Quarantine Birthday

I'm the birthday girl today, and it really was a great day. I loved having a quarantine birthday! Usually I don't do much, but it was great because my kids aren't doing much - like they didn't have school or excuses like they have in all the years past, so I was able to get a mother's dream come true with them doing lots of cleaning! Yee-haw! The first thing I saw was a note on my flip-flops -

at the bottom of the stairs: "Here are your flip flops to start off your morning. Happy Birthday!"

..then I went to make oatmeal in a clean kitchen! With a few homemade gifts waiting for me (which I opened later)

The little girls stayed up last night cleaning. We told them to go to bed at 11pm last night, but I could hear them moving chairs and stools around down there and making noise so I knew they were up to something.

Such good kids. And just in case I was wondering "Lily and Abi helped the most" with cleaning.

Then I went on my morning walk. The pink flowers down the street are starting to bloom!

Then we had our family devotional. Last night I said for my birthday I wanted everyone to come, so Joseph helped Ethan get out of bed and join us today! Wow!

That was the south couch above, then HM and J on the east loveseat

And a few more early risers on the north. Doesn't everyone just look so happy to be awake at such an early hour!

But we all got to work and it was a great day. Corey had the kids clean the garage today and Joseph led the charge.

The house was pretty clean today and it was a beehive of activity.

Corey got me flowers. I also got flowers from two of my Relief Society presidency friends, and my ministering sisters, and some from a neighbor, making in total 5 bouquets of flowers!

My main birthday present to myself is getting family pictures taken on Thursday! I also got a card and cash from Corey's parents and my mom. My mom brought over a birthday cake, creamies and some vegan ice cream.

The last "it's my birthday" request I had today was to go on an outing to sleep hollow. In my minds eye, we were going to recreate our family hikes there in July 2017.

It didn't work for several reasons, but the three big ones were 1) there wasn't any water in the little stream, and 2) there were lots of piles of horse poop on the trail (I guess with quarantine, the horse owners are taking their horses out on the trail more - Owen accidentally stepped in a fresh one) and 3) Owen had a bathroom emergency of his own (#2) which we couldn't help him with, so he messed his pants and it got all down his pant legs and into his shoe. That last one cut the outing short, but before that happened, we made it to the dry creek and were enjoying a picnic dinner.

Pb and J sandwhiches, chips, and clementines.

Peter had fallen asleep on the short drive over, and stayed alseep during the hike down. He woke up for the picnic.

O smelled really back, so I said "Ok, that's good enough. I guess we can't make magic moments happen. This was still fun, but let's go home." I put O in a big plastic bag so he wouldn't get #2 all over the car, and we made it home safe. Then I carried him up into the tub and started laundry again. I did several loads today because Daniel peed on the floor twice and Peter also had a #2 explosion. Side note - from the House video, you'll see that Daniel has continued to have lots of accidents. He claims that he can't pull his pants and underwear down. As I cleaned it up today, I vented my frustrations and told my 3 year old, that if he had to pee his pants, if he could do it on the bathroom tile instead of the carpet that would be better... "don't pee on the carpet" He asked to clarify "I can pee on the bathroom floor?" No, pee in the toilet, but if you have an emergency, atleast stand on the tile. So then today Mel ran into the bathroom and stepped right in a puddle of pee and she was grossed out and so were all of us. I cleaned it up and we told Daniel again to NOT pee on the floor - "Just pee in the potty, you're a big boy, you can do it!" So there were lots of messes and laundry today, lots of baths, and other cleaning today, too. Overall it was a great birthday and I loved having everyone quarantined here with me and all the thoughtful and helpful things they did for and with me today. It was a very good  and Happy Birthday!