She's Baaa-aack!

I drove to pick up Elsa from my mom and dad today. She was the first passenger in their new car, which was very exciting. She talked my ear off the entire drive back home, and didn't stop talking until after dinner. She sewed her own pillow and blanket (with help from grandma), baked three small loaves of banana bread for her and her brothers and a large loaf for me and Adam, made magnets, an Easter bunny, and paper Easter eggs. She took a long adventure walk with grandma to the woods, rode her scooter and watched a few movies with grandma and grandpa. She said she had the best time and had the best dream ever, where her hair turned unicorn rainbows. 

We thought all was well until I decided to try a new way to decorate Easter eggs. We put rice in a bag, added food coloring and then shook the egg in it. It worked just fine, but Elsa was extremely disappointed in the whole thing. She told me that I "ruined Easter". Then she started sobbing uncontrollably and stomped to her bedroom. 

Adam tried to talk to her and even tried to make her feel better by fixing Forky (the fork from Toy Story 4). Well, when he tried to glue on Forky's foot the other foot (made of popsicle sticks) fell off, too. More sobbing commenced and we gave up. I just sent Kale in to her bedroom to check on her. I'm going to guess that she worked so hard the last few days and was on her best behavior that she is simply exhausted.

Elsa will be heading back to St. Cloud on Sunday for a few more days of distanc learning with grandma and grandpa. She goes back to school on April 7th. Fingers crossed we can get through the last two months of school with no more quarantines!

Quarantine

Nolan was finally able to go back to school last Thursday. Unfortunately, Elsa is in quarantine again as of last Wednesday. I got a call from the school around 9:20, letting me know there was an exposure in Elsa's classroom and that I had to come pick up Elsa from school as soon as possible. (the whole class was sent home). Another switch to distance learning. Elsa was a little sad when I picked her up - I don't think she knew what was really going on. Her teacher did a great job of getting the students out the door with all their learning materials for the next two weeks. Thankfully it's a short week this week - only two days of school. We got Elsa tested for COVID on Saturday, and the results came back negative. Grandma Paula and Grandpa Tom are fully vaccinated, so they were happy to take Elsa for a few days this week to coordinate and help out with her distance learning. She was so excited to get her own "Grandma and Grandpa camp"! 

Something that caught me off guard was when Elsa logged in to her math google meets last Wednesday. Her teacher made a comment that she was so happy to be able to see the kids faces, after only seeing them in masks for the school year. The teacher even asked the kids to smile! It broke my heart a little bit to be reminded that the connection teachers crave (like as smile) have been missing this year. 

We had a fun weekend. I got to watch our niece Lalayna dance with her high school dance group on Friday night. It was a smaller crowd due to the socially distancing - we were all spaced out. It was a great show and Lalayna really shined up on the stage - even with a mask on the whole time! My mom and dad came down to celebrate Hattie, Lola and Nolan's birthdays. It was so good to see them and not have to mask up since they are fully vaccinated. Adam and I are fully vaccinated too, so I feel like we can see the light at the end of the COVID tunnel.  

Where do the years go?

And just like that, 6 years have flown by since my last entry in our blog. I've decided now is a good time to start again, on the day that Nolan turns 12! 

Nolan turns 12 today. He is an amazing kid and makes us proud. He is kind, thoughtful, funny and active. His favorite things are playing with the neighbor kids and playing on the Xbox. He does really well in school, despite the strange circumstances of the last COVID year. He's playing trumpet in the 6th grade band (interesting because they have to "mask up" the instruments) and did 3 months with the Marlins swim team at the Y. Even though he's growing up, he's still a kid at heart. 

Today Elsa and Adam painted the bench swing from Ellen and Greg's old house in Chaska. Adam got it hung up under the deck and it is perfect. Adam has a lot of memories of the swing, so we're excited to have it up and using it at our place.

The kids have really been enjoying looking through the five years of blog books we have printed out. While I'm not sure how often I'll do it, I plan to pick it up again and add a few thoughts a week to the blog.