Pictures from my phone

We're starting week 6 of quarantine.  We have given up on making the kids sleep in beds.  They've taken over the family room downstairs and just switch up who sleeps on what.  We're still making them brush hair, teeth, bath and exercise.  It's harder to make them remember to practice ballet, piano, chores, etc... We have started back to yard work, which I LOVE after being inside too much.  The kids have been finding sticks and making staffs out of them.  They go adventuring in the backyard.  We pruned our yard, gathered sticks and went down to Jim and Judy's to gather what Jim had pruned and mow the lawn for the first time this year.  We got to talk to Grandma from a far for a minute.  Her hair is growing in marvelously, she's scheduled to begin radiation on Friday and she's definitely looking more perky and more herself than she has for a bit.  She still has some residual problems with her eyes, feeling in her feet and hands, and her lungs.  She thinks that her hands are starting to heal though.  She's almost there!

My Mom put found a chalk obstacle course somewhere and copied it out of the kids.  Sam took it and drew it down the sidewalk and in front of 3 neighbor's houses.  It's really cute and the kids take turns going down it forwards and then backwards.  How do you do a backwards lunge by the way?

I'm enjoying having our Saturdays, though I miss the kids running and playing at soccer.  Sam and Ada have been having a hard time sleeping lately.  I'm guessing because they are not as tired as they usually would be from all their daily routines.  I feel like an official adult though, we bought a weed eater for the first time.  The other one was a hand me down and died.... Jer was pretty excited.

I need to cut Sam and Jer's hair.  It's gotten out of hand.  This week, that's on my list of to-dos.  I think we finally killed Sam's warts, and I think I just found some on Seth's feet.... so here we go again.

Right after conference, we chatted with both my family and Jer's.  It's so fun to see everyone.

We had our traditional conference lunch.

Sam made these crinkles.  He was very proud of himself.

These kids are way too cute.  Sam has taught both of them to play chess and they decided that they would play together.  

Ada's my good helper

The biggest worm was under the leaves I picked up for the trash.  Sam loved it.

We're sadly saying goodbye to our lovely Party Tree.  I really am going to miss it.  Especially the shade it gives for the kids to play during the summer.  We'll have to hope the tree we planted to replace it will grow faster now that the big tree will be out of the way of the sun.  I feel like it's the Giving Tree.  The kids climb and hand and swing.  It gives us shade and leaves to play in during the fall time.  I'm trying not to be too sad over it because it's just a tree and was only meant to live for about 30 years, but I am.

My Mom's cousin, Brook, posted pictures from her 70's cookbook.  They are hilarious, but some of the recipes were from my Grandma and my Great-Grandma.  Here's one from my grandma.  I've never tried it, but black bean fudge is pretty good, so maybe I'll give this one a go.