More baking and Hello Fresh starts

The boys continued to be inspired by the Kids Baking Championship even though we have fully caught up on all seasons recorded.  The benefits to our taste buds continue as the boys want to try new things.  We also added Hello Fresh to our repertoire of baking for meals in the last few weeks.  The ingredients and the recipe come in a box and we prepare the meal by following the instructions.

Griffin helped make berry tarts.

Balsamic chicken meal by Garrett.

Proscuitto wrapped chicken by Bryce.

Pasta bolognese with Tuscan heat spice.

Quarantine happenings

Lounging with Kylo for some outside reading...finishing up Jekyll Island.

Making cupcake cones for a yummy treat.

Bryce considers eating the frosting straight.

Bryce makes some delicious burgers.

Just in case there was going to be a restart to the baseball season, Brett was catching bullpens for Garrett and Griffin in the backyard.

Our zoom home group on Fridays with Smiths and Kegleys.

Inspired artwork.

Piano lessons during the pandemic.

Bryce can't stand wearing a mask, but the cat one he will keep on for a little while.

Bryce puts some finishing touches on his cat game and tests it out with his brothers.

Griffin helps Joy make dinner.

Here is my presentation.

Roasted tomatoes anyone?

Pancakes anyone?  chocolate chip or apple?

Why are you taking our picture, we were both sleeping!

It's 9am...Qi'ra concedes it may be time to get up...Bryce not so much.

Playing the Cat Warrior Game created by Bryce.

Star Wars table battle with Mom's approval.

Joy and Sunita did not plan this, but they sure matched!

Post-Mother's Day Week

Baking different styles of donuts continued.

Brett began playing his old game Superstar Baseball as the start of MLB and the restart of the boys season is in peril.

Joy paints while Brett plays baseball, next to each other.

Cuddling on the couch...

Griffin needed a public venue to present his Jack and the Beanstalk presentation, so we created a socially distanced venue in our court.

Griffin's audience was so appreciative of the opportunity to see a live performance.

Mother's Day 2020

Mother's Day was a 2 day affair and why not.  Joy gets Saturday and then we honor our mothers on the Sunday.  A little harder this year with sheltering in place.  So we FaceTimed with Grandma and Zoomed with Grammy.  Brett made breakfast--scrambled eggs, apple pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and bacon (first time he ever made bacon).  That meant we watched second service of church since breakfast took longer than he anticipated (a little perspective, maybe).  We had BBQ chicken and grilled veggies on the Saturday evening with an outdoor meal.  Sunday evening we played foosball, ping pong, and corn hole after eating BBQ cheeseburgers and some chips outdoors.  What a beautiful day we were blessed with.

Breakfast meal in honor of Joy.

Dinner on Saturday--BBQ yumminess.

Some couple time while the boys were on a zoom birthday party.

Joy starts on her next painting project:  Elephants by the Lake, a tribute to Sri Lanka.

Cards made by her boys:  (L) Rey by Garrett, Cara Dune by Brett, Flowers by Griffin, and Eagle by Bryce (R).

Using your imagination, you could make out MOM in the spelling of the post-its by the boys.

Garrett's 15th Birthday

Garrett had his 15th birthday celebration at home with family as we continued to shelter in place for COVID.  There were rumors of the need to begin to look into driver's education and driver's training.  In the end, he preferred to figure out a way to get the boys and Dad to play the new game that he and Griffin bought "stock" in, called X-Wing Miniatures 2.0.  He selected the restaurant Habit Burger for us to get takeout from.  We played tennis, watched Spies in Disguise (which happened to feature the voices of SpiderMan and Director Krennic) and Iron Man 3.

Some Star Wars loot for his birthday and a long sleeve A's workout shirt for the now 90 degree weather!

Bryce's card for Garrett featured a red y-wing.  He also made him a treasure hunt on minecraft.

Griffin drew one of Garrett's favorite TIE fighters, the TIE Defender.

This was a rich cake...brownie layer followed by cookie dough and then repeat, 5 layers of extremely tasty goodness.

Joy worked on her cake masterpiece, while the boys set up for and played X-Wing 2.0.

Can you believe you are 15!  Some things we really appreciate about you.

Dad might be smiling right now, but Garrett took him to school in chess.

Breakfast of a 15 year old--yonut and eggs.

This game is going to take a while...first time playing the 2.0 version.

15 made out of little ships from Star Wars.