January 2021

 We were still at the cabin doing our quarantine for the first few days of January.  The first photo of the year?  My little girls in grandma's big jacuzzi tub.  They had packed their swimsuits just so they could do this while we were there.

 

We spent more time outside, that day and the next.  The only way we could get Stockton off the snowboard was when his sisters wanted a turn!

We played Clue-Stockton had picked it for New Year's Eve and then didn't feel like playing.  He's not really a game guy.  Molly was working on some drawings.  Brynn and Ivy are always up for playing games.  Justin is not usually a game guy either but we talked him into playing with us.  Followed by some jumping on the beanbag. 

We finished up our Harry Potter movies.  We discovered which discs we need to replace-they've been well-loved and some of the discs are in bad shape. (*Update: I got a new 8-disc set for the kids for Valentine's Day.  We will probably watch them all again next Christmas break.)

On the last afternoon that we were there (Saturday), Justin took the kids out to play while I worked on dinner and cleaning up.  They were out for a long time!  I had time to make these big-as-Ivy's-face pretzels that we had with our cheeseburger salad.  (I know that sounds weird but it was introduced to us a few years ago by April and my kids love it.)

 

The next day we watched our Zoom church, washed all sheets and put them back on the beds, and Lysol wiped or sprayed every single surface.  We wanted to make sure there were no covid germs left behind to greet the next visitors.  We were very thorough.  We made it home just in time for Justin to start on his sickness and quarantine. The frustrating thing was how long it drug out for our family.  Justin got it 9 days after me and 12 days after Molly.  Stockton got it 5 days after Justin, 14 days after me, and 17 days after Molly.  Brynn and Ivy never got it (at least they had no symptoms and tested negative 5 days after Stockton got it) but they ended up having to quarantine a full 10 days after Stockton's 10 day quarantine was over.  So, it was best for Molly-even though she had a few days where she didn't feel good, she had the shortest quarantine.  Brynn and Ivy felt fine the entire time but they had to quarantine the longest-almost all of January!

Justin felt fine after a couple of days in bed.  I caught him helping Ivy through a workbook one afternoon-we have been spoiled to have him working from home these past several months.  I definitely have taken advantage of him in the afternoons when kids need to be dropped off or picked up-that has always been tricky to work around with piano lessons.  It will be hard to go back to "normal" when he goes back to his branch.

Since we aren't in Primary each week, our bishop has been sending out cards and Quench It cards to kids when it is their birthday.  Ivy was so excited to get hers!  As you can see, Bishop Allen wrote a thoughtful and meaningful card and I appreciated the gesture.  I took her to get her Quench It on one of her quarantine afternoons (it's a drive thru so she was in the back and it was safe).

 

Brynn and Ivy are always up for Molly combing their hair.  Pretty much any attention from Molly is great for them. 

One of Molly's goals for the year was to make dinner for the family once a month.  She is pretty good at baking but cooking still needs some work.  Her first dinner was chinese-themed.  She made us sweet and sour chicken, fried rice, and chow-mein.  I had to get her started on the chicken stuff-cutting, sanitizing, frying-but she did 95% of it on her own.

Stockton's hair was so long at this point.  I was teasing him about it and asked if I could curl it with the straightener.  I thought for sure he would tell me absolutely not but he was really agreeable!  He sat right at the counter and let me do it.  He put a hat on shortly after and then washed his hair a little later.  He had Justin cut it shorter the next morning before church.

 

These girls had to get creative in their quarantine.  They did pretty well for most of it-towards the end there was more arguing, which was completely understandable, and I did my best to be patient with them.  This was a beach game they set up one afternoon.  

Justin and Molly went to the movies for their date.  They used some free passes that Justin had and saw "News of the World."

Justin and Brynn teamed up one Sunday and put on a "court" for their Come, Follow Me lesson.  They were trying to prove the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, I believe.  Justin wore a black robe/Harry Potter cape and used a hammer for his gavel.

 

I was feeling the need to get the kids out of the house over the long Martin Luther King Jr. weekend.  Some of my family was at the cabin and I was missing being able to go and do that.  We didn't do much on Saturday-it was a chore-and-random-project day-so we made Monday more of a family day.  We went in the morning for a little hike up in the Dutch Fields area of Midway.  We hiked there a couple of summers ago and I took Stockton snowshoeing there last January on our date.  I knew it would be an easy hike for Ivy to do-especially with her extra layers of snow clothes that could make it harder for her.  We hadn't had a lot of snow so part of the hike was in mud and part was in packed down snow.  The scenery is mostly sagebrush-so not the most scenic but once you get high enough you can look out over the Heber and Midway valley so that makes it better.  Justin wanted to turn around and find a different hike but I didn't want to go to the trouble of loading everyone up and then unloading them again somewhere else.  So we made it work.

 

We stopped at one point for snacks and I told the kids we would hike higher for 20 minutes and then head back down (there is not really a clear ending point).  Ivy found a walking stick after our snack and she was on fire the rest of the hike.  She set a blistering pace for a 5-year-old (her last day of being 5 actually).  She led the rest of us for the 20 minutes up and then all the way back down.  She actually wouldn't let anyone pass her and it was a huge motivator for her.

Stockton wrote this message in the snow for Ivy.  "Happy bday Ivy" with a number 6

we were so muddy when we made it back to the truck

We stopped for doughnuts on the way home and Justin grilled hot dogs for lunch-I love when I get out of making a meal, even if it's a simple lunch. 

Since our quarantine kept getting longer and longer, my parents were getting tired of waiting for us to get better.  They still hadn't given the kids their Christmas presents 3+ weeks after the holiday.  They decided that they would drive the long way home from the cabin and drop the presents off.  We opened the kitchen window and they watched from outside as the kids opened the gifts at the kitchen table.  It wasn't ideal but it worked anyway-and we have another silly memory from this silly pandemic.  Ivy got clothes and a Polly Pocket mall.  Brynn got clothes and a Wasatch cheerleading outfit.  Stockton got clothes and a San Fransisco Lego set.  Molly got clothes, a hiking backpack, and a photo clip/light string for her room.  We also got Lagoon passes again-yay!  It made my kids' day to be able to see grandparents and to get some gifts that they had been anxious for.  They all got busy trying on/playing/putting together/hanging up right away.

Stockton finished his Legos the very next morning.  (He had been sent to school-his first day back after quarantine-but there had been a miscommunication so they made him leave while it was cleared up.  He was home that morning for an hour and was able to finish what he had started the night before.)  He wants to collect more of the architecture sets-he currently has 3 displayed in his room: San Francisco, The Statue of Liberty (from Christmas 2019), and London (handed down from Molly).

 

Brynn took advantage of her quarantine time and wore a dress every day and did her makeup every morning.  She wore her high heels around the house constantly.  She doesn't dress like this for school so it was special for her.

 

I love the view from our windows.  Such a drastic change from before.  I love watching the trees change with the seasons.  It's definitely hard to take a photo that does it justice, sometimes it is almost breathtaking in its beauty.

Justin was burning some wood scraps, as he often does, and Ivy joined him outside for the entire time. It must have been a warm fire because she was wearing only a thin jacket.

 

We had been out of cherry jelly for quite a while but I had kept putting it off because I had a hard time finding canning lids and then, once I found them, I just didn't feel like making it.  I always drag my feet before making jelly which is silly because it's so easy.  Anyway, I recruited the girls one morning to help me and they were excited to do that.  Until they realized how long you have to stand at the stove and wait for the juice mixture to come to a boil.  It takes a while and it's monotonous.  But we did it and they helped and when the jelly was done we made a big batch of refrigerator bran muffins, or "gran" muffins like Brynn and Ivy call them, since they are a handed down recipe from Grandma April.

 

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to Stockton.  Since it was such a long book, I made him divide it in half.  After we read the first half and I went on to read a book to Molly and then Brynn, I told him he could finish it on his own but he wanted to wait for his turn again and finish it together.  So we did!

 

This was a plank competition that the kids did.  Brynn and Stockton had planned an FHE about spiritual fitness and we did some physical fitness as part of it.

 

I sat down and had a tea party with the girls one morning.  Only 2 more days of quarantine at this point!  Honestly, I had a lot of the same feelings I had last spring when we quarantined-yeah, it was a pain and I would never have chosen for this to happen.  But.  Both times I loved the extra time spent together at home.

 

Justin hit a deer one night driving home from Provo.  It came out of nowhere and he literally had no time to stop or swerve.  It hit on the driver side and did a fair amount of damage to the truck-but, thankfully, that was it and nothing worse happened.  We were a little worried that the truck would be declared totaled but the insurance covered the damage, minus the deductible, and we were able to continue to drive it.

 

Of course, as these things go, two weeks later our Pilot pretty much died on us and we were told that it was time to get a new car.  (We said we would drive it until the repairs cost more than what the car was worth-and it had gotten to that point.)  Not really a surprise because we've been expecting it to die on us for the past few years.  It does have 250,000 miles on it!  It has been such a great car.  We got it for a steal and have not had to do any major repairs to it.  We are hoping to keep it around so Molly can potentially use it to get to school and practice and things-in the not-so-distant future (less than 18 months now).  We'll see.  For now it is still sitting in our driveway while we decide for sure what to do with it.

Also, since these things come in threes-we also just replaced our water heaters.  They were the last appliances we needed to replace from the old owners so we should be good for a while, at least as far as appliances go!

Stockton spent a lot of time one afternoon making a marble run out of construction paper.  It was really cool!  He made a second one after this one on the other side of the fireplace.

Molly was so happy to get back to soccer after Christmas!  Her team played in a futsal league put on by the high school boys team as a fundraiser.  They played late-start time at 8:45-twice a week for a month or 5 weeks.  A couple of the games came down to the wire and were really fun to watch!

it was too hard to get an action shot that wasn't blurry-Molly and Jordan Gibby waiting to go in

Ivy was needing a new dresser.  She has probably been needing one for a while but once we pulled out the next size of clothes for her, she really needed something with more space.  Justin found a decent one at Ikea and picked it up when he was down there one day.  It was a family effort to get it set up the next Saturday.

 

I took Brynn on her date later that afternoon.  She got a manicure and pedicure ("mani-pedi") and thought it was the best thing in the whole world.  I also used a gift card I had to Dairy Keen to get us both a milkshake.  Brynn's date, check! ✅

 

One Sunday evening we were sitting around and Justin said that he would like to play a game.  This never happens because Justin almost always opts out of games.  We usually only get him to play on New Years Eve.  I jumped at the chance and pulled out Ticket to Ride.  Everyone played except Molly-Brynn with Justin, Ivy with me, Stockton on his own.  It made for a later bedtime but that was fine with me!