Baby birds, Jupiters, Anniversaries

It has been the Spring of babies, I guess. There were some teeeeeeny tiny baby quail crossing the road one day. They were making the tiniest little peeping sounds as their parents rushed them across the road!

When they got to the curb, they kept peeping as they hopped up and down, trying to scramble up after their parents. Some of them were too tiny to make it and had to be helped up by their mama! The little guy by the arrow kept running back and forth making ineffectual little hops but never getting high enough, and I was about to go over and help him, but he did finally make it. What a drama!

The lake has baby ducklings everywhere! The air is full of their peeping (slightly different than the quail-peeping, but equally cute), punctuated by quacks from their anxious mamas. I sympathize.

AND we found a nest with these little baby robins in a tree down the street! It was down low in quite a small tree, so we were able to look right in and see the babies! We loved it! However, I am sorry to report that when we checked on them again a few days later, they were all gone. I'm hoping that they just grew up and became independent very quickly, rather than the horrifying alternative! There is an owl that I see from time to time when I'm out running very early in the mornings. He flies so silently, except when he screams and scares me to death, or when he makes his bouncing ping-pong-ball calls. We have become quite friendly with one another. But surely HE would never do a thing like that…

We went out to watch the jet flyover one day—some kind of salute to heath care workers all over Utah. It was over very quickly and the jets didn't get terribly close, but it was still the most exciting thing we'd done all month. So many people from our neighborhood were out, and there was a very festive atmosphere. Ziggy walked around with Abe like he owned the whole world!

We've been studying the solar system in homeschool, and one day we made these pretty marbled Jupiters. We thought they turned out SO beautifully! And paper marbling is fun. A project involving paint is definitely not the sort of thing I usually attempt with the kids, so this was special. :) We followed the instructions here.

We also put correctly-scaled (to size, but not to distance) pictures of the planets on the wall. Malachi and I even figured out how to use the ladder to put up our huge paper sun, and we were very pleased with ourselves. (It has been quite some time since we last did this—look at little Daisy! Last time we didn't include the sun in our lineup.)

There was a half-price sale at a bouncy house rental place nearby—due to low demand during the quarantine, I assume—so we took the unprecedented step of getting one for the day! Sebastian helped me set it all up. It was the day we studied the Moon for school, so the kids pretended to be walking and jumping in low gravity. :) It was just a small bouncy house, really too small for the older boys, but it did my heart good to see them playing in it anyway. These days won't last, I know that.

Gussie was pronounced "toooo skinny" by the doctor (not in those exact words) so we had to start giving him real food a little earlier than I would have liked—but then, I prefer to do it quite late. We're trying to fatten him up with lots of mashed avocado and olive oil and scrambled eggs and bananas. After a very bewildered first few days, he has now taken nicely to eating, and likes nearly everything. I'm not sure if we've ever fed him yet to the point of him refusing anything? Usually we just eventually get tired and stop. And when I say "we" I mean "Sam and the girls." I figure since I do all the REST of the feeding around here, I oughtn't have to feed babies solids too! Luckily there are usually several other volunteers for the job. :)

Gus and Sam and me had a quick visit to my mom's house to drop something off—it was so nice to see her again after a long couple months of quarantine! We had to take the obligatory baby picture by the Leopard's Bane—compare to Abe and Seb here (and I'm sure I've got a matching Malachi picture somewhere or other).

Happy little Gus.

Teddy astounding Gus with his "singing flashlight" (Teddy's birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa, of course—you don't think _I_ ever buy toys that make noise, do you?). 

Now. I am going to tell you about what Sam did for our wedding anniversary this year, but you must promise not to feel envious. Since we were quarantined and couldn't really do one big thing, Sam instead planned "19 things very dull indeed" (ha ha). Every day he had us do some little thing to celebrate one aspect of our nineteen years together. Many of them really were VERY small—like going on a walk in the neighborhood we lived in when we first got married, or reading books together with the kids to commemorate when we used to do that before we had so many kids and were forced into a "divide and conquer" bedtime strategy. And it wouldn't really have been possible for us to do this any other year, but because of the quarantine this year, we were both home most of the time, and we could slip out for a quick take-out lunch together or a drive or a picnic in the park. 

Anyway, it was AMAZING. My favorite anniversary ever! (We take turns planning what we'll do, every other year. It is so good that way. But I will never equal this year.) I couldn't believe how fun it was to have some little time together to look forward to every single day! It made me realize how many days we end up getting busy and going without that connection—and it's not good! I want to be better at making time for each other amidst…everything else.

The pictures above are from the day we went to Thanksgiving Point gardens (we have a membership and they had just opened again after the quarantine). It was so beautiful there, and peaceful, even with Gussie squeaking at us from the stroller.

Here are a few more pictures of things we did. One Sunday we just went outside to a park, sat in chairs, and talked for two hours without ANY KIDS INTERRUPTING. That was really great.

We drove by the condo we lived when we first got married.

Sam brought home some flowers for me to arrange (I had a flower arranging class at BYU and I used to like to get bunches of flowers at Smith's and make my own little arrangements).

We had a picnic with baby Gus

And went on lots of lots of walks! Hooray for springtime and anniversaries and Sam being home. I'm already feeling quite sad that it's over!

This was a night where Venus was at its brightest the whole year. Isn't it pretty up there by the crescent moon?

Mother's Day was nice. We had our home church and the kids made me lots of little bunny drawings (the above yellow bunnies are by Teddy) and Sam made the most delicious charcuterie-type spread with cheese and salami and vegetables. (And I made my own sourdough bread, feeling that it was too important to entrust to anyone else. :))

Goldie had her birthday too—not on the same day as Mother's Day like it was last year, but a couple days after. She is the sunniest seven-year-old you could ask for.

Such a good sweet sister to her three (THREE! How did this happen?!) little brothers.

I've been so happy that these three girls have each other during quarantine. They never have a lonely moment! Daisy has been reading to the other girls for hours at a time out on the porch swing. They've worked their way through Danny the Champion of the World and Howl's Moving Castle and The Ordinary Princess—maybe some others too.

And now, a few more pictures:

A little stuffed penguin that Junie made for Daisy

The kids playing a game "with" baby Gus in the backyard. I do not know what is going on. I came outside to find the baby lying on a blanket and the others running around him as if he were a maypole.

People hugging other people (note "Fred" on the wall in the background—Fred was part of one of Sam's home church lessons once and we all grew quite fond of him and didn't want to take him down).

People holding other people

People fighting over holding other people while another person sees "A motorcycle!"

People wearing other people's boots and hats

This horrifying basket full of toys. Why horrifying, you ask? Because it will be toted around the house—the toys dribbled out bit by bit in other locations—until everything is put where it doesn't go, and and nothing will ever be cleaned up again. Any empty box or basket (and even ones that don't start out empty) is inevitably pressed into service in this manner. Who could possibly be responsible for such a thing? Hmmmm. Perhaps a little monkey: