Friday, June 26, 2020

Other Quarantine Things


One side effect of COVID was that all the kids' music lessons switched to FaceTime...






Piano and cello.
It seemed to work just fine :)

Every week day the elementary bus would come by and drop off sack lunches and breakfasts for all school age children.  It was Matt's job to go meet the bus each day and retrieve the food.
Although the kids didn't always like the food that was provided, the meals were really helpful for Ben...because of course, he will eat anything.


Early on we made a Quarantine quote Board...
My favorite has got to be Josh's comment in late April when he wanted to go to town and buy a birthday present for me without me knowing.  The reason he gave me for wanting to take the van was "I need to toe dip into society".

...and a list of things we wanted to do during quarantine...
My favorite here is "Build tiny house, paint tiny house, make tiny house my new room." from Matt :)

Just a cute picture of my hubby...I don't know what it's from :)
He spent a lot of time doing ZOOM calls for work and his calling....mostly from home, sometimes at the stake center and sometimes from his office.

Here he is recording a message for the stake youth conference out in our backyard...


Until recently, Ben continued to nap away his afternoons wherever he saw fit.  He was usually on the floor so this was a rare moment on the couch after he had lined up his animals.


His seizures have increased slightly...
These were taken after he seized one morning.  He was being extra sweet and half smiling at me as he drifted in and out of sleep.
                        

                                 

We had a virtual appointment with his neurologist midway through June.  We ended up changing his meds around to try and help with his sleep issues.  He's been having more and more nights where he just doesn't feel like he needs to fall asleep at all.  So he ends up getting out of bed, turning on the light and playing all night in the room while I try and sleep.  The meds he takes for aggression make him sleepy so we split them up so he will get some in the evening now instead of all in the morning.  It seems to be helping.  The first few nights we had to sing him to sleep (15+ times through I Am A Child of God) but now he is putting himself to sleep again.  He also is not napping at all during the day.


I have not made any masks but I have washed and ironed a whole bolt of material plus this stack that I retrieved from my stash to donate to the cause.

Another fun quarantine thing is Home Church!
We have really enjoyed it...can you tell?

But seriously, we have really had a good experience with church at home and will gladly continue for however long it is needed.


Sunday evenings at home have been filled with games and walks and treats brought to us by my wonderful parents who leave them on the doorstep and then ring the doorbell.  It is lovely to chat with them for a few minutes in person each week....even from a distance.

This one should have been posted much earlier.  Andy took this picture late March/early April at Macey's when all the craziness was going on at the stores

Also, a few days after Andy's birthday, he was rear-ended :(  He was the third car in a four car incident.
A week or so of whiplash etc. and a couple of weeks of car repair/insurance and we were good to go.



Friday, June 5, 2020

My 40th



Andy brought some big balloons and flowers home the night before my birthday.

                                                 

My friends Katie and Becky came for lunch and brought my favorite food from Beehive Grill.

Another friend, Karen, sent 3 boxes of Crumbl cookies to my door!


I spent the day working on a puzzle, reading and doing whatever I wanted.

Mom and Dad came that evening with a pie and sang to me.

    Ben helped me blow out my candle of course :)

It was a lovely day and I feel great entering into my 5th decade!

An Easter Surprise! (And Some Other Things)


My mom got making some masks and offered them to family members before donating them.  She was so thoughtful to make a couple of cute, fun ones for her youngest grandkids.
Ben got a "Go-Go" one and actually let me try it on him without a fuss.

As our gym closed my workout friends and I got creative to keep in touch.
Karen started it by having us all send our wedding pictures to each other through our group text.
That was super fun to see!
Then, Jennie suggested we take turns issuing challenges to each other each day.
Some of them included: writing a thank you card to someone and sending it, taking a walk and waving to everyone you saw, creating a time capsule with your family, organizing/dejunking an area and painting finger/toenails a favorite color.
It was a fun way to keep sane during the quarantine.

One night I came into the living room for scripture study and prayer and I found my boys like this...

Another fun all boy pic...

With the order to stay home and resulting free time I finally got around to making my barn quilt!
I received the wood kit for my birthday in 2018.  I asked Andy to put it together for me for Christmas 2018.  Then it sat around for over a year while I tried to decide on a design and colors.  As a matter of fact, Andy put it back under the tree for Christmas 2019 since I hadn't done anything with it yet.
I finally decided to go for a classic design and very minimal and neutral colors.

Andy was so kind to hang it for me once it was done.
I love how it turned out!


Abby's Young Women leaders are so awesome!  They did many things to stay in touch with the girls and let them know they were thinking of them.
This was one of my faves...

On Easter Sunday we received a surprise visit!
Jo and T showed up on our doorstep.  They had hid Easter candy around the front yard and had the kids come out and hunt for it...





It was the cutest thing :)

This was the best we could do with social distancing.

The week after Easter the kids made some cookies for their young women young men leaders while wearing their masks :)...cuties!