A Trip to the Everhart Musuem, Family Time, and Cute Moments with Owen

Samantha: 105 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 71 Months, Week 4
Owen: 29 Months, Week 2

With Samantha being at play practice every Saturday morning, we have been somewhat limited in family outings on the weekend. So on Sunday it was going to be nice weather, so we decided to pack our lunches and then go straight from church to a museum in Scranton called the Everhart Museum, it was pretty cheap to get in, and we figured we'd check it out. When we first got there, we found a table to eat our lunch at, and then we started exploring the museum. They had an area talking about dinosaurs with a cast of a skeleton. There were lots of other fossils in the cases around the room. The boys really liked the giant dinosaur skeleton, and Aedan wanted to pose by its mouth as if it were trying to eat him.

There was a special room full of rocks, minerals, and geodes that Samantha really enjoyed, especially this case of some that would glow when a certain light shone on them.

From there we saw a room with lots of taxidermy animals. There were many birds of different sizes, and also a few larger animals as well. Samantha brought her camera and wanted to take pictures of so many animals. Aedan doesn't have much interest in stuff like this right now, so he just wanted to flit from one case to another faster than the rest of the family. Owen was happy following the rest of us around. We thought it was good practice for when we are planning on taking our family trip to Washington, D.C. over Easter break and will be at a lot of museums like this. 

After seeing the animals we went to the second floor where they had all the art. They had two security guards on this level, so you could tell they were wanting to be sure everyone was careful and didn't touch the artwork. At this point the boys were getting a little tired, so it was difficult sometimes to keep them calm and not let them run around. However, as long as we engaged with them and asked them questions about what we were looking at, we were able to hold their interest.

The museum wasn't huge, so it didn't take too long to see everything there. Then, since the museum was located inside a nice park area, we decided to walk over to a playground and let the kids play outside for awhile. It was a beautiful day outside and one of the first days where it felt like we got a glimpse of spring. The sun was shining bright, and it felt so good to spend some time outside.

After playing outside for awhile, we decided it was time to get heading home. Owen and Aedan both fell asleep very quickly while Samantha sat in the back and read. It's funny how much Aedan has been falling asleep in the car lately! He just can't help himself, and I think it's really adorable.

That evening we had more of a relaxing night at home eating dinner and spending time together around the house. I was switching out some laundry and trying to get Owen to help me, but instead he decided to see what it was like to climb inside the dryer! He wanted me to close the door on him too, but I didn't do it for very long. In fact, he was really pretty upset when I made him get out of the dryer.

Monday has typically been our grocery shopping day, and I decided to try doing our weekly shopping at Aldi instead of Walmart. I decided it was kind of silly to drive all the way out to Tunkhannock just to pick up groceries when I am not going there for any other reason. I don't really like doing pick-up orders at the Wilkes-Barre Walmart because they take a long time to bring your order out to you, and they always do so many substitutions. The other option would be doing a pick-up order from Wegmans like we did last week, but it is definitely a more expensive grocery store, and I think they charge more because they do their pick-up orders through Instacart. So anyways, in an attempt to save money, and since I am only shopping with one little boy now, I decided to try out Aldi again. Our grocery shopping went well, and I was able to find almost everything I needed. Aldi doesn't have everything, but on the staples that we buy every week, it is definitely a place to save money. It's just a little bit more time consuming with having to bag your own groceries, but Owen is very patient and helpful, so it's really easy to go shopping with him and take a little extra time.

Owen was pretty tired from not napping much at all on Sunday on the way back from the museum, so he took a long nap on Monday afternoon. Then, we had the kids go outside and play as soon as they got home from school since it was in the lower 50s and too nice to just stay inside. I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather while we could!

Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Monday. Aedan has an addition worksheet, work with the letter Ee, counting and matching numbers, putting together words into a sentence, and comparing numbers to 20.

Samantha has a Chapter 7 math test that she got a 97% on, a weekly math quiz, some spelling papers on words with prefixes, a character trait chart from "Charlotte's Web," as well as a quiz from Chapter 1-4 of that book that she got 100% on.

On Tuesday morning, as we were getting ready to leave for the play gym, Owen fell down the basement stairs again that morning. He was okay, and he just cried and wanted to be held for a couple minutes and then he was good. I think he was just trying to go down the stairs without holding on to anything and he had his snack in his hand so that it made him fall down. Just a few days ago he fell down the stairs for the first time, and that was because he was trying to keep up with Samantha and Aedan. He is just in too big of a hurry, the poor little guy.

On Tuesday night I just felt really tired. The kids were all tired and grumpy that evening, even though they woke up in really good moods that morning. We had a lady and her kids over from church for dinner since her husband has been out of town for a long time, and our kids just weren't doing a great job trying to play with and interact with her kids. Overall, our kids have just been talking back a lot more lately and not listening when we tell them to do things, so it's  been frustrating. And now they are teaching these behaviors to Owen, and he's copying them, so that is frustrating too. I think it was just too hard to have people over on a school night and not give the kids the freedom to play where and how they want.

I've been struggling with wanting to be able to help our kids meet people and make friends, but not really knowing how to do that. It seems like most people we have been meeting and inviting over from church all have younger kids, which is great, but I would love to have friends for Samantha and Aedan to play with. I have been asking Samantha and Aedan to ask their friends for their parents' phone numbers, but they haven't been able to get them. It's hard to meet other parents from school since I really don't interact with anyone from there. I would love to meet more local families with kids they could play with around home without having to drive 25-35 minutes to get somewhere. This is the one hard thing about going to church down in Wilkes-Barre and not somewhere more local because not many people from church live up by us. I have plenty of playmates for Owen, but not for Samantha and Aedan, and I feel badly about that. It's so hard to make new friends and get to know people in a totally new area where you don't know anyone. Plus, it would be nice for Ben and I to meet parents with kids in similar age ranges as well because it's a little different being a parent of elementary age children and not just babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.

On Tuesday I was looking into a website that can print my blog as a book. It's called PixxiBook, and it looked like something that would be pretty easy and turn out looking very nice. You basically just input your web address and it takes all your posts and formats them into a book. There is a no way you can customize anything within the book, and really that would be better for me because there is so much content that there is no way I could go through it all and format it. I looked at a preview of what my blog books would look like, and I got so excited. I have put so much work and energy into writing a blog post about every week of our family's life since Samantha was six weeks old, that I would love to have it in print form to actually look at and see the pictures of our kids growing up, rather than having it all just floating out in internet land. I would have to print multiple volumes since I have so much content. Each volume is a max of 300 pages, and according to this website, not even a whole year of blog posts would fit into one volume, because it would be longer than 300 pages, so I would just have to figure out how I would want to split everything up. It looked like each volume would be around $130, so it's something we would have to do slowly over time as we had money to do it, since I am in my ninth year of writing a blog post every week. It would be like my own digital scrapbook, and I would love to have it in print. Plus, sometimes I get worried, like what happens if my blog disappears or something and everything I have written is gone? That would make me super sad, so this is definitely something I will be looking into.

Here's some work the kids brought home from school on Tuesday. Aedan continued to work on the letter Ee, comparing numbers to 20, counting to 50 by ones, practicing sight words, and ordering numbers.

Here is a science quiz from Samantha that she got 100% on and a spelling test she got 101% on. Just look at the beautiful cursive handwriting!

On Wednesday after going to library story time together in the morning, we came home to eat lunch together, and Owen chose to sit at the kitchen counter to eat our crackers, meat, and cheese. He is such a little sweetheart, so I took the chance to take some pictures of him and I together. I love this sweet little dimpled boy of mine!

Every once in awhile I like to get videos of the kids just playing naturally, so I took this video when Owen wasn't noticing that I was taking a video. He loves playing with his Paw Patrol puppies and this huge fire truck that has enough room to hold them all.

Here is some work the kids brought home on Wednesday from school. Aedan has a color by sight word penguin, counting to 100 using the number grid, more work with the letter Ee, and counting to 50 by ones.

When Samantha and Aedan come home from school, they are always ready to have a snack. I oftentimes don't have many pictures of them since they are at school all day, and I have more time with Owen, but I wanted to take pictures of the kids in their element that day. Silly faces from them all, and they are both looking so grown up these days. Do you see how tall Samantha is when standing next to Ben? Sometimes I can't believe how big she's getting and how fast time seems to be going. I forget sometimes that we have a girl as old as she is, and I'm king of in denial about how fast these two are growing up.

Thursday morning was our typical schedule of going to Bible study and coming back home for lunch and nap time.  There wasn't anything out of the ordinary that day, just good conversation with my friends at Bible study and fun time for Owen to play with other kids while I enjoyed adult conversation about God while sipping my nice, hot coffee. Bible study morning is one of my favorite mornings of the week.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school on Thursday. Aedan has more work for the letter of the week: work with the letter Ee, animals from the book "The Mitten," counting to 100 by 1s, short Ee words, practicing sums, ordering words into a sentence, and counting to 100 by 10s.

And here is Samantha's work: a mid-chapter quiz that she got 100% on. Great job!

Owen has been taking pretty good naps lately, which I'm thankful for as he is close to 2 1/2 and still going strong. On this particular afternoon, Ben got him up from his nap, and Owen didn't want anything to do with anyone else. This is often what he does when he wakes up from his naps; he just wants us to hold him, and he cuddles into your shoulder for awhile. It really is the sweetest thing ever, and we will take his cuddles for as long as he will give them to us.

Fridays are our mornings at home to get things done and just play together. In this video Owen is "practicing his jumps". He also has his little purple cow sitting on the piano bench watching him. He got this little cow from Aedan. Aedan sweetly picked it out for him. (I forget if it was from AWANA or the school prize box.) Owen thought it was the best thing ever that Aedan chose to give it to him because he absolutely adores his big brother. He carried this little cow around for several days afterwards, and he even chose to sleep with it instead of his stuffed monkey, which is a big deal!.

One of Owen's favorite shows is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so I usually let him watch an episode of it when we are home in the morning like this. (We don't do too much screen time around here, so it's always exciting to the kids.) Owen loves to get up and dance to the "Hot Dog" song that plays at the end of each episode. He likes to copy the moves of the characters on the show, and I was finally able to catch a video of him dancing. He is so sweet and silly!

And here is my little guy sitting at the counter as I get lunch ready that afternoon. He is happy just being with me, and I love that I get this time to be with him at home.

Friday night, on a whim, Ben got tickets to a Wilkes hockey game. We hadn't been to one before, and we thought it would be a fun, low-key hockey game to take the kids to. We really enjoyed going to hockey games at Lake State, but the Wilkes-Barre Penguins game we went to in January was a little bit too much for them. They like being able to get up and move around and to see the game from a close vantage point, and none of that was possible at the Penguins game. The Wilkes game was a small venue with just a small group of bleachers, and there were a lot of people standing up right next to the "glass" to watch the game close up. The kids enjoyed the freedom of being able to move around more, to see the game better, and to run around with another family's kids during the period breaks. Plus, the game started at 5:00, so it allowed us to go to the game and still get back for a normal bedtime. It was really fun. We all enjoyed ourselves, and we will definitely have to go to another game sometime. In fact, I even saw a brochure advertising a Spring Learn to Skate session that was a pretty decent price, so that is something we may look into as well. The kids really liked ice skating in Michigan, since it was such a part of the culture there, and I think they would enjoy getting more lessons in order to strengthen their skills some.

We didn't really have any plans on Saturday, so with Samantha's play practice in the morning, we decided to just stay home and spend time together playing and doing things around the house.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school Aedan was working on rhyming words, got a 97% on a reading test, made a big E elf, drew a picture of him and his wife (with a really funny comment from his teacher), and had more practice counting by 10s to 100.

Here are a couple pictures of Owen wearing his Superman shirt that has a cape on the back. He likes to wear this shirt because Aedan often wears super hero shirts as well, and he likes to match him.

Saturday night was bath night, so it was my turn to give the boys baths. They usually have fun playing in the tub together, so I decided to capture a little of their play time on video. I love how Owen is having the ducks talk to each other, and Aedan is pretending there are natural disasters happening where they have to evacuate. I love their imaginations, even when playing in the bath tub!

I just got approved to be a substitute teacher in the Lake Lehman School District on Friday, so I took the chance to sign into the website on Saturday night and even accepted my first job for the coming Tuesday. I am excited about starting subbing, and even though it will only be for one day a week, it will be good to get out of the house and get experience in a classroom again. Plus, it will be good to make some extra money. It won't be a lot, but it will help justify doing different summer camps and activities for the kids. Ben has all his classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays this year, and even though he normally goes to campus to work every day, even when he isn't teaching, he decided that he can stay home that one day a week and work for a little while in the afternoon when Owen is napping. He will just have to work more on a weeknight to make up for the lost hours, but it is something we can make work, so I am grateful for that.

I then spent the rest of my evening cutting out reading activities for Aedan's teacher while watching Les Miserables with Ben. It was fun to watch that movie again because I really like it and hadn't seen it in awhile. Plus, the music is just beautiful. It's fun to be productive while also relaxing and watching a movie with my husband.

(Blog about February 23-29, 2020)