A Strange April

As the pandemic continued into April we got more used to being home ALL THE TIME!!  We started using zoom more and more! With the girls doing some dance classes on zoom, Olivia doing her school on zoom, and me doing crossfit on zoom. We added Bible Study on zoom and then we even did some book clubs for me and the younger girls on zoom. Our life was strange! We were doing church at home on Sundays with scripture and prayer read a loud by us and then singing together with a video and then watching the sermon. It was hard to realize that we were going to have Easter at home. No church, no family to look forward to.  We tried to keep it as normal as possible, but it was still strange. 

The weather fortunately stayed pretty good and outside projects and some inside projects started happening. Weeding and planting outside, pressure washing, getting the auto mower set up, etc.  I would grocery shop about once a week with a big trip to Fred Meyer pick-up and Costco. It felt weird being out and you felt like the virus was lurking around every corner or you had no idea who might have it, that you just felt cautious and weird. I tried to sanitize everything (overly worried come to find out) so as to not get sick.

We did add in seeing friends here and there. It started with some coffee meet up for moms and then a few family meet ups. I would see Jodie to get eggs. The girls had zoom chats and photo calls with friends. We needed friends to keep our sanity we found.

Well here are some pictures from April. If it weren't for the pictures I take (which I have been accused of taking too many!!) I would not remember a thing!! Thankful for picture memories and even though I am behind this blog to remember what we do.

Practicing dance on the ipad.

Watching lots of movies!!

We did the Easter version of the shepherd again this year. I was better at remembering to hide him.

Our caterpillers grew fast and got so gross! They always do by the end!

Zoom LLL meeting! We got to see Katie which was so great!!

Trying out a no sew mask, before masks were mandated, but we thought they might be useful and then once they were mandated found out they probably aren't that useful, but are still mandated!

Zoom class with Ashia!

Hans finally talked me into a power washer and I don't know why I waited so long. Our concrete needed it so bad!  We paid the girls to help clean the driveway!

My spring bulbs were pretty this year! I need to get it filled in a bit more, but not sure how.

The caterpillars assumed their "J" position. We decided caterpillars are kind of God's redemptive plan. When they are caterpillars they are "gross" and in their sin. And then they look like a J for Jesus so when we accept Jesus as our Savior he changes us into a new being in him. This has probably been said before, but we just realized what a cool picture that was!

My littlest one I love her and her big bow and boots! Doesn't happen as often as I would like, but love when she decides to do cute things like this.

Still power washing!

We had a not so socially distant resurrection garden time with the Mills!

Sugar cookies! One of our favorite traditions. We did a piped cream cheese frosting this time and it was super yummy!

And sooooo cute!!

Exploring in the woods behind our house.  Hans and the girls did some clearing and then found a path/road that we could go on behind our house.

Another fun Easter tradition is dying eggs.

Goofy Olivia only colored one egg...or did I color it for her. I'm not sure...

Above is some of my schedules I had written out for different weeks. You can see all the different zoom times for different things. (And we still have a whole lot more zoom in our lives than we ever did before).

Here are some of the  Easter cards that the girls made. I love that they enjoy drawing and creating.

Stretching with Ashia on zoom dance.

The girls helped me make and decorate another beautiful and delicious carrot cake for Easter. Yum!!

Easter morning was a scavenger hunt for the girls to find their baskets out in the garage.

And they got some new games for all of them!! Throw, throw burrito turned out to be a huge success.

As you can see we tried to keep our Easter as normal as possible, we even curled their hair and put on dresses Easter morning.

The younger 2 were the first up and did the scavenger hunt together.

Then it was Claire's turn!

Last up was of course Olivia.

She of course got a book! And was resistent to getting her picture taken.

The family playing throw throw burrito outside while I was making the dinner.

We made these earlier in the week, but I got a picture that day of them. Love seeing their hand prints and the reminder of God's sacrifice for us.

It was fun to set my Easter table this year. I used the china from Great Grandmother on my mom's side. So pretty!

Is it too much to ask for one picture where they were all looking at the camera??  Apparently!!

 And after dinner it was time for our annual Easter egg hunt. Different with no cousins, but still fun. The girls had fun each finding their own color of eggs. The purple and pink were a bit hard to differentiate, but we made it after some re-hiding...lol! Apparently it was chilly as Aubrey is in her blanket.

One normal picture of Olivia. Even though she won't admit it, I know she still has fun doing these "kid" things. I know she loves the candy!!

And I am not including the other bad ones of Olivia, but this is what she would do if she saw me trying to take a picture. She is so silly!

These pictures were taken earlier in the day so not quite sure why they are out of order, but oh well. My girls all dressed up in the Easter best even though we had no where to go. Love these girls!

Aubrey...9 1/2...so pretty in purple!!

Olivia...14 1/2...sometimes difficult, but still my baby girl! Reading glasses on her head where they now permanently reside.

Raelyn...7...very close to 8. Love that she still loves to pose for the camera! Looking cute with all her little curls!!

Claire...newly 12...always photogenic and a good sport even though she doesn't want to be more and more these days.

We played a lot of badminton in the back yard in April and May. The girls got a lot better and it was fun to hit around the birdie!

I planted some strawberry barrels this year . So were transplants and some were from the store and they are doing great! Hopefully I can get more berries next year as the birds got a lot of them this year.

Sleeping babies...I just can't resist some times. I love these girls so so so much!!

One beautiful afternoon we ventured out to a beach just across the hood canal. It was nice to get away from the house especially for the girls. I had left to do shopping and Hans had run a few errands and gone to work some (although he was mainly working from home at the time), but the girls few times out had been to go through the drive thru and maybe a car wash, not really sure. They were thrilled to get to go somewhere!! Strange what being on basically house arrest does to you!!

I thought this was funny, being a dance mom!!

More egg pictures before they were all eaten up.

This is what church looked like on any given Sunday. It usually resulted with a few pauses for distractions, and almost always me crying at one point or another. A song, a prayer, always hit me!

Our butterflies came out of the chrysallis' and we had to release them. Always fun to watch them go. Aubrey got to hold one and then Raelyn was upset that she didn't get one on her hand. Ugh! Guess we will have to try again next spring!

This is my Grandma's cheesy potato recipe! Written out for me in her writing. I love it! I sent this to my cousin as he was looking for it.

Raelyn got her first big hair cut! I cut a couple inches off and leveled out her hair. It looks really good!

My babies shoes...She is growing so fast! It is always hard to let go of the too small size and no that I will never pull out those set of shoes again for the next girl. Instead they are passed to Piper and I am left with a picture of shoes or clothes out grown. Sniff, sniff.

I may have to share the video that Olivia made and the younger 3 made. We had some fun challenges put together by a friend who would make video compilations during quarantine of the challenges. This challenge was to lip sync to a disney song. These pictures are when Olivia was dressed as Merida and was shooting her bow in the video. It was great!!