Passing The Time

Here is a glimpse of our lives over the past several weeks.

David came home from town one day with new colorful face masks he had bought off the street.  The boys thought they were fun.  Cruz later made the comment "The thing I like most about face masks is that you do not have to smile for pictures."  I didn't know if I should laugh or be offended.  lol

We finished up our school year recently.  Before we did we had one last fun science lesson to complete.  It was on simple machines.  Here is Cruz testing the pulley system.  They spent hours building things and testing them.  I love them putting science to work.

Our last science project was to build a Rube Goldberg device.  They really loved this!

Good job boys!!  

I am missing science already.

On another day they built a fort in the front yard.  That kept them entertained for several days.  They took games and toys out there and would just spend hours playing. It was fun for them and a great break for me.

playing tic tac toe in their fort

Hooray for finishing the painting project!!!  David completed the hallway and now we are 100% done.  It took us 10 months to get it all completed but it looks great. 

I have been doing a lot of baking over the past several weeks.  I have made several loaves of banana bread and chocolate chip zucchini bread.  I freeze them and thaw them out as needed.  We should be well stocked for a while.

Someone (David) had tested this one before I could get a picture.

A friend had posted a recipe on Facebook for homemade granola.  I love granola so I decided to give the recipe a try.  I had never tried to make granola before so I only made a small batch the first time to make sure I would like it.  It was yummy!  I wish I had made more. In this batch I used oats, assorted nuts, raisins, and coconut.  I plan to try more flavors soon and maybe some granola bars too.

One of my favorite snacks is fruit, yogurt, and granola.

Cruz recently discovered the joy of dipping cookies in milk.  He said, "Why haven't I known about this before???"  Needless to say, it is a current favorite snack for him.

I have been doing a lot of cleaning out recently.  One of the things I went through was the boys costumes.  I washed them all and have since passed several on to a friend.  When I look at this picture it makes me happy and sad.  Happy because of all the fun memories of my boys wearing these (hours and hours and hours they spent in these costumes!).  Sad because that stage of life is quickly passing. 

One of my current favorite things that will come out of this quarantine time was being able to join a weekly podcast club called Don't Mom Alone.  It is a group of missionary moms who serve here.  They had been meeting in a home regularly but since the quarantine they moved their meetings to Zoom.  That gave me an opportunity to join them.  What a blessing that has been!  Each week we listen to a podcast and then "meet" on Tuesday nights to discuss it.  It is one of my favorite times of the week.  I always end the call feeling encouraged and refreshed. 

We have had a lot of family game nights recently.  This is our new favorite game to play.  The boys love it most because there is a slap card and when it is played you have to slap your hands down on it.  The hand on top gets a penalty.  It is a lot of fun!  Another game we are enjoying is Pictionary Jr.

On a recent night of playing Swap! the boys decided that the penalty should be to have to drink a tablespoon of pickle juice.  That made the game extra exciting.  Here is Ben after just swallowing his juice.  He is smiling but he did not like it.

I have the boys working on a Coronavirus Time Capsule.  This will hopefully be something they look back on one day and will help them remember this time.  I did not choose a specific one but chose pages from several ideas I found on-line and put my own booklet together.  If you have kids at home this would be a fun project to do. 

My boys are rough and rowdy but I love that they still like to crawl up in our laps.  When they get too big for this I am going to be very sad.

One recent morning they got up and decided to turn their bedroom into a store.  They laid several of their things out with price tags on them and then gave us Monopoly money to shop.  Nothing brings me more joy than to see them being creative.

I had to laugh when I saw the signs they had put outside their door.  You know you are living in a different time when they do this.  I did not have a mask on when I walked into their room.  I apologized to the "salesman" and he said "oh, don't worry.  I have some right here for sale."  He then attempted to sell me his.  lol  I have two little entrepreneurs on my hands.  Look out world!

While in town running an errand earlier this week David picked up this little pool for the boys.  It is small but has entertained them well.  They have burned a lot of energy jumping in and out of that thing.

Summer reading is off to a great start.  Here is the first book Ben completed.  I hope I can keep them reading all summer long.

Things took a turn for the worse Thursday night.  The President made a surprise announcement to completely shut the country down until Monday.  Because of our curfew it became effective immediately.  That gave no one any chance to get out and stock up on food and supplies.  It was like the rug being jerked out from under us.  He will allow the markets and grocery stores to open only on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week with limited hours. Then next Friday through Monday we are locked down again.  Supposedly, he did not give people time to prepare because he did not want them to overrun the stores.  Can you imagine what it is going to be like on Monday morning when 17.5 million people flood the streets looking for food??!! Our hearts are hurting for those in rural and isolated areas who are already limited because of no public transportation. Many were already going hungry because of the lack of work and now access to food is being limited.  Several of the feeding projects we were doing will now be delayed.  Please pray for the people of Guatemala.  I feel the worst is yet to come. 

Lastly, one more favorite thing of mine has been listing to this music over and over these past few months.  It has brought me great comfort and put my mind at ease.  I have played it in school, in the house, while I'm cooking, and while sitting out in the backyard. It helps take my mind off of the current situation and back on Christ.  If you need a little "pick me up" today, this just might help. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Philippians 4:8