2020 :: week 2

January 5

We took a family selfie to commemorate the first Sunday of the new year. A new year means a new church time, and for us that means 9am. It's a bit of a struggle for me to get the four of us out of the house and to church on time, but we did it and arrived a full ten minutes early! Anthony now has pre-church meetings starting at 6am. Despite the earlier mornings and push to get to church on time, getting home by noon feels amazing. All of us have been dealing with a head cold in the days since Christmas, with Anthony being the latest victim. His first counselor sent him home from church after their meetings because he didn't want to sit next to him on the stand. He definitely sounded worse than he sounded. Anthony credits he regular sauna habit with preventing the cold from getting very bad.

January 6

For the most part our school doesn't assign homework beyond spelling words and special projects. Lauren is supposed to practice her spelling words each day and she can do so in a variety of ways. Monday afternoon she wrote them on our driveway using sidewalk chalk.

January 7

Lauren has been begging to do gymnastics for months. Maybe years. I finally relented and signed her up for a weekly class with one of her best friends, Daphne. Her class is totally recreational--they work on a variety of skills using different mediums--with the goal to stay moving and happy. She loved her first class and is looking forward to more in the future.

January 8

Lauren and her friends love to barter after school. They bring various trinkets and craft projects they've produced and trade their wares. She's come home with everything from a new keychain to a charm bracelet someone made with shrinky dinks. She likes to trade toys from our "donate" box--fidget spinners--or gum or her perler bead creations. Though it drives me a little crazy because she refuses to leave until she's made the "best" trade, I am impressed by the girls' bartering skills and ability to make others want their junk.

January 9

My kids know my favorite TV show is Jeopardy. I like to watch it while I prepare dinner during the week. I was very excited for the GOAT challenge, though the timing was not ideal. I like to put my younger kids to bed by 7:30p, which was right in the middle of the show. Thank goodness for Hulu so I could watch at my leisure, pause and rewind as needed.

January 10

Stephanie and I took our kids to the Foundry Church to play in their gym Friday afternoon. We knew it was going to snow over the weekend and we wanted to let the kids run around while they could. While we were there we each got a variety of notifications about various weekend activities that were being cancelled. Elliott had fun shooting hoops and pretending to be Kemba Walker.

January 11

We had a warm, cozy Saturday at home because the entire town shut down. Everything was cancelled! It rained most of the day Friday before snowing that evening, so everything was covered in ice and snow. Anthony made us some delicious fries, which we ate in between Star Wars Episodes II and I--which we watched in that order! Lauren's favorite Star Wars movie is Attack of the Clones because Padme Amadala is her favorite and she has a great battle scene in that movie. After we watched Attack of the Clones the other kids wanted to watch Phantom Menace so that's what we did!