Science 'Speriments

 Annie: "Mom, can we please do a science 'speriment?"

Elliot: "ANNIE, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SPERIMENT! IT IS AN EXPERIMENT!"

This is a very familiar script around here. Annie asks to do science experiments from a book Mimi gave us all the time. Most of the time I say we're too busy, so she resorts to filling cups full of water and booby trapping our house with them. But other times I put forth the effort. Our biggest hit lately has been the nature bracelet.

I make a duct tape bracelet with the sticky side out and let them wander around outside decorating them. This is going to be a repeat activity for the next decade or so. 

Anything with water and colors is always a hit

Mixing, freezing, etc

Other things worth documenting about Annie:

She is obsessed with blueberry oatmeal. Aaron makes it for her every morning and she gobbles it up first thing when she wakes up. 

Meanwhile, Elliot doesn't want to eat until an hour after he's woken up. Which is a constant problem since we have to hustle him to school. His school doesn't start until 8 am, so it would be way worse if we were trying to catch the bus to the public school at 6:20am!

The oatmeal queen

Our friends gave Annie a roasted marshmallow. I am unconvinced that any of it made it into her mouth. 

Our cactus is growing pigtails like Annie!

She randomly declared that she was having an "indoor picnic," which consisted of eating her lunch while facing our canned goods

The mermaid baby stuffed into a sock, attached to a resistance band, and walked around the house like a dog. 

Annie is still a HUGE fan of Isaac. She loves to crawl around with him. And roll on him. And laugh hysterically while he pulls her hair. They have a great relationship. 

Baptisms

 We had the amazing experience of having some friends join the church! I first met Karina through a Facebook page that I made for our street. One day some ambulances showed up a few houses down. I asked on the Facebook page if anyone knew what had happened and if anyone needed help. Karina responded that she had a stroke and was in the hospital. I brought dinner over to her 4 kids. After that we ended up messaging back and forth a lot, meeting up at the park, and becoming friends. Three of Karina's kids have special needs and they have had a lot of really rough stuff happen in their lives.

Fast forward a few months and Karina's landlord decided he wanted to move back into the house himself, so they had to find a new place to rent. It was a really stressful time for them because the housing market is insane right now. There were several times where Karina thought she had a new house lined up only to have it go to someone else. There were also some health problems and troubles with her kids during this time that were really compounding her stress. I asked her if she would like a blessing of comfort from some people at church and she accepted. Aaron and I went over with Brother Carlsen, the Elder's Quorum president, and gave her a blessing. 

Fairly soon before they were going to be kicked out of the house, a new house opened up. This was the first house that they looked at that was still within our ward boundaries. I'm really grateful that all those other houses fell through so that they could end up close by!

When moving day came, the Elder's Quorum showed up with trucks and vans and got everything moved over. Sisters from the relief society showed up on Monday to help clean. I don't think she really believed that people were going to show up until we were actually there. Karina has been having to do everything on her own for so long. It was sweet to see her reaction to people she didn't know rallying around her. This is something I realized I have taken for granted in the church- people just show up!

Along the way Karina started meeting with the missionaries. I came whenever I could. Sometimes we met at the park, sometimes at her house, and sometimes in my backyard. Our missionaries, Sister Hansen and Sister Walker, are completely awesome. I loved hearing Karina's questions and hearing her talk about how she was so quickly finding more peace in her life. Things were still chaotic and not all of her trials were removed, but she would talk about how learning about the gospel was helping her feel more peace as she navigated life. 

The night that Karina accepted the invitation to be baptized, we were meeting in our backyard with the mission president randomly sitting in. Karina's son Christopher was there too, and for whatever reason he was having a really bad night and desperately wanted to go home. We all tried our best to cheer him up- I even whipped out the big guns and offered to let him play on our Nintendo Switch- but he was too riled up to be placated. He ended up moaning and rocking around while we talked over him. Somehow I still managed to feel the spirit, and we had a great conversation punctuated by Christopher's sobs. I was surprised when Sister Hansen pivoted the conversation and asked Karina if she wanted to be baptized, and even more surprised when Karina said yes with no qualms at all! I was just so jittery with joy! After everyone left, I just had to tell someone about what all had just happened in the backyard. Aaron was out running, so I called my mom and my sister, but neither of them answered. Then I ran up to my bedroom, got on my knees, and said a prayer of just pure gratitude that I could be a part of Karina's conversion. 

One funny thing is that Christopher got it into his head that they would have to live just like us when his Mom joined the church. He got it into his head that if his Mom got baptized, we would take his TV (we don't own one, we just have a projector with a Roku hooked up to it), his Legos (we mentioned once that Elliot doesn't have many legos), and all his soda. This cracked me up like none other! We were meeting with Karina almost daily the week leading up to her baptism. Christopher kept bringing up that he didn't want us to take all his stuff, and we kept reassuring him that we weren't going to steal his TV and legos. He asked about it with less and less panic each time. He was worried about his Mom changing and about his life changing. Hopefully all the changes have been for the better! 

Then the Baptism day was here! Brother Carlsen baptized her, and Aaron confirmed as a member of the church the next day in Sacrament meeting.

My fam with Sister Walker, Sister Hansen, Karina, Adriana, and Christopher

My friend Karina. She is strong, funny, and always trying to get me to take home a pet when I leave her house. 

There was an injured owl hanging outside the back door after the baptism! Apparently owls are omens of good fortune or something like that in Mexican culture. Karina called some animal rescue group to come get it. It was right on the other side of the glass door, almost as if it was knocking on the church doors asking for help. 

At this point, Karina's daughter Adriana was getting interested in the church. She had sat in on some of Karina's lessons, but now she wanted to hear the whole thing from the start. It was amazing to see how once she decided the church was good, she was all in. She had thoughtful questions, and it really felt like a privilege to be able to listen to her as she opened up. 

Adriana's baptism day!

Aaron baptized Adriana. I really liked the program because a lot of the young women were able to participate. 

I am so grateful that the Gonzales family has become a part of our lives, and I'm looking forward to many years of friendship ahead of us!

Gravel

 We have long been peeved about our backyard gravel. The gravel is super fine and always gets thrown onto the turf, which created the super fun chore of picking the little rocks out of the fake grass. 

Stephen got his backyard landscaped and suddenly had a big pile of extra gravel under his trampoline. It was bigger rock size and a nice lighter color. Aaron suggested that we move it from Stephen's house to ours using our trash can loaded into the back of our minivan. 

How I imagined this going:

How it actually turned out:

I absolutely adore it! And I think the mulching around the base of the trees will be better for them. Kudos to Aaron for making his vision a reality. It took about a month of Aaron and sometimes Stephen hauling a few trashcans full of gravel every week to cover the backyard. 

Other projects we have going on lately: A neighbor moved out and left us some backyard decor and a leaf blower! I blasted out 6 years worth of mesquite leaves from our front yard gravel and put it in our new compost bin, which I made by drilling a bunch of holes in a trashcan. Basically we are really into trashcans around here lately. 

The orange blossoms smell like fruit loops

Elliot Blood and the Sneekcy Scelatins

 Elliot has written a series of books about himself. Each installment is written on 4 index cards taped together. The latest addition is "Elliot Blood with the Sneaky Skeletons."

A translation: Once upon a time there was a boy, yep you guessed ok I will keep doing it [editors note, the earlier 3 books all start with "Once upon a time there was a boy named Elliot. One day he was sitting on his bed...] named Elliot Blood... and he was sitting somewhere, right, you know where, yep you guessed it, it was his bed again. But just then he heard footsteps right outside his door!!! Elliot Blood was scared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the creature tip-toed into the room. Elliot hid under the covers. He peeked out of the covers to see what it was. It was a Skeleton! Elliot ran out of his room dodging the skeleton wherever it went. Finaly he made it out of his room. 

He asked his mom if she sees any skeletons. "I see a huge group of skeletons in the kitchen" said his mom. "You're just kidding, Mom.""Ok, fine, a group of 5.1 skeletons." Elliot looked out of the window. it was white. he looked a different window. It was fine and something was odd. Elliot went up the stairs and into his room and there he saw it hiding in the curtains. Elliot ran out of his room to tell his mom. He went upstairs again. Maybe it wasn't there? He creeped into the hallway. It was there.

What an ominous ending. My favorite part is the group of 5.1 skeletons. I'm proud of how well my fictitious self kept my cool as our house was invaded by skeletons. 

Elliot got this snap circuit kit from his cousin Avery for Christmas. It was love at first site. Aaron showed Elliot the basics while lamenting that his childhood circuit kit was less cool than this deluxe one. A few days later, Elliot got it out and followed the instruction book to make a circuit with buttons and lights. He walked it upstairs to show Aaron (love this work from home life). Aaron took a break to come down and the two of them modified it to make this huge thing. It was awesome. Elliot has SO much in common with his dad and it warms my heart to no end. 

One day Annie was throwing a temper tantrum. I can't remember what it was about, but I had her in time out and just could not get her to calm down. Elliot strode into the room and handed Annie this picture he drew of her as a fairy. She immediately calmed down. Elliot is a great brother. 

Our couch cushions get played with more than any toy in our house. Here they are in a very effective wall, which was cool until they were blocking my way to the bathroom. 

Elliot is going through a phase where he loves playing with board games. He takes out all the pieces and makes up his own games with us. He doesn't want anyone to play with him- he just wants us to be impressed that he got 83 points doing whatever the heck he is doing. 

We learned how to play Yahtzee. He made up this afterparty for himself where he rolled the dice a bunch of times and added up the values in his head. He eventually got to 212, which he wrote down and then wanted to double a bunch of times. He got 424 and 848 in his head, but got tripped up when he had to start carrying the ones. Aaron gave him a little tutorial and then he was at it again. After he was done, he added a box on the top right of the paper that had random stats like how many arrows were drawn on the paper. 

This kid is a little too obsessed with iPad time these days. He earned a one month subscription to this game we used to have where you can code your own games. He thinks about Code Spark... a lot. He only gets iPad time for an hour or two on days when I have afternoon work calls. His solution is that he draws out detailed plans that he later creates. 

After talking about the covid vaccine, Elliot wandered off and came back a while later with this syringe craft he made out of paperclips and paper. 

Then he built this not at all shady clinic where he can give people coronavirus shots. He was quite disappointed with his lack of volunteer patients. 

This kid is just something else. I spend a fair amount of time in wonder at how fast Elliot learns things. Its a wee bit terrifying sometimes, but also super fun. I love watching all the things he creates!

Oranges!

 We got a great harvest of humongous oranges this year! Our fruit trees provide me with oh so much joy. 

I let Isaac suck the juice out of a couple slices. It was quite possibly the most delicious thing he has ever eaten. That not actually that impressive because most of what he eats is pureed vegetables and plain cheerios. 

We found that if you peel it in big chunks, you can use the peel as a cup! It's like La Croix in that it is slightly fruity water. Which is actually disgusting, but lots of people buy it for some reason? I've never understood the La Croix craze. Anyway, the kids had a blast playing "village kids" with their orange peel cup. 

... But then we actually got Covid

 Soon our house emptied out. The Arizona Blood party wasn't ready to stop yet though because Elizabeth's family came down a few days later! We spent a couple of days together visiting their rental house up in Tucson, swimming in their heated pool, and hiking. Then I got a sore throat. I thought it was likely just allergies, but just to be safe I wore a mask the next day when we walked around the lake and then hung out at Claudia's house. 

The next day I realized I was definitely sick. In an attempt to quarantine, Isaac and I locked ourselves in the guest bedroom for 2 days. Luckily this was over a weekend, so Aaron got to run the show. Isaac and I mostly slept while Aaron dropped off food for us. We started plotting a way for Claudia to watch Annie and Elliot in the mornings while Aaron worked so I could keep staying away from people until I got better. I had aches, chills, a low grade fever, and a light cough. By the end of 2 days I felt mostly better... but then Aaron got sick. Quarantining both parents was an impossible task, so I rejoined the family for our 2 week lockdown. 

Aaron had similar symptoms to me. After the initial 2 days where we were pretty much out of commission, we both had some milder symptoms that lasted a week or two. Aaron lost his sense of smell for well over a month. The kids all had it really mild- just slight fevers and runny noses. We all got tested (except Isaac) and for sure all had it. We are grateful that we weren't hit with any of the super serious symptoms that some people get. 

Claudia was awesome and dropped off a quarantine package for us. It had a big bag of shelled peanuts that said "We hope you don't go NUTS during your quarantine," some sparklers, orbeez, and coloring stuff. 

Annie twirling with her sparkler

Claudia also split her Rosca de Reyes cake with us. It is a traditional desert for 3 kings day that has a baby Jesus figurine hidden in it. If you bite the baby Jesus while eating, then you are in charge of hosting the party next year. A delightful tradition!

We got through our quarantine lockdown without any major incident. Life wasn't that different. Elliot has spent an unfortunately large portion of the year doing school remotely. We played board games and did lots of Just Dance. We have gotten pretty good at entertaining ourselves around the house and honestly, the kids have probably forgotten how we used to do so much more.

The End of 2020

We had a few days with Jacob and Joanna after Jonny and Megan's family left. We decided to celebrate New Year's Eve a day early so that they could celebrate with us. We ordered Chinese food, made pina coladas, and had a bunch of poppers. We ate while watching Soul with the kids and then set off the poppers at our fake midnight. I had no qualms moving midnight to 8 pm, especially since we are already a day early. 

Jacob recommended a Bollywood movie called Barfi that I really enjoyed, even if we did later realized that a couple of scenes were almost exact copies of scenes from The Notebook. 

2020 was truly a one of a kind year. The whole world was going through some level of crisis. The news was full of unemployment, death counts, and political unrest. We were definitely affected when all our normal activities were cancelled- church, volleyball, playgroup, and more. The social landscape was an absolute minefield with every person being comfortable with different levels of social interaction. I missed having the social life that I was used to. Elliot's schooling situation ended up being dramatically different than what it would have been, in both good and bad ways. On top of that, we had the big life events of Stephen and Claudia moving here and Isaac being born. 

A lot of these events were short term. The vaccine will roll out in force, and the activities will resume. We will be different in a few lasting ways. The most obvious is our relationship with Stephen and Claudia's family. I wish for their sakes that it had been a less stressful transition, but I am grateful that we had extra time living together. Our families are cemented together in permanent ways because of those 6 months. The past year was also a forced case study on how we can live without all the hustle and bustle. Our lives were simplified, and now we really understand what our baseline is. We hope to be more social next year but also to hang onto quality time together around the house.