This week was “spring break” week, and so we spent a lot of time doing nothing! 🙂 Nothing is a word we just kind of throw around…, for example, Andrew: “Hi Honey, what have you been doing today?” Myself: “Oh, nothing much…”. When in fact I did a whole boat load of things! I digress! So in the midst of all our doing nothing, we played games, did some art, baked some muffins, played outside, etc.

We’ve been taking a lot of walks to the pond lately. The kids love throwing rocks in the water. I’ve never quite understood the fascination kids have with throwing objects in the water. However, they love it! David was super excited when he found this mussel shell by the pond! David and Emma know not to get to close to the edge of the pond. (I still keep a hawks eye on them though.) I walk behind Samuel hanging on to his coat hood or hand because I’m convinced he would step right off!

The kids watched Toy Story 4 the other night. They LOVE Forky, and how he is always trying to get in the trash! It’s pretty hilarious! 🙂 After watching it, I thought why don’t we make forky! So the next day the kids made “forky”. I didn’t have any sporks around so we used plastic spoons. The tricky part about making forky is getting his feet to stick to the spoon. I had the kids chew up some bubble gum! I know, it’s gross! It worked though! 🙂

We made a bead bowl this week. We had a bunch of loose beads just sitting in a bag, and I saw this project on pbs kids. It’s super easy, and they loved it. Preheat oven to 350. Using a glass oven safe bowl (spray with nonstick cooking spray), press the beads down so that they go up the sides of the bowl. Even them out. Put it in the oven for about fifteen minutes. When it cools, the beads come out in the shape of a bowl! Emma especially loved seeing what happened to her beads. 🙂

I saw on Facebook this week about people making beautiful artwork on their fences, (Apparently people are doing it on their windows too, but I didn’t see that till later) and so we did a little sidewalk art. It’s pretty cool looking! The kids loved coloring in the shapes, and then they turned it into some kind of make believe house. 🙂

I had some extra blueberries in the fridge that needed to be used, and so we made blueberry muffins this week. I used my favorite, To Die For Blueberry Muffins recipe! I had David read the recipe directions. It was a good lesson in understanding recipe shorthand and measurements! A cup vs a teaspoon, how many halves make a whole, etc. We may need to go over it a few more times! 🙂 Samuel wanted to participate too, so he had fun eating/making mess of the extra blueberries.

We have been cooking non-stop, three meals a day around here, as I’m sure a lot of you have too. I wanted to share this easy mini-meatball pasta bake recipe with you. We have half of it left over in our fridge for another meal this weekend! It is inspired by the Pioneer Woman recipe, but I made a couple simplifications. For the meatballs, I use Italian bread crumbs instead of the rolled oats. I don’t know why, I have always used bread crumbs or crumbled Ritz crackers when making meatballs, meatloaf, etc. Do what floats your boat! The BIG thing is that I cheated on the sauce, and used jarred spaghetti sauce instead. SHHHHH, DON’T TELL ANYONE! Actually, I have made the sauce like the recipe says before, and it’s really good that way too. I just didn’t feel like standing over the stove to make sauce. The kids loved it! Which is always a win when all of them like a recipe!

 

Here are some more pics of us doing nothing. 😉 I LOVE the picture of Andrew reading to Emma. That sweet little smile. We have Sorry! matches going on. Emma won today, so she is currently the champion. 🙂

Earlier this week David was able to zoom with his teacher and classmates. It was the sweetest thing! I loved his reaction to seeing his friends and his teacher. They are all so sweet!

We are greatly missing our family and friends! I’m soon going to forget how to have an adult conversation. There is this awkwardness to meeting friends on the street or passing by their house. You want to stop and talk to them, but at the same time you don’t know if you should, or if they even want you to! Am I the only one who is feeling like this? I’m an introvert as it is, and so I struggle under normal circumstances to talk to people. What are ya’ll doing to help with the social awkwardness? Perhaps it’s just me!

Get ready for cuteness overload!! I took this picture of Emma riding Samuel on the back of her tricycle! It’s the heart clincher of the week for me!

Love,

PK