Surgery

It has been a slow month on this blog and in our lives.  Just a few weeks ago we decided to go ahead with surgery and have the little-bone-that-couldn't removed.  The surgery is scheduled for this Friday so much of my time and thoughts have been in preparation for that.  After the surgery I will get to spend 3 weeks non-weight bearing (can you just hear a part of Jason dying when I say that?  He *loves* it when I am on the couch/crutches for long periods of time!).

I did an enormous amount of reading the last two times I was on the couch/crutches, but I thought it was high time I set some slightly different goals for myself while I am permanently imprinting my backside on the couch cushions.  They are as follows:

1.  Learn to cross stitch.  My Mom will be here for the first week, so I thought I would take the opportunity to have her teach me something I can do sitting down but will still produce a tangible result.

2.  Guilt Ask Mom to put the back on the quilt I started.  Ha!

3.  Watch all the episodes of Lego Ninjago.  You probably weren't expecting this one.  But since Ben and I will be spending a lot of quality time watching TV together, I might as well make this a goal and then feel (somewhat) like we're accomplishing something together.

4.  Work on the Coursera courses I signed up for.  I have signed up before with the best of intentions, but now I have no good excuse not to enrich my brain.

5.  Read.  Yes, I know it has been done before.  By me even.  But I got out of the habit last semester and Temple Run 2 (I curse the day I downloaded that game) has been a big distraction.  I need to get back to reading.

6.  Finally defeat the Perplexus Twist game my friend gave me for Christmas.  I can never decide if it is a fun game or if she hates me.

7.  Heal properly.  I am going to try to plant myself on the couch and not give in to the temptation to do more than I should or cheat by walking on my foot.  This surgery has got to work and I need to give it the best chance I can.

Teacher Work Day

Friday was a teacher work day.  Oh, and so was Thursday.  And Wednesday was a half day.  Oh, and so was Tuesday.  And tomorrow we have no school.  When you add in the two snow days we've had and look at the forecast for this week, you should probably be asking yourself if the kids go to school at all in January.

No, no they don't.

But this did give us the opportunity to go somewhere in DC on Friday that I have been wanting to take the boys for a while but it isn't open on the weekends: The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Or, in other words, the place where they make the MONEY.

It is a pretty high tech operation.  Which naturally meant that we weren't allowed to take any pictures.  The U.S. Government tends to get kind of antsy about that kind of stuff.  We did, however, spend some quality time in the gift shop (the boys still have Christmas money burning in their little pockets) and if you look carefully at the following pictures you can see Josh hugging holding his money (just printed on the outside skin) football that he bought.

After looking at the money, we headed west to see some of the monuments.  And after the harrowing drive into DC (okay, not really all that bad but I hate driving into DC and am positive that it ages me about 15 years every time I do it - which is not often), we had to make good use of a sunny winter day.

First up: Washington Monument (a.k.a. the giant pencil) which is still undergoing post-earthquake work.

Next:  The WWII memorial where the boys posed next to a sculpture of soldiers working on airplanes (like Grandpa Roberts did in WWII) and next to one of soldiers jumping out of an airplane (like Uncle Doug and Aunt Rachel did in the not too distant past).

My Virginia boys!

Then: The Korean War Memorial.

And finally:  Lincoln.  We totally forgot that Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. day and so were a little surprised at first to find the place packed and some school kids rehearsing.  I can only assume there is some sort of event going down on Monday, but in the mean time Michael took a minute behind the pulpit.

It was all very fun and driving wasn't as bad as I thought until I got off at our normal exit off of 66 and we spent 10 minutes just getting off the highway.  But the boys did beautifully.  I am more and more grateful all the time for them all being older and our ability to go do outings like this where everyone can walk and take care of themselves (mostly anyway - they still think of me as their sherpa).

New Year's Eve

Yesterday morning I had this great idea that we should spend the evening doing fun activities with the boys and all stay up until midnight to welcome in the new year.  First of all, let me say that this is the sort of idea that Jason is supposed to shoot down from the get-go.  Second, we actually had a great time.

But where is a mom to go for last minute ideas for New Year's Eve?  Well, Pinterest, of course!  Which is what led us to an evening of fun and hilarity - often due to my pinterest fails.

We started off with numbered balloons on the wall.  Inside each was an activity.  The boys took turns trying to pop the balloons.  That was a show in itself.  Considering all the balloons we have had pop in a sad boy's face over the years, it was hysterical that the boys could stomp on, squish and body slam these balloons (party balloons from Walmart) and they wouldn't pop.  Jason came to the rescue eventually with a pen.

#1 - Make (dry) Jello covered grapes.  The boys loved rolling the grapes in the powder and getting to lick their fingers afterwards.  Then the grapes went into the fridge to be consumed later.

#2 - Make magic play dough.  Fail.  This was supposed to be cornstarch and shaving cream mixed together to make a light, fluffy dough that is easy to mold.  And since we have a Costco-sized stash (from Costco, actually) in the basement and cornstarch is cheap, I thought this would be great.  But, it turns out I neglected to ask Jason a rather important question about his shaving cream: Was it cream or a gel?

It was a gel.

Only Ben's worked out (although he still could not be convinced to touch it), but the boys all enjoyed squishing the shaving gel and cornstarch between the fingers.  The most unexpected part was that my hands smelled like Jason's face for the rest of the evening.

#3 - Wii Sports Tournament.  Can't go wrong with Wii Sports.  Ben beat Jason at bowling, Michael and I tied a respectable 6-6 in baseball and Josh creamed everyone he played against.

#4 - Make marshmallow popcorn.  We were running a little behind schedule, so I took on this activity while Jason worked on #5 with the boys.

#5 - Make rubberband shooters.  Pinterest win!  Pencils + clothes pins + hot glue + rubber bands = awesome.

Jason made a target on an empty box and set up a shooting range for the boys.

So much fun.

#6 - Play a family game.  We got Apples to Apples Junior for Christmas and have really been enjoying playing it, so we did it again last night.  It is a fun game that everyone can play, although Ben could use some help.  In reality, he doesn't usually want help - he just wants to play the top card in his pile, which usually has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of that round and is often hilarious.

#7 - Get sleeping bags and pillows.  We all have our own now and we thought it would be fun to "camp" in the front room.  The boys loved this idea.  Loved.  And this is how we discovered that the crickets we bought for Rocko start chirping at 3 in the morning.  ::facepalm::

#8 - Watch the Muppets Treasure Island.  Found this movie at the library yesterday and thought it would be fun.  I don't know if it was or not as I fell asleep.

However, what we did discover at this point was another pinterest fail: the grapes.  Apparently, I should have paid attention to the grape-Jello flavor combinations the lady had listed on her blog instead of just looking around and thinking, "OOOooooOOOOohhhhh!  Jolly rancher flavored!"  Yeah, they were pretty gross.  Luckily, we still had some other (uncontaminated by Jello) grapes and the marshmallow popcorn was good.

#9 - 2013 Interview sheets.  And to bring the year to a (relatively) calm and quiet close to help the boys go to sleep as soon as possible after midnight, they filled out an interview sheet about themselves in 2013 and drew pictures of themselves on the back.  We thought it would be fun to this every year (let's pretend for a moment anyway that I organized enough to keep on top of that).

And we all made it to midnight!  Happy New Year!