Easter quarantine style

 We blew out eggs this year and used modge podge and magazines to decorate them.

 Avery covered his with a tiger print.

 I like Alia's colors she chose.

 My favorite flower is in bloom!

 The things I got for the kids baskets this year didn't really fit in the baskets so we made a clue scavenger hunt to hide the gifts around.

 Every year we go to a friend's Easter egg hunt.  This year she and her daughter brought the hunt to each family and hid eggs in our yards.  The kids were very excited!

 He still runs around to find the eggs.

We got large bouncers for the trampoline.

Having fun making a birthday video

A new reality for birthdays is celebrating with zoom calls or sending creative birthday videos.  We made a birthday video for Joe Wang's birthday today and had a lot of fun dressing up for it. 

April Fools

I almost didn't do April Fools this year with all that was going on but I realized the laughs in the house will be good for all of us.  Here are the tricks I set up this year.  They haven't discovered them all yet.  To really play a good trick on someone you have to think about their routines and then set jokes up and wait. 

 They head to this spot in the basement for snacks while they are online with friends.  I glued the snacks together in the boxes and individually.

There's been some inside family jokes in the family about John Cena so we put him in some of our picture frames along with The Rock.  Notice John Cena is doing the circle game, that's been fun all morning.

 I had an almost empty toothpaste tube so I filled it with cream cheese.

The kids just pile their underwear in the drawer which made this next trick easy.  I took the pile and sewed one pair to the next.  

 After a long day of homeschooling they eagerly await 3:30 so they can go online to play games with friends.  While they are outside today, I plan on freezing all of the clocks so they say 3:15.  

I messed with their X-box and TV remotes.

Pandemic School

This week our district announced 6 weeks off because of the Covid19 pandemic.  I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this district.  Even though school will be out teachers are preparing supplementary materials for us, the kitchen staff will be feeding kids that need breakfast and lunch and staff are offering childcare to families that need it for financial reasons or who work in the medical field.  This weekend I created another home school schedule for us.  I had no idea we would be back to homeschooling but we are all trying to be flexible as the world feels like it is shutting down. 

Seattle area ended up being the center of the first US outbreak and we lost many elderly in a care facility. It's been eerie everywhere as grocery stores are out of cleaning products, hand sanitizers, toilet paper and now frozen foods and dry goods. I am thankful for Vashon and our neighbors as people are really showing community spirit and taking care of one another.

Here is our new school schedule:

Monday- Thursdays

1. Math- Khan Academy and Bridges math books
2. Reading- free choice
3. Writing- write letters, journal, write a story, fix the paragraph
4. Mindfulness- working through mindfulness activities together
5. Outside time
6. Spanish
7. Block- Cooking, typing, humanities, history theater, science- one each day
8. Art project

Friday is our enrichment day  where they can chose a topic to study and catch up on anything that didn't get done during the week.

World Meter as of 11:16 am pacific time zone
154,367 cases
5,798 deaths
74,262 recovered

As I was typing this the numbers changed in minutes, it is moving fast.
155,205 cases
5, 811 deaths
74, 262 recovered






 

Winter break in Wisconsin

 Playing a rowdy game of Farkle.  Bama was very lucky and by the end Avery was making the dice he threw touch her so he could roll a one or six.

 Rocking our hoodies

 Cassie and Kristi's new dog, Juka is full of energy so we took him to the dog park.

 While we were at the dog park it was snowing the large, pretty flakes I love.

 Juka was tearing around.

 Cassie and Alia built a 3-D ferris wheel

 Kristi and Cassie's other dog, Cubbie

 Zoe

 The gang- Kristi, Cassie, Bama, Papa, Me, Alia, Avery and Scott

 We flew in and out of Chicago which allowed us to visit Irene and family.  I was finally able to meet the twins, Salma and Nadia.

 Salma and Nadia

Playing store with Roberto

 Crazy, static hair on the plane

We had a beautiful day to return home to.

Happy 11th Birthday Alia

 

 She asked for macarons this year for her birthday.  It was fun learning all of the tricks to make them turn out.  The biggest issue we had was using duck eggs instead of chicken eggs.  Once I found out the exact measurements in grams the recipe turned out.  

 Avery took a design, imagine and create class this year.  He made this creature for Alia during his sewing class.  

 She loves slime


Alia wanted to do an escape room for her birthday.  We tried a new one out  in Tacoma called Enigma.  The room we were in was called The Cure and our goal was to find the doctor and the cure to a deadly virus that was spreading.  This room had a lot of puzzles to solve and some really cool, unexpected things happened with electromagnets. We escaped in 57 minutes and made it on the leader board.

 On the way home we found a good Taco truck.

Alia and Banana age 11

She wanted to take a picture in front of the entertainment center to see her growth from last year.  This center now sits in my bedroom.

Yearly Questions:

1.  Favorite color:  blue or turquoise
2.  Favorite toy:  stuffed animals and slime
3.  Favorite game:  pictionary or cranium for a board game and Roblox for a computer game
4.  Favorite animal:  sloth
5.  Favorite book:  The Candymakers
6.  Favorite thing to do outside: capture the flag and make forts
7.  Favorite holiday:  April Fools
8.  When I grow up I want to work with animals.
9.  Favorite subject:  writing
10.  Least favorite subject:  math
11.  If you could buy anything in the world, what would you chose?  A house with secret passages.
12.  What do you like most about yourself:  I am funny.
13.  Biggest accomplishment:  I am improving in math.
14.  What do you want to do next year:  Explore new areas.
15.  Favorite thing to do:  draw
16.  I like to collect:  trinkets
17. Favorite family tradition:  Going on trips and to Wisconsin.
18.  Favorite memory this year:  Playing guitar hero and mom singing.