Veronica's 7th birthday

The big event this week was Veronica's 7th birthday. We'll talk about it later in this post. But first we need to recap the days leading up to it. 

Monday was the second week for the kids onsite program. It was also the first week of Brandon teaching art for the onsite program. Everything went so much better this week. All the chaos was gone and the kids had a much better time. And Brandon got rave reviews for his teaching. He was just a sub this week, but now he's taken on the job for the rest of the school year. 

Brandon's parents always give the kids a present on Christmas eve. When Brandon's mom was visiting she mentioned that she wants to get her shopping done as early as possible this year. So to help her out I sat down with the kids and figured out a list of things they want for Christmas. It wasn't an official list, but it helped us come up with what Bestemor would give them for Christmas. We even found links to the items to help her track them down. Derrick was so excited by the idea of getting a watch. He kept pulling up Amazon to look at the watch we'd picked out for him. He's analyzed every button and display.   

Monday felt like a really busy day. In addition to the onsite program we had school in the afternoon. Derrick had a speech therapy session over zoom with a therapist from the school district. In the evening Veronica had her last soccer practice. Her coach had tested Negative for coronavirus, but still wasn't able to coach until Saturday. So Veronica's kindergarten teacher was still filling in. 

We discovered that my pumpkin/squash plants aren't done yet. Here's a squash that has appeared. 

And there are new little pumpkins attempting to grow. Hopefully they make it before frost. 

I was about to pull the whole pumpkin plant out so seeing any new growth is kind of cool.

Tuesday was another busy day. Actually Tuesday is always my busiest day. But this week it was even more busy. It was the day that we needed to make Veronica's birthday cake. I told her we could make the cake after Derrick's speech therapy. Veronica suggested we make the cake in the 45 minutes between when I get home from work and when we start school again. That was such a good suggestion. We had just enough time to mix up the cake and get it cooked in the oven. 

We did school and then I took Derrick to speech therapy. He is doing so well at those appointments. I'm really glad I put him back into private speech therapy. 

Back at home I made a quick dinner and we had that. Then I had to rush off to Symphony rehearsal. I realized that our first concert is coming up in the middle of October. I feel a little prepared. 

When I got home from rehearsal I was completely drained. I told Brandon, all I want to do is watch Cobra Kai on Netflixs. And that's what we did. And it was AMAZING. We watched 3 or 4 episodes that night and a few more on other nights. We finished the first season this week. It was so well done. I couldn't stop thinking about it. 

Brandon continues to be an excellent science teacher. This is him explaining pressure to the kids. He had holes punched in the milk jug and he was showing how the water squirted out farther the more pressure was added to it. 

When I got home from work we started right away on frosting Veronica's cake. Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica were all so excited to help. 

After the cake was frosted we added the decorations. Veronica had been asking for a Skull cake for several months. She'd explained in detail how she wanted it to have a skull in the middle and smaller skulls and skeletons on the sides. A few weeks before her birthday we went to the dollar store to find the decorations. She picked everything out and was so excited! I didn't fully understand why she wanted this particular theme for her cake, but I went along with it anyway.  

I'm pretty certain this is the creepiest cake for a 7 year old girl ever - but she was so excited about it. 

We did some school in the afternoon, but finished early because I had to take Charlotte and Lydia to get their flu shots. This did not go as smoothly as it had with Derrick and Veronica. Charlotte cried while sitting on the floor in the corner while Lydia got her shot. And Lydia crouched between the exam table and the wall while Charlotte got her shot. Both were nearly hysterical in the moments leading up to the shot, but afterward they admitted it wasn't that bad. 

I just told them I'd rather have them freak out for 5 minutes than deal with the actual flu. 

They said they wanted ice cream cones for their treat so we stopped at the McDonalds on our side of town, but it was closed because of a power outage or something. So I told the girls we'd go later. 

I took more pictures of the garden. My cherry tomato plant is like a Christmas tree with lots of red balls on it. 

Veronica had a soccer game on Wednesday night. Here she is playing goalie. 

When I got back from her game Charlotte and Lydia asked if it was time for their ice cream yet. I figured it was the best time we'd get for a while. So I had them get into he car and we went to McDonalds. We went to the one on Blue Lakes that has a play place. The last time we went here was pre-corona. Back then the parking lot was full and the building had lots of people in it.  So it was strange to go back and see an empty parking lot. We went through the drive through and then drove around while the girls ate. We ended up at a park and watched some boys play baseball. 

When we got home it was time to blow up balloons for Veronica's birthday the next day. We bought white balloons and drew skulls on them. This is a skull Veronica drew. She added a birthday hat to the top. 

This is one Charlotte drew.

Thursday was Veronica's 7th birthday. She was excited from the moment she woke up. We let her open one gift before school. This was from my parents.

It was a slime kit and Brandon planned to use it for science that morning. 

We'd thought it would be a kit with chemicals to mix to make slime, but really it was pre-made slime with lots of things to mix in. 

Veronica loved it!

Here's one of Lydia's creations.

The cutest part of the kit were all these miniature vials with glitter in them. They were adorable. 

We stuck to our normal schedule for school, but Brandon got off work an hour early. The kids and I picked up rootbeer and pizza and brought it home for dinner. Veronica had been looking forward to pizza for a while. 

Then we drove over to Putter's Mini golf course. Veronica had been looking forward to this for a long time. We haven't gone mini-golfing since our very last day in Fort Rucker Alabama. That was almost 4 years ago. So I was really happy when I found out that Twin Falls has a mini-golf course. I told Veronica about it and she decided that we had to do it ON her birthday. It had to be ON her birthday. Not a few weeks earlier, not the Saturday after, but ON her birthday. 

It turned out to be the perfect evening to go. The weather was so nice. We weren't hot, but we didn't need jackets either.  

Here's Lydia posing. 

Charlotte and Lydia with the miniature Balanced Rock.

None of us were really good, but it was so fun to be doing this as a family. 

The course had fun elements like this cave. There were also little streams that you actually wanted to hit the balls into because the water would take the ball to a tunnel that would help it get into the hole 

Last time we went mini-golfing the kids had been able to remember their ball colors for months afterward. So I wanted to take a picture of them with their balls this time. 

Here's a model of the Perinne Bridge. 

At the end of the course we could attempt to shot our ball into a hole by a model of Evil Knievel's rocket. Charlotte made a whole in one on that spot. Smoke came out of the back of the rocket and a siren went off. She won a coupon for another round of golf for getting that hole in one. It was her 3rd hole in one of the night, but what's really crazy is that this is the second time she's got a hole in one on the final challenge. She'd also done it when we'd golfed that last time in Alabama. 

We went back home and had Veronica's birthday cake. Here it is with candles on top.  

With the lights off it was extra creepy.

Here's the video of singing to Veronica. She is so exited. 

Then we moved into the living room so Veronica could open the rest of her presents.  She was so excited by the metal slinky my parents sent. 

She put it on her arm. (And I'm pretty certain she slept with it on her arm.)

She was also able to demonstrate a wave with it. (This is something Brandon showed the kids with a video, so they were excited to try it out.)

She also got this adorable Calico Critter Red Panda family. 

She also got a lego set, but it was too late to start playing with it. The kids all went to bed almost as soon as we were done with presents. Here are the girls playing with the legos on Friday. 

We didn't really have any plans for Friday, but we ended up making the BEST plans for Friday on Thursday morning. I'd been talking with my sister Hillary on Marco Polo about boring things like the problems with our front yard sprinklers. Hillary offered to come up for the weekend and help us with our sprinklers. She said she was super board and needed a trip. Her husband Joe, was taking Friday off of work, but they really didn't want to hang around home AGAIN. I told her our sprinklers weren't a huge priority since we are probably turning them off within a few weeks anyway. I told her that we were planning to start demoing our junky shed. Hillary was all for helping with that.  

We made plans for her family to come up on Friday around 3:00 and stay to Saturday night. All day long the kids kept asking me when Hillary would arrive.  We finished up school around 2:45 and then went upstairs to wait for them. 

I was looking for my phone and was shocked to find it floating in the kitchen sink. I often put it on a shelf above the sink and I guess the phone rang and it vibrated off the shelf and into the water. It had been in the water for at least an hour by the time I found it.  RIP phone. (Thankfully all Veronica's birthday pictures had already auto uploaded to google photos so I didn't loose those.) 

I have a new one ordered and I'm seeing this as an opportunity to take a break from obsessively following political news. 

So Friday afternoon Hillary and Joe arrived and it was soon good to see them. Walter, their almost 3 year old, was so excited to see his cousins. He disappeared downstairs and played with toys with the older kids for hours. 

The real star was baby Penelope.  This was the first time we met her. She was so adorable and all smiles. Lydia immediately bonded with her and spent much of the weekend holding and feeding her.

 She says we need to adopt Penny.

Hillary absolutely spoiled us while she was here. She brought food and made dinner for us.  What? Who does that when visiting someone else? It was heaven. We had stuffed peppers and BBQ chicken. Plus ice cream for dessert. We ate outside and the kids ran around happily after dessert. 

I'm glad we enjoyed the mild weather while we could because Saturday was cold and windy. It was Veronica's last soccer game. She and I snuggled under a blanket when she wasn't in the game. 

Both of us were kind of done with soccer during the game. She wasn't very focused on anything while she was playing, and I spent the last half just wishing we were done. I think my favorite memories from the game were playing Rock Paper Scissors with her while she was out.  She kept doing only one finger for scissors and we laughed and laughed.  

When the game was over everyone got a medal for finishing the season and they took a team picture.  

Then I gave Veronica a trophy. This had been one of her conditions for even agreeing to play soccer.  She'd asked for a trophy and so I'd found one for $0.50 at DI. I think that knowing she'd get a trophy is what got her through 6 games. 

We stopped at Walmart to pick out gift for a wedding we were going to that night.  And then we swung by Veronica's kindergarten teacher's house to drop off the shin guards.  Then we headed home and saw the progress that had been made on the shed demo. 

Brandon had taken out all the random wood shelves inside the shed and had started to take out the old metal sides. 

This was quite and exciting change.

The back of the shed was the trickiest part because there was dirt up against the bottom of the panels. We tried digging it out on the backside, but decided the easister thing was to break the wooden supports that they were nailed to on the bottom. In some places the wood was rotten to is was easy to break. Other places we had to saw it.  This is the picture of some of the rotten wood. Rot is the reason we are taking down this shed. Most of the wooden posts are completely rotten below ground. 

Here's Brandon doing his demo work. He was so good at this. 

Hillary helped a ton by climbing on to the roof and working on the panels up there. She was able to remove half the roof. 

Here's our progress by the end of the day. All the walls were gone, and half the roof.  Hillary had been a great addition to the team. (And Joe had helped by keeping track of the littles.) Hillary also paused to make us BLT's.  I'm really not sure we deserved all the help she gave us. 

We'll get the rest of the shed down next weekend. Then the plan is to put more garden plots and eventually a greenhouse here. It's going to look so good. 

Lydia and Charlotte both helped a lot with the shed. But at 3:30 it was time for them to hop into the shower and get turned into little ladies. Hillary pulled out another talent and offered to do their hair. After her hair was done, Lydia held Penelope.

Lydia was so happy when Penny fell asleep on her.

Here's Hillary performing a miracle by brushing and braiding Veronica's hair. Veronica won't even let me put her hair into a pony tale for soccer.

Lydia and Penny fell asleep for a little bit. 

Another sleepy angle.

Hillary, Joe, Walter, and Penelope had to go. It was sad to say goodbye to them. But almost as soon as they left it was time for us to head to a wedding. So that helped make it not so sad of a goodbye. 

The wedding was for Brandon's coworker Hannah. She takes care of the office. She is also the daughter of Brandon's boss. So this was a real family affair. The wedding was held at the Rock House which is where told my Yellowstone Story for Bites of Brilliance last year.  The kids were so impressed by the cool building. 

We were able to watch Hannah and Sam get married in a very short ceremony. Then there was live music that played while they went around and greeted everyone. After that we were able to have some fancy dinner food and and ice cream bar.

I wish I'd taken more pictures, because the evening was lovely. But I had to borrow Brandon's phone every time I took a picture. My friend Tacie happened to be the photographer and she does excellent work so I know she did a great job capturing the evening. 

Here are the girls. (Veronica insisted on wearing her medal and had put her trophy on a necklace so she could wear it too.)

And here are Brandon and I. We had such a good time at the wedding. It was good to have something to celebrate. 

And I have to mention that Derrick did AMAZING with the noisy event. We were seated next to the band which would have been a disaster a few years ago. Derrick and Veronica both complained about the noise and I had trouble thinking half the night (I think I introduced Tacie as Lacy to my family) but no one melted down over the noise. We were able to stay for 2 whole hours and only left because it was close to bedtime. 

And yes I know that no one was wearing a mask.  They did hand them out when we entered - along with little bottle of hand sanitizer and bars of soap. But hardly anyone else was wearing a mask. Brandon was like, "Well everyone I work with is already here so I'm not going to worry about it." And I was fine following the crowd.  Honestly it was kind of nice to have an evening where we could kind of forget about coronavirus. Maybe that will end up being irresponsible, but in the moment it felt worth it. 

When we got home I had everyone lay out their clothes so they'd be easy to find for church the next morning. We've been reauthorized for church every week. But our ward is too big to meet all at once so we are going to be split up for a while longer. This was our week to go to church. I'd forgot that we would start going at 10:30 again. I thought we were still going at 9:00 to I was prepared for a quick morning. It was a nice surprise when we realized we didn't have to be at church til 10:30.

And that get's us caught up once again. I told Brandon that my two main goals today were to update this blog and take a long nap.  I'm done with the blog so now it's time for the NAP.  

Thanks for reading.