Reunions: Coronavirus Week 36

With the nice fall weather seemingly behind us, much more time was spent inside this past week.  We proceed through life more cautiously and with greater precaution as the weeks move on and the Covid case numbers in our state continue to skyrocket.  Every decision is so weighted right now and we are very mindful of the holiday season approaching and all that we will or may be having to miss out on... visits with Santa, outings we normally would have attended, family gatherings and so much more.

We were very excited to be able to finally go to Great Grandma's house on Wednesday after a couple week break due to a cold moving through our family.  We spent the day sharing lunch with her, cleaning the house and setting her house up for Christmas, something we all enjoy helping her do.  The kids love to sit and look through her ornaments each time, and to carefully hang them on the tree for her.

Several of my nights last week were spent processing photos, sometimes with my little helper on my lap.  One night, when he was particularly tired but restless, it was where he fell asleep.

On Friday night, our Framily was finally able to meet our newest member - baby Henry.  It was a wonderful night of reunion as we have not been able to spend time with our friends for over a month now, and aside from myself for a photo session, none of us had been able to meet Henry or hold him.  It was so great to have Jay, Becci and Henry with us!  

The kids were so excited to get to hold him and see him in person.

Birthday and Baubles: Coronavirus Week 35

We started out last week with temperatures in the hight 60's and even low 70's and it was wonderful!  We even discovered a dandelion growing in our yard!

   

This gave us a chance to do one last leaf clean up for the season.  We also said farewell to our Halloween pumpkins, who were beginning to droop.

We had several large boxes show up to our house last week, and this offered the kids a chance to make cars out of the boxes and to have a "drive in movie".  Ezri helped Elam make his box into Mater!

The kids also did a lot of playing outside those few warm days we had.  

Tuesday night, strong winds and cold blew our way (and plenty of a neighbor who does not believe in raking at all's leaves) as well as rain.  With kids mostly over whatever short lived colds that had visited our house the week prior, we chose not to visit Great Grandma just to be safe, so it was a stretch of days inside for the kids, practice for days to come, I suppose.

Last week Thursday, we celebrated Alex's birthday with a steak dinner at home and warm apple crisp as well as some gifts.  The kids were very excited for him to open his gifts!  Happy Birthday Daddy!  

We jumped into our Christmas decorating early this year, tackling the tree last Saturday.  The kids, especially Alora, were anxious for the tree to be set up and lit so that we could move ahead with our tradition of each child opening their new ornament for the year and hanging it on the tree before completing the decorating.  They were anxious to see which ornament had been chosen for them to represent the year this time.

Elam went first...

   

A Lightning McQueen car in honor of his love for the Cars movies and his new red racecar bed!

Next up was Tierney...

A 4-leaf clover in honor of her first year of 4-H!  

Alora was so excited to get into hers it was a blur...

A farm scene with a barn and horses and a bright sunny sunflower decorated her wooden ornament!

Finally it was Ezri's turn...

A smiley face with braces!

Every year we have a major debate over who gets to put the star on the tree after it is fully decorated, so this year everyone got to!

This year may have had lots of different things happening outside of our normal, but it was fun to continue our Christmas decorating tradition un-interrupted and decorating early has brought some fun and joy into our house with perfect timing!  As the week closed down and Covid numbers were skyrocketing with hospitals nearing capacity, new regulations for our state were set in place to restrict gathering numbers and locations such as closing down restaurants to indoor dining, theaters, high schools and colleges, and more as well as reducing numbers to groups of 10 within 2 family units for the following 3 weeks.  Just in time for Thanksgiving...