Annie's birthday

 Annie is 10! She loves having her birthday so close to Halloween, since it's the holiday all about candy and she has such a sweet tooth. Since we weren't doing friend birthday parties this year, we did a two part family birthday party. Part one with all the cousins and adults in the family, then part two when just the girl cousins would stay. She planned the whole evening out. She also decided to decorate her cupcakes as witch hats and pumpkins. They turned out very cute:

For the whole family portion we had a pizza dinner to start things off.

Then we headed inside for a game of pin the eye on the monster, and some candy fishing in place of a piñata. Annie attached the candy while the other kids threw the fishing line over the back of the couch.

Then it was on to presents. She was excited about this shirt that was wrapped up in a huge box (in a smaller box, etc). It says something about just wanting to eat candy and watch cat videos, I think.

She was also very excited about Grandma's gift certificate to Candy World. 

Then it was time for cupcakes and the end of the whole family portion of the party. 

After the cupcakes the boys headed to Todd and Savannah's house while the girls (and Jared, who managed to convince her to let him stay) watched The Greatest Showman. Jared left after the movie was done so he didn't get sucked into any girly games or activities like painting nails. I think they mostly just played some games and watched Studio C, though, and enjoyed staying up late. 

Annie is growing up. She is very responsible, though she also has anxiety that likes to kick in when dealing with germs or a lot of school work. Remote learning, and sometimes the home portion of hybrid learning can be a bit stressful for her when she sees the workload. She always manages the workload in less time than she thinks it'll take, but she would rather just get an assignment at a time than to see them all laid out in front of her at once where it seems so overwhelming. She is a caring girl and notices when those around her are sad or worried and is the first to respond and offer love and try to cheer them up. She is a leader and while that is a good quality she is developing, it can sometimes have its drawbacks. All our children are "leaders"--it is sometimes hard to have so many people trying to be the leader-aka being bossy- at the same time. :) We love seeing her developing her talents and her caring nature and having her in our family. The last few months have been particularly stressful with a lot of change and while it has been tough for her, she has handled it like a champ.

End of October

 Back to school for the last week of October. Routine is always nice. Tuesday night we had a little glasses party to welcome McKenzie to the glasses-wearing club. Those of us who have glasses (even if we hardly ever wear them) got our glasses on for some group pictures.

Wednesday we decided it was time to carve up the pumpkins for Halloween. There was a virtual pumpkin carving contest put on by the primary so we had a deadline of Friday, so we got to work. Annie, McKenzie and Peyton worked together on one pumpkin, using a combo of their design ideas.

Rachel and Megan teamed up, but Megan wasn't keen on getting messy and trusted Rachel's carving skills, so she contributed some ideas that Rachel implemented. Ryan was going to be in their group, but did not like the design idea, so decided to carve his own mini pumpkin from among the mini pumpkins our backdoor neighbor, Joanne had given to us. 

Rachel and Megan's:

Annie, Peyton, and McKenzie's:

Ryan's:

We decorated (instead of carving) the remaining mini pumpkins and put them out front as a family.

On actual Halloween we kept it low key because of COVID. I hope this becomes the new tradition because I enjoyed this Halloween way more than past ones. Rachel dressed up as Samurai X from Ninjago, Ryan was a ninja, Megan a pink witch, and Annie was Luna Lovegood.

We went over to Todd and Savannah's where they had made their house nice and spooky for trick or treating, and all the kids trick or treated at the various bedrooms. 

Then back to our house for more bedroom trick or treating.

We wrapped up the night watching the new animated Addams Family and pigging out on candy. 

It's the day after Halloween and I think Rachel is all the way done with her Halloween candy and some others are coming close. And Ryan and Sammy have hardly touched theirs yet. Halloween at its finest.

Fall break

 Vail's fall break did not overlap with Kenzie and Peyton's fall break, but during their fall break the week before they did some work every morning so they could be done with school early the whole first week of Vail fall break so they could have fun with all the cousins together. It worked pretty well. 

Peyton and McKenzie had started sewing their own skirts during their fall break. We finished the skirts and since we had the sewing machine out Annie decided to make a purse, and Kenzie and Peyton decided to follow suit. More practice with the sewing machine and they are starting to get better at it.

Savannah invited us to join her family on a street car adventure. The street car that runs between the U of A and downtown is free right now because of COVID (I think so no one has to handle dirty cash). So we parked at the LDS Institute at the U of A and hopped on the street car at the stop just down the street.

The kids thought riding backwards, standing up while it was moving, and being able to walk around on a moving vehicle was very exciting.

It was a bit hot, so when we got off to walk around at the Mercado San Agustin some of the kids were ready to get right back on. We eventually got off at downtown to follow some of the walking tour there, but most of my kids were ready to be home, and not interested in walking more, so Savannah continued on, and I took my car full home via the McDonalds drive thru for McFlurries.

McKenzie bought a really cool LEGO set with a dragon. She spent a lot of time putting it together while Rachel and Annie just watched her build. 

There were several afternoons of swimming at Grandma's back yard. The weather during Fall Break continued to be record setting with the latest day that it has hit 100 degrees, so the pool was put to good use by some of the kids.

Puzzles have become a big hit lately. There is always a puzzle being worked on. It makes it hard to use our big whiteboard (I think I know what we're getting for Christmas), but it's good to have something everyone enjoys doing together. 

They'll often turn on a Hank the Cowdog audio book and work for a long time on it. 

We've gone through all of our 300 piece puzzles and are no to our 500 piece puzzles. We'll have to get more soon.

The girls piling up at Grandma's:

Rachel set up this awesome mic stand for Megan's microphone she got from our treasure box. For a couple of days I would walk in on one or more kids singing their hearts out to whatever music they had playing, singing into the mic.

They'll be stars one day.

A screen turns on and everyone flocks to see it. This time it was the Silly Song with Larry: Belly Buttons.

To wrap up Fall Break we decided to go on a very close vacation. Jacob wanted to go some place green, but since monsoon season was a bust this year, and Mt. Lemmon caught on fire, there's not anywhere within 3 hours that is super green. We decided Madera Canyon would be our best bet, so we found a hotel in Green Valley and headed there for an overnight adventure.

Friday Jacob took off from work early and we headed south. Before heading to our hotel we stopped at Tumacácori National Historic Park. With the 4th grade national parks pass it was free to visit (though with Covid, it apparently was free anyway). They had some cool buildings built hundreds of years ago by a mission sent to teach the natives about Christ. 

Some of the kids were super impatient to get to the hotel, so after walking around for a while looking at the church and other buildings we headed to the hotel. The water was super cold, but the hot tub made for a great place to warm up after the kids got too cold in the big pool.

After Chipotle for dinner the kids settled in for movie night at the hotel. We had two adjoining rooms.

We had two adjoining rooms with two double beds in each. Not super spacious, but good enough for one night. And of course the kids loved it. Even Rachel, who normally doesn't like sleeping in a hotel, or anywhere away from her own bed. 

We were up at at 'em early and after a pretty good hotel breakfast we headed up to Madera Canyon. We went on a hike that was a little stressful for some of the kids at the points where we were walking along the side of a steep mountain. The trail was plenty wide to be safe, but seeing the ground dropping off quickly to one side made some of the kids a bit nervous. But we survived.

We did about a mile hike up to the next picnic area where we found an amphitheater. Some of the kids put on a bit of a musical talent show before moving on to climbing a big rock, then hiking back to our original picnic area. 

On the way back we saw two deer, then when we were at the picnic area we saw a squirrel (or maybe a few squirrels), 3 deer including one nursing deer, and some wild turkeys. This inspired Annie, McKenzie and Ryan to build a home for some critters out of rocks and sticks and leaves.

Megan and Peyton explored and had fun off on their own.

Ryan commented several times how much he loves being in nature and that he would like to spend more time in nature. I agree.

On our way home we saw the 3 deer again just down the road. It was a fun trip.

Since we had cleaned the house before we left we were able to come home and veg out watching a movie and playing with cousins for the rest of the afternoon, a perfect way to end Fall Break.

Two more weeks of hybrid learning

 After the first week back to school the COVID numbers in Pima County jumped back up to "red" level, so I worried that they would make us go back to remote learning, but it was all cases at the U of A, so they said we were safe continuing hybrid school. Thank goodness. It has been so nice for everyone to have a step towards a return to normalcy. Even though it's still far from normal.

In July Annie had an allergic reaction to something that caused hives and itchiness for a few days. She's sensitive to a lot of things, but this one was bad enough I decided I'd like to find out definitively what she's allergic to. And the answer is: Tucson.

She had an scratch test with all the top allergens, plus a lot of the fruits that usually cause her face to get red and blotchy after she eats them. She is super allergic to mesquite and palo verde trees, all 3 types of grasses they tested her on, and several other seasonal things. Luckily over the counter meds seem to work fine for her, so we'll just make sure she's on them for the months when those are especially bad. She didn't react to any of the fruits they tested, but the doctor said she probably has Oral Allergy Syndrome, which is basically that her body reacts to raw fruit like it reacts to other allergens. If the fruit is processed at all (cooked, frozen, mashed) it usually changes the proteins enough that the body doesn't react, so getting a scratch test to show is impossible, since you have to process the fruit to make it into a liquid to scratch with. But it's not serious and all she needs to do is be aware of it, and she can either avoid fruits that cause her problems, or keep doing what she has been and rinse off after she eats them, since it mostly just causes itchiness on her face (though apples cause itchiness in her mouth). It's nice to know what exactly is bothering her, even if it doesn't change her behavior much. 

It's a good thing we keep getting more of these blocks. We have 900 of them and the kids get them all out and build with them multiple times each week. 

This is a common sight these days. With the kids using at least one, sometimes more masks each day at school, and of course having some disappear on a regular basis, we have to stay on top of laundry, usually washing masks at least twice a week. I use a lingerie bag to hold all the masks so they don't get lost and so it's easy to get them all after the washing machine to lay them flat to dry, because drying them in the dryer makes them unwearable, coming out crumpled or bent in weird ways.

Usually on General Conference Saturday we take a bike ride on the Julian Wash trail in between the morning and afternoon sessions. But two days before conference Annie's bike snapped it's brakes. Add that to the fact that it is the hottest summer ever and the highs are still hitting 100 consistently even though it's October, and the mid-day bike ride wasn't going to happen. 

Ryan, however, came up with the idea of a fun run. So he organized it and got his cousins and grandma to sign up for it, and put it on in the morning before conference. The route was around 1 or 2 blocks (participants could choose their distance). 

The kids did a great job. Megan came in first (running the 1 block distance) and Sammy came in second (biking the 2 block distance) and both were very happy to get the medals Ryan had prepared out of string and a big button. After the fun run they did the "none run" which involved no running, just biking the same route. Fun was had by all and we had burned some energy to help us sit for hours listening to prophets' voices. 

After a while the kids got a little squirrely (notice Ryan below): 

The did great listening and taking notes and I think we all got something good out of conference. I know it seemed especially applicable as there were many talks about all our trials and how to endure with faith. I'm sure that applies to a lot of people going through COVID-related trials right now, but it felt especially applicable to us right now with the trials and heartaches our family has been confronted with lately.

After conference the kids got around to a craft I thought they would do during conference: making dragon flies. The library had these kits for the kids when we went to check out books earlier in the week, and they all enjoyed making them.

The kids love to gather around Jake when he has the ipad ready to show something funny. They love listening to Hank the Cowdog audiobooks, watching funny videos, or Smarter Every Day videos, or in this case, watching a silly songs with Larry video.

Peyton and McKenzie had fall break last week. Since the rest of the kids have fall break this coming week and the following week, they did a couple hours of work every morning so they can have less work to do this week and have some time off to play with everyone else. They did, however, get to do fun things to make fall break more exciting. Their favorite was playing Beat Saber on Todd's VR set. 

They also learned how to use a knitting loom and got part way through sewing their own skirts. We'll finish this week. 

Thursday we got out some Mad Libs, which everyone thought was hilarious. Afterwards Ryan led everyone in a writing game where everyone writes a sentence or two, then passes their story along to the next person to continue the story with another sentence or two, passing the paper all around the table. By the end everyone has a silly story to read. They all got quite a kick out of it.

Friday afternoon we took the kids out for ice cream to celebrate their hard work for quarter 1. They all deserve it for persevering through such a strange and difficult way of doing school. 

Saturday morning everyone loves the chance to sit around and watch cartoons:

After they watched for a while Savannah invited us to join them to ride bikes to the park. Peyton has been working on her biking skills and seemed ready to join us even though we'd be riding along Rita Road for most of the ride. She did great and proved that she has mastered braking and steering. Yay! 

The kids played at the park for a long time, enjoying the playground a little, but mostly running around playing some boys vs. girls game.

The ride home was hot since it was 90 degrees by then, but we made it. After lunch the girls built the tallest tower ever before heading over to play VR at Todd's house for a while. 

Today we were back at church with the whole ward invited to come. Up until now we had been alternating weeks, half the ward going one week, the other half going the next week based on our last name alphabetically. So today was the first time we've gone with the Grandma and Grandpa and Todd's family since March. Except of course for all the times we did at home church together. It wasn't very full today, but that may be because of Fall break. It sure is nice to be making our way back towards life pre-pandemic, even if it's just in baby steps.