Birthdays!!!!

We've had a busy week!  The kids all had Well-Child checkups this week they are healthy and growing well!  

I finally got my hair cut - My mom's stylist was doing an outdoor house call to cut and color her hair and cut my dad's hair and my mom asked if I wanted to come too!   My hair is now back to manageable lengths!  

Anna is starting to have sectionals at the high school and Evelyn got to go in and try out instruments to see what she wanted to play for middle school band.  Her first choice was flute and she was able to make sounds on the flute and they were in need of flute players, so she was very excited and has been trying to play Eileen's flute ever since.  I was also very happy to see how careful the school was being with cleaning and masks and such.  

The school district still seems to be undecided about what school will look like next school year.  We got a survey this week about next school year just asking if we were more likely to choose an online option or attending the school.  They still haven't given information about sports and electives though.  I guess we'll see!  

This week was also a big birthday week for us!  On Wednesday, David turned 3 years old!  If you ask him, he will still tell you he is 2.  He loved his birthday and he loved his Paw Patrol birthday cake and his Paw Patrol blanket and pillow from mom and dad and his cute clothes and swimsuit from Grandma and Grandpa Jones!  

Aaron and Evelyn just couldn't stop themselves from helping him open his presents.  And sign that he might struggle with some aspect of it had them with their hands all over it doing it for him.  LOL  They are so excited and helpful - funny thing is that they knew what he was getting - at least the stuff from us - they helped tie the blanket fringe! 

Friday was Anna's 14th birthday!  I think she is excited to be 14 and she was excited by her presents.  She got a cute sweater from Grandma and Grandpa Jones, and from us she got some doll stuff, a Real Book - a jazz fake book, and a gem art. 

David is such a little bundle of personality!  He is so funny and goofy.  Dan caught him posing on the stairs and took some pictures.  He thought it was hilarious! 

James tried his hand this morning at building a card castle - he got a second floor on there too, but we didn't get a picture before it was knocked down.  He was pretty proud of it though!  

David has been wanting to play chess lately - except of course, he has no idea how to play, but he loves putting pieces on the board and knocking them off.  He and daddy played a fun game together.  He had a great time!  

This week was our turn to go to church, and Anna was asked to speak and I was asked to play the organ.  I spent some time this week practicing, cleaning up and wearing a mask.  I think it mostly went well.  Anna's talk was great and it was wonderful to be back at church again - even if we didn't really get to socialize and it was shorter than usual.  David didn't get much of a  nap today - after he had been down for less than an hour, we had a big thunder storm that lasted about 30 min - and David hates thunder.  After the first big clap of thunder - he screamed and started crying and came down for snuggles... and of course didn't go back to bed.  :) 

Getting Hot and Getting Wet

Weather was great this week - it was hot most of the week - then Friday night and Saturday night we got a ton of rain!  The kids have been wanting to go to the pool every day, but I've tried to keep it to times when it's not too crowded.  I expected Saturdays to be the craziest - but after the rain and slightly cooler temperatures it was empty, so the kids and I spent a couple hours there on Monday, and Friday and Saturday.  

Evelyn and I have been making a blanket together - she picked out colors for hers and we have been going along together.  She had a bit of trouble on the first panel, so we decided to call it the practice panel and she is now calling it her scarf.  Either way - I think she's doing a great job and it looks really cute!  

Today was Father's Day.  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband, amazing father and awesome grandpas, so we had a great time celebrating with Dan today.  We made biscuits for breakfast and he got his present - a box set of The Fast and The Furious.  He and Anna are looking forward to watching them together.  The girls had their first Young Women's activity in quite awhile, so they had a fun evening painting pictures together with some friends. 

Thursday night we had a game night with a good friend of ours - we played Settler's of Catan and had a great time playing and chatting! 

Other than that, we have been trying to get ready for the trip - we are just about there!  The kids are counting down the days and it's been hard to keep them out of the fun stuff we got for the trip. 

I took Koopa down to the vet to get checked out - he's had some skin itchiness, so he got a shot and a dental appointment set up.  My mom came up after - she wanted to drive around in her new car and get out of the house, so she brought up some floaties that we had left there and picked up some food and then we sat outside in the shade on the driveway and chatted for a while. 

yeah....lots of stuff

So Monday was my appointment with my doctor to talk about the results of the biopsy.  The lump was found to by malignant - meaning thyroid cancer.  Thankfully this is a slow growing and unlikely to spread type, so for now summer plans are still on, and we have a surgery scheduled to remove my thyroid next month.   We have talked to the kids and family and a few other people, but while I don't want to hide it, I also don't want it made a big deal of.  Other than a concern for my voice and a vague feeling of being old - because things like this only happen to "old" people, I am not too stressed about this.  What will be will be.

We went down to my parents house on Tuesday - it was a hot day and we grabbed lunches and headed down in the morning to swim, we stayed for a few hours, then headed home for piano lessons and fun.

Otherwise, our week has progressed mostly peacefully.  Some of our ward met for the first time in months and we will be starting a rotation - hopefully this means I can play the organ again!  I've missed it! 

We spend a lot of our time playing games, the kids have some friends they play with nearby and David loves hanging out with his siblings!  I've made some tiny crochet dolls for the kids and they love them - they also lose them a lot- but so far none have been lost for long.  Now James and Evie have me making little houses and furniture for them.... 
Our neighborhood finally opened up the pool.  We are hoping that we can spend morning and early afternoons there during the week - last year that time of the day was usually pretty empty. 

We had a great time chatting with Grandpa and the other Francone family members.  Hopefully we will get to see everyone while we are in Denver. 



We have all loved getting out for walks this week - though preferably in the evening - it's hot during the day.  We've seen frogs, tarantulas, foxes and more! 

Well for some reason, Internet doesn't ever want to work when I'm blogging, so I will try and add pictures later because I'm tired!!  :)

It's Summer!

Well it finally officially feels like summer.  It's starting to be hot in the day and still really warm at night.   I've been making stuff for the kids for the road trip this summer - Including face masks for everyone.  The kids are all getting really excited about the trip and are already counting down!  David was so excited to get his own face mask.  

David loves to help daddy out.  He decided that Dan needed more help doing his work, so he grabbed a bunch of Eileen's stuffed animals and put them on his desk to help him out.  

 Wednesday, we made an attempt at the splash park near our house.  It was a bit crowded for my taste and David didn't really want to get in the water anyway.   The kids were excited to get out and cool off a bit though. 

Thursday, we packed up lunches and a dinner and went down to my parents house.  We set up shop in their back yard and spent the whole afternoon swimming!  Dan came down after work and we grilled up hot dogs and swam some more.  We were diligent with the sunscreen, but we still came home a bit roasted!  We are had a blast and were so glad Grandma and Grandpa were willing to let us use their pool because it's getting to be that time of year where water is essential for being outside!  I was able to chat with them some which was really nice and then we wiped everything down before we headed home. 

We got some fun new floats for the kids, and they had a blast on them.  David loved the pink flower tubes and would ONLY use them and sometimes sit on the turtle.  He wouldn't use the smaller tube that was his size, he only wanted the pink flower ones.  And it took him a couple hours before he would even do that.  He didn't want to get off the shelf at all for the first bit - then he was willing to go in to the water as long as I was holding him, then eventually he was willing to go in with a tube - this is in addition to his swim vest. 

The kids have been having a lot of fun building towers out of dominoes, cards, legos and blankets.  Really anything they can find.  Aaron was very excited about this tower, and even more excited about making it fall down.  

Dan decided that it would be fun to make massive cookies and use them to make ice cream sandwiches - the cookies were yummy, and the ice cream was yummy, but they were huge!  

This was how I found David when it was time to get him up from his nap yesterday.  He had flipped over his mattress and fallen asleep on the back side.  

 Well it looks like we will be slowly starting to meet back as a ward - in small groups and for shortened time and with lots of cleaning and care.  Church at home is not over - but it will now be intermingled with church at the church building too!

We got to have some fun chatting with Grandpa Francone this evening!  He seems to be doing well and the kids were excited to see him too.  Hopefully we will be able to figure out a way to do this summer trip and see him and keep him safe!