Has it been a week or a year?

What a week it's been! Friday was our last day of school!!! This was a major big deal for us. We've been looking forward to this for 3 months. I finally realized it's because getting school work done sometimes our day out in such a negative light. Logan's mostly accepting of having to get the work done but Dustin is a wild card. Sometimes he would comply and get everything done quickly and easily, but a lot of the time it was a fight to get him to complete his writing or reading. Not that he's bad at either (he's really advanced for his grade), he just doesn't enjoy doing it. When Logan pushed back it it typically math related. He also is good at it, but hates doing math online.

This week though was easy to get everything done. Dustin's teacher only did Science experiments all week long, so no writing or reading required. Logan's teacher had electronic field trips and they finished reading a chapter book, so nothing bad on either front. All three kids worked to get all the homework done this week. They all wanted to participate in science experiments and all wanted to see the field trips.

Another big milestone in our Social Distancing life is that our library has started to allow book pickup! We have sorely missed the library, and the kids were ecstatic to get online and reserve some books to pick up. The boys had an easy time requesting books, but we had a harder time finding picture books for Brooklyn (who usually just browses the shelves until she finds something that looks interesting to her).

Wednesday night the young women leaders from the stake had a parade and my kids loved waving at them as the decorated cars drove by. Since they weren't traveling down our street, we drove a few blocks over to wait for them. The kids played in someone's sprinklers for a while, and sat on the roof of the van for a while. Afterwards we swung by the school playground and played until well after bedtime. Dave worked very late that night, so we were in no rush to make it home.

Friday night and Saturday morning we worked in the yard. The boys learned how to mow, although they haven't mastered going in strait lines yet. We also trimmed all the bushes and weeded. It was nice to have all the work done by 11am Saturday instead of letting it all drag out all day. Dave also went on a pretty intense hike with a friend from the neighborhood. They both came back sore and exhausted so it must have been a good one.

Dustin is crazy excited that his orange poppies have been blooming and growing! He's tried planting these flowers before but this is the first year they've thrived.

We finished off Saturday with a BBQ inviting the same neighbors to join us. It's been so nice to periodically see friends! We've missed socializing so bad and although we still are being cautious and not seeing people often it's nice to do a little.

This week we received a package from my friend Tenille containing "ninja" face masks! The kids are so excited to get to wear these to church when we are able to go back. Because nothing is more cool than going to church dressed like a ninja.

Brooklyn has been a little diva when it comes to clothes lately. She has looked in her drawers several times this week and started crying because "I don't have anything beautiful to wear!!!" So I made her this shirt to help tide her over. I'm afraid I'll have to make a few beautiful PJs too, since only one of hers currently is deemed beautiful.

Although this week was easy school-wise it was difficult in other ways. In mainstream media George Floyd (who was black) was killed by a police officer (who is white). It's been a horrific situation to internalize and to explain to the kids. Saturday in Salt Lake what started as a peaceful protest ended with rioting and destruction. We've had several tough conversations about what's going on in America and Utah right now. We've shared many prayers for those effected by racism, police brutality, and for the protection of the police officers that are trying to keep rioting under control.

I've personally done a lot of internal reflection. I feel my parents did a good job raising us to judge all people by their character and not by their skin color. We grew up in a city that was culturally diverse and had friends of all races. I went to sleepovers and dinners at the homes of Blacks, Asians, Indians, Polynesians, Middle Easterners, etc. My parents trusted our judgement on who made good friends, and I hope to do the same. I hope to instill the same value for all people in my children, because all lives should be protected. Not just the lives of those that look and think like me.

Dude House and Memorial Day

The boys have been itching to build their "Dude House" (guy doll house). So I had them design what they wanted it to look like and I mapped out sizes for everything we needed. Our neighbor Maurine gave us some scrap wood that we used to build the walls, we raided the shed for the floors & inner walls, dave brought home carpet samples from work and we found paint in my craft supplies. We also built the beds, but bought the dressers from the Dollar Tree. So this project ended up costing us $3 so far.

Building this was a pain, but we got it done! Some of the wood was warped and everything didn't exactly line up.And building with 2x4s left us with a heavier doll house than Brooklyn's.

The kids all LOVED painting their bedroom furniture. Brooklyn of course wanted to be included so we made sure she had some new furniture to paint as well. The kids also helped me pick out material to sew a blanket and pillow for their beds.

The Log cabbing is mostly done. I just need to stop by the hardware store this week and buy a piece of laminate for the kitchen floor (which will add another $1-2 to the cost) and we need to build kitchen furniture. Also the kids have to figure out what they want to put in their Play Room.

It was a ROUGH school week for us, but the last week of serious school. So we waded through the homework. Dustin's teacher promised only science experiments for the last week of school, and Logan's teacher has said only reading and online field trips. So we've survived the worst of it!!!

One day I bribed the boys to get their homework done with a ball of yarn that they could do whatever they wanted with. They chose to make a spider web on the tramp and try to jump through the holes. kept them busy for 2 hours.

Dustin was asked to take a picture of himself for his online kindergarten graduation. He's grown so much this year!

For Memorial Day weekend my parents came into town to visit! The kids made the bed for them Friday morning before I had a chance to do it (the were so excited to see them).

Friday night we were supposed to have a campout in the back yard but it ended up raining so the kids camped in the tv room with Papa Mike. They had a blast sleeping on the ground in sleeping bags. Brooklyn wanted to sleep in the spare room with Grandma Sheila in her sleeping bag.

Saturday we made a picnic lunch and went on a hike with Mike & Alison's family. The kids had so much fun with their relatives! After Papa reserved a swimming pool for two hours and we went for a swim. The water was COLD so we didn't last the whole time, but we sure had fun! We watched a movie, had pizza and ice cream and just enjoyed each other some more.

Sunday we had everyone over to our house for Sacrament meeting and a BBQ. The kids played like mad! Around 4 the kids went with Mike & Alison, Grandma & Papa to a park to explore. Dave and I decided to get a nap in (we've been sleeping horribly lately). When everyone got home we ate dinner and watched Frozen 2 before bedtime. Papa Mike told Brooklyn Frozen 2 was his favorite movie. She gasped, and exclaimed "WHAT?!? This is my favorite too!" Brooklyn had no idea it's Papa's favorite because he got lots of snuggles in. 

Monday we Dave got a lot of work done in the yard, and I did a little cleaning up inside. But I mostly relaxed and did some reading. It was a more calm day, which is what we needed. I also attended a friend's baby shower and we had another BBQ at dinner time.

And it was all Yellow

So a week ago we went orange and now Taylorsville and most of Salt Lake County is officially Yellow. It's getting a little ridiculous to me all the pretend changes that just mean  more people can meet at a business than before. Now we can meet in groups of 50 at a time as long as everyone is 6 feet away. So no REAL changes. We're still not going to church, school, the park or taking the kids to stores. We're still encouraged to wear masks. Nothing has really changed. But we'll plod along hoping the virus will decline as we stay home.

We continue to do tons of exploring of our local park trails. This week we hit up the Jordan River trail so often the kids BEGGED no to go there again. So Friday we settled on the back trails around Murray Park. The kids had a blast scouring the hills, throwing rocks into the river, and discovering all kinds of hidden treasures. The highlight of which was this dilapidated well that they dubbed the wishing well. We didn't have any change with us so the kids each threw a small pebble into the well and made a wish. Brooklyn whispered as she threw in her pebble "I wish for a Unicorn!" We're still waiting for the culmination of that wish.

School has gotten more and more casual. I've lost the will to ensure we've started our school work right at 8:00, in-fact the kids are usually still in bed at 8. But we do get all their assignments done. Usually by lunch, but sometimes it bleeds over into the afternoon. We only have 8 more days of school, so the teachers have decreased the kids work load to a minimum as well.

Saturday we had a bit of an emergency. After working in the yard for most of the day I headed inside to work on some commissioned sewing for a friend and Dave decided to work on getting his bike in shape so we could take a bike ride Sunday. The kids were jumping on the tramp, getting along pretty well. Dave was cleaning off one of his tires and ended up almost slicing his left hand pointer finger off. It was either the rim or the Break disk that sliced his finger tip about 4/5th of the way through. It even cut part of the way through his finger nail and broke the top bone in his finger.

I could hear him screaming from the basement and rushed up to help! I grabbed a towel to wrap his finger and apply pressure. As I was frantically calling neighbors looking for someone to watch the kids while I took Dave to the Hospital, Dustin ran down the street and enlisted his Church teacher Jodie's help. Her mom called us to let us know we could head to the hospital and she would arrive shortly to take care of the kids. So Dave and I took off, Logan took care of Brooklyn for a minute and Dustin ran home.

The Doctor give Dave a few stitches, an antibiotic to ensure the broken bone wouldn't get infected, and sent us on our way. The wound still looks pretty nasty and is pretty painful, but hopefully it will fully recover. When we got home at almost 10pm Jodie had cleaned our messy house (including all the blood we left all over the bathroom counter) and gotten our kids into bed. Brooklyn and Logan were still awake, worried about Dave, but they fell asleep as soon as they found out he was ok. What a blessing it was to have such awesome neighbors to take care of our family in such a stressful time!

Sunday was a pretty quiet day for us. We all slept in, read from the scriptures, built with legos, and Dave tinkered with a broken grill his co-worker gave us. He's hoping to fix it up so it can replace our slowly dyeing grill. It was a calm day, which we needed

Going Orange

The boys have been wearing these hats and sunglasses regularly! They think they look GOOD!

Utah moved to what they call the Orange phase of Social Distancing. It's pretty confusing as to what this ACTUALLY means. Eventually what we came up with is still stay at home except to support local businesses. At that point stay 6 feet apart and wear a mask. We've been incredibly good at doing this already but have been really going stir crazy! Two months alone has been tough. So we decided that we would introduce one social activity a week with friends we deem low risk.

Homeschooling

So the kids and I went to visit Mike & Alison (& kids) last week Tuesday. The kids have been sending videos through Marco Polo a LOT so they've had interaction but they were SO excited to get to play in person! It was the easiest day of home school getting them to get their work done and ready to go. They had a great time playing and it was so nice to hear them having fun and get to talk to other adults. And nobody fought!!! This is a big deal

The kids rediscovered a few of our toys this week! Their favorite was the dress-ups. They spent hours trying on all their costumes and insisted on wearing them on our morning walk. We also brought our Duplos back out and they have had fun building. I've also been slowly stockpiling toys and activities I think will be fun and distracting for this summer. 

Friday we invited a family from the neighborhood over for a fire and s'mores. We did our best to keep socially distant and still let the kids run around like wild men. It was such a nice break for the adults to get to sit and talk and for the kids to catch up with their friends. We'll have to do it again.

Saturday we worked in the yard all day long. It was a little too much but hopefully we can get everything under control so we don't have to do as much yard work soon. I'm so done working in the yard!

Sunday was Mother's Day. The kids heated up cinnamon rolls and made orange juice for breakfast. They did a great job! We went on a walk in the afternoon to check out the ducks and geese at the Jordan River. The kids each found a large feather on our walk which was pretty exciting for them.

When we got home we used the feathers to paint and write with (Dave pulled out his ink). The kids had fun getting a little creative. After dinner the kids & Dave played Duplos while I read a book in the same room. It was nice to see what they built and that they all got along. They went to bed fairly easy and I got to read until bedtime.

This week I picked quilting back up. I haven't done it in a while so I decided I needed to. So I'm working on a hexagon quilt (maybe two... I cut out a lot of blocks). It's been really good for me to take some time to do something just for me for fun. I needed it with the 24/7  kid life I've had lately. Life's been tough, but school is out in 3 weeks!!! I think it will get better from there. Our major conflict in the day is getting all the boys assignments done and turned in. So it will be nice to be able to focus my energy elsewhere.