I put an app blocker on my phone a few weeks ago. I put it on there to keep Derrick from watching random Youtube videos all afternoon long. I decided that I might as well block Facebook as well. So from about 9:00 am until 8:00 at night I can't access Facebook from my phone. And it has changed EVERYTHING.
I don't find myself randomly scrolling Facebook for 30 minutes at a time (during the day at least - nights are another story) I also don't feel the need to post as much. I realized that the last time I posted a picture on instagram/facebook was over two weeks ago.
Crazy!
Have my days been super productive? Not really. But I'm more present. I can read a book without needing to check Facebook every time I finish a chapter. I can make dinner without getting lost in a thread.
The nice thing about the app blocker is that it only blocks certain apps and websites. So I can still Google things and I'm still able to get onto Facebook Messenger and Marco Polo. I'm still connected but not CONNECTED. It's been really nice. And I highly recommend it.
I use AppBlock if you are interested.
Okay lets back up and revisit the last two weeks. Yes, two whole weeks.
I ended my last post on Sunday night and Derrick had just thrown up. This changed my plans for Monday and put the whole week into question.
Derrick wouldn't be able to attend the onsite program for homeschool on Monday so I had to stay home from work to take care of him. I was also very worried that he was just the harbinger for the rest of the week. I imagined the rest of the kids getting sick throughout the week.
But thankfully that never happened. Derrick's illness just seemed to be a one off thing. Thank goodness.
There were some other things out of the ordinary though. Coronavirus cases were increasing in the Twin Falls area and so the school district had decided to have all students go to school every other day. This didn't really affect us homeschool option families, but it did affect the onsite program. The people in charge decided to have Monday's classes at a park.
I pictured the kids bored and freezing, but instead everyone LOVED it.
When they came home they played with our toy trains. All four kids worked together to build some impressive track layouts.
Derrick's therapy had been cancelled for the week. Not because he was sick, but because of some staff rearrangements. Brandon and I had been trying to figure out how to cover the time that he would be home. My sister Hillary was also talking about coming up for another visit. I realized that it would be really helpful if she came to visit on a week day so she could be home to keep an eye on Derrick. So she came up Tuesday morning and stayed to Wednesday night. It was so fun to have her around so soon after her last visit.
Lydia was in heaven with Penelope.
Tuesday is my busy day and I felt like I kept popping in and out of the house. I had work and then home, Derrick speech therapy and then home, and symphony rehearsal and then home. Hillary was a great help while I was running around. She even took care of getting Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner.
Wednesday was a little bit slower of a day - a little bit.
When I got home from work I had to make lunch, help Derrick with a progress monitoring Zoom call, and then get everyone out the door for a Field Trip to a pumpkin patch.
Our onsite school put together this field trip. We went to a little pumpkin patch near the school location.
Hillay and Walter and Penelope came along. Charlotte was so good with Walter and walked wherever he wanted to go. I'd been hesitant to have Hillary come up for another visit because I didn't want it to be too hard on her. She was like, "are you kidding, visiting you makes my life easier because your kids take care of my kids."
This picture sort of turned out.
Penelope is just a doll.
Such a doll!
This picture is super cute too.
I can't remember if I knew there would be a corn pit at the pumpkin patch or if it was a complete surprise. Let's say it was a surprise. Because planning to let my kids crawl around in a communal pit of corn during a pandemic doesn't seem like the best parenting move. But that's what happened.
The kids played in the covid pit, I mean corn pit, for over an hour. They had so much fun.
When they were done they were all covered in a layer of corn dust.
They were so white.
Here's Veronica, Hillary had given her a haircut earlier. Short hair is much easier for her to keep brushed.
We went home and all the kids took baths and we did laundry. Hillary left around dinner time and went back home.
That night Brandon and I stayed up until 1:00 watching the final 8 or so episodes of The Good Place. that was such a fun show and I loved how it ended. I highly recommend it.
On Thursday morning I was thinking about Brandon's Bestefar (Grandpa). He's been going downhill for a few years and Brandon's parents had mentioned that they didn't think he'd live much longer. I told Brandon that he should plan to go down to Utah either that weekend or the next to say goodbye to his Bestefar. Well, that plan ended up being moot. Later that day Brandon's dad called to say that his dad had died during the night.
So we were expecting to go down to Utah sometime in the near future for a funeral. We'll talk about that in a little bit.
Here's a picture that is from Thursday, but really could be from any day. Our headphones took FOREVER to arrive, but now that they are here school is going really well. I can have Derrick and Veronica working on Reading Eggs or Mathseeds while I help Charlotte and Lydia with their Language Arts or Social Studies. It works really well.
I stayed inside where it was warm and watched more episodes of the West Wing. The Season 6 finale at the Democratic National Convention is such a good episode. Then I rolled right on into Season 7. I'm kind of over the drama of the real life presidential election (I've already voted) but I'm still a political junky so I'm getting my fix from the West Wing.
On Friday I took care of the morning portion of school so Brandon could take the metal to the recycling place. We learned about seasons and then made fun little seasons books.
Here's Veronica showing hers.
We each got a ticket for a free hot beverage from a local business that had a food truck set up next to the library. We all got hot chocolate. It was yummy and helped keep us warm.
The movie was really fun and the kids loved being able to watch it from our car. We haven't been to a drive in since Fort Hood in 2015.
Veronica had recently bought two more Black Bear stuffed animals at DI. They made a family with the Black Bear she already had. I decided to put on a puppet show of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for the kids. So I told the story for the kids. Then Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica did the show for me. It was probably the highlight of our homeschool experience so far.
I filmed it, but I had to film it in 3 parts. I was hoping to put it together before this post, but I haven't done that. Anyway, it was adorable.
Friday night we bundled up warm and went to the Library for a free drive in movie. They showed The 1991 version of the Adams Family. It was on a big blow up screen. The library staff did a good job of helping every park. They put small cars in front of the big SUVs and trucks so everyone could see.
On Saturday I spent a lot of time sewing for the kids Halloween costumes. Charlotte is being a witch and we had to add some embellishments to the dress we'd bought. Charlotte hung out with me while I was sewing and played with the color inversion settings on my phone.
On Sunday we were able to watch Penelope's baby blessing via Zoom. It was so nice to be apart of that without having to shake up our whole Sunday. Then we went to church for our sacrament meeting. When we came home we realized we didn't have anything planned for the day. That's nothing new. But what was new is that we actually kind of wanted to do something.
I suggested we go for a drive in the South Hills. Brandon like that idea so after lunch we all got into the car and headed south. This was the first time we've left Twin Falls since we got home from City of Rocks at the end of August. That was 6 weeks ago. What?
The drive was really pretty, but we'd forgotten the Badger Creek fire had swept through here a few weeks ago. There were sections of the canyon that were burned completely black. Even the dirt was black.
But thankfully the fire didn't get the whole canyon. Much of it was still alive.
We went up high into the hills and were on a dirt road before we decided to turn around.
Here are the kids in the back.
The view from the waterfall was really pretty.
The kids had fun climbing all over the rocks for a while.
On Sunday night Marcia nearly got herself kicked out of the family. Lydia had saved up all her money to buy an OMG Doll and had finally bought one on Thursday. (She ended up buying it from me because I'd bought her one for her birthday but she decided she wanted it sooner than her birthday so she bought it from me and I just got her something else for her birthday.) On Sunday she left it on the floor of her room and Marcia snuck in and chewed it up.
This is the second brand new LOL/OMG Doll that Marcia has chewed and NO ONE was happy about that. We have now spent more money replacing toys that Marcia chewed than we spent adopting Marcia.
After the kids went to bed Brandon and I had a LONG talk where we decided we were going to take Marcia back to the rescue center. Earlier that day she'd also pooped on the downstairs rug. She also had started running away from home more, and wasn't listening at all. We just didn't feel like we were giving her the attention she needed. The kids had done everything we'd asked of them, but as parents there were some things that only we could do and we just didn't have time for those things.
We decided to tell the kids on Monday night. We knew it would break the kids' hearts, but it just seemed like the best option for our mental health.
But by Monday night we'd had a change of heart. We called our first ever official family meeting and had a long talk with the kids. We told them that we'd almost decided to take Marcia back to the pound, but we'd decided to give her another chance. Then we figured out some things that could help her and us. It was a good meeting.
And honestly this whole situation helped my thinking about Marcia. Now when she's tied up in the back yard half the day I think, "Hey it's better than the pound." And I don't feel guilty.
And there was a happy ending with the OMG Doll too. When I'd bought the dolls for Charlotte and Lydia I'd ordered them online and accidently bought two of the exact same doll. When I realized my mistake I just decided to save one for Veronica for Christmas and bought another one for Charlotte. Well when Lydia's met an untimely death I was able to replace it with the duplicate I'd planned to give Veronica. I'll buy another one (a different one) for Veronica for Christmas.
Moral of the story - invest in LOL and OMG Doll stock.
After school on Monday I worked on finishing Derrick's Halloween Costume. We'd found an amazing astronaut costume at Goodwill at hte beginning of the month. Everything about the costume was perfect except the jumpsuit was a size 4-6 and so was too small for Derrick. I thought he'd be willing to just wear his astronaut pajamas, but no, he kept trying to squeeze into the jumpsuit.
So I took out the zipper, cut the jumpsuit in half, and told Derrick I'd make it bigger. We bought a yard of white cotton fabric and a longer zipper at the store and I figured out how to make the jumpsuit bigger. I added about 4 inches of fabric to the outside seams on the pant legs as well as added about 6 extra inches in length. I figured out how to add about 8 extra inches to the back of the suit's shirt area. And I added about 8 inches between the pants and the shirt. Then I sewed the longer zipper back in.
Derrick was so excited! He put the whole outfit on right away. When it was all together I couldn't even notice all the extra sections on the jumpsuit. The sleeves are still a little short, but so far I haven't found time to take care of those.
We made it to my sister Hillary's around 10:00. This was the third time we'd seen Hillary in person in a month. That's a record even without a pandemic. Walter had had a 5 hour nap earlier in the day so he was still awake. My kids stayed up playing until 11:00. Then they slept in super late the next day.
I decided that since we were coming all this way for a deceased grandparent we aught to visit a living grandparent while we were in town. So at noon we went to visit my Grandma Mary Ann. We were able to visit with her outside her apartment. But we couldn't hug her and we had to wear masks the whole time. She lives near the Jordan River Temple and we walked over there together. We took some quick - maskless pictures with her in front of the temple.
Grandma Mary Ann gave each of the kids a goody bag that they had fun eating over the next few days. I'm glad we were able to see her and talk with her.
Then we headed up Redwood Road to the Redwood Memorial Cemetery. This is where Brandon's Grandma Ruth is buried. She died a few weeks before Derrick was born. When she was alive she gave us some presents that I was mystified by at the time, but have actually turned out to be really useful and loved. Derrick sleeps with a quilt she gave us. We've used the plastic plates she gave us for years. And she's the one who gave Antler and Nose to the twins when they were just babies.
I showed the girls her grave and said, "She's the one who gave you Antler and Nose." They both said, "Thank you!"
When it was over the funeral director said we could take some flowers since the weather was getting colder and the bouquets wouldn't look as good after spending time in the cold.
Many of Brandon's cousins were at the funeral, so he talked with them for a long time. I took the kids back to the car because they were getting antsy. We had snacks and talked about memories of FarFar.
Then we drove back to Hillary's. On the way back we drove by the houses we grew up in in Taylorsville and Kearns. We also stopped at the spot where the Taylorsville temple will be. This was the location of our wedding reception. 
Back at Hillary's I realized that I'd never taken a picture of Brandon. I made sure to take one before he changed. Oh he looked so good in that suit!
We stayed at Hillary's until after dinner. Then we headed up to Brandon's parents house. We took a little detour to check out the newly completed airport. This is a terrible picture. The real thing is very nice. We drove on both the arriving level an the departing level. We wished we could go inside, but thanks to COVID only ticketed passengers are allowed in the airport.
We have a big pile that accumulates in our driveway so they swept that and moved it onto the grass so they could play in it.
They piled everything under the tree house.
On Sunday the temperatures were in the 30s. Brrrr. I was glad we didn't need to go anywhere. Not even church. We watched our ward's sacrament meeting broadcast for the first time. That went really well.
We stayed the night at Brandon's parents house and had a super relaxing day there. In the afternoon we went to his sister Melanie's house to see the finished addition and to have dinner.
We left Melanie's around 8:00 and headed back to Twin Falls. We got home around 11:00 and went straight to bed.
It was really nice to wake up on Saturday and realize we still had a full weekend at home. Temperatures had dropped while we were gone and my garden had (finally) died. I'd been able to harvest cherry tomatoes on October 21st. That's amazing.
I spent most of Saturday morning tearing out pumpkin plants, tomato plants, and bean plants. Here's the garden area now.
Brandon spent the afternoon tearing the roof off the junky shed. Here's the shed now.
We had planned to attend a Read and Treat at the City Park. This was something put on by the library. The kids were looking forward to it because it was their first chance to put on their costumes.
Well it ended up being a victim of COVID.
Cases were rising so much in our area that the local health department moved us back to Phase 3 which meant no gatherings of over 50 people. So no read and treat.
This also affected Onsite School. That was cancelled for at least the next 4 weeks. Regular school is staying 2 days per week, but the school district will reevaluate that are their next meeting in November. And the Magic Valley Symphony is also affectd. Our next concert will be online without and in person audience.
I'm glad we went on our little trip when we did because I think we are in for a LOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG winter at home.
Instead of the read and treat, the kids spent some time raking leaves.
And I think that gets us caught up. And just in time too because Birth-o-ween is upon us.
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