Adventures in La La Land

Well let's see what I can come up with this week. I have three things jotted down. We'll see if I can stretch that to seven . . . 1. Justin's grandpa passed away Sunday evening. All four of his boys were able to say good-bye, and Grandma was with him when he passed. It's sad for those of us left behind, but as Justin said, "he's not in a wheelchair anymore! He has full mind capacity. He's not in pain or confused anymore." We're thankful for the promise of eternal life.  Father's Day 2016 Sadly, Sunday was also Justin's birthday. I lost our second baby on that day 9 years ago, so it's becoming somewhat tainted with death. 😢  2. We managed a little bit of celebration for Justin. We had lunch with my family and a joint celebration for Justin/Lena. Then, while the kids and I stayed to play cards and hang out, Justin went ice fishing for hours - his favorite. 😁 We intend to go out to celebrate at some point, but wanted to wait for restaura...

Oops. Looks like I have two weeks to catch up on again!  1. My mom signed up for Discovery Plus and lent me her login, so we've been binging on all the best HGTV shows lately - Design Star, Good Bones, Rehab Addict, Magnolia Table, Property Brothers, etc. In the same week, Niki signed up for PureFlix and let me have that login as well. I love being able to tell the girls, "You can watch whatever you want on this streaming service." Lucy loves all those sappy movies that make me want to claw my eyes out. Lol. I also enjoyed introducing Levi to Veggie Tales (the old school ones - not the fake new Netflix version!) and 3-2-1 Penguins. Sharing passwords is the best! 😁 (I pay for my own Disney+ and Hulu. I'm not a total freeloader!!) 2. I'm still chugging along on my college classes. They're pretty easy so far. The professor uploads an introductory video (that I watch in 1.75x speed because she's talks soooo slowly and says "um" 600,000 times - yay, ...

My sweet Lena is 8 today.  This girl has so much personality. She astounds me with her creativity every day. Her favorite phrase is, "I have an idea!" She loves making things, creating games, and planning events. She thinks every holiday should be celebrated to the max, complete with decorations and parties and gifts. I think her love language is gifts because she's always making something for someone. (Although I also think her love language is quality time and physical touch. Haha.) She's my game player, wants to play every game ever, and is tenacious about figuring things out until she can do them well. 2020 was a hard year for her anxiety-wise, but when she's not anxious, she is the sweetest, most empathetic, loving kid. When she can tell that I'm having a bad day with Lucy, she goes out of her way to tell me how much she loves me. When she notices that I'm overwhelmed with the housework, she'll quietly clean the bathroom or pick up the living room...

I figured I might be in trouble if I skipped two weeks in a row, so I'm going to try to crank this out before midnight. No guarantees. 1. In homage to a pathetic year, we had a pathetic New Year's Eve celebration. We always send our kids to my parents' and have a party with our small group on New Year's Eve - at least we have for the past 13ish years. But it wasn't in the cards for us this year, so we stayed home and treated it like pretty much any other night. Justin watched TV downstairs. I watched TV upstairs. Levi went to bed at his normal time. The girls played in their rooms until 11:45, then we all converged in the living room to watch the ball drop and toast to the new year with sparkling grape juice. 2. I started my college classes on Monday! I'm only taking two classes, but I've never done online learning so I had no clue what to expect. I couldn't even access the course information until Monday at noon because the school is in Washington, so t...