Valentine's Day

Since Covid is still thriving, our days are still spent at home or in the great outdoors.  Since the great outdoors is currently 15*, I stay at home with Atlas while Adam and Ares sometimes venture out.

Well the two older boys went mountain biking, at least and I decided to make cake pops.  (A ton of work and ball sprinkles are the devil.)

To celebrate the rest of the day, we watched some Netflix, the boys are really into this new show where two guys are supposedly stranded on an island and they're using stuff to create engineering feats. It's all staged but they know and they love it.

Then Grammy and Papa took them overnight for the next two nights because we're expected to get a major snowstorm (and Ares already doesn't have school for two days). 

Ares turns 11 - in Quarantine

A very uneventful day for him.  But (before we stopped letting people in the house) we let grandma and papa come over, and Aunt Cindy and Uncle Mike come over to celebrate (6 feet away) in the garage, so no one was in the house (other than walking through it to get to the heated garage).   Ares said it was boring, but we got to eat cake and ice cream and hang out a little bit.

It ended up being a pretty sweet cake.  Literally.

Mikayla made this for Ares

Another Concert I Prevail, ADTR, Beartooth

Adam had a little issue with the tickets.  As in, our tickets were for a differnt day in a different city.  they felt bad for us and gave us seats instead of our floor tickets, but it was nice enough of them to do for us.  Then Adam figured out after Beartooth played, he could use the bad tickets for the floor, and we got on the floor. 
Ares' favorite band was playing, I Prevail, and he LOVED it.  Then A Day to Remember played. 
Ares got pulled to the front (he was on people's shoulders), then pulled over the gate, got picks, guitar sticks and a set list.  Crazy kid!!  He rocked it out this night. 

Christmas 2019

A very musical Christmas for us.  So far, both boys still believe, and I'm shocked.  Ares, asked a question when atlas was around, and I 'shushed' him, then later asked him to ask my anything he wanted, and he acted like I was a crazy lady.  Apparently no one is going to help me move the elf this year.  Maybe next year!  haha.  What a great and magical season though.  

We did not go overboard at all on gifts this year.  Including the guitar and drums (which were given to us from my cousin Brian and Aunt Di/Uncle Terry - in exchange for some gift cards that they did not know they were getting, haha) we spent very little and gave very few things.  It might be the best year ever.  I don't think I can pare down anymore than i did this year, so we might just keep it at a big gift, a few shirts or pjs, a book and a game.  Perfect!!!

Ares and Great Grandpa Schmidt played air hockey for about a half hour.  What a special time.