2022: Late Winter and Early Spring

Thought I'd start off this post with a bunch of cute cat pictures. Allison started taking Guanfacine in January, which initially made her sleepy while her body adapted to it. She fell asleep on the couch after getting home from school one day. Seconds later after hearing no noise whatsoever I turned around to find her holding a cat while she slept

I love this sweet girl's smile! She thought Fry sitting next to the plate of blueberries merited a picture. 

Children's museum fun! This was the first time I've seen Allison really engaged in the science lesson (programming robots to follow the lines they drew on the paper). 

The kids spend quite a bit of time playing with their new dinosaur balance puzzle.

Both of their piano skills are coming along nicely.  Tyler's incredibly motivated and is improving by leaps and bounds while Allison plays melodies (and sometimes even simple harmonies) by ear. 

I've also been working on my own piano skills with the help of an incredible piano teaching software I've recently discovered called Piano Marvel. I like that it works for both my skill level and Tyler's. We have two digital pianos now because the first one I ordered had issues with the metronome and display freezing. The company actually sent us a brand new piano and let us keep the defective one. In every other way it's a perfectly good piano, so we hooked it up to a computer as a MIDI and use it to play Piano Marvel. 

During the last week of January, I and the kids contracted Covid. It was a symptomatic but mild case for me (mostly congestion and fatigue) while the kids were completely asymptomatic. They had to stay home from school for a week, though, so they got in lots of piano, reading, and art projects. Here are some of Allison's.

And some of Tyler's projects during Covid, school, and the YMCA.

Here are the kids attentively listening to daddy tell them a story similar to "the boy who cried wolf" but about a little girl who screamed about small problems instead of real emergencies.

After their quarantine was up I took them for a day at Arena Sportz. They really enjoyed playing air hockey on this kid size table.

Tyler missed making angry birds at Primary Activities since it was during our quarantine, so Oscar helped the kids make some during Valentine's week. Tyler's leader told me his bird was more robust that the other kids' birds and could do a lot more damage knocking down the structures.

Here are the kids getting their Valentines from us. The binders are full of sheet protectors to put their art in so they have somewhere to put the things they don't want recycled. Otherwise it's dollar store stuff, a little candy leftover from the Valentines we'd made for school, some sharpies and markers for their art projects, and beanie boos and beanie boo socks for Allison. I'd ordered them for Christmas with an estimated arrival date of December 22nd. They didn't get here until January, so I put them in storage and saved them for Valentines.

This is what Oscar and the kids made with our genius kit. It was a ward activity to make something from the materials that reminds us of the temple. Allison made a cross, Oscar made a pipe cleaner angel Moroni on a balloon, and he and Tyler made the solar system as part of "The creation."

Oscar and I went out for Thai food the day before my birthday. While I went to get a mani/pedi on my birhday, Oscar and the kids decorated for me.

Amy got me a shirt that says "May the 40's be with you!" We invited the Hall family over for steak and cake. 

Allison got all dolled up with makeup and curly hair for the stake daddy/daughter ball.

She wanted to dance with him at home but really didn't have much interest in dancing with him there. She mostly did crafts and ran around the gym doing her own thing. When she did dance, it was with cute baby girls.

Tyler didn't want to feel left out, so I took him to Olive Garden for soup and breadsticks.

The next day was the end of our state mask mandate. We enjoyed our new freedom by going to the YMCA without a mask, going out to lunch without a mask, and going to the children's museum without a mask. 

My friend Cambria gave me a free ticket to see a show at the Paramount with her daughter. Tyler worked on making our pots into drums and making shapes out of magnet balls. Allison made ostriches and a Wild Kratt's Tortuga out of Legos.

In March I started helping out my friend Roberta after she had her knee surgery. Here's a cute picture of a day she bought me cookies.

For St Patrick's day Oscar made a green eggs and ham breakfast sandwich. 

Tyler started listening to the audiobook of the 4th Harry Potter book, which is going way faster than when I was reading it to him. He follows along in the book while he listens. 

We had a scare with Leela thinking she was having kidney issues, but it turned out to just be a bladder infection. Fry, meanwhile, decided pizza boxes were his new seat of choice.

Roberta took me out for a pedicure one Monday and was so amused to see two tough army guys coming in to have their feet done too. 

After taking Roberta down to a follow up appointment with her surgeon in Seattle, we stopped at the University of Washington to see the cherry blossoms in bloom.

We even met a little girl named "Cherry" while we were there and Roberta took some pictures of me next to the music building, my old home. 

Oscar's been working on landscaping, repainting, and remodeling our kitchen. Tyler enjoyed helping him hammer out the back splash. I'll post more pictures in future posts when it's all finished.

And the kids enjoyed a play date at the Oppie's house the day before Tyler made a temple out of rice crispy treats at Primary Activities.