Covid-19: Home School Week 7

We are still plugging away.   Only a few more weeks of school, the kids are wrapping up on May 15 so we are in the home stretch.  

This week is teacher appreciation week so the elementary kids made a class picture note for their teachers.  They turned out cute. 😍

Miles has been trying to wrap up his assignments.   He had to cook us dinner for Health... He went with Balsamic Sausage Pasta which turned out fantastic! 

He also had to gather trash for Science on Earth Day. He likes those kind of assignments.  😂

Covid-19: Project Protect

The Church, more specifically the Relief Society, is heading up a project called “Project Protect”.   They’ve called on all the Relief Society sisters to help make masks to be distributed throughout the world to healthcare workers.   Morgan and I got out the sewing machine and signed up!   We had a good time sewing them, but we were happy the neighborhood split up orders so we didn’t have to make too many.   This batch took us long enough 😰. 

The little girls helped too!  It really was a labor of love by all the girls in the house. 

Ivy loved sitting on my lap and she would take turns with Meg to pull out the pins.  

Awesome helpers!  

Some hours later, we were done!   Happy to do our part, but even happier to put the sewing machine away.  😉  

Covid-19: Tree Removal

We’ve been so fortunate that Mike’s job has been relatively unaffected by all this, but it’s so heartbreaking to think about how many people are unemployed because of the shut downs.  Last month we had a man whose business is tree removal come to our door pleading with us for work.  It tore my heart out to turn him away esp when I saw his family sitting in his truck giving me the big puppy eyes.  I cried when he left.  Then a week later, we had stimulus money put into our account from the government.  It just felt right to spend it quickly and give someone work.  My heart lept and I begged Mike to let me call the man that came by the week before.  Within two days his entire family was at our house taking down all of our annoying pine trees!  Yay!!  Win for us all!  

Here’s our yard before taking 6 trees down. 

It was super entertaining to watch. (And not only because we haven’t had much going on for 7 weeks!) 

Look at the wheels... OFF THE GROUND

Then we had them lop the tops off of these trees that impeded our view.  

When they were done with the trees, Mike decided he wanted all the overgrown shrubs on the lower tier removed. This family from Samoa was the hardest working people I’ve seen!  Eddie’s wife just had her 5th baby about 8 months ago and she was out carrying logs and pulling bushes like she was superwoman!  

The family had a 2 year old boy named Ken that became instant friends with Ivy.  Although Ivy called him Sean for the first 2 days. 😂 Other than that, the language barrier didn’t get in the way of their friendship.   Ken would hang out inside with us while his family worked in the yard.   With social distancing Ivy hasn’t had a friend over forever, so she was in heaven!!  

Ken was a little stud!  Although for a 2 year old, not so little 😂

Before and after of the front.  No more pine needles and pine cones all over the lawn!!!   

Before and after of the back... I love it 🥰.  Thanks President Trump 😉

Covid-19: Getting Exercise

Miles joined Mike for a mountain bike ride.  One of them flipped over their bike and got some cool scratches...  I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t Miles. 😂

Will asked to run with me one day.  I was a little reluctant and told him to come with me until he got tired.  We did a loop by our house that had a huge hill so he could stop and walk home when he got tired. I thought he’d make it for about a mile...  he ended up running 3 1/2 miles at an 8:30 pace with about 400’ of climbing!!  He stayed with me for 3 1/2 miles!!  I was shocked. 

So I let him come again another day.. We looped up Stone Ridge for a 5 mile run and he stayed with me the entire way!  

Will came again and again...  I can tell he really likes it and plans to keep going, so I ordered him some Ultra Boosts!  If he’s going to run that much, he needs some good running shoes.  

Will has run 45 miles with me over the past month! I can’t believe what a natural he is!  

Because of Corona, all the spring/summer races have been cancelled, so I signed us up for a virtual race.  We joined a month long challenge to run in May.  They will keep track of our mileage and send us pins for reaching milestones.   Will can’t wait!  It will keep us motivated and pounding the pavement!   I love having a running buddy, and I love his red, sweaty face when we get back.  

Covid-19: Costco Run

When a neighbor sends you a picture of this at Costco....

You throw on your mask and run to get one!  (Because even though they limit it to 1 per membership, it will all be gone by tomorrow 🙄)

Covid-19: Chinese Jump Rope getting us through Week 6

I saw an ad in my email for Easter basket stuffers and I saw a string to play Cat’s Cradle.  It hit me like a ton of bricks...  I haven’t taught my kids to play Cat’s Cradle.  I’m such a failure!!   So I quickly jumped on Amazon and ordered some string.  Here’s the girls playing, but the one that loves it most is Will! I was surprised how quickly they all picked up on it.  

We spent the weekend learning (and perfecting!) our Chinese jump rope skills!   All the kids love it (except Miles who hasn’t “jumped” on board yet. 😉 He’ll come around!).  

Covid-19: Week 5

The kids have been on home school for 5 weeks now!   Crazy!!  Here’s a few things from this week:

It was officially announced this week that school is out for the rest of the school year.   (It was scheduled to be a soft closure until May 1st, but was extended to the end of the school year which is early June).  Everything the kids have been excited about this summer is also being cancelled.  Morgan and Miles were scheduled to go to EFY Nauvoo in July, but BYU has cancelled all summer camps/activities of every kind.  They are bummed.   We also had a trip to the Outer Banks with Mike’s family scheduled in June.   The kids have shed many tears over this disappointment. Now they are just waiting to see if Cherry Hill is going to be open this summer so they can use the season passes Grandma and Grandpa gave them for Christmas. It’s going to be a drag of a summer.  

On a positive note, Ivy loves noodles! 😍 In fact she loves to stuff her face with oodles of noodles!  

Grandma and Grandpa send funny pictures and texts to the kids.   

Meg has been missing her BFF, Emma.   They FaceTime and set up zoom meetings to see each other. 😂. We miss Emma!!  

Ivy found the bounce house in the basement and we took it out front.   It has tons of little holes and doesn’t stay up very well, but it gives them plenty of entertainment!   So glad Aunt Brenda passed it on to us! 

Both Will and Meg’s elementary teachers have held a treat drive-by.   The kids drive by their house, wave to their teacher who is staying at least 6 feet back, and then grab a treat.   It was so exciting to have an outing and see their teachers faces in person. It’s sad they won’t go back at all this year.  

Meg’s teacher, Mrs Thompson, gave everyone their favorite treat.   (She asked the class electronically a question earlier in the week about their favorite candy and then went out and bought them each their favorite kind!).  Meg said suckers. 🍭.  Will’s teacher did his drive by last week and gave them each an Easter egg filled with candy.   Such amazing, kind teachers!  We miss them! 

This week we took the kids on a field trip (and by the look of the line, so did the rest of Davis County!) to Cross E Ranch.  For $12.50 a car, they have an audio tour you can listen to while you drive through the ranch and see the baby animals and farm equipment.  I only took this picture...  but believe me the baby goats were the cutest!  🐐 ❤️ 

We’ve had a few neighbors get puppies recently and the kids are going bonkers!   They want a dog so badly and it’s all we’ve heard about for an entire week!  (But really they’ve been asking for a year, but have really turned up the heat because of their quarantine boredom!) They just won’t let it go.  Everyday someone is in tears about it.   We are just mean, awful parents that won’t let them have any fun!   

But we do let them sneak across the street to see Maverik, the Dukes new puppy.  He is adorable!!  

We are getting some warmer weather so that is lifting our spirits as well.  Puppies and sunshine- what could be better than that!!  🐶 ☀️ 

Well- there is one thing better than puppies...  new running shoes 😍😍😍

Covid-19: Cupcake Wars

One of Will’s friends, Matt Young, invited Will and a bunch of other neighbor boys to have a cupcake war bake-off. They were each given a cake mix and a secret ingredient.   Will got a German Chocolate flavored cake mix and his secret ingredient was an orange.   He made these delicious cupcakes and topped them off with a chocolate Ohio State logo.   We made a butter, cream cheese frosting and then squeezed the orange juice into the frosting.  The frosting was a little runnier than usual because Of the juice, but it was soooo yummy!  We will make it again soon and just add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.  It was awesome with the orange juice.   The boys left their cupcakes on the porch and the judges came around and picked them up.  

Will won best looking cupcake!  I’m not a big cupcake fan, but I ate 2 for dinner (and another later that night!).  Nice job Will!