Spring

Since becoming a mom, I  have developed a love-hate relationship with Spring.

Love:

Hate:

Cuties

Seth, as Livi runs at him for a hug when he got home from work: "There's the cute little girl!!!"

Frankie (who now prefers Francis), running in from the other room: "Don't forget about the cute little boy!!"

Milking out his cuteness for all it's worth, Francis has also been working on his puppy dog eyes skills. Or rather, "kitty cat eyes" since he learned it from Puss in Boots on Shrek.

Brainerd

The covid vaccine is making its mark! We were finally able to go visit family friends for a weekend with very little worry or thought of covid.  Both are doctors and were among the first to get the vaccine. 

A great time was had by all as you can see from the pictures...which were all taken by Laura because I am not very good at keeping up with pictures. Or this blog evidently. 

We all went tubing, which was a first for a lot of our kids. Olivia went down the hill twice and that was enough for her. It was pretty intense and she didn't care for the snow in her face. No tears, but she arched her back pretty good going down and gave a very firm "No" when asked if she wanted to go again. She was very content to be drug around in a tube on level ground the rest of the time.

Our older two have grown into great helpers with all the kids so we adults were able to enjoy actual uninterrupted conversation quite a bit.

Movie night!

Frankie's new hobby

The only problem is that Seth has to carry him up the hill every time because it's too much work to get the snowboard off and on.  Fortunately, Seth didn't mind the work out :)

Florida Trip

On top of doing hybrid learning (every other day in and out of school) with my students the entire month of January, we also did not have daycare through Jan 15th. Since we were looking at having to take time off to stay home with Olivia anyway, we decided to "stay home" with her in Florida where we could enjoy the beach and warm weather. We pretty much stuck to ourselves, enjoying the beach (I read, Seth swam with Olivia) and some fantastic seafood.

 It was a nice break from the constant chaos at home. February or March would have been preferable (it was too cold for me to brave the water at all), but this worked out. We left January 6th just as the capitol riots were at their worst, so we boarded the plane not knowing what to expect by the time we arrived. Fortunately things had settled down by the evening (at least temporarily). 

Upon landing our phones both started dinging like crazy - alerting us that we would not have daycare until Feb 1st AND that Seth's dad had tested positive for COVID. We narrowly missed having been close contacts with him. If we had been, I'm not sure what we would have done. The possibility of getting sick in Florida and having to quarantine there dawned on me right after we bought our tickets. Had I thought of it a day sooner, I think I would have insisted on staying. 

Staying in Florida to quarantine for 2 weeks and leaving our 4 kids with Seth's sister would have been a nightmare - especially if they had all had to quarantine, too. Olivia would have hated it - I was surprised how much she missed her siblings. When we tried facetiming with them on the 2nd day, Olivia started crying and went to stand by the door, wanting to go home. Fortunately she enjoyed the beach enough to make bringing her down worth it!

Seth's parents are recovering well. We are looking forward to seeing them again after their quarantine!

And now for pictures:

The beach made this perfect little tide pool that Olivia could play in without getting hit by huge waves.

Snow Day!

Our kids were lucky enough to get an actual Snow Day today due to the blizzard. I was very grateful as I had to teach my classes online, and I got interrupted enough as it was. It was a huge help not to have to deal with our kids' schoolwork on top of it. My guess is, future snow days will be digital for them but we enjoyed this while we could. 

The weather wasn't great for going outside - Sam and Elena did trek across town to see their cousins, but the younger ones were inside all day. Of course, the day was full of "I'm bored" and "Can't I watch just one more show??"

We finally found an activity they could all enjoy: sumo wrestling! It started with Frankie and Charlie, but it wasn't long before they all joined in. Even Olivia came up to me with a pillow to put in her shirt. Here are a few snapshots - it was hard to get any good action shots, but you get the idea.

Getting up proved to be a little difficult:

 

Christmas 2020

As is true for many this year, our Christmas has been quiet in comparison to most years. My side of the family is small enough we could get together without going (much) over the size limit for gatherings so we headed to my parents Christmas Day. Christmas Eve was celebrated at home with a 5-course feast prepared by Seth. 

Normally Santa would come while we are at Mass, but we decided to go to the less popular Christmas morning Mass lest we get turned away for lack of space with the limited seating requirements. 

Santa came while we ate and gift opening was done by 8:00, leaving everyone time to play with their new toys for a bit before bed. Charlie left out a special cookie he made for Santa along with 9 carrots for the reindeer (you can't forget Rudolph!) along with a couple of notes, such as the one he was forced to leave below. (He had to replace the word "two" with "three" after another infraction)

Olivia received a few obnoxiously loud toys, which she was thrilled about. And Charlie's lightsabers were thoroughly enjoyed by all the males in the household. 

I am happy to announce that Olivia stopped her boycott of clothes on Christmas morning when we told her it was time to get dressed to go to Grandma and Papi's. I had brought down two shirts, not sure which to put her in. Once she had one on, she insisted on also wearing the other one - fortunately the first was thin. The same thing happened with her skirts the next day: I brought down a new skirt to wear, and she would only wear it in addition to her skirt from the previous day. So in one day, we flip-flopped from rarely wearing a sufficient amount of clothing to wearing more clothing than one would think of as comfortable. 

Here she is on Christmas Day (she absolutely loves her Uncle Eliud!). It was Frankie's turn to wear our one Christmas bowtie this year.

And showing off her double-skirt look the next day:

The following night Alex came to spend the night at our place, while Charlie and Frankie got to have a sleepover at Grandma and Papi's. Frankie was beyond excited! Here is a picture of Papi reading stories to the kids before bed. 

Also at Grandma and Papi's, the kids recited their annual Christmas poems that they memorized for Grandma as her gift. We sort of forgot about it until 2 days before Christmas so they were all quite short. 

COVID tests & Xmas concerts

Sam and Charlie also got their first COVID tests in early December because they woke up with coughs. Both were negative so we only had to isolate for 2.5 days. With all of our schedules to juggle those 2 days brought on more "what if"s and "how are we going to do this?" situations than I would have anticipated.

It didn't help that for that particular week, I had made regular lesson plans, replaced by distance learning plans when our school switched to DL, replaced by hybrid plans when we switched again, then replaced by sub plans due to our covid test, only to switch right back to the hybrid plans. 

The school was kept in limbo those couple of days, too. Their Christmas Concert was to be performed Wednesday afternoon (for students only, unfortunately). They videotaped the concert and then broadcast it over zoom that evening for families to enjoy. With 4 children in the concert, the music teacher was just as anxious to know whether the kids would come back to school in time or not.

We were told the test results would be back by Tuesday. Come Wednesday morning, we still had heard nothing so understudies were frantically getting ready to stand in for Sam and Elena who had speaking parts. I finally called medical records 2 hours before showtime, and they were able to send me the results. So we quickly packed the kids off and sent them to school just in time. 

I was one of the fortunate few parents who got to see the actual performance because I helped direct, and I assure all of those who missed it that the kids did great!

(I was dependent upon another mom for pictures so I only have elena's class:)

Elena's class also did a Living Nativity last week outside with a sheep and donkey. It was a new tradition brought on by the pandemic, which I suspect will continue into future years.

Livi at 18 months

Likes: shoes & socks (I have to wait until she's asleep to take them off), peppers (says "I want!!!"and points at the peppers in the produce aisle), apples, raspberries, anything sweet, Coco, standing on countertops/tables or anything else not made for the purpose, climbing stairs, emptying cupboards/drawers/bookshelves, brushing her teeth, reading books, pounding on computer keyboards (especially while Mom is in a meeting with students), wrestling with her siblings, growling, being chased around the island, dancing 

Dislikes: blankets, clothing, pajamas, winter coats (light jackets are acceptable), mittens, hats, staying in one spot for more than 5 seconds (unless it's Mom's lap), getting dressed (this is a total scream fest every day), ironically she also hates getting undressed and tries to put her dirty clothes back on when you take them off, eating more than a few bites of food at a meal, sleeping through the night, allowing Mom to get anything productive done (thus fewer blog posts lately), being constrained to my arms at church or the grocery story...even though she rarely leaves my arms while we are home

Words she says very well (and frequently): 

• Shoes
• No! 
• hi/bye 
• stop it
• I want it
• chocolate 
• owee (her general sound of frustration)
• Mommy/Daddy
• Coco/Cat
• water
• Grandma/Grandpa/Papi
• book
• go!
• happy! (said mostly on birthdays)

Dancing:

Keeping up with the mayhem!

Big month for Sam

 Not only did Sam turn 12 at the end of November, he also got his first deer...and his 2nd deer in the same weekend! He shot his first deer in an interesting spot. I won't say where it was, but his new nickname is "Ballseye." 😂 

We were fortunate to have nice weather the week of his birthday so we met with my family and went hiking at Camden park to celebrate. The warm weather has allowed him extra time with his cousins on that side, and for that we are very thankful! 

His godmother spoiled him with Lindt chocolates and a gift card. He keeps finding interesting things to buy with the gift card, and I always tell him to wait a day or two before pulling the trigger so he doesn't just buy something he'll never use on impulse. He's usually found a few new options by the next day so we have yet to see what the gift card brings. 

A few options so far: 

an you have to shoot from across the room to turn off

a throwing hatchet

prank electric shock pens