Willyween 2020

Willyween is in the books, and it was one to remember! We had a cult classic movie theme going this year. Aaron was Maverick from Top Gun, I was Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Reese was Bob from What About Bob (yes that’s her new pet goldfish, Gil, in a jar hanging from her neck), Quincy was Elliott from ET, Corbin was Ted Theodore Logan and Soren was Bill S Preston Esquire from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  

Sloane and E were going to be wilderness girls from Troop Beverly Hills, but Sloane chose to wear her Queen of Hearts dress and Ewore her Moana costume. A was a Cobra Kai Skeleton from Karate Kid. 

The real winners this Halloween were Soren’s mullet and crop top. So amazing. Also I’ll take a bow for tracking down the exact “Don’t Hassle Me I’m Local” tee for Reese and the exact Van Halen 5150 tshirt for Corbin—just days before Eddie Van Halen passed away and Van Halen tshirt prices skyrocketed.

We masked up and went to a little trunk or treat hosted by friends in the Cooper parking lot. Then we joined our primrose family for our tradional Halloween block party. One neighbor served hot dogs and another chips and my parents put up the outdoor movie and hot cocoa. Another neighbor had a Razorback game playing on a big screen in their driveway. 

The “silver club” j/k congregated on my parent’s porch to visit. 

Part of the Primrose gang. This social bubble has been a sanity saver for us! 

Minkler twins, A, William G, baby Max M, Big Max M, Evelyn G, Corbin, Soren, Sloane, Bryn M, and E. Foust’s and Knaup’s came out too, but in another wave. Reese’s friend, JoJo (Jocelyn A) joined us again this year and was exited to find a mini JoJo Siwa on our street! 

The Good Guys Book Club: Dog Man

The bad guys (now Good Guys) Book Club tonight abd fathers and sons gathered to “drink soda and talk about books”. This month’s selection was the Dog Man Series.  The boys took their favorite books, dog man stuffies, and had a grand time with their favorite good guys! 

Saturday Night’s Alright

Reese went to a sweet 16 for her cute friend (and neighbor!) Emma. 

Quincy had Phoebe over for a few hours, and then I dropped the two of them off at Zach S’s house for an outdoor movie and “social distance game night”. 


Some neighbors were out on bikes and a bonfire happened on the island. This little communal space has to be one of my most favorite things about Primrose Lane. Friends gather and kids play. Some roasted hot dogs and others brought out marshmallows. The kids poked the embers with sticks and rode hundreds of laps around and around. Aaron’s new picnic table had its inaugural use.  

Lightsaber battles

This is a constant scene right now. Star Wars on the tv, and an ongoing lightsaber battle. Sometimes, a few illegal karate moves get thrown in there. Stay young, my sweet boys! 

Meg Reads: Charlotte’s Web

Willardson Family Homeschoolers finished reading Charlotte’s Web, today. This read aloud got a slow start and didn’t hold onto attention spans as well as I had hoped it would until we were about 3/4 through the story. A few things we did love though, were that it took place on a farm, and the way each season was described in beautiful detail. We cuddled under blankets to read and loved watching the window scenery of our own woods turn into brilliant reds and golds while reading about the sights and smells of Autumn on the Zuckerman farm.  

We are watching the movie tonight for family movie night and I have a few “county fair” treats (popcorn, caramel apples, and cotton candy)  to go with. 

I asked the children what adjectives would appear in a web over their doorways to describe them. 

Soren said, “smart, cuddly, creative, silly, and has fluffy hair” 

Sloane said, “friendly and smart” 

I liked this story about friendship. For most of plot, I actually find Wilber to be whiny, ungrateful, and without many endearing qualities. I liked that Charlotte befriended him regardless of reciprocity in the relationship, and that by the end of the book, Wilber had learned how to to be a good friend from Charlotte’s example. 

Is this for real?

How are these two clowns the options we have available to vote for?  Why are there only two parties in the debates?   These candidates make me sick and I am sad for the future. Just mute the microphones.  

Welcome Home, Elder Oelrich!

My nephew, Parker returned honorably from his ASL Mission in Mesa Arizona, today. 

Well done, Elder Oelrich! 

Reese makes COVID tutorial videos

With church congregations beginning to meet in person again (people can attend every 3rd week, if they are comfortable, and agree to maintains safe distancing protocols and wear masks), the stake has asked some of the youth to prepare video tutorials for members to watch as a reminder of what those protocols are.  Reese and Jojo and I met up with one of the youth leaders, Sister Alvarado, to film a few tutorials.  I mostly just chased the twins around and only took this sneaky photo for the blog’s sake, but I think the girls put in a nice effort. It’s great to see them taking their callings and responsibilities seriously. 

Also, wash ya hands and wear ya masks, people. I hate wearing a mask and feel anxious and sweaty and claustrophobic in one, but I wear one anyway simply because I believe in the science behind it.  Everyone doing their part is such a simple way to show our humility as well as courtesy for others. 6ft distance is much more difficult for me. It is a challenge not to hug people. But I have hope of meeting together as a full congregation again someday to worship together as a ward family, face to face. So hopefully these little video reminders Reese helped make today will help keep everyone healthy so being together can happen sooner than later. 

Spin da Wheel o’ Destiny!

Sloane and Soren have a punchcard system that I use to add encouragement/positive reinforcement for days when homeschool is not all sunshine and enchantment. 

Well I took Quincy to school and twins to occupational therapy this morning, Soren finished his math daily dose, wrote and addressed letter to Grandma and put it in the mail, wrote in his journal, and then created his own wheel of prizes to choose from for filling up his punch card. It’s so cute!

I added a beanbag and battery candlelights for some Pixie dust magic. 

We still got around to fluency passages, phonics/language arts, and math lessons, but this part of the day gave us all the things we hoped homeschooling would be. 

Aaron’s Picnic Table

The nicer of the two picnic tables on the island disappeared a couple of months ago, leaving all the neighbor kids crammed onto one table for playing with Pokémon cards. The kids spend hours out there, so Aaron decided to build a table for them to play on.  This was his first big carpentry project and he did such a great job! We are going to have all the neighborhood kids write their names underneath it and use a wood burner on their signatures. Aaron is such a fun dad. There will be many Pokémon battles shared at this table. 

Fall Break Part 1: Big Kid Day and Fun Day!

Thursday meant CoOp day and it was Jill‘s turn to teach. Quincy was home Thursday and Friday for classroom break and Reese and Corbin have “virtual break” days, meaning they all have a bunch of assignments, but they don’t have to be completed in real class time. We took advantage of the lovely weather and time together and set out for a big kid adventure day. 

Ok the photos loaded in opposite order, but I’m not going to fix it, so there’s that. 

(1) We started the with the Spanker Creek Craft Fair. Reese and Corbin came with me, and a half hour later, my mom was able to coax Quincy (2) out to join us with her. I didn’t buy a single thing. I saw some really cute holiday pillows and glass milk jugs that I loved, and then I remembered I don’t have a milk jug collection any more and decided it wasn’t worth investing in a new one. These were cute, but over priced like most of the stuff at this fair, in my opinion. Oh it was still so beautiful outside, crisp breeze and low 60s, fall colors in full glory, and the smell of funnel cake, kettle corn, and cinnamon nuts in the air. We loved watching the chainsaw log carving guys saw a bear and a pelican out of cedar stumps. (3) we found a fun multi shot rubber band gun both that entertained all of us for awhile with it’s cute little spinning targets (4).  Our favorite part of the day, though, was that they saw our giant van and sent us to park in the front row bus parking! Haha! Points to the fun bus! 

Up next, we hit up a series of thrift shops to gather items for Halloween costumes (it’s going to be epic). The girls and I found a couple cute things at DEB Project (Ann Taylor sweater with tags for $3? Yes please), and some costume essentials and fall faces (5) at Helping Hands. We grabbed lunch from Canes, picked up Soren and Sloane, and hit up a local house with a Halloween maze in the front yard. (7) The daytime spooky effect was just right for Sloane ...and Reese 😂 😂 who hate all things creepy/scary. They held onto each other for support. Haha 

We popped into the library and shifted through the teen movie section for some weekend selections: (8) Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Sense and Sensibility, Vote! (A documentary about women’s suffrage because I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a homeschool mom), and Ready Player One (Aaron and I might need to preview on a home-date-night for the teen/tweens.)  

The afternoon and evening were a whirlwind of taking kids to work, picking up twins, virtual piano lessons, soccer, calls with DHS and attorneys about the twins’ case, and a trip to the cemetery to honor Nicholas. 

Friday was half consumed by DHS, emails, calls, texts,  attorneys, and an hour zoom meeting. I decided to take the afternoon “off” from that systemic headache and we headed back out for adventure. (9) Pickleball and mini golf at Metfield and a sweet garage sale at Corbin’s school mate’s house. We scored an enormous Millennium Falcon for a few bucks that would ordinarily be sadly busted, but it’s going to make an amazing tree skirt for the boys’ Star Wars Christmas tree!  Pizza and family movie night (while I was in the bedroom on 2 more hours of phone calls with DHS  and seriously y’all, I am fresh out of nice things to say about our broken national foster care system. Also, I probably shouldn’t have even said that and basically feel like I live in a John Grisham thriller).

It’s Saturday morning, and all the little people were awake and ready for action at an unholy hour. 

Aaron is a super fun dad and picked up a bunch of pumpkins for them on his way home from the gym this morning. Stay Tuned for Fall Break Part 2! 

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(8) Excellent! 



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A Wave of Light

Today is infant loss awareness day. I joined Jill, Dani, and Nicole at the cemetery to light candles for Jill’s little Nicholas Ethan and his neighbors. We talked and cried and walked and honored Nick and gave space for sadness. We mourned together and ministered to each other and talked about the Gospel.  I believe it was with great intention that when Jesus established His church,  He commanded us to mourn with those who mourn. This counsel was not an after thought. Ministering is the unfailing charity that connects us to each other through support and perfect love.  

Tonight we joined the wave of light that held space, honor, and remembrance  for Nicholas Ethan, for Simone Grover, for baby Smith, for Lynlie, and for the six Willy pregnancies that ended in miscarriages instead of infants in our arms.

Tonight I feel thankful for courageous friends who share their stories of faith, perseverance, sadness, long suffering, miracles, redemption, and strength. I’m thankful for togetherness. I felt the Spirit’s presence with us tonight, bringing comfort and confirmation of eternal truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

McGarrah Farms Pumpkin Patch

We took an enchanting drive on east McNelly Rd and ended up at McGarrah Farms for a spontaneous morning at the pumpkin patch. 

Things are operating differently, per covid, so we ended up  spending $80 just to get our family INto the patch, and the additional charges plus entry fees meant came home without a single pumpkin. But the kids enjoyed the hayride and corn maze and barrel horse train. That horse ride took years off my life and my back will never be the same 😂. I was legit holding on for life and praying out loud some kind of Hail Mary for safe deliverance while we spun donuts in the dust. I’m “hayrides are terrifying and I’m panicked that we will roll” years old, now.  

But my irrational fear/dislikes aside, we could not have asked for a more perfect day. Blue skies and 70s and together and autumn foliage. 
















2011, 2018, 2020

Ready for Halloween!