Rodeo break

 Ryan's ELP class got to go on a field trip last week even though field trips aren't actually allowed yet. At least the district busses aren't allowed to be used for them. But there are only 5 kids in his ELP class, so parents were allowed to drive them. We went to Mildred and Dildred's, a toy store, to kick off their toy invention unit. They have very cool toys, though they are pretty pricey. Ryan had a good time.

Since it was Rodeo Break this past week I realized that it is time to get our garden fertilized and up and running. I spent a morning pulling weeds and dead plants and spreading compost and manure. Ryan came home from school and was excited to turn the soil and look for earth worms. 

As long as I was outside I finally remembered to call a landscaper to come out and give a quote for prepping the grass area for new sod. He's booked a couple months out, so we might go with someone else, or we might just wait. With tax returns and stimulus payments, we're using the money for home improvement projects. We also just ordered new blinds to replace the ones that have been here since before we moved in. It'll be nice to have them installed soon.

Karolee invited us to go check out a new playground at Rolling Hills Park. It was a very cool playground, but when we got there it was pretty busy. The kids spent some time playing pickle ball and riding scooters and playing jump rope, and played on the playground, too, when some of the huge crowd left. 

While the kids played, Karolee, Maria, and I chatted. All the time apart and isolated this last year really makes me appreciate when we have time together with friends. 

After the playground we stopped at Candy World for some ice cream before coming home and chilling. Our Rodeo Break wasn't anything all that exciting, but at least we got to see some friends, and have some down time. We have bigger plans for the upcoming Spring Break...

February

The kids returned to in person learning on January 25th. On the second day the kids were back in school we got snow. It was snowing when they woke up so they got ready for school real quick and went outside to play. It barely stuck, but up on the balcony there was enough to make a few icy snowballs.

During school it started snowing again and stuck a little more than earlier in the morning, and since this is a once every couple of years kind of occurrence, the teachers let the kids go outside and play in the snow a little. 

The kids are happy to be back to regular church activities this year. At least mostly. Rachel still only has a couple of young women activities each month instead of every week, but something is better than nothing. Ryan and Annie both have primary activities a couple of times a month. The girls always meet outside a little earlier than they normally would so they can have sunlight because it's safer for COVID times to meet outside and I think their leaders are more cautious. The boys meet at the church at their regular time. So every other Tuesday we have Annie drop off at 4pm, pick up at 5pm, Ryan drop off at 6 pm, Ryan pickup/Rachel drop off at 7pm, and Rachel pickup at 8pm. Luckily we share driving with Todd and Savannah, so it's not so bad.

Last month Ryan's primary activity group made mouse trap cars. Ryan's was the only one that got finished and it worked impressively well. It's a little blurry here, but basically the mousetrap had a dowel attached to it and a string on the end of the dowel wrapped around an axle, so as the mousetrap snapped closed it pulled the string, making it unwind from around the axle, turning the axle and therefore the wheels, making the car move.

Because Annie's class was quarantined the last week before Christmas break they missed their winter wonderland party that they had planned. Once they got back to in person school at the end of January, they finally got to make their own winter wonderland scenes.

Speaking of quarantine, Ryan's class had someone test positive for COVID, so I got a phone call while I was at Peyton and Kenzie's house helping with school saying I needed to come get Ryan because his class was now in quarantine. Thankfully Grandma Knight was available to run over and pick him up while I finished helping the girls. He's been home for a week and a half and gets to go back to in person school this Wednesday.

Rachel has been getting into digital art lately. She bought herself a stylus and researched different drawing apps on the iPad and spends a lot of time creating now. Here are some of her recent pieces. Notice the shading.

I ordered more stackable water containers to increase our water storage. Before I got around to filling them up Megan and Ryan had a lot of fun stacking them like huge legos. 

After having them in our entry way cluttering things for over a week I finally got around to filling them and put them out in the garage, which then snowballed to me cleaning the garage, so now we have more water storage and a cleaner garage. Win-win.

Megan had a lot of wispy hair growing in, so much so that it looked a lot like bangs. I pointed this out and she started begging for bangs, so I gave in after a couple of days. She loves her bangs (despite her "grumpy" face below).

The big water containers came in two huge boxes. Annie decided they'd make a great fort and set to work decorating and constructing. When she had finished it she put a clear cup over a flashlight to make it into a lantern and took a book inside to read for a while. Quite cozy.

We discovered that because of COVID there are many church history sites that are doing live tours via zoom. Because last week we were studying the restoration of the priesthood I set up a time yesterday to join one of the live tours. We invited everyone over to watch with us.

It was nice, but the kids got squirrely after a while. Cool to see what the Hale family home and the Smith's first home would have looked like, though. It would be cool to be able to actually go there someday and walk in the woods and see the Susquehanah River and all.

After the tour we played Drawful2 with all the cousins. They all had a fun time. That game is definitely a new family favorite, though when it's just my kids they always fight over who has to have the phone. We have 3 tablets (2 kindles and an iPad) and those are bigger, and therefore easier to draw on. But they seem to manage well enough. Especially because the name of the game already assumes pretty awful drawings. :) 

Today was Valentine's Day and the kids were happy to receive a few candies and a new cup and mini stuffy. And some stuff from Grandma, too. Shannon even got the kids each a stuffed animal and chocolate. Megan had apparently requested a panda a few weeks ago, and Shannon was all too wiling to comply. She's such a great neighbor and loves our kids so much, and they love her right back. 

More of January

 Remote schooling continued for the last couple of weeks, bringing the total to 3 weeks of remote school. The kids (and I) are eager for hybrid school to start back up tomorrow. Yay!

Some days Annie was able to get her schoolwork done very quickly so she often made or helped with lunch, and was often available to read with Megan or help her with school work when needed. 

It was very helpful and made it possible for me to go help McKenzie and Peyton with their school work on Tuesday and Thursday mornings like I did when my kids were in in-person school. Annie took charge of the alarms, making sure people knew when they were supposed to be on a conference, and the kids did a pretty good job doing their work on their own. I love that their teachers and the district have made it so easy for them to know what to do and to do it pretty much all on their own.

We had a sleepover the Friday night of the long weekend (because of Martin Luther King Jr Day) with all the girls here and all the boys went to Todd and Savannah's house. Annie took charge of the activities, leading the girls in a dance to Shut Up and Dance. 

They practiced more on that Monday, then performed it for everyone.

Sunday we celebrated my birthday. Since I turned 40, my mom decorated in black and got me an over the hill cane and glasses. The cane says "Tease be about my age and I'll beat you with my cane." The kids got a kick out of telling me old jokes and getting hit with the cane. 

Ben made me a special card.

Apparently I'm so fat I weigh 100 pounds. Haha! Love his teasing.

I got lots of wonderful cards from the kids, a new kitchen pot, and some books. And adult diapers from Todd since I'm over the hill. 

Here's Annie's covid birthday card:

Since Monday was a day off of school Grandma and I took the kids for a bike ride then ended it at Candy World for some Thrifty ice cream. Delish.

We biked a bit over 5 miles. The kids are all troopers. 

After our bike ride Kristi Mooney brought me a whole pan of Rice Crispy Treats just for me. And Red Vines. Two of my favorite treats ever. I felt the love.

The kids during remote school:

Peyton got her braces on Thursday so we hosted a braces movie night on Friday with a cat movie just to please her. 

Afterwards everyone was intrigued by her water pick so everyone piled into the bathroom at the same time to see how it works. Perfect gathering place, I guess.

Wednesday was the inauguration of Joe Biden. Savannah invited us over for a inauguration watch party after school so we could see the peaceful passing of the torch (especially after the protests at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago that turned violent). 

Yesterday the weather was beautiful so we went on a hike/picnic in Sabino Canyon with everyone. 

This can be a big waterfall with a river running through it, but since it has rained once since August there was just a tiny bit of stagnant water. Eloise slipped and got wet twice, but other than that we were miraculously spared from any major falls into the water.

A picture of all the kids and Grandpa.

The best thing to come out of the inauguration was the picture of Bernie Sanders in his mittens trying to stay warm. It has turned into a meme sensation this week with so many people inserting him into photos. It is hilarious. So of course we had Bernie join us on our hike: 

Now we get to get back to a little more normalcy with the kids back at school starting this week. Rachel and Annie both are torn because they do like remote school, but also want to go back. They may just come down with a "cough" in a week or two when they're ready for a couple of weeks of quarantine (aka working from home). 

Back to school (kind of)

 After a very nice and relaxing Christmas Break the kids started school back up last Monday. Because there have been spikes in number of COVID cases, and therefore the number of classes needing to quarantine, 3 weeks after Fall Break and 3 weeks after Thanksgiving, our school district decided to do remote learning for 3 weeks to avoid having as many classes needing to quarantine. And with Marie working every night because one of her co-workers had to quarantine for 2 weeks, we had her girls here doing school with us last week, too. It went very smoothly. Megan had 2 days where it was rough to get back into the swing of things and she just wanted to be back at in person school, but she adjusted, and with the promise of 5 extra minutes of reading time at bedtime if she had a good attitude for school, she was great. 

This time around there are more online conferences with the kids' teachers, so the schedule is a little crazy to keep track of--I have 25 alarms set on my phone during school hours. Some are for every day, some just for M/W or T/Th, or a few that are just for one day. The kids have figured out things pretty well, so I think when I have to take Ryan to an appointment this week they'll be fine as long as I have alarms reminding them when it's time to get on. I so appreciate all the kids' teachers and the school district's efforts to make this an effective teaching tool. My kids are doing great, but will be happy to get back to in person learning in 2 more weeks. 

Online learning does make for more time to play games and have free time (both online and offline). The new games everyone got for Christmas have been put to good use. 

Megan has used some of her free time when she gets done with her work before anyone else to work on puzzles. Or sometimes to go outside and play, or even go over to Grandma's house to hang out for a while. 

Ryan loves online free time. He is allowed chunks of 15 minutes if he gets all his work done and still has time before his next conference. He discovered code.org this week and has loved playing around with it, creating his own program with Minecraft to have a herd of sheep follow him around, while zombies or something chase the sheep trying to kill them. He was excited to show B when he came over one day after he was done with his school work.

However, the pull of free time is a little too strong for Ryan sometimes and he's lost the privilege once already for continuing to play after his 15 minutes was up. 

Last night Rachel and Jacob and Jared got to listen to a special youth devotional for the Tucson area youth with Elder Renlund and a couple other general authorities and their wives. I got to hear the last half after I got the other kids put to bed and it was great. They did some Q&A with the youth able to text their questions or concerns. I'm grateful that technology is allowing spiritual experiences to continue even when there is limited travel and limited gatherings. Vaccines are rolling out and this week the teachers in the district should be getting them. Every step is one closer to returning to life as normal. 

Christmas Break

 We had a very relaxing Christmas break. The weather was cold some mornings but always warm enough to be outside at some point during the day, though some days we actually did need jackets (50s is still decent winter weather when we consider the alternative farther north). 

Savannah invited us to go on a short hike at Saguaro National Park (thanks 4th grade Parks pass). We stopped for McDonalds for lunch and enjoyed a short hike on the nature trail. And by short, I mean less than half a mile. Luckily they had several benches along the paved trail to rest if we got tired.

The best part was that the trail was right next to a wash, so the kids could dig in the dirt without messing with the trail or the eco-balance because whenever it rains enough the water coming through the wash will just wash the sand back in place. All the kids dug, but Ryan and Sammy were the hardest to pull away from their hole.

They thought this dead tree was pretty cool for climbing on. 

That night (December 21st) was The Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. Savannah made wassail and we made chocolate covered pretzels and went out to the Julian Wash Trail to look at the planets (and other stars) through Todd's telescope.

 Jacob also took some photos with his fancy camera. The pictures of the planets didn't turn out great, but he got some good star pictures. 

There was a lot of reading happening this break. Nothing better than curling up with a good book to relax with.

I am not incredibly diligent about working out, but our workout group continues via zoom for now, and that is often the only thing that keeps me in shape at all. (And biking the kids to school every morning when they are actually going to school.) I convinced the kids to join me on a 2 minute wall sit at the end of my workout a couple of days before Christmas. They all did pretty well. Though I'm not sure how low they were sitting....

Our neighbor, Joanne, brought over a gingerbread house for our family. She loves that we decorate her driveway with sidewalk chalk, and Annie learned how to make these fancy snowflake/stars (seen below) and taught Rachel, so they hung one on Joanne's door the last time we went to chalk her driveway. She wanted the kids to have some fun, so she brought us this gingerbread house to make.

It didn't last too long before the kids were ready to devour it. Or at least eat the candy and a bite or two of gingerbread for good measure. A decent lunch, I guess? (Standards are relaxed over Christmas Break.)

Christmas Eve of course brought our traditional acting out of the Nativity. It was a lot more reverent than last year. The kids didn't fight over who got to be whom, and they weren't trying to take baby Jesus from each other, so it was great.

Note, Rachel is wearing a graduation cap because she's a wise guy man.

After the Nativity we had the cousin gift exchange. It was great. The kids really put thought into the gifts they got each other and they all turned out really nice. 

After the cousin gift exchange McKenzie and Peyton stayed at Grandma's since Marie had to go to work that night, so Santa went to Grandma's house to drop off their presents. We went home and the kids opened their pajamas that they get every Christmas Eve.

They watched a little Christmas movie, then went to bed and slept pretty well for Christmas Eve. We even had to wake Ryan up at 6:45 or 7 when we woke up Jacob. 

Before the chaos began Christmas morning:

During/after:

The kids were thoughtful in the gifts they gave to each other. Rachel got Annie a whole roll of bubble wrap. (And a box of candy wrapped inside.) When I took Megan shopping it was gratifying to see her thinking about what everyone would really love. She was so excited: "Oh, Ryan will just love this! Do you think Annie would want this? I think everyone really would love a stuffed animal so I'll get one for each of them!" The dollar tree sure lets a six-year-old's allowance go pretty far. She was able to buy several items for each of them. It was a real manifestation of the spirit of Christmas, thinking of how to make others happy.

Ryan's favorite gift was his robot. He built it with help from Dad, then didn't stop playing with it for two days straight. And still plays with it often. It has several modes: avoiding obstacles, controlled by a remote, following a black line, or programming it through an app on my phone. Hours and hours of fun have been had.

One of Rachel's top gifts was her bow and arrow set. Since reading the Ranger's Apprentice series she has wanted a bow and arrow. This nerf one is great and no one has gotten injured, even before her aim improved. :) 

Megan's favorite gift was the gymnastics bar Santa brought. She spends so much time doing flips on that thing. It's a little iffy with heavier kids (since it really is just meant as a pull up bar), but it works great for her.

I think one of Annie's favorite gifts was some art supplies. She got water colors and air dry clay and has created a lot of great pieces in just a week and a half.

Super cute penguin family created by Annie:

After all the gift fun at home we headed to Grandma's for Christmas dinner and presents from the grandparents. 

The kids all got new hooded towels, and the girls got a sketch book and pencil box with supplies, and an RC car that actually goes on walls/sliding glass doors for the boys. 

Grandma also got a hair chalk kit. We all piled into her bathroom to try out some colored hair.

Most everyone got in on the hair coloring fun, except Ryan and Jared. 

Rachel did not enjoy the texture of her hair with chalk, so it won't be a regular thing for her, but maybe for the next crazy hair day. 

The day after Christmas we went to the park to play kickball and throw around the football for a while. 

We all got puzzles from Santa, and we also got a new puzzle board. So we've been working on puzzles quite a bit. Ryan and I and Jacob especially are enjoying them.

The kids pigging out on chips and salsa: 

Ryan has been living it up over break spending hours playing with Sammy and Ben. They spend a lot of time at Grandma's and at Todd and Savannah's but they also occasionally come over to our house to take advantage of our laser guns, or other fun.

Todd and Savannah hosted a New Year's Eve party. Pizza and show started off the night, then we went to the wash by Grandma's house to use sparklers and fireworks. 

We were ringing in the new year with Greenland so we didn't have to stay up until midnight for the younger kids.

After fireworks we went back to Todd and Savannah's house to whack 2020 out of this world. In piñata form. 

I told the kids that the piñata was empty inside to represent the emptiness we feel in our hearts after this year of COVID and isolation and the disappointment they'd feel over finding nothing inside would remind them of the disappointment of the things they missed out on this year because of everything that shut down. :D 
Lucky for them Savannah was the one who stuffed the piñata and she actually put happy things inside (though no candy because they had already overdosed candy (and screens) in the week since Chrsitmas). I suppose that represented the happiness we found by spending more time with family--though COVID could have left us feeling empty, our family filled our hearts and lives with happiness despite the trials we went through. :) 

Really, I don't think the kids were philosophizing over the piñata at all. Just happy to whack it and get a mini Lego set and squishy. 

After the piñata we enjoyed a few games: fake artist and Poetry for Neanderthals (the new favorite in our house).

After a few games we headed home to let any kids who were ready for bed go to sleep. For the first time ever we actually let any kids who wanted to stay up until midnight. Ryan ducked out at 10:15, Megan stayed up until It's a Wonderful Life finished around 10:45, then the other girls stayed up until midnight watching The Sound of Music (which we had to finish the following day because midnight was late enough). They all slept in a decent amount the next day, and this morning I had to go wake up most of the kids at 7:30 to get ready for church (we have 9:00 church now, yay!) and to make sure they'd be able to fall asleep tonight and get back on a regular schedule waking up for school. I feel like this break we have finally reached the sweet day where the kids can actually sleep in. There were several days when no one was up before 7am which has always been unheard of. No matter how late they stayed up they'd be up by 6 or 6:30 at the latest. Rachel has been sleeping in for a while, but the others are just barely catching on to the joys of sleeping in. What a nice Christmas present. :) 

Megan was bummed that her class didn't make snowmen like Ryan and Annie did in 1st grade. With no volunteers to help, and a shorter day for hybrid learning I'm sure it was just a project that was too much to take on this year. So before they headed back to school Megan and I managed to cut a piece of wood to her same height and make a snowman to remember how tall she was in 1st grade. 

Now we're back to school starting tomorrow. Remote learning for 3 weeks to let everyone who caught COVID over Christmas break develop symptoms and quarantine themselves without having to quarantine the whole class. Marie has to work every day this week (and last) because someone at work has COVID so they're covering hours, so her girls will be out here doing school. That'll actually be easier than doing school in at their place. Three weeks then hopefully back to hybrid learning. Here we go!