Day 11

Well, today was the first day back from spring break! I had 3 Zoom meetings in a row from 9-12 so the kids had to work independently on their work. The first 2 meetings were smooth, by the 3rd meeting the littles were done with being patient! Megan also had her first Zoom meeting for swimming and Zoom dryland workout which she chose to do outside! Needless to say it was a stressful day back. Balancing home and work was very challenging today and my stress level was high. After a pretty big blow up I looked up my meditation app and found one called "When sh*t hits the fan" which was perfect to get me back in the right head space to handle the rest of the day! 

The kids played some more 4 square and attempted the kites on a windless day! We are looking forward to doing a family art project tomorrow! I will be coordinating and making connections with families who are worried about food. Lots of prayers for our school family.

Shoney isloving our time at home!

Day 10

Today was wild and crazy! We had our family version of church this morning. Our verse for this next week was all about building each other up. The kids all participated and we are enjoying time digging into the word together! We enjoyed connecting our lesson to an activity we did on our last vacation where we wrote positives on each others clear cups!

Our day was busy after that! We waited for the North School Teacher parade outside as a family. While we waited, we played 4 square, basketball, sidewalk chalk, blanket flying and more! The kids teachers were awesome in the parade of cars and the kids loved it! We enjoyed flying kites in the evening after Michael bbq'ed pork steaks!

Day 9

Today was a fairly busy day...not busy like before all this but busy none the less. A local pottery place was selling DIY at home kits so I let everyone pick what they wanted and the place got them ready. Hopefully tomorrow we will get working on them. I had the unfortunate task of grocery shopping so that was a bummer as there were lots of people. We should be good for two weeks now. The kids played, argued, played, argued and the pattern continues! Tomorrow is the last day officially off and the adventures of home schooling begin! I've bought special snacks to bribe the kids with if they complete their to dos each day! Today the littles enjoyed doing gymnastics in the house which I captured on video and put on facebook. I took some screenshots from the videos so I could include a pic!! Both are doing great with cartwheels!

Day 8

Today was a fairly busy day! I had a really tough time going to sleep last night and was up straight through until 4:30am. I had hoped to sneak a nap in tonight but that didn't happen! After a few hours of tossing and turning I ended up ordering groceries, ordering Emilys birthday present, researching above ground pools, and the list goes on! As this Coronavirus thing continues I'm really thinking an above ground pool would be good for our water loving family! It would make summer more manageable if things continue as they are!

Today Jacob and I started sorting his legos by color! I worked in the garden while everyone played outside. Then when we heard about a stay at home order that starts tomorrow night we decided to go to Lowes for mulch, soil, a few flowers, etc! 

The littles played ball in the hallway then wanted their pic taken!

Making progress one block at a time!!

Day 7

Today was a beautiful sunny 80°. Michael is a little headachy probably from stress or lack of soda! We worked in the yard and garden, the kids played in the sprinkler, and all around relaxed outside! I'm looking forward to getting our backyard cleaned up from the kids and their toys everywhere! Karsten had a huge oops this afternoon and then another one outside so he did not participate in the backyard fun.

Day 6

The sun finally peeked out today but everyone is in slow down mode that we decided to let the ground dry up a little more before we go outside. We thought about the Runge but thought it would be crazy busy. So we allowed free time once again today. We watched an episode of Lego Masters which the kids were then inspired to go create their own things. Jacob was kind and allowed the boys to play with his legos which hasnt happened in a while. 

Jacob made an aircraft carrier that he is hoping will float!

Shoney is getting lots of sleep and snuggles in this week. Shes also loving the attention from the kids! Shes used tolots of attention soIm thankful we have lots of kids at home to do the job!

Ryker and Karsten spent a while this morning on the ipad and chrome book listening to books, learning lots of cool stuff, and loving that Im letting them go on electronics more than usual! 

Karsten made this picture for us and as I was taking his pic I realized what it said "GET ME OUTTA HERE" which is a perfect caption for the who knows how long future!

Emily vegging out with the laptop. The big legos in the background are a crowd favorite!

I snuck in to capture a pic of the elusive teenager. She seems to be LOVING the break from the world and homework this week. We trust her probably a little too much but so far so good. She spent some of her Christmas money on cool led lights that can change color and pattern...today mustve been a green day! I joked the other day that of all the kids she would be content and happy to have to isolate herself from the family! 

300 piece puzzle in the works! Karsten is finding lots of ways to entertain himself!

I splurged on some new games for our extended break. The boys therapist has Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza as well as Exploding Kittens so they are a big hit! Needless to say I think Michael and Imay geg a little competitive at times!! I also have a yard set of yahtzee we hope to play this week too!

Day 5

Today we had another day of relaxation. The littles watched Karate Kid for the 2nd time this week. Jacob and Emily connected over playing Roblox. Megan stayed to herself most of the day. I honest to God did not leave my bed until 1pm-lots of sleep and snuggles with the kids. Michael and I attacked the rest of the garage and I have to say it looks a 1000 times better! We have a carload of cardboard we were going to put in the big recycling bin at school...but someone else had the same idea so the bin was full and so my van will have boxes in it for a while! 

These two snuggle bugs!!

Day 4

Lets see...we are paying Emily $2 to do the laundry and shes doing a great job! She also made our giant egg we are putting our "...honor one another above yourself" notes about each other as well as our random acts of kindness! 

Jacob is really enjoying learning all about WW2. We watched Midway and are now part way through Band of Brothers! I also ordered him a good book for kids about the war that hopefully he likes. 

Karsten and Ryker  have their ups and downs. They do better on a schedule and structure and it being spring break we are a bit more relaxed at home. Looking forward to the weather warming up again so they can get outside! Today Emily Karsten and Ryker played "family" and made different rooms with more forts and had a great time. Meanwhile Megan played Tower Defense Simulator with Jacob today and she spent time doinv her own teenage thing! Michael bbqed and we enjoyed dinner around the table.