First Half of April

April Fool's Day. My 1 and only joke: Brown-E's. :) The older kids remembered, Benson didn't. When I told him I had some brownies for him, and then gave him these, instead of whining, he just laughed and laughed and then pretended to eat the brown-e's. What a kid! Then we played the "trick" on neighbors and gave them some real ones too.



Quarantined with no play-dates has brought challenges and mood swings. It has also brought intense family time, and forced the kids to be each other's best friends. They already spend a lot of time with each other thanks to Homeschooling, but it has definitely been kicked up a notch. I'm so happy to say that I feel their friendships are being forged to an even deeper level, Gwen and Lindy especially. One day during quiet time I told them to stay outside. They were reluctant, until I brought up the parachute and all their stuffed animals. Boom, problem solved.


Cuuuuute


Bubble Machine=good investment


With the new "Come Follow Me" goal setting program for the youth, Gwen decided for one of her goals to host a bake sale and then donate the money to Primary Children's Hospital. We baked chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter bars and sugar cookies on Friday with plans to sell them in between conference sessions on Saturday. I warned her that many people might not turn up, because everyone is scared about covid-19. I even told the kids not to eat any cookies now because there would be plenty left over. I should have known my neighborhood would pull through in a big way. We sold out within 30 minutes and had to turn people away! People donated way more than asking price, Gwen donated the rest of her cash, Miles donated the $20 he just got in the mail from Grandpa Crosby for a Wendy's outing, and we ended up with about $170! She was bummed the hospital wasn't taking new stuffed animal donations, or donations in person. We just had to send it online. But she did get her picture on their social media page, which she thought was cool. Proud of her, and my kids. Makes my mama heart happy.



Corona Conference 2020- I'll be honest, this was a hard conference for me. I was really, really looking forward to listening to the prophets speak and feeling some peace. Besides Coronavirus, this whole business of selling a home and not having a for sure job has been emotionally draining. With kids, however, sitting quietly and listening and taking notes is not always going to happen. Most of the time, that's not going to happen. It was frustrating. But there were some sweet moments too. We made our conference necklaces and had German pancakes. It was an especially sweet moment to do the "Hosanna Shout" with my kids in our living room; the spirit was so strong.



Having Richie work from home has been kind of amazing. He gets a few hours of work done in the mornings, and then wherever else he can fit it in. Other than that, he's available to help me homeschool the kids. Game changer!! Helping the kids with their math has been especially nice. He also helped facilitate this egg drop. ( I don't do roofs) The kids had a blast watching a nature movie about dolphins (we're doing a marine biology unit now) while creating their egg drop containers. 2 eggs didn't survive, 2 eggs did. There may have been some tears.



We took an adventure out to the Salt Flats one day so Richie would work in peace at home. I knew it would be a little challenging, but I just thought it would be such a shame if we never went the entire time we've lived here before moved. It was a long drive both ways, but the kids said it was worth it. It really is other-worldly out there. We brought our poetry tea time stuff, and our bikes and scooters. Definitely glad we got that one checked off. Super cool.


Some other school things we are working on. This noddle-stringing activity was supposed to delight Benson and keep him busy for an hour. It took him about the length of this picture to lose interest. Lindy was really excited about her crimpy hair this day, and she took an extra long time in the bathroom because she "holds class" and makes friends with inanimate objects. Quarantine must be really getting to us. Also a fun project, inspired by my mom, was to recreate famous works of art at home. It was fairly quick and painless, and the results were so fun!

Easter 2020

We had a wonderful Easter this year. On Saturday we dyed eggs, and while Richie took the kids out to help at Grandma and Grandpa's, I was able to get Easter baskets ready, hide them, get all the eggs hidden, and prepare a "traditional" Easter meal. (No ham, but our neighbors had given us a turkey a little while back, and some other neighbors gave us a roasting oven, so I wanted to try it out) The kids loved running around to find their baskets and the eggs. Of course, it started raining, and only rained for the duration of the egg hunt, then stopped. :)
I wanted to sit everyone down for a lovely meal, but the reality was that Davy was fussy so Richie exited with him early on, and then I had forgotten about a Zoom call with my family to play Bingo. The kids were really looking forward to it, so we scarfed down dinner. That's life sometimes.
On Easter Sunday, I had this vision of us all enjoying the blossoms up at the state capitol building. I had heard they were beautiful right now and I didn't want to miss them. The weather had been lovely all week. Sunday morning as we were getting in the car to go, it started snowing. We braved the cold, and it really was beautiful and magical, but it was so dang cold. Not the ideal weather for such an outing.
After we got home, we had our church at home lesson where the kids put pictures in order from the last week of Christ's life, we had virtual singing time via our awesome leaders, and had the sacrament at home again. What a blessing to be able to do this at home!
I set the kids up with "Easter Parade" and I made a lemon raspberry cake. We took it to dinner at the Garner's. Before we ate, Grandpa took the kids on the hunt for the symbols of Christ. They even found a heavy beam to carry, just like Jesus. We came inside and had our "Jerusalem" dinner: Mediterranean/Passover foods, eaten on the floor. We look forward to it every year.
Weekends like this leave me feeling many things: joy, gratitude, excitement, and exhaustion. :)