Getting to know Philly

Aug.18-24, 2008
We started the accountable kids program with the kids and Isaac really got into it, but Levi can’t handle the temptation of the pegboard within reach and he loves to grab and scatter all of the chore cards. I think maybe I’ll just put the chore cards on a poster or something. Anyhow, the basic concepts at least have helped me be more consistent about certain things like having them brush their teeth in the morning and having them put their dirty clothes in the hamper at night.
Monday was a park day and Tuesday was another adventure at the Please Touch Museum. The museum is seriously less than a block away from us, but unfortunately the museum is moving to a new location in a couple of weeks that puts it out of comfortable walking distance for us (but it will be about a 5 minute drive so I can’t complain too much).
Potty dance break through. Isaac has been holding his pee until the absolute last minute lately and having some accidents. Finally today I had the brilliant idea of telling him that if he’s doing a silly potty dance then the pee pee must be screaming “let me out” and he has to run to the bathroom. He thought the potty dance idea was hilarious and he’s actually been cooperating every time I see him doing the potty dance.
Wednesday was our shopping day and we hit Aldis and Target.
Thursday was a magical day at the Smith Playhouse. We met Kim McKay (with her two kids) and Bekka Stone there. Its been great to see Bekka this week! That place is so amazing. We discovered that there is a basement floor that we totally missed last time. Its called “Smithville” and it has little cars and tricycles that the kids can ride around in a circle and there’s a big stop that changes colors. We played inside for a while and then went out to the slide and the boys both wanted to try going down while laying down on the gunny sack. As we were walking to the car they wanted to play in the sprinklers and I let them, but they also discovered some mud puddles and did some jumping and got totally soaked.
Friday we decided to go to the zoo and get a zoo pass. The pass was well worth it because it includes endless hot air balloon and train rides. We went up on the hot air balloon and the boys were in heaven. It made me kind of queasy but Isaac loved pointing out the river, trees, tall buildings and everything he could see below.
Isaac can now write the letter I, J, S, and A! Hooray. And Levi is getting into the ABC’s—he loves singing the ABC song. I didn’t realize that he recognized most of the letters though. While we were at the Smith Playhouse on Thursday, Bekka had him find almost all of the letters of the alphabet magnets scattered on the floor and she said that he could identify each letter on his own.
James took both of the boys to the zoo and the Please Touch Museum on Saturday morning. Isaac was very excited about riding on the duck boats that he had seen the last time. They also discovered a cool tree house for kids that I missed last time. I took advantage of the time and scanned my Guate pics to send Dr. Hawkins for the traslado book. I still can’t believe that the book is actually going to happen.
Bekka Stone came over on Saturday night and we had a good long chat about everything and reminisced about all of our college adventures together. I had forgotten that we were both in the same colloquium class with Dr. Lyon at BYU. That was the best class ever.
James and I both helped out in primary on Sunday and Isaac insisted on going to the class I was subbing for but it worked out all right because a just had two other kids (the 5 and 6 year olds). The lesson was on obeying the law so we played a lot of red light green light and Isaac loved pretending to be the police man. I can feel the baby kicking pretty distinctly this week. I’ve felt little movements for the past 3 weeks, but these ones are unmistakable. We’re excited to find out what’s inside.