COVID Camping

Obviously, the annual Father Son Campout was canceled this year.  But the boys were desperate to get to go camping, so Craig finally called up Brother Snow (whose farm is where the campout usually takes place) and asked if he could just come and set up a tent with his boys.  Br. Snow was delighted and even mowed the field for them before they came!

So they had their night of sleeping in a tent and roasting hotdogs and s'mores:

As soon as they were all set up, they all sacked out on their sleeping bags, happy as clams.  Funny boys!  (This may be the most space they've EVER had in a tent!)

Can you see all the dirt on his face here???  I guess this is what camping is all about.  Also, knowing Colton, I'd be willing to bet that there is ketchup in that hotdog bun, but no hotdog.  Funny kid!

Paddleboats!!!

It doesn't get a whole lot more picturesque than that!

Meanwhile, the girls and I watched Mulan and then once Camille was in bed, Kendra and I made Oreo Brownies and watched Moulin Rouge (I edited out a tiny bit).  So we had a great time, too!

Now the girls are asking when it's THEIR turn for Daddy to take them camping!

Mother's Day

Since moving to Charlottesville, we have always had church at 9am.  Most wards share buildings, so they trade off times each year, meaning every other year, you'll probably have 1pm church.  Afternoon church is terrible-- if you have young children, it's ALWAYS during naptime, and even if you don't have young kids, it's still just lame.  The only good thing about afternoon church is that you might be able to sleep in (depending on whether or not you have kids or teenagers) and it gives you the chance to make dinner in your crock pot and come home to dinner all ready, which is pretty sweet.  But really, those are the only advantages.

But our ward here shares the building with a YSA ward (Young Single Adult), and they LIKE getting to sleep in.  So they take the afternoon time, and we get the morning time.  And I LOVE that pretty much every Sunday out of the year.  Except Mother's Day.

I would reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllllly like to be able to sleep in on Mother's Day.  And once I'm done sleeping late, I would reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllllly like to be served breakfast.  None of that happens when you have 9am church.  (And I'm pretty sure that it really doesn't happen if your husband is the bishop.)

So I was delighted when Craig informed me that on Mother's Day this year, there would be no scheduled Zoom meetings AT ALL.

I slept in SO LATE.  And then I nudged Craig and suggested he get to making orange rolls for me.  And then I laid in bed checking Postsecret and Dear Abby while the kids all wandered in for hugs and snuggles.  It was so great.

(The only bad side was that I waited so long to shower, by the time I got in there was no hot water left, so that was kind of lame.  But I couldn't really complain, since that was mostly because Craig and the kids had been doing dishes all morning.)

The orange rolls came out of the oven right as I was hurrying out of my lukewarm shower, so I didn't bother drying my hair before we ate.  (Who am I kidding-- drying my hair has TOTALLY gone out the window since COVID.  Along with makeup and pretty much caring what at all about what I look like.)  

This is what greeted me when I came down the stairs!

COVID Hair, Don't Care

Rather than getting cards, the kids all write me a letter in the same Mother's Day book each year-- so I'm building up a collection!

Ryder can be weirdly affectionate

After we'd eaten our fill of orange rolls, we had a quick church meeting.  Craig made Bentley and Kendra give Mother's Day talks, so that was fun to hear!

Ryder continues to be weird:

This isn't how you do church?

Later in the evening, I decided we ought to have a picture of me with all the kids.  Of course, they all freaked out and it was lame and frustrating.  But we still managed to get this out of it:

Thanks to my wonderful family for spoiling me so well!

Let There Be Light

The lights we'd ordered for our deck arrived Monday, so that evening Craig pulled them out and began wrapping them around the poles he'd added to the railing.  He kept wanting to try different ways to string them-- I never would have given it this much thought!  But unfortunately, it was cold outside and I quickly ran out of steam helping him.  I wandered off to fold laundry and let him mull things over a bit more.

Tuesday afternoon, I returned home from my walk to find that Craig had added a hook outside Ryder's (second-story!) window and had rigged the lights up with a rope to pull them up that high.  Now he was carefully re-stringing them to get the loops all just right.  I wasn't freezing and I wasn't busy, so I buckled down and actually helped this time around.  This strand of lights came with the bulbs tucked away in a separate box, which meant that while we kept re-stringing them and lifting them up and down from the second floor, we didn't need to worry about breaking any bulbs, so that was great.  Once Craig had things mostly how he wanted them, we began screwing in all the lightbulbs.

There were still a couple more glitches.  We had enough left over to add one more swoop angling towards Bentley's room, but that was against the house.  But we didn't want it ACTUALLY against the house, or it would rattle any time the wind was blowing.  Fortunately, we have a couple large hooks for hanging baskets that we haven't used, so we moved one of them up to Bentley's window, and it's perfect for keeping the lights a few extra inches away from the wall.

It's hard to see Craig's master vision in this picture, but everything radiates out from Ryder's window and then travels the edge of the deck.  It's a nice look!

Artsy!

I've never been so anxious for it to get dark before!  But, naturally, Craig was busy with Zoom meetings, so we had to wait even longer.  Finally we were able to step outside and ask Bentley to plug them in for us so we could both see it for the first time together-- and it was so magical:

This picture really doesn't do it justice-- in reality, it's a much softer, yellow glow, and it lights up all the trees in our backyard, too.  I absolutely LOVE it.  (Also, see Ryder's head poking out his window up there?)

Ryder had been about to fall asleep, but this woke him up in a big way!

Bentley was also very excited about the whole thing!

I think we might need to throw a party on our deck now...  We will definitely be spending a LOT more time out here!

So Much Painting

Remember all that grey paint we decided to not use on the deck?  We couldn't just let it go to waste, so Craig worked his tail off Saturday afternoon (and got most of the kids to help him, too!) and used it to paint the tree house!  Another project DONE!

Yay for the outside of our home looking better all the time!

"New" Deck!

The deck is finished!  Craig worked so hard and it looks SO MUCH BETTER now!!!  AND, Craig very helpfully made side-by-side comparison pictures, so it's super easy for me to show it all off to you!  (Also, in the same manner of weight-loss ads where the people always seem to gain a greater fashion sense and a lot of joy along with their slimmer figures, in this case, we have the pleasure of the "after" pictures having lush, green backgrounds as spring has progressed!  Craig really ought to go into advertising!)


Behold the difference:

Sigh.  Doesn't that just feel so much better???

Notice that Craig also straightened out that handrail!

He also fixed a bunch of the steps so that they were no longer sagging... 

AND he got rid of quite a bit of the fencing there, including the gate. I like how it opens everything up so nicely!

Now we're working on getting outdoor lights that we can string across the deck as well as some solar lights to light up the steps at night.  It's going to be so lovely!  I almost wish we could throw a dinner party out there or something!

GREAT WORK, CRAIG!!!

Leftovers

I haven't managed to fit these pictures into any of my previous posts, but I like them.  Maybe you will, too!

I like this robot that Ryder built!

Oreo continues to be very cute

Bentley took this picture a couple weeks ago-- skillz!  And everything is even MORE green now!

My flowers came back with a vengeance!  I'm so happy!!!  And I just LOVE snapdragons!

This is Bentley while we played Code Names.  He's really weird.  And he sort of looks like a terrified wizard here.

Colton loves climbing on these rocks

Our deck is nearly done!!!  Squeeee!!!!

Twinsies!  I love that they just happened to put on the same pajamas this day!

The New Normal

We're finally settling into a sort of routine here, so that's good!  Every morning we have our Come Follow Me lesson with Craig, then he hides in the basement doing Zoom meetings while I supervise the kids doing their school work.  We call it homeschooling, but since Ryder and Colton's teachers post all their assignments on this great app called Seesaw, it's probably a thousand times easier than actual homeschooling.  It's still a pain for me, but nothing like if I had to build my own curriculum!  Bentley and Kendra are fairly self-sufficient and can usually do their work on their own without much help from me, so that's working well.  Whenever Craig has a break in his meetings, he helps Ryder and Colton with their Spanish homework.  And we give Camille a new letter to practice writing each day and she is embracing this challenge whole-heartedly, so that's fun to watch!

Once the kids are finished, I usually take off and walk the neighborhood for an hour or so.  I call friends and sisters or listen to an audible book (The Happiness Project-- it's had so many great ideas that I ordered a paper copy, too!) while I wander in and out of cul de sacs and up and down hills.  This is the best I've ever been about taking my allergy medication consistently, and it's been a joy to watch all of the trees taking their turns blooming.  First we had the cherry blossoms, then the Eastern redbuds, and then the flowering dogwoods.  It's all been beautiful, and these walks are good for my soul.  Probably my lungs and legs, too.

Here I am setting out on a walk with Craig!

Speaking of flowers, this hardy little chive plant of mine just bloomed!  So cute!  I bought it when we first moved to Charlottesville, so this is probably the longest I've ever kept anything green alive!

Once I'm home I shower off all the pollen and get to work on laundry, dishes and dinner.  By then the kids are out riding bikes with their friends and Craig is painting the deck.  Or jumping on the trampoline with the kids, if they have any say in it!

Can you see Craig's face here?  I love it!  The kids love making us jump on the trampoline with them so they can bounce extra high.  It's finally been long enough since giving birth that I am able to do this again, so that's exciting!

Lunch in the treehouse!

Here we have Ryder using one of those balloons with a string attached so you can punch it really fast.  You know those, right?  I love the juxtaposition of that face with those church clothes.  Will Ryder ever not be hilarious?

Saturdays still feel a *bit* special because there's NO schoolwork and NO Zoom meetings!  That's cause for celebration and/or laziness:

Watching SGN all together late Saturday morning!  Quality family time, right there!

It's not a bad way to live!



Wait a second-- You haven't watched SGN yet???  Have you been under a rock???  Here, let me get you started:



You can find the next episodes on your own now!  (#2 is my favorite, but they're all wonderful!)

Trying New Things

Several months ago I heard a speaker at church talk about learning how to knit.  He said he was surprised that it wasn't actually that hard to do and he enjoyed it.  One of my favorite bloggers has also documented learning to knit extensively.  And then A.C. Moore, which was RIGHT NEXT TO US went out of business and started selling everything at even bigger discounts than before.  I'd mentioned to Craig that I wanted to try knitting and he said, "Well, now is probably the cheapest time to start!"  So I watched a YouTube video on what I needed, and I marched to the store and bought myself some knitting needles and yarn.  And then forgot about them for a few months.

But now that we're all home so much I REALLY felt like I didn't have any excuse not to try.

So I HAVE BEGUN KNITTING!!!

And true to form, I'm pretty terrible at it.

But that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it!

I definitely picked a bad yarn for a beginner.  It's so soft and fuzzy (and PURPLE!) and I just love it, but that fuzziness also makes it really hard to see what I'm doing.  That's at least part of the reason why I'm bad at this.

First, you have to cast on to your knitting needle.  I got that down after a few tries, and actually I LOVE casting on!  It's so easy and mindless!  The next part-- you know, the actual knitting part-- is where I'd get all screwed up.  The lady on the video made it look so easy!  But I kept getting it wrong, and the more I watched the video, the more I couldn't even tell what she was doing.  I kept having to unwrap everything (which at least did have the small perk that I could go back to casting on, which was more fun anyway!).  Eventually I just found a different video that was slightly clearer.  Mostly, I just loved how the guy explained, "It won't look like you've done anything, but trust me, it's going to work."

AND HE WAS RIGHT!  It's working!!!

Now I just have to keep doing this about a hundred thousand more times!

Some day this will be a scarf.

Take that, quarantine!

Spunk

I signed Colton and Camille up for another round of swim lessons.  After one class, I realized that my life would be WAY easier if they were simply put in the same class, rather than spending a half hour for Camille's class followed by a half hour for Colton's.  I emailed the person in charge to ask if this could be arranged, and, after consulting with their teachers, she replied that Camille could be placed in Colton's class, but she worried that if this proved too difficult, Camille might get frustrated or scared and end up regressing.

The very idea made me laugh.  I've seen Camille display plenty of emotions in her short lifetime, but never scared and quitting!  I assured her Camille would do just fine and genuinely looked forward to reading my book in peace while they both splashed around in their lessons.  As I'm sure you've already guessed, before we could proceed any further, everything got shut down for COVID.

But the other day Camille marched into the house, still wearing her bike helmet, singing at the top of her lungs a line from the opening song of Six: The Musical about the wives of Henry VIII: "I'M A SURVIVOR, CATHERINE PARR, I BET YOU WANNA KNOW HOW I GOT THIS FAR?!?!"

And I thought to myself, Yeah, she'll do just fiiiiine with whatever she puts her mind to!

Still a fan of chocolate fondue

Getting ready to help Daddy paint

She looked so queenly wrapped in this blanket as though it's ermine!

And finally, for your viewing pleasure: