Week 10: Getting back to normal

Miscellaneous from the week.

Shopping on Sunday. The boys had wanted peeps ever since Charlotte got a pink one a couple of years ago. The purple, blue, and green ones came home.

Apparently Gabe likes burgers now. Or at least the ones at school. He gave ours a so-so rating. Baby steps on the picky eating front.

A trip to Burger King on the last day of the teacher strike (unknown to us at that moment). A slight meltdown when they found out the machine was out of sprite.

We agreed that Burger King has the best chicken nuggets but the worst toys ever. They managed to make do and thought they were hilarious.

A trip to Target always lands us in the video game aisle.

On Sunday Charlotte got a black eye. None of us know how, not even her. By Wednesday it was looking better.

She's been giving out stickers all week.

She drew a family portrait while the boys were in their astronomy club meeting Saturday morning.

Yet another birthday party, this time for Gabe's friend at a hotel pool.

Week 9: Strike! (no school)

This is how we spent our summer random Feb/Mar vacation. Play-doh, movies, puzzles and games, shopping at Dollar Tree, baking, duplos and megablocks (I think they are never going to be too old to play with those), and another birthday party. To be continued...

Weeks 7 & 8: Celebrations

February has been all over the place this year. In addition to Valentine's Day and President's Day excitement we've had a classmate birthday party almost every single week, Zach's cub scout pack Blue & Gold banquet, snow days, a day off for flooding (!), and now WV teachers are on strike since the 22nd. We have come to expect the unexpected lately, as much as we can anyway.

Us at Ikea. That's always fun.

Excited about her Ring Pop.

Fourth graders. He felt grown up that this was a Friday night birthday party and not a weekend afternoon one.

It was the first time for all of us to attend this function that honors the fifth graders moving to boy scouts. Only one more year as a cub for Zach's den!

Awesome new containers for flour, sugar, etc. Sometimes it's the little things.

Zach and I are bonding over the Harry Potter movies while working on the Harry Potter puzzle during these teacher strike days.

It's still all about the Minecraft. Though Gabe does enjoy the games where you have to bounce a ball/cube/etc over and around obstacles without crashing. He's surprisingly good at those. He also beat Super Mario Odyssey on the Switch the other day.

Steaks came out wonderfully in a new cast iron pan.

Classmate party for Charlotte at a bouncy house place.

Here are a couple of funny Charlotte videos. She has been going to day care through the teacher strike, but when she's here she doesn't stop talking or singing to herself.

Week 6: Derby time

Yesterday was the annual Pinewood Derby. Alas, Zach did not get a trophy this year. His den has gained scouts each year, more of them participated in the race, and some have gotten quite good at building fast cars. It's still a fun time for all the scouts, though to the rest of us it seemed to take the whole day. Gabe watched the races or drew pictures on his clipboard, and Charlotte ran around with another little sister and watched the races but also had fun taking selfies with Frank.

Week 5: Slime and puzzles

More snow and cold; bleh. There was one snow day and one delayed day. I let Charlotte get crafty cutting up magazines, and Gabe helped me construct a Minecraft slime stuffed animal/thing. Zach has been super excited about puzzles the last couple of weeks. Friday night Frank and I went out for dinner to celebrate my birthday, then Saturday we all went to lunch. We're really hoping it doesn't feel like winter for 6 more weeks.