Right of Passage

Daphne finally learned to ride her bike. Michael has been working with her in the driveway. Yesterday we went over to the empty library parking lot and Daphne confidently made a number of laps around the parking lot and worked on turning and stopping. We think Daphne was finally motivated by financial incentive from PawPaw and recently two of her younger cousins learned to ride their bikes. We are looking forward to some family bike rides without having to lug Daphne on the tag-a-long.

Jackbox

We bought Jackbox last weekend and the whole family is hooked! Everyone plays using a device (phone, tablet, laptop) as their controller. We've been working our way through the first 4 party packs. It's fun because you get to make a lot of stuff up and then everyone gets to pick/vote on things depending on the game. We did Jackbox over Zoom with Brad, Megan, and the nieces on Saturday and did a session with friends over Google Hangouts today. We're still working out some audio issues but all the instructions show up as text on the screen.

Drawful is one of our favorite games because you make a
drawing based on a prompt and everyone has to guess what
it is. Some things are hard to draw- keyboard solo anyone?

Ear Wax is a lot of fun too. You pick two sounds that best
represent the prompt. We got a really good laugh about what
sound a mermaid might make when she poops!

In the Kitchen

We've been spending a lot more time in the kitchen during shelter in place. Daphne loves to help in the kitchen and even if it's her choice she never enjoys eating what she makes as much as she thinks she will.

Making banana bread- we all gobbled it up!

Daphne loves batter of just about any type

Making banana crunch pops- bananas dipped in strawberry
yogurt, dipped in Fruity Pebbles, and then frozen

Ready for the freezer- Daphne ended up
not liking these but they were fun to make
and pretty to look at

Scenes from Quarantine

The kids have been handling shelter at home pretty well. Tyler would be happy to never go back to school and is loving all the video game time online with his friends. He does miss soccer but is still practicing virtually and doing Zoom check-ins with his team. Daphne really misses school and her friends but does FaceTime with her bestie Penny, is doing virtual Girl Scout meetings on Zoom, and taking her weekly art class over Zoom. On weekdays Tyler and Daphne do their hardcore online learning in the morning from 9:30 - 12, have lunch with us, watch Dan Gutman read live on Facebook at 1, and then do enrichment (daily PE and a mix of art, music, board games, and educational TV) until 3. 

Way too much screen time in the play room

After a game of Bounce Off

Scored a 30-pack of TP at Costco in the middle of a Sunday
afternoon as an employee was returning it to the shelf. I have
never been so excited to purchase toilet paper!

Blanket and pillow fort- this counted for school art
(love it when they work together as a team!)

"Dad sucks" sign on Tyler's door. He was frustrated that Michael
likes to watch the news at lunch time instead of cartoons.

In need of a haircut- Tyler is hiding
his hair with hoods and hats

Daphne relaxing with her bananas

Happy Easter

Despite shelter-in-place for COVID, we still celebrated Easter with baskets and did an egg hunt with Michael's parents, sister, and partner watching on Zoom. Michael's mom still put together baskets for the kids too and left them on her porch for Michael to pick up.

Thank goodness- some books
amid all that sugar!

The bunny from Abuelita (left) towers over
the bunny from the Easter Bunny (right)

Ever the competitor, Tyler was still up for an egg hunt

Daphne, much less competitive than Tyler, decided that
running in flip flops was a-okay for chasing down eggs

Racing to get one of the last few eggs

This year we color-coded the eggs and made them do exercises
to earn some of them. We all thought it was pretty funny!

Working on burpees

It's push-up time!

Spring Break

Last week was about the most uneventful spring break on record with all the COVID-19 craziness and quarantines. I will confess that we overindulged on screen time and that it was kind of nice after being so busy all the time with work, school, sports, scouts, etc. We (at least Michael and I) started to get a little stir crazy by the end but it's back to work (well, working from home) this week. The weather wasn't even that cooperative last week with overcast skies and rain making it harder to decide when to bike or hike.

Michael pretends that he is going to make Daphne
pull him while he rides the tag-a-long

You know Tyler is starting to get bored
when he actually agrees to do some art!

Daphne is in the middle of a million different art projects,
but did make another banana out of Perler beads.

What to wear...

This morning a baffled Tyler, who likes to check the weather before he gets dressed, announces to me over his Alexa Dot, " Mom- what do I wear today? The high is 82 and the low is 32." Quite the conundrum indeed...