Weekly Happenings: We are DONE with distance learning! I’m not sure who is more excited about this: Joseph or me, haha. Other than that, our week was pretty ordinary. Oh…we did go to IKEA because it opened back up, so we got some shelves for some projects around the house.
The Weekly Weather: Well, it’s June…so it’s pretty much sunny, humid, and warm, with a thunderstorm here and there, haha.
What Paul’s Been Up To: He worked from home this week, which was nice. 🙂 He also managed to get the shelves that we bought all assembled. We got some cube storage for the upstairs (we’re switching out the train table as storage and going over to cube storage) and then we got some more cube storage so that he can build another bench to match the one that he built next to the piano. Right now, that shelf is chilling in our room until he has a chance to get the supplies to build the top and install it all. I am so grateful for his handiness! He also unfortunately broke a tooth this afternoon while eating lunch. Luckily there was an emergency dental place open. He’ll get a temporary crown on Tuesday and then a permanent one in a few weeks. Poor guy! 🙁
What Sarah’s Been Up To: I hosted both an Usborne Books (kids books) party and a Pampered Chef (kitchen supplies/gadgets) party, which is always a good time. Consequently, I was also able to pick out some fun free stuff for myself. Other than that, I was pretty much just doing the mom thing. 🙂
What Joseph’s Been Up To: He was beyond happy to be done with school. He had his drive-through awards ceremony, which was fun. He got the “Most Curious” award. Probably because he isn’t afraid to ask questions…lots of questions. 😉
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has been quite the handful as of late. Luckily, she’s also been very cute. Here new thing is to gasp, hold up one finger, and say, “Wait! I have an idea!” 🙂
This Week in Pictures:
These two are the best of buddies (most of the time).She wants to be with him at all times, haha.Fort building.Making modifications. Yes, he’s on top of the table…I didn’t notice it until after I took the picture and he had already hopped down…whoops, haha.Inside their fort.I had to take her upstairs to play after building the fort because she started playing Big Bad Wolf and Joseph wasn’t ready for the fort to be blown down, haha. She changed gears pretty quickly and organized a sleep over for all of the Little People.Then she started prepping a meal……she told me that we were roasting marshmallows over a campfire.Finally, she was a cowgirl. Yee-haw!I suppose this could count as his “last day of school” picture. I took this for one of his last assignments that he had to do for school.She’s really into dressing like the characters she sees on the TV.Things that make me happy: memories of Magnolia and some beautiful ceramics that my brother Gary made.Sometimes it’s a two-fuzzy-blanket morning. I have no idea why she chose the floor, though.With his teacher to get his award.Gotta get myself onto here sometimes!When she saw me take a picture of myself, she needed one, too.Little ham, haha.We were snuggling on the couch and all of a sudden, I felt her hand wiggle into mine. 🙂Wearing her “poofy” dress.A cool garden buddy. These guys are nicknamed zipper spiders. Any guess as to why? 😉Bring Your Bear to Breakfast Day…which is almost every day, haha.She was scooting him around the house like this. Silly goose.We went from having everything stacked in and on top of the train table to this cube storage. I love how much less cluttered it is!
Weekly Happenings: This week started off with a bang. Sunday evening, both my phone and Paul’s phone went off with an emergency alert. The only one that we have activated is tornado warnings, so we checked and sure enough, there was a tornado warning for our area. The National Weather Service had caught the rotation starting on radar. We gathered the kids (and their tablets/electronic devices) and hunkered down in the only place in our house that is on the first level without a window, the bathroom. Abigail thought it was a party, but Joseph was a little more concerned. We talked him through it and told him to play his games as a distraction. Paul checked outside a few times, said he didn’t like the look of the clouds, so we stayed there for about half an hour. Paul looked outside one more time and said the sky looked better, so we came out of the bathroom but stayed downstairs for a little while longer. The warning expired and we got the kids to bed. The next day, they confirmed that an EF1 (winds topping out at 100 mph) did, in fact, touch down very briefly (the officials said they saw a path that was about half a mile long) a few miles away from us, in another neighborhood. There was damage to homes (some missing parts of roofs, holes in siding from debris, and the like), but no injuries that I’ve heard. We were very, very lucky. Then on Wednesday night, we had a hail storm that dropped marble-sized hail on us. It was just crazy! Miraculously, our home, fences, and trees all seem fine. We are definitely saying prayers of thanks right now! Other than all of that, not much else happened this week. Well, except for today. Today, I happened to see a post just in time to get it set up so that Joseph and I could watch the launch of the Space X rocket today. He thought it was pretty cool to be able to see a launch live, with real-life astronauts. I thought it was pretty cool, too!
The Weekly Weather: I think I’ve said almost everything I can about this already, haha. We had a couple of lesser thunderstorms move through and give us a bit of rain, but it’s mostly been sunny and warm.
What Paul’s Been Up To: Mostly just work. Not really much else to report on that front.
What Sarah’s Been Up To: Mostly just keeping up with the tail-end of Joseph’s school work (he now only has four days left…yay!).
What Joseph’s Been Up To: Just cranking out those last few assignments and mostly playing with LEGOs, Pokemon cards, video games. He’s also been devouring some new books I got for him.
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She has perfected her loft-trashing technique. She can make it look like a toy store exploded in a rather surprisingly short amount of time. Luckily, I have pretty much perfected my put-away technique, so it only takes me a little bit longer to put it all away (with her help, of course…because I’m a mom, not a maid). Assuming she hasn’t squirreled any of the toys in odd places, which sometimes happens.
This Week in Pictures:
One of Joseph’s assignments for school gave him the option of choosing between a few different projects. One project involved a challenge to build a few things with LEGOs. He jumped on that one, for sure. He chose to build a robot (pictured here)……an airplane (I love that he included a pilot)……and a maze that a marble could navigate. He had a ton of fun doing it. I love that his teacher provided some out of the box assignments.My basil, that was so little after I had to trim off the infected bits (it only had three little leaves left on it) has really come back!She said she was tired and asked if she could play with her tablet. She then climbed into bed with it. It’s hard to tell, but in this picture, she’s also wearing her puppy backpack. In fact, she wore that thing all day that day.Between the tornado and hail storm, I feel a renewed gratefulness for my covered patios. Paul said our tomato had tipped over a bit (not the whole pot…just the cage…I think), so he tied the cage to the post.Abigail has loved watching these go from green to orange to red. She loves to eat them!I’m grateful these are under a covered patio in the front. They would NOT have fared well during the storms.Living the best 3YO life: snacks, a drink, and a favorite show on TV.I know it isn’t June quite yet, but my Mondays are rather busy, so I thought I’d update both the calendar on the fridge and the quote board.Just hanging out on a lazy Saturday.The rocket taking off!It was so cool to watch! It was also cool to hear the cheers from Mission Control in the background.
Weekly Happenings: It was another typical week in the Darr household. Paul worked from home, I kept busy keeping on top of Joseph’s schoolwork, Joseph DID his schoolwork, and Abigail destroyed the toy room on a daily basis (I wish I was kidding, but every time I stepped out of Joseph’s room after helping him with homework, the loft looked like a toy-infused tornado had struck). Luckily, I have bins for pretty much everything, so it’s mostly just time-consuming to clean up.
The Weekly Weather: This is where the title of this post comes in. There have been several days towards the end of the week where we were supposed to get rain and it hasn’t happened (and one time where the rain all of a sudden popped onto our weather app as we heard it start to sprinkle). It’s mostly been sunny, warm, and humid.
What Paul’s Been Up To: As I mentioned before, he worked from home this week. He also spent his lunch break on Monday taking the van in to get a tire replaced. It was last Friday that I pulled out of the garage to go grab food and the low tire pressure indicator came on. It was still on the next day as I loaded up the kids to go get food, so I had Paul look at the tire. He noticed right away what I had missed: the tire was completely wearing out in one spot and that was making it so that air was slowly escaping. He put Abigail’s car seat into the other car (there was already a spare booster in there for Joseph) and I took the other car to go do what I needed to do. Then on Monday, he called Walmart. Luckily they considered a tire replacement to be an emergency case, so they opened up the Tire/Lube for him to come in (they haven’t been doing most of their typical maintenance appointments since those aren’t considered essential during the lockdown). He got it taken care of, brought lunch home for us (and a surprise for each kid). I’m so grateful for him!
What Sarah’s Been Up To: wrangling kids and household duties…need I say more?
What Joseph’s Been Up To: Cranking out schoolwork, playing, being my runner when I need pretty much anything…he’s such a good kid. 🙂
What Abigail’s Been Up To: She’s living up the toddler life, haha. The other day, she was pretending to look through binoculars (she was cupping her hands around her eyes) and she told me, “Hey, Mom! I’m using my hand nanocolers!” 🙂 It’s one of the best Abigail-isms, yet.
This Week in Pictures:
This ought to tell you how tired I can be at times: I actually tried to pick up this “fish” before I realized it was actually made of sunshine. 🙂Paul picked up a veterinarian Barbie for Abigail. It came with a kitten and a stethoscope. She’s been having Barbie check up on all of her toys, haha.Checking out the Pokemon cards that Paul got for him.Earlier this week, I had looked at this toy truck and thought to myself that I should probably donate it since Abigail never played with it (it had been Joseph’s). Literally the same day, I came out of my room and stumbled upon Anna and Elsa going for a little joy ride, haha. I guess the truck will stick around a little longer.I don’t even remember what they were watching, but it had 100% of their attention.Just when I thought the toad had moved on, I watered him…again. He comes and goes. Paul mentioned seeing him holed up by our trash cans in the back yard, so I guess he has a few places he likes. He doesn’t seem to be digging too deep into my pot, so I suppose I’ll just deal with it for the time being and try not to scream when he startles me.One of Joseph’s assignments this week was to learn more about the meaning behind Memorial Day (since it’s this next Monday). He learned about the significance of red poppies (and had to draw his own). I also told him a bit about my uncles that had served in WWII (one of which who lost his life while in France).She needed to have a front row seat, apparently.I got some new books for the kids (they’ve been having withdrawals since the library has been closed). Abigail was super excited to see “That’s Not My Unicorn”… …and “That’s Not My Princess” in the stack of books. There’s an entire set of “That’s Not My…” books that are what I call “touchy-feely” books (they have something on each page that is a different texture). She loves all the different textures. She already had two (“That’s Not My Meerkat” and “That’s Not My Dragon”), so she was excited to add these two to the collection. She also had to “read” through them both at least 5-6 times.I asked her to say cheese. 🙂Couch snuggles.Part of today’s errand running yielded a play weapon for Joseph and another Barbie for Abigail. We’re heading into the warmer months (where we would have been spending more time at home inside anyway, regardless of the virus), so new toys help. 😉Showing off his new acquisition. Showing me her new “friend”.
