As I sit here June 8, 2020 to recap April, it seems like a lifetime ago. So much has changed since the beginning of April. This has been a difficult season for me as a mom and as a human. The unknown and fear of a pandemic has consumed me. I have tried hard to see the positive in our situation and count our blessings, but some days are just fraught with lots of complaining and fighting. We typically only stay home on Thursdays so I can clean the house and give Violet a break from our fast paced "go go go" lifestyle. So being home every day has been a total change in our home (although I still clean the house every Thursday and binge listen to my favorite podcasts). We tried doing rotating stations of 15-20 minutes for a few weeks and that worked well. Then the kids grew tired of the stations I planned. I luckily went to Target and Hobby Lobby at the beginning of the shutdown and slowly brought out new activities. We also started going to pick up the free school lunch and meeting our friends in the parking lot and yelling at them from several spaces away.
We painted ceramic eggs before Easter. Autumn really loves to create and do "crafts".
My best friend had a birthday. We met in a parking lot for surprisingly good gluten free cupcakes.
Autumn adores Olive and is very patient with her.
Someone stealing my phone during story time and taking pictures of me.
FINALLY a warm day. Days when it is warm and we can play out back are very appreciated. I've always loved our backyard, but now more than ever I am grateful for a safe outdoor space to get our wiggles out.
Olive now gets "time out" when she climbs on the table.
We are trying to look for ways to serve others. The kids drew pictures and we sent them to an audiologist office. They sent them to the hearing impaired that are feeling even more isolated during this time.
Olive Loves the Neighbor's dog "Monte"
Olive is growing up so fast. She loves to play and act like the big kids. She loves to follow the kids around the yard. She doesn't have a very big vocabulary yet and screams a bunch, but she is changing rapidly it seems.
Online/remote learning has also been a challenge. Lots of hair pulling and whining for very little work. The math assignments are great (even if I don't always understand their explanation of things. I know Autumn is learning.) The reading/writing assignments were just a bunch of busy work though.
We spent lots of time going on walks and riding bikes. We often head over to the middle school and run around on the field if it isn't too crowded, which it typically is with lots of people out in "nature" these days.
The kids fell in love with the new movie "Trolls World Tour" and the rocker Troll Barb. Olive accidentally rented the movie ($20) right after we had just seen it. So lucky for the kids they got to see it twice.
Lark made me this necklace.
April 15, 2020: I can't remember who recommended this "quarantine" activity but since our new garage door is magnetic we (but mostly just mom) spent the afternoon making designs with magnets. It took lots of trial and error but I finally made the magnets look like a heart.
April 16, 2020: We got LOTS of snow right before Lark's birthday. I told the kids they could play outside as long as they smiled for a picture. Lots of people are taking their family pictures from their front porches these days as a way to stay away from others and document this odd time of life.
Last night Lark is a three year old
I found this funny selfie of Maverick on my home one day.
One Sunday we rode our bikes to see Evan's parents. Grandma was organizing photos. So she talked to us through her picture frame glass.
I let the kids take turns taking pictures with my DSLR
4/20: Lark probably sneaking up stairs trying to avoid bedtime in her new heels from Dixie.
First time Autumn playing Settlers of Catan.
Violet and I love eating a Popsicle in the afternoons.
these two are good buddies these days.
New Jammies for Olive. They come in a distant second to her favorite bunny jammies.
Eating s'mores in the back yard.
Violet's recital was cancelled due to the pandemic. SO we dressed her up one day anyway. We also video taped all the kids giving their reactions and feeling about the global pandemic.
Olive was putting her doll to "bed" in the soap dispenser in the dishwasher. Olive is also really good at helping unload the dishwasher.
Evan often works from home in the afternoons these days. Its kinda fun to have him around and if he hides in the basement we aren't too loud. This day was was folding several loads of laundry (and listening to podcasts)
Olive yells during dinner if she sees the neighbor's dog outside so she can go and hang out with him.
Grandma Pattie made the kids all masks. (also we had cabinets installed on March 12. Some of the pieces were the wrong size thus the tv on the other wall still waiting for all the parts. (They were finally completed July 14)
