Although we have missed our church family, we have really enjoyed our Sundays at home together. The first few months of "home church", Brooke would play the piano for us and she alternated between We'll Bring the World His Truth, and I am a Child of God. It instantly brought the Spirit into our home, and we would then partake of the sacrament. I have tried to impress upon the kids how grateful I am that we have the Priesthood in our home so that we can partake of this important emblem even when we can't physically go to our church meetings. I think they understand because most of their prayers, especially on Sunday, make reference to being grateful that Daddy has the priesthood.
Our church meetings are fairly short, with just the sacrament and then a short spiritual thought by me or Kevin. About a month into this quarantine, the Primary presidency also started sending out a weekly video with singing time and a Come Follow Me message. Brooke's primary teacher also sent a few power point presentations, so we watched those as well. The kids struggled to sit reverently through the primary videos some weeks, but overall, they enjoyed seeing their music leader and her family on the computer. It's amazing to me how prepared we were for this transition. When they rolled out the Come Follow Me program a few years ago, I remember them saying how we would be prepared to teach our families from home should the need ever arise. At the time, I remember thinking how weird that statement was. What kind of circumstance would prevent us from going to church? Enter the pandemic and it shows how much our church leaders are guided by our Father in Heaven. We have all the tools we need to teach our children (and ourselves) in our homes, which provides a lot of peace.
And without all those meetings to attend, we have the whole day to spend together as a family. We have spent more time coking together, and these steaks have become our favorite Sunday meal. Kevin found a recipe from Gordon Ramsey and he basically cooks the meat in butter, so you can imagine how delicious they are :) This particular Sunday I even used our fancy goblets just to make things extra special.
Since our kids are both doing awesome on their bikes now, we have been taking more bike rides together. One particular Sunday, Kevin wanted to venture out of the neighborhood and was sure he could fit our bikes inside the Armada, haha. He tried for a while before giving up, and then we started looking for a bike hitch on the NextDoor app. Most were in the $100-$150 range, but we found one for $15!! When we saw that the seller was Shane Robb, we started cracking up. He's in our ward, and the listing was from January, but Kevin texted him anyway to see if it was still available. He responded right away saying that it WAS available, and that it was free to a good home. He really is the nicest guy, so we went right over to pick it up. Of course he wouldn't take our money, but I took over an overflowing plate of cookies the next day for their family. His comment when we dropped them off was, "We'll use this a lot more than we would that hitch." Hahaha. His kids are all teenagers and young adults, so I guess they aren't doing bike rides anymore. But what a blessing to our family!! Now we can go wherever we want with our bikes.
So, we ventured to Fish Creek Trail in Grand Prairie.
It was a beautiful trail and we made it all the way to the trail head. Multiple times I had impressions of how grateful I was for the family I have and the stage of life we are in. It was hard to work past the sadness of not being able to get pregnant again, but I feel like Heavenly Father keeps giving me these impressions of gratitude for what I do have. It felt like the perfect evening, and then Colby fell off his bike :( Brooke and I were leading the way, and all of a sudden Brooke yelled to me that Colby fell off his bike. She must have heard his cries, but I didn't even hear him. I rushed back and he was screaming. Kevin was holding him, but his little bike was just laying sideways on the trail. I guess he wasn't watching the trail and his tire went over the edge of the sidewalk and when he tried to jerk it back over, he tipped his bike.
His little knee was bleeding a lot and it looked really sore. But guess what?? I had bandaids because of a prompting I had before leaving the house. I had actually had the prompting once when I was in the house and then I got distracted with something else. As we were loading up the bikes, the impression came again that I should grab some bandaids and our Active Skin Repair. I was really glad that I had a second chance to listen, because those items definitely came in handy. He cried for a long time, but I was eventually able to get him to walk around a bit. You could tell how sore his leg was, and I really didn't know if he'd be able to bike all the way back to our car. I wasn't sure what our options were since we were all on bikes, haha, so I whispered into his ear, "Do you think you could ride back to the car for a dollar?" He was quiet for a moment and then just nodded his head. This kid is seriously a rock star. He walked his bike a few times when the trail was more uphill, but he made it!
Another Sunday, another bike ride. This time we rode to the ponds in our neighborhood and fed the baby ducks a random pack of granola balls I had in my bike basket. Colby asked me repeatedly if we could take one of the babies home. I explained that the Mommy duck would be sad if we took one of her babies, so he then started asking if we could take them ALL home, haha.
One week, we introduced the kids to dominos. Colby needed more help than Brooke, so eventually he decided to be on Daddy's team :) I loved playing dominos as a kid at my grandparents house, so it was fun to teach my own little ones about the game.
And yet another Sunday bike ride :) We have really become quite the bike riding family. Thanks to our bike hitch, we can take our bikes anywhere we want. Kevin wanted to do s'mores over at the lake again, so we loaded up his newly purchased Smoky Joe (a tiny charcoal grill) and were on our way. Normally residents of Grand Prairie get in free to Lynn Creek Park, but since it was Memorial Day weekend, we ended up having to pay $20. That was an unpleasant surprise, but still worth it because we had a blast. It had rained all day on Saturday, so temps were cooler and everything was so beautiful and lush.
As I was organizing the garage this week, I found our binoculars which I had hunted all over the house for, so the kids brought those along as well. Kevin saw a family out boating with a new kind of surf board, so of course he wanted to scope it out. Next thing I know, I look over to see this. Colby wants to be just like his Daddy, and I love it.
Striking the match to get the charcoal started...
The aftermath of very messy and delicious s'mores...
After s'mores, we played catch with Brooke's ball, Pinky, which was her new (but old) favorite thing from the garage clean-up. Before long, someone did a crazy throw and Pinky ended up in the water. We tried looking for a stick to fish it out, but it was getting too far away. None of us wanted to get into the water, and Brooke was SO sad. I tried to be sympathetic, but I wasn't going to wade into the water in my jeans. She became desperate and offered to get it herself, but I didn't know how deep the water was and I wouldn't be able to see her if she slipped under the murky water.
Enter her hero, Daddy. (I was surprised that Brooke was so sad over this ball, but thought it was pretty sweet that Kevin would be willing to wade into the water to get it for her, especially since it was way off shore by the time he made that decision.)
Kevin made it clear that once he had the ball, we needed to go straight home since he would be in wet shorts. At least I had a big blanket in the car to throw around him :)
After unloading bikes and Smoky Joe, the kids reminded us about the sparklers we promised they could do after the lake. There were only a few (thanks to the garage clean-up I keep referencing), so they were gone in no time and we went inside for the night.
I can't even remember how many weeks we've done home church now, but how handsome are these guys?? When Kevin was cleaning out his closet a few weeks ago, he was getting rid of all sorts of ties. Colby was quick to snatch up a few and he's been rocking them ever since. I adore the way that he watches Kevin prepare and bless the sacrament and I feel intense gratitude that he has such a great role model to emulate.
The Hawkins have been pretty into bike rides as well, and one Sunday we biked to the tower (at the front of our development) together. Colby was riding his new (free) bike that we had picked up earlier that day (thanks random Next Door neighbor), and he was super excited to show Carter. Carter is 12 years old, but treats Colby like a little friend. Colby idolizes Carter and it's pretty sweet to see them together. He definitely likes to keep up with "the big kids".
I brought popcorn this time to feed those adorable baby ducks...
I let Brooke pick a few of the beautiful purple blossoms, and she was super silly when I told her to smell them!
Check out that beautiful sunset as we biked home!! It's been such a blessing to live close to the Hawkins during this crazy time. While we definitely have been following the guidelines about quarantining at home, we have considered their family part of our "quarantine crew" and felt comfortable being outside together. It's been great for me to have connection with a friend almost every day, and of course it has been the saving grace for my kids!
One more picture because these two are cute as well :)
We truly have loved our Sundays together, and I'm grateful for the chance we've had to grow closer as a family during this unprecedented time.
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