Easter Egg Hunt, Chungus Day

 Our Easter Egg Hunt last Saturday was a success. I had spread out the eggs in the backyard and front yard and then hid some around both yards too. Then we hid some eggs in the house for the teens. When the kids came we had the younger ones go out our back door and the middles go out our front door and then the teens got to search the house. Everyone got a good amount of eggs and seemed to have a good time. The teens all found a golden egg with money- even the golden egg that was in the toilet tank. Then afterwards all the kids spread out their candy, traded it and then consumed far too much of it while the grown ups got to chat. I think I will have to make this a yearly tradition.

Monday the weather was amazing so I sent Caroline a last minute text to see if her family wanted to meet us at a park. They did, so we got to go enjoy the beautiful weather with friends at the park. We also saw my friend Julie (the mom of triplets) at the park. When Caroline's family left, all my kids gathered around me and Julie happened to snap a picture of my crowd ;)

Monday evening we celebrated Isaac by making butterflies and decorating a giant butterfly cookie. It was a nice thing that Tyler headed up since I told him I wanted to do something to celebrate Isaac.

Tuesday was another beautiful weather day so I took the kids (well all but Steven) along with me to drop off some things with some of my YW in Milford and then we stopped at Milford Central Park. We decided to do some exploration of the woods around and the kids had fun walking on the stones in the river. It took Penny a bit to get brave but eventually they were all hopping from stone to stone and I was praying no one fell in. It was shallow but it was such mucky water.

Wednesday all 4 kids went to the dentist for their regular check up. No cavities, yay! And then that evening my yw had a Zoom meeting where one of the leaders sisters taught us how to do Zentangles. She was nice enough to not only teach us but also donate the supplies which we had dropped off. During the activity my yw mostly left their cameras off and didn't say anything which was frustrating, they didn't seem super grateful by doing that but teens... Other than that, I really enjoyed it because I love artsy things.

Thursday our neighbor Sharon came over and helped us repot some of the plants she had helped the kids start to grow. We determined Lucy has the green thumb and Ben not so much since none of his plants were growing and all of hers were flourishing. After she helped with the plants, I took the oldest 3 on a bike ride to the library to get some books. 

Friday while I was cleaning the house my friend Rebekka called and we had a nice 2 hour chat catching up on all the things. Then that evening Tyler and I went on a date, which was really just us running some errands. This time while we were out Lucy had the home cell and she sent me soooo many texts. She was sure enjoying sending me all sorts of taco stickers.

That night we forced Penny to let us pull her other front tooth. It was so loose that we worried it might fall out and choke her during the night. She was not happy about it that night but the next day she had come to terms with losing it.

Saturday was Chungus day- that weird holiday I created when I was trying to cheer myself up last year. We say it's the day that Chungus (the Easter bunny's lesser known brother) comes to drop off a garbage bag full of books and things. The kids were excited about there new books, although Steven didn't feel the need to pose for a picture.

After lunchtime I decided to try out the bike rack I got for Christmas and we took our bikes over to a trail in Wixom and took the trail to Clara Miller Park. Penny has anxiety with crossing busy roads but other than that it was a good time.

Our last activty for Chungus Day was to decorate a bunny cake and eat it for dessert. It turned out rather terrifying. My kids make creepy things.

Things

This past Sunday I had a proud moment for my young women. Bishop wants to do a mulch fundraiser for youth camps but the young women were not interested. One of my counselors suggested selling flowers instead and the girls loved this idea. So my young women got together and came up with a persuasive speech in favor of the flowers and presented it to the Bishop at Ward Youth Council. I didn't love his reaction. Instead of praising them for their efforts he gave them the fifth degree about the fundraiser- really nit picked it- but in the end one of his counselors pointed out that we could make more money with the flowers so Bishop conceded that the girls could do flowers and the boys could do mulch. 

After such an eventful week last week, we were much less exciting this week. Mostly just errand running- getting some things for a family that's going through a hard time, getting things for the kids' Easter baskets and getting candy for the Easter Egg Hunt we're hosting. Apparently I was putting that stimulus check we got from the govt to good use. But when I run errands I tend to invite one or two kids along with me so the positive side to errand running this week is that I got some quality time with my kids.

On Monday Penny got sick. She had a low grade fever for all of Monday and for most of the week was fairly congested. This did not make for a very happy Penny. She becomes exteremely sensitive and whiney. That in turn made homeschool with her this week less than fun. But as of today, Saturday, she is feeling much better thankfully.

Youth activity restrictions finally changed for the better so Wednesday we met in person with our yw outside the YMCA. We brought all the girls Shamrock Shakes since it was St. Patrick's Day and chatted, danced, and played GaGa Ball (which is like Dodgeball except you swat the ball with your hands instead of throwing it). It was pretty fun, I just have a bleeding heart and the girls weren't doing a great job of including a girl that's fairly new to our Ward. Thankfully she's athletic and when they started playing Gaga Ball I think she started to feel more included.

Friday night Caroline and Melissa came over and we filled Easter Eggs. Two of my YW were doing the lighting for their HS play so I bought a streaming pass for it and we sort of watched it while filling eggs. I say sort of because it was really quite terrible so we felt less inclined to focus on it. Why was it terrible? First of all it was made from interviews of people who had connections to the Sandy Hook shooting so the material was not happy. Second of all, I don't think most high schoolers can truly understand the subject matter so they really overdramatized it. BUT the lighting was on point so my yw are still amazing. Ha.

This morning, Saturday the girls had cheer again, they are adorable and I love watching them cheer- even if they're not great at it. And then this afternoon Caroline and Melissa and my neigbor will be coming over for an Easter Egg Hunt. I had invited the triplets that live in our neighborhood too but they cancelled this morning. Which means we have an excessive amount of eggs now for the rest of us. I'm sure the kids won't complain though. But I might complain because that candy is going to be sooooo tempting.

This week I got asked by a Bunco friend to do some handlettering for her business. She did not offer any compensation and honestly if she had, I probably wouldn't have taken it but the gesture would have been nice. It also started off simple- a few signs with one word on them and then spiraled to 8 signs, some with more complex phrases. And then when I sent her digital files she said she was wanting handwritten. I finally talked her back into digital but not without some feelings of frustration in between from me. Her company does work with abuse survivors and is a good business but I just had a lot of moments where I didn't feel like my time was being respected. Anyways, I probably will never try to sell my stuff because just doing this for free project ruined the relaxation that my hobby usually provides. But I am up to a whopping 74 followers on my @hatchcreates IG page so go me ;)

This week marked a year since my losing Isaac. Oddly enough the only person who acknowledged it is one who has been giving me the silent treatment. I don't know how to feel about her still but I do I appreciate the acknowledgement. I've had a lot of hard feelings as of late and it's nice to have someone recognize that this is a hard time. 

And to end on a much happier note, Lucy was inspired to paint and made me this gem. It sounds a bit like a threat ;)

Detroit, Fredrick Meijer Garden, Raptors

One of the perks of homeschool is that we get to set our own schedule and do our own breaks. Midwinter break for public schools is the worst because it's always cold outside which limits what you can do so we skipped midwinter break. And knowing that we had those days still, we decided to take this past Monday and Tuesday off. It was needed. The kids and I were driving each other bonkers. Monday we started off our day picking up cookies at the Detroit Cookie Company. They had lots of fun flavors like one with circus animal cookies, and another with brownies and oreos...

After we cookies we got our cookies we drove over to the Detroit Riverfront where the kids gobbled up their cookies. Then we walked over to the Dequindre Cut. This was a nice paved trail with some fun murals/graffiti. The art was cool and the kids enjoyed taking pictures with it. We also talked about how art has a lot to do with whose looking at it, not everyone thinks the same things are beautiful. It was a pretty decent walk but they didn't complain too much about getting tired which is good since they haven't gotten out that much lately. Also, my kids think it is hilarious to pick noses in paintings.

Tuesday we went to Grand Rapids to visit the Fredrick Meijer Sculpture Garden with the Mays. We first met at their house and swapped kids. I got Peter and Andrea and she got Steven. Everyone had a buddy to hang with in the car and that made the 2 hour drive much better for all. The weather was warm so we weren't the only ones who had the idea to go enjoy it there so there was a pretty good line to get in but it went quickly. The inside was super busy so we headed outside first to the children's garden. The kids had a lot of fun playing and we ate our lunch there but it started to get real peopley with little ones so we headed out to see the statues. 

Caroline and I had a lot of fun reading the names of statues and trying to interpret the meaning of the abstract ones. The kids had fun running around and posing with statues and just being together. They are all such good buddies. You'll notice Steven and Ben are missing from the photos because they embarked on their own adventure and we didn't meet back up with them until the butterflies. We did see them once but as soon as they saw us they ran off in another direction. Teenagers.

After the statues we stood in line to see the butterflies. It was about a 40 min wait but the line wrapped through all different plant rooms so the kids had fun checking all the plants out. Also at the end of the line they had really awesome little houses that had chrysalises in them. Some even had butterflies that had hatched from chrysalises. The kids loved these and I was amazed out how beautiful a chrysalis can be. 

At last we got into the butterfly room and there were butterflies EVERYWHERE. Butterflies are my favorite. I especially loved the blue ones but they would never stop moving so I couldn't get a good picture of them but I was able to capture this butterfly here. 

Wednesday we got back into homeschool. If only, we could just go on adventures all the time. But I have found that I am not really one who likes to use our adventures to teach- I really just like the break from the normal. After school Ben got to go to Beck's house so I wa able to have a little chat with Beck's mom when I dropped him off. That was nice. And I also had a meeting with the RS Presidency that afternoon. We are coordinating a combined activity with the RS. I think we figured out something that might make be fun for all ages. We shall see.

That evening I had my young women's activity and it was not the smoothest. The girls in charge of the pictionary game came up with clues but didn't put any thought into how to run the game and weren't so good at making decisions. It is so hard for me to watch and not just take over. Painful.

Thursday after homeschool we took Jacob and met the Mays at the Leslie Science and Nature Center. Caroline had signed us up for a tour of the Raptor birds they have there. It was really good....and disgusting. We got to watch all the birds tear apart their food (mice/rats). But we also learned a lot of cool facts and got to see the birds up close. I think my favorite was the owl. It was one of their oldest animals and she didn't really like people and so she hissed at the kids when they got up close- I felt like she was my spirit animal ;)

Friday we had homeschool, piano lessons and Penny lost her front tooth! She was very emotional about losing but gosh, I love those Jack-O-Lantern smiles.

Saturday the girls had their first online Cheer class. It was really cute to watch them cheer and they seemed to have a lot of fun. The teacher was super bubbly and really good with them.

Also last weekend Steven and David went walking to seven eleven and Steven came back with candy for me, that he bought with his own money. That was really nice and unexpected so I feel that needs to be documented.

And will end with a funny Penny story. We were talking about Emma Smith and how she put together a hymn book. When I asked the kids if they know what hymns are, Penny said "Boys!". She, of course, was thinking "him."