Quarantine week 22: Grandma and Grandpa come visit!

For the week of 8/11-8/17

My parents came up for the week! It was so nice to see them, it had been about 6 months since they came up last. We quarantined really well the week before to make sure we didn't have COVID. 

The kids were SO excited, they were counting down the days! So were we... we got to go on a little two night getaway. Literally the first time we didn't have the kids with us 24/7 since February! It was much needed. Thanks mom and dad!!

The first night, the kids were so excited for story time with Grandpa.

Grandma brought her balloons and made everyone a balloon animal.

On Wednesday we took off right after lunch. The very first thing we did was finding a quiet spot in a park and taking a lovely nap. Hah! Our Airbnb wasn't too far away, and we had a lovely time. It was so nice and quiet.

Meanwhile, Miles built lots of train tracks.

And went on a nice walk.

We ended our little trip with officially starting our house hunt! This was the first of seven that we looked at. It was right on power line park, which was fun, but the lot and house itself were both very small.

Mom and Dad had taken the kids down the street, and they found a fun play spot!

They call it their "secret hideout."

Miles loves this cat Lily from down the street.

My sunflowers bloomed! It's called Ruby Eclipse and is SO pretty.

Dahlias too! We've had so much fun growing flowers this year.

Ruby helped Grandma peel and slice peaches for dessert.

Ruby made some jewelry with Grandpa. :)

Pizza night!

Movie night! We watched Wallace and Gromit.

Sunday was SUPER hot out. After church was done, we packed up a picnic lunch and went on a walk around a lake nearby. It got really hot!

The kids found some baby ducks.

This plant is so cool. The kids are inside of it! It's like a tent in there.

Super concentration.

They played "school."

Ruby made these deviled eggs all by herself! (with a little coaching).

Reid wrote the alphabet two different ways. I love his "g" and backwards "s."

Trying to open the back door while it's locked.

My parents left on the 17th, then we had family game night! The kids did really well. We did have to send Miles down the hall to play with his Legos while we finished. Haha. We're almost to the point where we can all play one together.

Quarantine week 21: Ruby gets sick

 For the week of 8/4-8/10

Ruby started having a headache again on Tuesday morning and then got a low grade fever. We got her in for a COVID test right away because my parents were coming up in a week, and it takes that long to get results right now. Poor thing, two COVID tests. She did great though.

Sick Sissy.

My dahlias started to bloom! They're just lovely.

Ruby felt good on and off for a few days. We got these fun play dough sets in the mail for free (not quite sure how, I think I entered an Instagram contest maybe?), and the kids had lots of fun with them.

Thank goodness Phoenix keeps us occupied.

Reid built all of these pop bead monster robots. Some are good guys, some are bad guys.

By Friday, she really started not feeling well. She said it hurt a little bit when she peed, so I called the doctor to get a urine test. She went in and gave the sample on Friday morning and they gave her antibiotics to take just in case anything got worse. Well, by Friday afternoon, her temp was up to 103.9! They said to start the antibiotics right away, even though her initial urine test did not show that she had an infection. We started those, and she was a lot better by Saturday evening (after another few fever spikes). By Sunday she was back to normal! The urine culture came back on Monday, and it was positive for e. coli. So I'm really glad we got the medication started on Friday and didn't have to wait over the weekend. Her COVID came back negative on Monday as well. The weird thing is that my dad also had a UTI at the same time from the same bacteria. So glad she is better. Dad has had some other complications unfortunately, but hopefully he's past the worst of it.

Andy took the boys out on a walk, and they got some fun leaves and things. Then they played with the air conditioner fan with them.

Miles likes to try to get himself dressed... those are Reid's underwear on backwards, and he found a size too small of his pants in the bottom drawer and put those on backwards as well. Hahaha!

Evening story time. The big kids and I have been reading all of the Narnia books, we finished the Silver Chair this week. It has been so fun!

Summer afternoons outside are the best.

And we are to this stage of the COVID quarantine... sit in a pool in the back yard with no water doing nothing at all.

Quarantine week 20: River day!

 For the week of 7/28-8/3

We did lots of crafts and activities, and finished the week off with a trip to the river with some friends.

We got two bags of blueberries from some friends, and Miles ate them all in two days!

Ruby and I picked all of these flowers from our street. 

I told Reid that if he read 30 books to me, I would buy him this gear set. So he worked hard and earned it!

I bought a legitimate pencil sharpener since we're doing school at home this year!

The kids all love getting "free lunch" provided by the school district.

The kids got out the craft box...........

We got this bracelet making kit and Ruby made bracelets for everyone.

Reid found a puzzle and worked so hard on it.

Meanwhile, Ruby got a headache and didn't feel good on Saturday.

I had to help him with the blue parts, but he did great!

Ruby started feeling a lot better on Sunday. We made this fun ocean diorama.

It turned out pretty cute.

Then on Monday, we met my friend Elaine and her boys at Sauvie Island and played in the river for about 4 hours! It was so lovely and perfect, it ended up being a really great day.

The kids had tons of fun playin in the sand and the water. Ruby and Flint stayed in for most of it.

Miles and Ezra had fun playing in the sand.

Helping little brother swim.

The boys woke up really early the next morning, so I told them to build the beach out of Duplos... a little while later Reid came out with this. The gray block at the bottom is our house, the brown block is where we bought our parking pass, then the road over the bridge and down the island. At the end is two adults talking on the beach, and the kids playing in the water, which spun around! He is just so creative.