Halloween in Quarantine

The kids missed Halloween at school this year on Friday, October 29. We also never finished putting together costumes. Nichole's dragon she started on I Love Yarn Day is still waiting. 

But I was determined to get so much done on Saturday, October 30. It was the kids last chance to get school stuff done before going back in person. There was a ton of things I needed to do myself. Then I woke up at 3am with a sick baby so when we finally got to sleep a little after 7am, we just kept sleeping til noon.

We did do some of our plans, though. We celebrated Jr. Jr.'s birthday again, this time with the dinner he requested and the cake and ice cream he requested. We let him blow out candles this time and we sang to him again. He also got to play the game he got for his birthday again.

That day we found these on our doorstep, a bucket of candy for each child with a note that said, "Happy Halloween from your favorite neighbors." Aww. 

The kids took their buckets and went from door to door down the hall to celebrate Trick or Treat Day. They later had candy corn for Candy Corn Day and we stayed up way too late to watch a movie.

Lucky threw together a costume for himself even if it wasn't what he originally planned. And Jr. Jr. recruited some of Nichole's puppets to help him out.

What Lucky said about his costume: It's Pumpkin Who... or Doctor Pumpkin... but I like Pumpkin Who better.

 

The neighbors put up cool decorations on the lawn again.

Sunday, October 31 was National Knock-Knock Jokes Day so we had Siri and Alexa telling us knock-knock jokes. We were actually able to put together a Halloween themed dinner this year so that was fun. We haven't done that in a while.

Pizza mummy, Ramen loaf creature/face/thing, banana ghosts and mandarin orange pumpkins (we got that idea from a friend on Facebook), and Vampire's blood... or what vampires drink, except the black cherry Kool-Aid doesn't look as dark in a clear goblet. Oh well.

Nichole and I went out for a drive up Provo Canyon, up Squaw Peak and South Fork Road, and said farewell to Bridal Veil Falls for the next six months. It's not like we could go down to the falls right now anyway since there's been construction for a while but we were able to stop at the overlook which is now closed until May. I like relaxing Sunday drives.

Quarantine!

And then we got sick. 

It's a good thing I didn't schedule anything for Fall Break after the Scarecrow Festival since I didn't feel up to doing anything for a few days and I stayed mostly in my room.

After Fall Break we all had to quarantine.

Here's Jeremy with his "Vaccinated" shirt. Notice it says "COVID-19" under the word, "vaccinated." He made sure to wear this shirt while he had Covid-19.

I got a video of Jeremy eating pineapple (he hates pineapple) because he lost his taste for about a day or two. He wondered what it would be like to lose that sense but after a day of it he was done with that experience and lucked out with it being such a short duration. He had no problem eating the pineapple. Normally he would be grimacing and wouldn't be able to handle it so we could definitely tell he'd lost his sense of taste and smell.

Jr. Jr.'s birthday was during our quarantine. Since we couldn't go shopping for items for his birthday dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted, we made do with what we had at home with the promise that we would do the dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted later. Jr. pointed out that meant he'd get two cakes, etc.

So Jr. Jr. picked ice cream out of our freezer that he wanted and a boxed cake from the pantry and I made frosting to go with it. The frosting was from thefoodnanny.com and it's my go-to chocolate frosting when I don't have store bought frosting because it's simple enough. I put sprinkles on the top.

We skipped the candles for obvious reasons but still sang, "Happy Birthday," to him and he still got to open cards and presents.

 

We didn't do a lot of celebrating other things during quarantine but we still got creative like we did with "quarantine" last year when everything shut down. There was also some cabin fever like with "quarantine" last year.

Six Sisters' Stuff put together a series of videos about if they actually listened to internet trolls. One comment they got was how some people hate casseroles so they should take their casseroles and go jump in a lake so one of the sisters took a casserole and jumped in a lake with it. Other people complained how they use cream of chicken soup too much, in practically every recipe, so one of the sisters showed herself making brownies and adding cream of chicken soup to it. Our family get a kick out of those videos so one day while Jr. was making brownies, he made this comment, "I didn't add any cream of chicken soup. Do you think it will be okay?" I love that kid. It was so funny, I put it on Instagram and Six Sisters' Stuff got a big kick out of it, too. I told you. Creativity.

October 24 was Mother-in-Law Day. I made a general announcement, "Happy Mother-in-Law Day." I don't know if my mother-in-law heard it or not.

We may or may not have celebrated Picasso's birthday on October 25 along with Greasy Food Day. We had spaghetti and meatballs with sweet mini peppers and some of us made the food into faces.

We did celebrate National Chocolate Day on October 28 by making chocolate frogs. We used green food coloring in white chocolate which is not actually chocolate but it's a generally accepted term so good enough. I'm sure there was some other chocolate eating in there as well. The boys did most of the work but I helped a bit and they turned out great.

 

October 29 was National Oatmeal Day. Guess what I had for breakfast?

So I guess we did some celebrating, mostly after I was feeling better.

While the kids were quarantining at home, they had school work they were able to work on. Some days were harder to get going than others, though, and everyone had to take turns with the computer which wasn't always easy when everyone decided they were ready to use it at the same time.

So that's how quarantine went. We were very fortunate not to get too sick. We can count our blessings for that.

Eventually I'll Blog Again

Head's up. I haven't been blogging because of sickness in our home and everybody shares a computer for schoolwork and other things so I don't have time or means to blog but eventually I will catch up. I had several partially written posts before I got sick so stay tuned... eventually.

In the meantime, look at these pictures of the sky. It's amazing how much difference just half an hour can make.

I love nature!

Valentine's Days

Valentine's Day was on a Sunday this year so the kids had Valentines exchanges at school on Friday with the guideline to bring them a couple days early in order to "quarantine" them. So there was a lot of Valentine-ing(?) going on for a few days.

Both Jr. Jr. and Lucky made boxes for their Valentines to go in and brought home quite the haul. Jr. Jr. also brought home a red tissue paper flower he made for me and Lucky brought home a coupon book for Jeremy and me.

Jr. made a pink paper heart in a vase at school (the school library sometimes has activities for the students to do) and brought that home.

 

Valentine morning I brought Jeremy breakfast in bed (eggs in a basket had heart-shaped holes). He had set out gifts for me on a table: Roses. 4 new kinds of Panda Express sauces to try out. A 7 movie pack of all the Tremors movies. Nothing says, "I love you," like giant underground monsters that violently devour people.

Between church classes, Jeremy sang a hymn in Hungarian. It was pleasant to listen to.

My nephew blessed his and my niece's baby and we were able to watch through Zoom.

 

After church and the baby blessing, Jeremy found a heart-shaped note from me in the van when he and I went on a nice drive (with Jet) to go look for birds. The highlight- driving along and there was a barn owl sitting on a fence post right next to the road. We turned around to see it again but unfortunately couldn't get pictures because the camera wouldn't cooperate, there was another car coming, and it flew off. But it was right there and we got a nice close look at it. Beautiful bird. But that was our way of having a little date on a Sunday in the middle of a pandemic.

Another way of having a little date on a Sunday in the middle of a pandemic? When we got home, Jr. Jr. greeted us outside and welcomed us to "The Telfords' Valentine's Diner." He brought us to the door where there was a heart-shaped note saying "we love you," then ushered us inside to a table for two with a candle and a centerpiece made from candy cookie flowers in a vase (and decorations around)

There was a heart-shaped menu written in French with what we would be having for dinner and Nichole serenaded us with the violin while Jr. brought us what we would be eating:

 

Pain: les biscuits

Boisson: le chocolat chava

L'entree: les pates quec boef et confiture

Dessert: le pomme tarte

Jr. was able to use his French vocabulary and Nichole was able to practice her calligraphy.

Later, Nichole and Jr. switched roles and Jr. played cello for us while Nichole brought us another course. Later, they both serenaded us.

We had heart-shaped biscuits, hot chocolate, and for the main course we had spaghetti and meatballs on one plate while Nichole played "Bella Notte" from Lady and the Tramp of course.

For dessert we had slices of apple pie. It was Jr.'s first time making apple pie and he did a good job. Yumm.

 

Those sweet kids. It was a very relaxing evening and it was nice to have that time with Jeremy. It was also nice of Jet to sleep through the whole thing.

I very much enjoyed these Valentine's Days this year. I appreciate the effort the kids put into that special romantic dinner for us and I appreciated the love that was felt around our home.

I love you, my family.