Easter

Here are a few pictures from our Easter weekend.  We decorated Easter eggs.  I wasn't sure we would do eggs this year if there were egg shortages, but a few weeks before Easter the egg supply seemed too bounce back and there were plenty of eggs to be had.  So we decorated some.  I stocked up on Easter candy and Easter supplies (including egg dyeing stuff) right after Valentine's Day, as I usually do.  So we had all we needed for our Easter celebration.

We had fun dyeing eggs.

Easter morning it was wet and cold outside so the Easter bunny left eggs in our messy basement.

Even big kids had fun gathering eggs

John got some Pokemon cards in his Easter basket so wanted to make up a binder for his cards really quick.

Scott taking care of a sprinkler problem on the cold Easter morning

John and Emma enjoyed the sun even though it was cold.

This is the big fort that's been in our front room for most of our isolation time.

Grant and Anna have been playing together nicely.

Here they are on Easter morning playing with their Pokemon cards.

Some tulips are up in the yard

abandoned Easter eggs

I spent a lot of the morning making bunny buns.

Grant and Anna soccer-ing in the yard

and much later the bunny buns finally got finished

They are so tasty when they're fresh

Ready for Easter dinner.  Scott made homemade rolls and spearheaded the cooking of the ham.  We over reduced our tangerine and brown sugar glaze this year until it was almost caramel, but it still tasted good on the ham.  It was a nice Easter Sunday.

The next day we had our Easter egg derby.  Scott was working two jobs that week (his Air Force Reserve duty and his regular job).  He worked AF from early in the morning to mid afternoon then switched over to his regular job, working on that until the late evening.  If the shut downs didn't happen he would have been in Illinois over Easter, so its nice that he's with us.  But on our Easter derby night he had to work even later since he took a break to roll eggs with us.  Exhausting.  Here are Matthew and Anna rolling against each other.

Which egg will survive?  We started with 32 eggs and everyone had at least one egg make it into the Sweet 16, except me.  Emma and Anna both had 4 eggs in the sweet 16, but sadly all of Emma's lost in that round and she tried so hard not to cry about it.  Eventually there were tears, but she was a pretty good sport about it for a 5 year old.

The championship ended up being between John and Grant - which I think has happened a couple times before.

And the winner was...John with his egg named Tangerine

John won the big chocolate bunny as a prize.  Grant was disappointed but was also a good sport.

Here's Anna presenting John with his big bunny.  It was a fun Easter weekend.

Happy Easter everyone!!

Birthdays

Grant turned 9 years old this past week.  He is growing up so fast!  He is really into Pokemon these days and wanted a Pokemon themed birthday.  Scott was able to procure some Pokemon items while getting groceries one day.  Grant and Anna put these Pokemon toys together to be cake toppers.  They are Lego like (Mega Construx brand).  Grant and Anna have been playing so nicely together during our isolation.  I thought there would be a lot of fighting at home, but kids have been getting along better than expected, so that's good.

Grant showed me how he wanted his Pokemon arranged on the cake.  Pikachu in the middle.  I have learned a little bit about Pokemon since most of my kids are Pokemon crazy these days.  So I know this is left to right, Squirtle, Charmander, Pikachu, some guy I don't know (I want to say Abra?) and Bulbasaur.  I know the names of a few other popular ones but that's about it.

I made the cake and Anna frosted it for us.  

Grant and Anna arranged the Pokemon on top and Anna put the candles on.

The cake was a team effort.

Scott lit the 9 candles and brought the cake over.

It's an inferno!

We did a Pokemon scavenger hunt where Grant had to go around and find little Pokemon pictures from all over the house.  Once he caught them all he could get his presents.  The kids had a lot of fun finding the Pokemon.

A homemade Pokemon card (made by Emma and Anna).

Some Pokemon gifts

Happy Birthday Grant.  We told him we would do an out of the house adventure some time in the future.  Who knows when that will be.

And here are a few pictures from my birthday which is a few days before Grant's.

We had faux strawberry shortcake, which is just yellow cake with sliced strawberries and whipped cream.

Hooray!  I had a nice birthday in the house.  Scott got Chinese take out and we watched a movie.

Anna made some homemade soaps (wrapped up in this homemade bag).  It was very sweet.

Emma made a birthday Lego Duplo scene for me.

Strange Days

Things have been weird here, as they are everywhere right now.  The kids are doing school from home, Scott is working full time from home.  I'm enjoying the slower pace of things and the fact that I can sleep in every day if I want.  And it is nice seeing Scott more.  So things are ok.  I go out to run on the running path every other day or so and Scott goes out for groceries once a week or so.  Today I got my first ever grocery delivery from Walmart.  They just brought all the groceries I ordered online and left them on our porch.  So convenient.  One day everyone in our neighborhood decorated our driveways with sidewalk chalk.  Here are our kids making some sidewalk chalk creations.

Matthew was proud of this flower he drew

We made a little Candyland board on the sidewalk. Anna made this candy castle at the end of it.

Grant drew Pokemon - a current obsession of his.

John drew some little pictures and a few Pokemon as well

Emma drew a target for me because she thinks I must miss going to Target these days.  

It made me laugh, but she's not wrong.

And speaking of Pokemon, we've been trying to think of activities we can do for family fun while also being responsible about Covid-19 and social distancing.   We went to a few spots near our house to play Pokemon Go one afternoon.  It's an app where you can find Pokemon in the real world by using maps and augmented reality on your phone.  The kids had fun but it drained my phone really fast so we didn't play for very long.  This was back when things weren't so locked down.

More Pokemon Go

 Even more Pokemon Go

Our church is a Pokemon Gym in the game

And speaking of church, its been kind of nice having a little break from church callings.  Our YW president still wanted to have an activity on Tuesday nights.  One Tuesday we all played a game on the new Living app.  She posted something for us to take a picture of and post (For the Strength of Youth themed) within a minute or two of her posting.  The class that had the most posts (one per girl) in the time allotted won.  There were 19 topics from FSY book.  The girls enjoyed it but it was a little crazy.  We have 60+ YW.  Here Anna had to take a pic with someone in her family.

A picture of a musical instrument

A picture of the Book of Mormon

It was a fun activity, but a little crazy.

We spent a little time hanging some pictures on the wall

We don't have any furniture in this room, but we have pictures on the wall

I'm planning to put some family pics on the right, that's why these other ones are off center

Scott and I had been planning to train for a half marathon in May, but that probably isn't happening now because of cancellations and a hip injury I'm dealing with.

We ran 7 miles on this day.  Very tiring.  After a few slightly longer runs than I had been doing all winter, I started having hip pain after I run.  I've had this before, several years ago, when I was wearing more minimalist shoes (shoes with not much cushioning).  The shoes I have been wearing recently are old and even though I had gotten a new pair I haven't been wearing them 'cause they fit weird.  

For years I have worn Nike Air Pegasus for everyday runs and Nike Zoom Vomero for longer runs so I just order them without trying them on.  Unfortunately Nike has changed the shoe so much over the past two seasons that I can't even wear them anymore.  Tears.  So I have a new pair of Nikes that I didn't return in time that don't fit right.  I've been wearing this shoe style for 10 years so I'm bummed that they changed them so much.  Why mess with success?  Those were my shoes.  Anyway, I had to get another pair of new shoes and I couldn't go to a store to try them on because all the sports and shoe stores are closed now.  I researched online a lot and Road Runner Sports has an online fit tool that I have used a bunch to steer me toward good shoes for me.  I have a high arch, roll out (supinate) and like lots of cushioning for long runs.  After researching I decided to order a pair of Adidas Ultraboost and made sure I could return them if needed.  It's not the ideal way to buy running shoes.

My new running shoes came!

Adidas Ultraboost on the left and Nike Zoom Vomero (the weird fitting ones) on the right.  

These shoes are the same size.

They dropped the arch on the Nikes so I had to wear arch support inserts.  Nike also made the toe box on the Vomeros very small with cushioning that comes up under the ball of my foot, making it very uncomfortable for me.  The new Adidas have great arch support and ample room in the toe box - look how much bigger it is up front.  And so much cushioning.  Its feels a little too uncushioiny by the ball of my foot.  The Nikes had way too much, squishing my foot weirdly upward just in that spot, and the Adidas have too little, but I think I can live with it.

So bye Nikes.  I still have the lingering hip pain after each run, even with the new shoes.  That's how these injuries have worked for me in the past.  Once you get the repetitive stress injury, fixing the problem helps a little, but it doesn't magically fix the injury.  So I have to slow down on the running a little bit until it gets better.  

I'm sure that is more than you ever wanted to know about running shoes, but having good shoes is an important part of running life.

It's been warm enough to run outside these days and I am really grateful that I am able to get a run in outside during these crazy times.  Every time over the past few weeks when I've heard about a country or state or area locking down in some way, I always want to know if people are still allowed to go out for a run.  So far that has not been taken away from me.  Mental health wise I feel ok with all the coronavirus stuff.  Lots of things have been taken off my plate, Scott is home all the time and I just do what I can do and try not to worry about what I have no control over.

I've been taking on online class called The Science of Well Being offered by Yale.  I don't always have time to work on it.  I have been keeping surprisingly busy helping 5 kids with their school work, but I can fit in a few minutes here or there.  One of the first activities was to take some online tests.  One was about identifying your strengths.  My top strength was "appreciation of beauty and excellence" which I thought was very funny.  Also I'm not sure if it's actually a strength.  Basically it means I am very moved by beautiful music or art or even an elegant science or math principle.  That is true about me, but I'm not sure this quality helps me in any practical way.  This did made me smile though.  My assignment for the week was to use or exercise my top strengths.  I do this by seeking out and appreciating excellent things.  I listened to some of my favorite music and helped Anna with her math homework.   I have also been reading the kids The Little Prince and I think that counts.

Items that have been absent from the store are starting to come back little by little.  We were able to get flour, sugar and oil, which has been hard to come by.

I've been trying to eat a lot of salads and not stress eat, so I made homemade croutons, which make most salads better.  Find the directions here.

For a while getting normal food was a little challenging.  We made DIY pita pizzas with stuff we already had around the house.  

They were not actually very popular.  Most people ate them out of necessity.  Not all our meals are very fancy these days, but we're trying to be economical with what we have.

We have enjoyed playing bocce ball a lot.  

Ruth and Dana got us a set for Christmas and the kids love playing it these days.

The kids had a bocce tournament and finished (unsurprisingly) in age order.  Oldest got first place etc.  Turns out you get better at things as you get older.  :)

Spending some of our spring break days playing bocce

So much fun!

I thought these few months would be my last with just Emma home with me.  I thought we could spend lots of good Mom and Emma time before summer.  But that is not happening now.  On school days I am very consumed with running from kid to kid helping with things.  The older three kids do a lot on their own,  but John (in 1st grade) needs almost constant help.  Emma needs help with her preschool work too, but she has maybe two little worksheets a day that take her about 5 minutes a piece.  Then she doesn't know what to do with herself for the rest of the day since everyone else is busy.  It's a weird situation for her and I'm trying to figure out how to make it better.  On this day I made her some little reader books.  I've done this with some of my other kids too.  I write a little story with easy to read words and leave a space on each page for an illustration.  Then the kid gets to draw the pictures.  Here are Emma's books.  The titles include, Emma goes to the Zoo, Emma is Queen Elsa (that book was Emma's idea) and Emma is on a boat!  

Emma has made many Duplo creations as well

She writes me many notes and makes lots of drawings throughout the days

Grant is a very conscientious school work doer.  He has always been very motivated to get his work done quickly, which I appreciate.  He usually finishes school work before the other kids and then has time to play quietly without interruption.  He spelled lots of words with the bananagrams on this day.

Each weekday morning we watch CNN 10 (a daily short news program for kids).  One day on CNN 10 there was a short story about marble racing on you tube and how it was getting more views these days since there are no other sports to watch.  We found Jelle's marble racing and have been watching a race or two every morning since.  They are so fun.  They have the marbles race on all different kinds of tracks and really get creative with it.  Each kid has their own favorite marble team now too.  Here we are watching the 5 meter dash.

Matthew roots for Balls of Chaos, Anna likes the Oceanics, Grant likes the Crazy Cat's Eye team, John likes the Thunderbolts and Emma likes Raspberry Racers.

The kids just finished their spring week and we got a couple puzzles done during the week.

Here's one, part way completed, that took us several days.  It had 1000 pieces.

This 500 piece puzzle only took us an afternoon.

This puzzle is of Hannibal, Missouri.  See pictures from our trip to Hannibal HERE.

We got a new chair for our front room.  We have had no furniture in this room for over a year.

And now we have a chair.

Here's John trying to zen out

We daily have to stop him from wiping his peanut butter face on this chair. He eats some kind of toast with peanut butter almost daily and the drippy warm peanut butter gets everywhere.  He's not allowed to go near the chair until he gets checked out and cleaned by mom or dad.

And this lunch has become a pretty regular quarantine occurrence for me.  BLT, sometimes with avocado (which becomes a BLAT?).  I love a BLT but not everyone does it to my liking.  The bread must be toasted just right and there must be mayonnaise on it (or something similar).  Few things sadden me more than a disappointing BLT.  Maybe I'm getting old and particular or maybe I just appreciate excellence in BLT craftsmanship.

And this week we got a new mattress.  This one had been starting to bother Scott's back.  I found myself getting a little sad about saying goodbye to the old mattress.  I bought this mattress in the summer of 2000.  It was one of the first things I bought after graduating from college and getting a new job.  I toted it home from Ikea in the back of my cousin's borrowed pick up truck before I even owned a car.  So it's 20 years old and has been all over the world with Scott and I.  It was a good mattress.   We've had that the whole time we've been married so Scott and I have never purchased a mattress together.  We went to some stores a few weeks ago to sit on a few mattresses and get an idea of what we wanted. 

In the background of this picture you can see an elaborate fort built by Anna and Grant. This was constructed with the cardboard that was wrapped around the big chair when it was delivered.

And today our new mattress came.  Hope it works out!

It's something kind of exciting and novel for these weird days spent at home.

More at home adventures to come.