Saturday lunch excursion

Today I told the girls if they helped me clean the house that I would take them to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Normally I wouldn’t reward them for something like this but the house was filthy and my back is not cooperating so a deal was struck. A few take always from going there in the pouring rain:

1- You need to take out a small loan to pay for four people to eat there.
2- That place is always busy and the parking lot is a total joke.
3- This might be the most embarrassing thing I have seen in quite some time. Julia said, “ well, I don’t want to get a job there anymore.”  Not sure how much these kids are being paid but it might not be enough. What is the going price for dignity?

Also it is Tate’s birthday today. The kids have been talking about it for weeks. Happy 3rd birthday Mr. T! 

🎵 If I had a hammer 🎶

Mitch is doing some backyard remodeling. The sandbox was a hot mess and with the kids ages that they are, we decided not to fix it but to remove the whole thing. Durning the excavation, Mitch and Cameron found a bunch of buried treasures, one of which was Cameron’s hammer. He got it for Christmas when he was two. Cam LOVED his hammer. In fact the year he got it for Christmas it was a Sunday. He insisted on bringing it to church with him. About 10 minutes into the meeting Cameron got mad and threw his hammer like 3 pews up and hit someone. Ahh...the memories. 

But in reality when I saw his hammer, I got got a little nostalgic. 

This guy. 

Where is the time going?

 I also found this picture of Cameron and his cleans. Remember those?  Ha ha. Just your typical toddler watching tv while holding a can of Lysol. 

Summer

Natalie has this hanging in her room. I think that it sums up summer nicely. 

With the 80° days we have been having we are starting to feel summer coming. It is all a big tease though because the forecast has rain and 60° days ahead. I think I will be dreaming of road trips and ice cream tonight. 

Mixie Pixie Cleaning Spray

The girls came up with another video.  This time they enlisted the help of Julia.  

Natalie's Flamingo

Natalie got this flamingo two Valentine's Days ago.  She loves him.  

She has taken the liberty of dressing him up for different holidays.  Today she changed his outfit.

I love this silly, creative girl!

These are the good ole days

Sometimes I like to say I’m living the dream. I think this text proves it:

Just an idea

Yesterday we were reading in 3 Nephi chapter 6 verse 30. As we finished up the chapter we all started laughing. I mean...it says so in the scriptures:

Oh. My. Word.

Natalie came down with hives the other day. No biggie I thought, Benadryl would clear that up. Except that it didn’t. I put in a call to her doctor and in the mean time the hives went away. Then they showed back up in FULL force. Her hives took a turn for the worse so much that I rushed her to the urgent care. The nurse gave her a shot in the butt and said that she took it like a champ. Better than most adults. Super, super painful. Last night the hives seemed to have calmed down but then in the middle of the night showed back up.  It has been a rocky few days but we think we have finally got rid of them.  No idea why or what she got into, but so glad they are gone.  She was absolutely miserable. We are SO SO SO glad that we don't have to wear a mask very often.  They are impossible.

Little Miss Muffet's Blueberry Tuffets

In math, Natalie is learning about width, depth, weight etc.  So for an assignment the teacher asked them to create a cereal and they had to find all the dimensions of the box and to be honest I am not really sure what else.  But what I do know is that Natalie created this cereal for the assignment...Little Miss Muffet's Blueberry Tuffets.  As an optional part of the assignment it said to create a commercial of the cereal they created.  While I was at work Natalie and Lucy made this.  I was laughing and laughing when Natalie showed me what they did.  Seriously, it is the best and they made it themselves with no adult help.  Currently the girls are making a new new video of a made up product.  Stay tuned!

The final production!

The making of the video...
They had cue cards and everything!

Love at first sight

Look what arrived today!! After 17 1/2 years we upgraded our dying washer and dryer. This is going to be a game changer for me. 😍😍

You don’t say...

Today Lucy received this post card in the mail. We all got a good laugh. Normally each month the school gives out awards for kids that are showing "future ready skills" such as "collaborative teammate, community contributor, conscientious worker, quality producer, etc"

I mean what kind of award are you going to earn in an online learning situation other than self-directed learner?  HA   No kidding self directed, how about self-taught at this point.

Julia decided to make herself an award for being a self-directed learner also.  She pointed out that this was a better award than Lucy's because she earned it for March and April.

On a serious note, Lucy is the most self-directed learner that I have met.  She has a little schedule I made for her and each day when I get home from work she tells me how she has done everything for the day and that she doesn't need any help from me.  She loves schedules and is all business. 

Unicorn for the day

For school today Lucy had to watch a video about if unicorns are real and if they existed once. She then had a few tasks to do with the assignment and then at the end of the assignment had some optional things to do. One was to act like an unicorn for the day. She immediately said that was what she wanted to do. Apparently she has taken her unicorn assignment quite seriously because Natalie came downstairs complaining to me “Mom, can you tell Lucy to open the door herself she keeps neighing at all the doors she wants to come into. I’m sick of opening the door for her.” Well... what can I say a unicorn can’t open doors apparently!

The sun came out...

Today, the sun came out! The girls have been enjoying the beautiful weather.

 Tate is also enjoying the weather.  He is a funny guy. He doesn’t like going outside much in the winter. Too cold for his taste, but when the weather warms up he only wants to be outside.

Cameron was lucky enough to have a friend invite him to Eastern Washington this weekend. His friend has a boat and a vacation rental on a private lake.
Take that Inslee.
We are all pretty much jealous, well some more than others.

My back has been giving me serious problems the last few weeks. Spent some time at the dr.’s with a mask and everything. Now on some heavy meds hoping to fix the extreme pain. I now have a major limp while walking that I am trying to convince my kids is just my cool swagger. I have been trying some strengthen exercises I found online that use different objects. I told Mitch that I feel like one of those monkeys you see that the zoo with random balls, sticks, and whatever lying around in their cages.

My new Hooters

Meet my new birds. Do, Re, Mi

Fa, Sol, La

And my not so new bird:

Ti-do

Thanks Kara!!!

Crushed

Want to know what it looks like when your spirit has been crushed? This. Natalie has been so optimistic since the beginning of all this bad news. When school was closed for 6 weeks, she made a paper chain counting the days till she could go back. Then the governor extended the date. No biggie she added on to her chain. Then school was cancelled. Natalie’s optimism still won out. She made her chain to count down the days till the premier of Amazing Race on May 20th. Then yesterday CBS announced that they were going to delay the premier till a later date with no date given. I think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I found her chain crumpled up in the recycling. When I asked her about it she said, “there isn’t anything to count to anymore, everything has been cancelled.”  Sort of feels this way with all summer plans cancelled and the governor pushing back the stay at home order till the end of May now. With a 4 phase  reopening plan that will take us till some time this fall to see anything normal return. It’s hard to watch the crushing of spirts. Here’s to better days ahead!