COVID Easter

I had warned my kids that we wouldn't be able to dye as many eggs as we have in the past (when I once let them dye a dozen eggs each!).  But then the week before Easter, Costco was back to having their 5 dozen egg pallets!  So we were able to dye plenty* of eggs, which made me and the kids all very happy.  They did five or six eggs each, so we didn't go completely crazy.  But it was still plenty fun.  I don't know what it is about dyeing eggs, but it truly is one of my favorite things to do.

It looks like Bentley is concentrating really hard here, but really he's just adjusting that weird copper scooper tool. 

I promise we actually had fun doing this!  My kids look like I'm torturing them..?!?!

There we go!  Kendra had fun!

Lovely eggs!  My favorite is the one I made (left corner, one from the top)-- I dropped it in red and forgot about it, and then repeated with blue.  For some reason it got all speckled and ended up looking like a galaxy.  Perfect!  

A pyramid of squishmallow pillows!

Easter morning, Craig and I slept in (BLISS!) and then the kids found their Easter baskets.  Craig made pancakes and sausage for everyone, and then we made everyone get dressed and go outside and ride bikes.  We had ulterior motives, we knew a special visitor would be heading our way, and sure enough...

The Easter Bunny came by!  His helpers were riding hoverboards and wearing pink bunny sleepers-- it was great!

After that I showered and got on my church clothes (and makeup!  Remember when we used to put on makeup every day???).  And I had time to make a salad and a batch of funeral potatoes and tidy up the living room while we played the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's recording of Handel's Messiah.  And then, we had Zoom Church with family!

Craig took a picture when we were done

As Zoom meetings are, this was a bit awkward and stilted, but it was still nice to get to see everyone and hear hymns (thanks Mom for playing piano and to the Richards family for doing a special musical number on such short notice!).  So that was lovely!

As soon as that was done I put the potatoes and ham in the oven.  We usually have Easter dinner with Craig's parents (who had also joined us for Zoom church), but we felt that our house was probably a germ fest that we didn't think was a great idea for them to come to, and they didn't seem comfortable with us going to their house, either, so we opted to FaceTime during dinner.  That was awkward-- I don't ever want a camera pointed at me while I'm trying to eat, and the longer it went on, the more Camille felt the need to just shout every thought that came into her head, louder and louder.  Not exactly the quiet family dinner I was hoping for.  But at least they could finally see the kids and have a nice chat with each of them!


It was so weird to not "go" to church on Easter, but I didn't mind that things felt a lot more relaxed than normal.  It actually gave us more time to reflect on the meaning of Easter and then there was still time for the silly fun stuff, too.  It was nice.


*Full confession: I didn't expect Costco to have eggs at all, and certainly not pallets of them, so when I stopped at Target first and they had eggs, I bought 18.  And THEN bought 5 dozen more at Costco.  I came home from that shopping trip with 78 eggs!!!  {Gulp!}  But in our defense, they WILL all get eaten.  So we're not actually being wasteful!

Changing Our Minds. Together!

Craig and I are always very deliberate when we choose paint colors.  We look at the colors in different lights (daylight and electric lights).  We compare how it will look with different furniture and throw pillows and curtains.  We're a bit ridiculous, honestly.

But despite all our precautions, sometimes it just goes wrong. 

We decided to paint our deck grey with black trim and I was so excited for it!  Our house is already a very light grey with black shudders, so I figured it would all tie in perfectly.  And then Craig started painting the railings and it looked 100 times better and we were both so pleased!

And then he started on the grey and painted a big old chunk of the deck and I was like, Huh.

It's not like I hated it.  But I didn't really LOVE it, either.  And it seemed a shame to spend so much time and money painting the deck if I didn't love it when we were done.  For some reason, it looked sort of bluish to me.  And while I'd thought it would match the house nicely, it didn't.  Not exactly.  And somehow that just felt worse.  So, yeah.  What do we do about that?

It took me a day to admit my feelings to Craig.  And another few hours to ask what he thought about changing the color?  Craig thought it over and said he thought we should move forward with the grey.  He pointed out that we'd have to paint it again in another few years and could change the color then.  He made a good point, so I agreed.  That was fine.

A few hours later, Craig found me and said he wanted to revisit the topic.  He wasn't liking the grey, either.

So we spent another day staring at the paint chips and almost on a whim (for us!), picked a new color. 

Craig got back to work re-painting the next day:

And I LOVE this new brick-red color!  Ironically, it isn't that different from the old color (if you can see what's left of it).  I didn't expect that.  The old color was a bit orangey-er, and it had faded a lot.  So I guess that's why this new one looks so much better?  Also, the basement level of our house is brick, so it should all tie in nicely still.  But the main point is, I LOVE it, and I think that's all that really matters.

No, that's not true-- I'm also loving how Craig and I figure stuff like this out.  I love that we can talk rationally and work through a problem and come to a decision together.  I've seen enough terrible marriages to know that that is a rare ability in a couple!

More Quarantine Stuff

After two weeks of things being mostly shut down, our governor REALLY shut everything else down and then everyone in the neighborhood got a lot more strict about what kids could do.  So my kids have had to play together more than ever before, which is not a terrible thing.  It hasn't always been smooth sailing, of course, but lucky for all of us, I don't usually take pictures when they're fighting, so all I end up remembering are the good times!  Yay for selective memory!

I caught these three all playing legos together like champs!  It made my heart happy:

And as we all know, spring makes me SO HAPPPY.  All these leaves just dumped a TON of pollen into the air so now Colton and I are itching our eyes like crazy.  But I still love it!

Here's Craig bouncing all the kids!  (Only Camille notices that I'm taking pictures!)

Craig and Camille fly her kite

Colton lost a tooth!

Picnic on the (very clean, powerwashed) deck!

Except Colton and Camille decided they'd rather eat in the treehouse!  To which I said, 'Sure, why not?'

And dinner was followed by more trampoline time.  I can't even begin to understand how they can jump on a trampoline after eating, but no one threw up, so I'm not complaining!

And on this morning Colton and Camille surprised me by dressing up as twins!

We biked/scootered/skateboarded the trail at Riverview Park!

Stopping for a break and I finally noticed that Camille was wearing two completely different shoes!

Walking under the freeway overpass behind our house, and here you can see Biscuit Run, the creek that goes behind our house, with Bentley pretending to throw Camille into it and her looking properly nervous!

Craig and I had a sort of double date night (but socially distant) at Riverview Park

Can you tell which bench hasn't gotten powerwashed yet?

And this week Craig started painting!  So we're doing the railing in black (obviously) and then the deck itself will be grey.  And I am already thrilled with how it's looking!

I love this photo-- I love that I framed Craig perfectly in the dogwood blossoms!  But look how hard he's working while I'm just sitting in the shade, occasionally taking his picture!

Life is good!  But the longer this quarantine goes on, the less I seem to get done.  It's like life is slowing down and so am I.  The other day I actually thought to myself, "I need to get the oil changed in the cars.  But I also need to boil eggs for Easter.  I guess the cars can wait until next week when I'm not so busy."  WHAT???  How does boiling eggs count as busy???  But it sort of does feel busy now?  It's weird.  It's all so weird.

Pictures from two weeks ago!

Like all of you, we've been holed up at home.  I kind of love it.  I've realized that I'm basically an extroverted homebody.  I really don't love leaving the house, and now I don't have to!  But I'm surrounded by kids and I've got Craig around, so it's never boring!  AND, for the first couple weeks, our neighborhood all agreed to let kids play together if they're outside, so the kids have been spending more time outdoors than ever before!  This has now been downgraded to only allowing them to ride their bikes together, so that's a bit of a bummer, but still better than nothing!

We're incredibly lucky right, and I'm trying not to forget it.  Craig can work from home (Zoom meetings-- SO MANY ZOOM MEETINGS) and he's still getting paid.  When I do need to run to the store (like when I hear that Costco has eggs AND toilet paper back in stock!), I can dash out and there's still a grown-up here!  It's almost too easy!  I do sort of wish that I could carry a sign that says, "I'm not hoarding; I have 5 kids and we eat this much EVERY WEEK."  But honestly, if people have been giving me the stink eye over what's in my shopping cart, I haven't noticed.  I did explain to the checkers and they just laughed and said my haul only counted as a medium order in their book!

Since he has more spare time than usual (although not as much as I originally thought), Craig has decided to fix up our deck.  It's needed it for a while, but our deck is a massive and complicated structure, so completely overhauling it would cost WAY more money than we care to spend right now.  (A new deck probably isn't in the cards until... maybe after Camille graduates from college?)  So we're looking at more of a band-aid solution at this time.  Craig has been replacing any boards that have warped and the main handrail, which was super rough and starting to lean precariously.  Then he powerwashed the whole thing (with lots of help from Kendra!) and today he just started painting.  The boards are so rough and chewed up that we're using special paint designed to help cover up flaws.  It literally said, "Put a good face on a bad deck"-- it's like they know us!

Kendra is such a good helper!

Ryder, too!

In order to paint it a different color, the HOA rules state that we need to clear it with our neighbors.  Trust me, our neighbors to our left who never speak to us did NOT look happy to answer the door!  In fact, he wouldn't even open the door until I took several more steps back away from him.  (And no, I wasn't standing particularly close or anything.)  Fun times!  Once I explained why I was bugging him, he just looked perplexed and muttered how stupid it was that I needed his permission.  Later, Craig pointed out that I was supposed to get his signature or his email address or something, but I told him there was no way I was knocking on his door again.

Meanwhile, this is my view while I'm making dinner!

One of the mornings when Craig had oodles of Zoom Meetings, I took the kids with me up to Culpeper to borrow that power-washer from his parents.  Then on the way home we stopped at Yoder's.  Donna gave all the kids lots of quarters so they could feed the goats and chickens, so EVERYONE enjoyed this.  Plus-- bonus!-- it was cold and rainy so there was no one else there, so we didn't even have to worry about social distancing!

Baby goat!

Colton was a little nervous about this kid trying to eat his coat!

Even a surly teenager can't help but smile when surrounded by goats!

Ryder was even more excited when a pig (hiding the behind that goat) came over for some food

The colors of this peacock were just SO beautiful!

Another pig!

Bentley bought himself a sandwich for the ride home and after I saw it, I was totally jealous and wished I'd gotten myself one, too!

Another fun thing is that Craig finished the tree house, so the kids have had a blast playing in it with their friends!

Ryder and Owen working together (before everyone decided on the 6 foot distancing rule)

Colton and Camille together!

Nice view of the treehouse

Here it is from the other angle with our house behind it-- it's quite high up on the one side!

And for a few days all the neighborhood kids LOVED playing here, until the quarantine rules got tightened up

And of course, we've been going on walks and just spending a lot of time outdoors.

Neighborhood hike

Camille was painting rocks with her friends

And finally we have Ryder "racing" the timers.  He figured out that the big one is 15 minutes!  But yes, occasionally the kids are a tad bored.  But that's okay, too!

And I have lots more to post soon!

New Look

I needed a new bathrobe.  The one I've been using for the last five years is from IKEA and it's starting to feel a bit sad.

I got Craig a bathrobe a little while ago and he likes it just fine, so I finally decided to get the same one for me, too.  His is white (as is my old one), so I figured it would be a good idea to get a different color so we don't get them mixed up.  The only other colors it came in, though, were pink, forest green, and royal blue.  I liked blue the best out of those choices, so that was easy.

It came last week, I washed it first and then began using it.  As soon as I was wrapped up in it, it hit me: I had just turned myself into Cookie Monster.



Or, as Craig put it, "Dum te dum dum dum!"