March 2020--quaratine

On Thursday, March 12 the church made the announcement that church would be at home for the time being. Friday, March 13 the kids came home from school and we assumed they would go back the following week.  On Sunday, March 15 school was cancelled until the end of the month. It seems that every day since then has been changing and uncertain!

The next little bit was just trying to figure out what our days would look like without being able to go anywhere.  I created a list of things that they "must do" every day... it included academic learning, practicing an instrument, reading, going outside, and exercising.  Rich still was going into the office every day.

Day 1 of no school Alex and Lydia built a leprechaun trap.  They didn't catch the leprechaun but they did manage to get some gold!

On day 3 we spent some time making energy balls.

We had hummus and pita chips delivered to our doorstep.

We tried to get out of the house every day.  The middle school gate was open for a while so we were able to play gaga ball several times.

We would walk down to the neighborhood playground, grassy area or lacrosse fields to play as well.

Lydia loves having her brothers home to play with her.  She found a ladybug outside!

We celebrated Rich's birthday!  (Even though he tried to cancel it due to the pandemic!)

Eventually the schools started sending home more structured work for the kids to do.  It included a lot of Zoom meetings.

Henry and Lydia built a fort.

The kids used their imaginations... Alex froze his lego guy.

Lydia made a face from her spaghetti noodles.

And William built a fort around his bed late one night!  It was a funny thing to walk into that morning.  I called it his bat cave.

I was able to track down some sidewalk chalk.  Lydia, Henry, Alex and I created some artwork on our driveway.

We took advantage of the empty Strip to go see the Welcome to Las Vegas sign!

We went on a bike ride to the park... and then found that it was all taped off and closed!  Bummer!

So we ended up at our neighborhood playground again.

To get away from the house we drove up to Mt. Charleston and found snow!  It was so much fun to get outside and have a change of scenery.

During the week each person took a turn helping to make dinner.  It was so nice to have a dinner helper every night.

In the afternoons we watch movies and every person gets a day to pick.  In March we watched: Frozen II, The Simpsons Movie, Up, Star Girl, Heavyweights, Frozen, Avengers, Inside Out, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Togo, 101 Dalmations, and Iron Man 3.

Sundays in quarantine

Our first week of "at home" church was very nice (and short).  We weren't given permission to administer the sacrament at home that day but we still sang and James gave a talk.  Rich was funny with the announcements while he conducted!

We were given permission the next week to have the sacrament in our home which was so nice and such a blessing.  I'm glad that William and James were able to bless and pass the sacrament.  I tried to make the living room feel special.




Our primary music leader has been sending out a singing time lesson every week which we love!

After our sacrament meeting we all go have some quiet time so that everyone can read the chapters for Come Follow Me.  Then we are able to come together and have our lesson--and everyone has read it!  It's really nice. 

In preparation for the upcoming General Conference celebrating the 200th year since the First Vision, in addition to memorizing Joseph's account of the First Vision, we followed a painting tutorial and each made a painting of the sacred grove.

 (top to bottom, left to right: Alex, William, Jeanine, James, Lydia, Henry, Rich)

Photo shoot

I never did a photoshoot for the 2019-2020 school year... so since we had so much time on our hands I decided that we'd do a shoot in our own yard this year!  We got a few keepers.