First day of school, and the day before

 Millie and Max were excited to go back to school! It had been an unexpectedly long time since being there. I was nervous about how they would handle wearing masks all day every day but they have been troopers. They don’t really complain about it at all! 

So proud of this 3rd grader. She was so excited to get to go upstairs this year.

And so proud of this 1st grader! Can’t believe he’s that old.

And this cutie started preschool the very same day! We have preschool Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. We had signed him up to go to the high school’s preschool like Max did, but with all the changes they had to make due to the pandemic we decided to back out for this year. Hopefully things will be back to normal for next year so he can have that experience too!

But backing up a little bit, we got to have a fun day on the boat the day before! Garrett and McKenna came down for the weekend too and it was great. We so loved our time with Gigi, Poppy, and the crew on the boat this summer!

Quarantine survival

We decided pretty much right off the bat that we were still going to be seeing our families during this whole pandemic shutdown mess. It was our saving grace when everything else was going haywire!

Another big player during this time has been the amazing weather we’ve had. Not much rain, cooler temps, just wonderful.

We had a back to back Frozen viewing - the first one on one night, the second movie the next night. It’d been so long since we’d seen those, and reminded me of when Millie was 2-3 and wanted to watch Frozen constantly!

Tried a new park by Heidi and James’ house. They live in such a fun area.

First swim of the year! Yes in March! The water was frigid and all these kids had blue lips and big smiles. 

And then there was Harvey, content to just sit on the side and watch, wearing a jacket that was totally too hot for the weather that day. He has needed more of a transitional period before swimming, to put it nicely.

Playing pick up sticks - I spy Garrett and Kenna! We loved hanging out with them and playing with Morgan for a couple weeks.

The school district was very quick about setting up distance learning. At first they kept saying we would come back to school but pushing back the date that it would happen. Eventually they cancelled for the rest of the year. Pictured below was a virtual story time with the school librarian.

Picnic lunch outside. It was not all smiles as it appears here - Hazel sure had fun ravaging anything left within her reach and the kids did not like it! But it was a beautiful day and a welcome change of scenery.

I promise we have plenty of table space, but Max preferred doing his homework ON Harvey apparently. It was probably more that they were wrestling and I couldn’t get them to stop and eventually just brought Max his math workbook to work on right there.

A rare, peaceful moment of everyone doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing (including Hazel, asleep at this moment)!

Millie wrote about COVID-19 on this worksheet. Pretty cute to see her 8-year old brain work through all of this.

COVID-19

I am slow in posting things but this post below was written mid-April.

 I want to remember this crazy time in our lives! We’re still very much in this pandemic and I don’t know how it all will end or resolve but I want to remember how it feels and how it all went down from our perspective. 

I’d heard of COVID-19 a little bit from a cousin of mine who lived in China with her family. She eventually had to leave the country and went back to Utah to stay with her parents while the country was basically shut down. I heard on the news that the virus would make its way to the US, didn’t know of a timeline though. Just a few days after hearing this, we were enjoying spring break and hoping to go to the rodeo and the zoo. The Webbs had come and they had actually gone to the rodeo the night before we saw them. We were having a Chik-Fil-A picnic at the park near my parents house when suddenly everything just went nuts - the rodeo was cancelled, some NBA players had tested positive and all games were cancelled, and then they cancelled school for another week. Steph and I went to the store and it was crazy - no toilet paper, lots of food staples gone, we grabbed what we could. Tyler was told to work from home and we heard a lot of talk of social distancing and “an abundance of caution.” It all felt very weird and surreal. Still does, to be honest.

The first week after spring break kind of just felt like an extended spring break. We started doing a little more structured learning at home and trying to keep a bit of a schedule, but there was not any instruction from the schools yet. We had friends ask for play dates and although we said no, I felt weird for saying that, like I was being strict about social distancing. As the days wore on and more people were testing positive, everyone learned we needed to be careful with this. We have found a level of comfort for us - we are staying home, going outside a lot. We are seeing our parents, but that’s it. I’m going to the store by myself, trying to either leave the kids with a grandma or go in the evenings after they’re in bed. 

Now we’re doing homeschool, which is actually going pretty well. It gets better every week. The first few days or so were pretty rough - I wasn’t sure why anyone would choose to homeschool, especially when they have younger children in the mix - but it is pretty smooth most days now. I’m super grateful for the kids’ teachers, and how involved and concerned about the kids they continue to be. I’m grateful that we are all healthy. We have everything we need, Tyler still has a job, and we’re all happy to be at home together.

Lots of chalk art happening these days.

And lots of game playing. I actually found this game while cleaning out a closet and was about to sell it (I think we’d had it for 6 years and never opened it) but Millie decided she wanted to play it, and they’ve played it almost every day since. 

Lots of hyper, weirdly creative games. These kids are so silly!

We’ve started chatting with our families more - my family has started a weekly game night on video chat, which has been fun. We started it with Tyler’s fam too and it’s so great! Funny that it took a pandemic for us to start doing this. Not grateful for the pandemic itself, but grateful for the increased connection we have because of it.

The kids built a “fort” to block Hazel from the front room so she wouldn’t mess up their game. It worked for a little bit.

I’ve learned that letting them do something with their hands helps them listen better during our read aloud time. They have been enjoying the Little House in the Big Woods series!

So much bike riding, and sometimes our neighbors are out too.

Cute little bike race.

More chalk art, this one we saw online and had to try. It turned out so cool! I want one on every fence panel. Gotta go get more painters tape.

We still ride/walk/run to the park several times a week. I’m grateful they haven’t closed it, lots of other neighborhoods have closed theirs. It’s sad to see it empty and these disclaimers they have to post all over.

This is a unique time for sure!

School stuff

We tried being car riders to school instead of riding the bus. Max wasn’t wanting to go to school but we found it was actually the bus that was the problem, so that was a good solution. Millie did it for about 2 days and then decided she’d rather ride the bus.

My favorite part is watching that cute boy walk in to school looking so grown up. He typically looks back and waves with a big smile on his face several times as he makes his way in.

Also had a little lunch date one day. The boys were in serious need of haircuts!

Millie’s bun made her hood stand on the back of her head and it tickled us!

Nana and Botz invited us to a high school basketball game on Valentine’s Day. This is becoming a tradition I think! Gigi and Poppy joined us too and we all had fun.

Max got to bring his class “pet” home for the weekend, so we made sure to show “Wolfie” a good time. We took pictures of Max and Wolfie together throughout the weekend and then Max wrote a little journal entry about what Wolfie had done with him.

Millie got to do a version of Seussical the Musical with the 2nd grade. They practiced the songs in music for several months and she loved learning them! She did a great job in her little line (“Help! Help!” As the speck that Horton hears). It’s hard to find her in this pic but she got to be by a friend from church and had a fun time.

Harvey thought it was great too!