May 2020

5/1/2020

All the kids helped us pull the insane amount of weeds in our large garden.  It was a big job.  

Here are the kids pulling up the last large weeds.

5/2/2020

We put new black fabric down to keep more weeds from growing.  It was exhausting.

5/3/2020

Emma is learning to make her own PB&J.  Since we've been quarantining we have been going through a lot of peanut butter and making many sandwiches.

5/4/2020

John working on his school work.  On this day I think we was making a knock knock joke book.  He read some different joke books to get a joke, then illustrated the joke and made a little door booklet.  Then he wrote a paragraph about the joke.  This took us a LONG time to complete.

5/5/2020

Emma with a Pokemon (I want to say Squirtle?) toy.  

My younger kids are really into Pokemon these days.

5/6/2020

Grant has been working on a school project about Albert Einstein.  Here he is working on his poster

5/7/2020

Matthew working on a school STEM project.  I think he was supposed to make some kinds of boat that would hold a certain number of pennies.

5/8/2020

Here is Grant watering his berry garden.  Each kid adopted a little plot and planted a few things.  Some were more vigilant than others about caring for their plants.

5/9/2020

Playing Googly Eyes with the kids.  Emma was drawing a whale.

5/10/2020

Putting photos up in Emma's bedroom.

5/11/2020

Grant wanted to have a "usual" meal.  He kept telling me he wanted the "usual" and then I had to ask what that was for him.  Finally he trained me.  Grant's usual is toast cut in half with honey and a glass of milk.

5/12/2020

Our rhododendron plant (brought from Oregon by Pa2) hasn't died yet.  It even had some flowers for us.  May it have a long life here in Utah.

5/13/2020

Grant getting ready to do his presentation about Albert Einstein.  We threw together this costume.  I like how his eyebrows are bending different ways.  That was my fault, but I thought it was good enough at the time.  He did a good job on his project.

5/14/2020

John had an origami project today.  He was supposed to read some books about origami and pick an origami "friend" to make.  Then write a paragraph about it.  This was another one that took us a long time.  He finished a little sooner than some of the others though.  I think this was supposed to be an origami horse.

5/15/2020

Matthew had to perform a lip sync song from a golden age musical for his drama class.  He (and Anna) performed Anything You Can Do from Annie Get Your Gun.  They did a great job and were very funny.  They are competitive with each other in real life so that song wasn't much of a stretch for them.  He got an A on his performance.

5/16/2020

Scott and I got a new bed.  This bed has a box spring and is farther off the ground than our old bed.  The kids thought it looked so high and wanted to lay on it a lot.

5/17/2020

Emma helped me pull a few weeds in the front flower bed

5/18/2020

Emma and John performed a puppet show.  They even made the puppets.

Good job guys!!

5/19/2020

We drove by the school to return supplies and wave goodbye to the teachers.  Grant's teacher gave him two balloons, which made the other elementary kids jealous.  One balloon was just for graduating from 3rd grade and the other was for reading 30 books for a reading challenge.  Way to go Grant!

5/20/2020

Here is Emma taking a socially distanced picture with her preschool teachers.  The last little bit of preschool was a bust thanks to Coronavirus, but she still had fun in preschool.  Now on to kindergarten!!

5/21/2020

Anna got "heart attacked" by some of the girls in her young women's class.  It was actually the class presidency, which Anna is a part of.  So Anna heart attacked three or four other girls and someone else did it for her.  It was cute and Anna was excited about it.  Here she is taking the hearts off the door.

5/22/2020

Yoga.  After I hurt my hip in March and cut back on running I started doing yoga.  I was skeptical at first - when I was younger I thought yoga just sounded like a waste of time when I could be running - but it has helped me in so many ways - flexibility, strength, mindfulness.  I even feel like the breathing I practice in yoga has helped me in running.  Yoga has also helped me to do things that were hard for me before.  I used to have lower back problems on occasion - I have pulled muscles just picking up a laundry basket in the past - and yoga has really helped to strengthen those muscles so I haven't had any problems since.   So thumbs up for yoga.

5/23/2020

Ann working on her garden plot.  She took good care of her garden area.

5/24/2020

Emma found some silly googly eyes.

5/25/2020

Matthew wanted to make cherry crisp so I got the ingredients and gave him the recipe.  He and Anna made it pretty much on their own.  I think I helped them with the oven.

5/26/2020

This was an exciting moment because we finally got all the feet for our new ottoman.  The ottoman was delivered with the wrong type feet and we waited on hold with customer service for a long time to get the correct feet sent to us.  Many times we called and had a hard time getting through.  Finally we did and ordered the feet, carefully explaining what was needed.  We only got one foot in the mail.  We called again, repeating all this process and a week or so later got one more foot.  We called again and after waiting on hold again for over an hour explained what had happened.  This time the customer service person who helped us realized that there was a problem on how the request for feet was entered on their end - it was a bit ambiguous on their system if you wanted feet for one ottoman or just one foot. So with a little careful maneuvering she was able to get all the required feet ordered.  Hallelujah.   Finally we got everything we needed and it was very exciting for us.  

5/27/2020

Three of our near neighbors put in pools or got above ground pools this summer...and one other already had a pool.  So our kids had major pool envy this summer.  You could see all the pools from the upstairs windows. And because of coronavirus the community pool was not an option.  We did have fun in our little pool but many thought it wasn't fun enough.  John would regularly tell me, in all seriousness, that he wanted to go live with a different family that had a pool.  Sorry John.  You are stuck with us and our small pool life.  Maybe next summer will be more fun and we can go back to using a neighborhood pool.

5/28/2020

We got Sonic tonight and had dinner at a park.  The park was mostly empty.  

It was nice to get out a little bit.

5/29/2020

Here is John showing Scott his summer workbook pages.  He seems to be much more motivated by Dad's adulation than by Mom's.  Such is the plight of moms.

5/30/2020

Grant made a tiny house with some tiny Lego blocks we had gotten on our trip to Yellowstone last fall.  He is really into designing Lego houses lately.

5/31/2020

John shows off his caramel popcorn.  Scott has been making Grandpa Ellison's caramel popcorn for us on Sunday nights.  Everyone looks forward to it.

April 2020

 

4/1/2020

Playing bocce in the back yard.  So much fun!

4/2/2020

We got a new big chair

4/3/2020

Emma hanging out in Grant and John's room.  John wants Emma to come hang out a lot and Grant doesn't want her in the room.  It's difficult with roommates.

4/4/2020

My birthday!  We had strawberry shortcake (with yellow cake, berries and whipped cream).  It was a nice low key birthday with take out and relaxing times.

4/5/2020

Emma made me a birthday message.  This was a lot of work for her.

4/6/2020

Scott and I got a new mattress too here's the old one, ready to leave.  I was surprised when I felt a little sad about saying goodbye to this mattress.   It was one of the first things I bought with my new job money after college.  I think I brought this before I owned a car.  So its 20 years old now and has been all over the world.  Goodbye mattress.

4/7/2020

Happy Birthday Grant!  He turned 9 today.

4/8/2020

Sometimes I try to do hair.  Emma with a loose Elsa braid

4/9/2020

Grant and John having a nice brother moment

4/10/2020

Home learning time

4/11/2020

Dyeing Easter eggs

4/12/2020

Easter dinner.  Read more about Easter HERE.

4/13/2020

John won the Easter Egg Derby and Grant was the runner up.  I have a theory that, in general, the slower moving Easter egg tends to crack less often than the faster moving one when they come into contact.  If this is true it tends to favor the younger kids winning more races since they tend to roll the eggs a little slower than older, more coordinated people.  It's only a theory but seems to be generally true.  John has won the egg derby several times.

4/14/2020

Taking a "working from home" pic for Scott's work

4/15/2020

Grant built a Lego bank following some directions online

It was pretty cool

4/16/2020

John had to build a Lego bridge for a school project.  It was a great little project where they designed a Lego bridge and then did a paragraph writing about it.  I thought John would love it but we struggled to get through this one.  Working with John at home this year has helped me understand some things about his personality.  The more you push him to do something, the less he wants to do it.  Stepping back and leaving him alone with it is pretty much how we've resolved these homework stalemate situations.  This was early on and I hadn't figured that out yet.  Finally we got a bridge built, with lots of help from me.  Then he had to write about it and just would not do it.  Later when he saw all the other kids had moved on to screen time he suddenly got more motivated to finish his writing and did so on his own.  Now, after many more run ins like this I have learned how to better handle it.  Let him take a "brain break, make sure he understands exactly what he has to do, give sympathetic hugs or snuggles as needed and then walk away.  He'll usually do it on his own after that, even if he's been dragging his feet for hours.  Different kids have different processes and are motivated differently.  Grant will do almost anything for a little praise or a little candy.  John has his own way and it often involves snuggles, sympathy and time.

4/17/2020

Went on a bike ride with Matthew on the bike path.  He was faster but I had more endurance.  I was the tortoise in this situation I guess.  We had fun getting out and about.

4/18/2020

Anna wanted to take a sunset picture.  It looked better in real life than in this picture.

4/19/2020

Anna made an audition video for the junior high musical for next school year.  I worked with her to get her audition tape made.  We did lots of takes.  She had to recite a monologue that they provided so we re-did it many times if she missed some of the words.  She also had to sing (and dance with her own choreography) and it was all supposed to be in one take.   It probably took us about 20 takes to get it done.  By the 20th time she had loosened up a lot and gotten more expressive with her monologue.  I tried to coax her along to be more expressive.  Theater is about BIG movements and motions - its not like subtle movie acting.  I was in an audition only theater group in junior high and did many plays so feel like I know something about how to have a successful audition.  She sang My Favorite Things from Sound of Music and I helped her put together some basic choreography.  I wasn't sure how selective this was going to be.  Anna ended up being one of the few seventh graders who was selected to be in the class of 40 or so kids.  It was a disappointment when we decided we were moving - that she wouldn't be able to be in the musical since getting in felt like such an achievement.  Great job Anna!  Hoping there can be some performing she will be able to participate in in our new place.

4/20/2020

My hip hurts!  I have run for many years and only had one other running injury.  Also with my hips.  I pulled a hip flexor muscle on one side and its a huge bummer.  I have cut back on running to try and help it heal.  Here I am icing it post run.

4/21/2020

Emma doing preschool homework.  Preschool homework isn't nearly as valuable as preschool work at preschool.  We do the work but its too bad Emma can't be there anymore.

4/22/2020

Anna made an escape room game for us to play.  She even had John and Emma make a promotional video for her escape room.  Both the video and the escape room game were very cute.  Here they are about to make the video

4/23/2020

We got a new couch and chair set for our formal living room. We ordered online and they finally came!

4/24/2020

Remote learning school time.

4/25/2020

We've been doing many puzzles during our quarantine.

4/26/2020

Scott and I tried to replace a broken light switch in our house.  My dad had helped us replace one a little while ago, so we gave it a try on another that had broken.  We were changing from a smart switch to a standard toggle switch so the wiring was a little different but I though I had figured it out.  We did it and it didn't work so we finally called an electrician.  The electrician saw what we did and said we were "so close."  We just had to pigtail two of the wires that we had capped off separately per a you tube video I was following.  It took the electrician 30 seconds to fix it.  He didn't even turn off the circuit breaker to do it.  So I was both happy and a little frustrated that we had gotten so close (and yet so far).  I think Scott and I have learned a lot about little home maintenance projects over these years of home ownership.

4/27/2020

Feeling super casual at school this morning

4/28/2020

The kids put on a silly puppet show today.  They all participated.

4/29/2020

Kind of crooked Emma braids today.

4/30/2020

We could see this fly by starting at Hill AFB today

I think it was meant to lift everyone's spirits