Aedan: 74 Months, Week 1
Owen: 31 Months, Week 2
Sunday was going to be one of those days were it was going to rain most of the day, so I took advantage of the bad weather to choose that day to clean the house. Last month when I did my deeper clean, I bribed the family into helping me do jobs in an attempt to make it faster for me. However, it ended up being more frustrating because they just don't know how to do the tasks as completely as they should be, and I found myself trying to supervise them and not being able to clean as much myself. So this time around, I decided to just ask Ben to take over more with the kids for the day so I could just spend the day cleaning on my own, be more focused, and get it down more quickly. I did some cleaning even before church that morning, wanting to get the kids' rooms and most of the upstairs done before Owen would be taking a nap that afternoon. Ben was also able to put the new curtain rod up in Aedan's old room.
Lately during singing time at the beginning of our online church service, Owen will go downstairs to get our play guitar and this stand that you hang toy cleaning supplies on, and I think he is intending for it to be his microphone. He stands there in the middle of the floor, pretending to play his guitar and singing along with the songs as best he can. It's pretty cute, so I decided to take a picture of it.
Doing a pretty thorough cleaning of our house takes me quite awhile, and with breaks here and there for church, lunch, dinner, and doing things with kids, I had just a few things to finish up once the kids were tucked into bed that night. Then I got to enjoy a little bit of time just relaxing and watching a show with Ben. It was nice just having the day to myself to clean and get things put away where they go. I always feel pretty accomplished after cleaning the whole house.
Monday morning we tried to get our work done quickly so that we could take a family trip up to the Dickson City/Scranton area to run some errands. I set up a time to meet a local person that was selling roller skates that I wanted to buy for Aedan's birthday. Ever since going to his school's skate night, he was asking for some roller skates of his own, so I was pretty excited when I found a used pair. We also stopped by Once Upon a Child to pick up all the clothes that we had ordered through the personal shopper. Finally, we stopped at Panera to pick up food for Ben and me, and McDonald's for the kids since they don't really like Panera. It was fun to just get out of the house and out of town for awhile, even if it meant that we didn't really get out of the car at all.
For Innovation class that day, Samantha chose to make a catapult, so here is a video of her demonstrating the catapult to send it to her teacher.
And here is a subtraction page that Aedan did for his math class that day. They just started subtraction, so it was a little tricky to get him to think of counting down instead of up, but he is a smart boy and figured it out quickly.
Since we ran our errands on Monday, Tuesday was my day to go grocery shopping. We are making longer lists and shopping for more things to get us through about two weeks of meal planning. I wore my mask, like usual, and got a few extra things like sidewalk chalk, more bubble solution, birthday presents for Ben, as well as a stake and chain to keep Izzy safely in our yard when we are unable to watch her. We spend a lot more each time we go grocery shopping, but we are shopping for almost two weeks and not doing really any shopping anywhere else in between.
On the way back home from the store, Ben called me saying he got a phone call about another foster placement. It was an 8 year old girl and an almost 1 year old boy. However, the girl had some medical issues that required her to have a nurse with her from 8-3. Plus, sleeping arrangements would have been difficult because we couldn't have had the two of them sleep together due to their gender differences. Plus, Ben and I really only wanted one child the next time we took a placement anyways. Going from three to five kids is a lot, and we only wanted to do as much as we could handle. Especially during this time of staying-at-home and things being so up in the air, having two extras to take care of when sometimes it's enough of a challenge with our own three, would be a lot to take on. Ben and I talked more about it once I got back home from shopping, but before we could even make any decision, someone else that knew the kids already volunteered to take them, so that made our decision for us.
Ben did school with the kids on Tuesday while I was shopping, but overall, things were going better with schoolwork this week. We are getting the hang of it and falling into a good routine and schedule. I think we just have to be more on top of Samantha than we thought to make sure she is staying on task and doing her best work.
Aedan had another subtraction page to do on Tuesday as well as a Bingo card to fill out for his next Zoom meeting where they were going to play Bingo together.
As I was making dinner that night, Ben went out with the kids on the patio to blow bubbles. They love to catch and pop the bubbles and have a blast doing it.
That evening we decided to enjoy our first fire in the new fire pit I got for Ben's early birthday present, using the wood that we had scrounged up around our property. The kids were really excited to get the chairs around the fire and roast some marshmallows for s'mores. They were pretty cute, and it was a fun pre-bedtime activity. There will definitely be more fires to come!
As we got the kids ready for bed that night, Ben took these next couple pictures of Aedan since it was his last night of being a five year old. A big day was coming the next day, as it was his 6th birthday, an event he had been talking about and planning for for many weeks. He was so excited about this day coming. He was excited about the presents he might get, and he was excited about his cake and just having the whole day being about celebrating this special little boy. Here's Aedan on his last day as a 5 year old!
Since we weren't going to be able to do more typical things to celebrate Aedan's birthday this year, and since his only main desire was for Ema to be able to come to our house for his birthday, I wanted to make things a little more special for him on his birthday. I hung up the Happy Birthday banner and hung up some streamers, just to make it look more festive.
Here is Aedan coming into the kitchen through his streamers for the first time that morning. I just love his sweet, sly smile at the end of the video. He is so adorable, and I was so excited to be able to spend the day celebrating him.
Even though it was Aedan's birthday, we still had to do our usual morning school work. Aedan was working on more subtraction review using a number line to figure out the answer, and he seemed to really like doing it this way. It was easier to use the visual of the number line to hop down numbers.
For his Music activity that day, he learned about marching and percussion. I played different examples of marches, and he was supposed to practice marching in different ways, as well as create his own drums using boxes from around the house.
Aedan and Samantha also worked on their art lesson for the week. They were supposed to draw a picture of their favorite things, so Aedan drew a picture of playing with his Legos in the basement, while Samantha drew a lovely picture of her playing outside in the backyard.
We tried to finish up our work quickly that day so that we could start celebrating Aedan's big day. We started our day with his favorite breakfast of cereal and hard-boiled eggs. Then, while Ben was driving down to Wilkes-Barre to pick up lunch from Buffalo Wilds Wings (Aedan's choice), I took the kids down to the parking lot of the Lakeside Skillet to play for awhile. Samantha and Aedan enjoyed riding their scooters around, zooming down the hill together, while Owen and I played hockey together.
Once Ben was almost back home, we made our way back home. Owen wanted to ride there in his yellow and red cozy coupe, but when it was time to go, he did not want to get back in his car to go home. He was just having too much fun playing outside.
Aedan has always enjoyed boneless buffalo wings, so it didn't surprise us at all that he picked Buffalo Wild Wings for his birthday lunch. (Ben brought foil with him to wrap the food up in order to keep it warm on the drive back home.) Here are the kids sitting at the table ready to eat Aedan's birthday lunch.
After eating lunch together, we decided to let Aedan open his presents so that way he could spend the rest of the day enjoying them, building, and playing with his new Legos.
The first present Aedan opened was the Darth Vader set he got from Ema and Papa. Samantha and Aedan have been building and creating their own scenes and people from Star Wars, so he was really wanting to have an actual Darth Vader Lego figure. (Also, do you notice what shirt Aedan picked for the day? He likes wearing this blue 16 shirt because 16 is Ema's favorite number, and this is a special day since he and Ema share their birthday.)
After doing Facetime with Ema and Papa while he opened the present from them, he decided it was time to open the presents from us. Samantha picked out this Luke Skywalker Land-speeder, especially because it included C3PO. Do you sense a theme here? Aedan is pretty obsessed with Star Wars right now.
He then opened up his first present from us which was a "new" pair of roller skates. He will be excited to try these out some day.
The next present was the Lego set at the top of his list, a Lego Spiderman Airplane set. This was something he had been talking about wanting for a long time, and he had the greatest reaction to it. He only had to tear off a corner of the wrapping paper before exclaiming, "Thank you Mommy and Daddy!" He had the cutest expression on his face, and it made me so happy that he was so excited about the Lego set we got for him.
After opening those presents, we did Facetime with Grandpa and Grandma so they could watch Aedan open the presents from them. I was attempting to take screenshots of them and Aedan, but it ended up just taking of Grandpa and Grandma. However, I decided to include these pictures because I love the expressions on their face. You can tell that they were really pleased to watch Aedan open his presents, and it made me happy that watching him made them so happy. We really appreciate all the gifts, cards, and calls with family that live far away. It makes our kids feel special and loved.
Grandpa and Grandma got Aedan a set of elbow/knee/wrist pads to go along with his new roller skates, as well as another Star Wars Lego set: Obi-Wan's Hut that we thought he would really like because it had R2D2 and Obi-Wan, plus the little hut that he could use as a building or house for his Star Wars guys.
Aedan was a spoiled little boy for his birthday this year, as he still had more presents to open from Aunt Christy, Brielle, and Oliver as well. He got two more Lego sets from them. One was the Action Battle Echo Base Defense Set with AT-ATs and several Storm Troopers and a Batwing and Riddler Set. He pretty much only asked for Legos, and that's definitely what he got. He was so excited about all these sets, and now he has enough to keep him building for quite awhile!
Aedan chose the Action Battle Echo Base Defense Set with AT-ATs and several Storm Troopers as his first Lego set to build on his own that afternoon because he was fairly confident that he would be able to build most of it on his own. As I sat on the couch doing some work, I took a few pictures of him hard at work on the floor, so excited about building his first new Star Wars Lego set.
This first video is hard to see because apparently I filmed it sideways, but it shows his new Lego set in action. He did a great job following the directions and building the Echo Base Defense Set, and it was cool how interactive it was.
Once Owen woke up from his nap that afternoon, Ben and I decided to take Owen and Izzy on a walk around the neighborhood. Samantha and Aedan were having fun at home and didn't want to go with us, so we just let them play and went on our own. As we walked up the hill beyond our house, I stopped and took some pictures of these pretty bushes along the road that are growing beautiful purple flowers. I am really enjoying watching everything blooming around our house this spring.
Aedan's birthday celebration continued with a birthday parade of kids from his kindergarten class. At first Aedan said he wouldn't want a birthday party, but then he changed his mind and thought that it would be really fun. Ben met everyone down in the Skillet parking lot at 5:00. Even Mrs. Weaver came to join the parade, and she was the first one in the parade and stopped to talk to Aedan for a couple minutes. It was so sweet of everyone to take time out of their day to drive by our house to celebrate Aedan's birthday.
Even though he was embarrassed and shy, I think he really liked seeing his friends, even just for a few minutes. It made him feel special and loved and was the perfect way to round out the day that was all about him. Just look at that smile on his face! That's a truly happy smile.
Here we are singing Happy Birthday to Aedan. I love how he danced and sang along to the song as well. Happy Birthday my 6 year old!
Aedan's Star Wars cake was delicious, and Aedan said it was the best cake he ever had. The lady who baked it warned us that it may be a little sweet because of the flavors he picked out, but he loved it, and the rest of us thought it tasted pretty good, too. I'm so glad he enjoyed it, and she ended up making a bigger cake than what we ordered and not charging us for the extra, so we were going to have plenty to enjoy for days to come.
I took a picture of all the nice cards and gifts Aedan got from his friends during his birthday parade. There were even a couple of cards that had $10 inside. He was super excited about that!
That night it was my turn to put Owen to sleep, and he was ramped up from our exciting day celebrating Aedan's birthday. I could tell he just needed some time to talk through everything he was thinking from the day, so I let him chat for about fifteen minutes while I recorded our conversation on my phone. I just love to hear his chain of thinking and what things he thinks to talk about. He is such a funny boy who makes me laugh every day. He is like a little sponge right now, absorbing everything he hears around him, which means he likes to talk quite a lot about Star Wars. The video was so long that I had to break it up into several different videos, but they are pretty funny to listen to.
The kids are always pretty eager to get their work started in the morning so that way they can have more time to play, and Aedan had even more motivation that morning because he was really excited to get another Lego set out and build. Here is some of the math work the kids submitted that morning.
Aedan had to come up with words with the letter u, drawing a picture and labeling each one, so here is what he came up with.
On Thursday Samantha finished her demographics pages for her city for Gifted. Ben and I helped her look up the information for these pages because it was pretty complicated for her to do on her own.
Samantha and Aedan have the same activity each week for Physical Education, and this week they had to create and complete an obstacle course. Here are the videos Ben took to send in to their teacher.
Fridays always seem to be a little lighter on the workload, and the kids are always excited to be done with the work for the weekend. We were able to spend some fun time playing outside before lunch that day. Samantha has enjoyed playing soccer with Izzy by throwing the ball to her and letting her capture it and push it back to Samantha.
I think Aedan and Owen were playing Frisbee in this picture.
On Friday we got to celebrate Daddy's 36th birthday! Samantha made him a dandelion chain headband. She was excited to have him try it out.
I made lasagna for Ben's birthday dinner, per his request, so after we enjoyed a yummy meal, we went out to the living room so Ben could open his presents from us. My present for him was the fire pit he already had gotten and used. Since the kids couldn't go to the store with me and pick things out for Daddy, I did my best to pick out a few things that I thought they would enjoy giving him. Samantha said she wanted to get him a polo shirt, and then I bought two little games, one called Pickle Ball and one that has rackets and a little birdie like badminton. The kids enjoyed helping Daddy open his presents with him, or for him in some cases. Nothing was super exciting for him, but birthdays aren't quite as exciting as you get older. I just hope he felt special, loved, and appreciated for the wonderful husband and father that he is.
I made Ben an ice cream cake, which is his birthday cake request every year. I got chocolate fudge cake and cookie dough ice cream for the cake, and we always make our own buttercream frosting. I dyed some of it blue to put some writing and decorations on the top. After Daddy opened his presents, we went out to the kitchen to sing Happy Birthday and enjoy some yummy ice cream cake.
As we were eating cake that night, I noticed Owen twirling his hair with his right hand, like he always does, and then I looked over at Ben and saw him playing with his hair as well, which is something he does a lot more when his hair is longer. I thought it was funny to see the two of them playing with their hair, so I took a picture and video of them.
Aedan decided to build Obi-Wan's hut that day, so he spent all of his free time playing with his new Star Wars Legos.
Every once in awhile Aedan will allow Owen to play with his Legos. He's pretty possessive of his new Legos in particular, but this evening they were playing cutely together, I had fun watching them play together.
Saturdays are always fun around here because there's no school work to do. Ben had his Bible study in the morning, so once the kids got ready for the day, Aedan began building his land-speeder with Samantha's help. It was taking all his restraint to have to wait to open up Lego sets and not just do all of them in one day. However, Samantha was glad that Aedan wanted to build what she got for him, and she was glad that he was accepting her help.
Our morning activity was to go down to Kirby Park to let the kids ride bikes around on the paths around the park. We were hoping that now that Aedan got some elbow and knee pads he would be comfortable enough to ride his bike and hopefully feel comfortable enough to go faster and enjoy riding his bike again. He has been so hesitant and scared of riding his bike so far this spring. Ben started off riding around faster with Samantha (and I took my turn with her later), while I walked with Aedan and Owen; Aedan on his bike and Owen on his tricycle. Aedan started off slowly but gained more and more confidence as he went, and he eventually realized he could even balance on his bike without using the training wheels to hold him up. We were so proud of how well he was doing, and he finally realized that he was safe on his bike and remembered how fun it was to ride. In fact, as we were getting ready to leave, Aedan couldn't wait until we could come back again sometime so they could ride bikes again. Yay! We conquered his fear!
Here are some turtles we saw in the pond in the middle of the park.
Earlier that week we finalized our order to the black mulch to put on all our landscaping areas. We ordered six scoops to start with, expecting to get another six or seven scoops after a few days. The mulch was delivered that afternoon so Ben I started our work of filling wheelbarrows of mulch and bringing them up to the areas where we needed to put it. We started with the front landscaping areas because we figured we could see the most progress there. Here is what the front looked like so far. You can see the difference the mulch makes in the second picture where didn't have quite enough mulch to finish the area. It looks really nice, and I'm glad we decided to go with the black mulch. Now Ben and I have quite the work ahead of us in the next week as we put the mulch in all of our landscaping, but it will be worth it to see everything looking so nice in the end.
(Blog about April 26-May 2, 2020)
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