The Pigeons Need to Stop

We've had pigeons roosting in our solar panels and it's not cool. They're really loud, and they need to find another place in which to sit. Nils bought an air rifle, which is a glorified BB gun, and that seems to have taken care of the problem for the moment. He's a real Utah boy now, with his air rifle and his truck. 

Target practice (and my finger). 

My good friend is a nurse, and has been trying to get us in to get our Covid vaccines when there are surpluses at the end of the day at the clinics. We were able to go last Friday and get our first dose. Yahoo! 

This was not target practice, but the little BB gun was not cutting it. 

Addie and Aani have been earning money by babysitting, giving violin lessons, and doing odd jobs for people in the neighborhood. They wanted to go shopping, and boy did they have a great time. They got some pretzel bites to refuel.

I don't know what exactly was happening with Ava's hair, but we felt like we should take a picture of it.

Someone mopped the kitchenette- probably Ava, since she's the only one that would leave a 'caution wet' sign.

Anders got his first college acceptance letter, but he refused to cooperate and let me take a picture of him with it. This is kind of how our lives are going right now with him. He's a real peach. We don't know what he's going to do or where he'll be once he graduates high school. Pray for us.

We had a bidet company sponsor a video, so we had to clear out our 'water closet' to make it look neat and tidy. We use our water closet as a medicine cabinet of sorts. 

Filming the installation of a toilet in a stranger's bathroom for aforementioned bidet sponsored video. YouTube life be glamorous. 

We got some home theater seating in exchange for a video. It's thousands of dollars worth of seating, so we'll probably end up selling it after we make the video. YouTube life=too much furniture.

We got a cargo thing for the Telluride. Road trippin' is happening a lot this year. Next up: Arizona. Next up after that: South Carolina. 

Anders got an answer to prom:

Sisterly bonding over a dust collection hose. Sometimes we have to make our fun, don't we? 

Happenings this month: Addie took a lifeguard certification class, passed, and now just needs to find a job as a lifeguard. :) She started drivers ed yesterday as well. She's just growing right up. She also teaches violin lessons to a cute girl in the 'hood. 

Aani has been babysitting and going to Carol's house to earn money. Carol lives in the neighborhood and is nice enough to find random things for Aani to do, like organizing, dusting, vacuuming, etc. Aani handed out fliers a couple of months ago, and Carol responded. 

Ava's friend drama came to a head, and resulted in a letter from said friend that ended with "we're either best friends or we're not- there is no middle", and we were all shocked by that. So... Ava chose "not best friends". These girl fights are brutal. 

Anders continues to confound us. 

Nils went on a starvation diet this month to lose weight. I love him, but he can be very extreme with these sorts of things and does things that I have no interest in doing. He's down 19 pounds. He plans to fully start pigging out tomorrow. 

I've been driving people places, making food, doing laundry, writing website articles, communicating with sponsors, helping film sometimes, taking Tylenol PM to get some sleep, trying to convince my son to go to college or make some sort of life plan, and toying with the idea of starting a gluten free food blog because we don't have enough going on. 

Shows Nils and I have been liking: 

The 'Long Way' series is one we've loved. Long Way Round, Long Way Down, Long Way Up. They're delightful. There is lots of swearing in the first one, a little less in the second, and none in the third. We prefer the no swearing, but they're really fun regardless. 

The Crown is amazing.

Life in Pieces is hilarious.

The Chosen is just wonderful and we can't wait for season 2 this Sunday! 

The Durrells in Corfu makes us pine for Greece. It's clever and full of wit. 

Doc Martin is an old favorite and still doesn't disappoint. 

World's Toughest Race is way better than you think it will be. 

There are probably more but I can't think of them. We'd love any suggestions as well. 

February, Oh My

I'm having the children and Nils give me a summary of the month in their own words, so this (Anders' in particular) may not make sense to people over the age of 20. 

Anders in his own words: February 🥴🙃been kinda nice wit it 🥶💯 it was chilly but fire 🔥😈 bananas were slayed 🍌😔 but the samurai lives on ⚔️wisdom teeth removed 🦷🚫 Valentine’s Day💕💘 New Phone 📱💦

Banana saga:

Addie in her own words: Uhhh this month was valentinesI got a couple pillows and a blanket. And I drew a lot. That's all bye

These are the pictures Addie sent me to include:

Crazy morning hair

Face swapping with creepy baby dolls. 

Smiling orange

Poster for health- they had to make up a syndrome.

Aani in her own words: Grades were hard this month. I missed school for a couple of doctor's appointments and orchestra festival. I redecorated my room and it's amaaaaaze. I dropped my phone in the toilet so it's non-functional.✨

She likes stealing people's phones and taking unattractive selfies on them. 

Shiplapping her room. 

Ava in her own words: Valentine's Day happened and I finished my giant Hershey's Kiss in two days. I got into tumbling.🤸🏻‍♂️I like my teacher and I enjoy tumbling because I like to flip around and do stuff like that. I got new glasses after breaking my old ones. 

Aani and Ava made Nils lunch

Nils in his own words: Continuing to enjoy acoustic guitar building, still thrilled to be doing my own thing, and the kids and I have rediscovered Mario Kart, so that's fun.

Katrina: We were really pathetic at taking pictures this month, so I had to ask the kids for submissions. It's been a pretty routine, busy month with work, shuttling kids around and life in general. I've been able to get together with some friends this month, which is always great for my general well-being. Work is quite busy, there's always tons to do, and many opportunities are presenting themselves. The trick is knowing which ones are worthwhile. 

Anders got his wisdom teeth out for FREE! I got him into a clinical research study, so they paid him to have it done. So nice! He's working at Chick-fil-A and Noodles, and is looking forward to graduating here in a couple months. Crazy stuff. Any time he needs to make an adult decision, he says, "But I'm just a kid." Anytime he wants to argue about rules, he says, "But I'm an adult." Super fun. 

Addie's swim season finished up, so she's needing to be driven around much less these days. She hangs out with her friends a lot, draws a lot, and has been reading the Stormlight Archive book series, which is like 30,000 pages long. 

Aani is doing well in school and orchestra, likes stealing people's phones and taking pictures of herself, likes hanging out with friends and her sisters, and drawing and watercoloring.

Ava likes school, has a little friend drama but is hanging in there. We got her back into tumbling and she'll start piano lessons this week. She's still crafty and cannot keep her room clean. 

Welp, thanks for reading! Feel free to head on over to lrn2diy.com and click on some ads. Thanks! :) 

Oh Hey There, Blog

Birthdays:

It's birthday month. Anders is 18, Addie 16, and I'm 43. It's cuckoo. Anders and Addie threw themselves parties. Love it. 

For my birthday, Nils and I left the kids and went to St. George on a whim. We looked at the temperature there and saw that it was going to be 63 degrees, so we left a half hour later. We've never left the kids alone, so it was pretty weird, but also fine because they're big and can handle themselves fairly well. We had a grand time. We were gone for 28 hours. We hiked 5 miles, (Red Mountain Trail), got some lunch and ice cream, and headed home.

I had a birthday luncheon with some friends in the neighborhood, and another good friend from our old neighborhood invited me to lunch a few days later. It was really nice, especially after so little in person socializing for the last year. I was able to get together with a couple of my childhood friends last week when one came into town. They came over here and we talked for hours and hours until 2:00 in the morning. So, 43 is the birthday to beat. 'Twas an epic birthday month indeed, and a great reminder that I'm hugely blessed by the people in my life. 

The YouTubes:

January-March are historically slow months for our YouTube channel. Dunno why, but it seems to be universal and nothing to panic over...except when revenue is cut in half from December and you wonder what in the world you're doing with your life. Now now, I know in my heart that everything is fine, but I do like to be melodramatic about it. Anyway, we've had lots of sponsorship opportunities to pursue this month. These are companies that want us to feature their product in a video. Usually they want us to do this for free, plus they send us their product. 

Welp, here is a good opportunity to determine your worth and put it out there. We will no longer do promos for free, cuz we gots a mortgage to pay and children to feed from this gig. I've gotten quite adept at naming a price that we feel is fair. I would say 75% of companies are not willing to pay that price, so we all move on with our lives. However, 25% will either agree to said price, or negotiate further. It's my favorite. We've gotten 9 sponsorships this month. Some are completed, some are in the pipeline and scheduled, and some are still in negotiations. This is the most we've ever had, so it's super exciting, and it helps offset the slower months. 

We feel like slapping ourselves every day, since we get to basically do whatever we want as a job without leaving the house, and we somehow earn money from it. Is this real life? I hope so. 

Nils is a Seeing Man:

Nils purchased a Groupon for Lasik/PRK in December. Why pay full price for someone to put lasers in your eyes, amiright? His surgery was on January 11. He had to have PRK due to thin corneas. It's been almost 3 weeks, and my baby can SEE! He can see, and he paid half the cost. This is a very Nils thing to do. Anyhoo, what a miracle laser eye surgery is. He's had bad vision his whole life, and can now see perfectly. Amazing. 

Photos in no particular order:

Sometime/someplace, Addie procured an inkwell unbeknownst to us, even though it's the 21st Century. A couple of days ago, she spilled said inkwell, so she's looking for a new home. She tried to clean it up with the carpet cleaner, but ended up just smearing it everywhere, so like I said, she's looking for a new home. 

I'm kidding about her looking for a new home, but this is just a great example of why we can't have nice things. We're slowly working on getting this horrific mess out with Oxiclean soaks, which take hours and hours each time. #blessed

Aani was eating her party pizza like a barn animal, so I had to document.

Just a picture of mah boo in Santo Jorge

Addie and Aani practicing backstroke on the rug

Birfday in St. George

Ava selfie

Addie's birthday party taco bar

Addie has a real passion/gift for taking the most unattractive pictures of herself as possible. She makes weird faces and laughs and laughs at the pictures. So, in case you're wondering, she is a smart, intelligent, cute girl, who tries as hard as she can to look like a weirdie in pictures. This was her opening her birthday presents. She was clearly very excited. 

Anders bought Pip a track suit and put some gold chains on her. When he dresses her up like this, she doesn't move. She just stands in one spot, and we laugh and laugh.

My adult son.

We played Jackbox TV games a couple of weeks ago, and Ava had us rolling with this one. Just had to document so we never forget. It was supposed to say "Wife Bag. When you Forget Your Wife."

We made a cairn on our hike in St. George. It looks much bigger than it really is. ;) 

Anders and his buddies are playing basketball again. Good times indeed. 

Best. Year. Ever. Just kidding.

Oh hey. What can we say about this year that hasn't already been said a million times? Nothing. It hasn't been too bad for us, other than not seeing friends and loved ones as much as we'd like. We've been healthy, the kids being able to go to school has been the best thing ever, and life generally feels normal. We're all used to wearing masks when we go places, which is the biggest change of all. Not too shabby.

Being self-employed is the best, and I say that with a heavy dose of cautious optimism. We're mostly having a great time coming up with ideas. It's a lot of work, but it's nice that it's ours. 

Nils has never gotten more sleep than he is getting right now, haha. He's always had so many things going on at once that he hasn't had time for sleep. I challenged him to work out 5 days a week for 4 weeks back in November, and he's still going strong. We often work out together, and it's just a barrel of laughs, jump squats, and sweating. 

We were recently called to teach youth Sunday school together. We teach the 14-17 year olds, and so far it's going fine. Teaching over Zoom is a little crappy, but the kids are mostly good. We're bribing them to participate with full size candy bars, so we'll see how long that lasts. 

Well, December starts out with Ava's birthday. She's 11?! Currently Ava loves watching YouTube, doing crafty stuff, reading graphic novels, and playing with friends. As the youngest of 4, she gets away with staying up late and being quite independent. A few weeks ago she asked for a haircut, and it didn't go great. I was tired and not concentrating hard enough, and end up cutting one side about an inch shorter than the other. This resulted in a much shorter cut than she bargained for, and I feel bad. It looks cute, but it's not what she wanted. Good thing hair grows back, and good thing MomSalon is free. Also, these pictures are pre-haircut. 

We had our first annual company Christmas party. We got food at Culver's and had a gingerbread house contest. 'Twas fun. Nils and Anders won the contest and got a $25 Amazon gift card. Next year we'll all have to be on our A games. 

Aani had a Christmas orchestra concert that we were actually allowed to attend. It was during the middle of the school day, which wasn't a problems because WE DON'T HAVE JOBS. 

Trying to figure out a thumbnail, and Anders interrupting. Thumbnails are life on YouTube. Also, the bangs are still not my favorite but there's nothing I can do about that, is there. 

I spent an entire Saturday making gingersnaps for the neighbors for Christmas. There were about 300 gingersnaps. I made a list of those I considered "gingersnap worthy" because I was feeling a little miserly after making that many cookies and not being able to eat any due to their glutenousness. Everyone loves these gingersnaps, I'm telling you. 

Christmas was a success! On Christmas Eve, we played bunco with my mom and niece, which was fun. We missed the normal big crazy party, but we had a good time. 

The kids were all happy with their spoils on Christmas, which I was honestly a little surprised by. I do 99% of the shopping (and 99% of that online), and they were all really pleased. Thanks, internet! We're definitely out of the toys phase in our house, so there are a lot more clothes involved. Addie got a record player, and a weighted blanket. Aani wanted clothes and makeup, so I threw in a Caboodle. Anders wanted Jazz merch, Stance socks, and a nice coat. Ava didn't tell me one single thing she wanted, so I had to guess. She got some books, Legos, a stop motion Lego movie making kit, snow boots, and some other stuff I don't remember. 

We drove a few miles away to see the Christmas star. It wasn't that exciting. The magnificent pictures that people were posting online are not the same as what we saw. That didn't stop Nils from fiddling with this crappy telescope for 45 minutes, though. The kids came because we promised them Wendy's. :) It got us out of the house and we got to spend some quality time together. 

Whelp, I think that's about it. Thanks, 2020, for being super weird. The year of meeting friends in parking lots to eat take out in camping chairs. The year of book club on Zoom. Church at home and all the screens in the house being used all the time. It is what it is! Go easy on us, 2021, we're a little crazed.