Fun With iMovie

The kids spent the afternoon yesterday learning how to use iMovie.  You know...with their whole YouTube millionaire plans, they are going to need to learn to edit videos.  Anyway, they ended up making some really cute trailers like this one that Colbie made about our trip to NYC in December....misspellings and all :)  I didn't help with the making of this at all....they have just figured out how to do this on the app all by themselves.

New one created by Addy:

Keeping Busy

Friday was a virtual spirit day for Colbie and Addy.  Kids were supposed to dress in their BA spirit gear and share a picture from home.

An old friend of mine owns a bakery in SF and is struggling right now as so many small businesses are.  A group of us here in our town decided to place orders for delivery this past weekend to support her  She is an amazing cake artist, but to adapt to the times, she has created the most adorable little kits for families to do together at home.   We opted for a make-your-own-cakepop kit, as well as some of her incredible cookie dough to bake at another time.   Well...I have never ever had success with making cakepops, and yet again, this time they did not come out as planned (although they did taste better than any I've ever tried to make)!  Oh well...we'll never improve without practice :)

The girls are also keeping busy with slime making too:

Haircuts, Reading & Tennis

Much of the same going on here these days.  We had a productive weekend of cleaning and organizing.  The kids stepped up and took care of all of the vacuuming, mopping and window washing on Sunday....and they LIKED it! 
Yesterday was back to "school".   With this sunny weather, we've been spending from noon on outside completing school, playing/exercising and relaxing.  Addy, Jake and I did our reading time on blankets with Coop.

 We've invented yet another new game for our backyard.  I strung up a bunch of jump ropes tied together across the lawn and we pulled out the tennis rackets.  We haven't named this game yet but it's a cross between badminton, tennis and volleyball as we try to rally a beach ball across the "net".

 I gave the girl's haircuts on Sunday too...both were itching for a shorter do.

And how cute is this message from Jake's school teachers??  Just love them all!

Happy Birthday Hassan!

Today we wish Hassan a very, very Happy Birthday from California!!!  We miss you!

 

Why Not?

For Jake's "required" 45 minutes of reading time yesterday, he set himself up outside.   Why not?  Title of choice at the moment: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Our New Normal?

We sewed some new masks yesterday afternoon (we owe a HUGE thank you to Kim Ward for the elastic that she sent us!!!), as a new mandate goes into effect this morning requiring all to wear a mask over their face to visit any store, but also for long walks, biking, scooting, running, etc.   Technically this order is optional for kids, but why would parents protect themselves and not their children??  We gave it a try for our scooter ride yesterday and man did it feel weird.

 The kids spent the entire afternoon yesterday building cardboard houses in our backyard.   We've had quite a pileup of boxes and I knew that they would come in handy somehow.
This was FOUR hours of outside playtime = engineering/makerspace/art class for the day :)

One Epic and Very Memorable Birthday!

Wow, what an epic birthday it was yesterday for Addy and Colbie!   Even though we are sheltered in place, we managed to "see" more friends and family than ever in one day.  These girls certainly felt the love from literally all over the world, and it was a wonderful (and exhausting) day!

The girls asked to have a sleep over in Jake's room the night before their big day as they wanted to wake up with him on their birthday morning (so sweet).  I spent the evening blowing up balloons, wrapping gifts, and then the girls begged me to actually hide their gifts around the house too.   The hiding method was a fun way to wake up, as it gave them something exciting to do first thing in the morning (and it also didn't make it so obvious that we purchased many less gifts this year).   Normally they tend to wait until the afternoon to open gifts, but yesterday they opened everything right up after we had their requested pancake bar breakfast.

 (I had no idea that these Happy Birthday balloons were included in a random bag of balloons I had purchased months ago from Amazon, but they turned out to be a perfect addition for the day!)

Their top gift choice this year was a computer (which we did not get as the lower cost Chromebooks seem to be sold out everywhere) or to start a YouTube channel.   Now I have no idea how to edit videos nor how to manage a YouTube channel, but I figured getting them a small handheld video camera would be a good option to let them think that they can give that a try.  In reality, the camera will be used to help document this shelter-in-place experience from the kid's perspective which I think will be an invaluable piece of our family history.  To again have a bit of fun and to make this "big gift" seem extra special, I wrapped it up in six different size Amazon boxes, so the girls had to keep unwrapping and unwrapping until they got to their gift...it was pretty funny!

 (this is them whining Mommmmmmmm....where is it??????????????????? LOL)

After presents we jumped on Zoom for a quick birthday call into Erica, Hassan, Bina and Leilah in Morocco.  Erica of course had made a beautiful birthday sign and little Bina had a birthday crown on for the girls.   Afterwards was the Fredrikson family weekly call where the girls received many birthday wishes from all over the Untied States, as did their cousin Haley and Hassan whose birthdays are this week (Happy early birthday Hassan!!!). 

  For their birthday "party" this year we had a Zoom call with some of their best buddies.  We decided to deliver these cute cookie decorating kits to their friends and then have them all decorate together over zoom while catching up.  We delivered them all with gloves on, in bubble wrap so that there was no possible germ sharing in the boxes.   Many of their friends made signs or decorated sidewalks for them to see when they delivered the cookies.  Many actually left gifts outside their doors too, which was just incredibly special and sweet for the girls to feel the love from their friends. 

 (just look at all of the gifts from their friends...we are so appreciative of this wonderful community!)

 (thanks to Granddaddy for the idea to move an old TV in and hook it up to my computer.  The girls could see everyone's faces so much better on the TV during their party this way!)

And the day continued with even MORE....

After the birthday zoom party, both sets of grandparents arrived to delivered birthday wishes and gifts for the girls.   It was certainly strange standing around in our front yard and sidewalk celebrating this year, but so wonderful to see them all in person   A month ago I had thrown a pinata in my Target cart in case we needed one for an afternoon activity or something.  But it turned out to be a perfect activity to do in the front yard with the grandparents watching to make it feel a bit more like a "normal" birthday.   We can't thank you enough grandparents for driving down to quickly celebrate A & C from a distance!

For dinner the girls requested sushi, so we ordered our second take out meal since sheltering-in-place from our local Japanese restaurant.  We happened to have a scheduled virtual dinner with some dear friends, so actually we ate birthday dinner with them virtually!

As we've been baking so much while at home, the girls chose to get their favorite ice cream cake from good old Baskin & Robins this year for their birthday cake.   We're going to be eating it for days, but boy was it yummy!!   We got to eat our cake while talking to Lindsay and Duke too!

What an epic birthday it was!!  The girls certainly felt the love and excitement from all on this very special and unique 8th birthday!