The Magformers have been useful toys during quarantine. Lydia and Derek are frequently using them to build jails to imprison the "bad guys" (usually Little People or Lego figures).
Lydia doing P.E. for distance learning:
Karina doing art for distance learning:
Lydia's latest fascination is space. She has decided that when she grows up, she wants to be a space scientist for six months of the year, and an astronaut the other six months of the year. So part of the year she can study space and the other part she can visit it. She got this cool project that is essentially cross stitch with beads that stick on to the background with the pattern outlining which color beads go where. Presented with all the options, she decided she wanted a nebula. Tanja wound up doing the majority of it, but Lydia did help. It is now hanging in her room helping her learn more about space.
Lydia's teacher wanted an end of year picture of all the students in her class. Lydia did a great job sitting for this photo.
I finally got Derek and Lydia to help me brush the leaves and other debris from the trees in our backyard off the trampoline.
Derek is obsessed with pirates. Every morning for a week or so, he had to have someone help him make a pirate bracelet with a skull and crossbones. He then donned his pirate hat and cape. He has now moved on to drawing pictures of pirates every day and teaching others how to do it too. He is also quick to point out that he is a "nice pirate."
Karina is a great big sister and has been a big help playing with her siblings. I think she enjoys being silly too.
Lydia turned 7 and had a good birthday with lots of space-themed presents.
She has been reading her space book everyday and is impressive with all the details she knows and reports on. For example, she'll tell us that Jupiter's core is as hot as the sun's surface or that Saturn's gravity is about the same as that of Earth despite it being so much larger.
Instead of cake, she decided she wanted yummy birthday brownies. The kids enjoyed licking the batter clean.
Derek managed to get a fair bit in his mouth, but left a lot on the rest of his face.
Here's our sweet seven-year-old Lydia!
For her birthday, she wanted to take a nice walk to the neighborhood park where there is bridge over a small creek that is fun to go and play at. The kids managed to find some tiny fish or tadpoles or something in a deeper section of the creek.
Lydia sat glued in this position for well over an hour, catching the little fish in her hands.
Playing with Play Doh.
After a week or so of practicing riding bikes for at least 10 minutes a day, both girls are now proficient bike riders. Karina in particular has really taken to riding, so since she was too big for all the older bikes we have in the garage, it was time for her to get a new one. There is a bike shortage across the country (and possibly worldwide) as people are stuck with coronavirus stay at home orders and looking for other things to do, so it took us a long time to find a store that had a bike she liked in stock (we also were searching for used bikes), but we finally found this one. She didn't like the orange GT on the frame, but fortunately we have duct tape that is close to the right color that covered it up. She now rides her bike around the neighborhood for around an hour every day. During our daily walk, she rides around the path we take a few times. Lydia is a good bike rider too and has started riding her bike on our walk as well.
A few weeks ago, we found this black snake in our yard just off the front porch. We're pretty sure it is at least four feet long.
Then earlier this week, I happened to open the door and noticed birds squawking at a snake that was climbing its way up a tree in our front yard. I rushed inside to grab the camera and when I came back out, I noticed the snake moving along the branches of the tree to get to the roof of our covered porch entry. It then worked its way into our gutter!
I watched it go to the end of the gutter and then disappear. I can only assume it went into the down spout, but when I climbed up on a ladder to look in and bang around, I couldn't see anything and couldn't get it to slither down the spout. I even sprayed water into the gutter with the hose hoping to flush it out to no avail. As long as it isn't trying to come into the house, or messing around our foundation or anything, I assume there's nothing to really worry about with the snake, but it is kind of creepy.
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