Trying to stay sane during break....

I, admittedly, socially distanced myself from the kids for awhile a couple of days this week.  I de-weeded a flower bed in the front yard that I haven't tackled in a couple of years... mulched... and planted flowers.  I also sanded our table out back. Isabella wanted to help with the sanding a little bit.   Then she wanted to use the blower. She liked using the power tools!

While she was doing that, Mercer was trimming limbs in / around the tree house with a saw.   We installed a ninja ropes course that wraps around the fort - using the arbor as framework.  

We also bought some yard games.... just trying to keep them active and change up the environment a bit each day! 

The kids have been practicing baseball using a new net that Todd bought.  Mercer can practice pitching from far away.  Both he and Isabella can hit off of the tee... but it is a little low for him.

(Sadly, our garage is leaning -- a lot -- towards the neighbor's fence.... supposedly the "out building" is older than our house.  Todd re-built one wall, but not sure if the other wall can be fixed ?!)

Our caterpillars are nearing the end of their metamorphosis.  (2 emerged from their chrysalises today!)  There are 6 more that I feel pretty good about.  There is 1 that never made a chrysalis...and then there's one that fell off of the lid early on and it laid in the bottom of the cup. Instructions on the website of the company said to use a plastic spoon to scoop it out of the cup / put on a paper towel.  

While I had it out of the habitat... I took some photos of the chrysalis.  It's quite beautiful (it has gold, browns,spiky things on top, etc.  Very interesting!!)

We also had a "nailed it" bake-off....inspired by the Netflix show that is a lot of fun to watch.  Todd was the judge (but honestly - it was very hard for him to pick a winner!) 

Isabella used her cake decorating kit that she received as a gift a couple of years ago.  She figured out how to use the nozzles in the piping bag all on her own. So impressive!





















Mercer wanted to do something with cotton candy.  (we learned that if you stick it on the cake... it absorbs the moisture and gets hard!)  It was so weird.  Also - in Mercer's defense... the cake totally fell apart when we took it out of the pan.

Isabella's inspiration was a flower cupcake that she saw... but she couldn't make the petals so she swirled icing on top.

Neither one looked like the original thought / image... but... they had fun making it... and eating it.

And - they each presented their confections to Todd when he came home at lunch.  













Here are the latest numbers....  :(

Here's a pretty picture of a pot of tulips Todd picked up at the grocery.