First day of E-learning

We started home based E-learning today. We are still trying to figure out everything. Spencer and MJ (Myra wants to be called MJ now 😂) use our house computers to do their work. Cat works on her iPad from the school. Savannah uses Cat’s personal laptop (that Cat saved up for and bought last year on her birthday). Ben has his laptop to use. And that leaves poor Brooklyn using her phone. We are hoping to get a laptop from the school for her to use, but we haven’t had any luck yet, so she is stuck using her phone. Spencer and MJ struggle to not interact and distract each other (hence Josh standing between them 😂).

Old pictures

 I came across these pictures on Facebook the other day. These are from our Spring Break trip in 2012. We traveled to Utah to go to Arches National Park. We went with out good friends the Amsdens. It was a great trip with a great family. The kids had a blast going with their friends on a family trip.

3 more kiddos have been added to this group of 15 😂

The moms being crazy 😜

Not sure how Ben (the kid crashing in picture) didn’t get hurt when he fell and “tumbled” down the sand hill. 

Third Sunday

 Today was our third Sunday of having Sacrament services at home. Savannah, Brooklyn, and I gave talks and then we turned the time over for testimonies. Many of us were fasting. We were fasting for the world and for Divine intervention and help for healing from the coronavirus. Josh taught our Sunday school/primary lesson.
Here is a scripture from our family study this morning.
2 Nephi 1:20
20 ​And he hath said that: ​​​Inasmuch​ as ye shall keep my ​​​commandments​ ye shall ​​​prosper​ in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence

Puppy Bath

Copper was DIRTY!  So he got a bath. He always sits good in the bath for the actual bathing. But Copper hates to be dried afterwards. Which is funny for me since I don’t even use a blow dryer. But Copper will only sit for a few minutes before he starts fighting me to be let go. He wiggles. He tries to “chew” on me. He whines. And when he gets away he runs off crazy. It’s is much harder to “dry” Copper off than to bathe him. So I find it very funny that as soon I take a minute to sit after fighting him to get him dry, that he jumps up to cuddle with ME! 😂

Strong Ben

Ben might be missing his swim and works out from school. Today he decided to “work out” by giving a sibling a piggyback ride... or two... siblings... at once 😂

What do you do

Today we were going to go hike Painted Mines. It’s been on my to do list with the kids. We have been watching the weather and we were going to go earlier in the week in case we got locked down... but we decided to wait for Thursday for two reasons... One - all the other places that have been locked down were given about 36 hours notice of the lock down. We figured if it was going to happen we would just go the next day before the lockdown went into effect. Second - we were hopping that if we waited until Thursday that Junior would be able to join us (since it’s his day off).
When nothing announced on Monday or Tuesday, we figured we’d be ok to go on Thursday. But Wednesday evening around 4 they announced the state wide lock down for Thursday starting at 8 am. And so Painted Mines goes back on the list of places to go with the kids.

Locked down

Today the governor decided to “lock down” Colorado. We are officially under “shelter in place” orders. We are not suppose to go anywhere or have gatherings of more than 10 people.

Spring break fun or school learning

Josh went to help friends that are getting their house ready to put on the market this afternoon. So I played games with the older kids. I joked with them that this was their school work 😝
Ticket to ride was history/geography and Clue was forensic science.

Brotherly fun

Every time Junior comes over Spencer begs for him to jump on the tramp. Junior is such a good big brother.

Second Sunday

Today was or second Sunday of home centered Sunday services. Cat, Ben, and Josh spoke in our sacrament meeting and I taught Sunday school/primary. It was a great sabbath day!

Here are a couple verses of scriptures from our study today.

Jacob 6:5-7
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I beseech of you in words of soberness that ye would repent, and come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you. And while his arm of mercy is extended towards you in the light of the day, harden not your hearts.
6 Yea, today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; for why will ye die?
7 For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, will ye bring forth evil fruit, that ye must be hewn down and cast into the fire?

Did anyone have one of these

 Did anyone have one of these dolls? I did growing up. The other day my couches reminded me this doll. I hadn’t thought of this doll in a long time.

More kids sayings

• Myra to Brooklyn - Ok. Take a picture of me now. Please hurry cause I'm scared
• Myra about wallabies- oh look Brooklyn there's a mirror. I like how wallabies care about their beauty too
• Spencer to mom - can you get me one too? My names Spencer
• Spencer to mom in the middle of the night- your eyes are purple. You're a monster!
• Cat to parents - Spencer pooped. There's like 5 long ones and 2 short ones
• Spencer about Savannahs Father's Day card - Wait!  That's how Spider-Man does  his fingers
• Myra about scrambled eggs - I don't want to eat eggs. They are chicken babies 
• Savannah doing a magic trick - ok I ate the coin. Whatever 
• Myra after a couple jokes - maids are mean. Why do they kill people?
• Spence while on a walk - these are my speed up shoes
• Spencer - When I was three someone use to help me. And they were named you

Old photos

 I came across these photos on my phone from a few months back. These are from the end of season banquet for marching band. Ben didn’t do marching band his first three years in high school. His good friends all did (except for Zayden). They tried to convince him over the years, but it wasn’t until this last year that Ben decided to join. It was a great season for him and Brooklyn until State got cancelled. Thankfully they still got to have a banquet for the end of the season.

Savannah’s turn

This year has been crazy!!! When we planned last December to have Ben’s wisdom teeth removed, we knew that Brooklyn wouldn’t be far behind. I had no idea that Savannah would only be a couple months later. About a month ago Savannah started having a lot of jaw pain and headaches. I figured it was wisdom teeth pain, but I was still surprised that we would be taking them out this soon.

Savannah was not so happy coming out of anesthesia. She might have cried some 😝
But while she was a little weepy, she was still hilarious. Here’s a couple videos from the day.

Spring Break

We decided to take advantage of the warm weather yesterday and go to Palmer Park. The kids have loved going for years. It was nice to get out of the house and get some exercise. It was a great day for a picnic.

Springs Break start

 What happens when you leave your phone on the counter during Spring Break??? Your child might take a selfie or two 😂

Home centered church

Wow! It is amazing how fast life can change.  Just 6 weeks ago we were on a Cruise in the Caribbean. We had just swam with dolphins and walk the Mayan ruins. It was a wonderful family trip. As we were preparing to leave there was talk of a virus in China causing havoc, but that was a world away. We were asked as we got on the boat if we had been to China, but that was really about all the effects on us. Now a few weeks later and life in the United States has changed as well. This last week CHSAA has paused all spring sports, schools have canceled after school activities, schools have in plan for kids to do E-learning after spring break, and churches have canceled services.
Starting today we are having church services in our home with just our family. It was a wonderful experience having our family service.

A scripture from today’s study:
2 Nephi 10:24
24 ​Wherefore, my beloved brethren, ​​​reconcile​ yourselves to the ​​​will​ of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the ​​​grace​ of God that ye are ​​​saved​.

Family scriptures

We try to read the scriptures together as a family every morning. Some mornings the kids are not all the way awake 😝

Spring Sports

 Yesterday was a sad day for high school spring sports. Due to the concerns about the coronavirus, CHSAA has paused spring sports. Ben took it pretty hard. He was looking forward to a great senior year of swimming. Ben is hoping to swim for CMU but he needed a chance to drop his times a few more seconds. This season was going to be the time for him to do that. Right now they are only paused until April 6th. Here’s hoping Ben will get to swim the last half the season.

These pictures are from last season  sadly the season got paused two days before his first meet  

Myra’s got talent

 Tonight was Myra’s turn to be in a talent show. She sang “You belong to me” by Taylor Swift. She did great! So proud of her!

 On a side note Myra was not happy with me. She wanted to wear a different dress for her performance, but she spilt dinner down the front of it (so I made her change). Then I didn’t do her hair the way she wanted too (there wasn’t enough time to do it). 

Dress like your favorite character day

 It’s spirit week this week at the elementary school (I forgot to take picture the last two days). Today’s theme was dress like your favorite character. Myra choose Wonder Woman. Spencer chose Batman.

On a side note... if you notice the “flying” capes in their pictures it would be because they “staged” the pictures and had each other hold the capes so it looked like they were flying 😂

Proud mom

This evening we got to go to the first of many to come award ceremonies for kids this school year. Ben and Brooklyn both received awards for academic excellence. I’m so proud of them and all the hard work they do at school.