What is Happening?!

Well, March started out like an old month.  Sure, there was a little unease in the air with things happening around the globe, but typically those things seem far from home.  Lets just start with the fun events and life that occurred before the world shut down...

Katelee had a career day at school.  She was able to spend the day shadowing someone while they worked.  We threw around ideas, asking one of her old elementary teachers, watching dad make phone calls and write emails...nope, then we thought about how fun it would be to go on a flight with Shannon.  We didn't think that would be an option, but lo and behold, Shannon worked her magic and Katelee spent a day flying the friendly skies.  

She had an unforgettable day working the aisles of the aircraft, sitting in the pilot's seat for a little tour, hanging out with Shannon (and grandma tagged along, just in case someone didn't get on the flight back).  She flew to Portland and back and was one happy flight attendant!! HUGE thanks to Shannon for making it happen. 

At the beginning of March, Katelee also was able to perform in her school production of Aladdin.  She had a couple of shows in the ensemble with her friends.  Here she is with Coco and Capri.  

A couple of days before the show, one of the cast members had a family emergency and they needed someone to fill in last minute in a featured singing role with lines.  Katelee was pulled out of class by the theatre and music teacher because they knew she could rise to the challenge!  And she did!  She worked hard and memorized harmony, lines, blocking in a super short time and impressed us all!

Middle of March, life started to get more eerie as news of a novel virus hit closer to home.  One of the NBA players on the Utah Jazz was positive for the Covid-19 virus-if officially had made its way to Utah.  No one really knew what that meant-is it rampant?  are we all in danger?  do we need to hunker down at home?  Grocery items-particularly toliet paper and lysol spray/cleaners started flying off the shelf.  The masses are in mad panic rushing to stores to supply their homes with necessary goods.  I totally get the cleaner, but lets contemplate the shortage of bottled water...even if a family was quarantined their water would not turn off.  I thought it was ridiculous...then, an earthquake hit.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.

March 13, countries are suffering, Italy is pretty much on death's door, New York City has hundreds of people in the hospital and we just don't know what will happen here.  Shannon, Paige and I have tickets to Dear Evan Hansen and things are shutting down left and right.  Our governor calls for a soft closure of schools-we have 2 weeks of online learning while we try to understand the reach/spread of the virus.  Stinking Eccles theater will not give me an answer as to whether the show is on or not.  We enjoy a lovely Mexican dinner and as we are driving to the show (because earlier that day the theater company said they weren't sure what the governor's orders meant for their venue.  We weren't supposed to be in large gatherings of a certain amount of people.)  As we were driving to the show, the theater called to let us know the production was cancelled.  Booo!!  We were so sad.  We had been looking forward to this for, hmmm, forever!  But, little did we know it was just a drop in the bucket.

March 17th-Katelee's birthday!!  While we knew we couldn't be at school or in large groups, we thought we better postpone her celebration til we can have friends over.   It was a general rule in our neighborhood to only be outside with friends and no one indoors where the virus would be able to spread more easily.  Katelee did get to walk with a couple gals to Sodalicious while Harrison, Brenna and I decided to get out of the house and put on quite the dancing show while we walked to their school for exercise.

We had to play it safe for her party, but that didn't stop us from highlighting this amazing gal.  None of us have ever had an emergency quarantined bday, so we didn't know how to make it work, but she was understanding and flexible and we love her for that...and many othe reasons!  Shannon came over (grandma and grandpa stayed home due to their high risk group)

Katelee is so awesome.  She is pretty much a baby/small child whisperer and can calm Harrison down better than anyone.  She's always been very emotional and we think that translates well to her talent for the stage!  She is wicked smart and so much fun to be around and is growing into a gorgeous young lady.  We adore her.  

We thought we needed to document how our family is handling this unprecedented time, so we began a little book called 'The Corona-vella'   

The first day we recorded entries went something like this (remember it was St Patrick's Day)...

Harrison: "The toliet water was green.  Something that was freaky to me was that Grant almost cut off my ears if I touched him"  (Sounds like the wrath of the creator has not yet struck a chord in Grant even though the world is in turmoil- just business as usual for him)

Brenna:" Me, Mom and Harrison went on a walk and our friends acrossed the street were playing outside and we had to cross the road so that we were not close to them."  So sad and strange to be avoiding contact with people...

Katelee: "Today was my birthday! I went on a walk (outside) with some friends to get a soda and got some fun presents.  Sadly, though, my grandma couldn't come tongiht because people over 60 were required/encouraged to stay home unelss necessary.  So, it felt weird without her but I still had a good day."  Everyone is really encouraged to stay home and isolate, but people in high risk categories really need to take extra precautions. Everyone is determining what is 'essential' because that is the only thing we are supposed to be out of the house for.

Grant: "I went to Walmart to get some snacks but there was nothing on the shelves to steal.  Also I couldn't hang out with any of my friends." Telling a teenager they aren't allowed to socialize with friends for weeks is pretty much a nightmare-for you and them.  He obviously has a different idea on what is necessary as he openly documented he went to Walmart...

So, here we were dealing with a holiday in the midst of a global health crisis, trying to stay calm and keep perspective.  Then, what should happen on March 18?!  YEP- an EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!

Now, flashback to last year when we experienced our first recognizable earthquake that caused a bit of a jolt to our hearts.  This one was bigger.  It was a 5.7 epicenter in Magna, so not right at our house, but it was loud and startling.  Dave and I both woke up (he's counting his lucky stars he wasn't woken up to me yelling at him).  I was calm as a cucumber in this one and even was putting my hand on him telling him we were ok.  I've officially learned my lesson!  Ha!  He ran to the little kids after the initial shaking, I went downstairs to bring Grant and Katelee up.  Grant thought the earthquake was in his dream and just wasn't sure what I was doing in his room!  There were lots of little aftershocks through the next day or two, but we were all safe.  There was damage done to other homes and parts of the valley. Here is a picture of a wall at Dave's office...

 

March 18th was also our first day of online schooling.  We were told it would be two weeks of at home learning.  First day was mostly a success-had a bit of a tricky time getting everyone logged into their chromebooks, but we did it!  Harrison asked me if he could be British for home school and he then legit spoke with an English accent for the duration of the day.   Of course, I had to join him and it was a jolly good time.  

We spent much of the day/week facetiming and texting people to make sure everyone was alright from the earthquake and hanging in there with this crazy virus situation.  Don't worry, the next day, amidst a couple tiny aftershocks, a big rainstorm came in.  Our power was out for a good 3 hours.  Remember all those prophecies about the ushering of the second coming...yea...pretty sure that's happening.  For reals though. 

The next few days were a relief to just be in isolation-earthquake free and power on!  Ha!  Counting those blessings.  I wanted to keep with Harrison's kindergarten schedule, so we did rotations-we worked on Art on Art day, extra exercise/game for PE day.  For Fairytale Friday, we listened to Hansel and Gretel on the Ipad and then made Gingerbread houses.  

I love when Grant participates in kindergarten curriculum...maybe it had something to do with the candy houses, but I think it was just the pull of our company.  

We have tried to burn time by having some sort of a checklist of things to do each day.  Getting outside is a requirement for the day and we have had some great races at the field of Kauri Sue by our house.  

Harrison decided to wear a face mask to protect him from Covid 19.  So far, it has worked.  

On March 23rd, we got some news that felt like a punch in the gut...no returning to school until at least May 1st.  Deep breathing practice immediately began.  The kids are struggling not being able to connect with friends. They are facetiming and texting but everyone really has to hunker down at home until we can figure out what is going on with this virus.  It is an comfortable and shocking month to be sure.  It is insane how quickly your regular routine/life in general can be halted. 

I am so very grateful that our lives are built on a solid foundation-Jesus Christ.  Scary things happen in this world and it is effecting everyone, but there is a perspective and peace that comes as we turn to him.  It is still so hard, but the burden is shared and 

hope is a gift.   Church, of course, is cancelled.  So for now, it looks a little like this:

Brenna and Harrison have taken turns conducting.  We do a song, sometimes a musical number, the sacarament hymn and ordinance and a little lesson. At my parents house, it looked like this:

Shannon is quarantined because she was exposed to the corona virus through her work.  So, they can't be in the same room.  It is such a funny picture to me!!  

 It is pretty special and amazing that the church has truly been preparing for this for years.  The rolling out of Come Follow Me, at home lessons, shorter church, etc- great confirmation of a prophet and the Lord guiding his people.  

We were put in a new ward one week before the world was locked down around here and we got to go to that church once.  I was put in as the YW president, so we will even see how that will work.  

So, for now, we live a life isolated.  It is full of online school (which is really so short if I could get Harrison to cooperate).  Brenna is done in 30 minutes...and then we need to find things to do! We are starting a puzzle challenge...

We've borrowed a few from neighbors.  Then, grandma was nice to drop off a box of books and Shannon threw in some puzzles, so we will work on those.  

It was a sad day when she just had to place the box on our doorstep and run.  I literally threw a book at my mother (she had to take it back to her work, I wasn't angry!).  We stopped by her house for her birthday and had to sing from the grass.  Shannon sent us this picture...

So, for now, we are just trying to keep track of this wild time of our lives.  We miss being together and at school and church so hopefully this dumb virus goes away soon!!  For now, we band together...

Brrrthdays and Other Winter Fun

February at our house is pretty much party month.  It starts off with Grant's birthday!

  Grant turned 15 and cannot wait to start practicing his driving skills.  I, on the other hand, am not in a hurry for my child to be behind the wheel.  So, off to the drivers license division soon to get that permit...eek!!

Grant is old and cool and just requested gift cards,  clothes and shoes.  

It was actually really fun to watch him open his Nike Air Force shoes...

He even had an inkling they were going to be part of his day, but the excitement was still genuine.  It was so fun! Grant has been busy with swim, working at Brick Oven-handing out that pizza like a pro, and snowboarding-his most favorite thing to do.  For his birthday, we let him miss a day of school and head up the canyon with his cousin Michael for some legit boarding.  It was the perfect day for him... and me.  I would have just fallen down every run he goes on now.  He has far surpassed any snow skills around these parts.  We love that he enjoys this winter sport so much!!  

Just a few days later, we held Brenna's very special celebration shin-dig...

The little red headed lady has been planning and counting down to her Golden Birthday for ages.  I mean, 10 on the 10th-it can't get more exciting for your first double digit year!  Double digits hit me like a double punch in the gut.  I feel like that's the hump for transition to big kid and tween just around the corner.  I would think that Brenna might hang on to the kids side of the slope, though, because she must have spread the word about her lack of boy barbies because nearly each of her buddies wrapped up a male counterpart to any Barbie she owns. 

So, thanks to Kate, Keira, Kloee, Emree, Brinsley, Lilly, Kinley, Sami and Natalie for fulfilling her dreams of pairing up each Barbie and then spending the day swimming at the rec center.  It was such a fun party-swimming in February is a unique treat! 

We wanted a turn to celebrate the double digit lady with a dinner at home with family.  We ate, opened gifts and indulged in angel food cake after she blew out the candles.  

She was so enamored with her planner and colored pen set that we could hardly get a word out of her.  

It was not surprising that Brenna was so engulfed in organization-that is her life.  She is crazy about things being in their place and I love that I never have to worry about her room being a mess! Actually, she drives some family members wacko because she is always following behind them picking up.  She has big aspirations for being a CEO of an organization company and can't wait till I let her loose on my closets and cabinets.  I have no doubt she will be a million times better than me at getting things in order.  Brenna is loving dance and could be there all day, everyday.  It seems like she is sometimes.  She is at the studio 7 hrs a week.  She is great at piano and school and so driven.  We adore her.  

Valentines Day is always special-not just because we get to be all mushy and the kids just LOVE that (not!) but because we get to commemorate the fateful day Dave and I met over a cup of orange juice.  We skipped our annual Valentines breakfast though to head to Island Park with friends to stay at their heavenly cabin!!  Thinking of this winter wonderland,

it was a no brainer to join them!  It didn't hurt that we got to miss making those dang Valentine boxes for elementary school parties!  YES!! We spent the most glorious weekend snowmobiling (Grant, to Katelee's chagrin was included on the adult run-guess he is ready to drive after all!  All the kids (except for the 6 year old, of course, took a loop around the flat meadow, so she did get to drive a little). 

We frolicked in the snow...

were blown away by the gorgeous surroundings, sledding, 

and spent the time hanging with our friends.  Huge thank you to Jill, James, Jesi and Brett McAree.  Nothing like throwing a southerner, a gal from Columbia, a Scotsman and some crazy kids together for fun.  Harrison's exclamation of "I saw it with my own eyes" shouted in a western drawl while playing cards will forever be a perfect catch phrase between us.  

We made chocolate fondue for Valentines Day, had yummy food and lots of time playing games.  We loved every single minute.

 Basketball season is in full force here.   Dave and I went to a BYU cougars game with our friends the Gowens and sat right by the head football coach.  Dave wanted me to snap a quick photo.  Sitake was so friendly and turned around and chatted with us for a bit after this too.  When we sent the picture home for Katelee to show the littles, Harrison was so impressed.  He is such a sports obsessed wacko.

Harrison is a super fan of the Rockets...it is quite unfortunate.  ESPN is constantly on and logos are printed daily so he can come up with games and potential scores.  We have a tiny little tikes hoop that our little guy practices on since its too cold to go outside.  Daily slam dunks are in order.  It is hours of entertainment-for him and me, honestly.  He sported his James Harden jersey at the jazz game.  Wow.  He got down close to the court when the Rockets were warming up and felt pretty dang cool. 

He wanted to continue the smooth feel with his basketball photos...The little dude told me that he wanted to look cool and that this is how the basketball players look when they are trying to be cool.  Judge for yourself...

Maybe I am more for the preppy vibe-must be, I mean look at Mr David McArthur himself.  That must be in Harrison's heart somewhere, because I walked into my room and found this the other day...

Only a McArthur man would find it comfortable to be lounging about in a sports jacket and instinctively strike a pose.  

Many people don't love cold and snow and winter-but those aren't the kind of people that live at our house!  We love our winter and cold brrrthdays! 

20/20 Vision

We started off the new year with some new  experiences- Brenna got to accompany Dave on a work trip 

to Georgia to hang out with Aunt Anna while her dad was busy in the day.  

They shopped, got nails done, ate yummy food and played with Uncle Curt too!  Brenna was in heaven.  

We volunteered at a new place (The Good Samaritan House) where we packed and prepared sack lunches for home less people.  

Everyone worked really hard-slappin on that salami and ham, spreading sauce, wrapping and packing. It felt good to be there. We definitely want to go back...even if Katelee looks like she has been possessed in the picture below!

Harrison has continued his slightly bizarre, yet endearing desire to dress up like people from the past for holidays.  He donned his revolutionary war get up for President's Day. 

 He also created quite the picture-one side of the paper for The British with General Howe, Benedict Arnold and King George up against Washington, Lafayette and another random patriot.  We maybe have been listening to Hamilton!  

So, many of our days are spent printing off sheets and sheets of college logos for him to create game score sheets.  We also do that for NBA teams.  Now, we print off flags and historical locations occasionally.  It's nice to be so well rounded.  ha!  He wants to have a war birthday so his friends can dress up like red coats and others patriots.  I'm sure they all have their costumes ready to go.  haha!

Harrison was on his very first basketball team as well.  He is quite intense and was a super star.  He had one game where the ref had to tell him he could only steal the ball from whichever kid had the same color wristband he did.  

He made so many baskets and would just dribble down and shoot.  Passing is not so natural, so some of his teammates liked to ignore he was open because there was no chance he'd be giving that ball to anyone else...that will be something to work on!  He is so much fun to watch and talk to about sports.  He wants to play on a professional sports team eventually, so he can have a lot of money he says.  For now, when I asked him what he's saving his money for, he explained a couple of goals-a mansion and to get out of here (our house)!  After a dramatic pause and a dropped jaw by me, he explained he meant college.  I'm not sure that's true, but I commend him on his aspirations. 

We've entered a new decade and there are lots of changes going on.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is redoing their YW and youth program that sets goals for the YM/YW.  They actually rolled it out last fall, but the girls had through the end of the year (2019) to finish their personal progres. Katelee did it!  This was an amazing feat considering she did it all in one year!!!  Pretty awesome.  

And so we are in our new year- 2020.  It's pretty catchy, it's kind of iconic.  We think about our vision, our perspective.  It is often said that hindsight is 20/20, perfectly clear.  We can't have that clear vision when we are looking forward but we can trust in Him who has the perfect plan and perfect vision.  We are excited to keep trusting and hoping there won't be *too much to look back on this year and know we would have done it differently!  

We are loving the new Book of Mormon videos that the church has made to accompany us in our Come Follow Me lessons and personal Book of Mormon study.  We watched one the other day and Harrison was pretty passionately thrilled about it.  He was really digging Nephi's experience I guess, becuase he just jumped up and down as it wrapped up and exclaimed, "that video was AWESOME.  it was KILLING IT."  Well played Nephi, well played.  

Jolly Holiday Fun

True to December from, December 2019 was chock full of excitement, festivities and one tired momma! 

We had many performances...here is Brenna  looking stunning after her ballet recital....

The same weekend and an additional week of December was full of Katelee debuting as a young ape in Tarzan.  

She fit right in the jungle as a wild, unruly animal.  It was a fun show to watch especially when the half clad fella personifying the panther hopped on to Dave's armrest.  Dave had to look down, he couldn't even take how immersed he was, it was just too frightening for him, and too funny for me!  We love watching Katelee shine on stage, you can tell she has a great time.  

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday Brenna has been heading to the school early to be in the elementary school band.  She thought she'd give it a whirl.  She has a had a fun time playing, but never ever practices at home, so it may be a one time thing.  We could not stop giggling and praising the band teacher's name as we sat through that concert.  That takes one special someone to teach young kids brass and other instruments at the same time and wrangle them in while attempting to make music.  Kudos to band teachers everywhere!

Harrison joined in the musical holiday celebration with his made up songs.  He made up all sorts of tunes about "that Starry Night"  We have thoroughly enjoyed each one! 

Not only did our family participate in cultural and sporting events, we also watched some others show their stuff! Brenna took her buddy Kate to a BYU basketball game where they ate, cheered, 

made it on the Jumbotron and hung out with Cosmo.  They had the greatest time. 

Dave and I won the religious lottery and scored tickets to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.  It is no easy feat so we were stoked to spend the evening downtown.  We met up with Shannon, dropped off our donations and toured the Candy Cane Corner site as we always do, walked through the Grand America

 

to see the Gingerbread House

and eat a treat.

We went to dinner and then Dave and I ditched the others for the concert as they enjoyed the Temple Square holiday lights.  

Everything was perfectly helping in our holiday spirit.  Grant and Katelee had a holiday choir concert that was fabulous.  Their middle school choir teacher is da bomb and has the greatest music program.  

Harrison had Grandparents day and Grandma was able to spend a bit of time in his kindergarten class after his adorable program. 

There pretty much is nothing better than 5 and 6 year olds singing 'All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten' and 'Skinnamarink' ending with the anticipated blown kiss.  I love kindergarten.   He also had a VIP week just for him.  There was a bit of a drama one day when a substitute kicked him off of the special chair, it was pretty much heart breaking when he came home sobbing.  But, the day I got to go in and show his class his special pictures and talk all about Harrison was pretty special.   When he asked what he liked to do with his family, Harrison said he liked it when we are altogether and when we get along.  He followed up with "We don't get along very much"  So funny and also true!  Ha! 

The first few weeks flew by and we made it to Christmas Eve!  We went to Boondocks and had a game of laser tag and played some arcade games.  We think Christmas Eve laser tag may need to be a new tradition! We also wanted to do something kind and thought we would try and pay for someone's meal in a drive thru.  Turns out the fast food restaurants aren't hopping on Christmas Eve around 3pm. Ha!  But, we finally found one that looked a little busy, got in line, told the cashier we wanted to pick up the check for the car behind us and the car in front of us had already paid for ours!!  Bless that holiday cheer.  After a few attempts, we found success at Taco Bell, it was like their bells were Christmas bells ringing in the holiday with tacos.  

Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa's house was delicious and delightful.  

We had our program, played the white elephant game, exchanged gifts and handed out pajamas.  

Grant did request another onesie so he could be toasty warm after snowboarding.  But, gauging his reaction to this baby blue Yeti outfit, not sure if it was what he expected.  Haha!

Our sports man was content with his jammies- he acted out and posed as a player for each sport represented.


Christmas morning was magical, like always.  Santa came through with the requests from the little kids.  They were the only ones that paid him a visit,

so I am not surprised he remembered their requests.

He remembered that Harrison really wanted a BYU helmet. Not only did he bring a helmet, but a jersey too.

I think he is set for all football.  He pretty much could play for the cougars tomorrow, if they asked him.  Unfortunately, I have told him he will have to wait until he is in college to play.  We will see if I can hold out on that.  He feels ready to tackle.


Brenna got a polaroid camera.  It maybe wasn't the desired color, but I'd say it's a win.


Everyone was so excited to get Lagoon season passes!  We also all took a turn zipping around on our mini-segueway.   Grant and Dave are a little bit of scaredy cats and tried  to balance but one try was enough.  We are going to enjoy rolling around in the house till the weather is warmer and then it will be an outside toy.  In the meantime, it will help me get all my chores done quicker, I am sure!

We played our new games-Sushi Go, Ice Cool and Cover Your Assets.  They were so fun!!  We pretty much do nothing on Christmas day, but somehow we are exhausted.


Cousin sleepover happened.  Grandma is a good sport to let the kids come over and "sleep" during the holiday break.


And it wouldn't be a McArthur December without someone getting sick the week after Christmas.  Harrison got a really bad illness-he woke up in the night struggling to breathe.  It was so sad.  Dave ran him to the Instacare in the morning and he had Croup and Influenza.   Poor kid.  He did a breathing treatment, got some steroids and kindly passed it on to Dave and me. 

We couldn't help but cuddle him when he was so under the weather, so no shocker that we got it too.  Because we were feeling icky, New Years Eve was low key with Harrison and Brenna.  Katelee and Grant weren't sick so they hung out with friends at parties and still rang in the new year with a bang.

And so we start a new year-here's to 2020.  After a December like that, I need to remember to take a moment...Harrison was totally in his room the other day "meditating"  I am not sure that I would typically describe the kid as being "zen".  He took a squirt bottle the other day and told me he was going to spray all around and then "just feel the peace." Wouldn't that be just wonderful if we just sprayed peace and it sprinkled on us whenever we wanted!    I appreciate when he can calm himself down, though.  After a bit of a rough day, loss of electronics and time in his room, Harrison got a hug from me and I told him I loved him.  He responded with "Can I tell you what I wanted to say?  I was going to tell you that you're the worst mom ever and I don't need you anymore.  Then you hugged me and I felt better and didn't need that."  

Lesson learned: peace comes through hugs,meditation, and tiny squirts of water