It's warming up, plants are starting to bloom, and we're enjoying family time. We started watching Marvel movies every weekend, and it's been a highlight. Charlotte usually ditches us after a bit, but the boys are pretty into the movies so far.
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| Bringing all.the.things down to the living room for movie night |
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| Zach loves baking almost as much as he loves YouTube |
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| Gabe's grape hyacinths |
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| Charlotte learned about plants and started some herb seeds at her Girl Scout meeting |
Since the kids went back to school full time on March 1st, not that much has changed. Frank is still working at home, and our routine of exercise classes, scout meetings, and dance still dominate the schedule. In addition to being back in person 5 days a week, the school days have reverted to their original time instead of an hour delay, which means early trips up to the bus stop. I get Charlotte up just before 6, and I think the early mornings wipe out any energy gains from not having them home during the day. I am just as tired now but hoping I'll acclimate again, or school will be out soon anyway.
Frank and I went shopping and to Chili's the first day the kids went back to school. We like that the restaurant is almost empty when we go around 11. That was a few days before places were allowed to open up at 100% capacity, so I'm not sure what the reality is now or when we'll eat out again.
Charlotte spent the past two weekends working cookie booths (and making one delivery to a neighbor). The booths have been pretty successful and partly made up for the girls not going door-to-door.
Gabe has started having in-person Cub Scout meetings again, and they had a party at a trampoline place. His den of fifth-graders will cross over to join the Boy Scout Troop in April. We are very excited to have the boys together again for the duration of their scouting adventures!
Zach continues to have his weekly meetings and worked at their annual chili feed fundraiser. He impresses us with his drive to complete requirements for his rank and merit badges. Soon I'm going to teach him how to sew his badges on his sash.
Time while the kids are at school has been spent making plans, making purchases, and (forever) doing stuff around the house. We decided to try out a low-end robot vacuum, which seems to do a decent job for something that just bounces around. Frank and I also ordered our king mattress, and it will be nice not to have a too-small mattress on our new bed. We got fed up with not being able to find our wine at any local stores, so we finally ordered a case of it. And last but not least, the fish tank was looking awful and we got around to doing a deep clean. It was mostly Frank's doing and I just assisted. Luckily they still sell the Spongebob accessories at Walmart so those got replaced completely! So much better.
February was snowy. The kids were in school two days a week except for a few snow days that were converted to remote learning. Lisa came to visit us during the first week of the month, but the snow didn't slow us down. There were multiple trips to Kroger for baking ingredients, a few Monopoly games played (both board game and Switch), an overnight trip to PA for me and Frank, my Animal Crossing birthday celebration, and Charlotte started back to in-person dance class. It's always fun to have Lisa come play with us! The second week included Valentines parties at the elementary, a snow day to sled in the yard with friends, and a couple of opportunities to have those friends over to the house for a visit. There were threats of severe weather that didn't materialize for us, and much of the last part of the month was uneventful. We rounded out February with Frank and Zach going to a campout that was cut short due to rain, then the next day we attempted to go snow tubing in that rain. We made it less than an hour before the constant heavy drizzle had us heading home. We got in a few good runs though.
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| Lisa helped the kids make a cake for me. |
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| I won the Switch Monopoly game. |
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| V-day outfit of pink ombre. |
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| I was thrilled to complete a movie of video clips and photos from the Disney trip and share it with people. |
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| Valentine roses from Frank. |
This was us in January, in no particular order:
We had remote school until the 25th.
We took the yearly, kid-dreaded, family photos. We are growing too large for this spot on the living room floor.
We sort-of fixed our squeaky shower, after much Googling, YouTube-ing, Amazon shopping, and use of force (mostly Frank's).
We rearranged our bedroom and switched out our bed. The after photos are coming as soon as we can decide on and purchase a new mattress and/or Ikea has the stuff we want back in stock. And we paint...so in like a year.
Charlotte took excellent care of a new baby doll, including propping it up on a Boppy pillow while she watched baking or minecraft videos on the tablet and ate Cheerios (her usual morning routine).
We cleared a LOT of boxes out of the basement. It was basically an avalanche of them from Christmas and also some big ones we finally decided to get rid of.
I brought the Legos to the living room to encourage playing something other than video games. It worked, and now when the boys are playing out a LOUD epic battle or something I have to remember why I did it.
I shopped at our new Kroger and found new gluten free varieties of some favorite foods.
We got new phones. Frank and I now have Galaxy s21s, and the boys are using our s8s. Zach's is an actual phone now, with texting and taking it to school and scouts and the whole bit. He is always a very appreciative kid, but his thank-yous to us for the phone were seriously the sweetest. Gabe has messaging and video chat abilities with a couple of friends, so he's spent lots of free time on Minecraft and Among Us with them.
We all went snow tubing with the Boy Scout troop on a very blustery winter day. We were cold but having fun. Zach spent the whole time with his friends.
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