C-19 Week 17

Made it through week 17 of staying at home!

Natalie has been doing a much better job of staying in her toddler bed, so we decided to upgrade her! She was very interested in what Daddy was building her, but she's pretty convinced it's a jungle gym.

My little helper! She was pretty helpful on breaking spaghetti for a casserole I was making. I thought maybe her helping me might motivate her to eat some of it. Lol - no.

Though if I'm being honest, the boys wouldn't eat it either. I was pretty irritated with them, it was actually quite good and they were being toots about it. They may have gotten a lecture about not saying rude things about food that other people make for them…

An appt for Natalie this week and I don't get out enough to stop my habit of bringing a full coffee with me. I can't take my mask off to drink it at the doctor's office!

Sigh… This new normal won't sink in.

Natalie gets a pass though since it's feeding therapy. It was her six month review off progress and man is she doing awesome! We've still got to work on more volume, but she's not having hardly any issues with the technical side of eating. We haven't had to dig food out of her cheek in forever!

Since it's been awhile since the Jeep bed has made an appearance here, I thought everyone might need a reminder how awesome it is!

I spent some time this weekend working on the closet in the boys “Lab” since it was previously full of Jeep bed pieces. Now that we have more space, I was able to organize the boys many costumes better. Which means I had new characters appearing all week - like this slightly moody pirate. :)

I also realized the boys don't make an appearance in my photos nearly enough, so I tried to remember to get more photos of them. Even if it means a selfie post-spinning!

They didn't seem very excited… Maybe I was a little sweaty and possible stinky…? ;)

Her brothers taught her the face making by pulling out her cheeks. But the straw was all her addition. Weirdos, all three of them!

Made the mistake off promising the boys sno-cones. The drive through at the place we usually go is open, but I think everyone had the same idea! We sat in line for-e-ver…

At least Henry got a nap in?

New swimsuit for Natalie! I saw this print and fell in love- unicorns and dinosaurs?!? But it wasn't pink, so I wasn't sure she'd like it. I let her look at all the color options and she actually picked it as her favorite!

Maybe the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree! ;)

Doesn’t he look like he’s having a refreshing time in the pool??

It’s a lie! The pool is 94°! I refused to get in because I had just finished spinning and I needed a cool shower, not a hot pool.

But the boys don’t care at all, they still had fun. Oh to be a kid again and not care about water temps. ;)

C-19 Week 16 (Happy 4th of July!)

Made it through week 16 of staying home!

Someone found the party hats hiding in the closet while we were watching church. She loves any excuse to “celebrate”!

Clearly, she's very proud of herself. ;)

We finally got our new fridge! Our old one died two weeks ago and I didn't realize it until most of the contents were probably spoiled. Thankfully we have a second fridge, so we could make it the time it took to get the new one delivered.

It has this double door on the front that we thought seemed weird, but I love it already! The kids can get milk and juice without opening the whole fridge! And Natalie's stuff fits perfectly in the outermost small shelves.

The only slight disagreement on the new fridge was the counter depth choice. I didn't really think it was necessary, but didn't care terribly much since we have a second fridge. Counter depth fridges look nice because they don't stick out from the counter much, but that also means there is less room on the inside. I have been giving Matt a hard time about the small size of some of the shelves, like this tiny drawer in the freezer section. (Some of the ones in the fridge are really a joke in comparison.)

Luckily I found something that fits perfectly there and the boys love the popsicle section!

The boys aren't supposed to bother me while I'm working in my office during the week, but I guess you all know how well that's going. Sometimes they will write me notes asking to do stuff instead of bothering me by asking… ;)

I am so impressed how perfectly backwards Henry wrote this particular request. (It says “Minecraft” for those without kids in that target audience). I should have suggested some handwriting practice before letting him play… Lol.

The lizards were all over the brick columns outside today and I showed Natalie some of the more colorful ones. So, naturally, she had to show two of her Violets the cool lizards.

Third Violet missed out on the fun because she dearly needed a bath. Natalie wasn't very happy her Violet was out of commission and tried to get her back on her own. Thankfully I heard her pushing the barstool in there before she climbed up on it… This girl is very determined!

Her feeding therapist has been using a small table recently instead of a high chair. It hasn't been going super great, so I thought I'd let her try more table time at home.

Hahaha - it didn't last very long. She was all over the place and I figured if I didn't want dinner to take two hours, we better go back to the high chair. She sure looked adorable when she was sitting there though. :)

We didn't get much celebrating in since all of our 4th of July plans kept failing through… We at least looked the part though! Mom sent these matching shirts for the kids and I managed to get them all to wear them today!

Then I spyed the flag Matt had just hung up by the garage and figured we needed that for our photo too!

But you know the youngest wants to do everything her older brothers, so she needed to hold the flag too! It dipped dangerously close to the ground, but Thomas and I grabbed Ol’ Glory just in time!

Hope everyone had the best 4th of July they could considering the circumstances!

C-19 Week 15

We made it through week 15 of staying home!

Though the kids are getting a little weird… ;)

Father’s Day this week and the kids were prepared! Mostly because I thought it was last week, so I ordered everything with plenty of time!

Not pictured is the coffee mug they picked out for “World’s Greatest Farter!” They thought it was hysterical and Matt seemed to get a kick out of it as well.

Natalie has been doing better eating recently, so I thought I would take a before & after picture like I did a few months ago. And lucky I did because she tore up her dinner! The beans clearly weren’t her favorite, but she’s definitely improving on her eating.

She also has a developed very unique sense of style.

Never change, little one!

The boys have gotten a lot more ipad time than they usually would, so I went ahead and set them up account so they could send messages to the rest of the family. For some reason they really like to use their ipads while on the stairs. I can’t think of a more uncomfortable place, but to each their own…!

(You can totally tell he’s on the ipad by the blue glow coming from below.)

This girl is getting good on the balance bike! And clearly doesn’t care if she’s in a dress and sandals or not. ;)

Though she at least knows the helmet is a mandatory item - especially with as brave as she is being these days…!

Obviously her therapy went virtual as soon as the school districts did since the Early Childhood Intervention programs are run through the school districts. For some reason today, she wanted to sit with the laptop and talk to Ms. Amy all on her own.

Though she kinda looks like how I feel in some of my meetings - lol! At one point she decided she was done and pretended to be asleep on the pile of Violets. It gave the rest of us a good laugh!

Look who has teeth coming in! I just happened to notice them sneaking in behind the baby teeth this morning. And then after I took the photo I noticed that his molars are coming in too!

Unfortunately the baby teeth aren’t very loose, soI googled if I needed to take him to the dentist. The teeth coming in behind is called Shark Teeth (awesome name) and without the teeth coming in under, the roots of the old teeth might not dissolve enough to come out. Apparently if he can wiggle them enough, we might be able to get them out. Otherwise, dentist time!

Natalie found the boys doctor kit and decided momma needed a tube feeding. Since I don’t have a gtube, she tried to “hook up” the extension to my belly button instead. I’ll give her points for creativity!

Also, Neema has been having a blast braiding her hair since it’s gotten so long. I like the braids, but honestly my favorite part is after I take the braids out the next day and she gets these fantastic crimped pigtails! :)

Look at Henry acting all innocent like he wasn’t the person who showed her this mouth pulling trick. Such a goober! Also the kitty PJs and bunny ears go really well together. ;)

C-19 Week 14

Made it through week 14 of staying home!

I might be a little bit of a sucker for how much Natalie loves Baby Shark. After she chunked the hard plastic Momma Shark at me one morning (I think it was an accident?), I decided to buy her a softer Daddy Shark for carrying around with her. She was so excited that she needed to introduce stuffed Daddy Shark to sticker Daddy Shark!

This girl loves everything music related! She is always singing and has discovered that Daddy’s smaller ukulele is just her size. She may not have any chords down yet, but she loves strumming with Daddy!

Having Neema back has been great, but even with another pair of eyes on Natalie, she tends to run and slam into my office door to gain illicit entry. (Especially if one of the boys is doing a class on the TV in there.) I am hoping out of sight = out of mind and used wrapping paper to block off her ability to see any fun she is missing. Side benefit is that it is almost tall enough to block the boys. Sadly, then can jump high enough to see in… ;)

Henry was having a rough evening and Natalie gave him hugs to make him feel better. He was really upset, so it ended up being a pretty long hug - she stuck with it, even though at one point she was looking at her food while patting his back. It was hilarious and adorable!

She also discovered that mommy’s bagels are pretty tasty when I gave her a small bite. Now I have to share my bagels if she is around.

Sometimes I am only half paying attention to the kids and don’t quite catch what is happening at first. Case in point at lunch - she was saying something that I couldn’t understand. I looked over and realized she was saying “trinagle!” while making one with her necklace. Well aren’t you just the smartest of the smarty pants?!?

It’s getting so hot outside. Pretty much every outside time ends with popsicles!

Or starts with popsicles...

Don’t judge.

She was riding her bike, then decided she was done and ran back to the garage. She then reappeared with the tiny skateboard! We bought that when Thomas was just under a year old, but she might be the first kid to actually try to master it though!

The boys weren’t going to be left out of the fun yet and soon we had three skateboards on the front path. They are going to need to enlist their dad for help though, I have no skateboarding skills and not sure 37 is the time to start learning! :)

C-19 Week 13

Made it through week 13 of staying home!

These two finally realized that they can stay a little cooler outside if they make their own shade! There’s definitely more complaining about outside time these days, so the umbrellas help just a little bit. (At least with the whining… ;)

Speaking of complaining kids - this girl… She developed a pretty bad habit over the time when we were nanny-less. She’s quickly figured out that screaming would get her things because one of us was usually on the phone or in a meeting. Unfortunately, she’s kept it up and mom is officially tired of it.

So Natalie got to experience her first “Time Out!” The first few weren’t very successful, but by about the third time when I said “Do you want a timeout?!?” she responded “No timeout!” and stopped screaming. I’ll take it as a win!

Though apart from the totally normal toddler meltdowns, she is pretty much the most awesome daughter I could have asked for. :)

Thomas has been asking to play with the soccer goals a lot lately, so I set them up on the side of the front yard for them to kick the ball around. Natalie needs to learn the no-hands rule, but she was having fun being in the midst of the fun.

(We really need to get a fence around the pool so the boys can play in the side yard occasionally - it’s pretty much never used because the pool makes me so nervous!

She had her first appointment today since March! We had a few telemedicine visits, but those weren’t terrible useful. Today was a hearing check with audiology and that’s not really possible virtually. The hospital requires masks on anyone over two, so we came prepared to hopefully keep the mask on. The Ear Community has been providing tips to help people with Microtia/Atresia keep masks on and there was a 3D print file to loop the masks straps onto. I had to reduce the file size (a lot!), but it worked like a champ!

Most people wear them a little higher on their head, but one of her tiny braids was a bit in the way. Also there was a line of people behind us and I was trying to hurry. We’ll get better at it!

She did a great job of wearing her mask walking to the appt, but as soon as we were in the room, she jerked the mask down. I tried to get a photo to send to her dad and she pulled it up for the photo to look like she wasn’t being a toot. Faker!

Thomas is really loving my Kindle and I did end up getting Unlimited again for him. As much as he loves it though - I question his choice of reading locations…

Do all kids have such terrible posture or is it just mine??? My back hurts just looking at them.

Oh and Henry is taking some coding classes now too! He’s doing pretty good at it too - he gets a little frustrated sometimes, but they expect that at his age. The classes make sure that a parent will be nearby to help.

Henry was bored when Thomas was in class and now the opposite is true. Soooo hard to entertain yourself when you are used to non-stop company from your bro.

Also I can’t really refuse him - he wrote “Please” twice! ;)

This girl has found all kinds of fun hidden craft supplies that the rest of us had forgotten about. The plastic eyeballs have absolutely been her favorite, especially once I stuck them in front of my eyelids - she thought it was the best thing ever. So I get to play with plastic eyeballs a lot these days…

At least I get fun photos like this in return?

She finally is tall enough to wear my favorite piece of clothing ever - the Carhartts! Henry absolutely would not wear them as a kid - one of my favorite videos is of toddler Henry whining “They’re too tight! Take them off.” But she loved them and looks adorable in them!

Also, is two minutes of time alone / privacy too much to ask?!?

Ok, so I may have been so excited that the boys were “fighting” over the Kindle that I bought another one. I’m a sucker for anything that encourages reading! Though the new one came with Freetime which is someone yet another set of books for borrowing. Not sure why Amazon has to make their library so complicated - should I cancel Unlimited now??

Probably, I don’t have much for me to read… :(

I’m also apparently a sucker for playdoh - I bought this set because Natalie has been on such a play-doh kick recently. And she absolutely loved it!!!

But after it makes this fabulous hair for her to cut, there are tiny pieces of play-doh everywhere. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought it. In my defense, it was my first Target trip in months, so I may have lost my mind a little bit…

Also, she was so excited when we first played with it. So I guess I’ll call it a win!

The poor rug until the play room table is definitely a goner though…

C-19 Week 12

Made it through week 12 of staying home!

And the best part is that Natalie’s nanny, Nemma, is back! When all of this was going crazy, they were cancelling schools and closing work, we all decided it was safer to not have the additional risk to the families. But things are pretty much holding steady and we are dying without her!

I think she missed us too though! ;)

And since we have the extra help, we decided to try out a virtual coding camp for the boys. Thomas was up first - the place they went last year (Coder Kids) had a Scratch game making class and I figured the same teacher would be a good intro to virtual coding.

It went great! A little bit of trouble convincing him to ask the teacher for help instead of wandering over to my desk, but overall he liked it. :)

And since we have a little extra help, I decided to take the boys out for a ride without me having to pull the trailer. Not sure we are going to make it much further into the summer, we drank all of the water we carried in a very short ride. Apparently not all of the Alaska blood has left our system…

But the boys had fun apart from being “so sweaty!!!”. It was nice to get some along time with them - that’s been challenging recently!

Natalie ripped most of her flower stickers off the wall when she was chilling in her room (not) napping the past few weeks. It felt so blah without them, so I ordered some new butterfly stickers and put them up high enough she wouldn’t be able to rip them down. She loved them!

I thought maybe going for a morning ride would be a little bit cooler, so I took a morning “lunch break” instead. Shockingly, it was not much cooler. Oh Texas summer, I am not ready for you!

I did get past my usual turn around point on the bike trails though - so at least it was a good workout. :)

Natalie has been super into play-doh recently, but just discovered the molds to make all kinds of fun shapes. They are a little tricky to get the play-doh back out of, but she loves all of the animal ones!

Pool time! We stopped her swim lessons back in March (like everything else in life), but decided to have a private instructor come to the house starting next week. Since it has been so long, we thought a little extra pool time before the lessons would be helpful.

Also, even if I hadn’t told you Neema was back, Natalie’s hairstyle should have been a dead giveaway - my braiding skills are embarrassing in comparison! I can barely do one on my own head and I’ve never attempted trying on Natalie’s hair. I’ve been trying to work on mine since a braid is easier with the bike helmet, but it’s still pretty sad looking - lol.

And since I was ordering butterfly stickers for her room, I decided to jazz up her bathroom with her favorite characters - the Baby Shark clan! She was sooooooo excited when she saw them! I also finally realized that the different colors are different members of the family. So the swimming pink Baby Shark I got her at Christmas was actually a Momma Shark!

Also I have hated those shower doors since we moved it - they are fine on the boys side, but make it challenging to give Natalie a bath. Matt just took them down for me and he’s installing a curtain rod instead. It’s sooooo much easier at bath time now! :)

C-19 Week 11

Made it through week 11 of staying home!

One upside to the pandemic is that the kids are finding all kinds of things to play with they had forgotten about. Thomas had never made the guitar with boost before and look how awesome it is!

We have been dealing with this child getting into the pantry for weeks now - the bigger issue is her tendency to move food all over the house. And now she’s discovered the chocolate bucket…

Sadly for Natalie, her free reign over the pantry is about to end - her Dad just installed a lock that will keep her out. Sorry, not sorry!

Also look how long her hair is getting!!!

Some days the activity outside my office door is weirder than others. This was one of those days…

Also the boys are terrible babysitters. (Shocking, I know!) I asked them to keep an eye on her because I had a meeting and Henry came running in that she had gotten into my bathroom drawers. Specifically my mascara - her attempt to put it on was a little off…

Thomas really wanted to make sure I would get a photo of the popsicle because it looked frosted and he thought that was soooo cool looking. I actually just wanted to get a photo of how cute and happy my 8 year old is about a popsicle. ;)

Also the only reason Natalie isn’t yelling about him being on her tricycle is because she is too busy eating a popsicle!

She seems to be taking fewer and fewer naps these days. Luckily she doesn’t mind staying in her room for “quiet time” even if she’s not napping. It’s pretty much the only time Matt and I can get work done at the same time - otherwise someone is always running interference.

But today she got suspiciously quiet and I couldn’t see her on the monitor. Turns out she actually wore herself out! Also the butt in the air is my favorite kid sleeping position - so adorable!

Today needed more flair apparently. She was insistent on adding more until we reached the magic number of four headbands. She is clearly developing strong opinions on what she wants to wear / accessorize.

This is why “quiet time” was in quotes. This is usually what greets me when I go to her room after a few hours of attempting to let her nap goes by. Stuff everywhere! She completely emptied our the dirty and clean clothes and found some shoes to be dressed up while destroying everything. Crazy girl!

I moved the dirty clothes hamper out of her room after this particular fiasco. At least I know which clothes are clean now!

Since we remembered how well the boys can make parfaits, I may have asked them to randomly make me breakfast. A deal was reached that they would make the parfaits if I would cut the strawberries (probably wiser anyhow!).

There was a lot of excited yelling the other day as I was finishing up my work day. Turns out the boys were teaching Natalie how to play hide & go seek - and she was loving it!!! I saw her hide in the laundry room and she was so excited I found her!

She much preferred being the person seeking though! Even when it was her turn to hide, she really just wanted to help look for everyone else. She was pretty good at finding the boys, but when mommy got involved, I had better hiding spots. ;)

I mean, I guess this kind of hiding spot works when Natalie is doing the hiding, but I made the boys work harder when they were seeking! Lol!

Playing with an umbrella will just wear a girl out on a hot day. Good thing there are popsicles to help cool us all down! Also, I tried to get her off the umbrella, but she was convinced it was a great seat. ;)

Well at least she fell asleep this time? And she just pulled the clean diapers out…

Thank goodness for small favors! (Also I moved the diaper pail out of reach as well. I’m not a complete fool…)

I thought Thomas might enjoy reading a book on my Kindle, so I downloaded some kid books for him. There weren’t a whole lot of options on Prime Reading, so maybe I’ll end up getting Kindle Unlimited again…!

Stephen F Austin SP

We’ve been stuck at home so long that I thought it might be worth trying to find an outing for the family. Luckily, the state parks have opened back up and they graciously extended the annual state park pass expiration since we weren’t able to use them for so many weeks. There were limits to entry though, so we booked Memorial Day in advance and hoped for good weather!

I picked Stephen F Austin because it was close to home and supposedly had some decent bike trails. Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend was rainy and there was a warning on the park’s website that some trails would be closed due to mud. Sounds like biking would be out, but no harm in just hiking around on foot. It was still something to do!

Boy were the kids happy to be out of the house! And there were new trails to explore besides the ones we have been walking over and over near home. The park was pretty empty, so we even let the youngest down to run around like a crazy toddler.

Except she kept randomly stopping and bending over. It took us a while to realize what she was doing because she was taking off when we caught up to her. Turns out she was just taking a chance to spit on the trail?!? Why?? I’ve not seen the boys doing this, so I have no idea where she got the idea…

Luckily we convinced her that was yucky and to knock it off. Would have been an adorable photo of her too if she wasn’t being a spit monster. ;)

Once she was done lagging behind to spit on the trail, she was no longer happy with being behind her brothers and was yelling at them if they got to far ahead. Henry decided she would be happier if she could hold his hand. And he was right! :)

We finally made it down to the Brazos overlook! The river looked nice and full thanks to all the extra rainfall. It was a pretty small overlook, so we didn’t stay long. The park was fairly empty, but there were other people and no one wanted to be too close to anyone else!

Poor Thomas was trying so hard to keep his new sneakers from getting muddy. He tried the other side on the first passing of this muddy spot, but slipped around enough he was hoping this side would be better. (It really wasn’t!)

They are trail/hiking sneakers, so I am pretty sure they can handle a little mud. ;)

Such a happy girl to be getting out of the house. She mostly did all of the walking herself, just needed a little bit of carrying towards the end (and whenever we were passing other people - she wasn’t great at social distancing).

Despite the complaints that they were getting hot and sweaty, I think the boys had fun too! We had a quick snack of cookies under the shade of the trees before heading back to the car. If I planned ahead a little better we could have had a full picnic, but throwing snack packs of cookies was the best I could do. ;)

As a side note, we tried to have a snack earlier at campsite table next to the hiking trail and got lectured by a park host about not using campsites we didn’t reserve. Apparently the fact that the park was completely closed to camping didn’t make a difference that “Rules are rules!” The next time it might be reserved and we might assumed that using someone else’s table was acceptable if they don’t enforce those rules now.

Eyeroll…

Other than the over-powerful camp host in a golf cart, it was a great time out in the world and definitely a much needed breath of fresh air!

C-19 Week 10

Made it through week 10 of staying home!

The water table just isn’t exciting enough for the boys some days and the water hose becomes the play toy of choice. I mean, I don’t blame them, but if they spray me - fun time is over! ;)

The boys were running around play fighting with the orange sticks (as usual) and I thought I would ask Natalie to show me her best fighting stance. I 100% thought she would just look at me like I was crazy and say “Huh?” like I get 60% of the time right now…

Instead she whips out this perfect fighting pose.

I think we are doomed!

Popsicle time! Henry has decided that grape is now his favorite flavor!

Thomas still prefers green. Honestly, I think it is less about the flavor and more that it is clearly his favorite color. ;)

I may have given in to the child attacking me and yelling “Chocolate!!!” while I was trying to finish up work today. (Yes, she is still in pj’s - don’t judge.) I wasn’t paying attention to her while she was eating them and finally noticed when she was yelling “look!” at me. Lol - what a chocolately mess.

At least I know she likes savoring the chocolate?

This kid was determined to share my soccer mom chair even if I wasn’t making it easy on him. His butt is completely hanging out the side underneath the arm rest, but he was so proud of himself. You can also just make out the youngest’s foot as she tries to join in on the fun. So much for quietly relaxing at the end of the day…!

Although I have nothing but good things to say about the morning snuggles! My usual routine is to get up when everyone else is asleep and try to get some work in before the kids wake up. Natalie is definitely the first one up since we’ve been letting the boys stay up too late.

She’s usually in such a great mood at the start of the day too! :)

Napping is sadly becoming less common these days. And for some reason she prefers the floor to her bed. But if she can get settled down with a Violet on her head, she usually will fall asleep… Usually.

Also she’s starting stealing Henry’s Scout in addition to her 2 Violets. Thankfully, he mostly hasn’t minded the theft.

I finally remembered the recipe I saw for making Jello popsicles and we decided to try it out. Supposedly they don’t melt as fast, which would be a nice change from the super fast melting popsicles they have been eating. They seemed to like the flavor and they indeed did better at not melting (though I wouldn’t claim they don’t melt at all). Guess we need to order some more Jello!

Look at someone’s mad stacking skills! She was so proud of her giant play-doh tower and even let me take a photo before promptly knocking it back down. ;)

The boys have been spending more time playing Minecraft recently and fell back in love with their giant Minecraft heads that Allie gave them last year. The youngest, of course, wanted to join in on the fun!

Soccer time! The boys wanted to play an actual game instead of just kicking the ball around, so I set up the soccer goals in the front yard.

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be…

Their sister not only stole the ball, she wouldn’t evacuate the goal for them to play. It’s pretty much impossible to get all three of them on the same page at the same time. I had to coerce Henry into agreeing to play to begin with and this minor set-back was enough that he went off to play something else. Thomas didn’t want to just play with one goal, so the whole activity was ruined.

Sigh - so much drama over a soccer game.

Guess we’ll try again tomorrow…?

C-19 Week 9

Made it through week 9 of staying home!

The youngest was in a mood on our evening walk today. She didn’t want to smile for a photo, didn’t want to hold anyone’s hand, didn’t want to go see the turtles…

It finally got to the point that she was on the verge of a full blown meltdown and refusing to head home. So she got an impromptu ride on momma’s shoulders. There was a little bit of flailing around at first, but I may have done a few dips and twirls to make her think it was a fun ride, not an imprisonment.

We’ve been plowing through all of the Stargate and Stargate Atlantis seasons with the boys as our after dinner (or during - don’t judge!) and they love the shows. There’s definitely a lot more talk about space and other worlds than prior to the quarantine. We were playing with their Star Wars lightsaber the other day when we realized it made a awesome Jaffa symbol. Henry is ready to be First Prime!

(This will make no sense to those that aren’t Stargate fans…!)

The downside to teletherapy visits is that Ms. Amy can’t bring us the props we need for lessons these days. The new activity is trying to get Natalie to match the animal noise to the animal, so we had to scrounge up the correct animals for the activity. Well we had them all last week, but Natalie hid the duck somewhere and i didn’t realize it until it was “go time”!

Luckily she has the baby/duck combo toy in the bath tub and I went and grabbed it for the lesson. You can tell the first sound was a cat since she has moved the kitty to match the one on Ms. Amy’s screen. :)

Since school is officially virtual for the rest of the semester / eternity, the schools asked us to come pick up their school supplies. Had to print out big signs with their names and they asked everyone to wear masks. It was definitely a bittersweet pick-up. :(

We went for a bike ride to the park down the road and the boys were having a blast. Except then Thomas got in front when Henry wanted to be front. So Henry sped up and tried to cut the corner - and totally bit it.

Maybe I need to start carrying a first aid kit with me…?

We managed to make it home and get him bandaged up. Thankfully popsicles make everything better!

The little sister has gotten pretty vocal about wanting popsicles when her brother get them. So we’ve settled on cutting the tops off a little bit further down so she can have some tiny popsicles! :)

Thankfully everyone seems happy with the new arrangements!

The boys have really gotten good with their chalk art! I guess all this time spent drawing with chalk is improving their skills in this medium. ;)

Also, I am getting worried we might run out - the last few Target orders I’ve placed there has been no chalk. And Amazon also looks cleaned out. I guess everyone is trying to entertain their kids in the same way!

This girl is smiling because I stopped helping her shoot the water gun and she realized she could do it on her own if she props it upright. And she proceeded to drink out of it like I told her not to. What a toot! Also, she’s completely adorable. She picked out that whole outfit on her own - clearly has a sense of style already. :)

More chalk time! She didn’t seem to care that there was a dead worm in her way, she just drew right over him. Heartless… ;)