February FUN

Cael, Brecon, and I  Tested positive COVID February 3. Family lockdown - even Ben- for the rest of the month. The one who was most upset was Brielle “I just want to see my friends” church activity days - and coloring with best friend Gwen CANCELED 😢

Making yummy cookies with daddy and getting some special valentines frosting and sugar cookie mix from my friend Aubrey. This was after they found out that we were on a family lockdown, so it was a nice surprise to have somebody bring a treat over for us.

The black mark. No one admits who did it... eh hem...Cannon... got ahold of the graphite powder for pine wood derby cars and sprayed it on the cream carpet. A brother who was trying to be helpful used a wet washcloth and smeared black powder with no chance of it getting cleaned up. Panic. Dry vacuum only spreads it more. More Panic.... But then a hero comes along. After some quick searches on Google, we got our soap and a little elbow grease, lots of soap and water- and lots of scrubbing to get most of the black powder out. The carpet just looks like a normal boys dingy color, we will probably have to pay for a replacement carpet when we move out. But at least it isn’t so obvious!!

Ben has been going through his box of childhood photos and found a few gems. At age 10 he drew a picture of himself of what he was going to be when he grew up as a typewriter fixer with a nice bushy mustache. 

The northern lights were more vibrant than we had ever seen from our neighborhood and so the family went for a walk out into the forest to see them. I always wear my big pink parka because it keeps me warm from the bitter cold. As we were tromping back I was following Ben and as he walked by a branch was pulled back and whipped me right across my nose and cheek. It was so cold so it hurt five times as much as it normally would’ve and so I was quite upset the rest of the walk home. Ben’s eyelashes and face were pretty icy and I always get a frosty hat and neck warmer

January Jubilee

 Here it is April 4 and I am finally going to tell some of the stories of the pictures from here in January so they might not be as detailed or fun but I will do my best.

Brielle NZ activity days leader had the girls write down some of their positive attributes to encourage healthy self esteem and to share with the girls in the group things that they like about each other. Brielle loved her poster so much and we had it up for quite some time... until it was time to put it away ;)

Connor has been taking photos of himself in different positions bored, happy, and crazy. 

One of the lessons we were talking about Mediterranean food and so we made some pita bread for our hands on activity. 

Carl has completed his drivers license with restrictions and was finally able to get his unrestricted license. This means that he can take other people besides his family members and siblings in the car with him. This has been both exciting but also frightening as Carl likes to drive a little more free spirited with the gas pedal and steering and going around corners. We have had more things to fix and a very expensive repair bill after he ran into the ditch coming down a hill from my friends house in the expedition. 

Family ski day at the hill in our backyard makes for a good Friday or Saturday activity. We are usually able to get four runs in before Cannon decides to head down to the parking lot where he can sit in the car and wait for everyone else to finish their skiing/boarding. 

Connor and Ben gave a talk in church on Sunday. It was Connors very first talk in sacrament meeting and so we worked on his talk together so that he would feel confident in what he was saying. The only interesting part was that no one else was at the church building  because of a few families had tested positive for Covid. The meeting was broadcasted so we were able to send the link so grandma and grandpa hoopes in Wyoming could listen to Connor’s and Ben’s talk. A fun Sunday tradition that we have been doing is bringing a treat over to the youth and other speakers that give a talk that day in church. Connor was very concerned and wondering if anyone would bring him a treat and thankfully we have neighbors close by that were thoughtful to bring us over some fresh bread and jam, sweet popcorn and a few cookies. Talk about a sweet reward for giving a talk in church!!

Deacon- Teacher- and Priest. Connor has been preparing and was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic priesthood. He is the smallest little deacon passing the sacrament and is very serious about the work that he does on Sunday. All of my boys do a fine job fulfilling their priesthood duties!

Brecon has been spending a lot of time sorting and creating Lego-houses and more recently a Lego RV.

Connor found a color experiment in one of our science books and decided to see what would happen with yellow and blue water climbing up the paper towel into a metal cup. We were all surprised to see the amount of water that made it up and down into that cup. Water distribution and color combinations for the win!

Ben had taken these two out during an especially chilly evening and when they got on their cheeks are so Rosie read from their fun out side.

Christmas morning

 

Sugar sugar sugar

 

December to remember

December December —we made it to December!

After grandma and grandpa left it was back to business with keeping the kids on track with school and getting our Christmas going. Brielle and Cannon worked on a science video and making a snowflake and finding out the answer to the question- why  is Snow White? We cut up pieces of wax paper and glued the tiny pieces into the shape of a snowflake. Lots of fun but also lots of tiny pieces of wax paper all over the place.

One morning I gathered up all the kids to go help the USO deliver goodie bags to all the single soldiers living in the barracks here at Fort Wainwright. The little kids were waiting for me as I was helping Brecon finish up the last few doors and when I got down to where they were I saw Cannon had a red tissue paper in his mouth. He had decided to lick the poor handrail going into the building and it was -15 that day. Needless to say, A little piece of his tongue ripped off and hopefully my little Cannon learned a lesson about metal and negative temperatures. If you zoom in on the picture you can see a little white chunk of frozen tongue on the handrail. I had to take a picture for his book of remembrance.

Cael has been making sure he gets out and about and goes cross country skiing with a couple of friends. It is a good thing for him to do especially with the weather not being too terribly cold. It is an activity that he seems to have been enjoying, and hanging out with his friends is a bonus.

This is not a picture I took but it is some thing that happened the other day as I was driving in town. The sky was so pink and purple it was incredible at sunset. That’s another fun thing about Alaska is the gorgeous colors this time of year really reflect off of the snow and light. You don’t have to wake up super early for sunrise and you don’t have to wait for sunset until it’s late! With the amount of light you we do have during the day we appreciate the gorgeous colors that happen!

We have also been taking advantage of going to the ice-skating rink on post, which is always more fun to do with friends. If we invite just a couple of families we reach the limit to how many people they allow on the ice, but that is the way we like to roll. The first couple of times we went skating and Cannon was getting frustrated and unable to skate forward without falling down. He is now figured out how to move and skate along and can mostly keep up with the big kids going around and around. He is one of the most entertaining skaters to watch, a close second behind Cael who has been doing several figure skating moves and practices in his hockey skates. His pirouettes and turns and waltz jumps are really improving - he is so graceful!

Again this is not my photo but just shows the full sun dog on a bitter cold day. This is probably solar noon

If you look close you can see the little patch of tongue that got stuck to the pole. I was amazed at how long his tongue was bleeding after the incident, it was so sad to see my little boy whimpering around with a bloody washcloth in his mouth.

As we were headed out of the driveway to go skating, I backed up off of the driveway  and into the curb and our car got stuck in our driveway. Just our luck to get stuck in our driveway. The kids ran and grabbed shovels and we tried to get out on our own. Pulling forward pulling backward and putting gripper mats underneath didn’t help us very much. There were some soldiers doing PT down our road and as they ran by three or four of them stopped and finally pushed us out. We yelled at them thank you and made it to the ice-skating rink in time to play with our friends.