Well hello you Blackburner friends and welcome to another new year and another issue of the Blackburner! Today we're going to be talking a little bit about January, February, and March.
So we begin the year having celebrated the new year at Grandpa Thorsted’s. As Grandpa was out of town, we were able to borrow his house for a little while and just hang out with my folks. New Year's morning found us cleaning and getting his house back to “kid-free” setup and last minute games with Mom and Dad.
About a week later, we had a friend of ours (our neighbor actually) who came over and told us that because of the pandemic, she hadn't had a chance to go see her granddaughter. She had bought a gingerbread house for her to decorate with her granddaughter, but because they couldn't see each other, they decided that they would give that gingerbread house to us because we had kids, and it wouldn't do her any good. We thanked her and later that week for a good hour or two, the older girls and dad had fun getting into building this gingerbread house. Of course, the most fun part they had was after we built it and they got the chance to destroy it in the process of eating it.
Life continued on as it does, and Enna returned to school for more of her first-grade year. She was taking French this year and she didn't seem to enjoy it all that much but we're trying. She also had to do virtual school on Fridays so that they had time to deep clean the school. Thankfully, her teachers opted to simply send out assignments with videos/worksheets connected to them so that we didn’t have to struggle with zoom and keeping noisy siblings quiet. It meant a little more work for me as I had to “dust off” info buried deep in my brain (because even though I knew what they were learning, I had forgotten the terminology of the different assignments and had to review). At least she's not getting anxious about it I suppose.
We also got to enjoy life with our still little dude Erick. He is getting so much bigger every day. He is just curious and looking around (as of this issue he is almost six months old. It'll be six months in April). He's getting around and he likes to hold up his head and to attempt to crawl around a little bit
Construction of the basement continues as we are finally nearing the end stretch. We have sheetrock up on most of the walls and mudded most of the walls to get prepped for adding the final touches. Then once those are done, of course, I will do all the painting so that we can have our basement finally complete. It's so nice to see the rooms just coming together even though it's taking forever; but at least once done we'll have more room for all the kiddos to play around downstairs. They'll have a nice big family room that we can send them to in order to get a little peace and quiet up here on the main floor.
We began February with a fun outing as a family. Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been able to eat out all that much. We decided to brave it because of Dad's birthday. We went to his favorite restaurant: IHOP. All the kids loved the smiley face pancakes that they were able to order because it had lots of yummy chocolate chips and whipped topping. I don't think any of them finished it though - we took a lot home that night. Thankfully, we only had to do a little bit of practice to remind them how to behave in a restaurant.
In early February it became time to enter the new frontier (a repeat for us, a first for Erick): solid foods. He liked lots of them, but not all of them. His favorite thing was to be able to try to put them in his mouth by grabbing handfuls at a time. I think his favorite food is sweet potatoes. Must be a family thing as that was what most of his sisters and brother liked first too.
My favorite event of the month, however, happened about a week later. One day Enna came home from school a little perplexed. She told me that one of the boys in her class had told her that he had a crush on her. Not wanting to be outdone, another little boy (who had already expressed this sentiment to his mother) told her the same. Enna said that she had replied that she had a crush on them too, but when I asked her if she knew what that meant, she said no. When we explained what it meant, she decided that the only crush she had was the one she had on her dad and her brothers. I just laughed. I thought it was hilarious. I guess we will have some troubles when she becomes a teenager at least in the relationships department!
Due to the pandemic taking away the chance to go to Primary in person, the general Primary presidency put on what they called a friend-to-friend. In that program they did music, drawing, stories, and singing. We decided to watch on our computer. The girls absolutely loved it! They were drawing and singing along, while laughing at all the jokes that the little girl and boy (who were the hosts) and also the adults told that helped out. I was glad to see them having fun with Primary again. Hopefully, they will be able to go in person again soon.
March began with a new adventure - it was time to potty train again. We discussed potty training both twins at the same time, but as Dallin had expressed pretty much no interest in doing so, we decided to go ahead with just Celeste. As she was stuck in the kitchen (to minimize carpet cleaning) we found that she had an affinity for baking. She loved to add the ingredients to the bowls, watch it mix, and then of course, eat whatever she made after it was done. Who knows? Maybe when she grows up, she'll be a chef.
Well, that about does it for our family this quarter. Hope everyone has a wonderful time and I will see you in three months!
So we begin the year having celebrated the new year at Grandpa Thorsted’s. As Grandpa was out of town, we were able to borrow his house for a little while and just hang out with my folks. New Year's morning found us cleaning and getting his house back to “kid-free” setup and last minute games with Mom and Dad.
About a week later, we had a friend of ours (our neighbor actually) who came over and told us that because of the pandemic, she hadn't had a chance to go see her granddaughter. She had bought a gingerbread house for her to decorate with her granddaughter, but because they couldn't see each other, they decided that they would give that gingerbread house to us because we had kids, and it wouldn't do her any good. We thanked her and later that week for a good hour or two, the older girls and dad had fun getting into building this gingerbread house. Of course, the most fun part they had was after we built it and they got the chance to destroy it in the process of eating it.
Life continued on as it does, and Enna returned to school for more of her first-grade year. She was taking French this year and she didn't seem to enjoy it all that much but we're trying. She also had to do virtual school on Fridays so that they had time to deep clean the school. Thankfully, her teachers opted to simply send out assignments with videos/worksheets connected to them so that we didn’t have to struggle with zoom and keeping noisy siblings quiet. It meant a little more work for me as I had to “dust off” info buried deep in my brain (because even though I knew what they were learning, I had forgotten the terminology of the different assignments and had to review). At least she's not getting anxious about it I suppose.
We also got to enjoy life with our still little dude Erick. He is getting so much bigger every day. He is just curious and looking around (as of this issue he is almost six months old. It'll be six months in April). He's getting around and he likes to hold up his head and to attempt to crawl around a little bit
Construction of the basement continues as we are finally nearing the end stretch. We have sheetrock up on most of the walls and mudded most of the walls to get prepped for adding the final touches. Then once those are done, of course, I will do all the painting so that we can have our basement finally complete. It's so nice to see the rooms just coming together even though it's taking forever; but at least once done we'll have more room for all the kiddos to play around downstairs. They'll have a nice big family room that we can send them to in order to get a little peace and quiet up here on the main floor.
We began February with a fun outing as a family. Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been able to eat out all that much. We decided to brave it because of Dad's birthday. We went to his favorite restaurant: IHOP. All the kids loved the smiley face pancakes that they were able to order because it had lots of yummy chocolate chips and whipped topping. I don't think any of them finished it though - we took a lot home that night. Thankfully, we only had to do a little bit of practice to remind them how to behave in a restaurant.
In early February it became time to enter the new frontier (a repeat for us, a first for Erick): solid foods. He liked lots of them, but not all of them. His favorite thing was to be able to try to put them in his mouth by grabbing handfuls at a time. I think his favorite food is sweet potatoes. Must be a family thing as that was what most of his sisters and brother liked first too.
My favorite event of the month, however, happened about a week later. One day Enna came home from school a little perplexed. She told me that one of the boys in her class had told her that he had a crush on her. Not wanting to be outdone, another little boy (who had already expressed this sentiment to his mother) told her the same. Enna said that she had replied that she had a crush on them too, but when I asked her if she knew what that meant, she said no. When we explained what it meant, she decided that the only crush she had was the one she had on her dad and her brothers. I just laughed. I thought it was hilarious. I guess we will have some troubles when she becomes a teenager at least in the relationships department!
Due to the pandemic taking away the chance to go to Primary in person, the general Primary presidency put on what they called a friend-to-friend. In that program they did music, drawing, stories, and singing. We decided to watch on our computer. The girls absolutely loved it! They were drawing and singing along, while laughing at all the jokes that the little girl and boy (who were the hosts) and also the adults told that helped out. I was glad to see them having fun with Primary again. Hopefully, they will be able to go in person again soon.
March began with a new adventure - it was time to potty train again. We discussed potty training both twins at the same time, but as Dallin had expressed pretty much no interest in doing so, we decided to go ahead with just Celeste. As she was stuck in the kitchen (to minimize carpet cleaning) we found that she had an affinity for baking. She loved to add the ingredients to the bowls, watch it mix, and then of course, eat whatever she made after it was done. Who knows? Maybe when she grows up, she'll be a chef.
Well, that about does it for our family this quarter. Hope everyone has a wonderful time and I will see you in three months!
RSS Feed