Other Noteworthy Events

For Valentine's Day, Billy braved the cold, and a line outside the door, to get me some local made dark chocolate coconut chews!!  They were really good (I actually still have some) and made me feel very loved.  I bought him a box of Reese's cups, along with a small heart box for each of the kids.  It's probably a good thing he got what he wanted while he was at the chocolate shop.

Grace woke up looking like she'd partied all night!

But we were able to tame that hair.

The twins asked how small they were when they were born.  I told them they could fit into Daddy's hand.  He didn't remember them being that tiny, so I broke out an old picture from when they were just a few weeks old.

Upon seeing it, they decided that they wanted to recreate it.  I don't recall who is who in the first picture, and looking back at my blog, I didn't say!! If I were facing the way I think I was, it should be Grace/Mutti/Juliet in the first picture. But the second picture is for sure Grace/Mutti/Juliet.

 

Grace did up her hair in three buns for Three Kings Day

They all got some small treats from Mutti and Daddy.

William built his Lego set after school.

And I got my Christmas gift in from Billy.  They are super cute alligators "biting" my ear, but they are really heavy.

We had the Cornishes over for a game day.  I was participating in dry January, and it was the first time I'd been tested, and stuck it out!  We played this really fun interactive pirate game, that we actually played the next time we hung out with them too!

Juliet made and avatar family and sent it to me.  In the small version, I thought William was blowing a bubble, I didn't realize that it was a cursor.  Oh well.

Alice and Emily thought the can in the Sam's parking lot was a meme, and wanted me to take a picture, so I did.

Juliet's hair was really pretty after coming in from playing the snow one day!

Christin and I sent one another pictures of our breakfast one day.  So now it is going here too.  Buttered toast and black tea with milk.

My mom has already travelled to Texas/FL/OK this year, but she will be leaving again this weekend, since my grandpa fell over, while petting a dog, and broke both of his shoulders (and several other bones.) = (  

I'm hoping for a less eventful end to the month.

later days

21st May, 69th Day of Quarantine, 42nd Day of School at Home

The high today was a sunny and pleasant 73F!

I spent a good chunk of time on the phone with my bank and Orkin, trying to resolve a double charge. The manager was supposed to call me back, but never did.

Schooling on Thursdays is pretty good, as the workload gets progressively lighter during the week, and my kids are pretty good at front-loading their week.

I ran to pick up some goodies from Deb's porch for our MOPS MAD night, and left a box for Hanna, since we failed to meet up at the park.

I spent some more hours on my teaching certification.  150 hours is so daunting, so I'm trying to push through while I have the motivation. = )  I like the new program well enough, but I am still disappointed that they removed all the 'free' courses from the Gateway platform.  In the new platform though, you can watch the videos at double speed which is way cool!

We also got in the field guide we were instructed to order for school in the fall, and it is so cool!  Emily, William and I spent some time outside trying to identify the plants in our yard.  We didn't find a perfect match for the tiny white flowers, so I'm not sure what they are, even now. We identified the bird that has nested on the backside of our carport: a house finch!

Sarah came by and mowed my lawn for me (score!) so now I don't have to worry about that for another week. = )  I also sent a bag of school supplies that is destined for the school to live in her basement until next October when school is well underway it will be welcomed instead of a burden.

Grace must have been MIA yesterday when we were building the trolley, because she didn't even know about it.  She had a good time pretending to be a doctor and passing out medicine (milk duds) and giving shots for sore throats...  At least I know these will get use even if we discontinue homeschooling!

We all contributed some names to a 'drawing' for what we should call our book trolleys.  Emily and Juliet submitted the winning names: "Candyland" and "Homework Trolley."  I wanted Holly & Molly, the book Trolleys. But I didn't win. = (

It was warm enough that the kids set up the slip and slide for some outdoor water fun!

For dinner we had PF Changs freezer sweet and sour chicken for the first time.  With the exception of the bag recommending only cooking one bag at a time (so i had to lengthen the cook times) I was very impressed and will buy it again!

Thursday night is the weekly meeting with the other parents in Alice's class.  Since MAD was right after, I tried setting up the webcam on my upstairs computer so that my phone wouldn't die during the meeting.  That computer was too old, so Billy moved up my CPU to use with the upstairs auxilaries.  I had to bring up speakers, then headphones since the speakers weren't loud enough.  Sadly, the wifi is just too slow, and I ended up at the parent meeting on my phone anyhow.

Thankfully, it was a short meeting, so I was able to return everything to it's proper place and re set my downstairs station before the MOPS event.

We played a little bit of a game, but mostly just enjoyed chatting.  It's so nice to not be in this alone!

Because of the double meeting, it was a quick group bedtime for my crew, and a slightly late bedtime for me.

Tomorrow William has a local doctor's appointment, and they will be coming out to the car??  So many new adventures!

later days

May 15th, 63rd Day of Quarantine, 38th Day of School at Home

The high today was a lovely 71F!

On Fridays, it is mostly a catch-up day for the kids school work.  Since we've been able to complete assignments each day, this means it is an easy day for my dear ones.  Also, I eliminated piano practice, so that getting out the door would not be as stressful.

It has also been 6 weeks since the stuffed animals were banished to quarantine in the basement, and today was release day! Alice drug her feet, so we did not release them all before the trip, but William worked so quickly and diligently that I allowed him to pull out his favorite before we left.

Emily and I needed to leave around 10am, so I prepared Alice as well as I could for her 1:30 meeting. We finally got a webcam that is a plug and play into their computers.  It is amazing.  Their computers can run the virtual meetings soooooo much better than the old little laptop.

It rained on us most of the trip to Grand Rapids.  We saw some interesting sights, like a trailer that had come off of a semi and an ambulance in the median.  There is construction in Grand Rapids, so our exit had a detour.  Luckily we were running a little bit early, so we arrived on time.

You can read about Emily's appointment here.

When we arrived home it was pretty late, and almost time for dinner.

Alice made ravioli with alfredo sauce for dinner.  Everyone thought it was pretty tasty except for her (and me, but I don't care for pasta or alfredo.)

 After dinner, Billy and I played some games that came in my MOPS date night bag.  Emily invited herself, and we had some fun conversations and a few giggles. = )

After our games I called my mom, to get her advice before purchasing the homeschool curriculum for next year.  She gave me the confidence to go ahead and buy it!  So, it looks like we will be a home schooling family come August!

Once I finished my online things for the evening, we bought the new Scooby Doo movie, Scoob!

We paused it, frequently, but it was really cute and we all enjoyed it. = )

It was a full, busy day, and our late bedtime was very welcomed!

later days

January 2nd

Today was a mostly sunny high of 46F with very little wind and no precipitation.

If all my days this year mimic today, I think I'll be okay.

My sister called me from a thrift shop (twice.) The first time to ask if I needed anything, the second time to let me know that she had collected the only thing I was after!

Alice got to enjoy almost the entire day with her friend Willow at her birthday celebration. Her mom kindly retrieved and returned Alice today, since I was homebound for my plumber window.  Alice came home full of sugar & exuberance.

I cleaned out some unused games and boxed up some German books to mail to a friend and knocked out 2 load of laundry.

Grace and Juliet decided to spend some of their Christmas cash on Minecraft (the Microsoft version) to play with the big kids.  I loathe the Microsoft Minecraft set up.  Once they are connected it is great, but the set up is brutal.  And to make matters worse, I bought and 'gifted' the wrong version - the xbox version.

So, I had to spend hours chatting to try to rectify my mistake, and also set up a Microsoft account, then an xbox account for each twin. Of course, setting everything to private and adding their siblings as friends and adding back up x2 just takes forever. Once the accounts were set up, I 'gifted' them the game, because we do not put any of our credit card info or sign ins on the kids' machines.

Since Alice was gallivanting, I took the opportunity to play with Emily and the twins for a little while.

The most exciting thing that happened today, by far, was that the plumber came to install our new faucet! The spray handle of our old one had some sort of failure inside, and was spraying water down into the cabinet. Billy and I both tried to see if we could replace it ourselves, but the people who redid the kitchen did a few questionable things. The repair actually required him to break out a power tool and saw off the old apparatus. Then he had to scrape off some sort of epoxy or sealant that they had used on the base. It was enough work to merit the price.

Thankfully, we were able to leave the handle pulled out and dangling*. I am sooooo happy to have a fully functioning faucet again. I do keep leaving the sprayer pulled out though. = )

Alice came back home and was quick to take over her computer and play Minecraft with her siblings, but it was time for me to start on dinner a-n-y-h-o-w.  

I made a macaroni & ham casserole with some leftovers from yesterday.  Not my favorite, but very few complaints.

And when Billy got home he got to start the fight with William's PC that has some sort of virus that kept kicking him off the internet and out of applications.   He's trying to avoid formatting, but it's not looking good. = /

Hoping to wind down the break tomorrow with a less exciting (and hopefully less frustrating) day.

later days

*The wait was because we had something leaking in the basement.Billy went down a few weeks ago and sealed off the water filter connectors in the basement, so I was waiting to make sure the basement dried out and I didn't need him for a double purpose before scheduling. 

History for Sale

When we lived in England, we did not have any children.  I spent my days enjoying every novelty in Leeds that I could.  One of my activities was thrift store shopping (shocker) and it was then that I gave Agatha Christie a try.

After devouring Murder on the Orient Express, I purchased and read every used copy of her work that I could find.  When we travelled home, I continued my collection, and my mom added many of her titles to my bookshelf.

I've read every mystery novel that she wrote, as many short stories as I could find, and her autobiography (as well as a few biographies.)  She was an amazing, prolific writer. 

All of that to say, I decided to sell my collection.  Should I ever reread her work, it will be in a convenient format (like my kindle) not the TINY paperback print I read almost a decade ago.

So,  I took an inventory, snapped some pictures and posted it on ebay.  It was a week long auction that sold in the final hour.  I was sad.

But, upon boxing up, I reclaimed an entire shelf for our game collection.

This encouraged me to get a move on planning a party:

We played elefun:

Alice piloted her single player game and ended up playing for over an hour:

And we had to race to the top of the Scooby-Doo tower.

So, I traded books I had no intention of reading ever again, for precious game time with my family.  I'd say I came out ahead. = )

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I also made the tough call of getting rid of a beautiful turtle that Christin bought me when she lived with us, 20 years ago.

It was not a decision made lightly, and so I took pictures and sent her a message.  My turtle will now cycle through my digital picture fame, getting way more views than he has in a long time!

Today, at my yard sale, he went home (for a quarter) with a gentlemen who's intention was to put him out in the garden where he buried his beloved dog.  This thought makes me very happy. = )

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And, we sold a wig* today (or maybe we donated it.)  Avia has all the pictures of Emily donning it, pretending to be her twin, but I thought William wore it well too. = )

later days

*we'd bought it last summer for Emily's snowman box, but none of her snowmen ever wore it, so it had to go. = )

2 Weekends

Last weekend, Emily's friend Abby's sister, Emily had her birthday celebration.  She sweetly invited all 5 of mine for the event.  Billy and I didn't really have a plan, so we went to a dinner place we'd never been.

It's in a hotel, so the entrance is pretty impressive.  The food was really good!  We picked up everyone, except for our Emily, who was staying the night, at 9.  Around 1030, I got a call from my sad Emily that she wanted to come home.  = (  They don't live far away, so I was able to retrieve her about 10 minutes later.

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This weekend wasn't nearly as fancy, we broke out the board games and played candyland, Eye spy, Uno and Battleship.

I did a little winning and a lot of losing, but it was a day well spent.

later days

Want to Play our Game?

Billy and I played a drawing game, Alice joined in at the end.  Each half page is a card.  Answers Below.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Answers:
1. sugar/groom
2. egg/migrate
3. dorsal/freshman
4. swing/smile
5. swarm/skateboard
6. face/landlord (we didn't manage that one)