Spring Break, Covid, Easter and more

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....

Axel is a teenager!!!!

On March 18th, it was finally time to donate my hair. Keith really wanted me to take a before and after photo, so here they are. 

Axel had a school dance, for the second time, that same night. Here he is looking very handsome. 

On Saturday, he had an escape room birthday party and made his own birthday cake. 

Rubix received a corn hole game for his birthday and loves to play it. Here he is on one of his hundreds of throws. 

After the Escape room they hung out at a Boba Tea place for some snacks and birthday cake. 

Happy birthday Axel!!!

Axel "blowing out" the candles Covid style with his arm. 

Phoenix was at a friend's house and Rubix and I met Axel after the escape room. Here Rubix is enjoying a bento box. 

Here, the parents have started to arrive for pick up. 

I was able to go through some of the photos posted on the Harker website and found this one of Rubix on St. Patrick's day. He is wearing the jersey that Keith purchased in Ireland. It was a big hit!

I also found this photo of him during math lab where they children build 3 dimensional structures with gummies and tooth picks. 

I also found this picture of him playing table tennis with Walker, before swim practice. 

Rubix was student of the week, just before Spring break. Phoenix loved helping get his poster ready. 

Axel on March 31st! The first time he was at school for his birthday since he started at Harker. Historically, his birthday always fell during Spring break and then there was the pandemic. Harker moved Spring break by a week, so he actually got to have free dress on his special day.

The birthday boy ordered yummy croissants for his birthday breakfast and spinach ravioli for dinner. 

It is hard to believe that he is a teenager. He is such a wonderful child with so many great things to offer. He is sweet, patient and kind. He is funny, loving and caring. He is such a wonderful big brother to his siblings. 

I couldn't be more proud of him. His teachers adore him and he is starting to learn who he is and what makes him happy.

I am not sure if I mentioned last time, but he placed in one of his math competitions called BAMO (Bay area math olympiad) and had the proof of the question that he received a perfect on, printed on the back of a t-shirt. 

Axel has been running track and continuing with the swim team. He qualified to run the 800 and the 1200 in the track meet on May 6th and 7th. His best time for the 800 is a 2 min 50 sec and his PR for the 1200 is 4 min 24 sec. 

I love this picture of him laughing at the five he received from GG Eick. I told him, he will never be too old to be loved by his family. Thank you GG Eick!

We had our first BBQ with our good old friends. Denny, Tick, KP and Dai came for a ride up Montebello and lunch/dinner. It was a joyous day of reconnecting. 

We also went to Marshall Lane for the first time in a long time. We thought it was hysterical that Axel is tall enough to stand and "do" the monkey bars. 

To give you an idea of how big the kids are getting, here is a fun picture of Axel at 5 foot 2.5 inches and Phoenix at 4 feet 9inches. 

 

Rubix turns 6!

 It is hard to believe that the little guy is 6 years old today. I am still getting over not having little children and am wrapping my head around being a parent of a teenager in a couple of weeks. Speaking of Axel, he lovingly sewed this soccer ball for Rubix on Sunday. It is perfect because he can now kick the "ball" with less chances of breaking something in the house. Axel will be celebrating his birthday this Saturday at an Escape room with his friends. He is having it early because of Spring Break and a swim meet next weekend. 

These picture are in reverse order and I am just too lazy to adjust them. Here is the little guy eating his birthday cake tonight. He requested blue frosting, so I whipped some up to put on our plan chocolate vegan cake that was left over from the party. 

"Mommy, can I take it off and eat it now?"

Just about ready to sing happy birthday. We were waiting for Auntie Shannon to call so we could all sign together. He is wearing new pjs that Gma Susan sent. 

Yummy calzones for dinner. Mommy stayed home from work just to prepare his favorite foods today.

The birthday boy in free dress ready for school!

The birthday boy devouring his chocolate chip oatmeal pancakes. He is wearing the same shirt he wore for his party. We had to convince him to change to his new soccer shirt that Auntie Sent. 

I am 6 years old today. Aren't I handsome!

This was Sunday late afternoon after his party. He opened one of his gifts and was building it. Of course, Axel and Phoenix wanted to help out. He had to write a thank you card for every present he opened. He only managed to open two of the gifts he received. He has 3 more presents to go. I love how he wants to play with or build what he receives before opening a new present. Much different than most kids who want to open them all and then decide which one to play with first. 

Here he is opening his first present!

The birthday party we held for him on Sunday was really special. It was almost like pre-Covid times. We had 6 friends and their families over for a birthday party in the park. We had a jump house and soccer balls for the kids to play and take home. It was amazing to see parents and children without masks socializing like the good old times. His friends were Mikhael, Noah, Arick, Rubix, Yash, Reese and Weston (from left to right). 

Arick may join Rubix's swim team for the summer. He came to his swim practice tonight to check it out. It will be so much fun if he joins. Mikhael is going to Challenger summer school with Rubix and we also found out that Arick may go too. Rubix is going to have a blast being around his friends more often. 

Phoenix was such a great little host. She made an obstacle course for the kiddos. She also got towels for the ground next to the jump house so the kids could place their shoes on them and walk on the towel to spare the socks from getting wet. Here Rubix is going through the course that she set up. 

Phoenix played with her classmate Brayden, who is Weston's older brother. 

It was fun to see her play, play, play non stop with Brayden. Besides the obstacle course, they played soccer and basketball too. 

Rubix with his first guests in the jump house!

Happy birthday Rubix!

I am having so much fun!

It was truly a special day. The only difference was we only had snacks and cake because I wasn't sure how people would feel about food. I had individually wrapped food, which seemed to be a success and people seemed to feel comfortable. 

We made a pumpkin cake and chocolate vegan cake to make sure we had enough to serve the 20 plus guests. Axel had a blast decorating it for Rubix. Keith was a little jealous as he loves doing this, but he was glad to see Axel enjoy taking over this duty. It was truly a special day celebrating Rubix's birth.