Quarantine Life

We all had moments of frustration and feeling stir crazy over the last couple of weeks, but we have had a lot of fun too.  Hallee was so sad that she had to miss school and both Hallee and Wyatt missed a field trip.  They also had to miss activity days and dance classes.  I think Hallee was the most frustrated about missing things.  They were all really good sports about it though.  We all complained and let out our frustrations sometimes, but for the most part we just accepted it and tried to come up with fun things to do.

 

Hallee and Wyatt did this puzzle in just a couple of days. 

Hallee is so creative and always comes up with things to do.  Serving me her Halloween candy on a silver platter was definitely one of my favorite things she did!

It was still nice and warm for most of our quarantine time, so I made the kids go outside and play every day.  Wyatt and Hallee went on bike rides.  Jonah and Wyatt played football.  I enjoyed sitting outside and watching them.  The High School had different quarantine rules than the elementary school.  Jonah was able to go back to school on Thursday.   Wyatt and Hallee can't go back until after Thanksgiving break though.  Even though I'm pretty sure they had Covid, we didn't test them so the school considered them exposed during my whole 10 day quarantine. Everyone got tested on Wednesday and everyone was negative!  We were so relieved because that means we can still go to Mexico.  Caitlyn got to keep going to school because she is vaccinated (which is funny since I got it) and she had to wear a mask.  She came home every day for lunch to minimize contact as well.  The rules surrounding this virus are so inconsistent and honestly don't make a lot of sense.   At the end of the day we are trying to control something we have no control over!  We did the best we could to stay away form people and keep everyone from getting it, I guess we did have control over that. 

I'm glad Hallee had her stuffed animals to keep her company when she couldn't see friends.  I love her imagination!

We pulled out our old Super Nintendo and set it up in Wyatt's room.  We had fun playing NBA Jam, Tetris and Mario.  I always get after Jonah for yelling when he plays video games, but I got pretty loud when I was trying to beat the castle on Mario.  Wyatt and I had fun playing the Nintendo together every day and we got pretty excited when we beat levels that we had been working on for a while.

Hallee and I watched lots of movies.  I was excited to show her All I want for Christmas.  That is where I first heard the name Hallee.  We watched a lot of Christmas movies and a few other movies.  We watched a few with Keith in the evenings. 

The weather started to turn cold this week.  I saw Hallee walking around in the back yard with her purse while talking to herself and she just looked so cute!

Wyatt made a parkour course in the back yard the other day and then he pulled out the badminton set. 

Hallee and Wyatt had fun playing badminton the last few days. 

Wyatt wants us to get a fire place and put it back by the shed where we used to have our trampoline.  He decided to rake up all of the leaves and pull out the chairs to show us how great it would be.  

My favorite time every day is dinner and scripture reading.  We try to do our scripture study right after dinner.  It was great that we were all home for it all week.  As soon as we try to start our scripture study the kids get so talkative and they all just talk and laugh and start horsing around.  We weren't in a hurry all week so I loved just sitting back and listening and laughing while I listened to the kids say and do crazy things. It was the best because everyone was getting along and laughing together. 

This guy was a rock star and worked so hard to take care of all of us while I've been sick. He worked from home all day and still managed to take care of us, play with the kids, cook meals, grocery shop and clean. I'm so grateful for Keith and his devotion to his family.  He would take breaks during the day to play with Hallee and Wyatt or make us all lunch.  We are all so grateful for Keith!

Thanks for nothing Covid Vaccine!

A week and a half ago Hallee got a cold and wasn't feeling very good.  She called me from school on Friday and came home early because she felt sick.  Wyatt came home from school on Friday and said he wasn't feeling good.  Wyatt threw up, which isn't unusual when he has a cold.  They rested all weekend and I kept them home from church on Sunday.  By Monday Hallee was feeling better and she went to school.  Wyatt's stomach was still weird so he stayed home Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesday afternoon he said he was feeling fine so I took him to school and he called me an hour later and said his stomach felt weird again.  I kept him home Wednesday just to be sure, but he seemed to have his energy back and feel okay.  Thursday he was back to normal so he went back to school.  Hallee had a cough on Thursday so I kept her home that day.  I started feeling sick on Monday night and I was in bed until Friday.  I did laundry and showered, but that was all I could do. I was so tired and achy and sometimes I had a fever.  Friday I felt a lot better and was able to get out of bed and get some things done.  I was still tired, but it felt great to finally have some energy.  Saturday was the same, tired, but still felt better.  I did tons of laundry, washed all the bedding and towels since I was hoping we were all better.  Saturday evening Wyatt told me that he couldn't smell, I couldn't smell either, but I could still taste, so I really didn't think I had Covid.  I kept thinking that I'd been vaccinated, so I'm sure it wasn't Covid. When Wyatt told me he couldn't smell I decided we better get tested.  We ran to the testing site at the mall and did a rapid test.  I opened Wyatt's results first and I was relieved to see that he didn't have it.  Next I opened mine and it said I was positive for Covid-19.  It's such a weird, frustrating disease.  I was surprised how sick I was after getting the vaccine. I would imagine that Wyatt and Hallee had it and that they are already past it and that is why Wyatt's test was negative.  I feel terrible that they went to school, but I thought it was just a cold.   It's frustrating that we keep trying so hard to control this dumb disease and most of it is out of our control. 

Tuesday night was an eventful night and pretty much summed up our crummy week last week.  Jonah was living it up at the Jazz game and the rest of us were home with no electricity.  The power went out for 2 1/2 hours.  Hallee has never been through a power outage and she got scared and had a panic attack, which made her think she was going to throw up.  She was in one bathroom and Wyatt was in another because his stomach was still feeling weird.  Caitlyn thought the world was ending and I was just overwhelmed with the whole situation.  Luckily, Keith was calm and helped everyone calm down.  I couldn't find Wyatt and I took a flashlight in the bathroom and found he had fallen asleep.  Poor kid! 

We have all been staying home since we found out I have Covid.  Keith is working form home and the kids are staying home from school.  Caitlyn doesn't want to miss school and the district policy says she can go to school if she wears a mask, so she went to school today, but everyone else stayed home.  We are all going stir crazy already and we are worried this will make it so we can't go to Mexico for Thanksgiving like we were planning.  We are trying to make the best of it.  Hallee and I have had fun watching movies together.  I'm so glad she will watch Christmas movies with me!

Football, soccer and a Jazz game

Last Saturday Jonah had his playoff games for flag football.  His team was undefeated so they only had to win one game to make it to the championship game. 

His team is 7th-9th graders.  It was fun to have some sets of brothers on the team.  The first game was tough, but they pulled off the win.

They won the championship game with no problems. 

They had some friends come and watch. Kyler took over as the coach and they had quite the cheering section running up and down the filed. 

Jonah was pretty happy about the win.  We had to hurry and run off so he could get to his next activity for the day.

They had a soccer tournament at the High School to raise money for the soccer team.  Jonah and his friends put together a team.   He played eight games and they took third place.  He had so much fun, but he was so tired that night!

Last week Ian invited Jonah to the Jazz game.  Jonah was so excited!  He had to get a Covid test and Caitlyn had to take his shift at work, but he was able to work it out to go.  His tickets included dinner before and food during half time.  Jonah got steak and chicken for dinner before the game!

Ian invited four friends.  They have four seats behind the Jazz bench and two seats courtside.  Ian's dad sat with three boys behind the bench and then they each got to sit courtside with Ian for one quarter. 

Some of the players would high five Jonah when they subbed out.  Jonah said it was the coolest night of his life!

Life Lately

I love going to the temple. I have been able to get an appointment most weeks.  

Last week Karen Bunnel texted me and said she was bringing us dinner.  Caitlyn and I used to minister to her and she loves Caitlyn.  She is so sweet, she said she just wanted to bring us dinner.  She also brought Caitlyn a huge basket of all of her favorite things and wrote her a beautiful letter.  Caitlyn always feels like a million bucks around Karen. She brought us pizza, salad, grapes and stuff for root beer floats.  It sure made my day and helped me feel loved. 

We had parent teacher conference a couple of weeks ago.  Wyatt's teacher said he is doing great and he is great friend to everyone.  They all had to pick an inspirational word and find a quote about it.  I love that Wyatt picked Hope.  His teacher gave me a copy of a paper he wrote where he was supposed to write about a place that is special to him.  He wrote about his break dancing studio, Breakin Circles.  It was so sweet, he talked about how break dancing has helped him become stronger and helped him with his self esteem.  He also wrote that he has depression and that break dancing helps him with that.  I love how open he is about his depression, I think his teacher appreciated it as well.  I'm glad he knows that it is nothing to be ashamed of and he is figuring out ways to manage it. 

Hallee is my little perfectionist.  We are working with her to remember that mistakes are good and everything isn't supposed to be perfect.  She works so hard in school and is always on top of all of her school work.  Mrs. Hafen went on and on about how great Hallee is and that kids like her are the reason she loves teaching.  It was so sweet and Hallee ate the praise right up.  

Caitlyn posted this in her Instagram stories.  It sure made my day.  

The next day she posted this about Keith.  Caitlyn is so sweet and so thoughtful.

Caitlyn works until closing a lot and when she does she usually brings home a lot of food.  Here she is one night with a giant bag of food.  I love the look on her face, that's a look she makes a lot.

Beautiful Girls

Caitlyn showed me these pictures that the girls took a couple of weeks ago.

They are such beautiful girls!

I'm so glad they are so close and have so much fun together.

Having a cousin your age is the best!

Halloween Performance

Hallee had a Halloween performance for her Broadway class.  Hallee has been hot and cold about this class, sometimes she loves it and sometimes she hates it.  I was grumpy about the performance because we had to buy the costume, the hat and the cane and the face paint.  Hallee did not like the skeleton costume, so she wasn't excited about it, which didn't help my bad attitude. 

The teacher mentioned face paint a while ago and then never said anything else, so we weren't planning on doing it.  Then we found out the day before that they had to (she said they couldn't perform without it).  I went to some stores and had no luck finding any face paint.  Hallee is on the right in this picture

Luckily Keith thought of Michaels and he found some there.  I was not very confident in my make up ability, but it turned out pretty good and Hallee was happy with it, so that was a relief. 

They tapped danced to "Spooky Scary Skeletons". Hallee rocked it, the other two kids kept looking at her and she knew every step.  

Now Hallee is in the middle.  They sang too, but the music was up so loud that you couldn't hear them.

Hallee was really nervous about this performance, but she did awesome!  She is such a great performer, she just shines when she is on stage!

Hallee loved having Tessa, Damon and Tiff there to watch her.  

Damon and Wyatt thought it was so funny that Wyatt was the witch.

She loved having grandma and grandpa there to watch too.  She was sad that Caitlyn and Jonah had to work.

I'm so proud of Hallee for doing the performance even though she didn't want to at times.  She has decided to drop her Broadway class and just stick with dance for now.  I'm a little sad, but a little relieved.  They have six performances a year and you have to buy costumes for each one.  It was a little more intense than Hallee wanted and more expensive than I wanted!

Halloween Weekend

Halloween was on Sunday this year.  The kids dressed up for school on Friday.  I was surprised that Jonah wanted to dress up, he never loved dressing up when he was young. 

Jonah, Kyle and Kyler were the Men in Black.  They dressed up for the football game on Friday and then they dressed up to take Allison, Kyle's little sister, trick-or-treating.  They are such nice boys!

Hallee got to dress up for her dance class earlier that week.  She was so excited to be a sloth for Halloween.  It was perfect for her!

We had to buy Hallee a skeleton costume for her Broadway class performance, but she did not want to be a skeleton for Halloween.  Wyatt agreed to be a skeleton, which I was very happy about because the costume was not cheap!

Friday morning Lakeview had their costume parade.  Keith and I went over and watched.  Hallee looked at us and said, "I didn't know you guys were coming?"  She is a funny girl.

I think Wyatt likes having a mask on because he is uncomfortable with people staring at him. The boy next to him is his new friend Dallin.  He moved here for Texas last year and he and Wyatt have become good friends this year.  I love that Wyatt is always making new friends.

Hallee was supposed to dress up for her Broadway class after school.  She said she was too hot for the sloth costume, so she wore a Bell dress instead.  

On Saturday Caitlyn dressed up for work.  She looked so cute as a Scarecrow.

Caitlyn was sad she had to miss Hallee's performance because she had to work.

Saturday evening I took the kids over to Tiff and Paul's and went trick-or-treating with them.

Mom and dad came too, it was a lot of fun and the kids got a ton of candy.  Keith stayed home so he could pick Jonah up from work and pass out candy.  He took Hallee and Wyatt out around our neighborhood when we got back.  I was shocked that they wanted to do more.  

Caitlyn went to Mel's on Sunday after church.  She has been working Friday and Saturday nights so she hasn't been able to hang out with Amarie and Ataiya and do bible study with them.  She has gone up there the last two Sundays.  It is weird to have her gone so much, but I know she needs that time with her cousins and her aunt, she loves going to Mel's. 

Hallee and Wyatt sorted all of their candy Sunday morning.  I remember doing that and trading with my siblings.

We had our Halloween dinner on Sunday. This year I added in some Jell-O jigglers.  

Hallee put together some Halloween activities for us.  She made a word search, word scramble and a coded Halloween activity. We made copies so we could all race each other. I love that Hallee is willing to work hard on things she is excited about.  She worked hard on these and it was really fun!