Daddy’s Birthday Cake

I think the pictures speak for themselves. It seems Elsie is going to take over for mom as the cake maker in the family.

Pottery Lessons

Elsie decided that a rainy day in May was a good day to teach daddy how to throw a pot on the wheel. She was a good teacher!

Foxes

We spotted three baby foxes playing out next to our neighbor’s shed. 





One of them has joined us for a couple of pit fires!

Last Day of School

Elsie started her summer break by having a virtual nail party with Aunt Nette and Aunt Carrie and her girls. Alstan hung out with us for a while before getting bored and moving on.

They both were excited to use their math books as fire starter to celebrate the start of summer vacation. Poor dad, the math teacher, had to sit by and watch.

Fifth Grade Graduation

Well, they didn’t have a ceremony since school was out, but Alstan’s teacher did drop off a surprise this morning. It is hard to believe he is going to be a Middle Schooler next year.

Baking from Scratch

We did not have any box cake mix, so Elsie decided to try a recipe from Pinterest. While Alstan is less into baking, he got sucked into the decorating. He watched from the sidelines originally just to see if he could sneak some frosting, but it didn’t take long before he was excited to help Elsie design a Spring Cake complete with a robin and its nest while a snake wraps itself on the branch. 

New Bikes!

Both kids were out growing their bikes, so dad surprised them with new bikes this morning. They were super thrilled to have bikes with gears! So, of course we had to go for a family bike ride.

More At-Home Creativity

Playing in clay: Alstan made a sculpture of a baboon. If the fair happens this year, he is planning on entering it as his ceramic piece. Elsie made multiple pieces including a phone holder she would like to enter in the fair and a few birthday presents for Aunt Nette.

Elsie got out her bath bomb kit. She was excited to finally get the sphere mold to work.
Elsie was also helping mom test out a mosaic coaster making kit for school. (Hopefully we’ll get to use it next school year.)



The kids did some baking with Aunt Nette in a Zoom meeting. They ended up decorating on their own the next day. We didn’t have any frosting on hand, so mom tried making a small batch of homemade frosting. (Not quite a big enough batch apparently.)

Egg Decorating during Social Distancing

We each made up our own eggs and dyes, but then met online to decorate!







We loved watching the girls (mostly Adalynn) dip her eggs in the dye by hand. She would hold them up to the camera at times to show us how they turned out.

Here’s what we came up with at our house.

Aunt Nette used some beet juice as a natural dye and some food coloring on brown eggs. What a collection of beautiful Easter Eggs! Thanks guys for joining us!

Week 4

Warm weather has allowed us to chat with friends and family from a distance. By coordinating our arrival times and paths, we were able to have a pit fire with Aunt Nette. We couldn’t share food, obviously, but we were able to share stories.

Alstan and Elsie coordinated with their friends at Lisa’s to meet outside and chat. (Elsie and the boy in her class organized it by sending private messages to each other during their class Zoom meeting. 😃) The group made up a few songs for entertainment!

Dad set up a Lego Masters type challenge: Mom and Alstan verses Dad and Elsie. Who could make the most Star Wars looking ship?

Week Three of Social Distancing

Elsie has begun working on her 4-H scale model project, while Alstan drew Star Wars characters. Alstan has been using this time to get through all the Star Wars movies.

They have gotten a number of Legos sets from their grandparents and us.







Elsie loves making slime, and Alstan loves to join her for the playing with it phase. 

The weather has been a bit better lately which means our family walks have changed a little. Alstan and Elsie now choose to ride their bikes or scooters at the church parking lot across the street, while mom and dad walk laps around the blocks close by.