Wednesday: pencil drawer

One of Joshua's chores this week was to make a divider out of LEGO for the pencil drawer.  I had some dividers in it, but they weren't working all that well.

Joshua initially thought it would be more work than he was hoping for, but in the end I think it was just a little bit more work than he was hoping for.  The divider fits in the drawer quite tightly.  It didn't have quite the same dimensions as previously, so I needed to move a few things around.  It is actually probably better to move them around as the stuff we use the most is closer to the front.

Ben and I went out to dinner because we needed to discuss a few things without kids.  We ended up having several similar thoughts - it didn't really surprise me, but at the same time it was fun to be on the same page.

Tuesday: Isaac's bedroom

This morning Isaac was ready to rearrange his room.  Since we had several of the furniture items out of the room for the carpet cleaning, it was a good time to move things around.  He had been trying a few options that weren't working well.

In order to make things fit, we needed to take off a bifold door.  His bifold doors have always been a bit of a problem - they're really sticky so most of the time they're open.  So removal was not a hard decision.

We got three of the four corners free but could not figure out how to get the forth one.  Eventually we thought that the thingy might be stuck in the plastic holder.  We decided to take off the other bifold door and then take off the railing.

We got three of the four corners free for the other bifold door.  We were starting to get more serious about destruction when it suddenly popped off in my hands.  I had been holding it and moving it around a little bit, but I wasn't doing anything amazing, so I was rather surprised when it was suddenly free.  It was exciting though.

Isaac started unscrewing the rail.  I was holding the other bifold door.  Pop!  That door was free.  Again, I don't know what caused it to become free, but we were all quite glad that it did. The rest of the room change was rather trivial after that.  We took out drawers of the dresser and it was a bit lighter than expected.  The desk fit in just fine.  It extends over the corner of the wall by less than a half inch, so Isaac shouldn't run into it.

When we bought the house, there were six bifold doors.  I've now removed five.  I'm not a fan.

Saturday: karate judging

People have been trying to get me to compete in a karate competition for years.  I've thought about it a few times, but for the one thing I want to do the price tag is too high.  This year though, I went to judge.  I thought it was going to be an all day thing, but it ended up only being two hours and that was perfect.  I'm happy to spend two hours volunteering, but when it is closer to five it starts to actually become a commitment.

Anyway, I starting by judging the 3&4 year olds.  They were super cute.  I was judging with two older guys, and it was also cute to see them watch the cute kids.

Then I was put in a ring for slightly older kids.  The judges I was paired with knew what they were doing.  It was a little intimidating when I came up with a different score than they did, but Will just said that it's good and that it's ok to look at different things.  We did often have the same scores, so that was good.

The scoring was a bit weird.  The participants were ranked and then the best person was given a score of 9.9, the second best 9.8, etc.  It was standard and everyone knew what was going on, but it still seemed a bit weird.  Also, there tended to be 2-4 participants per round and every round got medals.  We were handing out medals left and right!

So, a few odd things but overall a good experience.

Friday: busy

Today was a busy day.  I was thinking it would be a bit overwhelming, but it ended up being perfect.  

We went on a walk with Aunt C first thing in the morning.  Well, I walked and the boys scootered.  The temperature was nice and it was cloudy and it was a lovely walk.

At home we put the LEGO towers back in the LEGO room.  Due to painting we put the towers on the opposite side of the room, so we'll see if we like them over there or not.  The kids acted like the LEGOs had been out of commission for a year.  They immediately started building and had a sense of relief that they were back.  (They were only gone for about 40 hours and that included two nights.)

I went to donate blood.  I was hoping to give power red (two units) but my iron was too low and I could only give whole blood.  It was fine.  The guy doing the needle poke did a great job and I had hydrated well.  I was done about five minutes after starting, which was really fast.  When I remember to hydrate well I can go fast, but this was one of the fastest.

I got home and the kids were working together on a tank with special features.  I laid out a quilt since I wanted to rest for a bit.  I noted that we should eat lunch soon and they could barely be dragged away from their project.  It was ridiculous in a really good way.

After a short nap I was the driver to bring Joshua and some friends to Grandville for the Soar N Bounce.  (Think SkyZone, Urban Air, etc.)  The day ended up being quite a bit of driving, but not too bad.  While the kids were playing I was free because another mom was the designated adult.  I went to Bricks and Minifigures to look through their loose LEGO.  My expectation was that I'd spend an 45-60 minutes filling my bag and then still have 45-60 minutes to do some computer work.  Well, after 60 minutes my bag was only half full and I was still going strong.  There were so many cool pieces to find!  I spent about two hours looking through their pieces and found several that I'm excited for the family to be excited about.  I didn't get any work done, but I did have a really good afternoon.

Isaac was in charge of making dinner and he chose tacos.  I really thought he had made them before, but he hadn't.  So I guess it was a good thing that he didn't see my text that we'd be home in 30 minutes, hoping that he'd have dinner ready.  In the end I just asked leading questions and he could have absolutely figured it out, but he enjoyed having the confirmation that he was doing it correctly.

Thursday: carpet cleaning

The carpet cleaners came today.  They had a rather large time window.  I was hoping they would come a bit sooner, but they didn't come as late as possible either.  So now the carpets are drying.  They're pretty dry in a few places and still drying in others depending on if there was a fan available or not.

Tomorrow I'm rather busy so we'll see how much gets put back.  On the top of the priority list are the LEGO part towers and the mats under our desk chairs.  Isaac's bed and the desk chairs have already been put back since the footprints are small.

We also went for a walk with Cheryl.  The boys got to scooter because it works better.  They're willing to walk, but if they can ride it's better.

Wednesday: house cleaning prep and Christmas tree

The kids and I finished prepping the house for carpet cleaning tomorrow.  It took a fair amount of time, but wasn't insane.  We emptied the LEGO room in less than an hour which was pretty amazing.  (Joshua was panting at the end because he set himself a goal to keep ahead of Isaac and I as we moved the drawers to the back room.  I told him he didn't need to work so hard, but I think it made it more fun for him too.)

Dad and I worked on a template for a branch level of a new Christmas tree.

Tuesday: droid giraffe

This afternoon Joshua brought up a droid made of droid pieces.  A "droid droid".  Then he started changing it around into different configurations, and one of them was a "giraffe droid".  In my head it was a good idea to combine the two words into one.

A: "Giroid"
A: "Draffe"
A: flummuxed

Isaac laughed because he could see the confusion on my face.  In my mind's eye these were very different words, but once I said them they sounded so similar.

We also had a birthday party this evening with grandparents.  We had BWW, the kids had some presents, there was cake.  A nice time was had.