#datquarantinelife 2/?

Spring came and went, and she was very pretty this year.

Vivi has kind of been at her very worst.  In the span of less than two weeks she: (1) turned off the chest freezer in the garage and spoiled everything inside, (2) chucked an opened can of Dr. Pepper Cherry at the carpet, resulting in our living room looking like an extremely bloody crime scene, and (3) left a grape freeze pop on the counter, staining the laminate pink and blue.

But she also cracks us up daily and now makes the absolute funniest faces.  When we can actually get her in clothes we are reminded of how cute she can be sometimes.  And when she falls asleep at night, I always think of that line from that first episode of Curious George: George is always a good little monkey... when he's asleep.  Yes, when she is asleep she is at her very best.

Theo graduated Preschool!  It was an anti-climatic end to a three-year endeavor, but we are very proud of him.  We did our own little graduation ceremony for him to celebrate, and it was a good time.  I don't know if we will be going to Kindergarten in the fall, but whatever happens I know he'll get through it just as well he's done with Preschool.

Theo has also taken up the peace sign in pictures, and it's one of my favorite things ever.  Every so often he'll ask me to take a picture of him, and by the time I have my phone out and ready, he's waiting with the peace sign and a cheesy smile.

He also lost his first baby tooth, which just about knocked me out dead.  One night he casually was like "hey, I have a loose tooth" and when I looked I saw the new tooth in the back and my or may not have let out a high-pitched gasp.  A week later, the baby tooth was out!  He already has a second loose tooth, and I'm still not prepared for all of this.  He's literally losing his last vestiges of babyhood and it's killing me.

One Sunday we went for a drive, and it was fun/sad remembering what it was like to go on a road trip.  We miss those a lot, and it's hard accepting that we won't be doing one of those for some time.  But I think we might be taking up more scenic nature drives in place of a longer trip.  It was fun driving to a new place that isn't too far away from where we live and getting the kids out of the house for once.  Even if it was cold!

Speaking of cold, the weather at the beginning of June was truly the weirdest most bizarre things I have ever experienced.  On a Friday we had a windstorm that knocked out the power for over 12 hours.  The next day, Saturday, we had a huge hailstorm.  The next day, Sunday, it rained and stormed some more.  And then on Monday, it snowed.

The poor garden, she has had a vexing few months.  Between the late freezes and the evasive pests that came and chomped up all of the peas and spinach, she's had a rough time.  But hopefully things are normalizing and we can still have a good growing season.  Fingers crossed that the first freeze in the September holds off as long as possible.

We are producing spinach faster than we are eating it, but my new ramen addiction is helping.  I've been needing food lately that is comforting, and this ramen is it.  I use the regular "chicken flavor" ramen, but add lottts of things to it to make it special.  For the soup: hondashi and miso.  For the add-ins: boiled eggs, lots of veggies (usually scallions, shiitake mushrooms, spinach, and whatever else I feel like adding), and some leftover meat or pork belly if I want it to be extra special.  It's so filling and delicious and I probably make it at least three times a week.

It's really hard to not be angry every single day for SO MANY things, least of all the state of things COVID-19-related.  But I'm really glad for these kids and the happy/funny moments that I cling to.  I made a new home video for their "Quarantine Spring," and they weren't really doing anything special, but they are happy and healthy and having fun, and it's what I want to remember when all of this is over.

#datquarantinelife

Well.  I have absolutely no idea how to introduce this post, so I'm just getting into it.

Neighborhood walks have become an essential part of our lives, and I have to say: Vivi really crushes it with those sunglasses.

We've revived our garden for the year and are looking forward to seeing things grow again.  I also bought a bunch of indoor houseplants a few weeks ago, because I realized that if I was going to be stuck at home for who-knows-how-long, I needed some green inside to boost spirits.  So far I haven't killed any, and they are all doing well!

Related: I told Theo that the plants "help us breathe better and make us happy," and soon after he suggested that in order for "the world" to feel better maybe everyone should gets plants to help them breathe.

Now that I'm back in full-time SAHM mode, it's my main job to make sure that the kids don't bother Jon while he's working.  I mean, that has always been the case, but I think I feel it more now while he has his contracts in tact and is wanting to do other work things that will help keep us stable for who-knows-how-long.  Anyway, Theo and Vivi's new favorite game is to ambush Jon when they know he is coming upstairs.  The first time they did it was so funny, I'm glad I got a picture of it.

Just in time for self-isolation, the little Tyrannos Regina has evolved into her highest form.  At least, I hope it's her highest form because I honestly cannot take increased levels of tyranny from her.  She's been insanely hard these last seven weeks, which you would not be able to tell from the pictures above.  Lots of screaming and tantruming, and lots of nudity.  Yes, NUDITY.  She refuses to wear clothes, takes off her diapers often, and sees no problem with going out to play in the yard in just a diaper and boots when it's in the 40s.  Yesterday a straight-up miracle happened and she allowed me to fully dress her and do her hair a little.  She looked so lovely and sweet!  And then one hour later...

...it was over.

I've been keeping busy, trying to find that balance between cooking, cleaning, and reading.  Thank goodness for audiobooks, which have allowed me to feel extra productive during this time.  Jon and I have really loved Bon Appetit's Youtube channel the last while, and I was inspired by one to make "Master Stock" yesterday.  I've make stock loads of times before, but this was the first time I've made it with ham, and YOU GUYS.  It makes the biggest difference and the most delicious stock ever.  Never making stock without ham ever again!

I actually haven't been doing as much baking as everyone else seems to be doing.  Flour is rarely on the shelves at our store, and I think that has made me instinctively ration it out.  I see lots of posts about people trying or keeping up with sourdough baking and... *sigh*.  Am I the only person whose eyes have been opened during quarantine and shelf shortages to the fact that sourdough starters are... kind of a monumental waste of product??  I dunno, maybe it's different if you're actually successful (which I never was), but STILL.  Feeding it every day and using only a fraction of that starter... does not sit well with me at the moment.  ANYWAY.

I've been reading almost nonstop, it's the best kind of escapism.  I stopped checking in on my personal IG account, because I frankly can't keep feeling angry at nonsense I'm seeing people engaging in, or bad about myself because apparently homeschooling is going amazingly in other houses.  (SURELY, that's a lie, right?  RIGHT???)

Enter: books.  I've read so many four-star reads that I've really enjoyed in March and April, but last night I read one that I well and truly LOVED.  I'll write alllll about it in this month's reading wrapup.  (Yes, just the month, not the whole quarter this time!)

Oh yeah, and Easter happened!  Here's this year's Easter video:

Theo had a Zoom meeting with one of his teachers today to work on his Speech, and they were working on opposites.  And it made me think about how the last seven weeks have seen all of the opposites.  It's been winter and spring, we've been sick and well, we've been entertained and bored, we've done good schooling one day and way too much screen time the next.  I've felt really grateful and optimistic one moment, and then totally freaked out and angry the next.  I've been glad for the escape and humor that the internet offers, and then want to throw my phone in a river for something infuriating I read.  I've felt so incredibly glad for my little family and how much I love them and don't have to be separated from them during this time, and also I've completely lost my mind and would have given anything to be by myself and not see them for at least two weeks.

It's back and forth, and it's going to keep being that way for who-knows-how-long.

Thank goodness for walks.

Thank goodness for plants that are still alive.

Thank goodness for books.

Thank goodness for stock made with ham.

But also... you know.

F*ck all of this.

christmas 2019.

It was such a great Christmas season with these kids again.  Theo, again, was full of happiness and gratitude for the little things, including just setting up decorations.

Well, actually.  Both kids had hysterical meltdowns on the night we decided to set up our tree.  Theo, because when we had put the tree together and were ready to string lights, it turned out that every single one of our string lights were dead.  Vivi, because she wanted to play in the tree box and Theo had already occupied said box.  But!  Everything was fine when Jon came back from the store with fresh lights and hugs for the sad children.

Theo participated in the Preschool Christmas Program again this year, and he rocked it.  Last year he didn't sing much, but we could tell he knew what the words were.  This year he sang all of this songs and even practiced them at home!  We are so proud of him.

Christmas day brought snow, and it has barely stopped since.  It's hard to be upset about it though, it builds up the town's water supply, makes Theo happy to have something to shovel, and as soon as the sun comes out, everything glitters and shimmers.

Now Christmas is over, the decorations are put away, and we enter the part of winter where we rely on ourselves to keep warm and cheerful throughout the rest of the season.  Bring it.

two years!

Our Tyrannos Regina had a birthday this week and now she's two!! 😱

Vivi really is something.  She is a beast of her own kind and though it's often an exasperating existence with her, I can't imagine her being any different.  I recently read a line from a book that gave me serious Vivi Vibes:

My point is she's bullheaded, which I think is great, but I don't want to be bailing her out of jail when she's nine.

Yep, sounds like my kid to me.

At two, Vivi is nothing like any two year-old we've ever raised.  (Granted there's only been one other, but still.)  At any point in time, you'll find that she has just climbed up onto the counters to get snacks to eat or she has just drawn tattoos all over her hands and arms with whatever writing instrument you were dumb enough to leave out in the opening.  By "you" I mean "I."  I am always the dumb one, forgetting that putting forbidden objects higher up is not a barrier to this child.  It's a challenge, and one she is ALWAYS game to meet.

When she's not screaming her demands she has a cute little voice, and Jon, Theo, and I love getting her to say all of her words.  Her favorite ones: mine, no, and RAWR.  She's true to her brand.

She is very spoiled and admired, especially at church where she plays in laps, gets fed treats, and is pampered with fancy hairstyles before she goes on to nursery.

One of my favorite things about her is how much she loves our home videos.  She could watch them for hours, so I was really excited to make her first birthday video and show it to her.  She seemed skeptical and less than enthused the first time, but I think she's coming around to it.

Happy birthday to our baby!  She has aged only two years, but I think I've aged 6 or 7.

five years!

Young Theodore is five!  It's nearly one month since his actual birthday, and I'm still a little bit in shock that my first baby is five years-old.  How did this happen??

Theo is as sweet as ever and is still the most loving member of our family.  He's so funny, and that has only grown moreso as his communication abilities have exploded this year.  He now tells us cute little stories (usually he just retells the time last year that we hit a deer with our car and it was "super scary" but "we were okay").  My favorite thing is to hear him narrate his play and all of the cute little things he says on behalf of his toys.

Happy birthday to my big boy.  Please grow up a little slower this year.

SLO 2019.

We finally got to take Vivi to San Luis Obispo!  I'd been looking forward to this trip all year, especially since we skipped last year.  And while it wasn't as relaxing as I hoped it would be (kids), it was still a great trip.

The kids did so well in the car.  Like, miraculously well.  Day one was an 11+ hour drive, and they rocked it.  We already knew that Theo would be fine, he's done well on long trips his entire life.  We weren't so sure about how Vivi would do, but she also did amazing.  Didn't even need a screen until the last two hours!  I don't do much public bragging about my children, but I'm always tempted to gush how well they do on road trips, haha.

Theo wanted to go to the beach so badly.  He'd been talking about it for over a week leading up to the trip, so we knew we had to deliver pretty early on in the visit.  We stopped at our favorite spot in Cambria (after picking our our favorite donuts at SloDoCo), and it was not what Theo was expecting.  He was like, "where's the beach?!" and we had to explain that this place just had the rocks and the ocean but we promised beach the next day.

And the end result of our beach day was probably the best that we could have gotten.  He loved the beach and had a complete blast, but was also totally satisfied and did not need to return for the rest of our trip.  Yay!!

I think I might have been most excited to revisit our favorite places to get some video footage for our vacation video.  Our video from 2016's trip to SLO is one of our favorites and probably our most rewatched.

So here is this year's!  Yay for SLO and yay for happy and patient kids in long car rides.

yellowstone national park.

Last week we had a little reunion-type trip with Jon's family in Yellowstone National Park.  This was my first visit to Yellowstone, and truthfully I might not have ever seen it if it hadn't been the chosen destination for this trip by Jon's parents.  It was probably the first national park I ever learned about in grade school, but maybe the last one I would have picked to visit -- I guess geysers and enormous throngs of visitors aren't really my jam.

But the trip turned out just fine, and I even found a part of the park that I well and truly loved.  Yay for unexpected surprises and geological wonders that border on miraculous!

To start: here's our video!

A quick side note about this video, or more accurately, the song that plays in this video.  While we were driving through the park, we just happened to be listening to this song, which is actually and genuinely titled "Yellowstone," and as soon as I saw that I was like, well I guess I know the song that will go in the video!  And honestly, I was happy to have it fall in my lap that way, the songs are always the hardest parts of these home videos for me.


Anyway, the park!  We really only covered the west side of the park, to the bottom at Old Faithful, and then to the top at Mammoth Hot Springs.  Day one was Old Faithful.

And maybe this is blasphemous to say, or maybe I should have gotten a closer viewing spot of the geyser, but my favorite part about Old Faithful was... the inn.

What a crazily and beautifully ornate building.  It was a lot of fun to explore and admire in between geyser watchings.

On our second day in the park we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs, which was the area I most wanted to visit, and GUYS.  It did not disappoint.  (Prepare for photo dump.)

Could you have ever conceived of such a place in your own mind?  If aliens ever decide to wipe us out and settle Earth for their own, they will come to this place and feel right at home.

^^This was by far my favorite shot, and I am very excited to get it printed and hung up (somewhere) in our house.  Every once in a while when I'm out taking photos in places, I take a shot that I cannot wait to go home and process, and this was one of those.

*in Stefon voice* It had everything!
The color contrast!
The storm clouds!
That fore-, middle-, and background combo!
Just the right amount of steam to dreamify the picture!
That gnarly old tree!

My concluding thoughts: if I didn't ever visit Yellowstone again, I wouldn't be heartbroken.  However!  I will totally recommend the Mammoth Hot Springs terraces to anyone and everyone who tells me that they are planning on visiting Yellowstone.  Bring your space suit.

easter 2019.

Boy With Luv is the first and only BTS song I have every listened to, and I listen to it multiple times a day, every day.  So of course, I had to make it the background song for this year's Easter video!

As far as Easter pictures went... well, it is what it is, haha.  Luckily, I stopped worrying about getting the perfect picture a long time ago and have to say I rather enjoy some of the grumpy ones.  Happy Easter everyone!

my favorite things: christmas 2018.

A few of my favorite things from our 2018 Christmas season:

• Theo saying the exact same word for both "Christmas" and "Kristin"
• Discovering that the quickest way to get Vivi to come out from under/behind the Christmas tree is to play her favorite dance song.  She will come right out and start dancing!
• Every night before bed when Theo says "Night night, Merry Christmas!"
• Theo thinking that the Grinch is "cleaning up" because he is too pure and innocent to comprehend what stealing is (😭)
• Theo's preschool Christmas program, in which he did such a great job!  He didn't sing all of the words, but he knew them and we were so proud of him.

We had a wonderful Christmas!  Theo being excited for every little thing made everything so much more special.  He kept saying "thank you!" over and over for the smallest things: getting out the Christmas decorations, decorating the tree, and just having presents under the tree.  He loved all of it, especially rearranging the ornaments on our main tree.  I tried fixing them in the beginning, but he would fix my fixing.  So all month long we've had odd clusters of ornaments from the middle to the top of our tree, but a very pleased Theo.

And that's all that matters, of course.  Happy kids and a happy season and happy memories!

four years!

Why does 4 seem so much bigger than 3?  I die a little inside every time my kids go up a clothing size, but going from 3 to 4 is a new kind of Babies-Keep-Growing Tragedy.

Theo is a wonderful little boy who is kind and sweet and so full of love for his family.  Jon, Vivi, and I are incredibly lucky to be loved so much by Theo each and every day.  Every night before bed we say "I love..." and he fills in the blank with each person in our family.  Sometimes he says "dad" five million times before he says "mom" once (and giggles the entire time), but he always says everyone's name at least once before the night ends.

His favorite thing is his school bus, which he gleefully waits for each morning.  Sometimes he has his backpack on as soon as he wakes up and we have to come up with things to do for two hours while we wait, but I'm just glad he loves school.  He has the best time and his teachers and aides are so great.  He comes home having learned new things every week, and he is devastated every day he doesn't get to ride the bus.

He loves our new house and our new neighborhood.  I've seen his quality of life improve so much in the short time that we've been here.  Which is not to say he was an unhappy in Arizona, but he really is enjoying his life and everything Ephraim has to give him.

Happy Birthday, my little 4-year-old.  Let's see what growth this new year brings.  💙

christmas 2017.

This is was our best Christmas yet!  We took it really easy, on account of having a newborn at the same time, and I have to say: a no-frills, no-travel Christmas is a GREAT Christmas.

There were no tears like last year, just a lot of toys.  Like, a ton.  When Jon and I bought Theo's presents this year, I didn't feel like we got him too many... but I completely forgot about presents from grandparents and we entered Christmas afternoon with about twice as many toys in the living room as I originally anticipated.  I may never see the floor again!

It was our first Christmas as a family of four, though obviously Vivi wasn't a huge participant.  Can't wait for next year when we've inevitably are up to our knees in toys!

three years!

Happy Birthday to my three-year-old!  Please stop growing up so fast, it's breaking my heart.  You're the absolute best and are forever my favorite little boy.

christmas 2016.

Christmas season is long over, but it feels like we are still emerging from the Christmas fog and getting into the new year (our outside Christmas lights are still up and running).

As parents, I have to say that Jon and I crushed it this year.  We set up our tree to moment we got home from our Thanksgiving visit up north, and Theo didn't purposely knock down an ornament once throughout the month!  We had almost all of the presents bought and wrapped under the tree by the end of the first week of December!  There was no Christmas stress and I was extra excited to have out first Christmas morning at home together!  Everything was going amazing!!

And then Christmas morning came and there were tears?  Then Theo was not feeling well for a couple of days, then he was fine for a few days and then we all got sick??  Ok, so the being sick part was 60% expected.  But the tears?  Not part of my Christmas morning vision.

But it was only intermittent tears, few enough that when I think back on the morning now it's only happy memories.  It was the best to see Theo get excited when he saw the gifts we got him, and I already can't wait for next year.