The Great Indoors

We made it through another week!  We're all still doing great.  The cool thing this past week was to get out the tent.  It stayed out for several days, I believe 3 to be exact.  The girls loved playing in it and would bring down their pillows and blankets so they could play sleeping.  They also took a bunch of games and books in there with them as well.  They zip the door shut and mostly play well together.  One day while looking for a game they ended up with our bag of dice, so naturally they rolled them... everywhere...  At least once I heard an ouch from stepping on a die.

Here we are back on Monday when I first set up the tent.  Jelly goes CRAZY for the tent.  I think it's probably all the smells from outside.  She got less and less crazy about it the longer it was set up, and fortunately she never clawed a hole in the side of it, at least that I saw.

The girls have spent a good amount of time drawing and coloring.  Brooke drew a picture of our whole family this past week!  Look how great we all look!  And I still have long hair! I really love how Jelly looks in this picture!

Dance class has continued online, and the girls really enjoy it.  Brooke tries hard to stay with the dance, while Winry is a little more free form.  Sometimes they post fun activities instead of just dances to follow along with, and one of those activities was rolling dice to make your own dance.  Brooke made a really great dance!  I believe this is what first got the dice out.

Jelly tried really hard to figure out what was under the tent.  Fortunately the girls weren't around, so no risk of being stepped on!

The girls have secluded themselves into our little blanket nook at various times.  Here they are hiding and having a snack.  As I write this they're sitting back there to read stories together.  Also, at bedtime on Wednesday Winry put her hippo to bed.  She really likes taking care of her stuffed animals.

The girls played with their kinetic sand some more this past week, and even got some new treasure chests to play with.  We got a whole bunch of packages on Thursday, all of which were a surprise.  We got some Sarris chocolate Easter Eggs from Jerusha, a snack pack from my sisters, and an Easter package from my parents but shipped by Niki.  It was a great surprise to have so many fun things show up!  The treasure chests came with some kinetic sand and treasures in them.  Brooke loved to stuff her treasure chest full of sand with her coins in it and then dig them out.

Later that afternoon Winry decided to "swing" from our curtains at the back door.  Fortunately she wasn't really hanging from them.

During our family scripture study on Friday Winry was drinking some milk and pretending to burp.  She thought she was hilarious!  It is pretty funny, though I'd expect she didn't get much from scriptures that day.

On Saturday morning, while I was out on my run, Brooke made a whole bunch of puppets!  She drew a ton of animals, and then cut them out and glued them to Popsicle sticks!  They're so awesome!  She pulled the piano bench over to do a puppet show for Monica even!

Saturday afternoon I ran around to grocery stores to get everything for the upcoming week.  I don't know how everyone's Costco is doing things, but ours only lets a certain number of people inside.  So there was a big line when I got there, but they pretty quickly let in almost everyone in front of me.  I think I waited outside for 5-10 minutes max.  Still, it's just a little crazy to see.  However, it's really nice once you're inside because it's never crowded!!!

When I got back from grocery shopping I went to play in the backyard with the girls.  Brooke and I played pass for a little while, and then started practicing volleyball!  I'd toss the ball to her and she'd bump it up into the air.  We had a lot of fun.  All the while, Winry was playing in the water table.  Eventually Winry's hands got cold and she went in, and Brooke pushed her bear on the swing for a little before we followed.

Saturday night is bath night as it can get tear filled at times, so we're trying to avoid doing it on Sundays.  It's not exactly the most peaceful activity.  Well, Winry had a wonderful time during her bath.  She's at the age where she hates getting her hair washed, so you never really know how it's going to go, but she did great.  She had a lot of fun playing with toys too.  She really loves dumping water right now, so she loves the bath toys that fill up and then have little holes that the water drains out of , like her whale.  And yes, she said "he's pooping."  Just like all whales... right out his blow hole...

Church at home today went really well.  The girls each bore their testimonies and there was a really great spirit here for the sacrament.  They were also very reverent.  Over the past week I've thought a couple times about Lehi leaving Jerusalem and having to teach and raise his family without any support structure like the church.  It's been so great to have Come Follow Me prepare us to be able to focus on gospel learning at home.  I've really enjoyed this opportunity to focus on teaching gospel principles in our house, and I feel the additional focus has helped us have a stronger spirit at home.  I do look forward to going to church again and seeing all of our friends, but I am grateful for the preparations provided by our prophet and church leaders to prepare us for this challenging time.  I know that we can use this time to grow and strengthen ourselves and our families.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Adjusting to Life Indoors

What a great week!  We did much better at keeping busy this last week, or at least we took a lot more pictures! :)  Whatever the case, we had an excellent week despite staying in the house for much of the day and never really getting to go places.  It did snow this past week, so we just had to go in the backyard and have a wonderful snow day!  There were a lot of snowballs thrown at me, and a lot of sledding!  We tried to make a snowman, but once a snowball got big enough it just crumbled apart.

Winry continues to take care of her stuffed animals, and has started to sing a lot more recently.  She's learning a lot of songs really quickly, and it's wonderful!  In fact, right now while I'm writing this, she's just waking up from her nap and singing to her stuffed animals in her crib!  This past week she was singing to "Mouse" while he was going to sleep.

Monica had the excellent idea of setting up bins of stuff for the girls.  We finally got out the kinetic sand that we gave Winry for Christmas and they love it!  They can play with the sand for hours!  When Monica first got it out and they started playing, Brooke said "I could play with this for 14 hours!"  Over the past week, it was probably at least that long.

On Tuesday I was downstairs working when Brooke came down to say hello.  And why wouldn't I expect her to be in a flamingo costume?!  She wore it for most of the rest of the day.

Brooke's dance company has had to temporarily suspend dance classes with all the COVID-19 stuff going on, however they've started being very active on Facebook.  They post multiple times a day asking for the kids to do various activities and showing them dance moves to practice with them, etc.  They're also going to post up the recital dances to practice at home and are trying to figure out a way to do the recital if at all possible.  One of the things they asked was for everyone to draw a picture of something that makes them happy, and Brooke drew a picture of her Lego picture frame she got from our ministering brother, Bro. Roper!

Wednesday involved both Skittles and a science experiment.  The girls put the Skittles on a plate and poured in water to watch the colors run.  They really enjoyed this, but that might be because they got to eat Skittles as well.

On Wednesday I decided I'd start taking a break from the work day and take the girls for a walk.  This is great for all of us because the girls really love to get out of the house, and I really need a break and enjoy some fresh air too!  Especially since this has been my off week from running, I really needed something.  Anyway, here we are out enjoying the nice weather and having snacks on our walk on Wednesday.

On Thursday Brooke and I did her tap video together.  Nothing says tap dance like socks, am I right?  It was fun, and it was nice to get to participate with Brooke as well.

We of course went for another walk on Thursday, because I couldn't give up a new habit after just one walk, right?  Well, this is what our walk looked like on Thursday...  Basically the same conditions, and on the first day of spring no less!  After taking the picture below I taught the girls they could hit the rain cover to knock the snow off so they could keep seeing while we were out.  That probably made the rest of the walk much more enjoyable for them.

Thursday afternoon we got a mystery package.  It contained some TOTS toys for the girls from Oriah and her family!  The girls loved it, and it was a great surprise to make being trapped inside better!  The girls even played TOTs for the rest of the day.

Friday morning we went to the gym for some yoga!  I am pretty impressed with how well Brooke will follow along, and it's so cute when Winry gives it a try too!

Once we were ready for the day on Friday the girls got to do potion bins!  There was colored water, baking soda, vinegar, glitter, shaving cream, and various other things in there for the girls to mix together, along with a bunch of bowls, cups and measuring spoons.  I feel like this took a little to warm up to, as when Monica first put the bins down they asked what they were supposed to do.  But once they got going, they did this for the rest of the day.  Winry completely soaked her pants and just kept sitting there playing.  Winry LOVES to pour water right now.  In fact, during her bath last night she just poured water from a cup into a little whale shaped cup we have and watched it drain out the holes in the bottom.  Anyway, the girls have asked to do this EVERY DAY since they first tried it.  This ended up being a huge hit.

Winry got tired right around nap time, and I wrapped her in a blanket and she snuggled on the couch for quite a while.  She never fell asleep, but also didn't take a nap...  Looks like that might've backfired.

Friday afternoon we headed to the backyard to play in the snow.  Everyone had a great time, as I mentioned before.  Brooke did some sledding by herself on the steepest part of our yard.  We finished off our outdoor fun with me pushing Brooke across the yard on the sled.

We ordered Chinese food that night for dinner.  They do free delivery, so we had them bring it over.  When Monica placed the order they told her it would be about an hour, and sure enough, it showed up 15 minutes later, just like every other time we've ordered from there!

After dinner we all played Mario Kart together, and had a wonderful time.

Winry got a real controller for the first time, and she did great.  The main problem with her having a controller is hitting "bad" buttons, such as pausing the game, or hitting the home button and exiting the game.  We only had one such issue where she held down the pause button, but she did great just using the joystick and using her items!  We definitely had some great family fun!

Saturday we attempted to go through our 72 hour kits.  We have them in backpacks so they are easy to take with us in an emergency.  Jelly was really excited to find an empty backpack and decided to call it home.

I did some grocery shopping on Saturday, and I hoped that Costco had finally calmed down.  It looks like it has, and I was able to find everything I needed for the next week.  I did notice a few changes since my last visit, such as the "social distancing" lines at the checkout which were to keep people 6 feet apart while waiting.

I spent most of Saturday cleaning the house.  I cleaned all the bathrooms as wells as the girls rooms.  Brooke noticed I organized her shoe rack and was so grateful she had to draw me a picture to say thank you.  There's a heart, and then "BROOKE", and then a picture of Brooke and I dancing, and then "LOVE", and then a pokemon book showing Pikachu on the left, and Ash on the right, followed by "BOOK"!  Love it!  What a great thank you! And Brooke spelled all of those words on her own!

As I went to make dinner Saturday night I checked on our asparagus and the water it was in in the back of the fridge froze!  Fortunately I was able to just pull them out, but it was pretty funny.

Pretty great week!  Not pictured in here, I've also started backing up a bunch of DVDs to our NAS.  The NAS can stream videos out, so we can just watch them from a web browser.  I've been putting on cartoons from when I was a kid.  When I was in college I started hosting Saturday morning cartoons in my apartment and picked up a decent collection back then.  Maybe I'll try to get a picture for next week once everything is in there.  I might stick our movies on it as well.  Guess we'll see.  Anyway, I hope everyone is having a good time and a safe time.

Practicing Social Distancing

Why hello!  It's been quite a week out here!  I have been busy all day long, every day.  I've been hanging out around the house helping in the mornings, while also trying to work, because Monica hasn't been feeling very good.  I've had to work some at night every day to finish out my work hours, and throw in all of the general panic around COVID-19 and it's been quite a week!  The good news?  Winry still gets to smoosh her face into the back door!

This next picture is Monica's, and to me it looks like Winry got VERY tired!  However, I really can't be sure.  Sometimes the girls just play sleep.  As an example, there have been several mornings this past week where once both Brooke and Winry are up, Brooke sits next to Winry on the couch and reads her "bed time stories" and then they pretend to be asleep for 10 seconds before it's time to get up!  So maybe Monica will shed some light on what is happening when she reads through this, but for now I'm assuming that Winry is very tired.

The girls have started watching and enjoying Dora recently.  I think this really came about because we got a Dora book with the story reader we got form Salvation Army a few years ago.  Anyway, they really enjoy the show, and Brooke is at the prime age to really try hard to interact with Dora!  Occasionally Winry believes that she is Swiper.  However, the real meaning behind this picture is that the girls were watching Dora, and this yellow troll jumped out from under the bridge and Winry said "That looks like Dad!"

As Winry and Brooke continue to play together I feel like Winry is learning a ton from Brooke.  In fact, in this video, it sounds like Winry counts to 22!  That's pretty crazy!

I made a few outings to various grocery stores over the past week.  One such trip took me to Costco where I found out that they make... cheese tortillas?  I don't know if Parmesan is the cheese I'd pick... but there it is!  This trip was also before the craziness.

This trip was not...  I also went to King Soopers one day at 11:30 on a Thursday, and this was the line to check out!  I had no clue what was going on, but I figured I didn't hear something about COVID-19.  I believe this was the day after it was declared a pandemic by the WHO.  Well, cue the world ending again I guess.  I was just at the store trying to get some juice for Monica.

Here's Jelly, trying to blend in and take a spot at our table...  I didn't fall for it and give her a plate of food, fortunately!  Just look at her trying to be so sneaky though!  She was probably reaching up and pawing at things too.  Earlier in the day it had been really windy, and Monica said Jelly sat by the back door watching leaves blow around for two and a half hours!  What a day!

Also, on Friday the girls enjoyed some serious dance time.  In fact, the "Sleeping Bunnies" video from before was part of this dance party.  There were also some really great dance moves thrown out for "Away Away" from Moana.  As I watch that, I see Brooke doing things from dance class, from yoga, and just from her natural dance repertoire.

On Saturday Brooke and I headed out to do our weekly grocery shopping.  I figure we might as well try to do our normal grocery shopping every week, and then if we really struggle finding anything we can go to our food storage at that time.  We were able to find everything we needed except for potatoes, though it was obvious that Thursday and Friday had been crazy days at the stores.  While we were going around King Soopers, Brooke noticed this apple with a googly eye on it!  We also saw a smashed can that had eyes on it as well, but I didn't take a picture of that.  I think the crazy rush of shopping has died down, at least until some new announcement comes out, because things weren't as terrible as I feared they would be on Saturday.  So at least we might be able to return to semi-normalcy soon!

Saturday was the last day of my current running training block.  I had a 12 mile run scheduled, but figured I'd just stretch it a little farther and go 13.1 to do a half marathon.  I finished in 1:42:46, which is the fastest I've ever run a half!  I feel like my training has been going really well lately, and I think it shows in my training runs.  I really could have run faster had I wanted to, but I was trying to take it easy throughout the run!  I'll now enjoy a well deserved week off before starting up my Ragnar training block.

Sorry I don't have more for this week.  In all honesty, we had a lot of fun and spent a bunch of time together as a family.  I think with my schedule being so crazy I just haven't reached for a camera as much as usual.  Anyway, I hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead.  Remember to wash your hands often (and sing the ABC's while using soap!), and stay healthy and safe!

Girls and Science Day

Hello hello!  Yesterday we headed to the museum.  It was a very nice day out, and I wanted to go to the zoo, but Brooke insisted on the museum, and we got pretty lucky!  It was girls and science day at the museum, so there were free things for the girls to collect and booths to go see various things.  A bunch of it was geared towards older girls, but we still found a lot of fun things to do in addition to the normal sights and sounds.  Brooke really enjoyed the "trick or treating" from table to table!

Rolling back to Monday morning, Winry and I were up first and her koala was feeling sick!  Not only did we get out the doctor toys, but she also got out a doctor book they got from the library and followed along!  Here she's double checking her stethoscope technique.

On Monday night, I believe, we snuck off to Salvation Army and were lucky enough to find Hi Ho Cherry-O!  The girls are always excited for a new game, so Tuesday morning was a game morning!

We were able to make it to the park Tuesday evening and had a wonderful time playing hide and seek.  Toward the end, Brooke asked to take a picture of me and Winry, and this is the one she took!  I think it looks great!!

Monica's not been feeling the greatest this past week still, and Brooke has promised to be a super helper.  Here she is making her own sandwich for lunch!  She had a ham and cheese sandwich.

The weather has been pretty warm this past week, so we've been outside a lot.  We played in our backyard almost every day!  While it's been warm, you may notice that all of the snow hadn't melted.  It's all gone now, but it took the whole week.  The kids enjoyed the snow.  They'd scoop up the snow in their shovels and fill up cups with it and make "ice cream"!

We got a "book box" this past week.  Monica decided to try it out and see if she liked it.  Included with the book was suckers!  So the girls were in heaven!  The book is really good too, so it was win win all around.

We had a really serious dance party one night at bed time.  Monica requested that Brooke do "all new dance moves" and it was an incredible experience to watch.  Winry eventually got into the "lay on the floor and dance" action too!

Saturday morning we headed to the museum.  We got there a little after opening, and from the parking lot I immediately knew something was up.  While it was pretty crowded, a lot of the tables and stuff for the event were out in the halls between the exhibits, so the exhibits themselves were not that busy.  We went around to some booths, mostly those that were less busy.  The girls got the opportunity to make their own hard hats!  That picture at the start of the blog was from an energy company where we put duplos together to learn about how the power grid works.  We even learned how to make chapstick!!  All in all it was a great experience, and we got pretty lucky we happened to go (remember, I was pushing for the zoo)!

After a little, Winry was really pushing for going to see the animals.  This is definitely the girls favorite thing to do at the museum.  Brooke brought her camera so she could get some pictures while we were there even!

We also saw the llamas, and there are little llamas you can sit on in front of their display.

We had fun at the museum.  When we got home, Winry went down for a nap and Brooke and I played in the backyard while Monica headed off for a Norwex Party.  When Winry woke up I loaded everyone up into the jogging stroller and we headed out for my 11 mile run!  I think we all had a great time, and the weather was almost to 70 yesterday, so the weather was very nice.  We saw a LOT of people out!

I think that's about all I've got for the past week.  I hope everyone is doing wonderfully!

Sick in Bed

Well... Monica and Winry are sick.  So far Brooke and I have been holding out and are still well.  Hopefully that doesn't change.  Winry seems like she might be getting better.  She hasn't needed medicine today and she hasn't had a fever either, so that's great!  Brooke spent some time this morning serenading Monica and Winry and helping them to sleep!

Last week when it was time to go to church Winry really wanted to bring her koala, so I got the baby carrier for her.  I'm not sure she even knew we had it, but she LOVED it!  Look at the pure bliss on her face!  She also brought a bottle to church, and I spent much of sacrament meeting holding koala like a baby and helping her drink her milk.

On Monday morning when I went to get Winry up she was, in fact, a jumping frog!

Winry started throwing her blanket over her head and wandering around last week.  I don't remember which day this was, but I only remember it happening one day that I was around.  It's probably best if she doesn't keep this up as she almost walked into several walls and chairs.

The girls love olives!  I don't remember if I liked olives as a kid, but I don't enjoy them now.  However, sometime years back, but post childhood, I remember thinking it was crazy that people could get their fingers into olives without breaking them.  Now that I have kids I get it again.  Turns out you just need little fingers.

On Wednesday morning, when I headed out for my run, it was a whopping 11 degrees!  Don't worry though, it felt like -1!  After running a few miles my buff over my  mouth was pretty clearly frozen in some places.  Just a few seconds before taking this picture I took a slightly longer blink and my eye froze shut.  Not too bad, it still opened, it just felt a little stuck.  That was a pretty good signal it was picture time.  If you zoom in you can see there is ice on my eyelashes.  Overall, pretty frosty  morning.

While I was at work on Wednesday, the Easter decorations came out.  I think Monica was actually going for St. Patrick's day, but that didn't stop the girls.  Winry found a cozy bed for her koala.

Brooke immediately instigated egg hunts.  Days worth of egg hunts.  As soon as you find all the eggs you conveniently have a basket full of eggs ready to go hide!  And cycle and cycle we did!  I bet it'll still be exciting on Easter since there will actually be candy inside then.

Winry has started reading some of her books at night.  She currently loves "The itsy bitsy Pumpkin" and "Rain Rain go away"

Winry was the first to get sick.  On Friday she had a fever as high as 102.5.  Fortunately Tylenol helped wonderfully and kept everything under control.  She's even slept great.  She'll be whiny every once in a while when her medicine wears off and she's feeling bad again, but a little after she takes some medicine she's great!  For the most part she's acted like normal.

On Saturday morning I made bagels and we watched the Olympic marathon trials.  It was a good morning, and the bagels turned out even better than we remembered them being!  Guess I'm going to have to start making bagels on the regular.

The girls and I ran over to Salvation Army last night.  A pack of chalk that we grabbed didn't have a price code on it, when the lady punched in a replacement she "missed the date" which apparently affects the price, because it rang up as $9002.24.  Don't worry though, everything was 50% off, so I saved $4501 on the chalk.  Worth it!

Last week we were looking at pictures of cats from the place we got Jelly, and ended up going all the way back to pictures of Jelly as a little kitten!  The girls loved to see her way back then.  Just look how cute she was!

All in all it's been a pretty calm week.  Nothing too exciting going on.  Just relaxing and recovering.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!