We're Alive!!!

And we are back among the living!

We went to church yesterday-- leading the primary in singing time was a bit rough because my voice is not quite all there yet.  But I got through it.  And I get to swing by the nursery and spend a few minutes doing singing time with the 18-month-olds, which is just hilarious-- they have NO CLUE what's going on, and the whole thing just cracks me up.  It will be fun seeing how fast they catch on!

And today I got up at 5am and did my FiA workout even though it was 19 degrees outside!  I brought my wussy 2 lb. weights because I was worried about keeping up, but I felt great the whole time and I'm thinking I would have been okay with my usual 8-pounders.  I'll go whole hog Wednesday.

The kids all went to school today!  It's the 31st of January and this will be the second day of the month where I'll have a house with no kids in it for a few hours.  The second day!!!!  I'm so excited for there to be a few hours where my kitchen isn't being covered in toast crumbs, goldfish crackers, that crackly dried egg white stuff, or splashes of milk...  A clean kitchen is the best thing ever.  

And I will run errands and get stuff done without dreading what the house is going to look like by the time I return.

Heaven.

It's good to be back!

7 out of 7

Kendra's third test was positive!  We officially managed to ALL get Covid AT THE SAME TIME!!!

This is great for so many reasons.  First of all, just the obvious one-and-done-ness of it all.  But also, with all the isolating you're supposed to do if you're a close contact (and I really couldn't separate us out enough for anyone in our home to not be a close contact), I just really didn't want to ever have to mess with that.  Craig's boss has had to quarantine her children three times and they keep not actually having Covid.  If you're stuck going that route, you've made the cure worse than the disease.  We never had a close contact until we actually got it, and then we all just had it.  Bam.  Done.

When our pediatrician called with Kendra's results, I sounded so excited she must have thought I was insane.  BUT.  This also means that now we can upload all our positive tests to the Disney Cruise website and we won't have to be tested again in order to get on the boat.  I'm sure there are a million other things that might go wrong, but this was one big scary aspect of the trip that we no longer have to worry about!

Seriously, my friend who just went on a Disney Cruise said that everyone has to be tested and then you sit, huddled in a tent, constantly reloading your phone, waiting for your results.  As families got the email clearing them to board the ship, they'd all start hugging and crying.  She said it was like the Hunger Games.  

I'm so excited to NOT go through that.  And without Kendra's test, my biggest fear was that she would randomly test positive a month later and we'd all be sunk.  So to speak.

Anyway.  When we got our fourth positive, Craig and I looked at each other and shivered in excitement.  And he phrased it perfectly: "This is like when you're playing hearts and you decide to try and shoot the moon!"

We did it.  We shot the moon!

This'n'That-- Covid Edition

-We got two more positives on our Covid tests, so now we're 6/7.  Kendra has tested negative twice.  Third time's a charm?

-Bentley was explaining to us that he'd read somewhere that lemons were a hybrid of two other plants.  To prove it, he began googling on his phone, "lemon...  parents..."  This kid is totally ready for college.

-Craig got me the series The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion for Christmas and they have been THE perfect thing to read right now.  I absolutely love them and cannot recommend them enough to you.  The only bad thing is that I just finished volume 4, and after doing some internet sleuthing, it appears that the series does NOT end with volume 5, so once I read that one, I will be stuck waiting until the 6th volume gets published.  Which will be torture.  But worth it!

-Bentley did finally find some information on lemons and began reading to us that they were indeed created by humans a couple thousand years ago.  To which he said (horrified), "LIFE DIDN'T GIVE US LEMONS, WE DID!!!!  WE DID IT TO OURSELVES."  And I'm still laughing over this.

-I'm very impressed and grateful with all the help our friends and neighbors have offered.  I've gotten so many texts asking what can be done to help us and I appreciate every single one of them.  I've only actually taken up two friends for that help (Adam, who brought us the biggest, most delicious pot of chicken soup ever, plus a gallon of milk and a carton of sour cream-- he is a true friend; and another couple just brought us dinner tonight-- it was so kind of them).  And we figured out how to have groceries delivered today, so that was also great.  I don't particularly like being on the receiving end for help.  But I do like feeling so loved and like there is help out there if I need it.  

-I've spent the last couple months loving the two newest Taylor Swift albums and listen to them almost constantly.  And also the ten-minute version of "All Too Well."  It's incredibly embarrassing to my children.  Another song I really like is "No Body No Crime."  The other day, I was singing along to it while I cleaned the kitchen.  Right as I was wiping down my counters, it was the line, "and I've cleaned enough houses to know how to cover up a scene" and I looked Craig in the eye and then laughed maniacally.  It was a beautiful moment.  I think it's good to keep your husband just slightly afraid of you.

-I'm feeling much better today, which is wonderful.  I still have to cough occasionally, but other than that, I feel fine.  Huzzah!  But.  I'm also EXHAUSTED.  So tired it's embarrassing.  And, I'm also less and less patient with my children's bickering.  This is going to be a long week.  I think I will have to banish everyone to separate rooms for long periods of time each day...  If you can bicker even when watching TV, something is seriously wrong.

-Speaking of TV, yesterday we finally started watching the whale documentary on Disney+.  They released it RIGHT after we canceled our subscription, which was awfully mean of them.  Yay for killer whales!  

It Finally Happened

The Sunday after our temple trip it snowed again, so we were all ready to hunker down for more snow days.  And then, when we got up that morning, Ryder said he didn't feel good.

Cue the scary music.

We'd had Noah in our home for several hours Monday through Thursday and he'd tested positive Friday morning, so I knew there was a chance someone would get it finally.  And here we were.

We enjoyed our snow days.  Colton and Camille played outside a TON with Sydney, but we didn't let anyone go inside while we waited to see if it would spread.  We also finally got Disney+ again and have enjoyed watching Encanto and Luca.  It's been fun family time.

And I used the time at home (and not watching a 2-year-old) to make my favorite rolls and soup.  I got the best rise out of those rolls yet and was so pleased I had to take a picture!

Letting it rise above a running dishwasher is another great warm location!  I let the towel hang down over the door so it captures any escaping steam.

So we enjoyed our snow days while constantly asking if our throats were tickling or we were just being hypochondriacs.  On Wednesday I got my first ever call from a school nurse informing me that Ryder had a close contact with a classmate who had now tested positive, so that also didn't bode well for whatever he was sick with.  Now we knew he'd been doubly exposed.

And suddenly between Wednesday and Thursday everyone was sick!  Sore throats, coughing, aching, a couple fevers, and just generally feeling icky.  As of Friday night, we have four positive tests (Ryder, Bentley, me, and Camille) and the other three have pending tests.  But we all have pretty much the same symptoms, so I think it's safe to assume we all have Covid.  We'll be fine-- no one is going to need to be hospitalized.  It's like any other time when your whole family catches some bug and you're miserable for a week or so.

Part of me is just fine with this.  I'm surprised we managed to avoid it for so long, quite frankly.  And school was closed for the snow Monday-Wednesday, and then had a late start Thursday for the snow and a half day on Friday for the teachers, so we have the double bonus of not missing very much school AND my kids who still seemed healthy earlier in the week didn't go to school and spread the virus more.  They'll all be home for this coming week, too, but it's only going to be a three-day school week, so, again, they aren't missing nearly as much school as you would expect.

So that's good.

We were supposed to leave on our Disney cruise on Monday and clearly that's not happening, which is a bummer (this is the same cruise that was supposed to happen a year ago).  But we've rescheduled it for February, so this isn't tragic.  And to be very honest: we've spent the entire week thinking the odds of us getting on that ship were pretty slim, so if it had turned out to NOT be Covid and we all recovered fast and were able to go after all, I would have missed out on all the fun anticipation and would have felt slightly cheated.  So I'm fine with delaying all the fun for another month.  

What I'm actually the most irritated about is the fact that I feel like we've followed all the Covid rules and we still all got sick anyway.  We're all fully vaccinated.  We've been very diligent about wearing masks in public.  My poor kids are stuck wearing masks all day in school, not allowed to speak while they eat their lunch, can't go within three feet of their friends.  And we got it anyway.

I'm done with all these stupid rules and shots if they don't do any good any way.  Once we're all healthy and able to go out in public again, I'm not wearing a mask unless it's full on required.  I'm going to be that crazy parent fighting against school masks.  Why are we torturing everyone if it didn't do any good anyway???  Seriously, what was the point?

Anyway.  My throat hurts like crazy and I'm grumpy.  Maybe I'll change my mind once I'm feeling better.  

On a happier note, all I ever want to do in January is stay inside where it's warm.  I guess I'm finally getting my wish.

Busy Week in the Middle of January

My kids were home from school for an entire snowy week, and then the week they went back to school, I was busy babysitting the whole time!  My neighbor's nanny decided to go home for Christmas for a month, so she'd asked if I could fill in for one of those weeks.  So I had Zevi all day, and then I would get his big brother Noah off the bus with my kids and we'd all hang out for a few hours until one of their parents were done at work.

It was lovely to make some money and Zevi and Noah are really great kids, but this did confirm to me that I'm not particularly interested in nannying full time!  I missed being able to do whatever I wanted with my day and NOT having to deal with a 5-point harness!

I'd planned on just staying home and not going to any stores at all while I had Zevi, but then the forecast had another snow storm coming Sunday (this time they were predicting 12 inches, although we only ended up with 3) so I couldn't wait until Monday to do my shopping after all.  So Zevi got to come to Costco with me!  And he was great-- I set him to work buckling the kid safety harnesses and he was happy the entire time!  I also got to take him to his little gymnastics class, which was a nice opportunity for him to climb on everything.

The hardest thing about babysitting was the mornings.  I had to do my usual stuff getting all my kids ready to go to school, but I also needed to find time to get myself all showered and ready before Zevi got dropped off.  It was a lot to fit into a little amount of time, and I found it very stressful.  After school was also tricky since EVERYONE wanted to talk to me, and I really can only hear one person at a time.  This is hard with just my three elementary school kids (and frequently leads to fighting and crying over whose turn it is to tell mom about their day), so adding two more kids who also wanted my attention did not go very well.

But we did our best.

But I have to admit, I was not disappointed when Rachel had to cancel on me for Friday (because Noah had tested positive for Covid) and I could run around getting everything done that I hadn't been doing all week.  I cleaned house, I ran a whole bunch of errands that were all super easy to do if you don't have to buckle and unbuckle a 2-year-old at every stop.  It was nice to be able to get stuff done and feel all ready for the coming weekend.

Because....!  Saturday we were taking our three oldest kids to the temple!  In North Carolina!  Tom and Donna came and babysat Colton and Camille all day long, and we drove and drove and drove.

Unfortunately, because we had extra people driving with us, Craig insisted we all wear masks the whole time.  So that made for a long and tedious drive.  

The actual temple, however, was lovely!  Bentley is old enough to perform baptisms, so it was really wonderful watching him baptize Ryder and Kendra!  Craig got to be the recorder, and Kendra and Ryder also took turns as witnesses.  I was the only person who didn't do anything!  Normally I would have been thrilled to wander off and do my own service elsewhere, but I didn't want to miss seeing my kids, so I just sat and watched and was very happy.  

Afterwards, everyone was going to go to Chick-fil-A for dinner, but their dining room was closed.  We tried driving to a different one, only to have the same problem.  We were getting hungry and irritated at the idea of having to eat in the car after so much driving (3.5 hour trip one way, y'all!), when Craig looked at his Google Maps and realized there was a Shake Shack just around the corner!

GUYS.  It was a TEMPLE MIRACLE.  I didn't even know Raleigh had a Shake Shack!  So that made everyone happy.  The kids got to hang out with their friends while they ate.  Craig and I got a few minutes together while we shared concretes.  Life was good.

Post-Christmas Holidays

Last Sunday was a big day for my boys: Bentley was ordained to the office of a priest in the Aaronic priesthood, and Ryder was made a deacon!  This means that Bentley can now bless the sacrament each week (he'll do it next week for the first time), and Ryder got to pass the sacrament to members of the congregation today!  He also gave a really good talk, so I got to sit and be extremely proud of him.  So it's all been very exciting (and a little scary) for them!

And then once that was all done, we hopped in the car and drove to Grandma and Grandpa's for the day!  They'd been in Houston for Christmas this year, so we exchanged Christmas presents and had dinner together and just enjoyed catching up!

The kids were, of course, very excited to have another present to open.  And we were excited to give Tom and Donna this amazing doughnut blanket!

It was such a beautifully warm day we didn't even wear coats the whole day.  So, naturally, we woke up the next morning to this:

Half our ward lost power for DAYS.  My friend just got his power back on late last night (he's lucky because he has a generator so he was okay).  We were lucky and didn't suffer more than a couple flickers.  (The neighborhood speculation is that our close proximity to the jail works in our favor here! 😂)  Still, I think we may need to invest in a generator, too.  If we lost power for days we would die.

The kids were thrilled, of course.  They didn't go back to school at all this whole last week.  It's looking like they'll finally go tomorrow.  So they got a three-week Christmas break!  How fun is that???

Craig and I used the extra time to start working on this puzzle that Natalie got us for Christmas:

It's our family picture from Sunriver!  Unfortunately, we got all the fun stuff done, and now we have that wretched black border to work on...

Anyway, I love December and all the craziness of Christmas, but I've started to also really love January and the chance to hunker down a bit and just stay inside by the fire.  I got a LOT of that this week and it was lovely.  It's so nice when you can actually find the beauty in each stage of life...

48 Hours in Marietta

On the Monday after Christmas we spent all morning packing and doing laundry and tidying up, I had a dentist appointment, and then we drove to Marietta to visit Rachael and family!  It's not a bad 5-hour drive, and we arrived not too late for dinner!  

It was a very quick trip, but we got a lot done-- I brought ALL my baby girl clothes to Rachael and we sorted them all out, so that was great.  (Who knew that baby clothes styles could change so much since Kendra was born 14 years ago?)  I had so much stuff and it was so nice to get rid of it all!  While we did that, Craig helped Ian put together the bunk beds they'd gotten for their boys.  And then that evening Ian was super nice and looked at my ridiculous case of athlete's foot that I've been ignoring for... um...  way too long now.  The next day I babysat for Rachael while she had her doctor's appointment and took Nolan to the dentist.  So everyone got a lot of great help from everyone else!

Unfortunately, I hardly took any pictures, but we did get these two:

That's Clayton on my lap, and Harrison snuggled between me and the couch.  I do love the book Are You My Mother?-- such a classic!

You'd think I would remember to not do selfies looking down!  I do enjoy that the balloons being held up by a string behind Ian make it look like he might have antennae!  

We had dinner all together and then headed home!  It made for a late night, but that was kind of nice-- the kids played on their tablets for half the drive, and then after we stopped for gas and switched drivers we told them to go to sleep.  Everyone was very happy to climb into their beds when we got home!

It's always so nice getting to visit with the Aveytuas!!!

More of Colton's Drawings

Once again I looked over at what Colton was drawing during sacrament meeting and had to choke back a laugh.  Can you figure out what well-known song he was illustrating here?

For those of you who don't hear this all season long (possibly because you aren't inundated with little boys), this is the very popular version of Jingle Bells that goes, "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, the batmobile lost its wheel and Joker got away (hey)!"

As much as I think that song is dumb, I have to admit, his drawings are spot on!

A Very Merry Christmas Indeed!

The last few days before Christmas were still packed with fun stuff!  Adam brought us these adorable cookie decorating kits, so we got to work on those right away:

My choir was supposed to sing the National Anthem at a UVA basketball game (mostly because all the students are gone, I think?), so we all bought tickets.  But then, after our concert, someone had Covid, so they decided we'd all exposed each other enough without adding one more thing, so the Star-Spangled Banner was canceled for us.  Which was a bummer.  I decided to just stay home and make sure Colton and Camille went to bed at a decent hour.  And I wrapped presents (while watching TV, which was nice)!  Craig took all the older kids and they had a great time, even if UVA lost...

I convinced Bentley and Kendra to do those nose strips with me

And Craig went to town baking up a storm!  Here they are rolling out gingerbread men!

Christmas Eve we visited the tacky Christmas lights house (which is mostly lights and not nearly as many blow up decorations as it used to be)

And opened our Christmas Eve jammies from Grandma and Grandpa!

This was a big hit!

This year Craig and my Mom decided not to bother with making everyone match, and since they were all thrilled with their jammies, I think that was a great idea!

...Left out cookies for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer

Colton's note was cute (he keeps trying to get people to call him Fred.  This greatly confused his teachers.)

As was Camille's!  I continue to be impressed with all the emotion she puts into her stick figures!  For those not used to interpreting 6-year-old Covid-impacted writing, it reads, "Dear Santa, this is what I want: a stuffed animal, squid that can flip, and some surprises."

Before the chaos begins!

So excited to see if Santa came!

Everyone got a Disney mask in their stocking!

I kind of love the look on Camille's face here!

This girl!

Covered in all the wrapping paper Craig managed to put around this gift to me (which was a spoon rest to go on top of my stove 😂)

Bentley very excited for this small package (which was air pod pros!)

Bentley was extremely happy to get tennis balls

This made me laugh

Once we were finally done opening presents, Craig got to work on his turkey and I took a nap!  Dinner was a lovely affair, but not quite as many dishes as we'd had for Thanksgiving, so it felt much easier.  I watched It's a Wonderful Life with the kids and cried during all the usual places.  It was just such a nice happy day!

Merry Christmas, everyone!