Learning Joy

A while back, we were given some tadpoles by one of Jeff’s clients. They are really nice, and they live on 5 acres in Port Orchard. They have a pond on their property. So, Tammy got some tadpoles and brought them over! 🙂 it was fun to watch them transform. We got two tree frogs and two toads or bullfrogs. Jonahtan kept telling me there was a fish in there and finally one day I saw it. It was a tiny thing. as you can see, it has grown now! The bullfrogs/toads died. I guess we don’t know how to take care of them. The two tree frogs lived, so we put them in with Lucy, our tree frog from our garden (we buy tree frogs and lizards to keep the garden safe from pests. Usually they run away when it gets cold, but one year, one stuck around. We brought her in and put her in a dry aquarium.). Lucy was getting much slower – she was around 4 or 5 years old, and tree frogs usually only live for 2. Lucy died one day, but that was okay because now we have another tree frog! We don’t know what happened to the second tree frog, but we can’t find it.
anyways, all that to say,

here’s our fish! it’s a koi, which is related to goldfish.

the fish is kind of spazzy – whenever anyone comes near its tank, it goes nuts. totally freaks out. when it is hungry, it bangs on the wall!! we’re looking forward to getting some more fish and having the bigger tank.

This is the view of the school room from the kitchen – looking into the living room.

Nicholas loves the new desk! His favorite game to play is Tonka Construction. He even has a hard hat (from our friend, Brian, who works at Gray Lumber)!

Here’s the new desk, all set up and ready to go!

This is the aquarium we were given. There’s a box of stuff for it in front of it.

view of school room from living room (they are actually just one big room, but the couch divides the two).

view from hall. To my left is the kitchen, behind me and to the left is the hall.

Here’s the desk almost all the way done.

Jonathan putting in the drawer he put together.

Daniel decided under the desk was a great hideout. He liked that he fit with his legs out. 🙂

Nicholas really liked the place the tower went. We ended up having to move the tower because the cords were too short. It worked out, though, because they have a lot of brief-case-like things that fit in there perfectly!

We decided that the kids needed a new desk for their computer. They had a small table, but there wasn’t a lot of room for the mouse to move and the monitor took up a lot of space. The biggest reason, though, was that we were given an aquarium (we have acquired a baby koi fish) and we didn’t want to have it out in the middle of things where it could get bumped. So we thought we’d look for an inexpensive desk and put the aquarium in the corner to keep it safe. We found a great, very sturdy desk at Office Max.

Here are Jeff & Jonathan putting the desk together. Jeff said he was impressed, the materials were well labeled and nothing was missing. Everything went together easily and well, too. It took them three hours to put it together, but it looks great! Jeff said Jonathan did at least 1/3 of the work!


J screwing the drawer slider on to the drawer.

the desk – pic 1

Sunday, while learning how to play baseball, Jonathan took one right in the eye! He was a true trooper, though. After he calmed down, and we made sure he was okay, he got right back out there!!
Here are some pictures.

Day 1 – before bed.

a little closer. His face was swollen from the side of his nose to about halfway under his eye.

Day 3 – I didn’t get any pictures yesterday. It’s much more purple today and his head hurts a little.

close up. the swelling goes further across his face now and down further, too.

Nicholas loves “Bob the Builder” and imaginary play. He also loves computers. He decided that this little dresser in their room was his “desk”.

One day he put boxes on it and Jeff let him borrow a cordless screwdriver and a little vacuum to “fix” it.

Nicholas put his desk together and had me take pictures. 🙂

working hard

“get it this way, Mom.”

Daniel made this Hot Wheels track – it started up on top of their bedroom door (yes, that is Daniel UP in the doorway – he’s a monkey!), went all the way down the hall, turned the corner and went into the schoolroom. He’s amazing. He actually got the cars to go almost all the whole way.
(the mess in the corner of the schoolroom is gone now!!! and the tubs in the hallway are too!!hurray!!)

So a lot has been going on around here. We’ve been rearranging a little, and cleaning a lot, the boys have been playing and learning how to play baseball. I thought I would post some pictures of all this. Enjoy!