Baby's Eye View

I've mentioned that now that it's Spring, we go on walks from time to time. I thought I'd show what Jet gets to see while we're out. Sometimes the background changes from sky to sky and trees.

Cabin Fever!

Jr. was rolling out pizza dough in the kitchen... or so we assumed. We started to hear the sound, "Pound Pound Pound."

From the living room, Nichole called out, "What's going on?"
From the kitchen, Jr. called back, "Quarantine!"
Later, the cackling began. And of course this all made us think of the song from Muppet Treasure Island, "Cabin Fever."

More April Celebrating... With Food

Since we're so busy with school at home right now, most of our celebrating revolves around the menu plan.
April 13 was National Peach Cobbler Day. Oh, yes. Mmmm. It turned out well. And currently I've got peaches in the freezer for two more cobblers. Jr. Jr. turned out to be the biggest fan of this peach cobbler. It made a lot (not everyone in the family is a fan) so there were a lot of leftovers and he was happy to have some whenever he could.

April 14 was National Dolphin Day. We ate tuna loaf. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. We made sure to use dolphin safe tuna. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Mmm, putting this blog post together, I want tuna loaf again. I should put it on the menu plan.
April 19 was National Garlic Day. I made twisted breadsticks with butter and garlic salt and parmesan cheese on them because I was originally planning on making garlic bread but I didn't have French bread for it (I had made French bread but we were saving it for Monday's dinner) so I used a trick I learned from ourbestbites.com to season them after they come out of the oven and I used some dough we had in the fridge.

April 19 was also National Hanging Out Day. We do a lot of that at home with our family, not with friends right now.
April 20 was National Cheddar Fries Day. I made a simple cheese sauce from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner and poured it on French fries (not homemade). Jr. used the French bread I made and made apple cinnamon French toast casserole from the book, Budget Bytes. Yumm.

April 21 was Tuna Rights Day. We didn't have tuna loaf. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. We had salmon patties. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

April 22 was Earth Day. Jr. Jr. drew and colored this fun picture for a school assignment and our family got out for an Earth Day walk together.

We didn't let the kids get out the bike and scooters this time and this was my interpretation of how some of the kids reacted.

April 23 was National Picnic Day. We had picnic food for dinner.

April 24 was National Pigs in a Blanket Day. Nichole had a lot of fun wrapping the bits of hot dog into fun blanket shapes. Creativity strikes again. If you give Nichole a medium...

April 25 was East Meets West Day. We had teriyaki with angel hair pasta (recipe from hillbillyhousewife.com) and watched Big Hero 6 (San Fransokyo?)

April 25 was also National Zucchini Bread Day. My zucchini bread didn't turn out as well as it normally does- the batter anyway. It still tasted good, it was just a weird consistency this time- more like a cookie batter than zucchini bread batter. Oh, well. I've got more zucchini in the freezer waiting to become bread.

I also forgot to take a picture of it before we ate half.
April 26 was National Pretzel Day. Homemade pretzels, yumm.

I took a break in the middle of making pretzels so we could go for a Sunday evening walk as a family. This is another thing we're encouraged to do as a ward. Go out for Sunday afternoon or evening walks, say hi, but don't get too close. It was nice to chat with some people while they sat on their porches or from across the street.

Lots of celebrating with food... and walks. Gotta work off all those food calories, I guess.
P.S. April 27 was National Tell a Story Day. We didn't celebrate with food but one of Nichole's assignments was to read her short story and have it evaluated, which she did on that day.

P.E. When Schools Are Closed

Still plugging away at school. Some days are better than others. Lucky is really enjoying singing along with music time.

We go out for "walks." Jr. has to clock in so much non-walking time for P.E. so he likes to ride his bike while his brothers scooter and Jet rides in the stroller. One of Lucky's weekly assignments is P.E., a day when he is supposed to get outside for a certain amount of time.

Jeremy's also been getting exercise, going out on hikes to go birding. Sometimes family members will go with him.

I've been trying to go on walks as well. It all depends on the day.

Easter 2020

We got a little creative with Easter this year. We didn't know if the Easter Bunny would be in quarantine or not.
We did celebrate the real reason for Easter, our Savior's Atonement and Resurrection. During at home church, Jeremy shared with us "The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles."
For Easter dinner, we usually like eating ham but Jeremy wasn't going shopping that week (we're trying to limit our shopping trips these days) so as I said, we got creative. We had a little bit of ham in the freezer which we used for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches since Sunday, April 12, was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day.

Another day, Jeremy wanted to make onion rings so the kids and I went out for a walk and bike/scooter ride while he was making them.

When we got home, there was a surprise of Easter eggs hidden in our living room. We didn't know if that would happen this year. Apparently it did. Yay.

And the onion rings were so good. I think I ate way too many. They didn't last long enough to make a side dish for a meal, we snacked on them so much.

Spring Break and Spring Cleaning

During Spring Break (no online school), we tried to do some Spring cleaning. We had some good days- productive. We had some fun listening to music, helping each other out.

We had some not so good days- unproductive. In fact, I gave everyone a day off on April 7 which was National No Housework Day. I didn't ask the kids to do any chores.

April 7 was also National Coffee Cake Day so I tried out yet another recipe and made blueberry coffee cake. Well, it was sort of blueberry buttermilk coffee cake from Budget Bytes. I put mixed berries in half of it and left the other half without because we have various tastes in our household. It was a success. Yumm.

 
April 10 was National Cinnamon Crescent Day. Nichole made crescent rolls with cinnamon roll filling. Yumm.

Spring Break was definitely a bit different this year. Oh well.

Restoration Scavenger Hunt

This year is the 200th anniversary of when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in what is known as the First Vision. It started the Restoration of Jesus Christ's church on the Earth again- that same church He established when He was alive and before He died and was resurrected. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is commemorating this bicentennial all year. There are many resources to learn about Joseph Smith's experiences on churchofjesuschrist.org and our April General Conference focused on the First Vision and the Restoration.
In preparation for this, our ward encouraged us to do something fun. Anyone who wanted to was invited to put something on their house (in windows or wherever) or in their yard that represented the Restoration. We let the ward leaders know what we were going to contribute. They put the list together with a map of the ward boundaries then emailed that out to everyone. We were then encouraged to go on a walk between sessions of General Conference to find what people had put up (the map told us what to find at each home that participated), maintaining appropriate social distance of course.

It was a nice activity and good to go for a walk as a family. What was weird was when normally it is considered rude to cross the street when you see someone coming along the same sidewalk as you, currently it is considered safe. So there were greetings from opposite sidewalks and we got some nice sunshine as a family. It was also great to see what others put up from pictures in windows to missionary ties in trees.

Our family contributed two missionary balloon sculptures. By the end of Conference Weekend, they were a little worn out. Poor missionaries.

We also celebrated the holidays for April 4- Walk Around Things Day, Love Our Children Day, and Vitamin C Day. That last one was celebrated as we had our traditional General Conference nachos. Mmmmm, bell peppers.
General Conference was wonderful. I was even able to take some notes.

Again, things are different right now. All the music at Conference was taken from previous recordings- no live choir. The First Presidency and speakers were not in the Conference Center but in an auditorium with a small amount of people. There is so much for us to look back on when this is all over. My children will be able to tell others, "I remember when..." just like I tell them, "I remember when I had to get dressed up and go to the church building to watch General Conference. I couldn't just watch it in my living room until I was a teenager."
We all did get dressed up for the Sunday morning session, where there was a solemn assembly and our prophet, President Nelson, presented a new proclamation to the world about Joseph Smith's First Vision. The proclamation can be read on churchofjesuschrist.org and there is also a video of President Nelson reading it from the Sacred Grove, where the First Vision took place. This is another thing our children will be able to say. "I remember when President Nelson presented the Bicentennial Proclamation on the First Vision."

Celebrating the Beginning of April

April 2 was National Burrito Day. It was also National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day.
A couple of us watched that Peanut Butter Jelly Time video with the dancing banana. You know the one I'm talking about.
Our dinner was kind of eclectic with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, burritos, and chicken fajita soup (The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner) which I needed to make because I had some ingredients waiting in the fridge for it.

 April 3 was Fish Fingers and Custard Day. We celebrated the usual way.

Catch of the Day

 

Watching Music and The Spoken Word together.

March 32, 2020

There is a tradition in our family for me to fool the kids by making "Kool-Aid" with dinner on April Fool's Day. I make Jello and let it set in cups with straws. Last year I let it set in a pitcher and watched the kids' reaction as they expected the drink to just flow freely.
This year I even heard Jr. Jr. earlier in the day mentioning that we were going to have Jello with dinner. Little did he know what I had planned. I prepared dinner and had the kids set the table, except for cups. Mom would take care of cups. That made them suspect Jello all the more. So when we all sat down to dinner, this is what we got:
Actual Kool-Aid. They were able to suck it up so easily through the straws. "Wait. Is this Kool-Aid?"
Red-and-White Mostaccioli from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner. I used a few different types of pasta in the dish for a little April Fool's fun. (I also used homemade alfredo sauce and homemade spaghetti sauce not from The Food Nanny recipes)
"Garlic" bread. I made two loaves. The first loaf the kids got into turned out to have cinnamon sugar instead of garlic salt. Surprise. When they asked to have some from the second loaf, they were surprised again to find it was actually garlic bread.

These are the kinds of April Fool's Day jokes I like. Nobody gets hurt or mad and everyone gets something good out of it in the end.

Mommy, Look

Hi, I'm Paco.

See Uncle Paco's YouTube video, "Shake Gently Before Opening."

Another Oldest and Youngest Picture

On December 20, I shared a picture the oldest of the Telford grandchildren holding the youngest. On the other side of the family, the oldest of the Hadley grandchildren recently got to hold the youngest and I made sure to get pictures. So precious.

Baby Blessing

We planned Jet's baby blessing for the end of March since it would be Spring and I could take him to church after cold/flu season was over. What was planned was inviting plenty of friends and family to Sacrament Meeting in our church building. Jeremy's parents were going to fly in from Washington. After church, we were going to invite everyone back for a light luncheon in our backyard.
What really happened was this. We still had it the end of March. We had a small amount of people come (and we don't feel any less love from those that decided not to come or couldn't. We hope those we didn't invite don't feel less loved, either. Under normal circumstances we would have invited you). We had Sacrament Meeting in our backyard. Jeremy set up chairs so families could keep a socially acceptable distance from each other.

He had hand sanitizer available for those Priesthood holders who joined in the circle to bless the baby, both for before and after the blessing. Jeremy's parents were advised by their doctor not to travel so they were able to listen in through Jeremy's phone (we talked to our bishop about all these arrangements beforehand).
We had the Sacrament. Jeremy wore gloves and had bread and water separated out for individual families so people wouldn't be taking from the same trays and Joshua wore gloves while he passed the sacrament.
Jeremy bore a beautiful testimony.
Afterward people could grab a bagged lunch to go if they wanted or eat it there. Jeremy spent a lot of time preparing those with a lot of plastic glove wearing again.

We don't know if anyone had anything they could have passed on (it's been a couple of weeks and our family doesn't show any COVID-19 symptoms) but it's better to be safe than sorry. We felt it was important for Jet to be given a name and a blessing and felt it shouldn't be put off any longer.

Plus Jet's blessing outfit which we ordered through Amazon (with all the other children, we took them to a store so we could check sizes) fit perfectly. If we were to wait until this is all over, it wouldn't.

Family history. This will definitely make a good story to tell Jet when he's older.