Recent baking

Seems that a lot of people have been baking during this pandemic.  Well, we still continue to buy frozen chocolate croissants from the store.  These particular ones have to be taken out to rest overnight.  It's been so warm these last few days... look how huge the croissants got by morning! 20 minutes in the oven and TA DA!!! No mess, no fuss :-D

And yes, they are as yummy as the look! Graham and Charlie can definitely vouch for that!

And with this heat, "Pancake" is also very happy.  Just look at how tall and fluffy he got!  Yes, I named my sourdough starter "Pancake" and yes, it is a "he" :-)

Not sure how happy Pancake will be this coming week when I "feed" him as I am running out of regular unbleached flour.  We have tried multiple times at different supermarkets to find flour and still nothing so far.  Bobby did venture out into a different supermarket that we have never been to before and found some whole wheat flour.  Flour no less!!!  Let's see how Pancake feels about that and also the boys when I do bake with this:

I did make some little granola cups - granola minus the chopped walnuts.  Graham doesn't like nuts so I always have to skip those:

They sure look better than they taste!  I think it really needed those nuts.  The granola cups were more chewy than crunchy.  I did dress it up a little bit with yogurt and berries, hence the cup shape:

Graham wasn't too keen after his first one.  Charlie started to lose interest after his 2nd cup.  And I even tried to make them funnier looking!

Well, these cups weren't going to get wasted so into my belly it went.  Ha ha!

Not sure what's next on the baking schedule.  I still have plenty of oats left, so maybe some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  I'm sure the boys will like that!  Who doesn't like chocolate??! :-)

Photos for Yearbook

Graham and Charlie, as with the entire school, has been assigned with contributing photos to their school's Yearbook.  So what else is better than trying to take them jumping on the trampoline!

At first, we tried to take photos of both of them together:

The un-synchronized bouncing is not helping!

Then, we went to just taking individual photos.  Charlie wanted to be captured while during a front flip.  This one actually came out pretty well!  He made sure he was looking at the camera while during the flip.  I would have sprained my neck.  Ha ha!

Graham was trying to do something else.  It would have been great if I could try and actually get his head in the photo :-)

After a few more attempts... we got it!

Ahhh... the boys are growing up so fast!  Charlie will be turning 8 this end of July:

And Graham will be turning double-digit 10 years old in 3 weeks!!!

We have his birthday presents already secretly stashed in the garage.  I wasn't sure how long it would take for the delivery.  So at least we have that settled for now.

It's still amazes me what we are going through right now.  Last weekend, certain areas had reopened their beaches and obviously it was packed with people!  I would still be so concerned about being around/near others at this critical time of the virus. It is said that the people were still social distancing at the beach... but with that many people??! It's hard to believe NOT to catch anything!  And some people are still protesting in other areas to lift the ban on business closures - all the time while being armed with their weapon(s) of choice.  YIKES!!!  What is this world coming to? Anyway, just a few thoughts.  Hope you all are staying safe and healthy!

New Ikea closet

Here we go again!... another Ikea project.  I think this one might be my last.  Okay, never say never but at this point, I don't think we can fit anymore furniture anywhere in this house!

This closet had 2 long heavy boxes and I managed to open both of them up in our small bedroom.  And yes, this piece of furniture is going to be in our bedroom... somewhere:

I'm glad we didn't break any pieces of wood while trying to step around the bedroom:

What could possibly go wrong with these 2 monkeys??!

Phew... halfway there!

Somehow my "crew" have abandoned me.  What are they doing???

Looks like Graham and Charlie are more interested in the packaging and have made themselves a couple of shields.  What could possibly go wrong now!??  Although I was really concerned about them using up my duct tape.  Ha ha! Talk about how priorities have changed these days since I haven't had a chance to go to any home improvement store since the Safer at Home order!

Well, if anything else, the little closet is now done!  Perhaps it was easier without the boys. Ha ha!

This closet is a lot heavier than I had expected.  I was hoping to actually put it ON TOP of our dresser.  That might not be such a great idea now.  And obviously I don't want to find out IF the dresser can actually hold its weight!
I did eventually find a spot, which was basically next to my dresser.  And right now, it is a good spot for all my sewing stuff.  I'm sure soon enough it will fill up once I actually bother dressing up to go out.  It's just been leggings and shirt every day!
Although compared to Graham and Charlie, if they didn't have any video conferencing with their class, they would both be in their underwear all day long!  Especially today with the heatwave going through - it is currently 90F on the boys' side of the house!!!

New coffee table

I've been wanting a new coffee table of some sort for the boys' side of the room.  We have an oval Ikea one which seems to want to come apart everything I try and lift it.  And it's also taking up a lot of valuable space.

Well, as usual, I am constantly on this one particular App for the neighborhood.  I did find another Ikea table and the lady was willing to sell it for cheaper. So... Road Trip!!!

The minute we got into the minivan, Charlie said that he almost forgot how to buckle himself in. Ha ha!  And then, there was this part of the street that was so empty!  It was so strange:

We went to Manhattan Beach to pick up the table.  The lady loaded it into the trunk for me and that was easy enough.  Not too much small talk.  We did see lots of people at the nearby park and could also see that someone was having a birthday party.  I was totally baffled! What happened to social distancing??!

Well, 30 minutes there and another 30 minutes back to the house.  It felt so much like a road trip and I decided to stop at McDonalds to get a soft-serve cone. $15 later... the boys ended up with a soft-serve ice cream cone AND a Happy Meal each.  How did that happen??!

This new coffee table is already clearing up one and a half shelves of my shelving unit!

Works well as a foot rest too.  Look how big Charlie's feet are!  And his knees are so black and bruised from all his recent falls:

I haven't figured out what to do with the other oval table yet so now the boys have 2 coffee tables and the room is even tighter than what it was.  Great planning, eh??!

I think by the time I actually figure all this out, we will end up just moving somewhere else.  So maybe I won't rush into getting too much done :-)

Graham lost a tooth!

This was totally unexpected!  At least to all of us, maybe not Graham.  Ha ha! Maybe he knew he had a loose tooth but never did convey that to any of us.  Almost reminds me when of he was a kid... how he didn't really moan about any pain and the tooth/teeth would just plop off. Glad that is still the case!

Here is it! Upper left canine:

Wow, I have a lot of lines on the palm of my hands!  Ha ha!

Okay, just looked it up online and looks like Graham is just on schedule!  We were all concerned that it was his adult tooth.  Based on the internet (who else these days!), a child will lose their canine teeth at 9-11 years old.

And guess what, the tooth fairy didn't forget!  Well, "she" sort of did but "he" reminded "her", if you know what I mean.  Ha ha!

Graham got $2 from the Tooth Fairy.  What's the going rate these days anyway?  Bobby said that the Tooth Fairy was very stingy.  And wow... this word "stingy" and the bee being "stingy" has the same spelling!!!  How is that possible? It doesn't even have the same sound.  Stingy (i.e. reluctant to part with money) should be spelled like "stingee" or something like that.  Like you know, the Bee Gees?Okay, that's my 2-cents' worth :-)

Wait... now I am wondering if a bee can actually be "stingy"???!

Recent happenings

Graham and Charlie have been wanting to sleep in our bedroom.  I have been quite against it but Bobby would then say "They won't be in our room forever."  Sure, uh huh... anyway, I have limited it to one boy once a week.  Well, last week Graham had a turn on Friday.  Not only if he take up some of my space by the time I walked into the bedroom but his stuffed animal has also taken up my pillow??!  Ha!

I'm making sourdough pancakes about once a day.  Bobby thinks I'm overdoing it.  I think "Pancake" is perhaps trying to tell me something?  This one looks like a person with a large forehead and a pointy nose!

I am definitely getting good at making these pancakes now.  The last 2 batches were nice and crunchy and fluffy! :-)

Although, I am down to 1/2 bag of flour left!  A friend ordered some flour online.  Hopefully she will be getting some during her curbside pickup on Thursday.  Although I started a virtual shopping cart too and will be picking up some groceries on the curb this Saturday (it takes a week to fulfill these orders!).  Hopefully we will get some flour either way!

Somehow our fancy hose erupted when I was trying to water the grass in the front yard.  The entire one side of my pants was completely soaked from the release of all the water under pressure! And the neighbor across the street was watering the front yard too and asked me if I was okay as he heard me let out a big "Ahhh!!!".  Too funny!

We have been doing quite a bit of take-out.  The last one was from one of our favorite restaurants that lasted 2 dinners and a lunch.  I guess that's a good bargain!  And look at the size of this pizza.  YIKES!  Definitely got our monies worth out of this pizza but then again, I think this one from the pizzeria down the street is a bit expensive.  Maybe not as good when it came to value per meal but this pizza lasted 1 dinner and 1 lunch for all four of us:

I've been going out and buying some more things through a local App.  Bobby is wondering what's next or actually I think he said "No more." I can't remember which one he said now :-P

Anyway, Graham needed the next violin size up and I found this online.  The A string is broken so I will need to try and put that back on.  Hopefully it won't be too difficult.  The video on the internet didn't make it look so difficult.  It has less parts that a ceiling fan, right?  I mean, c'mon... how technical can it really be??!

The lady that sold this to me said that she had bought it from a professional violin player in LA.  When I asked when that was, she said maybe about 15 years ago??!  The pegs were a bit stiff. Might have to look up online and see what I can do about that. Maybe some WD-40??! Or duct tape?  Ha ha!

Okay, actually it wasn't too far off.  Just saw a video on fixing tight violin pegs and the lady in the video used soap!  Looks like I have my work cut out for me here as I have to take all the pegs and strings off to do this.  Stay tuned to a future posting then.  I've already put in an order for a new set of violin strings :-D

And I am trying to grow some more vegetables.  None of our salad/veggies have sprouted yet.  I put a celery root in some water thinking it might sprout out some roots, but it's actually growing! Woah!

Maybe I should just keep this on the kitchen counter and see how far it goes? I still don't see any roots!  Maybe time to look this up on the internet.  Gosh, what would be do without the internet.

Seems that homeschooling is a bit more lenient this week.  Might be time to try and clean up the garage a bit this week/weekend.  Actually, I have yet to put up that IKEA shelf/closet that I had purchased a month ago.  If only there was another Spring Break coming up.  If anything, I have been able to sleep in just a few extra minutes because Charlie's video conferencing with his teacher have been moved from 9am to 10:30am.  I'll take any extra sleep I can! :-)

Artwork

I was going through some old stuff from Charlie's 1st Grade.  Was trying to clear up some things so I can use one of his folders to put his current paperwork.  I came across some cute drawings and writing, like this one:

I thought it was funny how he wrote "bob" for Bobby instead of "daddy" (on the left) and then, on the right he has "g" for Graham and a backward "c" for Charlie.

And then, this drawing was at the back of a menu from an Italian restaurant, which I believe we only went to once.  The restaurant is next door to their old Chinese school and we went there for a meal once when Bobby was available.  How cute is this drawing!

And then, I'm not sure when he did this but I think he was trying to attempt a 3-D picture.  And he has (or had) an actual Lightning McQueen race-car that he could try and copy from:

And somehow in the pile was also Graham's Behavior Chart when he was in 2nd Grade (2 years ago) at his previous school.  YIKES!!! It says something along the lines of... "Graham had a rough day today..."

 

I'm so glad we swapped school as he is making progress on listening and actually doing work in class.  Although I sort of like the idea of homeschooling for him because I can make sure he is actually doing all the work that he needs to!  No escaping the grasps of the Dragon Mom.  Muuahahaha...!!!  :-P

Here are a couple of Graham's recent projects.  For his Creativity project, he needed to come up with a picture of a random tree. Well, this tree is pretty random being in the middle of the road!

And then, something about a big fish eating a boat???  Not exactly sure what the story line is but I thought Graham did an excellent job here:

And there was an art project that was optional, that was assigned last week.  We decided to do it together at the end of the day on Friday.  Charlie somehow as able to finish his really quickly and then all of the sudden, my "classroom" was deserted.  What just happened??!

Well, here's to another week of Homeschooling!!!

Fun in the sun

It was so warm yesterday that I decided to bring out the Slip-n-slide for the boys.  It's crazy to think that 73F is warm but this sun is quite something here!

Graham's got it down:

But when Charlie got done, he had so many red marks around his knees, feet, and side of his body.  And you wonder why??!

Glad no one broke any bones!  But glad we were able to break up the day a bit with something different:

Waiting for the next warm day... and I'm sure it will come soon enough.  We are already turning up our fans in our bedrooms :-\

Week 5 of Safer at Home order

I can't believe we have been homeschooling for 5 weeks now.  Is there any light at the end of this tunnel???  Well, there is a Charlie at the end of this rock tunnel.   "Build a Rock Wall" was part of his school project this week:

My project on the other hand was trimming the roses.  "Let's DO this!" as the bucket says:

It must be the way I pruned these roses during the dormant period.  The new shoots are just shooting everywhere!!!

Hopefully I was able to take off all the damaged leaves (from black fungi) and the rose bushes won't die! I definitely trimmed off a lot and also sprayed some fungicide.  Let's see how it all goes:

Week 5 and we have busted out the practice putting mat.  Gosh, I am really rusty!

And look what we bought a couple of days ago... a Ukelele! Ha ha! 

So far I'm learning 3 to 4 different chords and trying to sing "You are My Sunshine" and "Lava".  Strumming is still tricky and so, singing AND strumming is even trickier!  Trying to get Graham and Charlie to sing along and maybe learn a few chords too. We'll see how that goes :-)

And oh, this photo of the yogurt is courtesy of Bobby.  He had to prove a point that I left it out instead of putting it back in the fridge.  If it's any consolation, at least I closed the lid. Ha!

Wonder what Week 6 is going to bring us??!  We were close to getting a free turtle a few weeks ago but someone had snagged it first.  Stay posted!!! :-D