Fun with Kids

This last week the 4 younger kids (mostly the boys) and I have been binge watching Full House on dvd. We borrowed them from Tamara. I couldn't believe how excited Garrett was (and still is) to watch them. It was like it was Christmas for him because we had just finished watching the sequel series Fuller House on Netflix. I forgot how cute Michelle and Stephanie were when that show first started. Well, we started the first season last Wednesday and finished all 22 episodes by Friday. We returned the 1st season and decided we better borrow 2 and 3 at the same time since we're watching them so fast. Good thing too because we are on season 3 now. Although, we're going to have to slow down a bit because it's been too distracting for Jack and he's been taking too long to get his school work done.

We were informed on Sunday that we will be resuming 2nd hour classes at church starting in February. For the time being there won't be any nursery. Parents will just have to take their little ones with them to their class. Looks like I just had my last Relief Society lesson for awhile (on zoom) since I was asked to be a teacher in primary for the 7 turning 8 year olds. From what we've been told we will just begin by having our older primary meet in the Relief Society room and the junior primary will be in the primary room with a short lesson and singing time. We won't be going to classrooms yet. The adult class will be in the chapel where it will also be broadcast to those at home just like our Sacrament meeting. The youth will be in the gym. It's kind of exciting to think we're able to progress again in our return to normalcy. One funny thing that happened at church on Sunday is that the girls snuck some kid sized binoculars (they belong to Jack) into their church bag without my knowledge. At one point I look over and I see Charlotte looking at people behind us with the binoculars. Curtis also sent me a text message laughing about it since he saw it from the stand. There was a family that came up to us afterwards and said how funny she was.

Sunday evening we decided to play Nikki's new Air Pictionary game that Garrett gave her for Christmas. It was pretty fun but very challenging especially when you can't see what you're drawing! You're basically drawing in the air and whatever you draw shows up on the phone screen, which we then were able to transfer to our TV screen with our ROKU device. I got a picture of each of the kids but Curtis and I had videos of us. Pictures are easier to post on here than videos so I'll just post the pictures. We played girls vs boys and for the record the girls won....thanks to a little help from Curtis. Well, the little girls weren't even trying to guess so we needed a little help.

During our game I caught Nikki riding the hoverboard like this.

I forgot to mention that Saturday night we ended up going to dinner at Texas Roadhouse with Curtis's parents. The funny thing is that we had a gift card to use but Curtis totally forgot and used our credit card instead. I just told him we'll have to use it when we go to dinner with my parents. Anyway, we went to my in laws house and watched an episode of a glass blowing show that's on Netflix. Then Gaya sent me home with a box of stuff for my girls to use like a puppet making book and a box making book, among other things. The girls were so excited to make something that they both did a heart shaped box before going to church. Unfortunately they didn't last long. We had to throw them away yesterday because well, they got played with and torn apart. They also made a paper bag puppet after church but I forgot to get a picture of those.

Both girls are holding their heart boxes AND wearing new dresses that Alice and I found at DI and Savers last week. Charlotte was outgrowing her clothes so I had to find her some new shirts at least. I was happy to also find her a better coat (only paid $6) and this black dress. She almost didn't wear the dress on Sunday because she just likes wearing her blue and white striped dress all the time. I guilt tripped her into wearing it and now I think she likes it. It's all black but it has some sparkle to it on the top portion. Alice picked out her own dress at the store so she had no problem wearing it on Sunday. I had bought a few brand new things at Walmart earlier last week but it's so hard to pay full price when you know you could find a better deal 2nd hand. Although, I did find her one shirt on clearance for $1 so that was great!

Yesterday was a little crazy. Charlotte went back to having Wednesdays as online learning so the teachers have more prep time for students in class and those in quarantine. She got her assignments done before 9am which is a record for her! She was able to play the rest of the day which was a good thing since we had my niece Aubrey's two kids over as distractions. Aubrey's youngest boy is in the hospital so they needed help this week watching her other two kids. I watched them yesterday from about 8am to 3pm when Shauna picked them up after she got off work. Since I'm already babysitting other kids today I will be watching her kids again tomorrow. They still don't know what is wrong with their little guy. We're hoping and praying they'll get answers soon. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks over Christmas and New Year's. Anyway, her kids have lots of energy and try getting into lots of things. Fortunately my kids were able to help preoccupy them most of the time by playing with them.

Watching Mickey Mouse and eating popcorn in the afternoon. (There's that blue and white striped dress that Charlotte loves to wear.)

Garrett has been struggling in his science class this year and so I finally got him to schedule a time to go get extra help from the teacher yesterday morning. I know he was nervous about going in because he wanted me to come in with him (which was not allowed because of Covid) and he only wanted to stay for 15 min. I convinced him to stay longer so he said 1 hour. I dropped him off and came back an hour later. He said that hour went by fast and that it was actually kind of fun and nice to get help without other kids around so he doesn't have to feel embarrassed. He said he'd like to go in again next week and I said definitely and he could stay longer if needed. I told him that any time he needs to schedule to come in for extra help to just ask. I think he learned a good lesson and hopefully he'll be able to bring his grade up and understand better as well. They are studying geology this year.

Garrett also made us dinner last night because we were having his recommended dinner idea of Ratatouille. I made some French bread to go with it. While we were busy cooking dinner Charlotte decided she wanted to bake cookies. She wanted to do it all by herself. When I told her that I would teach her how to make cookies she got very excited. As soon as our food was in the oven and we cleaned up enough we went ahead and started mixing the cookie dough for chocolate chip cookies. I was so excited that the girls wanted me to teach them how to bake something. I let each of the girls take turns helping with ingredients. We all had a great time and Charlotte was so proud of herself. 

Eating cookie dough is a must when baking chocolate chip cookies! The aprons they're wearing are ones that I made for Nikki and Garrett when they were little.

Charlotte helped scoop one of the cookies onto the pan and then let me do the rest since Garrett had Full House on again and she wanted to watch it. She seemed to think though that she could have as many cookies as she wanted and that she was the boss of the cookies since it was her idea to make them. Funny girl. We did send her with a cold lunch today so that she could pack a cookie in her lunch.