Week 17: Color Jam 2018

Last week it was finally warm enough to walk up to meet the bus everyday. Granted, 60 degrees and cloudy/windy feels much different than 60 degrees and sun, but we'll take it. Sunday I pruned our tree while the kids played and launched the rockets they made on astronomy day. Wednesday was warm enough (but a little rainy) to have Zach's cub scout meeting at the park. Then Saturday Zach and I ran in the Color Jam 5k school fundraiser like we did two years ago. It was fun but a little cold for me and so windy that not a lot of the color dust actually stuck to us. I'm working on heat setting what did stick, so we'll see how that goes. Zach wants to show it off at school. Frank, Gabe, and Charlotte got a good bit of walking/running around in too, with taking some pics/videos of us and heading to the playground at the sports complex we were at. After the run we bought a shop vac at Lowe's and headed back for some chores around the house. After being on/off the to-do list for a few years, we finally tried to figure out if our sump pump even works. Presently it does not, though we are relieved that we have not needed it in the time we've lived here. We sucked out some old slimy water but have yet to further clean or troubleshoot the pump. We moved on to the very easy task of hanging doors on our living room bookcases. We'd had them for a few weeks since our last Ikea run. Ah, so much cleaner! The living room is really coming along, and I hope to be back in a week or two with some photos of it freshly painted.

Reading hippo books

Recently we recorded Charlotte reading one of her favorite hippo books at bedtime.

Then I came across a similar video from August 2016. Enjoy!

Weeks 15 & 16: Ikea, friends, and Parent's Night Out

So all this stuff happened! Here's what we've been up to...

A trip to Ikea. These seem to be more and more frequent, though for the first time in a while I cannot identify any more furniture that we need. This time we got the boys nightstands and new dressers. It had been the goal for some time to get dressers that make good use of the boys' closet space, and I think we've finally achieved that.

We went on a 3+ mile hike with the cub scout den. I only had to carry Charlotte for a little bit near the end. It helped me move up in my ranking among Fitbit friends that week.

On Friday we were off to Jen and Andy's house for the weekend. Ben and Maggie's birthday party was Saturday evening. We spent the rest of the time visiting, taking the girls out for Maggie to get her ears pierced, and the kids loved playing together on Minecraft (their kids have recently gotten into it).

Charlotte must have asked if it was time for cake about thirty times that day.

We got a handful of decent photos.

And about a hundred crazy ones.

That weekend was very rainy. It poured during our drive home on Sunday. On Monday we should not have been surprised to have school cancelled for flooding. The elementary school building was not actually flooded, but it was kind of surrounded by water, which covered the entire football field, roads, and much of the park behind the school. Other areas in the county were flooded as well. Sigh. They did not add on an extra day to the school year, thank goodness. Charlotte still went to day care, and the boys had friends over.

Zach saw the allergist. He's doing well with his monthly shots.

A second Friday of busyness. Two dates! Frank tried out my morning Body Pump class with me. He got through it, and I'd say he had the expected and appropriate level of soreness for the entire weekend. Yay for fitness :) We had no plans for the evening, but the kids came home wanting to go to a Parent's Night Out event at their school because friends were going. We agreed and then went out for dinner.

On Saturday morning Charlotte went with me to Zumba (they have a kids room with iPads), and Frank took the boys to Astronomy Day. There were a bunch of activities for the kids, including building a catapult (Gabe won for farthest-flung marshmallow, I believe), and launching rockets powered by Alka-seltzer tablets.

Weeks 13 & 14: Easter and Spring Break

The weeks have been full here, for sure. Even though we didn't leave the house much during spring break (except for my escapes to exercise some of the evenings), there was plenty going on at home. We've been in a bit of spring cleaning mode: cleaning/getting rid of stuff in the basement, moving some things upstairs, and rearranging furniture in the boys' room. Organizing stuff is actually one of the things I can do with the kids home. I don't know if it just looks so boring to them that they leave me alone!

I visited Gabe's computer class. He's playing Sumdog, a math game.

We've had a couple pockets of nicer weather, but mostly it was cold, windy, rainy, or snowy.

Charlotte celebrated the 100th day of Pre-K.

Easter weekend trip to Barnes & Noble and Chili's. Excited to buy books because most of the time we just look and play.

Coloring eggs is always a highlight. Charlotte is the only one who will help Frank and me eat them.

Lots of goodies on Easter morning.

Frank is working on an old computer.

Charlotte did fine without naps for most of the week, though they did have quiet time each day. Towards the end of the week though... She insisted on wearing that dress most days, and often wore her rainbow dash hat (see photo below) no matter the situation.

Gabe was excited for us to make a second Minecraft account so that he and Zach could play at the same time on computers--they have been playing together on tablets and phones for years, but I guess you can do different stuff on computers.

They convinced me to let them take computers up to their room for quiet time.

Much of the time I was cleaning in the basement Gabe was playing video games down there and Charlotte was cooking for me in her kitchen.

She camped out in the boys' room a couple of times. That couch comes in handy.