Steven's Birthday

 Last Saturday I spent the afternoon with my new counselor and secretary (Moly and Melissa) delivering Valentine's gifts to our young women. We actually made contact with 10 out of the 15 girls which I thought was pretty awesome. It was nice to see them in person and be able to check in on them. I am also grateful to Moly for driving us all because the roads weren't super and she was a much better driver than I. It was a good way to spend an afternoon.

That evening I had a puzzle night at Caroline's with Melissa. I was feeling super exhausted (I just haven't been sleeping well) but it was still nice to be with my friends and share in some good laughs. 

Sunday I had 2 meetings after chuch. One was the Bishopric training the new class and quorum presidencies. They talked too much and covered too much and honestly it was super boring to me so I am not sure how much my new class presidency got out of it. I also had an awkward moment where I thought I muted myself so I yelled at my kids, only to find out everyone heard everything. First time I did that and it was so embarassing. It took me awhile to turn my camera back on. 

I think my second meeting went better. I did some of my own (much shorter) training with my the new class presidency and we did some planning. They were really good at contributing ideas and making decisions- this meeting went much more smoothly than some first meetings we've had in the past. The only crappy thing is that after our meeting, the stake set new activity guidelines that totally ruin some of our planned activities. Looks like we aren't even allowed to do outside activities now. So dumb.

Also on Sunday we found out that our neighbor, Jacob, tested positive for Covid. He had had a fever Wed and when they took the rapid response test it came back negative. I guess she had decided he was fine because he was over at our house Thursday (I had no idea he had had a fever the day before). Then they got the results of the longer Covid test Sunday that he was actually positive. Hopefully I didn't unknowingly share anything with all the many people I had been in contact with Saturday. 

With this news we decided to cancel all our plans for the week and quarantine. Ironically this was a week where I actually had quite a few plans and was feeling overwhelmed with them. I had prayed for help to go through the week and maybe this was my help, lol. So no more bringing a meal to my friend who had just had surgery, no watching my other friend's kid, no Valentine's day party with friends and no birthday party for Steven. It was a pretty big bummer for Steven especially but I fixed things by offering to give him his birthday off school and let him play video games all day. I think that helped ;)

SO our week ended up pretty uneventful--and also none of us seem to have come down with Covid. No fevers, no coughs. Either we're asymptomatic or we just got lucky. 

Tuesday I made Steven's birthday cake. I hate making cakes, it stresses me out. I was also in an exteremely irritable mood that day so not helpful. 2 things I learned- making frosting black (and not just gray) is hard, and don't tip the cake pan because the cake will slide right off (and into the microwave). Oh and also, probably wasn't wise to frost the 2 layers together before putting the wings between the layers. Lots of dumb mistakes but it turned out ok. The wings were made from melted lifesavers and then I sprayed the top of them with silver food spray. Tyler also helped cut the fondant face because at that time I was just done.

Wednesday,Steven had his amazing day of no school and lots of computer/video games. Honestly, it was amazing for me too because everything seemed to go faster with one less kid to homeschool. Maybe I will send him back to public schools next year and just homeschool the younger 3. Steven enjoyed playing online with his friends and chatting with them on the phone while playing. I think it was a good day for him. His friend Max also dropped off a present for him which was really thoughtful. Steven is lucky to have such a good friend. Especially since our gift for him was late coming and didn't arrive until Thursday. So besides two cards with money from grandparents, this was his only gift to open Wednesday. Max gave him Amiibo's (which give him stuff on Nintendo games) and he used perler beads to make Mariah and Pearl.

For lunch he had Subway and then for dinner I made waffles using a new Belgian Waffle Maker. Grams Hatch had one and he really loved the Beligian Waffles so the maker was kind of a gift for both of us. That night we had cake and ice cream. Only Steven doesn't actually like cake so he just had ice cream. I am not sure why I fuss so much over a cake he doesn't even eat.

Thursday,Steven's birthday gift came. It's a recurve bow that hopefully we can get him to use. It's just hard right now because a lot of indoor archery places aren't open because of Covid and the outside is just too cold.

Friday we didn't get to have our Valentine's Party with friends as planned so we just did a few Valentine's themed activities for school (color by number hearts, soaking conversation hearts in different liquids, writing about someone who lights up our life...) and then we decorated heart sugar cookies in the afternoon.

Saturday was spent mostly me being productive around the house and the kids using time they saved up during the week to play video games. They did get out for a little bit and did some sledding with their dad.

I'll end with two funny stories. On Friday I was checking the list of things kindergarteners need to know and I saw that plural nouns was on there. So I was asking Penny about plural nouns and asked her what you add to cat to make it more than one. She replied, "A kitten?" 

At dinner we were talking about Ben wanting a Zelda birthday and then he said he wanted to be Link for Halloween because he already had big ears.