Chloe’s new food for Friday was homemade personal pizzas (she even made the dough from scratch, which was a bit of a mess, but she powered through). I love how she even made the pizza have a smiley face on them.

The other day, Maddie’s Kindergarten teacher sent us some pictures of their school day. I just love seeing her in the classroom and I thought you might enjoy seeing them too!

I’m pretty sure she is allowed to take off her mask for outdoor recess, but she likes wearing it to keep her face warm.

Chloe has recently decided that since her online school days are much shorter and easier, that she wants to try and make something every day she is home. Here are a few things she has made recently:

• Baking powder biscuits
• Gingerbread cake-in-a-mug
• Pancakes
• Brownies (from scratch)
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• And most recently, a banana cake (topped with leftover cream cheese frosting)

We forgot to take a picture of it before we cut into it….

I made a cake this past weekend in honor of Kailynn’s Birthday (which was back on March 1st). We enjoyed eating it when they came for piano lessons. (Delicious!)

She requested a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. And interestingly I have never made a carrot cake. Or at least it’s been long enough that I don’t remember making one (A.K.A. a LONG time).

I learned that grating baby carrots by hand is a ridiculous amount of work. I also learned that a cake with a high oil content tends to be more moist. And finally I learned that I like carrot cake and I’ll definitely make it again.

“Is it game night or candy night?”

This is a common supper time question. And the typical answer is…

“Well, is it cereal day or waffle day?”

Ha!

Confused yet?

Apparently in this house we have a lot of “days.” We like to make a routine of days so that we can keep track and limit different things. For example… Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, used to be Shower days, so that also became Waffle days for breakfast so they could keep track. We have since done away with shower day (since they are pretty much just showering every day now after exercising) but the Waffle day has stuck.

Curious about our overly complicated schedule of days? Here you go:

• Monday, Wednesday, Friday = Cereal Days
• Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday = Waffle Days
• Monday, Wednesday, Friday = Candy Night
• Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday = Church Days
• Tuesday, Thursday = Josiah game night
• Monday, Friday = Chloe game night
• Friday, Saturday = Jen comes over day

Then you add to that…

• Tuesday = Bible Study Day (me)
• Wednesday = Youth Group Day (Chloe)
• Every other day = online school day (Chloe)
• Fridays = Book Study Day (me)

Now, don’t get me wrong. I fully understand that this is WAY more complicated than it needs to be. 😉 But that’s just how we roll around here. We like our “days.”

And don’t even get me started on our reward system (tokens) for exercising for the big kids… that’s even more complicated. Ha!

Were you just itching to hear some piano music from some adorable children?

Yes?

Well, then you’ve come to the right place! I recorded Maddie and Josiah playing one of their songs during their piano lessons this past week just for posterity.

Enjoy!

It’s my favorite date! It’s the only day that’s an action: March 4th!

I know, insert eye roll here. 🙂 But I’m super cheezy like that.

Now excuse me while I go march boldly around the kitchen and embarrass my older children.

It’s finally warmed up enough where the sidewalks are pretty much melted off. So, I ventured out for some morning walks this past week after I walked J & M to the bus stop. It’s still a bit brisk, so a few layers are nice, but the sun is really starting to get warm, so as long as I stay in the sun it’s quite nice.

In other news: we just found out that Chloe will be returning to in-person school full time starting on April 13th. She is currently in-person, but in hybrid (so every other day is online). I’m hopeful that this will be the final transition that the kids have to make this year. It’s crazy how many changes they have made this year. But they are troopers and just roll with the punches!

And for a little humor, I thought you might enjoy this random video of Levi. He was just insistent that poking his eye would give him dreams. I found it hilarious.

Piano contest is online this year.

This means more work and less work all at the same time. And because of the “more work” part, we had to push preliminaries back by a week or two, making the contest finals also pushed back. That means that the days that the judges are working (online) will be later in March and then my busy time of getting all the results out will be even later in March.

All that said, it’s been unsettling for me to turn the calendar into March and not be crazy busy. I’ve been doing contest now for 13 years and this is the first March in all those years where I haven’t been busy getting ready. It feels weird.

Tim has already started working a little bit again–not working in the field just yet, but doing bids and follow up work. And if the weather is as nice as they expect for the next 10 days (staying in the mid 40’s) that should pretty much do away with all the snow we have left. (We’re all pretty excited to move onto Spring!)

Hello to a new, fresh look for Friesen Talk. I’m still in the process of tweaking how it looks, but the old theme is no longer compatible, so it’s out with the old in and in with the new!

I tend to just find something I like and then just leave it. For example: furniture. Once I have it set in a room, I don’t move it. I mean, really, why would I? I’ve taken time to find the best placement for that furniture so why would I need to change it? Ha! I know, I know, some of you love change and variety. And I know some of you change the placement of your furniture many times a year.

But not me.

When we move from this house (in a REALLY, REALLY long time from now) there will be incredibly massive furniture indents in the carpet from being in the same place.