Soak Up the Sun

Last week the afternoons warmed up to the high sixties and low seventies! For early November that's glorious! We took advantage of it by going on walks after naptime and playing outside for several hours on Saturday. It's supposed to rain most of next week, so I'm extra thankful that we enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Bright and Shining

We love our online school. The teachers do a great job of engaging the kids and tailoring to their needs. That's pretty impressive considering the classes are enormous. Phoebe and Sophie have about sixty kids in their classes and Peter and Cooper have more than a hundred kids in some of their classes.

Those class sizes make it extra impressive that Phoebe was the first student of the month for her class, or BRIGHT Student as they call it. This is what her teacher posted in their class announcements at the beginning of October.

I'm proud of her too. And I love that her teacher recognized so quickly how amazing Phoebe is. I wonder if her teacher knows that the name Phoebe means bright and shining. Our girl definitely has the right name.

Book Bird

"I'm a bird. This is my nest. It's so cozy!"

Halloween, Round 2

Phoebe excitedly planned our family Halloween party for months before the actual holiday. She had several activities planned and even delegated some of the responsibility to her siblings, a hard and generous move for our type A girl.

On Friday night she and I stayed up late and decorated for the next day.

We started the night with homemade pizza, jack-o-lantern clementines (courtesy of Phoebe), and the beginning of Hocus Pocus.

When we had had a sufficient amount of pizza, we paused the movie and got ready to trick or treat. This is when we took the picture that I posted on Monday.

Topher loved the excitement of it all. He thought the decorations were amazing. He started the day by saying "Happy Halloween!!!" to anyone that would listen. By the time we had the party he had shortened it and was saying "Hapaween!!!" which was adorable.

Here's a bit of detailing on the Bacon Man costume. Don't worry, it's not real bacon.

Bryan and Peter took turns handing out candy. They traded off which doors they stood at and would run ahead of us so they could be at the next door on time.

The temperature outside while we were doing this was in the high 30s, so not only did I enjoy running with the kids all over the house and watching how much fun they were having, I was also incredibly thankful to not be outside trick or treating in the cold.

After trick or treating we moved onto the games. Sophie was in charge of Pin the Tail on the Cat. She and I spent some time on Pinterest and found this cute printable. We used streamers for the tail.

Also, face masks are multifunctional.

Then we all took turns guessing the items in Cooper's mystery boxes. 

They included teeth (unpopped corn kernels), dry skin (onion peels), vampire vomit (cold lettuce in water), chunky ear wax (black beans in water), and witch's eyeballs (maraschino cherries). He did a good job making it gross but fun.

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Phoebe provided coloring pages while we waited for people to make their mystery box guesses.

Then we enjoyed Halloween candy while watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, as is our annual custom.

We ended the night with these fun cupcakes Phoebe made and decorated and the rest of Hocus Pocus.

This Halloween was definitely different from what we've done in the past, but it was wonderful and so much fun. Phoebe is a natural party planner!

The holiday certainly had an impact on Topher. When I got him out of his bed yesterday morning he looked down at my shirt that I had just put on for the day and said, "Oh, I love your costume."

Vote

I decided to bump the Halloween post to tomorrow, because today is an important day.

Have you voted yet?

Bryan and I had already decided to vote by absentee ballot, we requested them several months ago. In Pennsylvania (and other states as well) you had to drop off your own ballot, or sign a note saying you were giving someone else permission to turn in your vote. So we grabbed our masks and did just that. Bryan and I took a rare date one afternoon last week to drop off our completed ballots in an official drop-box. 

If you've already voted, wonderful! If you haven't yet, quick, go vote!

Happy Halloween at Home

We had a very fun Halloween at home. Peter kind of wore a costume, and kind of just threw on this cloak so he wouldn't have to be photographed, so maybe he's a vampire? Cooper was Bacon Man, because bacon. And the other three stuck with their costumes from last week. Phoebe planned and executed a great family party, which I will post about tomorrow...

Halloween, Round 1

Last week we actually crossed state lines and visited the parking lot of Bryan's old office for their drive-thru Halloween party. The kids even wore costumes even though none of them got out of the van.

Then, on Wednesday night, instead of having the usual church Trunk or Treat, the Young Women in the ward drove to all the homes of the Primary kids and dropped off Halloween goodies bags. They encouraged all the kids to wear their costumes, so the younger three did.

We had a cute Curious George.

A marvelous mermaid. (Shoutout of thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law for the late night video call to teach me how to create ruffles and make this skirt possible.)

And a joyful Jojo Siwa. (It's okay if you don't know who that is. This was Sophie's dance recital costume, and they danced to one of Jojo's songs, so that's who Sophie decided to be.)

My Halloween treat was that they all wore masks! I sat out this activity as a leader since I needed to be home getting kids into costumes. I texted the leaders that were there and thanked them for the masks, it really meant so much to me.

The Office

Usually the kids play orphans or wilderness or sorcerers (or something along those lines).

Last week they decided to play office.

I guess when you've been stuck at home for over seven months going anywhere else sounds exciting.

Oranges

For a few weeks Topher would empty our fruit basket on a regular basis and carry the contents to various parts of the house. Then, he would count.

Blessings in the Time of COVID

For our Sunday School/Primary lesson a few weeks ago we talked about the Nephites pondering the teachings of Jesus and preparing their minds and hearts for more instruction. Then we looked at how we're preparing ourselves for the Savior. 

Many, if not all, members of our little family have developed the habit of being critical and pointing out perceived flaws in other people. This has troubled me for a long time and it's something I'm continually trying to alter. So I told them that science tells us that the more critical and negative we are, the more our brains become hardwired to only see the negative. The more negative we are, the less prepared and receptive our hearts and minds are to hear the promptings of the Holy Ghost and the teachings of Jesus. As a way to help our brains see the positive, as a family we made a list of the blessings that we've noticed during the craziness that is 2020. In a pretty short period of time we came up with a list of 25 things.

1. We've made new friends at the new school.
2. We've gotten better at doing at home church.
3. We've gotten to spend more time together.
4. We have more free time.
5. PALCS (the cyber school the kids are attending this year)
6. We have more play time.
7. We have more time with Topher.
8. We've eaten healthier meals.
9. Topher's language development has vastly improved.
10. Sundays are now a delight.
11. More time with Cooper.
12. More time with Mommy.
13. More time with Peter.
14. More time with Sophie.
15. More time with Daddy. 
16. More time with Phoebe.
17. We haven't eaten at McDonalds.
18. Kids have become more obedient.
19. The kids are learning better time management skills since they decide when they do their schoolwork.
20. We wouldn't have taken our summer break virtual trip around the world if we hadn't been stuck inside.
21. The kids have gotten to use Google Hangouts to video call friends.
22. The kids have gotten to use Gmail to email friends.
23. We've talked to far away family more often on video calls.
24. Kenzie (Phoebe's best friend) isn't moving yet since her dad can work remotely.
25. Bryan has gotten to work from home.