Sledding

For a fair bit of fun with the last vestiges of snow we went sledding again today. We went sledding on Tuesday and Friday this week as well. At least there had been snow with all this cold so that the cold isn't entirely wasted (the twins and Chris think that if it is going to be cold it might as well snow) but we had trouble getting out in it last weekend. I'm a forgetful mom and didn't put sunblock on the kids. Ooops!! I didn't expect us to stay out long enough or for the sun to be as strong as it was today. We are now sporting fun sunburns around the house. We look like we've been skiing or something!!

Switch-er-roo

 On Sunday Chris was leaving with Miss A for church.  The boys were just waking up and still had sleep in their eyes.  E appeared downstairs dressed after being awake for about 5 minutes when he heard them leaving.  E ran to the door, slipped in front of Chris, put his hands on his hips with his feet firmly planted and simply stated, "I go too Daddy."  M was in the living room playing and getting ready to wave goodbye.  Chris looks E up and down then instructs, "Well you don't have any shoes on." E runs to get shoes while Chris thinks he's going to slip out (which is currently a HUGE no-no because twins have to wave and melt down if hugs and waving don't happen when leaving) while E is on the hunt for shoes.  Twin to the rescue though!  M slips between Chris and the door when E leaves before Chris can even blink.  Chris is kind of exasperated as he's just trying to get out the door to get to church.  M tells C, "You can't leave yet Daddy." At this point Chris kind of just gives up and sighs.  E comes around the corner with shoes on and exclaims, "I go too Daddy!" Chris looks him up and just gives in with, "Let's get in the car." So M leaves the door to go wave at the window.  

In other news, homeschooling for the kids is going well so far.  The kids are doing really well with the memory work.  We're just getting started with math and catching them up so they end up at the same level.  There were only a couple of things which both of them needed help with to get to the next math level when they took the assessment test a couple of weeks ago.  We are essentially catching them up and they will both do the same math for a bit.  Chris is working as a tutor for the program and is enjoying the challenge of his 9-12 year olds.  Twins are learning a lot of the memory work as am I as we have flash cards and CDs of the memory work.  

A couple of our favorite things so far:

1) The Mycaneans in the historical events timeline are now Micah-neans.  

2) In learning states and capitals, Harrisburg, Princess Leia (Pennsylvania)

Little Drummer Boy Parade

A few weeks back For King and Country had an outdoor concert at a drive-in theatre here in town.  We opted to go because they used cars as barriers to the different groups and it was outside.  We also couldn't pass up the price of admission for one car when we have a van full of For King and Country fans. 

During the set the band did NOT play the song the twins wanted to hear.  M and Big E brought their drums to play along with "The Little Drummer Boy" as it is their favorite song ever.  I mean, they know the different version by the first drum kick and request the song by version.  (Yes, they did that this morning as we were finishing breakfast.) Anyway, when the stage went dark M (being a good 3.5 year old) just collapsed.  He had held out hope ALL SHOW LONG that the band was going to play his song.  Then, ENCORE!! The band was playing his song.  He strapped up his drum and went for a walk.  There was plenty of space between everyone and he and E started drumming on their toy drums with the band.  It was fantastic.  Several other little kids kind of joined in so they had a sort of parade going down the aisles.  GMan tried desperately to stop them, but the twins did it anyway.  I didn't take pictures because I was both laughing and apologizing for the interruption.  No one thought it was an interruption though and instead Chris said you could hear people pointing at "The cutest thing ever" as the parade wound by their vehicle.  It was fun, something that could only have happened outside, and a great bit of fun for M.  Here are a few pictures of the drummers before the concert really got going. 

Blackberries!

It is that time of year. The time when M turns himself black with blackberries.  Our own blackberries were done before 4th of July, but now we've got some from our CSA.  M & Big E go with me every week to pick up veggies just to get the blackberries.  M will even tell the other kids that the "blackberries aren't any good" simply so that he gets a few more.  He eats them the first day or so then decides that I need to turn them into blackberry jam which he then eats with a spoon.  Here is M super excited about having a black tongue from the blackberries.  He was upset when it started to fade, so he ate more jam.

Not a lot has been happening here though.  We are starting to have restrictions re-instated so that's been interesting.   

School has been ramping up. We are on to the next great adventure of homeschooling.  The bigs picked the homeschool curriculum last spring after we tried a couple during the school shut down.  Now we are fully on board with the program and ready for the group to meet the end of August.  As it is the end of July that doesn't seem so far away all of a sudden.  Schools here just announced that 1st quarter will be mainly done online so the kids are happy with their decision.  Chris is both excited and a bit scared, but that's to be expected with any new adventure like this.  Hopefully we can find some poor soul to help us with piano.  

15 Years!!

Chris and I had our 15 year anniversary this week! It was a very subdued event with the lack of theater.  We were supposed to see Hamilton and it got cancelled in time for us to find nothing else really to do.  

Summer is rapidly approaching and we've had an interesting one so far.  We have managed to make it to the lake a couple of times for swimming which is nice since pools aren't really open yet.  I've been running/walking and biking a fair amount.  

Working from home has been an experience this year.  We've done a fair amount of it and the kids aren't quite sure what to think of my going back into the office.  I currently go a few times a week and it is fairly straight forward.  The new measures in place are hopefully to be short lived so we will see.  

Extra Time

Since there is a bit of extra time these days, here's a quick update. 

Nothing really is going on with us.  We are using this "shelter-in-place" as a way to trial run homeschooling.  We've thought about it off and on for years now and currently have no choice.  It is quite taxing to have to do both "school" stuff, especially as the kids would rather do the homeschool stuff.  They apparently like having multiple recesses during the day and getting to do things that interest them.  It is taxing though because we get little else done.  I'm working remotely and helping to "watch" the kids when they are in the office on the computers, but that's the extent to what help I can give during the day.  We occasionally have school after dinner even and it is a bit of fun.  Hopefully we will decide which way we actually want to go soon.  Hopefully we get to go back to school, but we very well may not looking at the other countries currently in some form of lock down like we are.  

We've had some fun with the mud and other adventures outside in our backyard.  Currently very grateful to not have to be shut in a small apartment but where we do have a yard to play in for the kids.  Also very grateful for having four children as they can do a lot more as a unit of children.  They get into a lot, but that's okay, they are kids. 

Annual Southern State Tour

We just got back from a trip through the southern states.  It was a 10 day trip and we had 2 2 year olds telling us "I go to ours house" for the drive home.  We saw a LOT of family and had a LOT of fun.  These are just a few of the pictures that we took the last few weeks of December.

We find ourselves looking at a new year with new hopes.  We hope/pray that Carolyn can walk easily and pain free.  We hope/pray that A can get by without medication and control herself enough to stay in the gifted program.  We hope/pray that GMan stops telling his teacher how she is wrong every time she turns around even if he knows he is right with the information he is giving her.  The twins we just hope/pray continue to grow like they have been.  We hope/pray that Chris gets the basement done as it will make finding childcare significantly easier with an extra bedroom as it looks like we need an au pair.

We also have a van that decidedly does not like to take the Southern State Tour.  Last Christmas we drove to Florida (well Carolyn did with Alexis and twins) and half way down the transmission started acting up.  We got back to STL by the grace of God.  It ended up being a blessing as the warranty we bought for the van paid for it since it hadn't even met mileage for needing service to the transmission and the warranty company couldn't argue with us on that.  This year during some massive rain in Dallas it started making a weird grinding noise when turning left.  Then as we drove home we noticed that the front drivers panel was dented pretty good.  We believe that it got hit sometime overnight while it was parked on the street the last night we were in Dallas.  We've got a cool red scar on it now and Chris managed to get the dents out enough that it runs and won't destroy the driver side door or the tire.  :) 

That basically sums up our new resolutions/prayers for 2020.  Well I need to go to bed to go back to work tomorrow for the first half day of 2020.