Chris' Toes

Chris suggested to Kristen that she should give me a pedicure. He said, "If you do, then you can do mine as well." Kristen jumped at the chance, but I'm not sure that Chris really knew what he was in for. I got my toes done...and he got bananas on his toes!

Three Tulips

Amy, Misha, and Kristen were helping in the yard last Saturday and I happened to notice that all three of my girls are pretty much the same height. I remember as young girls, there was always a pretty significant height difference. Until, that is, Misha hit a growth spurt and passed Amy up.

But as I looked up and noticed all three of my girls standing together—strong as sisters—it reminded me of these tulips growing in my front yard: beautiful, full of life, sisters who stand strong for each other. And doing their best to stay close to the Light.

Yard Work

There has been lots of yard work on the weekends when the weather cooperates. Our girls are such great helpers to pitch in and help (though it does help that we are helping them earn money for the Fall and college by paying them to work).

The tulips are coming up (though many didn't make it through the cold weather and the bunnies), the bushes are budding, and some of my garden is growing already.

And my peonies might just blossom this year. I'll keep you posted.

Hunting Wabbits

The rabbits in our yard this Spring have been out of control. They even stooped to eating my tulips! Bad rabbit.  Bad bad rabbit.

Chris gave the girls an injunction to start taking out the rabbit population and Amy took him seriously.

Rainbow Face

One of the gifts Kristen received for her birthday was art makeup from Amy. Kristen wasted no time in creating.

Kristen's Birthday

My youngest is 15. The birthday celebrations were a little different this year under quarantine, but she still planned some fun activities for herself. Her family joined in to spoil her as well.

Kristen's Young Woman President lives next door, so she woke up to find a fun treat and some chalk art on the front porch.

And there were donuts, of course.

Misha helped to wrap Kristen's presents and then created a scavenger hunt for Kristen to find them all.

Kristen invited her friends to a virtual Zoom party. They had fun playing some games Kristen created, watching a movie, and just chatting. Friends miss each other.

Baking Bread

Chris and the girls have requested homemade bread during the pandemic. With a bread maker, it was easy to meet their request (plus we took loaves to all of our ministering families).

Family Game Nights

One of the experiences Chris and I have absolutely loved during the quarantine is more family time. Chris bought some new games and Kristen received one for her birthday. The girls often ask us to come and play with them and we have had so much fun together.

Girls Making Dinner

Since the older girls have been home from college, Chris suggested that all three of my girls take a turn cooking one night a week. They have been pretty awesome and it is has made it so much easier on me. I usually help them with the meal, but sometimes they do it all on their own.

In an effort to support some of the local small businesses, we usually buy dinner to go on Friday and Saturday. We seem to have worked in to a nice rhythm of meals.

Misha has even taken to making ice cream every other week. Her first attempt was chocolate ice cream. It turned out a little grainy, but had a good flavor. Her latest creation was salted caramel...And that is why Chris and I have to get up early and exercise every. single. day.

Dressing Up

Amy and Kristen were bored one afternoon and decided to try on some of Amy and Misha's homecoming dressing. I think Kristen is finally tall enough for the dresses.

Snow in April

We had a week of lots of snow and cold. That is not supposed to happen in April! Easter Sunday, the weather changed from beautiful 70° to 30°. Not nice for Spring weather, but it was a heavy, wet snow that helped trees and grass.

3rd Annual Amazing Race Egg Hunt

Our girls still love to celebrate. We've done this race for a couple of years now, and this year, all of the participants huffed and puffed about the exercise factor as they ran around the yard looking for hidden, numbered eggs. Chris even got to search this year. I hid eighty numbered plastic eggs in four colors—yellow, pink, blue, and purple—and the girls and Chris ran around for an hour trying to locate all of their twenty eggs in order.

As I was hiding the eggs, our neighbor and her girls came and hid an extra twelve resurrection-themed eggs as well. They did this for all of the neighbors on the street.

Amy was the egg hunt winner this year

Kudos to Chris for weeding along the way. Not only a fun egg hunt, but a great workout as well.

The weather was going to change over the weekend, so some of my children were concerned that we would miss out on the activity on Sunday. Good thing I am such a great Mom and hid the eggs on Saturday when the weather was awesome.

Chores

My girls have been pretty good about doing chores every day. Somedays they are busy with school and the chores don't get done, but most days they are cooperative. I have a white board in the pantry where they know to look for the day's posted chores. First one up, first one gets to choose.

My Chinese Money Plant

I have three Chinese money plants and they are pretty prolific growers. I moved one to sit on the corner of my desk (as well as a peace lily plant) and love the greenery in my office.

Passover

To celebrate Passover as well as the worldwide fast and asking that the virus pass over our home and our world be healed, I added red ribbon on our front door symbolic of the blood of the lamb.

Amy's BYU Acceptance

With Misha's encouragement, Amy finally sent her intent to attend BYU this Fall. (Grateful for girls who take pictures for me!)

Facemasks

With the orders from the government to wear face masks in public, I try to keep one handy for the quick trips to the grocery store. I have never had so much dread for going shopping as I do right now. I started with this mask on Friday and Chris said it was pretty much useless.

So this is my much fancier mask. The cloth masks that everyone is making now, while nice, don't seem as though they would be all that beneficial.

Jury Duty

I received a jury duty summons for April 6, 2020. When I checked the website on Friday, the 3rd, I was happy to see that all jury duty summons through May 15, 2020 are cancelled.

General Conference Solemn Assembly

For the solemn assembly ushering in a new proclamation, Misha and I used these two handkerchiefs that my grandmother had added the decorative lace to many years ago. Nice to be able to use an heirloom in such a hallowed moment.

All of our family's handkerchiefs.

Handmade by Grandma Sandusky

General Conference April 2020

When President Nelson promised that this General Conference would be unforgettable, I'm pretty sure no one factored Covid-19 and social distancing into the equation. Amy and Misha had tickets to attend the Saturday evening session at Temple Square, but watching at home with family was a nice second choice.

Kristen filled out a "Fantasy General Conference" worksheet and her guess for two of the eight new temples was spot on: Shanghai, China and Dubai, UAE.

Lavender

Turns out, you're supposed to trim lavender in the Spring after it blossoms. It might possibly blossom again after that, in which case, you should trim it again. I failed on both times and didn't get around to trimming all of my lavender until today. Anything I read online said "better late than never." Here's hoping they will still have some great blossoms this Spring/Summer.

Garden 2020

I was beginning to feel stressed that I hadn't been able to get my peas planted. They can go in the ground from March 8-14 here in Colorado. With the arrival of Covid-19, the cancellation of school, and trying to social distance, I missed my March window of opportunity. I had planned to pick up some seeds and then the stay-at-home order was issued. So, I bought some seeds off of Amazon and hoped that they would arrive quickly. Quickly is all relative now, but I finally got my seeds planted on April 4th. Go me.

The peas are planted in 3/4 of that bed. I will plant some watermelon and maybe some peppers there as well.

Spring Yard Work

I have spent the past two days getting the yard and garden cleaned up for Spring. The clean up involved trimming bushes, removing the dead parts of plants, and digging up the garden beds. My back does not enjoy all of the bending and squatting.

I was grateful for my girls who all came out to help on one day or the other after they had finished their on-line classes for the day. Misha mowed the lawn on Tuesday and Kristen came out to finish on Wednesday before we had the lawn aerated by a young man trying to earn money for his mission.

This is just the clippings and debris from Tuesday. I added two more bags on Wednesday and filled up my compost bin as well.

SimplyJolayne

I have felt impressed to start a new website, though I'm still in the process of refining and defining my goals with it. Looking to the future, I have also created Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Gmail accounts for SimplyJolayne to claim the name on all of these sites.

I am entering unknown territory in creating the website and getting everything up and running. I hope that I can get it figured out this next month. Chris has helped with the security aspect of setting up my account, and man, I am so grateful for his technical support.

Kristen April Fooled Us

I woke up this morning to find that Kristen had put googly eyes on all of our family photos.