shadow-puppet.  And while it was well put together, it wasn't really what I had been hoping for.  (It wasn't what Joshua was hoping for either; he wanted froyo.)


I made several monsters for Joshua; they all look about the same.

Isaac made this monster, that can fly...

 ...and a bush.

Friday: in pictures

Joshua made himself a mask for Halloween.  He did the whole thing himself while I was making dinner and during rest time.  I'm pretty proud of him...especially since it works.

The raspberry bushes are still producing raspberries!  I keep expecting them to be done, but then I go out and there's more. 

The boys didn't want us to find them tonight so we told them they were in charge of putting themselves to bed.  They did most of it...deciding where to sleep (basement), pajamas, teeth.  Ben ended up reading to them though, as I'm not sure that we clarified that they could stay up later if we weren't involved at all.  Perhaps next time.

Thursday: reading

Isaac has been reading a Press Start! book with me for his reading homework.  It's a beginning chapter book that we've read many times, and I think he's doing a great job with it.  I mentioned tonight that he could probably read these by himself at bedtime...and then I think he did!  I'm not 100% sure because he wasn't reading aloud, but he was spending quite a bit of time on each page...more than he needed to just look at the pictures.

I love reading before bed so this made me super happy as I hope he starts to love it too.