Mother's Day!

Even though the days are 100% blurring together, somehow the family still remembered Mother’s Day!

Look at this crazy bunch of kids. Love them to death!

Thomas and Matt took pancake duty. There was no buttermilk to make the usual AB Pancakes - and Matt couldn’t exactly do any of the usual substitutions for it since he still brings up that one time I used vinegar in milk instead and ruined his whollllllllllle breakfast. (It’s a thing and they were fine.)

Either way, Thomas took his pancake making job very serious! Look at that concentration!

Henry decided to make yogurt parfaits! He hasn’t made them since Alaska, but he was so excited when I told him we had all the ingredients. I mean, we had to crumble up a Nature’s Valley granola bar for the top, but it worked!

Look at that proud face - he even cut up the strawberries all on his own!

Also, look at that yummy bacon in the background! A great Mother’s Day Breakfast! :)

No real plans for the day, but we got some good hang out time in anyhow! Thomas ordered a set of weapons for his Lego people with his birthday gift card and they finally came in. So they were telling me all about the giant Lego war they had going on.

This girl has unfortunately figured out the fridge water dispenser. We’re pretty good at using the child lock, but not always… And then she likes to make a mess with whatever water she can get out of the fridge before getting busted.

Since she was already wet, we decided to go play with the water table! Look at these crazy kids still wearing their PJs and getting water ev-er-y-where! They were using the water bombs to attack the blast door (patio table) like a recent episode of Stargate they had seen. Henry is only making a sad face because he was behind the blast door and didn’t realize that it wasn’t water proof. ;)

Love you, my three weirdos, thanks for a fun day despite being stuck at home! :)

C-19 Week 8

We made it through week 8 of staying home!

Thomas really seems to be enjoying the new “pajamas” that his Nonni sent him for his birthday. He looks like a tiny old man to me, but also quite adorable! ;)

Natalie is rocking her brother’s old Kermit the Frog pajamas and demanding to be treated like a birthday princess. Basically this is what the office doorway looks like most of the time when I am trying to work.

May the 4th mostly went by without a fuss, but I at least remembered to wear my Star Wars shirt! My cousin Gina sent the kids Star Wars themed bowties and a hair bow. I’m a terrible mom because I forgot to pull them out for the kids today!

Sorry Gina, I swear I really was excited about them.

We decided to veer off the cement paths today and walked down to some of the trails that veer into the woods of George Bush park. Obviously we didn’t go very far with the baby stroller, but the kids seemed to enjoy the more “nature” aspect. I enjoyed the more abundant shade! ;)

I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is Natalie’s first What-a-burger milkshake. She clearly enjoyed it!

I set the boys up an account on the iPad so they could text with the grandparents and Aunts. Nonni especially seems to enjoy texting with Henry, though she does take his use of the poop emoji a bit too literally. He wasn’t actually saying he needed to poop, Nonni. ;)

It seems like this girl’s vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds these days. Case in point, she was pretending to stuff crayons in this poor guy’s mouth and she very clearly said “Dinosaur!” It made me so happy that she’s been interested enough in them to pick up on their name. It’s not like we have been pushing them on her, but we did move a trio of them to her playroom to make space in the boys lab. Clearly she appreciated the new friends. ;)

The flyovers that the Blue Angels were doing in various cities around the country had a flight path that I swear was going right over our house. We weren’t sure how close though, so we thought we should take a short walk over to the creek where the view was much more open. We weren’t the only families that had that thought, but there was certainly no problem maintaining the appropriate social distancing.

And we pretty much timed it perfectly! The flyover was so exciting for the boys and we managed to get a picture of them in the background! I mean, it wasn’t quite as cool as seeing them doing acrobatics at an air show in Alaska, but it was certainly much easier to see. ;)

The boys weren’t interested in taking a walk with Natalie and I tonight, so we had a girl’s walk. I thought I would let her walk under her own power and see how far she wanted to go. Turns out this girl has stamina and speed! She basically ran our whole 1.5 mile loop we do with her in the wagon most nights. And since she could roam around a bit more, she snagged this giant pine cone as a souvenir.

With everything else going on these days, I am clearly not as observant as I should be. So I didn’t notice that Thomas had severely outgrown his sneakers. The last time we went shoe shopping Henry got a new pair, but we didn’t find any Thomas liked - I had intended to take him again soon and it just never happened. Shoe shopping is clearly not happening right now, so I printed a foot sizing chart off that I found online and hoped for the best on fit.

He absolutely loves his new shoes! They are supposed to be hybrid hiking / sneakers, so he was pretty excited about how cool they were.

This girl has somehow become obsessed with cats! We are totally a dog family, but she always favors her cat toys and gets excited about them in books. She kept demanding I draw her a kitty when we are out doing sidewalk chalk art, so I finally googled a simple cat drawing I could do. And as simple as it was, she loved it! So now every time we do chalk, I have to draw her lots of cats.

But she upped her love of them this week and has starting giving the cats kisses. What a goober! :)

C-19 Week 7 (A Much Needed Break!)

We made it through week 7 of staying home.

Sorta…?

I’m going to be honest, I am worn out. This stay at home business was temporary, but it’s looking more and more like it’s not so temporary after all. And it’s been a struggle with work, the kids, their school and a very energetic 2 year old. I could feel myself getting more and more stressed out. The limit was when I was trying to finish an email after hours, Henry came in to ask me for something and just keep asking me questions until I finally snapped at him. The look on his face was pretty devastating and I realized that none of us were handling this terribly well. So I promised them I’d take this week off and we’d have a better week.

Hopefully?

I gave myself a haircut! I mean, it’s wasn’t dramatic, but I was in desperate need of a trim before all this started and it clearly wasn’t getting better…

And more family bike rides!

The boys and I went out on our own too! Henry is doing so well on his bicycle that I thought we’d try a long ride for him. He did absolutely awesome!! We did a few big loops at the greenway and he was still up for more (after a little rest stop, of course).

Can you spot Pete the Cat??

Since Henry was up for more, we headed off through the neighborhood over to Turtle Rock! There was a trio of turtles there to greet us. All said, he made it over 3 miles and just did awesome! So proud of both of my biking boys. :)

Since it was my “vacation”, I decided to get in some relaxing time by the pool. Of course, the boys wanted to join in, so I got to listen in on their school videos they were assigned this week.

Side note - Henry knows how to chillax with the best of them. ;)

And of course, Mommy free time means more play time for Natalie! Water table play time to be exact!

And lots of walks with mom! I mean, these are normal, but more fun when momma has had a relaxing day?

And more fun for momma when someone else will pull the wagon for a little while…? ;)

Oh and of course plenty of treats - gotta love that push-pops are still around!

These are absolutely my favorite pajamas that Henry has. I mean, breakfast is pretty much my favorite meal of the day, so why wouldn’t I love them. Mmmm I should have made waffles!

Ok, so the morning walk was a bit of a fail this morning… Thomas slipped and fell before we even left the house, banging his head on the stool in the process. But he was still up for going on a walk once I gave him an ice pack. Then Henry slipped on the wet concrete, fell and scraped off his elbow.

Ok fine, universe, this walk is clearly not meant to happen.

Getting some art time in! Coloring her favorite animal, despite her dad trying change her mind. ;)

The balloon that her nanny bought her for her birthday is finally starting to lose it’s float! Lol - it’s been tied to the top of the stairs for months now and I was convinced it would just last forever…

Morning water table time. She’s got her water fun and I’ve got my caffeine - can’t beat that start to the day!

Obviously part of the week was spent making sure Thomas had a great birthday party, but that’s the subject of another blog (success, I think!). Overall, it was a good week away from all of the stresses and hopefully gets me through another few weeks (hopefully not months…!).

Happy 8th Birthday Thomas!

I can’t believe my oldest is 8! He was pretty bummed leading up to his birthday because we clearly couldn’t have friends over to celebrate. But I promised him it would still be an awesome birthday!

Even breakfast was going to be exciting - Matt went and picked up his favorite breakfast from Waffle House!

Natalie approves of the awesome WH bacon! :)

This guy was so excited for present time! He and I were conspiring to find Thomas the perfect gift and thankfully his first choice was available from Target! He even managed to keep it secret what he had bought for Thomas. :)

Lol - a Lego Minecraft Chicken set! Thomas has been working hard on all his chicken coops in Minecraft lately, so it was pretty much the perfect gift. And it even will lay eggs. Ha!

I woke up early and wrote a giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS! along the walkway this morning in chalk. So I guess now I’m to blame if we run out. But Thomas loved it! :)

He’s also standing at the start of his birthday nerf gun themed obstacle course! I went with a combination of obstacles to dodge, things to shoot/knock down and throwing/kicking items.

These were the “grenades” to try and throw into the goal on the porch. I’m only going to brag a little that momma was the only one who managed to make a grenade in there! ;)

Then balloon target practice! And we only got a few darts in the neighbor’s yard…. Sorry neighbors!

After a run around the bushes, you have to loop back and kick soccer balls into the goal.

The giant nerf gun was used for this target practice. Then you had to jump over the wagon, reload the darts and shoot at the next set of targets hiding at the base of the tree.

Thomas did so good that Matt had to try and beat his time/score! I skipped the first part on Thomas’ photos, so back to the beginning! First you run up, grab the small nerf gun and shoot the clear cups off the bench armrest!

The run through the poles - Matt knocked one over! This is right before the grenades, so that pretty much covers the whole course. There was one more set of poles at the end you had to hurdle.

Unsurprisingly, Matt beat Thomas by a little bit on the score - but not as much as he was hoping I think. ;)

Birthday boy taking a break to eat some candy after all the obstacle course excitement.

Henry actually decided to take a nap (ok, I may not have given him an option - he was clearly tired), so Thomas and I had a picnic in the yard! It was such a nice day, especially in the shade!

Also, cold fried chicken is 100% the best picnic meal. If you don’t agree, I’m sorry but you are wrong. ;)

There was a bit of a miscommunication on the birthday cake and I failed his vision! I thought he wanted a Minecraft cake instead of a racetrack cake. But he wanted a Minecraft-Racetrack cake! (Why do my kids always want to combine themes!) Unfortunately, I had used all the remaining oreos for the dirt part of the cake. So he decided that he was ok with me using rainbow sprinkles for the race track.

Oh thank goodness the day wasn’t ruined - lol!

But the best part of the day was the at home Benihana’s dinner! It was by far our favorite birthday celebration venue in Alaska and the boys were bummed we couldn’t go. So we brought it to them! Henry was even in on the plan, he dressed up so he could be the waiter! We pretended to go for a drive and he met us at the door to seat us at the “hibachi grill” and take our drink orders! So adorble!

But the kids lost it when Matt went out to the garage and came back in with a cart full of ingredients to make dinner, just like Benihana’s! And the chef’s hat was just perfect!

He read up on what to do to make it as close as possible to the real thing - including the volcano onion! Thank goodness we already had a green laser. ;)

The boys absolutely loved it! And it was starting to smell just like the real thing!

Overall, I’d say we nailed it! I even made their favorite dipping sauce!

I also may have enjoyed it so much that I’ve been googling outdoor hibachi set-ups…!

The morning after the big day! I told my mom that Thomas needed some cooler pajamas and she sent him these undershirts to sleep in. He looks like a little old man! And he was nice enough to let Henry use on too since he was so jealous.

And finishing off the chocolate waffles from yesterday. I may have almost set the toaster on first trying to keep the chocolate from melting all over it, but that chocolate covered smile was totally worth it. ;)

Happy Birthday Thomas! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed planning it!

C-19 Week 6

We made it through week 6 of staying home!

Someone really enjoys pulling everything out of her dresser in the mornings before I come get her. Usually it’s just stuff on the floor, but today she added this headband as a belt that matched her outfit so well, I didn’t notice it for awhile!

Also you can see that we modified her crib to be a big girl bed! Which means we had to put up a baby gate to her bathroom since there isn’t a door between her room and the sink. You know Miss Trouble would be all over making a mess in there! ;)

I finally introduced her to my favorite Pete the Cat book and she was pretty excited to have a stuffed version to carry around with her. (We’ve been trying to rotate out her books and toys that she is outgrowing, so she got a whole bunch of books from the boys that are much too easy for them!)

I bought these “curtain” wires from IKEA years ago - I think it was the first trip I took back to Texas with the boys? We never got around to hanging them in Alaska, but Matt finally got them up in the boys lab to display all of their art work and treasures!

The boys try to help entertain their sister if Matt and I both have meetings. Apparently this morning was building a major toy battle in the lab. Not sure who they think is going to win, but my money is on the pink turtle riding a dinosaur!

Since she did so well the other day running in the rain, I’ve been trying to give her more time out of the wagon. This girl looooooves to run after her brothers.

If we lose track of Natalie these days, she’s generally snuck into the pantry to steal Pringles. She clearly is my kid, her favorite is Salt & Vinegar. :)

Evening walk time! Only thing our fun walking trails need are a little more shade? ;)

Someone discovered her brother’s motorcycle! This never got much action in Alaska, but has gotten more use now that we have a paved walkway in the yard that is perfect for riding!

Sadly for Natalie, the battery was pretty much dead this afternoon…

Luckily for Natalie, she has everyone wrapped around her fingers and Henry pulled her around the yard instead. She’s so spoiled! ;)

Getting a little tired of “what’s for dinner?” being asked like 30 times a day. Also, losing motivation to cook if we are being honest… (How you can tell Jen is running out of steam!)

So I have been making a list of possible things to make with what we have on hand. It seems a little easier if we can just pick something from a list instead of thinking of something every day. Plus it makes grocery shopping easier to just replace the same things over and over.

Virtual happy hour with my favorite ladies at work! We’re all on the same team and I swear we’ve gotten to be better friends in quarantine. A silver lining to all this madness! :)

Evening yard time with the kiddos! It’s pretty much the best part of the day most days!

Ever since someone figured out how to work the fridge water dispenser, I realized how much she loves pouring water from cup to cup. (Ok - that and the water buckets…) I decided that we were going to be home enough that investing in a water table might be a good idea. And she looooooooves it!

Since she usually ends up pretty soaked, I thought we would play with it this morning before putting on our real clothes. Otherwise we would be going through at least 3 outfits today! ;)

This kid will just give me the cutest smiles for photos sometimes. Also, you can tell it’s a chalk art kinda day!

Although today was less about drawing fun things and more about coloring in the walkway squares. And then smearing it all around with your hands? My hope to not waste the chalk is clearly not going well…

At least they are having fun while it lasts!

C-19 Week 5

We made it through week 5 of staying home!

Well that’s that… :(

It’s really hard to use your mouse when you are being attacked by a unicorn!

Someone is getting tired of their virtual school meetings. I hear ya, bud!

Tiny boss decided it was too nice outside to work late into the day. So the kids and I went outside to joy the awesome afternoon. Not sure the places my youngest was going with a bucket on her head… ;)

She made the right call - it was a gorgeous day out!

Not sure why, but Henry decided to rip off one of the giant elephant ears! I had to explain that we don’t generally rip them off, but since the damage was already done, we decided to play with the giant leaf.

Thomas even wrote the elephant ear a nice eulogy. Lol - this kid…

Sigh… I was trying to listen in to one of my meetings from the playroom thinking Natalie would happily play while I worked. Silly me! Instead she hit the button to turn off my computer mid-meeting…

But on the bright side, I figured out how to disable that button so she can hit it all she wants now and the computer will keep on trucking!

Look at the fun glasses her daddy made her from the Easter egg dyeing kits. She loved them!

Well as if she wasn’t destroying enough, she’s now going after the stickers in her room. :(

I did try to explain to her that if she rips all of the stickers, she won’t have them anymore. Clearly she wasn’t fazed…

I was pulling something out of the drawer that also houses the aprons and someone got super excited! Chef Natalie is ready for duty!

Not sure what she is cooking me, but she is sure excited about!

Of course when one kid gets excited about something, the other two like to join in! Henry decided to serve up some drinks while Natalie was cooking. :)

Glad that they still enjoy pretend play even though they are getting so big! It was a great pretend breakfast they whipped up. ;)

Cousin Gina sent the kids these adorable Star Wars themed bows and ties to wear for May the Fourth. She’s never seen it, but supports her cousins who are sci-fi nerds.

It’s getting brighter out and earlier - and the light was starting to wake me up too soon! My mom had sewn together panels for our wide windows in Alaska. Here we have two thin windows on either side of the beds, so I had to unstitch them to make them work. It was a bit tedious - a perfect activity while TV watching!

I’ve been buying more ice cream treats than usual and someone was getting jealous of them - especially the push-pops! While I wasn’t ready to give her a giant push-pop, she was more than happy with just a bit of sherbet.

Lol - do you think she wants a bowl of canned peaches?

You’d be wrong! She wouldn’t eat them, but she does enjoy pretending that she wants them.

Miscalculated a little on our walk and ended up getting a teensy bit rained on! Natalie was probably more excited about it than her normal walks. Since no one else was out and about, we let her run free and she was having a blast!

Me and my cutie patootie! Love this crazy toddler. :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone!

We have several iterations of Easter art that we got to practice this week (thanks rain!) and the boys really seem to love making any sort of chalk art! Thomas has great chalk based handwriting, wouldn’t you say?

Their dad even got in on the fun and drew them this awesome Easter bunny!

Henry was a little obsessed with drawing the colorful Easter eggs. Here’s hoping we don’t blow through our chalk supply before they get tired of it…!

When pulling out all of the Easter supplies from storage, we found a few hopping bunnies that poop out jellybeans that had never even been opened! I am pretty sure we had a pair and my sister sent another pair unknowingly. It worked out great this year since one had broken - now every kid had one!

Well not the adult kid… But he seemed pretty content sharing jellybeans with Natalie. ;)

Another gift from Aunt Heather - this fun egg spinner to help you color the eggs! I even remembered to buy the right color eggs this year!

They take their egg coloring very seriously and don’t appreciate being asked to stop and take photos. But they usually humor me. ;)

Our Loquat tree is loaded down with fruit! None of us have ever tried a Loquat, so we were pretty excited to try them out. Turns out - they are pretty good! And the boys had a blast helping pick them off the tree!

Ok, we may have gone a bit overboard on picking them. But we thought we so many ripe ones, maybe we could make some jam??

But first…. Easter Egg hunting time! Aren’t these buckets just the cutest?? Matt’s coworker sent them to us and they turned out way cuter than I expected.

Also, I finally gave in and bought a pair of crocs, but went with a cute pink instead of the camo like the males in the house. It looks pretty silly when Henry steals them because he can’t find his own… ;)

I was worried that Natalie would rip the bow right off her rabbit, so the lady who made the buckets sent us a spare. (must have toddlers as well…) But honestly, Natalie loved her bucket so much and she hasn’t tried to destroy it yet!

I didn’t get any photos of the actual egg hunting because I was having too much fun watching the boys run around! Thomas was an egg spotting champion!!

But Henry did pretty awesome too! I think we even managed to find all of the hidden eggs - I always forget where they are by the time we finish hiding them. Lol - I could stage my own egg hunt with no problem…

Also Henry is holding an egg with a “T” on it because we reuse the eggs over and over again - that one was from a hunt their Aunt Heather made where she wanted to make sure they each got the same number and labeled them. Lol - they were young enough they didn’t throw a fit. ;)

Natalie napped through the egg hunting (sorry babe - next year??), but we shared Easter treats with her anyhow! She loved the peeps!

And the jelly beans… And then got a little crazy from the sugar… Love this crazy girl!

I didn’t really feel like doing all the work for Easter dinner, but this year I didn’t have to! A lot of the restaurants are struggling right now and some have gotten creative with to-go options. Our new favorite is Whiskey Cake - they offer some awesome family style options that just need to be heated. Easter dinner required a little bit of prep, but it was awesome!

Also their original packages all came with grocery staples and toilet paper. Lol - genius!

Finally time to work on the Loquats! These little fruits are like 75% seed!!! Definitely a labor of love to get these things peeled… And Natalie discovered she likes them, so about half of them have to get passed over to her or I won’t hear the end of it.

But I persevered )over several days) and had almost enough to make a small batch of jam. I was just a tiny bit short and added in some grated apple to make up the difference. It turned out pretty awesome!

I just need to get some helpers next year. ;)

C-19 Week 4

Made it through week 4 of staying home!

We’ve made it a full month! A full month of trying to work full time, help school 2 kids and entertaining a toddler. Y’all - it’s hard…

But you know who is loving it???

The toddler! She gets to hang out with her family all day, every day! At least someone thinks this is the best time ever. ;)

Also she gets to destroy so much and as long as she does it quietly, she generally gets away with it. Look at the pure attitude in those adorable eyes…

We’re doomed!

More weekly meetings! Thankfully mine is mostly a listening meeting and I have managed to cover responses by responded in the chat window. Luckily there are enough people in the same boat that the coworkers are pretty understanding.

Although sometimes I have to be able to respond and all of the kids get locked (ha - I wish it actually locked) out of the office. At least they provide some entertainment through the window! ;)

Henry’s meeting today was a scavenger hunt! They were all racing off camera to go find a object that matched the request - this particular one was to find something red. Luckily for Henry, I had him set up right next to Natalie’s playroom, so he was always pretty fast!

Someone is really getting a “I can do it myself” attitude… Ha! I would love for her to do this all on her own, but she did discover the food is a little harder to push than the water. ;)

Ok, taking meetings by the pool is more fun than in the office.

Also, you might be thinking we have too many meetings. I 100% agree! :(

The boys asked me for ideas on what to draw in the chalk so I told them to draw some cool eggs since Easter is coming up. I had to draw them some examples and then egg shapes they could fill in. With the rain in the forecast, I am sure they will get more chances to practice!

Somehow I have run out of energy most evenings by the time we finish dinner. (Haha - can’t imagine why…) We’ve been mostly watching TV after dinner, but Henry was so excited about playing Apples to Apples that we took a night off from the TV and played his favorite game.

Henry was watching random videos on Brain Pop and I walked by just in time to see the creepy plague doctors. At least he’s topical…?

Decided to give Henry some extra bike time on our evening walk. And we figured we could just walk under the bridge on our side instead of crossing over. The boys thought it was way more fun!

I wonder if their school misses them as much as they miss it??

I am still not sure where she found a piece of tape while on a wagon ride to Turtle Rock?

Afternoon chill out time with the kids! For some reason, we decided to hang out in the garage today instead of in the yard. My other kids stole my chair, so I had to sit in the stroller. It was not the most comfortable seat - especially once Thomas sat in my lap. ;)

This week the boys had the same art assignment, so they could do it together! The were drawing cities and they both added a Target to them. Lol - well that’s pretty fitting. :)

I miss Target - I haven’t seen my happy place in so long…! :(

The ramp is still going strong! And even Natalie likes to pull it out to play with the monster trucks!

I bought the boys these laser tag guns for Christmas since there were a few too many “incidents” with the Nerf guns. They have played with them some, but now they have taught baby sister how to use them and it’s pretty much a daily battle between the three of them. It’s cuteness mostly makes up for how long it is…!

C-19 Week 3

We made it through week 3 of staying home!

Cleaning up the pool or pretending you are stocking up a space ship for a long journey? It’s hard to say… ;)

Henry spied his baking book on the shelf and begged to make the banana chocolate chip mini-muffins. And who could resist that face - lol!

We decided to make it a virtual cooking show with Nonni and Aunt Heather. They were very supportive of the baking endeavors - though quite upset they weren’t getting any of the finished goodies. :(

Biking trip and thought it would be fun to bring the frisbee along for extra play time. Except the frisbee ended up stuck in the tree on the first throw. We managed to get it down by chunking water bottles at it, but it took a while and the eldest was despairing of us ever getting it back…

If anyone is wondering how easy it is to work remotely with a toddler, I can assure you that it’s not very easy at all…

Only 3 weeks in and I’m already starting to feel like it’s been too long. I figured others might be struggling, so I tried to write some positivity on our driveway! If nothing else, I felt better after writing it!

Someone was pretty excited to find the spaceship costume! Hasn’t quite figure out how to “blast-off” yet though - when I tried to give her a countdown, she tackled me instead of running off. Even if she’s not a fully functioning space ship, she’s a fully adorable one!

Thomas class zoom meeting always manages to coincide with my team meetings. His kinda looks more fun than mine (and certainly is shorter- lol!).

Are you an eagle eye? Did you notice the stack of tupperware on my desk in the previous photo and wonder why they were there?

This crazy girl is enjoying the fact she isn’t being watched as closely these days and is getting into everything… And for some reason most of it ends up on my desk?

Henry’s got meetings now too! Thankfully the boys haven’t had concurrent meetings - then we would really be doomed.

Henry has maybe had one or two sessions in his “Challenge” class before spring break, but they are continuing even during the virtual schooling. The task this week was to design something on paper, make a supply list and then make it in real life. His dad got involved and made the monster ramp even cooler that what he had drawn. Henry was so excited that he let his brother help decorate it!

The ramp was great for launching their monster trucks! They even lined up the smaller monster trucks to jump over with the bigger ones. It feel sturdy enough that it might even last for a while if they don’t forget to bring it in to keep it out of the rain.

Natalie gets way more play time when her nanny is here, but I am trying to cram in as much fun time as I can once I give up on working for the day. She’s rediscovered her love of play-doh, so that has been a recurring activity for the two of us to share. She has a little bit of trouble pushing the “extruder”, but she sure does love cutting the strings!

But even oven mitts are fun play toys! ;)

Who wore it best?? Lol - I feel like a monochromatic villain. And I was pretty shocked Natalie left it on - I mean not for terribly long, but long enough to get some photos of her wearing it.

Basically we decided that a mask bandanna may not be the best option, but it could work in a pinch!

The recommendation went pretty fast from “stop buying masks!” to “please wear a mask, but not the medical ones!” Since I had some random pieces of fabric from previous projects, I thought I would take a shot at making them. The boys were happy to model them, but did say they smelled funny.

Well hopefully washing them takes care of that…!

C-19 Week 2

We made it through week 2 of staying home!

I am not sure who put this on her, but I can assure you that she was not…!

Went for a bike ride and made it all the way across the boardwalk to the fields on the other side. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the path tends to flood a little bit there after a good rainstorm. The boys had quite the impressive wet stripe on their backs.

Thomas was very concerned that even his underwear was wet, but Henry didn’t seem to mind. ;)

Natalie seemed to realize that the plastic cover on her trailer was necessary as long as we were riding, but she was ripping it up every time we stopped to take a break. The velcro straps don’t stand a chance against a determined toddler…

Finally free to run around! I snapped this photo of her before she took off to chase her brothers and I think she just looks adorable. Bright colors and a little bit of mischievousness in those bright eyes. Love this baby girl of mine so much!

And she’s off! Given last week’s soccer “practice” - the boys pretty much made it keep-away from baby sister.

I 100% don’t blame them.

I took the trash out and come back in to see that Natalie was fetching me a new trash bag for the can. What a good little helper!

I have to admit while I don’t like the rain ruining our walks, I do like the overcast walks better than the crazy sun walks. It’s a much nicer temp without the blazing sun!

Look! A baby turtle sitting on top of his mommy! Aaaaaaa - so adorable!!

While they got a break from school last week, this week the teachers sent out a list of activities for the boys to work on. I figured I would get in on the fun and made Thomas write an email.

Lol - that’s what you get for whining in my office that I write too many emails.

While we can’t actually go visit any friends, we can go bike to their house and send them photos from the curb. Virtual visits!

Sometimes plates are boring and the youngest wants fun things to put her food in. Whatever encourages her to eat!

First school zoom meeting! It was chaos and absolutely the most entertaining meeting I’ve watched all week. ;)

Decided to try a new biking destination this evening and found plenty of room to run around! The youngest was especially ready to run around, though she kept running toward the bike trail instead of the wide open spaces… Toddlers!

Henry… Never change, my crazy kid.

Who hasn’t sat in a laundry basket to watch things on their toy laptop??

Ok. Maybe we are watching a bit too much Stargate with the boys?

Pretty sure he was providing cover for SG-1… The neighbors probably think we are crazy if they were looking in.

The store was all out of raspberries last week, but our shopper snagged some this week. You can see who was very excited to have them back! This girl has always loved raspberries - we spent a fortune on them for her in Alaska… ;)

Sharing is not one of her strengths…

It can be pretty challenging to keep her distracted long enough for both of us to be able to call into meetings. Baby Signing Times is pretty much the only thing that will keep her entertained. Luckily setting her up in a new location was exciting enough that she watched the whole DVD- whew!

Queen Bee wanted to hold hands with both of her brothers tonight!

There’s a new trend going around in this weird time of quarantine to put stuffed animals in your windows. There are a lot more people walking around the neighborhood with kids right now and it gives them something exciting to look for! We noticed one of our neighbors also putting art in their windows and decided we would follow suit on both!

Another weekend, another bike ride! Matt and the boys were having a blast running down to the creek and back.

Natalie was feeling left out in the trailer so Henry jumped in to hang out with her! She thought he was just the best brother ever. :)

Side note - I usually would let her out to run & play, but we were close to a lot of cars going too fast for my comfort with a bolting toddler…!

But when we got home, she got a chance to play on her brother’s old balance bike. We upgraded Henry to Thomas’ old pedal bike, so this one is now Natalie’s. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, but seemed to have fun walking around with it. I am sure she will have it down in no time with all this extra practice time!