Hamilton Newsletter
FAMILY: April was a continuation of March… no real school, no church, social distancing, etc. etc. April was a test of our fortitude with respect to distractions and contention. It’s been a battle every day to focus on our schoolwork and our chores and be kind to each other. Thankfully, we survived April! We still don’t know what the summer will bring, but we have hopes of getting outside more, seeing our friends more, and our stress going WAY down with no homework. April 1st started out with Kezia’s classic April fools’ pranks - including “spilled” milk in the hallway (paper), googly eyes on all our pictures, worried eggs, and “bad” milk, to name a few :) It was all in good fun. General Conference was very different this year. They held it in a small room. The speakers were very good, though - and youth even spoke! It was really neat. Noelle turned 6 this month! Yay! See her section for more details. Easter was low-key, of course, but nice. We still got all dressed up in our new dresses and shoes and took pictures. We still dyed eggs, got Easter baskets, and went on an Easter egg hunt. It was all a lot of fun, but mostly we were thankful to talk about, sing about, and pray in deep gratitude for the Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. His Resurrection means the world to our family and we are so thankful for the knowledge that we will get to all be resurrected and be together as an eternal family! Mom was excited to F I N A L L Y get the area over the fireplace done. After measuring, cutting, staining, screwing, more measuring, and more screwing, we finally have a nice wall with a picture of the center of our home and family - Jesus Christ. We love it and it’s fun to have a change of scenery! :) We had even more change of scenery the 2nd week in april. We debated & debated, but we’re glad we took the time and money to go through with the spring break airbnb cabin that we rented up Cedar Canyon. It was snowy/muddy up there, but we still had a great time sledding, going on mountain walks, roasting s’mores in their indoor stove, stargazing, doing puzzles, LOTS of games, and partaking of their Disney plus and Netflix subscriptions. It was a great, memorable time. Something that made it especially memorable was a little furry fellow that kept mom and dad up till the wee hours of the morning the first couple nights. Mom thought for sure it was mice, but when she contacted the owner, she found out that it was a squirrel! Sure enough, we set the trap & caught us a squirrel! It was pretty cute, but since it was not a fun night-time pal, we drove it far away and let it go :) One thing that has taken a lot of time this month has been working in our yard and our basement. In the yard, we took out the garden boxes and hope to put in a bigger garden. Mom has been battling weed, too, and trying to clean up the little rocks outside. Downstairs, we took out all of Ireland’s things in her makeshift room and moved them to the main downstairs family room. Then we took down most of the sheetrock and a concrete cutter came and cut into the foundation so we could get to the sewer line. We are excited to hopefully make some good progress in the downstairs and yard in the coming months! We’ve already started summer with some taste-it-Tuesdays :) Homemade doughnuts, poptarts and fruit pizza!
Miracles!: I hope to keep this miracle section in all our newsletters. One of the things we were talking about in our Come Follow Me this month was King Benjamin and how he spoke about the records and writing down our blessings. It was a miracle and blessing that Jeff’s friend, Jason, was willing to do our plumbing downstairs. He is a commercial plumber and initially said he wouldn’t have the time, but he has made the time and is wanting to do it free of charge. He also was able to save us lots of money with the concrete cutting. SO thankful!
JASON : A lot has changed with Jason’s job this month. First off, he is home most of the time, working from home. Before, he would still go in once or twice a week. Now, they are discouraging even that. He set up a temporary table in the bedroom, but it’s not easy keeping all the kids out. Second, the FLT approved the change for him to take over budget now that Wendy is leaving. That would make him a GS-12, but with a LOT more work than he’s currently doing and one more employee. Needless to say, he has been very busy. Even though he’s home, he’s not really “home.” He’s also really worked hard downstairs and outside. His hair has continued to grow! He can put it in a ponytail & now no one can tell in Oaklyn’s drawings which one is mommy & which one is daddy :)
HEIDI: Heidi has struggled with trying to juggle the wishes of 17 teachers. She has tried to help but often feels pulled in so many directions that her sanity is often hanging by a thread, she also feels completely inadequate most of the time with their assignments and projects. Jason has helped, too, and of course does a lot with math. She has enjoyed reading some of McKinley’s short stories and discussing them with her. One of the stories was one she remembered from middle school. Heidi has started trail running again and that has been wonderful. She’s also trying to get some strength training in with the gym closed. She is getting behind in all her computer projects because she has to wait a turn on the computer till all the girls are done with school and sometimes that’s not till very late. One thing she’s been helping with, though, has been with Grandma’s basement apartment. Ivory moved out and Heidi was recruited to find someone. It’s been a bit of an evolving process with Grandma’s health and we’re working on finding someone really good for her.
McKINLEY: -McKinley was SO sad when she found out they wouldn’t be returning to school this year. It was her last year of middle school and she sure misses her friends.
-McKinley has been overwhelmed and severely behind on a couple classes and while part of it is the new environment she’s in, there’s more going on and we’re trying to take some steps to help her and set her up for success in high school!
-McKinley still tries to stay connected with her friends, especially Micaela and Karmiyah.
-McKinley said she was “too old” for the Easter egg hunt this year and was so sweet to help out Oaklyn.
-McKinley’s favorite part of spring break was watching the movies on Netflix and Disney plus. She also stayed up WAY too late reading Unbroken, the book she got for Easter.
IRELAND:
-One of Ireland’s favorite sayings this month - “Broham!” - apparently as a greeting.
-Ireland has been texting more this month! Mom, sisters, aunts, and grandma’s! Mom has gotten lots of comments on how they love that she’s staying in touch.
-Ireland still struggles a lot with distractions. It’s hard to be on a screen for school and not want to check youtube and do some google hangouts.
-Ireland made fried orange chicken one Friday that was really yummy! Like Panda!
-Ireland’s allergies flared up in April and she was MISERABLE. Sneezing and sneezing, and itchy eyes. When she was good about taking Allegra, it was manageable, but she wasn’t happy. It’s the first time she has really struggled with allergies :(
-Ireland got chalk for Easter and made a cool dog drawing!
-Ireland has learned how to make mug cakes this month and she has made MANY chocolate mug cakes in the microwave!
-Ireland has been really good about working on gymnastics, even though the gym is closed. She’s been really consistent with her splits and is SO CLOSE to getting them down on her left side! Way to go Ireland!
-Ireland wasn’t super excited about having to lose her room and move in to the downstairs area. But she has been a good sport about it and is really excited about the prospect of having - and decorating - her own finished room!
-Ireland has been quite the selfy-taker this month!
-Ireland’s favorite part about Spring Break at the cabin was watching movies and stargazing.
-Ireland found the bonus golden egg this year! Extra $5!
KEZIA:
-Kezia had to do a quarantine book for school and it was AWESOME. She told the real nitty-gritty about being stuck at home and all the monotony and chores. She even did a comic strip about it and it was awesome, too :)
-Kezia was really cute and bought Noelle some m&ms for her birthday along with a Connect 4 game. And she gave her her old roller skates, which Noelle has LOVED!
-Another assignment that Kezia had to do was to do a video about getting distracted while driving. She pretended to get distracted when she was driving the van because she was seeing real life people and animals :)
-Kezia has been working on her room this month - adding greenery and pictures. It’s cute!
-Kezia had fun at the cabin with the movies. Her favorite part, though, was seeing the breathtaking stars. She played a LOT of games with her sisters, but after a while no one wanted to play with her because she kept winning. Hmmm - she must be related to her dad!
-Kezia basically made the homemade doughnuts for taste-it-Tuesday by herself and they were YUMMY!
-Kezi & Addi still often meet across the fence. Sometimes they play “courtroom” and there’s a judge and everything :)
LINK: You would have had so much fun at the cabin, our sweet boy! We are so thankful for Easter and the blessed reminder that we will get to be together again!
NOELLE:
-Happy 6th birthday Noelle! Noelle chose Krave for breakfast, Culver’s for lunch, and corn dogs for dinner. Fun! She got lots of fun gifts. From mom & dad she got a Belle brush, a small treasure box, a lighted snow lantern that plays Christmas music including The First Noel, a drone, a bunk bed caddy, and a butterfly kit. We ordered the carpillars right away! Kezia got her Connect 4 and mini m&ms and gave her her old roller skates. Aunt Cindy got her a glitter craft thing. Aunt Trisha got her a butterfly craft. Grandma & Grandpa Potts got her an explorer kit. Grandma Devenish got her some money. She wanted a Minecraft cake, so mom baked the cakes, cut them up and made the #6 out of cake blocks and icing. We also put little Lego Minecraft characters on top. It was a pretty mellow day with social distancing and all, but she got lots of calls, and her friend Sam came over again and brought her flowers! It was so cute! And her teacher told her Happy Birthday on YouTube :)
-Noelle continues to do really well with her school. She really misses her teacher & her classmates, but is able to get done with her schoolwork quickly and get on to her other loves right now - Minecraft, Prodigy, and Slither io. She did get to have a Zoom meeting once with her class & had fun seeing her teacher & classmates & doing “show and tell” with her caterpillars. One of them was making a cocoon right during the show and tell! Cool!
-Noelle & daddy finished reading “The Secret Garden” this month! They both really liked it!
-When we were at the cabin, we let Daizy outside and Noelle said “But what if Daizy runs back into the wild?”
-When we got back home from the cabin, Noelle & McKinley were wrestling & McKinley basically kicked Noelle’s other bottom tooth right out!
-Noelle sent her teacher, Mrs. Nakken, a cute video telling her about how she is working hard and misses everyone.
-Noelle has really had fun trying out the roller skates Kezi gave her. She is good at putting on all the protective gear, getting on those skates and pushing off.
-For Easter, Noelle got a book called “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates!” It is super cute and funny and we’ve probably read it a hundred times in the past few weeks. It’s a family favorite now :)
-The drone that Noelle got for her birthday is hungry for hair! It has eaten every girl’s hair in this house & we have had to cut it sometimes to get it out!
OAKLYN:
-Oaklyn loved Easter :) She got a Frozen 2 push button book, a coloring book, a bubble maker, and her favorite - candy :)
-Oaklyn keeps saying “did they die?” when we see a picture or video of someone.
-Mom walked in on Oaklyn one day in our bathroom. Applying a QTip to her lips and kissing the mirror :)
-So, mom had a COVID-19 moment one day when Oaklyn got out of the bath. Her hair had gotten so long and stringy, so mom took scissors to it! Let’s just say now she has an asymmetrical bob!
-Oaklyn had so much fun at the cabin, but one day she was outside with Daizy playing and we were playing a game. After a while mom asked everyone where Oaklyn was. She went outside and called & called for her and was starting to panic when finally she could hear Oaklyn crying. She had gone about 3 cabins away in the snow. She was really terrified. Daizy was with her, but she was really scared. We think she was following Daizy and got lost. She was pretty traumatized :(
-One day mom was backing out of the driveway & Oaklyn was yelling good-bye. Mom flashed her the “I love you” sign. She kept trying to do it back, but ended up just flashing her 3 fingers and a big smile :)
-We were all waiting at the table for dinner one evening for McKinley to stop playing the piano and come sit down for prayers. Finally, Oaklyn yelled out “Kinley Lou!! Stop Piano-ing!”
-This social distancing/sisters doing schoolwork at home thing has not had a good affect on Miss Oaklyn. Our almost 4-year-old has regressed back into a 2-year-old. Her screams for attention usually involve something along the lines of squeezing all the toothpaste all over the bathroom (repeatedly), dumping out paint, taking out all the shirts in her closet and throwing them on the floor, squeezing out Neosporin all over mom & dad’s room, stealing an electronic and bringing it into her room and watching it under her bed, dumping out nuts, sugar, and really any food that she’s eating (doesn’t she know there is a PANDEMIC going on?), and using an extremely whiny voice whenever something isn’t going her way.
-Oaklyn has enjoyed riding her balance bike & wiggle car inside & out!
