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Howdy, 2021!

Posted By sarahdarr On In Uncategorized | No Comments

Weekly Happenings: Well, 2020 got one more punch in: we should have been in California this past week, but due to the…current health situation (read: the COVID-19 pandemic), we decided to postpone our trip until the situation is better (which should hopefully be soon, now that the vaccine is rolling out). It was a hard decision, but we know it was the right one. We tried to make this week fun in spite of everything. We had a movie day where we had special movie candy and watched a couple of movies. We went to the zoo. We (well, three of us) watched fireworks on New Year’s Eve (Abigail was asleep…she slept through it all). We packed up Christmas, and welcome this new year with hopes and prayers that it will hold health and happiness for all!

The Weekly Weather: It’s been rather varied. It started out on the warm-ish side (getting well into the 70s), but Thursday was rather cold and rainy (with a high in the 40s) and it’s been rather cold since then. It’s due to warm up again, though. It just goes back and forth.

What Paul’s Been Up To: He still took this past week off, since he’d already asked for it and it was really nice having him home. He was a huge help getting all the outside decorations taken down and packed away. He is currently taking the neighborhood decorations down and then he’ll get them out to the storage unit so that they’ll be ready for next year.

What Sarah’s Been Up To: Nothing too out of the ordinary…I haven’t had students during the break, so my afternoons have been more open, which was nice. I’m looking forward to seeing them again, though. They’re fun to teach.

What Joseph’s Been Up To: He’s been staying up late and sleeping in…in-between all of that has been playing with Christmas presents, reading new books, and playing in the back yard when the weather agrees.

What Abigail’s Been Up To: Thanks to her birthday and Christmas being three days apart, she has a lot of new toys to play with and new books to look at. She’s also really enjoyed having Joseph and Paul around (they’re usually at school and work).

This Week in Pictures:

[1]
We missed going to church on the Sunday before Christmas, so we got the kids dressed up in their “Christmas church clothes” the next Sunday instead.
[2]
It’s rare that I can see both of them sitting still at the same time, facing the camera, so I had to take a picture.
[3]
Eating popcorn and checking out the jaguar.
[4]
He was rather regal.
[5]
It was hard convincing Abigail that the birds did not want her to throw popcorn in for them to eat. We had just talked about how if she accidentally dropped popcorn on the ground, she oughtn’t pick it up and eat it; she should leave it for the birds to eat. It’s hard to tell the difference between birds in an animal exhibit and the more common birds that fly all around us, I suppose.
[6]
Typical family selfie from the zoo in 2020: Mom and Dad have masks on, Joseph has his temporarily pulled down so that he can munch on popcorn, and Abigail doesn’t have hers on at all. The zoo recommends masks for anyone 10+ (and requires them for any of the indoor areas or animal encounters), but understands if little ones won’t keep masks on.
[7]
Showing me the kangaroos.
[8]
Reading more from my complete set of Calvin and Hobbes.
[9]
I mentioned to Paul that this drawer was driving me crazy a bit because there were some things that hadn’t fit in the more traditional silverware organizer that I had in there before (namely the dessert spoons, the straws, and Abigail’s little spoons and forks). He went on Amazon and found this one that fits the drawer perfectly and has room for everything. The soup spoons and regular spoons are doubled up right now, but after Abigail outgrows her smaller spoons, I can just move the smaller spoons into that spot.
[10]
Pool noodle battle! Abigail asked Paul for a shield, so he made one out of cardboard for her. Joseph has a nice wooden one (that isn’t in these pictures), but we didn’t want to give Abigail a wood one quite yet (she hasn’t really learned constraint and we’re afraid she’ll damage something…or someone).
[11]
I love the Happy Meal box helmet. She’d take a swing and it would slip down and she’d go, “Wait…wait!” while she adjusted her helmet. Her foe was quite willing to pause for her. 😉
[12]
She’s commandeered my Winnie the Pooh.
[13]
The quote for my board for January. It isn’t often that I have enough letters to actually credit who said it, but it worked out this time.
[14]
Abigail got this book for Christmas and she loves it. It’s about a little monster that eats books and inadvertently eats his way through a few different fairy tales. It’s interactive (asks the reader to do a few things) and really cute. It even has holes in the pages where the monster has “nibbled” through to escape.
Joseph reading to Abigail. I love this so much!
[15]
I switched out my red and white napkins for my regular grey and white one. I love how fresh it looks!
[16]
I love the overall look with my table and chairs!
[17]
They were playing hide and seek…she really thought she’d picked a gem of a hiding spot. 😂

Bonus Video: At midnight on New Year’s Eve, we stepped out onto our driveway and I recorded a bit of “the show”. It was about 35 degrees but it felt quite a bit colder ( I think my weather app said that it felt like it was 28 degrees), so we didn’t last very long outside.