Life in November

Just a few pictures this month outside of field trips and Thanksgiving:

Jen was in town so it was girl time:

A prop from the book you are reading: Harry Potter 7

TJ finally got to dig up the potatoes that he grew and eat them with dinner. They were itty bitty:

Found this on my phone. Pluto is ok to be outside as long as the sun is shining:

Hammer celebrates his 4.0 with a private takeout meal from his favorite restaurant:

Cozy spot to read:

And that's it! Love you all,

Mom

Pluto turns 10

 Kids,

Our favorite dog turned 10 this year. We wanted to take him out on an adventure, to get him out of the house. He LOVES getting to go places. He jumps right in the car the second we let him in the garage. When we're driving he likes to put his head out the window. To honor his birthday, we took him to a trail not far from our house. He was so excited, sniffing everything, peeing on everything. It was hard to get a good picture of Pluto. He never looks at the camera because he always wants to be moving and because he must be camera shy. It was also getting dark and about to rain, but we got a few cute pictures for his Instagram post:

When we got home we sang Happy Birthday to Pluto and gave him an extra bedtime treat even though it wasn't bed time yet. What a privilege. We took some more pictures for his Instagram page. We put a Harry Potter tie on and captioned it - "10 years of mischief managed."  On one picture I added some fun photoshopped props in:

Isn't he the cutest? We love our Pluto so much. You guys are slightly obsessed with him. There are so many pictures of him on my phone. The first thing TJ does when he gets home from school is pet Pluto's head and grab his snout. You all love to have him do his Shake trick and laugh at him when he's in his hyper playful moods. You love to see him hunt birds and wasps in the backyard and I think you get almost as excited as he does when we go on adventures. 

The other day one of you told me that I am just like Pluto. We're both always cold and sleepy but up for an adventure at any time. I think you're right. This quiet, good mannered, loyal, friendly, sweet heart dog is the perfect fit for our family.

We love you Pluto!

Love,

Mom

A Covid Thanksgiving

 Hi,

We were supposed to go to Grammie's this year on Thanksgiving, but half of our family got Covid. That's right. We finally got the dreaded virus that we've been trying to avoid for almost 2 years.

Luckily we had all been vaccinated, even you little boys. You two had received your first shot just 10 days before you got sick. I think it might have helped you fight it off quicker? I got sick too, after you guys, and mine was also a shorter lived sickness than it could have been. We had fevers, chills, body aches, nausea, congestion, and A got a cough. TJ and I seemed to just have a weird dry cough a little bit. The worst was being soooo cold and then sweating an hour later. I also lost my smell! I still can't smell much, but luckily I can taste now. Don't ask me how that works. On Thanksgiving day, the boys were feeling better already but I was feeling really crappy. I didn't have much appetite but still ate some of the yummy food that Dad and Lulu made. It tasted pretty flavorless to me but hearty. 

Here's a picture of us- using our nice beautiful china dishes, but we separated the sickies from the healthies:

I think I didn't eat a full meal for 5 days. We made popcorn one night for a movie and I didn't even want any since I couldn't smell it. I even forgot that you guys were eating it! That shows you how weird this virus is. Popcorn is one of my favorite things! We didn't do a great job of wearing masks in the house and keeping healthy kids away from sick kids, except during meal time. It was just too hard when you all felt well and we were stuck home all long weekend! Lulu and Hammer tested at the drive through testing spot by our house probably 3 times and it was always negative. Their shots did their job! Dad slept downstairs for a week and he also never got it! 

It was sad to miss Thanksgiving dinner with family, but it actually turned out to be the best possible timing to get sick. We had 3 days off of school plus a weekend right when I got sick, so I didn't have to get up early to get you to school or have to take you anywhere really! TJ and A missed only 5 days of school during their 10 day quarantine, so that was awesome. Lulu and Hammer didn't have to miss school since they had negative test results and are vaccinated. You big kids wore your masks for a week to be safe. I was glad that A and TJ got it at the same time too. You two hung out together, which was nice since you were feeling fine after day 4. The other crazy thing is that 3 families in our ward got Covid the same week that we did, and most of those kids were positive with no symptoms! 

Here are some Thanksgiving things that we did at home. These are activities we did for Discover Family Fun, a local app that we use to earn rewards and have family bonding activities. This one was a game where we had to look at phones (or in our case blog books) and find pictures of certain gratitude categories. For example, I am grateful for good things to eat, things that make my life easier, hugs... 

A collage of pictures of things that we are grateful for:

We made chocolate turkeys:

Grateful flowers:

And this was on our mantle. A painting and painted pumpkin from Lulu:

The only other thing that we missed was a family activity to Get Air that we had earned through Discover Family Fun. I posted on their Facebook site that I was sad to miss it since we were in quarantine, and you know what? The girl in charge told the Get Air workers our sad story and they brought us passes to our house so that we can go another time. Isn't that so kind? It made my whole week. 

We did lots of reading, watched some movies, practiced piano, and just hung out together. Dad went shopping for us once and another time I did Smith's grocery pick up. We watched church at home (it was the last Sunday it would be broadcasted) and the boys were able to do most of their school work on their ipads. Dad worked from home and we sent MarcoPolos and texts to our family and friends.

It's pretty cool how life still goes on in a pandemic. What a blessed time to be alive- when we have vaccines and rapid testing and technology to keep us all connected. And hopefully we are all immune now for a long long time.

Love,

Mom

November's Field Trips

Hi!

One field trip this month was a big one! I checked you out of school early and off we headed to see the aquarium! It was cheap day and I couldn't pass up the chance to let you guys see the animals. It was crowded and you all were starving, but I think you enjoyed it. Our favorite parts were the sloth, the river giants, the otters, the touch pools, the jelly fish, and the shark tunnel. Here are some pictures from our field trip:

TJ found a caiman. See it hiding back there?:

River giants:

The sloth:

TJ took lots of pictures on my phone. These tiny poison frogs were cute:

Crossing the bridge:

There was this really vibrant rainbow when we came out to go home:

The next weekend we were invited with the deacons to help clean up a garden space at Fort Buenaventura. It was cool to explore:

We took Pluto on an adventure and checked a park off our to-visit list. The park connects with a trail so we checked that out too. Lulu invited 2 friends to come with us:

It was a beautiful afternoon for a hike!  We had a good time.

The last Friday of the month we were in quarantine so we did a virtual field trip! You chose to visit Nickelodeon to learn about slime in space, and then we learned how potato chips and m&m's are made. It was pretty interesting to learn and see cool things from our couch!

That's all for now.

Love,

Mom