Well! Life in quarantine goes on mostly as usual. There are so many things I've really loved about it. It's great having Sam home almost all the time. Even when he's busy teaching, he can come upstairs and say hi for a minute between classes, or we can quietly slip in to his office and bring him some breakfast (the kids love and fight over that job!). I miss going to the temple, but our stake set a 100,000-record indexing goal and it's been fun working on that with Daisy. I've been doing South African death records in Afrikaans. You only have to know a few words in that language (I just use Google translate), and the names are fascinating—Mbambwes and Nblisis and Mnungos all over the place.
I usually run in the early dark morning, but with our adjusted schedules, I sometimes have a chance to emerge like some cave creature into the light of day. The trails are very crowded in the daytime and there are so many people walking their dogs! I still prefer the quiet of darkness, but it's lovely to have the choice. And Sam and I have been going on lots of midday or evening walks—just us, no kids! (Or just Baby Gus.) It's so nice!
These top three pictures were right when the quarantine began—from my run by the lake, at the Jordan River Temple the last day temples were open, and by our own temple in the snow.
Junie turned nine and had a happy birthday. I've read several accounts of how people have made their kids' birthdays "special during quarantine," but as we never do anything very impressive anyway, Junie didn't know any different and was perfectly content with having her favorite dinner (salmon tacos) and pink lemonade ice cream cake at home with the family. My mom made her the little piggy face mask, and I allowed the kids to bring their blankets to school—joy of joys! :)
Daisy and Junie suddenly decided they wanted to learn how to crochet. I was reluctant to teach them because I tried to teach my older boys several times and they just never took to it, so I thought it would be too hard for the girls. I finally said I would just show them very quickly and if they didn't get it they'd have to wait till later. But they both picked it up in only a few minutes and were soon busily working away at little doll blankets! I was surprised and impressed. Every once in awhile I show them a new stitch or help them untangle a knot, but mostly they're just enjoying figuring it out themselves. I have so many random half-balls of yarn, and I'm happy they're getting some use!
• Daisy reading to everyone (she is the BEST read-aloud-er; even I feel like stopping what I'm doing and sitting down to listen when I walk by)
• Putting up our scaled solar system planets (the sun is huge and various pieces of tape keep giving out and making it droop sadly down until we bang it back up again with the broom handle)
• Some strange circular bike-riding game going on in the driveway. Let's just have a close-up look at Ziggy standing there, shall we?:
• I got bunny shirts from Old Navy for any of the men in the family who said they'd wear them. It's a very discreet bunny print; very masculine, don't you think? Not at all embarrassing. Anyway, real men like to wear bunnies! I wish you could see it up closer. Ah, how's this?:
• We also have Goldie and Teddy pushing Gussie in a "ride" they made up—don't worry—very safe for babies.
• And Daisy with a "brown E" she made for April Fool's Day out of a…brownie. Hmm. I am not sure she quite gets the point of that joke.
• Many, many board games are being played at our house these days, most of them way too complicated for me, but that's exactly what everyone else likes, apparently. Every once in awhile Abe will rope me into joining them, and I have fun, but not as much fun as I have just watching the rest of them play while I go about my other duties. :)
• Costco hasn't been too busy, actually, since the first couple weeks. But it was interesting and weird to have to wait in a long line of carefully-spaced shoppers to even get inside! On the upside, it made coming home from the grocery store with enough food for us all feel like a true accomplishment.
Sebastian's mad quest to improve his homemade drum set continues. The Easter Bunny must have been concerned about my poor abused pan lids, because Seb found a little cymbal in his Easter basket. He also bought himself a real stool (or "throne," as they are apparently called) with money he earned from helping in a neighbor's yard. He's tried several methods for creating a snare drum, and the one pictured above was one of the more complicated versions—magnet wire, woven through holes drilled in a piece of scrap plastic and then nestled against the bottom "head" of the "drum" to allow vibration.
Easter Sunday was a very nice day. The girls wore happy flowery new dresses and the boys had the aforementioned bunny shirts—even Gussie! (Good job Old Navy for making so many bunny things for BOYS! I approve.)
These pictures are from one night we played frisbee in the field. If you think little kids are bad at throwing footballs, you should see them throw frisbees! Ha ha. But we had fun.
Baby Gus being funny:
• My brother sent him this Baby Yoda hat (it has a matching onesie too, but naturally we can never find both of them at the same time).
• He still squirms out the necks of his suits when he's very sad. Poor, skeeeeny little lamb!
• An accusing look when I went to get him out of his car seat.
Teddy LOVES Gussie so, so much, it's almost unbearable. (Because it's sweet…and because it causes much sadness when he doesn't get to play with Gus!)
Hammock Park on Junie's birthday. A windy, but beautiful, day!
Outside at the beginning of Spring. This already feels like a long time ago!
• The kids' Spring piano recital was cancelled, of course, along with everything else. Their teacher had everyone record their pieces and then posted them for a "virtual recital" on Facebook. It was cute. We also had our own Family Recital, which was surprisingly fun.
• Piano lessons have continued over FaceTime, which works pretty well. It is really nice not to have to make that half-hour drive four times a week! (We do the lessons in two groups to accommodate the kids' choir rehearsals, which have also been cancelled, of course!)
We have been having frequent picnics in the backyard. One day the girls rigged up the old bike trailer cover to shade Gus. He was very pleased, lying there like a little king while his adoring attendants fawned over him.
More of the Little King
This was an activity where we walked a scaled version of the distances between planets in the Solar System. I've done this multiple times before, but it never stops surprising me. Space is so HUGE!
• Here is everyone standing by the 8-inch sun.
• The rocky planets are all pretty close.
•You can see the legs of Jupiter (Malachi) waaaaay out there in the grass field. But the other planets were so far! Almost a half-mile away! (You can see little jogs in the map as we stopped at each planet along the way.)
• Here is everyone standing by the 8-inch sun.
• The rocky planets are all pretty close.
•You can see the legs of Jupiter (Malachi) waaaaay out there in the grass field. But the other planets were so far! Almost a half-mile away! (You can see little jogs in the map as we stopped at each planet along the way.)
Sundays have been really great with Home Church. We have just loved them (at least I have—I think the older boys prefer their "real" classes and quorums). Having the sacrament at home is beautiful and sacred, and I feel full of gratitude for it every time. And Daisy is the best nursery leader! She does a little lesson, activity, and snacks for the little ones while we have a scripture discussion with the older boys. Then we have a little Primary afterwards. It is so fun!
• The tent Daisy built for a lesson on King Benjamin
• Seb and Gus
• Yeast has been impossible to find lately, and even though I have several packages left, the thought of running out was good motivation to get a sourdough starter going again. It has been YEARS since I've baked with a starter, and I've been loving it! The bread is SO good and so beautiful and I can't stop taking pictures of it! :) I bake the bread for our sacrament every week, and that's been a surprisingly sweet experience as well.
• Kids all in white for the Solemn Assembly during General Conference (not a requirement or anything; the girls just thought it seemed appropriate)
• Ready for bed
• Kids all in white for the Solemn Assembly during General Conference (not a requirement or anything; the girls just thought it seemed appropriate)
• Ready for bed
Sweetest little baby-o
We love walking by the temple even though we can't go in. One thing I've loved is on Friday nights, the parking lot fills up with couples sitting and talking in their cars. Sam and I usually go there on date nights too. It just feels nice to be on the grounds.
We are often accompanied by a little bright-eyed bundle.
This little Ziggy-monkey becomes more of a monkey all the time. He is SO FUNNY but also makes SO MANY MESSES. It seems impossible to keep up with him!
He is also always wearing some interesting combination of items. He loves to wear boots (always someone else's, never his own…I don't even think he has his own) and hats and mittens and scarves and headbands (sometimes as necklaces). When he comes bouncing into the room, I never know WHAT I am going to see!
You capture a life of blessed joy in these family-life posts. They are so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your family! In spite of the messes and such, family life is wonderful and you'll be blessed for working so hard all these years.
ReplyDeleteYou truly are a marvel — as a mother and a woman. And I don’t say that in the way that it always FEELS to me when someone says, “You’re amazing.” and I feel I’ve pulled the wool over their eyes OR I feel they are just saying, “I would never do what you do”. I mean it like ... life is full of struggles and uncertainties and battles and mundane and failings ... but ALL THE WHILE this is happening in your home!! Bread being baked, and children taught to index and play the piano, and children taught to crochet, and given picnics, and not only taught the gospel but how to teach the gospel (dear Daisy’s nursery!), and given an EDUCATION, and even given bunnies to be worn. It really is a glorious triumphant life you are playing out. And all the “you’re awesome, I could never do that” might actually be wholly true in your case! I actually DON’T think many in all of the world could accomplish what you are.
ReplyDeleteLastly. My favorite thing in this post, with all its amazing, is still ... Daisy’s tan dress with the white collar.