40 and Fabulous!

I had a wonderful 40th birthday!  My kids and husband made me feel so special.  My in-laws sent me flowers.  Then first thing in the morning my friend Becky stopped by and left some black flowers on my porch.  After that Peggy came by with a gift (along with dead flowers), then every so often throughout the day I had various friends stop by with silly gifts very appropriate for the aging community.  I finally found out that Peggy contacted my friends and arranged it to make my day special.  It was so nice to see all of the friends that took time out of their day to swing by and drop something off at my house.  I was so touched.  

Amy sent me a plant subscription, which was super exciting.

Colleen made me the most beautiful cookies! 

A beautiful necklace from my mother.....

Some of the friends that stopped by included Danielle Cline, Becky Farrell, Jessie Wolfe, Erica Crumrin, Sarah Thompson, and Jamie Schnieder.  

Evangeline made me the most beautiful and delicious cake.  It was a double layer cake with homemade buttercream frosting.  Best cake I ever ate! 

I planted some outdoor pots and did some painting.  Kyle got takeout for dinner from my favorite sushi restaurant.  It was an absolutely lovely day.  I feel so blessed to be alive.  Life gets better with age and I'm the happiest I've ever been.  

Under the Most Lovely Tree

These two can really drive me nuts, but there wasn't anyone I'd rather be socially distant with.  

A Lifeline to Sanity

In addition to the days that are nice and we can be outside, I'm thankful for Kaiden living down the street.  A few weeks into isolation we started to let the kids ride bikes together if they could remain separated, over time the bike rides turned to trips into the woods and then just playing outside together doing whatever they like to do in the back yard.  Both our kids and Kaiden were doing nothing and going no where, so we decided to let them play.  It was a real bright spot for Evangeline.  She needed someone to play with and socialize with during this time.  She always likes to be where ever I am and it was so good for her to have someone else getting her out to play and ride bikes.  

Catching salamanders....

There beach....

Lots of water in the boots....

A Strange Easter

A sweet little picture by Evangeline....

I could not get our traditional PAAS Easter Egg dying kit this year on our Walmart pick up.  They substituted with a strange kind of kit that required rice, which ironically is impossible to get at the grocery store right now.  We made the most of it though and used the little bit of liquid dye that came with the kit mixed with a little water and it did the job fine.  Luckily for us, our friend raises chickens and supplies us with our eggs, so even though there was a major egg shortage at the store, we were still able to get them.  

I was preparing remote learning activities for my school kids at this time so when I was going through my Easter school file I made a few copies of some Easter crafts my kids could do to pass the time.  They painted butterflies and assembled Easter bunnies.  They worked so hard on these projects.  They were so excited for Easter morning the following day....

Easter morning was special despite the fact that so much was different.  We woke up to the Easter bunny's surprises.  We ate homemade cinnamon rolls and watched church on an internet live stream. 

I love their little faces when their checking out their loot....

Searching for eggs....

Jed was being a real stinker about being too cold for the Sunday morning picture...this year in new jammies from the Easter Bunny and not in church clothes.  

Our neighbor, Alice, brought us these....

Playing with toys from the Easter Bunny....

Even though everyone was completely freaked at this point in time, my mom had to drop by to deliver Easter treats to the grandkids....masked and 6 feet apart, of course.....