Vaccine site

Zaron and I were able to help out with a friend who was helping to put on a vaccination site.  It was neat to see how well organized it was and to be a part of trying to help stop the Covid problems.  And it was another great opportunity to do a service project.

As a perk of volunteering there, Zaron and I were both able to get a leftover vaccine.  We are so grateful.  Hopefully the side effects won't be too bad.

Nail Salon

Eleanor opened up a nail salon in her room.  She made a great little advertisement for it.  Zaron went in for a manicure and got his fingernails painted a lovely copper color. It has a 6 star review.  And Zaron gave his service 6 stars too.  Nice work, Eleanor!

MoPop

I got some free tickets to MoPop through the library so I took Zaron, Liam, and Eleanor to check it out.  (Charlotte was at her gramma overnight and Corban was at robotics) We had a fun time checking out all of the exhibits and memorabilia.  It was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Pictures of Graves

We decided to do another service project with taking pictures of gravestones to assist in genealogy work.  We had fun cleaning them, taking pictures, and transcribing all of the information.  I'm hoping someone will be helped to find their ancestors.  Another fun family project!

Back to School for Eleanor!

Eleanor got to go back to school this week!  She was so very excited to meet her teacher in person.  She only goes for 2 hours a day, but she is so happy to just be back in the school.

So happy this day has arrived!

Cross Country Support

Corban has had lots of supporters in Cross Country this year.  The meet against Skyline Spencer's family came out to watch, along with Grandpa and Grandma (although Grandpa fell on his way to see the race and cut up his hand so he didn't get to watch.

The next race, Amy, Susan, Gregory, and Grandma and Grandpa came to watch.

We love to see Corban run!

Upside Down Eleanor

Eleanor loves to be on her head.  She is always flipping and standing upside down.  The other day I went to go up the stairs and this is what I saw.  She is so funny!

St. Patrick's Day

Eleanor made a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day.  It was a great design, using gold painted rocks that when removed lower the trap door.  She came up with it all by herself.  And of course she decorated it in great style with rainbows and shamrocks.

Unfortunately, the leprechaun got away again, by leaving some coins and candy in the cup to keep it weighed down.  He also left some rainbow footprints and a note with teeny tiny writing on it.

That night we had our corned beef and cabbage and a rainbow fruit plate.

It was a fun day!

Quick Trip to Portland

Zaron and I made a quick trip to Portland to buy a new minivan!  I had been looking at them for a while and found a great deal on one that was my 2nd choice for color.  So, we made a quick trip down to Portland to buy it and drive it home.  It was a long drive, but we successfully acquired a new minivan and we had a chance to go out for Sushi to celebrate. Yum!  We will miss our Odyssey, but we look forward to lots of adventures in our new van.

Pi Day

I decided we needed to have pie for Pi day this year.  We have a ton of apples so of course I had to make some apple pie.  The crust was a new recipe and it was delicious!  Pie is definitely one of my favorite desserts.

Future Fashion

Eleanor was bored one day so she came up with this "future fashion" outfit.   It features a space where you can store things in the bottom and clear plastic foot coverings so you can just walk outside and not get your feet wet.  She had a lot of fun with this.  I love her creativity!

Metal Shop

Zaron has been working on a project for our house, and decided that he needed to get some welding equipment to be able to accomplish it.  He has always wanted to learn how to weld so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Every day he has been spending in the garage working away.  He also goes to the scrap yard and picks up metal to work with.  I think he is having a lot of fun with it.

Family Service Project

We decided as a family that we wanted to do a service project every week in March.  It's been nice to see some service projects just fall into our laps - I know it's a blessing for our willingness to serve.  One of those was when I was talking with Grace and she mentioned that her trees need to be pruned.  Sounded like the perfect project for our family to tackle!

It was a lovely spring day and Grace directed us on where to cut and the kids got up in the trees and cut away.  It worked out great.

We made pretty quick work of the trees so we took on a few other jobs like edging and spreading fertilizer.

There was also plenty of swinging on their awesome swings.

After, they treated us to a wonderful meal of hamburgers and all the fixins.  They even gave us banana splits at the end.  It was a really lovely afternoon and evening to spend with them.  They are such wonderful people.  We sure love them.

Corban is Running Varsity!

Corban was pretty excited when he found out he gets to run varsity this year.  Even though this is a delayed year and he only gets a few meets, he's still excited.  He looks pretty good in the stripes and his team mask!

Bailey's Blanket

Bailey has a favorite blanket to sit on.  Whenever the blanket comes out, she wants to sit on it.  She especially loves it when Corban has the blanket on, and it is an added bonus when Corban is laying on the heater vent.  It's like her little throne.  She truly has a clear preference for this blanket.  It's pretty cute!

Cross Country Masks

I volunteered to make masks for the Cross Country team.  It took me forever to find the right fabric for it.  JoAnn's didn't have anything that would work, so I had to get creative.  I went around to a bunch of stores looking for something that would work.  Finally I found this men's shirt that had the right colors in it.  So I bought the largest one I could find and I was able to puzzle piece enough masks out of the shirt.  28 masks!  I worked really hard on these and I think they turned out great.  The coach said that the kids really liked them and I have seen them wear them for meets.  It was worth all of the blood sweat and tears!

Charlotte is 12 Years Old!

Charlotte celebrated her 12th birthday!  One of her favorite things to do is to "Rick Roll" people.  So, we decided to rick roll her all day for her birthday.  The candy poster I made was a picture of Rick Astley singing.  Then we woke her up with a rick roll on the Alexa and a pancake breakfast in bed with sausage and bacon.

Bailey was sure interested in Charlotte's breakfast and even posed for a nice picture.

But then quickly swiped one of Charlotte's pieces of bacon.  Sneaky dog!

Charlotte and I went for a pedicure which was so nice.

The Young Women came the night before and decorated our front door with some birthday decorations.

Throughout the day, we did various rick rolls.  Like she pushed the Alexa button and she would play the song, or Corban made a fake game in Steam and when you click on it you get rick rolled.

Charlotte wanted homemade pizza and a salad for dinner.  Yummy!

She had lots of presents to open of course.  She has been growing like crazy so she got a whole new set of pants.  But she also got some fun stuff too.

we had Rick Astley printed in edible ink that I put on the cake I made for her. Of course the cake had York Peppermint Patties all around it. It turned out so great, and she got rick rolled again when she opened it up.

It was so great to celebrate Charlotte.  She has grown up and matured so much lately.  She is such a great student and always keeps on top of her school work.  She has done great with remote learning but looks forward to being able to go back to school.  She loves memes and fun videos, and of course rick rolling people.  She still loves all sports and has really missed playing this year.  Thankfully her soccer team has been doing some playing and she is so happy when she gets to go to practice.  She loves to read and play the cello. She loves to enforce the house rules with all of her siblings.  She has struggled a bit in getting along with Eleanor lately, but they also play well together at times and Eleanor really looks up to Charlotte.  She loves going to YW activities and being with the older girls.  She loves doing active things.  We sure love having Charlotte in our family.  She keeps things lively and interesting.  We love you so much!