April 24 - Corona Baking

Quarantine Updates! What are we up to in good old Houston?

Julia

Julia runs approx. 3 miles every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning around 7am. The other mornings, she wakes up early and starts her school work. She very self motivated in terms of school and has been good about doing her daily typing and reading. She loves climbing trees and has recently been baking a lot. In the last week she made brownies and a chocolate cake from scratch! She is desperate to see her friends and be back in school. 

Luke

Luke and I are still doing the C25k (couch to 5k) program. We run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I can squeeze in 30min during the work day. I'm not going to lie-I detest running with ever fiber of my being but I love that Luke and I are doing this together. He doesn't care for running either so we have to motivate each other to keep going. Today we did 22min without stopping! I am very proud (even though I thought I was going to die LOL). Luke is not an early riser and quite frankly, I'm shocked at how late he can sleep in (10am some mornings).

He now has a reading group with his teacher at 9.30am three times a week and is good about doing his work, reading and typing. While Julia hates being stuck at home, Luke is in heaven! One thing Luke is not happy about? His hair. He has a habit of twirling his hair and sometimes it forms dreds. Well, he twirled a dred right in right front of his head and ripped it out resulting in a bald spot. JD buzzed his hair the other night to try to even it out. Luke loves his longer curly hair but it will grow.

Jillian

Our little blonde is obsessed with stuffed animals lately. She carries them around everywhere. She goes bike riding every day and we started a new tradition, walking to the bench near our mailbox to eat a snack in the afternoons. She loves Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and is very resistant to working on her letters and numbers. We keep at it though!

April 23 - Hammock Life

Uncle Jay gave this hammock to the kids (maybe Julia) a few years ago and it has been used a lot lately. Both kids are required to read for a minimum of one hour every day and that is their preferred reading spot. We also have a blue..blow up hammock type thing (no idea what it is called) that they also like to lay on. But the hammock is definitely their favorite! 

We had the most gorgeous spring weather last week. Low to mid 70s, sunny with a breeze. This week it's incredibly humid and hot but the kids are still reading out there. Luke just started book 3 of Harry Potter and Julia is on book 2 of Twilight. They officially announced that school will be online for the rest of the year so this is our new normal. Summer camps are cancelling, parks are closed, our neighborhood has closed the tennis courts and they notified us that is unlikely the pool will be open for the summer. 4 more months of this..going to be a long summer!

April 15 - Quarantine Easter

To prepare for our first (and hopefully last ever) quarantine Easter, the kids dyed Easter eggs. We forgot to dye eggs last year so Jillian was really excited to do this (of course she only wanted pink and purple eggs). Easter morning, the kids were excited to see their Easter baskets. The Easter Bunny brought all the kids chocolate bunnies and Starburst, while Julia and Luke received small gift cards (to Academy Sports and an online gaming store) while the EB brought Jillian a cute stuffed bunny. Next up..the egg hunt!

The best part of Easter morning! There were approx. 100 eggs hidden around the house. When I say hidden, I mean..mostly laying around in full sight because Jillian is still little but the kids all still had fun. Best of all was a giant unicorn egg (for Jillian) that had a stuffed unicorn in there!). The rest of the eggs were stuffed with candy and a couple had dollar bills. 

We typically spend Easter day at Tammy's house. .The kids play outside and we feast on delicious food. This year, JD made ham, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and broccoli. It was delish!! 

Happy Easter everyone!

April 13 - Happy Birthday Dad!

JD's birthday was last week. I have been unable to find all-purpose flour (nor cake flour) anywhere around here but I was able to snag the last bag of coconut flour at HEB. Success! One of my co-workers bakes cakes on the side and sent me her favorite low-carb chocolate cake recipe. I sent it to Julia and she got to work. She went rogue and didn't follow the recipe (she creamed the butter and sugar like she was making cookies instead of mixing melted butter and cocoa together) but never fear. The cake didn't rise but it tasted delicious. In fact, Jillian, who usually only eats frosting..ate the entire thing. Great job Julia and happy birthday to JD!

Low carb chocolate cake!

April 10 - Canine Companions

After working from home for 10+ years, I am getting a kick out of friends commenting on how this is the longest they have gone without doing their hair and makeup in forever. Welcome to the yoga pants/bun club ladies!! What I am not used to are kids around me also working/studying. They are quiet for the most part but sometimes they are loud (i.e. when Julia was auditioning for a play by recording herself). So..JD is the in the office using both computers and the kids and I are at the kitchen table. When I need to get away, I head to my room. Bella really enjoyed the seminar last week on hallux valgus (bunions) and Apollo is my chill buddy all the time. 

My cool guy

And a shoutout to the furry love of my life, Amelia Peabody, who would have been 15 today. Love you Amelia!

April 8 - Easter Cookies

It's hard to believe Easter is this weekend. We usually spend Easter at Tammy's but that isn't happening this year. I'm not sure what we will do for dinner but to get into the Easter spirit, the kids decorated cookies last week. The other night we printed out color sheets of eggs, decorated them and hanged them in our front windows for a neighborhood 'egg hunt.'

And how are the kids doing...well, I am very impressed with Julia's time management skills. Here she is reading outside. 

Luke needs more..encouragement..to get his work done but once he gets going he stays on track. He is now doing zoom meetings with his class a few times a week and he was very excited to introduce everyone to Peter Parker!

April 6 - Bike Rider!

Last Monday evening, Tammy and Hannah stopped over with Hannah's old bike. Jillian was super excited and with a good push from dad..she was off! She did it! We have another little bike rider folks! She's been riding every day for at least 30min. She can go from our driveway, down our cul-de-sac, around the half circle near our mailboxes, turn left and go to the next cul-de-sac, and make it back home. She's doing awesome! She still needs to work on breaking properly and she can't take off on her own but we are so proud of her! And I'm getting in a lot of running next to her hehe.