Weekly Happenings: It’s hard to believe that we’re almost to July. We’ve mostly been staying home, but we did escape the house once to meet up with some friends at the zoo. We met up in the Tiny Tot Nature Spot (a sort of secluded spot that has a little river running through it, where they could just run around and play). We just stayed there and let the kids play for a couple of hours. They got soaked from head-to-toe (especially after Joseph and his friend found out that they could shoot water at each other from two outdoor sinks, haha), but had a blast.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been mostly warm and dry, but we did have a couple of rain storms come through, which was nice. Yesterday was a random cooler day with the highs only reaching into the low 80s. It was really nice! We have been dealing with increased dust in the air, since a huge dust cloud from the Saharan Desert came over via the trade winds. Luckily we knew it was going to happen, so we started taking allergy medicine a few days before it really hit.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He’s been busy with work and with squeezing in yard work into the mix. He did me a huge favor and sprayed for bugs since we’d been getting attacked by mosquitoes (’tis the season, I suppose).
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I managed to get the house cleaned (it’s a lot easier now that I’m back in my routine) and kept the kids happy (most of the time). That’s a win-win in my book.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He has been really good about playing with Abigail while I do “Mom stuff”. While I hope that he can go back to school in the fall (for the sake of everyone in this pandemic madness; wanting some sense of normalcy to be back by then), I’ll miss his help!
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She had an absolute blast getting to play in the water at the zoo. There was one point where I looked over and both kids had sat down in the river…I hadn’t thought they would get wet enough to warrant me needing to bring changes of clothes or towels…I should have known better, haha. They had fun, at least. We also left after that, so they weren’t stuck in sopping wet clothes for too long.
This Week in Pictures:
Here are the doors that Paul made for his open cabinet in his office.Living the toddler life, haha.Paul ordered this shirt for me. I love that it has a boy and a girl on it! I did make sure that Joseph understood I didn’t think that he and Abigail were nightmares…it was just a play on words with the movie.When I came to get her out of her room one morning, I was met with this sight.She told me that she was all ready to go to school. 🙂A photo collage that Google Photos put together. She’s grown so much the past couple of years! I think she was one in the picture on the left, and the one in the right was this past week.Living the summer vacation life: eating Cocoa Dyno-Bites and wearing an outfit of her own choosing.Abigail and her friend loved this boat!They also loved these pipes. There were mallets attached to them so they could hit them and hear the different tones.These two are the best of buds. They even made up a secret handshake before leaving. This guy is probably munching my garden, but I have to admit he’s pretty cool looking.Dress-up day. She wanted to wear her Halloween costume and I didn’t have a good reason not to let her.He’s been wanting to help more (I think it makes him feel grown-up), so I set him to using the hand-vacuum with the hose to clean up the edges where the big vacuum can’t get very well.
Weekly Happenings: We broke up the blah of the week by meeting up with friends at the zoo. The kids had a ton of fun (my friend has a boy who is a year younger than Joseph and a girl who is a year older than Abigail, so it’s just perfect). Other than that, we kind of just hung around the house, working on projects.
The Weekly Weather: It’s been warm, but still relatively mild. Mostly sunny…I think there was one day where it rained a bit, but it wasn’t much.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He worked from home this week. He also has worked on some of his projects around the house. He made some cabinet doors for some shelves that he has in the office. He also assembled the other window seat bench and built the top for it.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mainly just keeping the kids entertained and happy…and trying to get my cleaning schedule back into habit. It kind of went out the window when I had Abigail (understandably), so I would do sporadic cleaning binges that always left me exhausted, because I would inevitably do too much at once. It was like that for a couple of years. I started getting back into it this year, but then our world was turned on its ear with this whole pandemic and subsequent distance learning. The housework took a back burner to making sure Joseph got the learning that he needed. Now that we’re officially on summer vacation, I’m getting back into it where I only do a bit of cleaning every day. I prefer to do it this way because then I don’t tire myself out and I still have plenty of time for playing with and doing fun things with the kids. Also, by doing it on a regular basis, the house is staying cleaner, so it doesn’t take as long to clean things, either.
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been soaking up summer, haha. He was ecstatic to get to meet up with friends and is looking forward to when we get to do it again.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s been keeping me on my toes. 😉 She has also been doing really well with continuing to go to bed on her own. She does try to draw it out and make deals with me so that I’ll lay on the floor in her room, but I’ve been able to reason with her (whaaat!!!) and she’s been going to bed resignedly happy. 😉
This Week in Pictures:
We got her headphones for her tablet. She calls them her “kitty-phones”. 🙂The first stage of the project to make the area to the left of the piano look like the area to the right of it: assembling the shelves from IKEA and putting in the baskets.She got rather…involved while eating her yogurt. She was pretty entertained by the fact that she had some on her nose and wanted me to take her picture. Don’t mind her poor noggin. When we were at the Japanese Tea Gardens last week, we took a spill as I was carrying her up some stairs and she bonked her noggin pretty bad (luckily no concussion). Joseph and his buddy Emerson. My friend Katie and I both thought it was hilarious that they inadvertently ended up in such similar clothing.The kid crew.I love bald eagles!Someday I hope to attain this level of awesomeness.Joseph helping Paul with cutting down the boards for the bench top.Abigail really wanted to be out with the boys, but settled with giving me a drum concert.Ready for paint and stain!Yesterday I took the kids to get their hair cut. Abigail got the sides and front evened out. Her baby hair on the sides was shorter than the back, but the last time she got a trim, I didn’t want them to even it out because it would have been way too short. This time around, the hair on the sides was finally long enough to bring the back up even with it without having to lose too much length. She also got her bangs trimmed, which was so good (they had been getting in her eyes, which understandably irritated her).Joseph got a buzz cut (shorter on the sides and a bit longer on top). He was so relieved. He’s like me where he gets overheated very easily, and the long hair was just trapping in all that heat. He’s also happy that he doesn’t have to comb his hair, either. 😉This guy (or girl, I suppose) is huge! Playing grocery store. The truck is the shopping cart, Paul’s old stud-finder is the scanner, and the white basket is the container to take home. 😊Bench done! The kids didn’t waste any time to test it out. I love the overall look!
Bonus Video: Abigail singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
Weekly Happenings: Things have slowly started opening up again, so the kids and I took advantage of the slightly cooler weather to go to the zoo one day this week. Yesterday I decided to take them to the Japanese Tea Gardens and then to the zoo again (I love having passes!), since the weather was still so nice. We also had a small play date with a few friends. It was definitely a more fun-filled week than the past few weeks.
The Weekly Weather: We had one day that was horrendously hot. Even though it was only 97, the heat index was recorded as being 107 degrees. High humidity and dew point makes it feel just feel gross. Luckily, the rest of the week was cooler and not quite as humid (or maybe it was just as humid, but the drop in temperature made it feel better).
What Paul’s Been Up To: He was busy at work. He also got his temporary crown on his broken tooth, so now he just has to wait for his permanent crown to be done so that he can get that put in. This morning, he went and cut down some tree limbs that were hanging over into someone’s yard (the land on the other side of the fence is HOA-owned, so that’s why Paul took care of it). He also discovered when mowing our lawn that one of our fence posts will need replacing. I guess the wind from that night that the tornado came through did get part of our fence after all. The joys of home ownership. 😉
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I’ve pretty much already mentioned what I’ve been up to. 🙂
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He enjoyed getting out of the house. We’ll need to do that more often now that things are starting to open up again. He also has figured out that he can use one of his books (a handbook of all the Yo-kai characters) to help him do better at his Yo-kai game. Way to research, kid. 😉
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She REALLY enjoyed getting out of the house. Oh, and one cute thing she said: she was looking at her pink quilt that my mom had made for her and she asked me who made it. I told her that her grandma made it. For the next few days, every time she saw it, she would say, “This is my beautiful butterfly blanket. My grandma made it for ME!” She has also started saying that she “can’t want it” when we’re asking her to do something or eat something she doesn’t want to. It’s frustratingly funny.
This Week in Pictures:
I lost track of Abigail one day and found her hiding in our new cabinet. 🙂Playing with her toys. She really likes that she can get into any of the bins that she wants to, without having to move a bunch of stuff around.When we went to IKEA, we got Abigail some play food and also a bunny. She was enjoying giving the bunny carrots and lettuce.He was recording his sister. These are such fun ages.They really do love each other a lot.The zoo had a bunch of LEGO animals and insects. It was so cool to see!One of those then and now pictures. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown in the past year!A LEGO butterfly and flower.A LEGO hummingbird and flower.Checking out the giraffes.We love the elephants.One of Abigail’s favorites……the hippos!On the zoo train.I startled this guy off of one of my plants. They have such neat colors!My mint. I love these pots. They look like wood and metal barrels, but they are resin, so they hold up a lot better.At the Japanese Tea Gardens.I love this waterfall!An overall view of the gardens, The kids loved getting to see koi fish in the ponds.We don’t always get to see all three elephants out.Abigail loved this bird!One other LEGO creation: a lion!I was getting ready to vacuum and Joseph asked if he could do it…uh, you don’t have to ask me twice, kid!It’s fun to have pretty nails every once in a while! I love these nail polish stickers. They make it so easy to have pretty nails! This is Abigail’s pelican that she got from the zoo. She loves this thing!
