Friday, February 26, 2021

This and That

After all those snow storms, we suddenly got some spring weather!  So of course, we had to hit a park or two and enjoy it!

Ryder loves figuring out how to climb on top of the playground equipment


And he had to jump off the swings, too



I keep hearing that scrunchies are in back style, so I finally bought some for the girls and the first person to wear them was...  Colton!


Celebrating Beth's birthday

Attempting to do yoga with mommy


I appreciate this warning sign that Ryder made for his room!

Craig spent one Saturday installing lights in my pantry!  It's awesome, because they turn on and off when the door opens and closes.  And, in the process of doing this, he also re-organized everything (which it desperately needed and which I would probably NEVER get around to doing)!  Double win for me!


We went back to Ivy Creek again for hiking club and were accompanied by Adam and Shannon (and her three kids), the same people who came last time we went to Ivy Creek!  So that was kind of funny.  The weather wasn't sunny and beautiful like it had been, but it was still very pleasant, and after the last few snow storms, I'll take that!  Also, at one point another family passed us and said Have a great day or something like that.  I didn't think anything of it, but once they were out of earshot, Adam pointed out that that was Chris Long and his wife and kids (and brother? brother-in-law?).  I know nothing about football, so that meant nothing to me, but when he said the name to Shannon, she was totally impressed.  Apparently he was a groomsman at a wedding that Adam did (because I think Adam normally knows about as much about professional football as I do?).  I guess he's pretty awesome (and polite!), so that was cool!

And last but not least: Craig, lucky dog, is fully vaccinated now! 

The end is inching its way into sight!  Right?  RIGHT???

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Kendra's 13th Birthday

Kendra is a TEENAGER!!!!  Now we have two teenagers in the house!!!  😱

February birthdays are hard, and poor Kendra got quite the icy snowstorm on hers, which meant changing some of our plans.  But on the plus side-- she didn't have to do Zoom school on her birthday, either, so I guess it could have been worse?  Either way, she was a very good sport about it all!

We finally managed to celebrate with grandparents the day before her birthday, so that meant lots of food (this time we opted for Hawaiian BBQ-- yum!) and presents for both Kendra and Camille:

Camille tries to decide what to open first

She was VERY excited for this unicorn robe

A tiny, 3D Totoro puzzle!

Modeling her new Hamilton sweatshirt

On her actual birthday, we all got to sleep in, which was great!  And then Craig made pancakes for everyone and Kendra opened her presents (unfortunately the stuff I ordered for her arrived late, so that was lame-- lucky for us, she'd gotten a few other things from my family!). 


For dinner I made Mongolian beef in the crock pot, which is a recipe we got from Jeni and has become a family favorite!  We had planned on getting her doughnuts that evening, but the entire driveway was covered by a sheet of ice, so she decided brownies would work instead.  And lucky her, I messed up and quadrupled the recipe, so we've been eating brownies ever since!  There are worse things that could go wrong...!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, teenaged Kendra!  

You might be taller than me, but that doesn't mean you aren't still my little girl! 

Monday, February 15, 2021

Call Me Barack

Last week I led another work out (early Wednesday) and then I signed up to make a public comment at the Thursday evening school board meeting.  They were going to decide whether or not to move to Stage IV, which will mean all my kids (FINALLY) will go to school at least 2 days per week.  And the last vote to move to Stage III was close enough that I figured it was time to actually get involved.

And I wasn't the only one!  They had about 45 people sign up to make comments (I think the split was 2/3rds parents, who were all in favor of school happening in-person, and about 1/3rd teachers, who were all against it).  And, I found out after the fact, about 800 people were livestreaming the meeting, which is far and away the most they've ever had.  There were even two kids who spoke about how much they wanted to go back to school!  Two of my neighbors also made comments, and I recognized a woman from my choir!  (And two moms of my kids' friends texted me to say they'd appreciated my comments!)

And what was even more surprising was the next day when my neighbor sent me the local newspaper's story on it, and they'd quoted me!  

So now I'm super famous.

But more important, the board voted to move to Stage IV, but pushed the date back to March 15th.  So it was a partial victory, I guess.  As one of the board members said, "I think this solution will leave everyone angry."  I guess that's the mark of a good compromise?  

Anyway, here are the remarks I'd prepared.  In order to say all that in two minutes, I had to talk extremely fast, and the whole thing made me very nervous.  Which is funny, since I don't usually get particularly nervous to give a talk in church.  But there isn't usually such a strict time limit, and the stakes feel a lot lower...

Good evening, my name is Alanna Smith and I live in the Scottsville district.  I have five children who are all enrolled in Albemarle County Public Schools, one at Monticello High School, one at Walton Middle school, and three at Mountain View Elementary School.  I have nothing but respect and admiration for everything that their amazing teachers are trying to do by educating them virtually right now, but this system isn’t working.  And it’s way past time for them to return to school.
Currently, my two teenagers do nothing but stare at screens all day.  This is the least healthy thing that young people can do.  They are not learning the material nearly as well as they have in the past.  They are isolated and cut off from their friends.  Their grades are suffering.  This is not a good situation for them.

My younger children are struggling to retain the information they learned last year.  Their reading levels have been dropping and they hate doing Zoom school.  It’s so sad to see their love of learning quashed at such a young age, but that’s what virtual school is doing to them.  During the times that Albemarle County has moved to Stage 3, my two youngest have been allowed to attend in-person and on those days they are SO HAPPY.  ALL children deserve this joy and success.

I’m a stay-at-home mom with a master’s degree, but even though I am fortunate enough to have resources to help my children, they are still struggling.  What is happening to the children whose parents can’t be there to help them? 

Schools throughout the country, including Louisa County, Augusta County, Fluvanna County, and nearly every private school, have safely continued with in-person learning during this pandemic. There have not been mass outbreaks of Covid.  They have continued to educate children safely and effectively, and there is no reason why Albemarle County Public Schools can’t do this, too.  

This school board recently determined that it was safe for high school students to participate in basketball, wrestling, cheer, and swim.  So I cannot see how sitting in desks, six feet apart, wearing masks would NOT be safe.  How can wrestling be safer than academics?

Parents who are uncomfortable sending their children to school can be allowed to continue with virtual education if that is what they want.  But for those of us who understand science, who see that healthy children are not greatly affected by COVID and rarely spread it, who know that the CDC has recommended that children go back to in-person school immediately because it is healthier for them than staying at home, we need to be able to exercise our constitutional right to public education NOW.



It was a stressful week. But the upshot is that, between leading my FiA group and that school board meeting, Craig is teasing me that I'm now a community organizer, fighting for education and fitness! Me and Obama! 😆

More of February...

We seem to be on some sort of schedule where we get snow on the weekends!  And since we don't usually go anywhere, this has very little effect on our plans.  (I should put that in ironic quote marks.  "Plans."  Ha.)

Big boxes are STILL fun to play in!


Ryder figured out how to put his clothes on upside-down...  I'm just glad he didn't try it with his underwear...  It already looks a bit NSFW...

The kids always demand hot cocoa after they've been out in the snow.  That seems like a fair reward for some outdoor play time!

Making cute stuffed animals even cuter!

If you look closely, you can see that she is wearing her sleepers under that coat, and she's worn them inside out, since that is what teachers say you have to do to get snow!

Unfortunately, the one thing we did have planned this last weekend did have to be pushed back, and that was celebrating the girls' birthdays with their grandparents.  It seemed mean enough postponing on them, so we decided to go ahead with their dinner and dessert plans (Raising Cane's and cheesecake!).  So at least it wasn't a terrible evening.  The presents will keep!
Craig somehow made this so that their candles matched their plates-- how nice! 


Decorating Valentine's Day cookies at Sydney's house...


Craig determined that the roads were clear enough for church to happen.  And just to be doubly sure, he went super early for bishopric, but also to see if there were icy patches he needed to worry about.  The whole route was fine, but the stairs and sidewalk at the church were a MESS.  So he was out shoveling and putting down salt in his suit.  As one does.  Meanwhile, I was back at home getting everyone else ready to go, only to realize that my car (which does not get parked in the garage) was iced shut!  I finally managed to pry the back doors open, and made Bentley crawl up to the front to start the engine and retrieve my ice scraper.  I set to work punching holes through the ice so I could then wipe the snow underneath away.  I'd just gotten new mittens and I was sure happy I had them!  And I was glad that we go to church super early (so Bentley can set up the sacrament trays) because it probably took me 15 minutes to have that car ready to drive!  And even then, we could still only open up the passenger door!  Fortunately by the time we got to the church, all the other doors had thawed out.  What a mess!


In other news, this is currently my favorite comic strip:
Yay, Pearls Before Swine!

I've survived January and we're halfway through February!  It's only going to get better from here!

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Camille's Birthday

Camille turned six!!!  

We let her open our present to her first thing in the morning.  She'd been begging for this doggy vet kit, so that's what she got.  It's a little silly because she used her own money a year ago to buy one of these, but this newer one had a carrying cage for the dog and she was DESPERATE for that part of the set.  I don't know why.  But I guess as long as she's happy, that's all that matters!

She actually got to go to school that day, so I'd gotten Twinkies for her to pass out to her classmates (the school suggested that everything be hermetically sealed, so I thought that the easiest option), and her teacher sent me the video of all of them singing to her (six feet apart as they ate lunch at their desks) and it was super cute!

This was what she requested-- chocolate frosting decorated with a giant C made out of M&Ms!

That is one joyful birthday girl!


We sure love our Karma-Chameleon!

Monday, February 8, 2021

February Happenings

We ended up with a pretty warm day on Friday (I mean, for February) AND piano lessons were canceled, so I waited until the afternoon and took my kids walking at Riverview Park.  In the past, we've done this trail with scooters, but since they're used to much harder trails, this flat, paved trail was a BREEZE for them!  So that was nice!




And then the kids could play on the playground until someone had to go to the bathroom!  And added bonus-- Craig and Kendra were able to come and join us at the end, so that was super fun!

Once we were home, we had an hour to tidy up before Rodney was dropped off.  We'd decided to just have frozen pizza and a movie night, so I invited Sydney and Beth to join, too.  So we ended up with 8 kids all sitting around watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and eating pizza!  What a great evening!


Bedtime Story!
Craig managed to get Rodney to settle down, so bless him for that!  And he slept well, although he was wide awake at 6am, so that was rough!  Craig and I took turns being up with him while the other stumbled back into bed.  We are NOT morning people.

Saturday was an easy day with not much going on, so that was nice.  Rodney was super good for us, but you just never know what to expect from someone else's kid, so we felt like we needed to keep a much closer eye on him than we usually bother with our own kids.  But Craig was awesome and took everyone to the park so I could nap, and then made cookies with them.  Since I was then well-rested, I happily followed behind cleaning up after them.  It was a good day!

Sunday morning left Craig with the same dilemma about canceling church for snow that wasn't going to hit until 3am.  This time he canceled our in-person meetings, but still held Zoom meetings.  So everyone on camera got to watch our wiggly little crew, but what can you do?  (In all fairness, my kids were quite well behaved.  Rodney was pretty good, too, but he insisted on playing with Camille's huge stuffed animal snake the entire time.  But he could have been a lot worse!)
At least we cleaned up the fort!

After church, the kids played outside in the rapidly melting snow.

Rodney's foster dad picked him up, and we proceeded to make lots of snacky foods for the Super Bowl.  The little kids managed to drag the love sack up the stairs so they could watch all snuggled in it (even though we put them to bed pretty much right when it started).  I was impressed that they could do that!
Craig watched the Super Bowl with the big kids and I had Women's Conference (yup, we didn't realize it was the same day as the Super Bowl when we planned that-- oops!).  The conference was pretty fabulous, though, so I was not sad to miss out!

More snow in the forecast for this week, so we'll see what happens!

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Snow Days!

We finally got some decent snow!  Unfortunately, it proved to be very stressful for Craig-the-Bishop, who had to decide whether or not to cancel church, when the snow wasn't supposed to hit until after 1am.  (And he'd gotten direct guidance from the stake president to not cancel unless there actually WAS snow.)  So Craig sent an email to the ward telling them to check their email first thing in the morning, then he drafted emails for either situation, set an alarm for 5:30am, got up to confirm that there was indeed snow (4-5 inches?), and then sent the email canceling church!  Who knew these things were so complicated???  I hope that Craig is NEVER a superintendent!  He'd have to do crap like that ALL THE TIME!

This is as homey as it gets!

So we enjoyed a snow day!  The kids went sledding all morning.  I stayed inside making cinnamon rolls, tomato basil soup, and then dinner rolls. 

Craig isn't usually around when I'm cooking, so he was cracking up watching me with my goggles as I chopped an onion and then kneaded dough.  So he decided it needed to be documented.


And before we even sat down to dinner, we found out that school was canceled for Monday, so Craig could relax and enjoy another day off where he didn't have to call the shots!  And then we've had 2-hour delays since then, so we are getting really lazy over here!  Or at least, I am.  The kids have been out playing hard, as they should!

Working hard on a snowman


The sledding hill got to fulfill its destiny!


My kids decided lugging a sled around was too much work and that they preferred "butt sledding."  They're really weird.  But they had fun!


This was the second day, when Camille couldn't find her snow pants (because I'd hung them on the back of the laundry room door, obviously a totally impossible hiding spot)