Sunday: cat sill

We've had a bit of a hard time getting the suction cups to stay on the window, but the cats seem to be using the cat sill.  Joshua said he saw both cats on it and after I fixed it today Tornado went right back on it.

Saturday: sledding, house

Today we went to the sledding hill for a bit.  Besides being sunny, it was the perfect day for it!  It wasn't too crowded (as I was afraid of) and the snow was well packed but not too bumpy yet.  Both boys went down many times and both finished around the same time.

O:CtH was supposed to have progressed greatly this week; but was instead mostly put on hold because of all the snow days.  I am slowly continuing to unpack my boxes for the office though; today I got rid of all my old spools.  They were fun toys when the boys were young, but have just sat in a drawer for a long time.

I also got some new scissors and designated one as drawer scissors!  I hate when I go to the drawer and can't find my scissors.  It'd be ok if it was just on the counter, but they always seem to end up far away in the house.  This one is supposed to go immediately back in the drawer...we'll see how it goes.

Friday: snow day 3

 It snowed out last night more than expected, so there was another snow day!  

Isaac did more origami.

Joshua made a fort.

We went outside.  The boys sledded for a little bit, and then Joshua got suddenly cold and was done.  (This was not all that unexpected.)  Isaac and I tried out the cross-country skis Dad gave us last year since the road still wasn't plowed...they worked really well!  It took Isaac a bit to get the rhythm down and we didn't do that much, but we'll go again.

Lastly, for reading time we had a comfy-cozy read-a-loud.  Joshua wants to do it again, so it must have been a hit.

Thursday: snow day 2

Once again, it wasn't snowing when we woke up, so we did some errands pretty early in the morning.  The boys weren't very excited about it, but they did fine.

After we got home we had reading time.  (This time on the couch, but still completely under covers.)  The craft of the day was telescopes.

Isaac had gotten an origami book at the library (one of our errands) and again spent several hours doing that.  Ben and I now have a zoo in our bathroom.

I was quite surprised at how much it snowed in the afternoon.  Our picnic table went from just a few inches to probably close to a foot.  That being said, there didn't seem to be that much on the driveway, although I did clear it off twice today.  Karate was canceled tonight too as roads were quite bad.  (I was going to make a last minute decision about whether we'd go, although I was leaning toward no.  It was nice to have the decision taken away from me.)

Wednesday: snow day!

Well, contrary to my prediction there was a snow day today!  I was rather surprised when I woke up...we didn't have any additional snow and the wind didn't seem to be too bad.  However, it did get worse as the day went on and it was probably the right call for when school got out.

Isaac did a ton of origami.  Hours worth.  Almost every time I saw him he was working on something.  (Except for screen time, of course.)

Joshua, on the other hand, was all over the place.  He decided to make a schedule to follow what he'd normally do in school.  We followed it a bit, but I'm also the first to admit that doing 12 math problems probably took significantly less time than math would have in school.

We had a reading time.  Both boys decided to curl up with lanterns under their blankets for some reason.

Joshua lead me through a craft to make a map and a treasure box.  It turns out he doesn't have very good spatial awareness as his room is about 20 feet away from the bathroom that shares a wall with his bedroom.  I expect it's normal.

He also did a ton of bouncing and making videos of him screaming about something.

Add in some screen time and you have the day!  There's a snow day tomorrow too.  If the roads end up being ok I'd like to do some errands, but we'll see how it goes I guess.

Tuesday: more grocery adventures!

I know, grocery shopping isn't really that exciting.  But I do find it interesting how things change from week to week.  Here are this week's highlights:

*Canned biscuits are slowly coming back, although there still aren't orange cinnamon rolls and only about half the case is full.

*The spicy cheese cracker packs still aren't there, but I found that Cheez-Its make spicy Cheez-Its.  In fact, there were three different spicy varieties, which was a bit overwhelming.  I made my best guess and we'll see if the boys like them.

*Pretzel bites are back!  I thought they were gone for good, so I was rather excited to see them.

Beyond that, I took a morning nap because my class prep was completely boring and I was falling asleep.  I still have a week before classes and really only need to have a small bit finished by then as I could finish it up after classes start.  In the afternoon I did other stuff around the house.  It feels like the to-do exploded (again), but I'll keep plugging away.  I finished putting more stuff away in the office, so I'm calling that part of O:CtH.  I just have a 1.5 boxes left; I won't be able to call it finished at that point because Ben still has some stuff to put away, but I can easily move on to other things while waiting for it to be officially checked off.

Thursday-Saturday: Christmas

We had our last Christmas celebration of the year as Nathan and his family joined us for a few days.  Thursday was also Isaac's 10th birthday!  10!  How can he be so old?

We were going to go out for dessert but neglected to remember that it was a holiday weekend.  Pat found out they were booked before we went though.  I had started some mint brownies, so I finished those up and we used them instead.  We put candles on, but didn't actually have Isaac blow them out.

Everyone slept in the same room.  There was so much running and excitement through the whole day it took them a bit to wind down, but eventually they did.  (So much running.  But throughout the entire weekend only one set of tears which was resolved quickly.)

Friday morning we went to the woodshop to make a triangle peg jumping game.  It really didn't take all that long, but it was a lovely activity and way to get out of the house.  The kids also loved running up and down the hallway at Hope, so whenever they were waiting for their turn they did some running.  The game was also played with a bit more than I expected.

After a coffee break for the women, we went to get Isaac's dessert for lunch.

After that it was time for more presents!  The kids were playing well so we just kept pushing the time back a little bit.  But finally everyone was done with a small real lunch and the kids realized it was time for presents.

The boys got a cat backpack.  Tornado likes to escape outside, so we thought this might be a fun alternative.  Now we're trying to train him that when he goes in it he goes for a walk.

After some delicious pizza some of the kids painted their triangles.

Today, after some morning TV and some Catan they left. :(  It was sad, but we had a wonderful time!  The kids played so well together and it was wonderful to talk to everyone and get caught up again.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying Christmas presents and relaxing.  Tornado enjoyed several walks too...it might be a good way to get us out of the house just a tad bit more.  Silly, but fun.