Grandpa’s 70th Birthday

It is CRAZY that BOTH of our Grandpas have the SAME BIRTHDAY! Since Shayne's Dad lives so close, we were able to celebrate together during quarantine. Grandpa requested Coconut Cream Pie (a first for us but they weren't too shabby!) Everyone was able to stop by and have dessert. It was great celebrating his 70th together!

Papa’s 70th Birthday

This great guy turn 70 during quarantine. We couldn't get together and celebrate, so we tried to celebrate a little differently. We all sent Papa individual letters/cards. Laura and Mike went over and decorated their house. Tommy and Aria put together an awesome video of all the grandkids sharing their favorite memories with Papa. I hope the quarantine birthday was full of love for this amazing guy...

Cousin Sleepovers

We always love when cousins come into town and we get to hang out all day AND all night! The boys had a BLAST with Layla jumping on the trampoline, playing lots of PJ Masks, coloring, eating snacks, sleeping in the same room, and wake up just to start playing again!

Custom Pokémon

The boys found an app in which you can create custom Pokemon cards! These are a few of the favorites.

I'd play if I had these cards in my deck!

Unboxing

With everything closed and many people out of work during quarantine, the government decided to send every family a stimulus check to try and help boost the economy. Our family decided to involve the kids in deciding how to boost the economy. We gave each of the kids control over $50 to utilize to boost the economy how they saw fit. The girls supported some local businesses buying Dutch Bros drinks and desserts at a local bakery, and some crafty items at Michael's. The boys decided to boost the economy by buying SUPER-EXPENSIVE Pokemon Trainer boxes (that they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford). They checked the mail every day for almost a week for their trainer boxes to arrive, and then carried them around for a few days not wanting to break the seal. When they BOTH finally decided to break into their boxes, they had to do an UNBOXING (yeah, this is a real thing that pokemon people do on youtube). So the gathered us all together to watch them open their Pokemon and even filmed the event. 

I Love The 80’s

Olivia had to do a presentation for her Show Choir class. She had to create a set of songs with a story, costuming, make up, etc. This is Olivia's A-Game. She LOVES music. All sorts, genres, time periods. She decided to do an I LOVE THE 80's theme and came up with some great songs, and a totally tubular costume.

Sleeping in the Lair

The girls helped create a Lair for the boys in the understairs closet. Having cleaned out a bunch of toys, there was some space for the boys to have a hideout. The girls did some basics, but the boys added pillows, lights, pokemon cards, a security code, and sign. What more would a Lair need? Maybe a sleepover to break it in.

Mini-Me

After seeing Olivia's doll that she made, I decided I wanted to have dolls made of our family. Now, these are NOT easy to make, and take her quite a few hours to make each one, but we worked out a deal, and she started working on our family. Here she's finished Shayne and I and I couldn't be happier! They are absolutely adorable! I can't wait until she has the entire family done!

Family Cooking

Throughout all the quarantine time at home, we've had A LOT of time for cooking and baking...A LOT! There have been quite a few comments each day like "Wow! We're eating dinner every night!" or "Wow! I didn't know you could make this many meals mom!" Yeah... with how busy we've been lately, We've probably had 3 good-home-cooked meals a week and 4 spur of the moment, cereal/take out/fend for yourself nights dinners because of our schedules. Well, since our calendar had EMPTIED, we had some open hours each day for cooking and baking. 

However, I realized it was ME cooking day in and day out each and every day. Shayne is still working hard at his job (probably more hours than normal lately), but that leaves 4 other people who are capable (mostly capable) of cooking. So I decided that since we have all this time, everyone is going to get involved in the cooking. That will  teach the kids some more cooking skills and ease up the burden on me...WRONG! My kids have to take any idea and RUN WITH IT! Our meals this next week were WAY MORE EXTRAVAGENT than if I had been cooking myself, and STILL included needing me at every meal! (We did have a lot of really fun meals though...)

Collin was super-excited to start cooking. He decided to make Alfredo Pasta with a fruit salad and whip cream, and french bread with homemade jam (we didn't make the jam).

C: Can I cook everything and you just watch me?

Me: No.

C: Can I do most of the stuff and you just help me a little?

Me: No.

C: Can you just tell me how to do it?

Me: We can start there, but I'll have to show you too.

C: Just a little. I want to do this by myself. I can do it.

Me: Can I show you how to cut the apples?

C: No. I know how to do it already.

C: How do I cut these again?

(Show him how to cut the apples)

Me: Can I show you how to cut the oranges?

C: No, I know how to do it already.

C: Is this how you do it?

(Show him how to cut the oranges)

Me: Can I show you how to cut the bananas?

C: No. I know how to do it already.

Me: Can I please show you how to cut the bananas?

C: Nope. I like them like this. This is how I want them cut.

C: Can I scoop everyone's whip cream for them?

Me: No.

Izzy made homemade pizza dough, and  turned them into pizza pockets with a marinara dipping sauce. Yummm! (Brand new recipe she found on the internet)

Here's how Izzy's cooking went:

I: Mom, how do I make the dough?

Me: Don't you have a recipe you found?

I: not the dough, they used premade dough.

(I give her my recipe and help her put it together)

I: Mom, how do I make the pockets?

Me: What did it say in the recipe?

I: I don't know, I just read the pictures.

Me: You didn't read the recipe?

I: NO! It's so long! I got most of it by the pictures...

(They did turn out absolutely delicious!)

Olivia had just done a HUGE meal cooking for her Culinary class (BBQ kebobs), so she was going to cook a meal that she already knew how to cook. She chose to cook curry and funnel cake. She DID ask me 3 or 4 times how to cook the curry and when I reminded her I JUST told her, she said, "But I wasn't listening, so can you tell me again?" (GREAT curry and delicious funnel cake!-the funnel cake she did do completely on her own. I don't know if she had ever deep-fried anything before and she did a FANTASTIC job!)

Quinten wanted to make homemade lasagna. However, the stores were OUT of lasagna noodles (mainly out of most noodles-I haven't bought any noodles since quarantine has started). So he settled on homemade rolls and tomato soup. We had a bit of a hard time finding tomato soup (again, everything canned was completely out too), but eventually we found enough tomato soup. Quinten measured out all the bread dough ingredients, formed the rolls, topped them with melted butter, let them rise and baked them. They were light and fluffy and scrumptious! While he was cooking, he was making a list of all the other things he wants to cook: Can I help you cook lasagna next week? Can I help you cook muffins next week? How about cooking pancakes next week, can I help with that? I really hope I can cook lasagna next week. That would be great!

Everyone was pretty impressed with their cooking ability and they are already making plans for their meals next week. (I did tell them we need to scale back our meals a bit-I can't do HUGE homemade meals that take 3 hours to prepare and a good chunk of our grocery budget EVERY NIGHT!

Don’t leave the door open!

I was in the downstairs bedroom on a conference call and Wicket was going BONKERS at my door, whining and scratching at it. I thought he just wanted to come and snuggle while I was having my meeting, but no, he wanted to tattle on the tortoise who had snuck inside through the open screen and was eating all of his food and drinking out of his water bowl and Wicket WAS NOT HAPPY!

We had to lure Donnie back outside with some nice crisp lettuce...

Someone got a haircut

We finally found a groomer open during the quarantine and Wicket was beyond matted and needed a haircut so bad! They had to shave him, and he's stayed cocooned inside blanket nests that the kids make him ever since!

Love-Slaps

Shayne shows the kids that he loves them in the most unique ways. He's either squishing them or "love-smacking" them, or "love-tapping" them, or "love-throwing-them-on-the-beanbag" to show them his love...

Teaching to BBQ

Olivia had to cook dinner for her culinary class and so she decided to make marinaded BBQ kebobs. She researched a marinade, put together the skewers, had Dad teacher her how to BBQ and put together a DELICIOUS dinner that we all enjoyed. Sometimes online school can be AH-MAZING!

Memories...

Since we've had some extra time to go through all the stuff that our kids don't play with anymore, I made them a deal. Anything that we sell-they get to have the money for whatever new things they are wanting to buy. The lure of possible cash got them cleaning out all sorts of toys that they "couldn't ever live without" and were kicking them to the curb!! Since EVERYONE is stuck in quarantine, our kids' old stuff actually sold pretty fast to be new stuff for someone else. However, it was actually pretty hard to see some of these things go. There are SO MANY GREAT MEMORIES of all four of our kids playing in these old toys. As we were cleaning them up, I got to hear my favorite phrase A LOT "Remember when...". It made me smile and definitely made me tear up a bit. Selling all their stuff that they DON'T play with anymore got the kids over $250 and we seriously cleaned out our play closet and house. However, I'll miss the memories of these old playthings.

Olivia-Remember when I got the front door, and Izzy got the little doggie door in the back so we each had our own door into the house? It was great.

Quinten-Remember when we got the entire preschool all on the airplane at once? That was so much fun!

Quinten-Remember when we'd take the wagon trick-or-treating and we'd put all of our extra candy in there when our buckets got heavy and Collin would just sit in there and ride from house to house?

Remember when we'd try to all squish into the car? We'd get two of us inside, one on top and one on the back?

Izzy: Remember when Dad was mad that Quinten was playing with the dolls and then Quinten started BBQing them and Dad was happy again?

Collin-Remember when you used to push me around in this? Want to do it again right now?

I love those "Remember when..." conversations!!

Quarantine Camping

The boys have spent two of the last three nights sleeping in the tent in the backyard. They LOVED it! I slept downstairs the first night just in case they needed something, and they didn't. Stayed out all night long. I think we might have some expert quarantine campers by the time summer hits.

Working hard or hardly working...

Easter 2020

Easter was a little bit different this year than ever before and we embraced it! We loved the slow-paced change, dyed eggs, had a great hunt for eggs, a wonderful sacrament meeting celebrating our Savior with our family, and a delicious dinner!

Selling the Dreamhouse

Time to clean out some of our toys that we haven't played with for quite a while. The girls listed their Barbie Dreamhouse for sale. They took it seriously-staged the house and listed it like a real-estate listing.  They got their full asking price the first day listed too!

Here is every barbie’s dream mansion. 3 floors with an elevator for all of her entertaining needs. It includes a gourmet kitchen with a turkey dinner and food in the fridge! There is seating for four in the luxurious dining room including a bar for all the fancy drinks she’ll be making. The bedroom includes a cozy twin bed and a balcony with a portrait window overlooking her garden. Her bathroom has a stand alone shower with a closet elevator directly up to her private dressing room!! The spacious dressing room will hold all of Barbie’s favorite outfits. She’ll probably spend a majority of her time in here for her various outfit changes during the day. Last room includes a warm fireplace with a picture perfect TV for all of her entertaining needs. As a bonus, she’ll be driving around in style in a glorious purple convertible!! This mansion is not only staged professionally and priced to sell fast in this hot market but Barbie will get two new friends!! Every Barbie’s dream come true...