Weekend Top Five

Yeah, I know it's Tuesday already, but I had so many things spinning in my head yesterday that I had to get them out in words so I could look at them rationally. Now that it's Tuesday, I do want to share a few things from the weekend. It was a pretty good one.




5. Friday Was Warm
Although it was the last day of April, we had an unusually warm day and Aaron was so excited when I FINALLY agreed to set up the sprinkler for him to run through. Aaron is water-obsessed. He prefers to be all-engulfed in it at any moment he can. Every year we get him one of those larger inflatable pools in which to jump to his heart's content. We used to worry about him breaking it, but now we know that they won't last more than a summer anyway but he has so much fun getting wet that it's worth it.




4. Friday night was baseball again. The only reason it's really noteworthy is because baseball is so incredibly unorganized this year. It wouldn't be that big of a deal except that between this new job Steve is doing at work and the craziness of other activities, a schedule would be very helpful right now. But, as far as the playing itself, it's going okay. Noah is working hard to try to catch the ball instead of running away from it and doing well when he stays focused. Aaron is loving being part of the team but often needs to remember to just follow the rules rather than clarifying them ten times before doing them.

3. Meijer Gardens
Our children's museum membership allows us to go to the local botanical garden and sculpture park for the entire month of May for free. The rest of the Saturdays in May are filled so we decided to go this pat Saturday. Usually we have the same agenda and go to see the same things. But this time, I wanted to try something different. Noah didn't really want to go for the walk along the river that we usually do and we have never spent much time looking at the sculptures, including the big huge DaVinci horse that is the garden's claim to fame. So that was our goal for this visit.


The butterfly gardens exhibit had OFFICIALLY closed the day before but we remembered from last year that there were tons of butterflies into the month of May so we headed there first. Usually the butterfly garden is a place we just waltz through on the way to other things, due to two little boys who really didn't care that much. But this time was different. Noah was VERY interested in the butterflies this time. He would stay in one place for a long time, just watching them and holding out his arm for one to land (it never did). I wish I could have stayed in there longer with Noah because he was so enthralled but Aaron was very UNinterested in the butterflies and spent the time begging to go so we had to cut it short. But we did humor Noah by going back in briefly on our way out.

2. Sunday Church
I know I haven't posted much about our church search lately. The reason is because we think we may have found IT. We have been at our most recent possibility for a month now and it has exactly what we want. All of us. After reading back through my T13 awhile back about what we liked about the last mega-church, this new one has all of those characteristics, but on a a quite smaller scale, although still huge by some standards. I will write an entire post soon when we begin the joining process, which is several Sundays long. But we're excited that we think the search is done. We really look forward to every Sunday and I have taken away something each Sunday that has carried with me through the week.

1. A Tackle
I figure this can count as a Tackle It Tuesday too if I share our other Sunday activity. Our bedroom has had a carpet remnant in it for a few years now that only covered half of the floor. The other half was still exposed wood floor that was covered in paint droppings from one of the many times I have painted that room.

Awhile back, my parents re-did the carpeting in their home and had given us two huge rolls of their old carpet. I posted a little while ago how I used the first roll for Noah's bedroom. And it has been driving me nuts that we still hadn't gotten to our bedroom yet. I managed to cut the remnant for our room weeks ago but it has lied in a heap in the basement ever since, making it impossible for the kids to play down there as well.

So Sunday I was feeling the need to be constructive, and I cleared the entire bedroom and got down to business. Needless to say, the kids don't really like these kind of days where mom and dad are tearing apart the house to make some kind of improvement because they are left to fend for themselves. But sometimes, I think we fill too much of their time with activities and they don't spend enough time just finding something to do on their own. I wish they had more friends around here to play with on days like this. After a few hours, we were done and I am very happy with how it turned out. Because it's a small room and the bed takes up most of the space, you can't really get a sense of the final product, but this is as close as I can get.

Honorable Mention
One other thing we did this weekend was help Noah prepare for his report and speech about Galileo. He had to research, write a paragraph, and create a model of a telescope. We made the telescope last weekend, as well as teaching him how to sue Microsoft Word to type his report. I was actually very impressed with how he put so much thought into what he was writing. The funniest part was getting him to let spelling errors happen so I could show him how to use the spell checker. He was determined to fix every word as he went. I guess that's good.

So Sunday we spent some time with him practicing his presentation. I videotaped each practice run so he could get used to nerves and also watch how better he got each time. He kind of complained a little when I made him do it several times, but when he was done, you could tell how much more relaxed he was. Monday morning came and he dressed up (It was also Career Day for Spirit week) and headed off to school excited about his report. I have not seen his grade but he is happy with how he did so I am very proud of him for putting forth his best effort on the project. Did you know that Galileo went to jail for telling people that the sun was the center of the universe? That's what I learned form my second grader's project.

This weekend went better than the previous couple have. Tomorrow when I go to the doctor, we'll be discussing how my issues may be affecting the household demeanor, but for now I can just be glad that we had a good weekend. I am still bummed that after a week of not seeing my kids, they are going away to spend the day with the in-laws on Saturday and I won't be with them, but I really need to just let that go and know that they'll have a fun time with their cousins.