April 2020

WEEK 1 (April 1st - 4th ) - Spring break was extended by another week because of covid so the kids (especially Kasen) had lots of time to plan out their April Fool's jokes on each other.  Ava came up with this great one of putting rubber bands all over the home phone for Kasen. Kasen got her back by chopping up lots of little papers and putting them all over her room - she was not a good sport about that one!  Kasen also filled a whole bunch of water cups up all over the counter upside-down!  He had to show us how to get them off without spilling water everywhere - after he got done laughing at himself for 30 minutes though.  He then snuck Ava's phone and taped the entire thing.  He was on a roll this year.  I think the April Fool's winner this year was Covid though.  The whole world has pretty much shut down at this point: the USA is at a level 4 state of emergency (highest level), traveling has been suspended, countries are closing their borders, most states have issued a stay-at-home mandate, all professional sporting events are cancelled as well as movie theaters, cruises, national parks, concerts, conventions, the Olympics, and even the church has announced that we will be having home church and can prepare the sacrament in our own homes for the foreseeable future.  Things are getting serious!

In true Idaho fashion we woke up to a fresh layer of snow and the weather was just all over the place.  Spring in Idaho is definitely confused on what weather it wants to be.

With the kids home for the foreseeable future and school suspended, we decided to spend some of our time still learning.  I started the kids on a homeschool history program.  The first unit was all about Egypt and the beginning of the Bible.  It has been really cool to learn so much about this ancient civilization.  I had no idea they have been the longest civilization in the history of the world.  The kids all did reports on different things from ancient Egypt.  We also made traditional bread dish - which we cooked too long and wasn't that good.  By the end of the week we found out that our school district would move into distanced learning for the next few weeks.  So basically all the classes would be supervised online.  I had to go to the elementary school to pick up Kasen and Kinsley's packets and I saw this cute Dr. Seuss style poem in the window.  Their bus driver will pick up their homework and drop off new homework each Monday starting next week.

These quotes stuck out to me this week with all the craziness that is going on in the world.  It is pretty scary trying to figure out what is going on in the world right now.  One thing I'm really thankful for is that we were able to finish that extra room in the basement! I'm really grateful to be safe at home with my kids.

WEEK 2 (April 5th - 11th) - We started out the week with general conference.  President Nelson had promised that this conference would be one we would never forget!  That proved to be an understatement, but for reasons we could have never dreamed up!  The only people allowed in to conference were those that were speaking and everyone was spread out and wearing masks.  The conference was focused on the 200th anniversary of the restoration and a few things were pretty profound.  The church issued a new proclamation about the restoration.  This is the 6th proclamation issued by the church in 200 years!  President Nelson led a Hosanna Shout honoring the bicentennial anniversary of the First Vision.  These are usually only held at temple dedications so it was a little different.  The church also unveiled a new logo/symbol with Christ.  President Nelson talked a lot about making Christ the center of all that we do.  Two new temples were also announced: Dubai and Shanghai, China.  Both of these were pretty remarkable considering Dubai is mainly Muslim and China isn't even open for missionary work!

These were my favorite quotes from conference:

We've been able to help with the cows since we are right down the street.  We go over nearly every evening to feed and check up on things.  Kasen and Ava have learned to drive the truck with is a stick shift and pretty hard to figure out. 

 

  We've spent a lot of evenings playing games and reading.  I have to admit I don't hate all the time we have been having together.  All the kids' extra activities have been cancelled and it is nice to slow down and just focus on our own little family.  Jed has still been working thankfully.  I realized the other day that the kids are all just stepping stones from each other right now.  They hit each other at the exact same spots - just a head shorter than the next oldest one. 

By the end of the week the sun was out and it felt amazing.  See I told you spring can't figure out what it's supposed to be here in Idaho!.  Jed decided to buy some sand so he could ride his horses and practice roping a little bit.  It took a few days but was all delivered this week.  The kids have been out there for hours and hours playing in it.  Kasen thinks he is the master razor driver too.  I'm thankful we have a little extra space to roam a bit. 

Ava isn't so much into playing in the sand.  She gets up and ready each morning and has a schedule she sticks to.  She is setting some big goals and reading like a maniac.  One of her goals is to read over 100 classic novels before she graduates from high school.  She sure is amazing!  She has started an online leadership class and an online American history class.  Both are pretty amazing and she is reading some great books in conjunction with the classes.  She meets 2x a week with other kids across the country on zoom for an hr per class.  She has really enjoyed it.

Jed's schedule hasn't stopped but is slowing down a little bit.  He has been coming home in the afternoons a lot more frequently.  It is nice to have him home more and he has been spending a lot of time outside working on "projects".  Kasen and Kinsley have loved riding the horses more often.  Kinsley has also doing lots of Easter prep which she claims is for Dallin, but I can tell she is super excited about it.

Kasen decided to take as much advantage of the son as he possibly could this week.  He went full sunbathing mode!  The kids are all very white after a long winter. 

It seems like every day something new changes in the world.  Things get more dramatic and severe in 24 hr time tables.  Deantre and Austin are working their butts off not really knowing what they will find when they go to work each day.  NYC is being hit very hard by covid and from what we can tell on the news it is just out of control with no rooms in hospitals and people dying all over the place.  Austin decided to sleep out in their trailer each night so he wouldn't bring anything home to the kids.  Sydnee sent this picture of Austin in his mask before work doing scripture study with the kids.  President Nelson has called for a worldwide day of fasting and prayer on Friday April 10th (Good Friday). He gave specific things we as a world could fast for and then held a facebook live where he spoke to the world about the fast and how our peace and strength can come from Christ during these difficult times.  He even prayed live in behalf of the world.  It is pretty remarkable when I stop and think about it.

WEEK 3 (April 12th - 18th) - This week started with Easter Sunday.  It is an Easter for the history books.  I'm pretty sure there were very few churches attended across the world on one of the busiest church going days in the year.  We started the day with an Easter egg hunt in the back yard, but of course the weather took a turn again and got super cold.  I found a letter my parents had written to us kids back in 2006 sharing their testimonies of Christ's resurrection and Atonement.  We read it as a family and I shared it with the family through technology.  I asked everyone to still get dressed in their Easter best for our home church.  We also had an Easter zoom call with the Erickson family.  They asked each person to share a thought about Easter.  I told everyone about celebrating Easter in the Ukraine and how it was such a big holiday.  I loved how people would walk around and say "Uucyc bockpec!" and the response would be "Uctuhhna Uucyc bockprec!"  I told how they made their paskii cakes and took their eggs to the church to be blessed.  I loved Easter in Ukraine.

The sun came back out this week even though it stayed pretty chilly.  Lots of horse activity this week.

The kids also stayed busy.  This week in history we talked about the Middle Ages and Britain.  Kasen made his own coat of arms and he and Dallin sword fought most of the week dressed as kings.  There were also plenty of science experiments and Ava completed an assignment for art class.  She is an amazing artist.

Saturday we went to help brand and sort the new calves.  Idaho is under a social distance mandate but farm work doesn't take those things into consideration I guess.  haha.  The whole family went over for part of the day to work cows.  Thankfully the sun was out and it was a lot of fun.  The kids gave shots and medicine.  They even got to brand some.  We facetimed Grandma and Grandpa in for some live action as well.

 

This week Ava's turtle Leonardo went to the land of happy turtles.  He had been slowing down the last little while and developing a weird film over his eyes.  We had kept him out in the garage because his tank is so big and we didn't want to stink up the entire basement, but the winter was hard on him even with his lights and quite honestly I'm surprised he lasted this long!  We buried him out under one of the trees in the corner of the backyard. Ava shared a few words and then the other kids went to play in the sand.

WEEK 4 (19th - 25th) - The month of April was quite a special month for our home church meetings.  Jed asked the kids to write talks this week and the kids did such a good job.  Even Kinsley wrote a two page talk that was was thought out and made sense.

This week I took some pictures of the kids playing together.   This is the stuff moms live for.  Those  moments when the teenager forgets they are too cool to play stuffed animals and the toddler doesn't destroy everything in five seconds with a tantrum.  The kids all built forts and did their homeschool lessons in the forts and decorated with their favorite toys.  Ava made earth cookies to celebrate Earth day.  I don't think she's ever forgotten to celebrate that holiday.

We decided to have a fence installed around our property to make it look better and make the front piece usable.  First we had to install a sprinkler system and then plant grass which we did last fall.  Unfortunately not a lot of grass grew so we had to replant this spring.  To get ready for our new fence we had to take down the old one which was just in the back.  The younger kids loved doing some work.

With the tractor Jed moved an old wire spool down to the end of the pasture so they could build a fort. Kasen, Kinsley, and Dallin have had so much fun together this month.  There have been some fighting but for the most part they get a long so well.

We drove up to the ranch to get some things we had left up there and the kids hiked around and we couldn't believe how much snow was still up there.  It was a perfect Earth day activity to get out in nature!  As they were hiking we could hear them yelling, "Happy Birthday Earth!"

Dallin has been on a crazy streak this week though.  He gets more energy by the day I think.  He is constantly wanting to wrestle and tackle.  At night he has been having nightmares though and usually ends up in our bed - upside down, sideways or kicking us in the face!

Ava is taking a creativity class which is a bit of a bummer to do online.  I think she would have really liked it in person.  But she is creative anyway and been doing different projects.  I can't remember what the assignment was but she made a book out of cardboard.  Not just any book, but an open book.  I have no idea how she crafted it to look so perfect.  She never ceases to amaze me.  She wanted to paint it and so Dallin joined her for an afternoon of art.

This week Kasen found his first 4 leaf clover, even though I'm pretty sure it's a weed and doesn't count.  Kasen was certain it counted and was quite proud of it.  We got the bikes out this week and started riding them around a little bit. 

There was another weekend of cattle work to be done so the kids went over to help.  Kasen loves it and talks all the time about how he wants to be a cattleman when he grows up.  I'm not sure how but I'm pretty sure Dallin fell in every cow pie that was over there.  He loves wearing Kinsley's old hot pink and silver cowboy boots too so you have this rough and tough boy covered in cow poop wearing sparkly princess boots.  Dallin cracks us up continually.  He was not in the least intimidated being out in the middle of all the babies.  His little head was just barely taller so that's all you could see as he was out there.

After a day in the sunshine Kinsley had a nice tan line from her glasses!  We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and hanging out.  The kids finished assignments and watched funny comedy sketches and reading.  Right before covid hit I had made a rule that there was no tv during the school week and since we were a little used to it we decided to just stick with it.  It is so nice not to have the tv going every second.  I'm really loving this quarantine!

WEEK 5 (April 26th - 30th) - This week we were invited to go up to Humphrey with Jake's family on Sunday afternoon to get out of the house.  We had our home church which was so amazing.  Jed asked me to be in charge so I asked everyone to think of their favorite primary song and why it meant so much to them and then we sang it together.  Ava started and brought the best spirit.  She said her favorite song was "A Child's Prayer" and that during all the hard times of her life she has sang that to herself.  She talked about how sad she was to leave Eagle and her friends and how that song brought peace to her heart because she knew that God did love her and was listening to her prayers.  Both Jed and I were bawling basically listening to her.  When it was Kasen's turn he got so emotional he couldn't speak.  Kinsley shared her favorite of  "I know Heavenly Father Loves Me" and her sweet testimony.  Even she cried bearing her testimony.  It was such a special Sunday for our family and I will never forget it!  Even the part with Dallin leading the music lying down. Afterward we drove up to Humphrey and hiked around a little bit.  It was still pretty snowy and cold so we didn't stay too long, but it was fun.

When we got home Kasen had a loose tooth and couldn't quite get it out.  He is pretty tender mouthed and having Jed rip it out almost made Kasen die he said.  Kasen also found out he won a writing competition he entered about agriculture.  He won $20.  His essay was very good and why agriculture is an important occupation to support.

These last two pictures are just proof that the youngest kids in a family are a little bit crazy.  Jed will probably be less excited about me documenting this picture of him but I couldn't help it.  It is too weird to not be funny.