Blonde bombshell

Natalie is looking pretty darn grown up these days. With her long blonde hair and blue eyes I think we might be in big trouble when the boys start coming around any day now.

Finished

Jules started this paint by number project the first week of the COVID shutdown here and finished it the other day.  So now you know what it takes to finish one of these...about 15 weeks of being home bound.

Father’s Day

Father’s Day happened to land on Cameron’s birthday this year. So we got to celebrate both our boys on the same day. Later in the day we headed up to Marysville to celebrate with Grandpa. Gratefully for all these boys in my life.

Birthday boy

SEVENTEEN!

Seventeen sounds old! 

If he is old what does that make me? Crazy, how time flies by. 

Cameron wanted to go to Parkland Putters on Saturday for his birthday.  It was a good time. At least one person cried and I got hit in the face with a golf club by Lucy. The weather wasn’t cooperating and it rained on us but all in all it was a typical Seattle day with some good ole family competition.  For the record Mitch and I beat them all. 

Cameron requested this sweatshirt for his birthday.  We knew that it was gong to take awhile with everything going on to get it.  We ordered it through what turned out to be a bad company.  After waiting and waiting for it to arrive and his birthday days away we realized it was never coming. We then ordered it through another company, using a very expensive express shipping so that we would get it here on time.  It arrived two days before his birthday and because ya know how it goes, the original one arrived the next day.  He now has two custom, non-returnable sweatshirts.  Lucky for him that his parents love him, a whole lot. $$$

Happy birthday Cameron!  We do sure love you.

The end.

I feel like the school year ended with a fizzle. No parties, field days, year book signings (in fact 3 of my 4 kids still haven’t gotten them yet, all due to Covid 19). No field trips, award ceremonies, you get it as the list goes on. Online ended sort of as abruptly as it started. Tomorrow is officially the last day with one last 9 am Zoom meeting.

Today the elementary school had a teacher parade to end the year. They had one at the beginning of this whole mess and now ended the year with one. It was very cute. A few days ago we had to go to the elementary school to drive up and pick up all Lucy’s school supplies. I guess I didn’t do a very good job of explaining about what was going on because Lucy thought she was going into her classroom to retrieve her things, see her classroom one last time and say good bye to her teacher. She almost started crying when I told her what was really happening. She didn’t cry but it sure made me cry. We are crossing all fingers and toes that we will be able to go back this fall.

Getting ready for the parade.

She made the cutest sign for her teacher but I didn’t get a picture of it. Today is garbage day and the recycling came before I got a picture of it!

We made this cute little planter for her teacher that we will drop off at her house tomorrow.  I won't even tell how I almost lost my mind trying to find a wood yardstick and then find one without a bunch of words written on it.  Not so easy.  But just like most crafts, I find that even when it looks simple I find a way to make it difficult.  Good thing I don't craft often!

So long school year and frankly good riddance!  I now have a SENIOR!!!!  How is that even humanly possible???

Million Dollar Smile

Well maybe not a million dollars but after I finish braces with all of my kids I will have paid almost that to the orthodontist.

This guy got his braces off! Only about 12 weeks late due to the orthodontist closing but HEY!

He might have the straightest teeth ever.

Just because life is just that kind, he chipped his front tooth the other week. The mold was taken with the chip. The orthodontist was nice to smooth it out but I think it still might need a little more smoothing as it is rough in a spot. Well 2 down, Natalie is up next! 

Ghost town

Took a trip into Seattle to attend a Black Lives Matter Protest.

Ha, can you imagine?
 Not quite.

We have taken to family drives to pass the time on Sundays. Since we don’t take the kids to stores they love getting in the car and go for a drive just to get out. And let’s be honest, the kids are just hoping that they won’t have to go to bed any time soon.

Downtown was eerily quiet. No sports happening and no cars or people on the streets. It was nice to see that the city isn’t burning down like the news portrays. Saw freaks, people in masks and we even went to Mitch's office. We saw people walking to a protest but it was pretty calm. We didn’t drive down to the Autonomous Zone. Felt like maybe that wouldn’t have been too responsible with a car full of kids.  😳

Our goats

Today we had some mandatory family fun. 

  

Some of us had more fun than others

 Sometimes it is hard to be 14 almost 15. But I dare say it is harder to be the parent of the said 14 almost 15 year old.

Jello vote

Ever since we started having home church, we have been making Jello each Sunday for dinner. This has turned into having a Jello vote each week of what flavor of Jello we are going to make. It consists of multiple rounds of voting and a spreadsheet. Mitch is the administer of the Jello vote, so this should be no surprise to anyone. It is quite the voting process. This weeks winner was lemon. Poor black cherry can’t ever get out of the first round of voting. We definitely have an impressive amount of Jello flavors to choose from.

13 weeks

This is the start of week 13 of not going to school.

13 weeks... 13 weeks!

That is forever. Summer vacation is only 10 weeks long.

Last week I started to see long faces, long hours of tv watching, and fighting. I thought what is going on? We have been doing okay. Then I realized how long it had been. Ya know the last week of summer when the kids are ready to go back to school after 10 weeks? This was that week. We hit our limit but we haven’t even started our summer vacation yet. School officially ends next Friday. I am so over Zoom Meetings and ridiculous busy work. I have no idea what we are going to do to fill the time though. King County is still in Phase 1.5, whatever the heck that is supposed to mean. EVERY SINGLE summer activity was cancelled with no end in sight. This might be the longest year of our lives. I think I need someone to call me a Whambulance.

Good thing a GIANT box from Amazon came. (The item was like only a fourth the size of the box.) But now we have a “car” in our house.  “Yay”

Some days...

I don’t have too many blonde moments but man today was a doozy.

Our trampoline has been in need of some TLC, so the other day we took down the net surrounding it and I ordered a new safety pad.  Our old one pretty much disintegrated over time.

Today the new pad arrive. I thought, no problem I will put this baby on. There wasn’t any instructions because, hello you just place the thing on and tie it down. Except I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. I am going to blame the fact that my back is so bad that I have to walk around half hunched over. That really isn’t an excuse but I am going to go with it. 😅

I ended up calling the trampoline company and asking the guy what the heck I was doing wrong. After a lovely conversation and two pics I sent to him, I found out that I had the mat upside down. Yeah....

After turning the thing the correct side up, I then tied the thing down. It took forever with a bad back and a lot of ties. When I came to last tie I realized that I didn’t fasten the two sides together first and they wouldn’t go together. I then had to untie all the ties, fix the problem and then re-tie them.

Oh my goodness!! I seriously was having a blonde moment.  I think I should pretend that this never happened! Well after waaayyy longer than it should than taken, the trampoline has a new pad in place, I am slightly without my dignity and the trampoline guy can have a good laugh in his way home about the idiots he has to deal with.