Our First Week Off Track

Am I crazy but I look forward to my kids being off track. I love having them home and being able to do fun stuff while most other kids are in school. Talk to me at the end of our third week and I may be tooting a different horn. This first week we've been pretty lazy and my personal morning schedule has gone out the window. Tuesday was just an at home day and the boys were happy to play with their legos all day long. I got Neil a lego idea book for Christmas so Neil wants to make our own photo book of all the boys creations. Whenever they make something cool Neil takes pictures of it and then takes video of them explaining their creation. Our next door neighbor has beyblades and he brings them over every day when he comes over to play. The boys want them but I told them I'm not buying them so they made their own out of legos and their own stadium. They are pretty cool. I didn't get a picture of it or video on the camera but Neil did on his phone. Here are some of the ones they made on Tuesday.
From left to right: Elmo, a jack in the box, Grover, Sam with a tool pocket, Grandpa Bahr

Conner with his might fleet of tyfighters

Sam's ocean complete with waves, sand, a ship and a pier with 2 guys walking.

Vlappers Fortress

Wednesday I had to run some errands, 5 stores, and the kids were so awesome. While they are off track I still try to have school time in the morning for a couple hours to keep them in the swing of things. For school we went to the library after our errands for story time and the kids each picked out a ton of books. Before hand we brainstormed ideas of subjects they'd like to research while they're off track. After reading all their books and doing some research online they're going to make their own books. Conner is learning about black holes, Sam is learning about dinosaur fossils and Mikey is learning about dinosaurs.

Thursday I had my Primary meeting at our house so the morning was spent cleaning up and by the time the meeting was over it was time for lunch and naps and then their friends came over to play.

Friday was spent getting stuff ready for Lucy's birthday so once again errands. We did not know what to get Lucy because she still doesn't have many interests and we have all the 2 year old toys so at the last minute I decided to make her some dress ups. I didn't want to spend a lot of money so I bought the cheap costume satin at Wal-mart which I said at Halloween I would never buy again and I mean it this time. That fabric is awful to work with and I spent many hours Friday night fighting with it and finally giving up.

Saturday was clean up day and I have created a monster with Neil and the legos. I bought him a book at Christmas all about lego building techniques and it describes, in the author's opinion, the best way to store legos. The only toy the kids have had for the last 2 weeks has been legos and Neil told them once all the legos were sorted in this new way they could have some more of their toys back. We've been sorting legos by color which I think is a great way and easy for the kids to clean up. In this new way the legos are sorted in various bins based on plates/tiles, bricks, slopes, specialty, and minifigures. It took us 2 hours all working together. I was pretty irritated for the most part. Come on our kids are not advanced lego builders. They don't care if they are in one big tub or sorted and besides they'll end up a mess at the end of the week anyway. Neil said he'd do it himself but I knew it would take all day if he alone did it so we all joined in with alot of whining from me and Sam. I went and ran errands and bought new fabric to make a Cinderella dress and started cutting it out at 8:30 and finished 4 hours later. All I had in my mind was that I've got to get this dress done so I can go to sleep and thought the pattern was long but thought it must be right because I was making the size 2 in toddler. Well the pattern had to be misprinted because when I was done the finished length on the pattern said it should be 24" when it was 32", which is way too long for Lucy so I folded up the hem 8" and just basted it so now as she grows I can just let the hem down. It doesn't look great but I have to keep telling myself it's just a dress up.