All of the kids came down with a cold the week of Axel's birthday, which was the week before Spring break. All of them had negative PCR and rapid antigen tests. We laid low most of the week, since Keith and I were working and the kids were recovering. Here is Rubix playing with another one of his presents that he received for his birthday.
Rubix and Phoenix decided to tackle a 1000 piece puzzle and Axel decided to tackle a 2000 piece puzzle over Spring break. I came home to find the house like this.
I took off Monday of Spring break, since Phoenix has an appointment to extract 4 teeth. Here she is smiling showing the big gap in her top teeth on either side.
Phoenix continues to love art and does a ton of art work. Here is one piece where she copied the printed side to finish Abraham's face. I was impressed with her attention to detail.
Thursday after work I rushed to get the kids to the doctor. Rubix had his 6 year old check up and Phoenix had a check up to make sure that she is continuing to grow normally since she started puberty last summer. Both kids are at the 95th percentile in height. Rubix is 48.75 inches tall and Phoenix is 4 feet 9.5 inches. Rubix weighs a few ounces shy of 50 lbs (70th percentile) and Phoenix 65 lbs (48th percentile)
Phoenix was able to have an all day playdate with her friend Angela on Friday of Spring break since I was off of work. They had such a blast spending the day together.
Although Axel said he did not want help, on Friday Axel decided he needed help in order to finish during "Spring break" which was his goal. The two worked beautifully together to get finish it over the weekend.
Phoenix and Rubix finished their 1000 piece puzzle by Thursday which resulted in several other puzzles being completed as well. Nearly all of our family room was covered in puzzles. It was a fun week for sure!
The week after Spring break was a week full of Easter fun. One event was the Spring hat parade and Easter egg hunt. Here is Rubix with his Spring hat, done and ready to go to school.
Here he is on Thursday, ready for the big parade. He looks so handsome and "Springy".
Although, we could not be there in person, I was lucky enough to see him live on Vimeo. The reason why I was so lucky is that I had a New patient no show, so I felt so lucky to be able to watch him while I was suppose to be working. I happened to be working from home, doing video visits, so it was really easy to have my personal computer up at the same time as my work computer and work ipad.
It is a little funny taking pictures of the video, but it is what it is.
Rubix was so fast at collecting his 7 eggs, I wasn't able to see him do the egg hunt, but I was able to see him going through his eggs.
After school I was able to capture him in his hat and handsome clothes!
Rubix is now addicted to puzzles. It took all of my effort to get him to agree to put away the puzzles and just do one at a time going forward.
Keith started going back to work at the beginning of April. His first week back consisted of meeting with people from all over the world. His work does not require masks, but does have a policy that requires masks for groups larger than 20. Unfortunately, most of the people who flew in, did not abide by this policy. On April 13th, a week after his first week at work( two days of meetings in person) he came down with what he thought were allergies. On Saturday the 16th, he took a Covid test which came out positive.
Keith signed the kids up for an Easter egg hunt at the swim club. The kids were really disappointed that I said we couldn't go, but somehow, I ended up taking Phoenix and Rubix anyway, because we were all negative. The hunt was planned to be outside and I told the kiddos they had to have their masks on.
Well, it rained that morning and so the club moved the egg hunt indoors! Now I was in a real predicament.
They had 3 separate hunts for different age groups. As you can see it was complete ciaos.
It luckily, was only a few minutes long and we went outside again. The kids had a blast, and I do not think we exposed anyone, since we were negative.
Axel decided to make a cake for Easter. I notified Shannon that Keith had Covid. To my surprise, she still wanted the 4 of us to come.
Keith decided to help clean the house by vacuuming for the first time in 10 years! He was having fun dancing at the same time.
The kids on Easter morning with their Easter baskets.
Rubix received a whole punch, which he was super excited about, Phoenix a small stapler, and Axel a lemon zester, since he thinks our current one doesn't work well enough.
The kids enjoyed french toast and then we headed to Auntie's house.
The kids had such a blast together. Aya, turned 5 years old the day before and her party was cancelled because of the rain. It was nice for her to be able to play with her cousins.
The girls having fun!
Happy 5th birthday Aya bear!
Egg hunt time!
Phoenix made a white elephant game with a bunch of flower drawings. Everyone had so much fun playing!
The boys!
Aya!
Happy birthday Aya!
The Jolleys!
Gma Susan cracking up at her Easter jokes!
Cousin love!
On Tuesday, Rubix tested postive for Covid. I was at work but worked from home the rest of the week. He worked on a new 1000 piece puzzle.
We also had a couple of hours or more of school work to get through each day. He is smiling here, but some of it was not as fun.
Rubix absolutely refuses to write! He always says that he can't think of anything. I do hope that this will get easier. We have been trying to get him to write in a journal to get use to thinking of ideas and creating sentences, but that has not been very successful. We will see what happens in the coming months!
Excitingly, we saw another duck family walking in our neighborhood. This was a great teaching lesson to the kiddos that parents do not always know all of the answers and that that most parent are just trying to do their best. Even in nature, the kiddos follow their parents who are lovingly doing their best to lead the way to water.
In the fall we planted an Iris garden my patient gave me. They are now starting to bloom. They are quite beautiful. This same patient just gave us 7 tomato plants, so we will have a wonderful tomato garden this year.
Here is Phoenix for Earth day. I love how she wants to wear my clothes. She looks like such an 80s girl!
On Saturday Phoenix and Rubix had 10 and under champs. Phoenix received 5th place and improved her time by a second and a half. She has a great swim after coming off of a cold for 2 weeks and a hurt shoulder. We were very proud of her.
Rubix competed in his 4 events. He had a great 25 fly and improved his time by over a second. He received a first place.
He received 1st in the 100 free and 2nd in the 50 free. Unfortunately, he was DQ'd in the 50 fly for some unknown reason with his start, but we were happy that he was able to compete and feel good.
I found out on Saturday that my PCR test came back positive for Covid, so now I am off of work and working from home this week as well. We finished his 1000 piece puzzle of New England with the help of Keith and I this weekend.
Rubix is back to school today. We were very pleased that the nurse accepted this result as a negative. He has to wear his mask all week and eat away from his friends, but we are so happy that he will be able to be in school and participate in his school play. He is the owl in Swamped and missed all last week of rehearsals. Tomorrow is dress rehearsal and Thursday is the big performance. We are still testing Axel and Phoenix and are hoping that they will escape getting it, but only time will tell.
We are hoping Axel will be able to participate in his track meet and Phoenix is gearing up for her big dance performance. I am afraid that we are sprinting to the finish of the school year. There is so much happening with the kids and Keith's and my schedule in the next month or two that I will probably not get to another blog until school is out in 5 weeks, but we will see. Until then....
