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! 

Just Hanging Out

This week we set up and started a chore rotation for after dinner, Dan and I got tired of doing it all on our own.  So far it's worked great, David is so excited every day to see what he gets to do.  The first night, he was drying and putting away dishes.  He had a little help from mommy, but he did a great job and he was so proud of himself!  

The kids had fun this week playing together (and some not as fun times fighting with each other) David loves this marble chute toy - so he got Aaron to build him one - a huge one - the kids were all so excited that it was taller than them, so they took a picture with it before it fell over.  :) 
 

Anna is trying to find ways to keep herself occupied, so we got her some fabric paint and a plain white t-shirt and she had a blast designing and painting this shirt - after taking this picture, she decided to add to the sleeves also, I'll have to get a picture of the final one tomorrow when she wears it, but it looks awesome.   It's hilarious to me just how much she loves the 80's. She loves 80's music and neon colors and everything.  I was telling her about a skirt I got as a kid that I was in love with - it was black and neon pink and I LOVED that skirt.  

Now that school is done, Dan has kicked Eileen out of her school room and moved out of my craft room.  Now that I have it back, the girls and I have had some fun.  We have been making the "seek and find" bean bag pillow-thingies.  I let them raid my buttons and other things to have fun making them for themselves and their siblings.  

I realized something this week.  Eileen asked me if I wanted to do her hair.  I said sure, but since it was evening and she would be taking it out to shower, I asked her if she wanted to shower first.  She shrugged and said, I don't care.  At that point I realized that she doesn't just want me to do her hair because she wants it up and out of her face, but because she likes it when I do her hair!  Since she is not a touchy-feely person and it's like pulling teeth just to get her to hug me - this was a bit of a revelation and I was excited!   We both liked how we could see the different colors in the bun.  

David loves helping out with church on Sunday - there are a couple jobs that he just HAS to do.  He loves to be the one to hand out the programs, he spent 5 minutes chasing James around this morning and yelling at him that he needed a program.  He also loves to conduct the music and needs his conducting stool and a stick to conduct properly - I am not allowed to play until he is ready.  He also collect the Sacrament cups from everyone and goes around behind Aaron to collect and then takes them and the plates to the sink.  He does these every week and he feels so important.  I wonder what will happen with this when we go back to church in the building.... 

The Big 4-0

That's right, this week Dan finally caught up to me.  He finally hit 40.  It was an unusually quiet birthday week for him.  Since we spent his birthday just as a family.  Anna made him a MLP Fluttershy cake.   She spent most of the day on the cake - and even made her own fondant, but she had a great time and Dan loved it!  I got him a tie and a new Final Fantasy game.  

We've had some warm days here and the kids are getting antsy to go swimming.  Unfortunately it really hasn't been quite that warm, and our neighborhood pool isn't opening up.  Thankfully my parents have said that we can go down and use their pool, but we would still be trying to stay separate from them to help keep them safe.  

David loves to play cars with anyone who will play with him.  He wants to tell everyone how to play though.  You had better not go off the roads unless he says so - even if there is a bad traffic jam....

Daddy told him that he couldn't come out of the kitchen until he was done eating - so he quickly shoved everything into his mouth at once..... 

They say that things are opening back up, but there hasn't been a noticeable difference for us - We are still mostly staying at home and self isolating.  Dan is still working from home and the kids and I are still staying home.  We still go for walks and to the grocery store, but not much else.  

We saw this cute little tortoise out on a walk - David insisted that it was a turtle, since he's 2 and he loves turtles, but it was a tortoise.  He just watched us walk past and moved very slowly.

I've been working on a baby blanket that has me frustrated and annoyed.  I had to pull out a ton of it because I ran out of yarn.  The company I bought the pattern and yarn through didn't send me enough and they have already run out of stock.  So I was stuck with a whole bunch of options I didn't like and none that I did.  Now I'm slowly working my way back through it - but I keep having to pull out and fix more mistakes... sigh....

Evelyn and I have been having fun crocheting little llamas together.  They are looking pretty cute and it's fun to have projects to work on with her.

This week officially marks the end of the school year and the beginning of summer.  The kids are all done!  On Thursday, the Elementary school did a drive by end of school year parade.  The teachers all camped out in the parking lot with parking spaces between them and waved to the kids as we drove through the school parking lot.  The kids had fun and now David wants to do it again.

Today was wonderful!   We had a nice quiet morning and a great church service at home.  We talked about the story of Esther in the Bible - it's one of my favorite stories and the kids all loved it and learned from it.  I spent some time today making up a primary singing time video for the kids.  I haven't yet been brave enough to watch it though....  We spent the afternoon playing games together and then had a fun time chatting with the Jones family.   Gene and Ann are writing up their life stories for us - and it's led to lots of fun trips down memory lane as they tell us about what they remember and then listening to the Jones siblings fill in missing pieces and remember together.  The are planning to print them out and I can't wait to read them!   We took a picture today after church to help remember this crazy time and document it a bit better.

David loves to play cards with us.  Anytime any one is playing with cards - he gets out his "Go Fish" cards from Grandma and Grandpa Jones and then he plays with them and shares them out to everyone at the table.  

During church we often watch a conference talk as part of our home meeting.  Dan was writing down notes so we can talk with the kids about what we had learned after, and David decided that he needed to write notes too - so he got a paper and pencil and made some scribbles on his little paper - just like daddy!  

Eileen has been hard at work on her dragon crochet pattern that she got for Christmas and she is finally done with the crocheting part (mostly) and now I just need to start sewing all the pieces together for her!

Anna has been playing the piano a LOT lately - it's really fun to listen to her get better and better.  She has recently become interested in Jazz, so I gave her an old piano book that teaches some Jazz piano basics and I found an old fake book that she has been enjoying learning in and playing around in.  She is really improving so much!

Things are starting to open...

Well things are starting to open back up here - The government is trying to slowly and safely get the economy rolling again.  Hopefully this works and doesn't just cause a bigger problem later.  For now, we are hoping and planning on our summer trip still.  The Jones family reunion is still on and the kids know about it now, so there's no going back.  David comes in every morning and gets Dan up so they can read scriptures together.  It's so sweet!  He loves so sit and read scriptures with daddy!

We've had some rainy weather this week - it's been great - the rain keeps the weather cool enough the rest of the time to make it really nice to be outside.  We've found toads in our yard and around the neighborhoods.  Eileen loves is.  The kids love walking down to the pond and feeding the ducks.  

We've still been playing a lot of games, taking a lot of walks and eating lots of yummy food.  Dan has had a bit of an obsession with Boston Cream Pies lately - so he decided to make one.  So for dinner last night, we had sushi, egg drop soup and Boston Cream Pie for dessert.  3 different countries with one meal!  :)  

Aaron is so funny - there is always a point when we have to go upstairs and make sure that lights are out and kids are in bed.  Aaron tends to shower and then read his scriptures for a bit, then sometimes he gets distracted by a book, so when Dan goes in to turn off lights and check on them, he immediatly drops the book and pretends to be asleep.  Regardless of where he is.  Even if he is standing on the ladder to his bed....  Really Aaron!!! - like we can't tell you are awake when you are standing on the ladder holding a book - even if you close your eyes and put your head down!  HAHA - this story is going to get told to future girlfriends :) 

It's been crazy to realize that school is almost over.  The kids are getting all their school work done early in the week anyway, so they rarely have much to do. 

Today has been fabulous.  We had a wonderful church service today we talked about Daniel and the Lion Den and his dream.  It was great!  We had a fun time playing games and going on walks together.  Eileen and Anna spent 2+hours out chatting and laughing together on the trampoline.  It's so awesome to see them such good friends! 

Happy Mother's Day!

David picked out his clothes on Monday and chose this shirt saying that he was wearing his "work shirt just like daddy" and then he told me that now he was ready to go to work.  This shirt looks a lot like the ones Dan wears to work everyday since it's also a company logo shirt.  

Which you can see in this picture :)  For family home evening, we made play-dough with the kids.  Evelyn has been wanting to make it for awhile, so we had fun together.  Evie wasn't happy with the color of hers, until Dan mentioned that it was kinda poop colored - then it turned into lots of poop jokes/props.  

This was a week of doctor's appointments.  Monday, I had an appointment to get my thyroid imaged.  They took an ultrasound and then sent it on to my doctors office.  Then on Tuesday, Evelyn was taken in because of a sore throat with white spots - it wasn't strep though, so she was told to drink lots of water and if it didn't get better in a couple days, then she would take some medicine.  At her appointment, the doctor also talked to me about my thyroid results, they changed my medication and the ordered a biopsy of the cyst on my thyroid.  Now I just need to get an appointment with an ENT who is in our insurance plan....  

On Wednesday, Anna had an orthodontist appointment in the morning.  She is getting invisaligners.  She is all set up now and by Thursday, she was sore.  But she's excited - there is one tooth that is really out of alignment that has really been bothering her. 

Anna has also done some babysitting this week for a family in the ward who is pregnant with twins and has had doctors appointments and her kids love Anna.  

Dan went out for a walk the other day and was stared down by this fox.  But he never told me what it said to him....  

Thursday evening, I went down to my parent's house to drop off more food and chat from 6' away.  It's nice to get out and it's nice to see them and make sure they are doing ok and it's really nice to get to chat with them for a couple hours.  

On Saturday, Dan took me to Home Depot to get plants for our flower bed.  Our front yard is now so much prettier!!  We had fun picking them out and then the whole family got outside and got to work digging and weeding and planting!  It was a beautiful day for it - sunny and warm, but not too hot!  

Dan continued to spoil me this Mother's Day weekend.  He made me a huge heart cookie.  He couldn't fit Mother's Day on it, so upon advice from the kids, he put Mom's day instead.  We had heart shaped biscuits for breakfast with honey butter and juice.  Church was wonderful!  We had a great lesson and music and a wonderful time together talking about the gospel.  We talked to our mom's a bit and played lots of games and had a wonderful day!  

Ummmm...... my brain isn't working....

Well it's been a long and fun week.  The kids are loving how much more lax mommy is about screen time as long as they are playing educational games.  David loves going on for a "jog" he wants to go out multiple times a day and run around the block - he runs for a bit, then stops and picks up rocks, then he runs some more.  It's pretty cute.  :)

He's also gotten tall enough that his legs reach the pedals on his trike, so he loves riding that around now and he can actually go pretty far, but every time he wants some help, he ends up backing over my feet and giving me a bruise on the top of my foot! 

Our week has mostly been full of online school, games walks and "jogs"

I had a doctor's appointment this week, my thyroid is acting up again, so I will be going in for some testing on Monday, but other than that, we've been pretty chill here.  David cracks all the kids up - he has become very insistent on things being done his way. 

I've been really tired this week, so Dan was sweet and brought me some flowers and had James make a Pineapple upside down cake.  Hopefully we can start making fixes after tomorrow. 

Aaron got hooked on the Ender's Game books this week - and has now read all of them.  He loves them and any time he loves a book, he devours the book and the whole series if he can. 

We had a fun time chatting with Grandpa Francone and my aunts and uncles and parents.  Everyone seems to be doing pretty well right now and it's fun to get to chat with people. 

Eileen, Anna and Aaron had a youth activity on Zoom last night.  The idea was to try and watch a movie, but things didn't work out, so they just had fun chatting and goofing off.  The leaders dropped off some fun snacks and it was really nice! 

Church today was great, we had a nice little testimony meeting and then we talked about the story of Rahab in the bible.  The kids all seemed to enjoy it. 

David wants to wear pajamas pretty much all the time.  He also thinks he needs to put on new pajamas for nap time and for bed time, so he goes through a lot of pjs.....

Some of us have much less hair now.

We have had a fun week.  James and David both wanted hair cuts.  James had Dan cut his hair then the next day, David kept saying he wanted fuzzy hair too.  So Dan buzzed him!  It's so strange, but he's still adorable!  We had lots of fun chatting on Marco Polo with Kay and Reggie, and on google with Grandma and Grandpa.  The weather has been great so we have spent a lot of time out walking and playing outside and such.  

Anna is going a bit crazy missing her peeps - she is a very social person, and she is struggling with this limit to her socialization.  

The kids have fun going over this bridge and dropping rocks off the bridge.  They are going a bit stir crazy with not really getting to go anywhere - apparently walks don't count.  They are finishing their school work quickly and having a lot of fun playing educational games.  

We took some evening walks too - Eileen and Dan found this cute frog on one of their walks.  Animals love her.  And she loves them too.  :) 

Friday evening I headed down to visit my parents and drop off some food.  We wear masks and keep distances, but it was good to drop off some food for my mom and they were getting a bit stir crazy too.  Especially my dad!  He doesn't do inactivity well.  We ended up chatting for almost 2 hours. 

On Saturday, it was Aunt Sandi's birthday, so we drove down and did a drive by with a Happy Birthday sign,  The kids were bummed that they didn't get to get out and play with their cousins, but it was fun to get out and say hi!  

Dan got Animal Crossing this week, so we have been playing it and trying to figure out our way around it.  Some of the kids are playing too, it's been kinda fun!  

Today we got to have church at home again.  David loves to lead the music!  He insists on having his conducting stool and his conducting stick (a pencil) and he stands and waves his arms through the whole song!  

This evening, Eileen was trying her hand at drawing for the purpose of drawing her characters in her books, so Anna was giving her some tips and lessons to help her!  It was so cute! 

It's been a wonderful week - and it's crazy to think that April is almost over.  This month has just flown by! 

School work and fun!

Shelter in Place Week 4 - ish.  Well it's been 3 weeks since the official Shelter in Place order went out, but we've been self isolating pretty much since Spring Break - so over a month now.  I'm still not sick of having my family home - though our house is messier, life is good.  Schooling is mostly going well.  James tried to buck the system by submitting assignments with out doing any of the work.  Thankfully his teacher noticed and we talked to him and figured out a way for the system to show me what I need to hold him more accountable.  

We got our stimulus check this week, so Dan got me a new computer!!!  This is my first official entry on the new computer.  I'm determined to set this up and organize it the way I have always wanted my computer organized.  Even if it takes a long time...  

We have had lots of fun playing games and cooking and all sorts of fun stuff!  I've been working on another baby blanket, and I'm really excited about how it looks so far!  

This is the boys doing a dance party as part of a computer break for the kids.  The kids have some educational games that the kids love playing, but I'm still trying to make sure they get the other stuff done first.   

I made this doll shirt and a matching shirt for Anna.  Anna and I made the pants together.  It's so much fun teaching her these skills! 

The middle school kids need to practice on their instruments still - there's a neat program the school is using that allows them to practice with the music.  David loves using Anna's little doll trumpet.  He's so cute!  If you listen to the video, you can actually hear him singing the notes to play along with her!  

David is just a little bubble of sunshine (most of the time - the rest of the time he's a bit bossy)  We were talking about King David during church today and he looks at Dan and says "King ME?"  He has very specific ideas about how he wants things.  When he wants me to come upstairs to play cars, he has started telling me that I can't bring my crochet with me. 

The kids have also been having a great time on the trampoline.  I'm not sure that this isolation would have been nearly as pleasant if Uncle Doug hadn't given us that trampoline.  It was raining today, and Aaron, Evelyn and James went outside and jumped in the rain - and loved it - but they came in soaked! 

Yesterday, we made a big dinner and dropped off some to some friends of ours who just had a baby and some more to the Sister missionaries.  Evelyn made cupcakes for everyone for dessert and we had a fun, but early dinner! 

Dan got Animal Crossing for the Switch, so he, Eileen and I each spent some time checking it out. 

Today after our little Sacrament Meeting, we did a fun primary lesson with all the kids.  We all had fun doing some of the activities from the primary manual and even the older kids were good sports about it! 

Easter

It's been a wonderful week!  We spent some time each night this week talking about what was happening during the last week of Christ's life.  We spent a lot of time this week playing games, and doing school work and such.  The kids are still not too sick of us, but I think they are missing friends.  

On Wednesday, we organized a Zoom meeting chat and craft for our Primary kids Activity groups.  They all really seemed to have a fun time chatting with each other and goofing off together.  

Friday, I told the kids that once all the school work was done, we could decorate eggs.  The kids had fun, and Dan and I even did a couple eggs.  

Friday was also Good Friday.  The prophet asked us to fast on Good Friday for relief from the pandemic and protection for the health care workers and for things to return to normal and the economy to be ok.  Our whole family began our fast together with a prayer after a fun brownie sundae dessert.  Then everyone (except David of course) fasted.  Even James did an amazing job and fasted all the way until dinner time for the first time!  He asked a whole lot of times about when dinner was - but he never really complained and he was awesome!   All the kids were awesome.  It was a wonderful thing to be a part of.  Even more beautiful was that people from all over the world, of many different faiths came together for the good of the world.  

Saturday, we had an egg hunt with the kids - Anna helped me hide them and then the kids had a ton of fun finding them.  David was so cute - he got so excited with each egg he found!  

We finished our egg hunt in time for lunch and just before a big storm broke in typical Texas fashion - lots of noise and lots of rain in a short period of time.   In the evening, we got a text that a little bunny  had visited us and found this little cutie on our doorstep!

Today was wonderful - we did church at home and sang songs and watched a video from 2000 put out by the church where each of the apostles at the time bore witness of the Savior.  It was a great day.  We played some games in the afternoon and had a great time doing a group chat with the Jones family and hearing some fun stories from Grandma and Grandpa Jones. 

Here are a few more random pictures from the week - The kids and I spent Friday morning having lots of fun together on the trampoline, and of course, David loves having his picture taken.

General Conference Weekend!!

We've had another fun week home together.  The kids were pretty good about getting their school work done.  We had fun going on walks around the neighborhood and playing games together.  I think David LOVES having all his siblings home.  

Since the kids are not likely to be going back to school this school year, Anna, Eileen and Evelyn had some fun this week coloring their hair with Kool-Aid.  Anna's ends are a bright teal blue.  Evie tried the blue too, and while it's visible at the ends, it's not very bright or noticeable.  Eileen tried a red - it's still drying since she just did it tonight, so we will see how it went! 

Thursday evening, we had a pizza party night.  We ate pizza and watched Zoom with the kids (well with the younger kids - Eileen and Anna were too cool to hand out with us...)

Saturday began an amazing two days of General Conference.  There were amazing talks, and some exciting announcements!  We are so excited about the new proclamation!  We had some yummy 7-layer dip to snack on and Dan made some yummy steak and potatoes for dinner.

Anna and I have spent a lot of time doing face masks this week.  In addition to making a whole bunch for local health care workers, I made a couple for my parents and Dan and I.  The CDC is now recommending that people wear them when they go out.  Here Dan is modelling his mask.  I made the ones for my parents and I out of some of the fabric left from Great Aunt Joan.

Conference today was also wonderful.  The kids devoured the Monkey bread in very little time.  We all loved getting to participate in the Hosanna Shout on Palm Sunday and again - the talks were amazing!  We were so excited about the new temples announced!  Then perhaps the best part of the day was sitting together as a family and talking about our favorite parts and things we learned.  Even David wanted to get in on the fun and told us a crazy story about Jesus and boats and pirates....

In the evening, we (Dan and I) ran down to my parents house to drop off frozen meals for my mom, drop off their face masks and pick up some computers for the kids for school work.  Hopefully we can get this all figured out!  We took our face masks for a test drive.  It makes me grateful that I'm not a health care worker, and so grateful for those amazing people who are.  What an amazing weekend!