"recipe" because there was minimal measurement involved other than 1 egg, and lP mixed it as best she could, which at 9 is pretty good.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Play cookie dough
I used a sugar cookie "recipe" and substituted cream cheese for half of the butter so it was the same consistency as playdough and not greasy. It turned out fantastic. The kids mixed colors and got really creative as they would with playdough but then it could be baked and eaten so I didn't feel like it was a waste if they just mashed the colors together. So nice.
"recipe" because there was minimal measurement involved other than 1 egg, and lP mixed it as best she could, which at 9 is pretty good.
"recipe" because there was minimal measurement involved other than 1 egg, and lP mixed it as best she could, which at 9 is pretty good.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Postcards from Quarantine
On Sunday we watched a singing time with Brandon Osmond. It was sweet and introduced the kids to new songs, as well as familiar ones. The combination of high production, and hand written prompt cards was great.
We also stayed up late, singing hymns with the kids. The girls were singing together past bed time and one by one, we joined them. We were about done when B came in with a hymn book and announced "OK, I'm here."
Yesterday we made smores for FHE using my melted chocolate chips pre-applied to the graham cracker trick. P was planning to buy a tent so we set up the small tents to see if they were still good. Then some of us slept in them (lP, B and me) while G slept under the stars, literally.
Today we went over to treaty park to play tennis inside the racket ball rooms where the ball bounces back so nice.
I went to the store today for milk and eggs, and also bought fake oreos, watermelon, hamburger and buns. Now that we have a grill, I'm much more interested in making yummy food to cook on the grill, for better or worse.
I told the kids that since we're doing burgers for dinner, we should do some light food for lunch. I think most of them ate watermelon for lunch.
As I was preparing to cut open the watermelon L wondered if there would be potatoes inside, referencing the Law of the Harvest. I said I didn't know but would see. So I grabbed an onion from the pantry and with my very amazing sleight of hand skills, produced an onion from the first cut. He was amazed, calling it magic.
We also stayed up late, singing hymns with the kids. The girls were singing together past bed time and one by one, we joined them. We were about done when B came in with a hymn book and announced "OK, I'm here."
Yesterday we made smores for FHE using my melted chocolate chips pre-applied to the graham cracker trick. P was planning to buy a tent so we set up the small tents to see if they were still good. Then some of us slept in them (lP, B and me) while G slept under the stars, literally.
Today we went over to treaty park to play tennis inside the racket ball rooms where the ball bounces back so nice.
I went to the store today for milk and eggs, and also bought fake oreos, watermelon, hamburger and buns. Now that we have a grill, I'm much more interested in making yummy food to cook on the grill, for better or worse.
I told the kids that since we're doing burgers for dinner, we should do some light food for lunch. I think most of them ate watermelon for lunch.
As I was preparing to cut open the watermelon L wondered if there would be potatoes inside, referencing the Law of the Harvest. I said I didn't know but would see. So I grabbed an onion from the pantry and with my very amazing sleight of hand skills, produced an onion from the first cut. He was amazed, calling it magic.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
glue friends
M loves to make slime and wants to use my colorful glue to make slime. I bought the glue after Christmas for reasons unclear to me even then. I told her she couldn't use my precious glue for that and she said "Why do you even have it if you won't use it." my true daughter. So I squeezed a big dot into each of their palms and taught them the glue all over the hands past time of my childhood. Wow, the magic. They were all incredulous that I actually let them put glue all over their hands.
If only they knew the many ounces of glue I put all over my hands as a child. Of course we could never have nice things.
P does a lot to introduce the kids to pop culture from the 80s, 90s, and today. He's very deliberate about that. Today's glue adventure was my small contribution. Oh yeah.
If only they knew the many ounces of glue I put all over my hands as a child. Of course we could never have nice things.
P does a lot to introduce the kids to pop culture from the 80s, 90s, and today. He's very deliberate about that. Today's glue adventure was my small contribution. Oh yeah.
zoom chats
I've enjoyed doing chats with people from church, family, a sign language class and homeschool group. It does ease the feeling that we're disconnected from everyone and everything.
Today at the Chiu Chat I prepared boggle and scattergories. It was cool how the technology allowed us to write on the shared screen from our individual devices for boggle. Then for scattergories, I just read the card since it wouldn't come into focus for the small size of the card. But we had a lot of fun doing it.
The kids are so blessed to have one another during this time. I'm very grateful to have them too.
I have a gift for loving things. Even this time of isolation, I am kind of loving it and don't really want to return to organizational business and obligation.
I do want to travel though and not feel like I can only go as far as we can make it there and back without having to use the bathroom.
The beaches are open and I'm tempted to take the kids for an outing. The risks are still there though. It's hard to know what will be OK or not.
Today at the Chiu Chat I prepared boggle and scattergories. It was cool how the technology allowed us to write on the shared screen from our individual devices for boggle. Then for scattergories, I just read the card since it wouldn't come into focus for the small size of the card. But we had a lot of fun doing it.
The kids are so blessed to have one another during this time. I'm very grateful to have them too.
I have a gift for loving things. Even this time of isolation, I am kind of loving it and don't really want to return to organizational business and obligation.
I do want to travel though and not feel like I can only go as far as we can make it there and back without having to use the bathroom.
The beaches are open and I'm tempted to take the kids for an outing. The risks are still there though. It's hard to know what will be OK or not.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Big ipad
Did I already post about the new ipad? It's a 12.9" ipad pro, 2nd generation. It can run imovie, has a gigantic memory and can do facebook chat. M can use it to read music from. It is very nice to have a device that can run newer apps.
So I've started to work on the 3 years of movies that didn't get made because the movie software on the computer stopped working. Oye! It's cute to see how much everyone has grown. I can't believe these trips and events were 3 years ago! Also, it's a lot of material. Little by little I'll catch up.
So I've started to work on the 3 years of movies that didn't get made because the movie software on the computer stopped working. Oye! It's cute to see how much everyone has grown. I can't believe these trips and events were 3 years ago! Also, it's a lot of material. Little by little I'll catch up.
Grandparents vist
P loves grand gestures. He loves to bring joy to people. Today we drove out to Gtown to see our P family through their windows at a safe distance. We were concerned about kids needing to use the potty so we brought a baby potty along just in case. We also brought along dub dubs, pop tarts, potato chips and cookies. The kids enjoyed eating and showing off some of their drawings. P talked about our Presidents leadership failures with aunt B, aunt E and grandpa.
We drove over to grandma L's house next and sang her "Man's Life's a Vapor". The kids showed her drawings and had a nice time. P said we better go before it rains, 1 minute before it did start to rain. The kids enjoyed dashing to the car and leaping in.
It was a good outing. I'm very glad that P has so much enjoyment of making fond memories.
When the time of isolation began I was getting exhausted from not sleeping well, worrying. I was getting that dizzy feeling I get when I have newborns and am sleep deprived. So P scheduled time in the middle of the day when he would take the kids. I did sleep the first day but then I couldn't sleep at night. So for the last 4 weeks (!) dad comes out at 2 and mom is off duty. I don't have to plan any activities. I can take L for a walk, or do folders with him. I can also sew on the back porch. It has been a tremendous gift for me to have a break.
P took the kids through the Mo Willems drawing tutorials and is now doing other fun drawing tutorials with them. He sometimes does a quiz with them or plays a game with them. I'm so grateful.
We drove over to grandma L's house next and sang her "Man's Life's a Vapor". The kids showed her drawings and had a nice time. P said we better go before it rains, 1 minute before it did start to rain. The kids enjoyed dashing to the car and leaping in.
It was a good outing. I'm very glad that P has so much enjoyment of making fond memories.
When the time of isolation began I was getting exhausted from not sleeping well, worrying. I was getting that dizzy feeling I get when I have newborns and am sleep deprived. So P scheduled time in the middle of the day when he would take the kids. I did sleep the first day but then I couldn't sleep at night. So for the last 4 weeks (!) dad comes out at 2 and mom is off duty. I don't have to plan any activities. I can take L for a walk, or do folders with him. I can also sew on the back porch. It has been a tremendous gift for me to have a break.
P took the kids through the Mo Willems drawing tutorials and is now doing other fun drawing tutorials with them. He sometimes does a quiz with them or plays a game with them. I'm so grateful.
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Corona Virus Grocery Shopping
I went shopping today for the first time in 2 weeks. It went well. I got everything I needed!
Because I'm trying to go to the store very infrequently so I think about what we need all the time. I make a list and then organize it by area of the store.
When I'm at the store I wear a pair of non prescription glasses, a face mask, rubber gloves, a tool holder for my credit card, so I don't have to reach into my pockets, and carry a bottle of hand sanitizer. I bring a few clorox wipes to wipe down the cart, even though I'm wearing gloves and will sanitize the food. It's like Gwen, on Galaxy Quest; I have one job, it's stupid.... All these steps just help me manage the anxiety of going out and staying vigilant.
I went into Save a lot, I love Save a Lot, and got most of my groceries. I forgot to bring in my list so I went back to the car with a full car to pantry goods, then went back for another cart load of freezer and other things forgotten. It was nice to break up the huge trip into 2 carts so each check out was more normal-ish. It's so weird to me to see people just buying 1 day worth of food, or a few items. Why not plan ahead and only go out once a week or less? Not everyone can.
I was hoping to get toilet paper and Save a lot didn't have any. I was prompted to go to Family Dollar and was able to get the last 16 roll pack. They had a limit 1 per customer policy. In times like this you don't even look at the price, you just get what you can and are grateful.
I used more hand sanitizer, brought the food home and then started the sanitization process. I kicked off my shoes so I wasn't bringing them into the home, and got out of the car barefoot. I put my mask, and pouch into the washer. I changed my clothes.
Save a lot doesn't bag food so I had everything loaded into bins, cold, and shelf stable. I doused 2 towels with 409 and began wiping down the cold items and putting them into laundry baskets that M took and put away. lP and B helped some too. I used paper towels and 409 2 weeks ago but they didn't hold up well. The towels were much easier to use and encompassed the packaging better.
On a day where I go to the store, I don't have tons of emotional energy for other things. I'm so preoccupied with what I need to do and the steps to feel like I'm protecting our family.
I'm not worried that we would die if we caught Covid-19. But it could be very unpleasant and if anyone had to be hospitalized, it would cost thousands of dollars, even with excellent insurance. I'm so grateful that our family is minimally impacted by this. We have income intact, 1 parent already taking care of children, isolated home with outdoor spaces to enjoy, homeschooling continues on, piano lessons via videochat. We rarely went out to eat anyway. We are so blessed.
Because I'm trying to go to the store very infrequently so I think about what we need all the time. I make a list and then organize it by area of the store.
When I'm at the store I wear a pair of non prescription glasses, a face mask, rubber gloves, a tool holder for my credit card, so I don't have to reach into my pockets, and carry a bottle of hand sanitizer. I bring a few clorox wipes to wipe down the cart, even though I'm wearing gloves and will sanitize the food. It's like Gwen, on Galaxy Quest; I have one job, it's stupid.... All these steps just help me manage the anxiety of going out and staying vigilant.
I went into Save a lot, I love Save a Lot, and got most of my groceries. I forgot to bring in my list so I went back to the car with a full car to pantry goods, then went back for another cart load of freezer and other things forgotten. It was nice to break up the huge trip into 2 carts so each check out was more normal-ish. It's so weird to me to see people just buying 1 day worth of food, or a few items. Why not plan ahead and only go out once a week or less? Not everyone can.
I was hoping to get toilet paper and Save a lot didn't have any. I was prompted to go to Family Dollar and was able to get the last 16 roll pack. They had a limit 1 per customer policy. In times like this you don't even look at the price, you just get what you can and are grateful.
I used more hand sanitizer, brought the food home and then started the sanitization process. I kicked off my shoes so I wasn't bringing them into the home, and got out of the car barefoot. I put my mask, and pouch into the washer. I changed my clothes.
Save a lot doesn't bag food so I had everything loaded into bins, cold, and shelf stable. I doused 2 towels with 409 and began wiping down the cold items and putting them into laundry baskets that M took and put away. lP and B helped some too. I used paper towels and 409 2 weeks ago but they didn't hold up well. The towels were much easier to use and encompassed the packaging better.
| bananas | wipe down |
| carrots | wipe down bag |
| cabbage | leave in the car quarantine |
| broccoli | wipe down bag |
| apples | wipe down bag |
| lettuce | wipe down bag |
| cilantro | did not find : ( |
| onions | leave in the car quarantine |
| Yogurt | wipe down each container |
| Cheese | wipe down bag |
| Sour Cream | wipe down each container |
| Butter | open box and pour contents into freezer |
| Eggs | wipe down each container |
| Milk | wipe down |
| cheese crackers | leave in the car quarantine |
| Chicken | wipe down bag |
| Ham | wipe down bag |
| bread | leave in the car quarantine |
| buns | leave in the car quarantine |
| canned carrots | did not find : ( |
| Marshmallows | wipe down bag |
| Sugar | leave in the car quarantine |
| flour | leave in the car quarantine |
| baking powder | leave in the car quarantine |
| cinnamon | leave in the car quarantine |
| Soy sauce | leave in the car quarantine |
| Olive Oil | leave in the car quarantine |
| Salt | leave in the car quarantine |
| Pickles | leave in the car quarantine |
| pineapple | leave in the car quarantine |
| relish | leave in the car quarantine |
| Salsa | leave in the car quarantine |
| pretzels | leave in the car quarantine |
| rasins | leave in the car quarantine |
| Conditioner | leave in the car quarantine |
| wings | wipe down bag |
| tater tots | wipe down bag |
| checkers fries | did not find : ( |
| oJ | wipe down |
| frozen broccoli | wipe down bag |
| TP | wipe down bag |
| ice cream | wipe down each container |
On a day where I go to the store, I don't have tons of emotional energy for other things. I'm so preoccupied with what I need to do and the steps to feel like I'm protecting our family.
I'm not worried that we would die if we caught Covid-19. But it could be very unpleasant and if anyone had to be hospitalized, it would cost thousands of dollars, even with excellent insurance. I'm so grateful that our family is minimally impacted by this. We have income intact, 1 parent already taking care of children, isolated home with outdoor spaces to enjoy, homeschooling continues on, piano lessons via videochat. We rarely went out to eat anyway. We are so blessed.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Easter 2020
Being in stay at home mode, we did an egg hunt a few weeks ago and the kids lost most of the eggs left over from last year. But they did find them. I might let them play some with that. Or we can do it another day. I really don't like to have too much festivity today.
I did want to make nice food and planned to make cream puffs for breakfast with corn starch chocolate pudding inside. After piping out a few cream puffs, inspiration struck and Cream Puff Peeps were born!
I planned to make the most of our remaining eggs since I hope to avoid another grocery trip until Wednesday or Thursday. I boiled eggs for P to dye with the kids, and also planned to use them in a potato salad for dinner.
Lunch was cheesy noodles, with ham (because you gotta have ham on Easter?) and boiled carrots.
Dinner was grilled hot dogs, grilled green beans, grilled corn, potato salad, and fudge topped brownies. I love to make half of a batch, then cut them up. My kids rarely get a ton of dessert and I love it that they are usually overwhelmed by a large portion of dessert.
Right now we're getting ready to make 'empty tomb' rolls that are bread with marshmallows cooked inside so there is a hollow and sweet bread in the end. Pictures to follow.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Sewing Masks
I made about 30 masks, 24 of which I donated to a hospital. Then my friend asked for more masks for her daughter, and this friend had fabric! So I've made 9 of those masks so far and have another 25 cut out. It is neat finding ways to economize on the cutting and hanging threads by starting the next mask right after the previous. lP likes to cut the threads for me. She was persistent so I let her sew a bag yesterday. Now she's very eager to start sewing masks....
During the 2pm hour with dad I took my sewing machine outside and sewed in the beautiful spring weather. This is an incredible month we've been having here with weather. March, April, May is usually so busy with activities. I am loving the opportunity to enjoy spring. I want to be much less busy when we return from the stay at home time. We are on day 26 of not going out. We bought a car, went to save a lot 2 times, P went to a gas station at 3am to get me medicine, and home depot 1 time to buy deep socket wrenches so that we can maybe get the neighbors play set.
Today we're going to go on a walk from the mailbox to the garage, using planks that the children have to pass forward in the line. I'm very excited to make them do this team building activity. : )
During the 2pm hour with dad I took my sewing machine outside and sewed in the beautiful spring weather. This is an incredible month we've been having here with weather. March, April, May is usually so busy with activities. I am loving the opportunity to enjoy spring. I want to be much less busy when we return from the stay at home time. We are on day 26 of not going out. We bought a car, went to save a lot 2 times, P went to a gas station at 3am to get me medicine, and home depot 1 time to buy deep socket wrenches so that we can maybe get the neighbors play set.
Today we're going to go on a walk from the mailbox to the garage, using planks that the children have to pass forward in the line. I'm very excited to make them do this team building activity. : )
Monday, April 6, 2020
Life from home going into week 4
We enjoyed conference weekend from home as usual which was the only thing usual about this time of Stay at Home life. I went shopping on Thursday so the pantry items came out of quarantine on Sunday. It sure is nice to have plenty of food in the house in case we develop an active case of CV-19 and need to stay home. I imagine we could call on our ward family to drop off anything we run out of. The kids paid better attention than in years past. It is interesting to watch them grow and have these semi-annual markers to compare their growth and development by.
I've hoped to get a 12.9" ipad for M to use as a piano music library for a while now, but that's a pretty expensive tool. Meanwhile, my movie making ability was suddenly restored as my computer decided to let me use iMovie last weekend. It was nice to make 2 movies and then after making a 3rd, I made a mistake. I tried to edit the audio and...crash. Still it was nice to make a movie after so long.
P had installed a more recent version of iMovie but it would crash when I tried to add the audio so I only had made 1 movie with it.
I had late night inspiration that if we got a bigger, newer ipad, we could upload pictures to it and make movies from it. I imagined uploading the season folder I would be working on would take up a lot of space, but still be OK. Plus, M could use it for piano. P approved the purchase and it was ordered.
When it arrived, I set out on syncing it with the computer but the photos were set to icloud upload and our darth vader computer doesn't have the newest operating system on it, so no icloud. I was distressed thinking we'd made this big purchase and now were not able to use this function. P is such a good sport. He didn't get upset, just kept moving through the day. I had more inspiration to notice that the words "icloud upload is turned on" suggested that the icloud storage could be turned off. I went to the settings in the ipad and found how to turn off icloud upload. Wonderful! The photos could now be synced with a usb cable.
The new ipad has a gigantic amount of storage, so the entire photo library for the last 15 years only takes up 10% of the storage. The music library can also be loaded, but I didn't choose that. It is so neat to be able to scroll through the old pictures. I have really beautiful children.
We spent a lot of time Sunday watching family movies. The kids hadn't watched them in a long time. I inventoried what I needed to catch up on and it has been 3 years since I made regular movies. Yikes! I used to do a movie for every month + subtitles to describe what was going on and transitions. As I lost that functionality in the iMovie software I started doing season movies instead of monthly movies. So I really only have 12 seasons to catch up on. Ack!
I'm excited that the kids can start making movies as a creative endeavor again. I feel that we were led and blessed in this effort to create family movies by the spirit. It is an important part of creating a fond memory of our family. I'm very grateful for it.
Here's the first movie I made on the ipad!
I've hoped to get a 12.9" ipad for M to use as a piano music library for a while now, but that's a pretty expensive tool. Meanwhile, my movie making ability was suddenly restored as my computer decided to let me use iMovie last weekend. It was nice to make 2 movies and then after making a 3rd, I made a mistake. I tried to edit the audio and...crash. Still it was nice to make a movie after so long.
P had installed a more recent version of iMovie but it would crash when I tried to add the audio so I only had made 1 movie with it.
I had late night inspiration that if we got a bigger, newer ipad, we could upload pictures to it and make movies from it. I imagined uploading the season folder I would be working on would take up a lot of space, but still be OK. Plus, M could use it for piano. P approved the purchase and it was ordered.
When it arrived, I set out on syncing it with the computer but the photos were set to icloud upload and our darth vader computer doesn't have the newest operating system on it, so no icloud. I was distressed thinking we'd made this big purchase and now were not able to use this function. P is such a good sport. He didn't get upset, just kept moving through the day. I had more inspiration to notice that the words "icloud upload is turned on" suggested that the icloud storage could be turned off. I went to the settings in the ipad and found how to turn off icloud upload. Wonderful! The photos could now be synced with a usb cable.
The new ipad has a gigantic amount of storage, so the entire photo library for the last 15 years only takes up 10% of the storage. The music library can also be loaded, but I didn't choose that. It is so neat to be able to scroll through the old pictures. I have really beautiful children.
We spent a lot of time Sunday watching family movies. The kids hadn't watched them in a long time. I inventoried what I needed to catch up on and it has been 3 years since I made regular movies. Yikes! I used to do a movie for every month + subtitles to describe what was going on and transitions. As I lost that functionality in the iMovie software I started doing season movies instead of monthly movies. So I really only have 12 seasons to catch up on. Ack!
I'm excited that the kids can start making movies as a creative endeavor again. I feel that we were led and blessed in this effort to create family movies by the spirit. It is an important part of creating a fond memory of our family. I'm very grateful for it.
Here's the first movie I made on the ipad!
Thursday, April 2, 2020
groceries
I went shopping 11 days ago at Save a Lot and was one of 3 shoppers at the store. I bought a lot of food and didn't feel like we needed go go to the store again for at least a week. Yay! I'm trying to only go shopping 1 time a week or less and only to Save a Lot which has a small selection, small staff, and not very many shoppers. I imagine this lowers the risk of me catching germs as I would in Sam's Club that has such a higher volume of products and customers daily.
So I made my list, last night which is unusual for me. I had my mask and gloves ready. My mom suggested that eye wear was also a good idea and I used a pair of glasses without prescription lenses that I thought looked less crazy than goggles would. I carried my credit card in my pocket so that when I got to the register I could just take my left glove off, use the card, then put it back in my pocket.
In the store I tried to never get too close to anyone and felt agitated by a man who was apparently running up and down the aisles. Even when he was in line, he kept dodging off and running around. But I bought so much food.
I took the van which we don't take anywhere right now; prepared with 3 rubbermaid tubs. As I unloaded the cart (no bags), I sorted the items so that anything shelf stable (bread, canned goods, baking mix) were all in the bin to stay in the car. Leaving these items in the car for 3 days, I wouldn't need to sanitize them.
I untied my shoes in the car, then sanitized my hands. Kicked off my shoes and left them in the car before getting out of the car. I went in and we had scriptures and prayer to officially start the day. The cold items like milk and cheese, I wiped down with 409 saturated paper towels. Boxed items like butter, cream cheese, hamburgers, I removed the box and dumped the contents straight into the clean basket. So much food. I sprayed the bananas then wiped down the peels. Lettuce and broccoli, I sprayed and wiped the bags.
The food is all in, except for what is still in car-quarantine. I hope to not have to go shopping again for a long time.
So I made my list, last night which is unusual for me. I had my mask and gloves ready. My mom suggested that eye wear was also a good idea and I used a pair of glasses without prescription lenses that I thought looked less crazy than goggles would. I carried my credit card in my pocket so that when I got to the register I could just take my left glove off, use the card, then put it back in my pocket.
In the store I tried to never get too close to anyone and felt agitated by a man who was apparently running up and down the aisles. Even when he was in line, he kept dodging off and running around. But I bought so much food.
I took the van which we don't take anywhere right now; prepared with 3 rubbermaid tubs. As I unloaded the cart (no bags), I sorted the items so that anything shelf stable (bread, canned goods, baking mix) were all in the bin to stay in the car. Leaving these items in the car for 3 days, I wouldn't need to sanitize them.
I untied my shoes in the car, then sanitized my hands. Kicked off my shoes and left them in the car before getting out of the car. I went in and we had scriptures and prayer to officially start the day. The cold items like milk and cheese, I wiped down with 409 saturated paper towels. Boxed items like butter, cream cheese, hamburgers, I removed the box and dumped the contents straight into the clean basket. So much food. I sprayed the bananas then wiped down the peels. Lettuce and broccoli, I sprayed and wiped the bags.
The food is all in, except for what is still in car-quarantine. I hope to not have to go shopping again for a long time.
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