Keeping up with kids and cats

 A few weeks ago I started babysitting once a week for a friend in our ward. She has 3 daughters close to the same ages as Charlotte and Alice. In fact, two of them are twins. Fun fact, her twins were born on the same day as my aunt Deb and Diane who are also twins! The twins are the same age as Alice. I was a little hesitant about saying yes when she first sent me a text message to ask me about babysitting but she was desperate and really didn't want to quit her job. It's time when she can get away from being a busy mom to do something she loves, working at a spa doing nails. So I told her I would go ahead and try it out and see how it goes. The nice thing is that she doesn't drop them off until 11:30am and they get picked up around 4pm. It's actually good for Alice to have someone to play with on the days my kids go to school and Alice doesn't, so it's like having a play date but I get paid for it. 

The week I had kids stay home from school I didn't babysit so the girls were really excited to get to come again this last Thursday. Their oldest is actually a 2nd grader but her mom is doing homeschool this year. Her name is Tessley and her sisters are Lochlyn and Shayla. I can't tell the twins apart yet so thankfully Shayla is usually wearing her favorite color pink. Anyway, when they came on Thursday they went and played outside for a little bit even though it was cold and Tessley found a bunch of fallen branches from our neighbor's willow tree and she built a little something with them under our play house and wanted to get pictures. I will just show the picture taken with Alice under it.

So far I'm enjoying watching the girls and I'm thankful that it's only once a week most of the time. She said about once a month she would probably work one Friday as well.

Cocoa is very curious and has discovered the dryer. After I take the clean clothes out and slide the basket over she decides to jump in. She's done this a couple times now. I have also seen Sage do it as well. Funny cats.

Thursday I also did a toy purge in the girl's room. They have way too many toys and I'm getting so tired of the huge messes. While I didn't get rid of quite as many as I was thinking I would, I still think it's a good amount to be donating. Our niece is going to take the car track toy for her little boy but the rest will probably just go to D.I. The boys also cleaned their room on Friday so they added a few more toys to the pile which are not pictured.

Charlotte had another learn to draw video assigned by her teacher so both of the girls did it together, a picture of a turkey. 

We are having so much fun with Cocoa. I think the girls drive her crazy with how often they pick her up but she doesn't hiss or scratch them so she's good. Cocoa and Sage are continually getting more comfortable with each other. Sage doesn't like it when Cocoa tries to play with her. She still hisses at Cocoa sometimes but considering the last picture where they are sleeping right by each other (on top of Curtis who is also sleeping) I think she's getting used to her.

On Friday while we were listening to President Nelson's message to the world about gratitude, Cocoa knocked over our big house plant. I was afraid of that happening because I had previously seen her batting her paw at the leaves of the plants. I would tell her no but curiosity killed the cat again, lol. So far, I haven't seen her near the plant ever since then. Maybe she has learned her lesson, I hope.

Garrett was scooping the litter boxes and Cocoa jumps on his back. She likes to climb on us sometimes, which is funny but can also hurt, lol. 

Sunday evening nap on Curtis. If this is progress with the cats then I don't know what is! I think Sage was sleeping first and then Cocoa joined her. As far as I know there wasn't any hissing either. Just Sage looking at Cocoa until finally both closed their eyes to sleep.

Nikki's friend Logan was over Sunday evening helping Curtis with a Christmas project for the ward. He took a video of our family saying "Merry Christmas!", something they're hoping to get as many people to do as possible. They want each family to take their own video and then they'll compile them into one big video and share it. Well, since we were all lined up on the couch for the video I decided to have Logan take some pictures on my phone for me.

Had to have a silly picture.

I don't remember if I mentioned this last week but the school my boys go to decided to go virtual only until at least after Thanksgiving break due to the increased number of covid related absences of both teachers and students. When someone is exposed to another person who had covid then they too have to quarantine for two weeks. So the boys started doing virtual last Thursday.  It was a little weird sending my girls to school yesterday but not the boys. I just found out a few minutes ago that the whole district will switch to virtual after Thanksgiving. Part of me just wants them to be virtual all the time but at the same time I know my kids learn better in person than virtually. The craziness of covid.