Eric is Signed Up!

YESSSS! Eric just got signed up for his vaccine shot this Saturday. I was able to fill out the form in 4 minutes. Thank goodness they had screen shots you could look ahead of time and I had all the questions prepped and ready to go. Dean got signed up as well. That means as of this Saturday everyone in my immediate family other than me will have at least their first shot. I likely won't be until the last group as I am a remote work under the age of 50. But at least we have every one else signed up. What a relief. 

Building the Hogwarts Express

Tommy got a Lego Hogwarts Express set. He had a fun time today setting it up. I only had to help him maybe 3 times when he couldn't figure out what he did wrong. He is getting pretty good at building them.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rxY1rNkSQD4uPoXD6

Tommy's 9th Birthday

 Tommy turned 9 today. Oh boy is he hitting his tween years early 🙂 He told me that for his birthday it meant he was the boss. Boy is that kid stubborn. We had a low key day, playing with his new race car track, watching star wars movies and eating crab. And we finished it off with a cake and a sparkler candle. No you can not blow them out. Even with your brother helping. Happy birthday Tommy.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tWJVL6bn5p9Es8gt7

Puppet Project

For the last month Tommy's class has been working on a puppet project. The kids researched a famous person. And then they had an artist in residence walk them through step by step how to create a puppet out of cardboard, paint it, put it together and perform with it. The kids then wrote a short play about what their character would do when in a situation. Tommy picked J.K. Rowling. He even put on a Harry Potter outfit for their viewing party today 🙂 If you want to watch all the plays they are at Vashon Center For the Arts website. https://vashoncenterforthearts.org/biography-puppets/

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Mymp72qxwBtCA72S7

Captain Underpants

Just a typical day at the Bingham house. The boys have started asking Alexa to play different theme songs depending on their mood. I always know when they turn on the Captain Underpants theme song to get ready for crazy town.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/eiM1rVXR5spsZUkJ9

1 Year of School at Home

Tommy has made it one year of writing every day in his journal. We started it on our first day of school at home. At the time they did not have classes and were just suggesting work people could do at home. So I thought a journal would be a good way to have him practice writing. And then we would make spelling corrections together to get practice on spelling. Some days there was more effort than others. But we kept up with it every day.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JoXzDpRFuGuMh3LP6

Some Vashon kids will be going back to school part time on Monday. We have elected to staying with online school. Tommy got to keep his homeroom teacher. He did have to say goodbye to his paraeducator who helps him with his writing. But hopefully he will get to see her again in the future. Unfortunately, Jake had to change his teacher. He is going to miss seeing Miss Bookani. But he gets to be in Miss R's class. He got to visit her once this week and all of the kids that will be in his class. There are a lot of kids from his kindergarten class in there. So he was very excited about that. He gave Miss Bookani a goodbye message on the computer and she dropped him off a special letter with his favorite animal seals on it.

The boys have been doing pretty good, and we didn't think it was worth messing up the groove they are in for just the couple months left of school. In some ways I think having less distractions of kids in the room with him makes school easier for him. Don't get me wrong, it has been in no way easy. But we have been working hard and making progress. They have both improved so much over the last year. Jake is now 8 months into his own journal too.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KSVYETubBr8HcrJo9

Feeding the Birds

The boys went for a drive with dad and they spent some time at the waterfront feeding the birds.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kLWPrspGVR6yEiEr6

Surveying the Damage

Oh joy. When you work a week of tons of overtime, including two 12 hour days in a row. Then you go survey whatever damage your kids have done. They dug up plants in my garden and put them in pots. Not to mention the many other things.  I think they did think they were helping. But there were sooooo many other things they knew they were just getting away with. It was kind of like that 90's movie "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter is Dead." Tom used one big chair and stacked one small chair on it to get everything I thought I had put out of reach. Now I am moving everything to a place I can lock up. Ug.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fWc4uHFUyi1TuESm9