Coronavirius continues

Easter egg hunt! We had it a few days earlier than our traditional Saturday before Easter because I knew the candy wouldn't last if I had to have it sitting around that long!

John taking Mango around is a big step of trust for him. Mango did bite him a few days later. Apparently Mango remembered that John threw a pillow at him a day or so after this picture. Very little harm comes Mango's way, but it's usually in the form of little Johnny boy.

Playing Conference Jeopardy with my mom. She is so awesome to make such a fun game that all the cousins could play together.

Our early morning runs are everything to my mental health and one day we tried to beat the storm. We turned back when we saw lightening, but misjudged the timing and were sprinting through pouring rain the last half mile. Great cardio lol.

Real pineapple made this upside down cake so tasty!

Family walks every Sunday for at least two miles have been a great time to breathe fresh air and spend time talking without distractions.

Looking for turtles in the neighborhood pond.

Easter Sunday

Mango must be included of course

Nicole was the only one who would stay for more pictures :)

Ostler family Skype

It was a joyful day to be baking dinner with two ovens!!

Easter dessert- the amazing hummingbird cake.

Braided cholla bread

Ham is our traditional meat, its the only time I buy it all year since it's not the healthiest.

Just in case one pic wasn't enough. Yum!

Off to the kids "secret" place near the house where they play in the creek.

 

Katy is 6!

Mermaid purse

Tons of playdough to survive

We took a 5 mile hike to get ice cream. It was a long walk, John almost fell asleep! But the ice cream was amazing and totally worth it.

Beating the heat since our neighborhood pool isn't open.

Oldest three bonding over a cooperative spaceship game.

Diana taught Primary to the littles. She did a great job keeping their hands busy so they would sit still and listen to her lesson.

So proud of their creation!

They found SO many big tadpoles

Jacob keeps his biking helmet on when they get there, not sure what he's worried will fall on him :) He let John tag along with their net to look for creatures!

The kids all brought Katy along for her birthday and she felt on top of the world!

Koffords singing me happy birthday. I think I have the best sister ever. And her kids are learning from the best!

Beautiful card! I was amazed that they made it all themselves freehand!

Mango likes nesting in shirts. It's hilarious to see him peeking out from under Mike's armpit or Jake's chest.

This is the "before" of our kitchen when we moved in.

I absolutely LOVE my new kitchen. Lighter, brighter, cleaner and more space efficient. Plus- two ovens!

 Really love the larger pattern on this granite instead of the small speckles type pattern. 

We also had our fireplace done with this amazing granite. So much better than before- someone had painted the slate and it was peeling horribly.

We had easy breeze windows installed (WAY cheaper than glass and no permit required) as well as a mini ac/heat unit and this is a totally great addition to our year round living space. 

John can do this to his room in 5 minutes. I know from experience. Much experience.

 

Crawdad from the creek!

Worm digging in the yard.

Everyone at the creek again. This was a favorite place for a few months.

Keeping up with the workouts is the #1 thing that keeps me going on hard days. I do it first thing so nothing gets in the way of it except my own self. Minimal excuses that way! (I am very good at rationalizing :)

Sunday hair before our walk

Since Jim's 40th birthday was prettymuch an at-home no-friend kinda deal thanks to coronoavirus, a friend inspired me with a yard sign idea. Somehow, with the help of friends, it morphed into a really fun way to show Jim the love for his bday. It started with me making this sign and sticking it in the yard.

Friends brought over their own cow signs with birthday wishes on the back and used skewers and tape I left out to put them in the yard. The kids put out 16, but there were over 70 after people came over. It was incredible.

My sister's family went all out with an enormous sign with some more awesome art! A labor of love for sure!

I made a farm to table breakfast, with everything from local farms- butter, Apex-made honey, eggs, strawberries, sausage and goat cheese on homemade biscuits. My sister brought homemade jam as well, it made for an amazing breakfast!

After dinner we sent Jim upstairs to rock out on his guitar while I taped glow sticks the kids. We had him close his eyes and sit on the couch then turned on music with the lights off. He was laughing so hard, especially at John. It was totally awesome.

Online schooling requires me to be 100 percent hands on for Katy for 2.5 hours a day. The other kids need maybe 5 minutes total of my time. So grateful it's not more than that, because it's a lot of work on top of piano lessons. Overall, everything is going well and the kids only have 1.5 hrs a day of work on average.

When the parks opened we went straight to the sand volleyball courts that nobody uses at a nearby park and played volleyball and made sand castles.

The cousins came too! We're supposed to do 10 people or less, but we figured that the littlest 6 were on the other court playing in the sand, so it worked. haha

The boys went on the soccer field. The saddest thing ever was Jacob saying with a little sigh, "I miss this." We are very sad to miss the soccer season. The boys both wish basketball had been cancelled instead.

Katy spent a long time making the pit of despair. Just kidding, I have no idea what she made but she was very hot and sweaty but didn't stop until it was done!

You can't see the taco lights, total bummer! But we had the awesomest Taco Tuesday Cinco de Mayo. The kids did a whole alphabet with Spanish words and taped them on the windows and we had a great dinner and lots of mariachi music. Such a fun, festive time. Then we watched Coco after dinner.

Learning to play tennis can be slow going. I have no idea how Mike did this. He was laughing hysterically with Jacob when it happened. Fun kid.

I saved this because I'm spacing out my sugar consumption. But you can see why (my whole life) I've been an eat it now kinda girl. Because if you don't, then someone (*John*) will eat it all and leave a handful left before you catch him.

The kids look forward to this all year!! haha. Our neighbor was having stuff delivered to his driveway when we started. He got one truck load and the kids were like oh man they have hard work too. Then another load came, and another, until there were 4-5 loads of mulch, sod, and chicken poop that filled his entire driveway and top part of his lawn. I didn't hear another complaint from my kids about our pile of mulch.

We spent 3 hours Saturday, then 2 hours Mon-Wed. The best part was that I had to go to an appointment on Wednesday, but when I came home, they'd already been working for a half hour- without me even asking or suggesting they work! Every single kid helped out. John used a spade to get dirt and Katy could transport empty wheel barrows and sweep the mulch back to the pile. So awesome to see them working together!

For Mother's day dinner we had cheese fondue and then chocolate fondue for dessert. John had his own measure cup full of chocolate to dip and he was a very happy boy!

Diana and Katy made their own breakfast burritos from start to finish. They've totally learned how to do everything carefully so they can have a hot lunch. 

Jacob made everyone lunch just to be nice the other day. As you can see, we go through a lot of eggs. Best purchase ever is the 7 dozen box from Costco!