This and That

Some beautiful tulips a friend gave me. 

 A few of the many perler bead creations we did this last week.

 My sister-in-law sent me this in the mail! I let it grow some roots in water and planted it and so far so good. It's so cute!

 Tomatoes and peppers doing just fine inside. I've been taking them outside during the day and they're doing really well.

 Pictures from my newly instituted daily walk. It's so beautiful where I live.

 Hiking in Bridle Trails Park.

 Genevieve had a posh setup one day to watch some shows.

 Two new planter boxes I made and painted to match the table. The peppers and probably one of the tomoatoes will go in them.

 I planted these sugar snap peas around this hosta back before it had grown at all. We'll see if those peas can grow fast enough to not be covered by it. They're holding their own so far. The hosta will get really big by the end of the summer but the peas only last for part of it.

 Bill, channeling his inner Slytherin and riotous curls.

 Two shelves that will soon me connected to make an end table. I spent several glorious hours yesterday working on them.

Pictures in Quarantine

Genevieve is into wearing monochromatic outfits these days. Except she doesn't always have the right color pants, so she improvises. This day was red. 

 King Arthur Flour flourless fudge cookies. Super tasty. And a head scratcher based off of the source of the recipe and how they usually sell flour?? lol. J/K I know they sell all sorts of things. But their recipes are great.

 Another day, another drawing by Genevieve. She loves doing them.

 Just some selfies with the littles.

 That turned a little ridiculous.

 Scones. Another winner from King Arthur flour.

 Oatmeal bread. Not sure on this one. The recipe was more involved than I care for my bread recipes to be, but I also added an extra cup of flour by accident, and then they were a tad toasted on top after cooking, which is my 50-year old oven's fault and my guessing on how to make it work. Drop the temp between 25-50 degrees and cook a few minutes shorter than recipe says and hope since you can't see in it without opening it. It does cook evenly at least. The joys of renting a house that you know your landlord plans to tear down in the near future. It changes the mental math of complaining about things when you wonder if too many complaints will turn into not renewing the lease.

 Grandma sent the kids a new book of science experiements and this one was fun. Food coloring in ice cubes.

 And their hands after.

 Genevieve still has some green on her arms.

 Flower pictures by Genevieve around our yard.

 Tomato and pepper starts. I need to transfer the peppers to their own cups soon.

Into the seventh week of quarantine

What do you do when you never leave the house? Well, this week we baked. Three different supersized cookies, challah, chocolate cake, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookie bars. I ate none of them. Stupid health problems and resulting elimination diet. I'm 4.5 weeks into it.  

 Genevieve has pretty awesome taste in clothes, including that red and pink look fine together. The light doesn't help in this photo but that is a maroon shirt under a hot pink striped white shirt. Hot pink leggings. Red soccer knee socks. I love her. She is going monocolor currently. She wore all black yesterday. I can't wait to see what else she comes up with.

 Baking makes my kids happy.

 I can't remember what prompted this glare, but I just love his hair.

 Post shower dos for the boys.

This was actually a really hard week for me. The interminate timetable of current state is really hard. And some significant health problems don't help. Here's hoping for a better week this coming week.

Picture upload

I added a clear coat of tung oil to my new stools. While the seats were removed the kids didn't see any reason why they couldn't still use the chairs. They would perch on the frame or put a pillow over it. 

 Aaron is making videos on Flipgrid for part of his homeschool stuff. He's super serious about it. I love his intensity.

 We took probably the first trip to the store these two have been on in six weeks to score some post-Easter deals on stuffies.

 I made some masks for a friend's office practice.

 The finished stool. Much easier to wipe off with the clear coat.

 I made some scrunchies for my primary activity girls after we started them at an activity back in February and never were able to finish. I delivered them yesterday and the girls were so happy. It was really nice to see them. I have no idea when we'll get to meet again and have activities.

 Genevieve and Spencer wanted to go on a bike ride so I took them without the other two kids. They are so strong. We rode four miles. Genevieve's bike doesn't have gears, so she had to work a lot harder, but they were still fine. They want to go again. I love how fun it is to do stuff with them now that they're getting older and more capable.

 Grandma Suzanne made the kids the cutest embroidered masks. They love them and wear them around the house because really, we're not going out hardly at all.