Pictures from This Week

We tried out the stained glass chalk drawings last Saturday.  That took up about 10 minutes :)

Rylan had a Zoom birthday sing-a-long for one of his classmates. 

On Sunday, Carter's homeroom teacher (Ms. Guerre) delivered a yard sign for him!  The 5th grade party committee sold t-shirts to the 5th graders earlier in the school year, and we used the profits from this to buy the signs (usually that money would help pay for their two parties, graduation ceremony, and keepsakes).  All the 5th grade teachers delivered the signs to their students over the weekend (while social distancing, of course).

On Tuesday we went hiking with Jen's family on some trails behind her parents neighborhood of Westhaven.  I had no idea there were trails back there but they are pretty nice and there are several miles.

Afterwards the boys and I participated in another birthday parade.  This one was combined for 2 kids that live across the street from one another and we were actually invited by both families.  Davis is one of Rylan's friends and Tori was in Carter's class this year. This time we added a mustache to the front of the car, Gray dressed up as a gangster banana, and we blared Peanut Butter Jelly Time out of the car. 

Our container garden is doing well.  We had a really bad late frost a few weeks back and had to replace the tomato plants and 2 pepper plants (we had covered them but it wasn't enough).

One of the tomato plants has flowers.

As does one of the pepper plants.

And we have a few more strawberries getting red.

Two of Rylan's friends had a distance laser tag birthday party on Tuesday night.  Davis and Ryan have the same birthday (but Davis is one year older).  They invited 4 friends (including Rylan) and played laser tag in the dark.

Rylan looks like quite the ninja!

We haven't been going on quite as many evening walks lately since we go hiking more often but we still do some.

We met Jen's family for hiking at Radnor Lake on Thursday.  We did the main loop around the lake again, but now all the trees have their leaves so it looked really different than a few weeks ago.

We roasted hot dogs for dinner on Thursday night.  It's been hard getting used to cooking at home all the time.  We are usually constantly on the go and eat out or eat something simple like sandwiches most nights.  Our meals are somewhat limited too because I've been trying to make stuff that everyone will eat.  Which can be hard with our picky eaters.

Bananas

We've been trying to be creative with the birthday parades we've been invited to.  On Tuesday we pulled out the banana costumes and some "bling" Carter used when he was a rapper squirrel in a school performance.

Rylan wore the costume at home (not for the parade).  We blasted "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" and had a dance party.

Gray even ate his lunch in his costume :)

Pictures from This Week

This week our school did a Virtual Derby.  The regular Derby is a huge fundraiser for the school and was supposed to be the Friday before Spring Break (the 6th day of school that was canceled because of Covid-19).  The PE coaches encouraged the students to run as many 0.16 mile laps as possible in 30 minutes (which is what we do at school for the Derby).  There was no fundraising this year - it was just a way to encourage the kids to be active!

Rylan completed 19 laps (about 3 miles).

Carter completed 18 laps (about 2.9 miles).

We participated in our first birthday parade on Wednesday.

Tennessee State Parks opened last Friday.  On Thursday we went to Old Stone Fort State Park in Manchester with Jen's family.  It was much more empty than the local parks we've been going to.  The Duck River and especially the Little Duck River were flowing and made the waterfalls pretty.

We stopped at this spot on the Little Duck and the kids played in the water for awhile.

As usual, we found a snake!  Carter actually found it when he stepped on it's head (hopefully he's okay)!  It's just a small watersnake but it still scared Carter!

Our first fruit/vegetable was ready from our container garden!

Yesterday I was cleaning up the playhouse and decided to knock down the house finch nest because it was covered in tons and tons of poop.  When I went to collect the nest from the ground, I found this on one of rocks!

It was hard to tell for sure, but I think they were more house finch eggs! 

Pictures from This Week

Our baby house finches left on Monday.  I got this picture of two of them on Sunday.

Carter and Rylan are still doing school almost every weekday (we do take an occasional day off).  Most of what they are doing is just review since when school stopped, they were both starting to move toward preparing for the end-of-year standardized tests.  I want them to get something out of this time being at home so we decided to work on typing.  It will save them both so much time if they can type their writings properly instead of using the one finger method.  So far they are both doing well!

On Tuesday we walked the Anderson Road Fitness Trail on Percy Priest Lake (state parks finally opened again yesterday but we'd been struggling to find new places to go).  This ended up being a great little walk and the kids loved playing at the lake's edge.  The wind was intense that day and created some descent waves.

Jen and her kids and dogs joined us that day.

Our youngest ...

For awhile we walked along the rocky shore instead of the paved trail.

The kids got creative and made this "sculpture".  There were a ton of Corona bottle caps around so they used them to decorate it and said it was a memorial to all those who have died from "Corona".

On Wednesday we walked the Brentwood Greenway and played in the Little Harpeth.

We did the same thing yesterday with our "quarantine friends" but did a different section.  We even found two snakes (this one is a water snake).  We always find snakes with Jen's family lately!

There were two baby horses at Ravenwood Farm!

It was rainy Thursday and a shipment arrived that day so Carter and Rylan did this to their hair!!!

Haircuts

I ordered scissors a couple of weeks ago and finally got them.  Today was haircut day for Carter and Rylan!  I think I did okay considering it was the first time I've ever cut their hair!  Both seem to like how it turned out.  I barely nicked the edge of Rylan's ear with the clippers when I didn't have a guard on them and he will NOT let anyone forget it!

And I only cut my finger about five times!