The Moberg Family

Month: March 2020

  • Elliott’s Turtley Awesome Ninth Birthday!

    Elliott’s Turtley Awesome Ninth Birthday!

    So Elliott started planning his birthday months ahead of time (as usual) this year. All he wanted to do was have his friends over to play tag and have a picnic on our property. So simple, right? Well, this girl just could NOT get the unction to plan it. I kept putting it off and putting it off and although I wasn’t entirely sure why, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s this: If I don’t have unction, there’s usually a reason and I shouldn’t force it. Well, of course…little did we know that the entire world would shut down and there would be no live birthday parties this spring.

    But our gracious God allowed us to have our nieces and nephew and grandparents here with us over Elliott’s birthday! Talk about a party! I threw some ideas together and we were all able to make a really special birthday for this mighty 9 year old. It’s no surprise that this guy still loves turtles. So we turned our dining room into an under the sea fish bowl and this guy was thrilled. As a side note, SUCH a treasure for me to have Taylor here to help me decorate and make this a turtley awesome birthday for Elliott!! Taylor made all of the plates :).

    We started off the morning with waffles, due to Elliott’s request. Side note: Anyone notice what Elliott’s NOT wearing??? Comment if you figure it out :).

     

    The cousins worked secretly to make Elliott a turtle shell out of a box so that he could have his very own shell, just like all of his turtle friends!! He was SO.HAPPY!!!!

     

    We did get a game of tag in, albeit not the most epic game of tag in the world. It was FREEZING outside…NONE of us wanted to join a very eager Elliott for a game of tag but we all bundled up and went out there anyway. I may have lasted 32 seconds. And then I took photos from inside. Hey, someone’s gotta do it :).

     

    The quick last minute idea I came up with was to have a canvas painting party. Thanks be to Amazon, everything we needed for a paint-your-own-art-piece arrived promptly at our door. I talked to each of the kids about what they wanted to paint. For a few of them, we printed off pictures that they wanted to use as a reference. I helped guide the ones who needed it through sketching out their drawing first with pencil and then we got to painting!

    They each did such an AMAZING job!!!! I love how each painting displays the incredibly unique personality of each kid.

    Elliott is just a little bit (ahem) detail-oriented and so he’s very particular about what he wants to be doing the MOMENT he was born, which is 6:25 pm our time. This year, he was emphatic about wanting to do our bible reading over that minute. So we made it happen. Wearing Christmas jammies. Because CHRISTMAS. This is him the MOMENT he really turned 9!

     

    Speaking of Christmas… For some reason I had a slightly difficult time saying “Goodbye” to our Christmas tree this year. It was just so green and beautiful and I couldn’t bring myself to slaughter it. Finally at some point in late January I decided it was time. The kids and I started chopping off branches and when we had done the bottom 2/3, I stopped and looked at it and just LOVED it! It was so cute! So we kept it like that for another few months. First year ever our Christmas tree was still up for Elliott’s birthday. So, obviously, we put his presents under the tree!! 🙂 This kid is THEE most expressive child on the planet. Check out these faces as he opens presents!! (And don’t make fun of the Christmas tree! Come on, it’s kind of cute, isn’t it?!!)

    Selah really, really, REALLY wanted to sew Elliott a turtle stuffie. So we worked together and, it wasn’t horrible. 🙂 It consists of a separate body and shell so he can change out the shell! However, it took us SO.MANY.STINKIN.HOURS to just make the body and the shell that right now his turtle only has one change of clothes. One day he might have two. One day long in his turtley future.

    Next up, mud pie. The kids got the brilliant idea to stack three more paper plates on top of the base turtle plate so they could “re-use” their plate for each meal. They just threw away the dirty top plate and used it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert!

     

    Grandma and Grandpa got Elliott the turtle costume he has been dreaming of ever since we got Selah a puppy costume for her birthday. Have you ever seen a happier turtle in the sea? I sure haven’t.

     

    One quarantine birthday in the books!! Although he was definitely bummed not to get to celebrate with the Mauss family and friends, he was abundantly, over-the-top blessed on this quarantine birthday of his! We were so thankful for the special treat of the Moberg cousins and Grandma and Grandpa. Happy birthday to our turtley awesome mighty man!!

     

  • Quarantine Cousin Camp

    Quarantine Cousin Camp

    So there we were, at the top of a mountain on our very last day of our big Moberg family ski vacation, and we got “the call.” All schools, churches, sports, etc. were shut down for the next 6 weeks in Pierce County. I’ll never forget my niece, with shock on her face, shouting, “Does this mean we’re going to be HOMESCHOOLED?!!!” Hahahaha! Although we were always planning on taking Grandma and Grandpa home with us, the rest of us had all been planning on heading our separate ways home the next morning. But that night after realizing the three oldest cousins had no commitments at home, we decided to take them home with us, too! Why not?!!!! The only problem was, we didn’t have enough seats for everyone! Thankfully we worked out a plan so that Taylor could fly in and meet us at home. The rest of us piled into the Suburban and we rented a uhaul for all of our luggage!  Here’s a little glimpse into our two weeks of Quarantine Cousin Camp!!

    The drive home from Idaho was, admittedly, slightly terrifying at moments. Just after passing Bozeman (where, P.S., we had a super fast but incredibly delightful meet up with Jenny, Clayton and kids!!) it started to snow and the roads got super icy. We passed more flipped cars than we could count and watched a guy roll in front of us. But, thanks be to our gracious God we made it through safely. Later, we managed to pop a tire on the uhaul in Wyoming. Good times.

    As we neared Colorado, the texts and emails started rolling in that Colorado was beginning to shut down. So as schools everywhere closed down, our Moberg homeschool enrollment more than doubled!

    We got settled on Sunday and Monday morning we hit the ground running. Needless to say, it was a BLAST. What a JOY to be quarantined with their cousins and grandparents!! Homeschool was way more fun with the three cousins added into the mix and it sure made acting out our history lessons a whole lot easier!! The kids played hard, learned a ton, had lots of opportunities to work through offenses (added bonus!!) and truly the whole time was such a gift from God.

    While they were here, my phone kept popping up with “this day 7 years ago” and “this day 8 years ago” photos, which I think were the last times these cousins were together during the month of March. So, of course, we recreated them real time :). Check these out…

     

     

    Still wearin’ those overalls. 🙂 I just love before and “laters”!!

    Honestly, I wasn’t sure how the kids would handle jumping into our routines, but it felt absolutely seamless. They are super eager and joyful learners and they fit right in! They stepped right into all of our learning–devotionals, scripture memory, poetry memory, hymn memory, history songs, nature study and painting, history, science, math, bible reading… Hailey even inspired Selah to learn how to crochet. The cousins read the books that Elliott and Selah have published and begged to write, illustrate and publish their own. And they did! The kids did a couple presentations and at the end of the two weeks presented all they had learned for Brian, Grandma and Grandpa. Seriously, such a blast!

    Did I mention the kids had lots of opportunities to work through offenses?!! 🙂 We spent a lot of time during our devotionals learning about friendship, biblical teamwork and ways to respond to each other in the midst of offense. (Don’t we ALL need these lessons and reminders?!!) It was so rich! I’m thankful Hailey and Taylor brought in the “hug it out” principle!! One of the things we do in our home is a “build up pyramid.” We’ve talked A LOT about building each other up in Christ rather than tearing each other down with words and actions. Each time I catch Elliott or Selah building each other up they get to put a lego onto a pyramid they’re working together to build. It’s served as a fantastic visual for them. We brought the cousins right into this and they built up the pyramid twice–once each week! To celebrate, we roasted s’mores each time. I think God was celebrating along with us–check out that sunset!!

    We were able to bring them to the Garden of the Gods on a gorgeous sunny day.

    And, of course, finally introduce them to our property where we played hard together!

    I honestly just kept catching them like this…laughing and snuggling and hugging!! There was an abundance of joy and laughter!!

    This felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I’m so grateful God orchestrated the world to give us these ultra special two weeks with cousins and grandparents!! If anyone else wants to come over and quarantine with us, we’re taking applications!! 🙂

  • Ski Vacation 101

    Ski Vacation 101

    I am convinced that a couple of stir-crazy kids invented the sport of skiing after being quarantined for a number of months. I mean, seriously. “I’m bored. I have an idea! Let’s go to the very top of a mountain where you could easily fall to your death with one wrong step. But let’s make it more of a thrill and go when the mountain is covered in snow. No, this isn’t enough. Let’s put long slippery pieces of laminated wood on our feet so that we can’t get a grip on the snow but will slide right along it, making it easier to fly off the side of the mountain.” Great idea, folks…great idea.

    I think anyone who knows me by now knows that skiing isn’t exactly my strength. Enter photo #1:

    Do you see that baby deer wearing a red jacket on the right side of the photo? Yeah, that’s actually ME the last time I went skiing, circa 1998. We were trying to pose for a photo but I couldn’t STOP! Because someone had strapped long slippery pieces of laminated wood onto both my feet!!!! There my friends are, laughing so hard at (with?) me as I frantically slid down the mountain. One of my favorite parts of this photo is the sign above our heads. Do you see it? “High Anxiety”? Case in point. Someone invented the sport of skiing after months of not thinking straight during quarantine. Case closed.

    Brian’s parents so generously invited the entire family on a ski vacation in Idaho and, to tell you the truth, I was actually pretty excited to give skiing a shot again. I mean, come on, grace and eloquence must increase with two decades of maturity and growth, right?? Well, let me just skip right to the end of my story: WRONG. Apparently thinking happy ski thoughts wasn’t enough. My sweet friend kept telling me before going, “It’s just like ice skating!” Yeah…ice skating on the side of cliff. Definitely a pastime of my dreams. But Brian loves to ski and the kids had never been, so we were eager to take our family’s very first ski vacation!

    And, it was truly a WONDERFUL vacation, despite the fact that apparently skiing and I still don’t play very nice together. The timing of the vacation was honestly so perfectly orchestrated by our great God as it was in one of the last states to shut down and we were there essentially the very last week before everything did shut down across the US. What a gift to have a big, fun family hurrah right before our country closed. Here’s a glimpse into our family’s very first ski vacation with the entire Moberg crew.

    We flew into Tacoma and drove with most of the family over to Idaho. Angela and Tony met us there from Oregon. We bundled into two cars and the kids got cherished car trip cousin time.

     

    We stayed in a great condo. We could hop right into a gondola from the front of the condo that took us straight up the mountain.

    Here is the entire crew (minus Grandpa, who’s taking the picture) at the beginning of the first day! This is at the top of the bunny slope. There was a conveyer belt that would take you back up to the top once you skiied down. Isn’t the view amazing?! It was breathtaking.

     

    We (and by “we” I mean “Brian,” the only competent skiier in our family) started both the kids off with a leash (I know, how embarressing, right?) because, if you’ll remember correctly, we dragged our children to the top of a snowy mountain and placed slippery boards on their feet. The least we could do is put a leash on them. After they had proven many times they could go down in a controlled way, we took off the leash and let them free on that bunny slope. Once we felt good about their bunny slope skills, Brian took each kid individually down a real slope with the leash. Once he felt confident they could each stop themselves from flying off said slippery mountain on their own, he let them go down sans leash. The kids really did AMAZING and were both very confident skiiers by the second day. They had an absolute blast and are in love with the sport of skiing. Did I mention they didn’t get that gene from me? Here is a little video I put together of their progress from day 1 till through day 5. Be sure to put on the Close Captioning if you want to see the captions I wrote in.

     

    At the end of each ski day, we headed back to the condo. We would play games and relax for a (very small) bit. By the way, here’s our resourceful engineer of a grandpa for you–no coffee filter? No problem. Use a a grapefruit!

    Each family unit took turns preparing a meal for the whole group. After dinner, we usually headed to the condo’s indoor water park. Because after a full day of skiing people apparently need to get even more energy out?!? It was a super fun little water park and everyone had a blast. So keep in mind, this is the very beginning of March as things are slowly starting to shut down in the US. While floating in the lazy river, the kids would throw a tube on eachother and say, “You’re quarantined!!” We had no idea that was only the VERRRRYYYY BEGINNING…..

     

     

    Here are a few more fun photos from skiing that week. At the bottom of the bunny slope the kids spent some time digging a couple tunnels into this mini mountain. What a perfect vacation!

    So the picture on the left is at the very beginning of the first day. A little scattered and hard for the kids to stand up. By the end of the first day they were SO much more confident but when we went to take a photo, both the kids accidentally slid down the mountain. (Upper right corner.) Thankfully Uncle Tony was there to rescue them. And we got the more composed (bottom right) picture…as long as the kids were hanging on. So maybe they did get some of my genes after all.

    This about sums up our week…hahahaha!! Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa for a most thrilling and fun vacation!!