CoronaCation 5 weeks in!

Well friends, we are now 5 weeks in and I guess we've settled in pretty good.  Let me just say for us we have definitely did social distancing but we do not completely isolate ourselves from the outside world so I know some people have problems with that, and if so you may not want to read our blog.  I already knew I was a social person before all this and this definitely confirmed that for me.  I miss people so much!  I miss my friends!  I missed seeing my extended family last weekend on Easter!  We do see our immediate family, but that is still very limited and I miss being able to see them and not worry about being there too long or people thinking we are wrong for being around them.  There is something very wrong about that to me.  We can't really be around Suzy and Denny for health reasons and that is something we aren't used to.  Reason # 9,853 I'm ready for this virus to be gone!
Another thing I've wondered this week (aside from keeping my days straight and wondering if I'll forget how to apply makeup) is just how its going to look trying to get back to what was normal for us.  Part of me loves this non-scheduled life but I also love my kids' activities so where is the happy medium?  Having 4 kids makes that a little more complicated too.  In the meantime we will keep enjoying our family time and try to organize another room of the house.

This week the kids started their digital learning.  Monday when it all started I thought I might lose it but slowly we got it all under control.  Helping 2 kids keep everything straight in all subjects all while taking care of a baby and 5 year old was sending me over the edge.  Hopefully the technology kinks got worked out and this week will be smoother.  I'm pretty much trusting Cohen to handle hers herself.  I just get all the messages from each teacher and some send more than others and all at the same time.  If not I may be in the market for a substitute teacher for the remainder of the year...this picture summed up how we felt by lunch time on Monday.  It definitely called for Chick-Fil-A.

Monday is one day Cohen does Zoom baton class.  This week was set to be their picture week, so instead they had virtual picture week.  We also decided to pull out the dance backdrop that I've used for years for Cohen's pictures and did a few on that.  My girl is just growing up on me!

I found the cutest note in Kate's notebook.  It was her list of things she wanted to do on Tuesday and another for Wednesday.  I'm pretty sure she had written this out on Monday.  What I have loved this week is how much she and Bryce have been playing with the Shaver's.  You will see that on her list too.  They will watch and make plans with them for when they are going to come out and play each day.  They have been playing on their trampoline and having the best time.  I am once again thankful to be in a neighborhood during all this.  They have someone to play with, along with each other of course.
This list was precious to me to read.  She had everything down from her school work, eating Berry Berry Kix for breakfast and last on Wednesday's list...give Mama a massage.  She is such a sweetie, and this is the stuff I am treasuring right now.  

 Hubby has been busy painting the trim on our house.  He started in the fall and then had to stop when it got cold and we got too busy.  Now he's finishing up before it gets a consistent 100 degrees.  He loves to work outside so he is in his element.  I do think he's over the painting part but he's almost done!

After Cohen's dance zoom class Tuesday she wanted to show us a routine they had worked on.  Well right after she danced Kelly decided he would show her his dance and well...I was laughing so hard and grabbed my phone to capture this...there is only a blur but you get the picture.  It was quite funny!

 

Wednesday started with a little "picnic" with my best boy.  I love him!  And he's loving all these baby toys we have pulled down from the attic that I kept and didn't remember!

 

Wednesday we took Cohen for a private one on one (6 ft apart) lesson, and while she was working Kelly and I had a lunch date in the truck from our favorite-Barbaritos!  If you know me you know how excited I was.  It is one of our favorites!   Pop & Sug had the other kiddos so it was officially a date!  We didn't know quite what to do with ourselves!

We ate with Pop & Sug that night when we picked up the kids.  This sweet face was eyeing all that food.

 When we got home that night the kids were excited to get some mail from Aunt Vicki.  She had sent them a little trivia question around Easter and they each got a dollar for answering the question.  Cohen was really the only one who got it right but Aunt Vicki was so sweet to give everyone their dollar. 

Thursday Kate had a zoom class with her challenge class.  They got to do a fun little experiment.  

Daddy approved my outfit!

 Ellington has found herself in her mirror and is so cute looking at herself. 

Kate also had to get her tooth fixed this week.  A process we are all to familiar with.  She had been begging to go to the Dollar Store (the little things are the best things), so we stopped in after her appointment since she did so good!

We also grabbed an ice cream & coffee...my new favorite.  I'm becoming a coffee drinker during all this! (iced coffee)

 They had more trampoline fun too!

Coco finished another puzzle...pretty partial to this one!  Has me missing football season a little more!

 Later on Thursday night the week took a turn...Kelly got his clippers/trimmers back out on Bryce.  Bryce had been asking Kelly to make him bald headed!  He also would say he wanted to be bald like Darth Vader.  Don't ask me why! Well Kelly granted his wish and my baby boy has been scalped!  I wanted to cry.  Now I'm praying every night that his hair grows faster than it ever has!  So you will probably be seeing only pictures of Bryce wearing ball caps for a while...still crying.   I know its only hair and his does grow fast but...it was not a good night for me.   Needless to say if I ever see Kelly coming near Bryce with any clippers, trimmers, scissors, etc...I might take his hand off.  

Friday you may or may not have noticed a traffic jam if you live in Lavonia-there was a sale on chicken and it caused quite the back up.  Dawn and I were out for our morning walk and our sidewalk was taken over with cars lined up.  It was a sight to see so we had to get a pic!

The kids did some sweet little cards to be dropped off at the nursing home this week.  Hopefully a little gesture that might bring a smile to their face. 

And over the weekend we soaked up some sunshine and played at home.  Bryce and I had our weekly fun cutting grass!  I love that he loves riding with me. 

 And today we squeezed in a little exercise walking and riding bikes. 

You know this girl is going to find something!  This nest had baby birds and eggs still in it.  Hopefully she didn't mess it up!

Well we have officially hit the one month mark.  I never thought this would last this long, I'm not sure any of us did.  These are definitely some uncertain times and we are learning a lot.  I am trying to be content in all of it and most of the time I am.  There are days/moments when I just want to scream but I'm going to focus on the positives that are happening too.  Or try!  Its a process for all of us isn't it!?!  Definitely making some memories around here!   Have a great week!!  I'll leave you with some of the funnies I saw and liked this week.

Coronacation Week 4-Happy Easter!

Well another week of "social distancing" has come and gone.  This was also "Holy Week" leading up to Easter.  Not being able to celebrate Easter with our church family and our other family members was a hard pill to swallow.  We missed everyone so much.  We did enjoy some Easter activities this week.  The kids were excited to dye eggs (twice) and of course hunt eggs.  I don't know about y'all but my days just run together and I don't know what day it is or when we do what anymore.  But I take pictures daily and here are some from the last week. 

Kate painted a picture for Addison since she was celebrating her birthday this week

I know one thing, the kids have all had their good moments and bad but at the end of the day I sure am thankful they have each other.  I know they have grown close during this time.  I love how the girls will read to Bryce at night.  Normally that's my time with him but I still catch them reading to him too. 

Another fun project from this week was making our "Faith over Fear" crosses.  Dawn and I had talked about trying to make some and that's just what we did.   I learned Grace has some mad saw skills!   When we were done I think they looked so good and its funny how doing a project actually made me feel better.  More accomplished!

 Guess who was there to take it all in...showing off those bottom teeth!  This is her new face.

finished project!

We dyed Easter eggs.  This particular day we tried the tie-dye version.  I'm still a bigger fan of the plain ones but these were interesting.

The last few we just did regular dye on...Bryce was a bigger fan of these

At night I had snuck off to my bedroom for a little quiet moment...it wasn't long until they found me!

Again...another example of how these kids love each other.  We all know Bryce has always loved Ellington so much.  Well after her nap he decided he would just get in the bed with her.  He didn't want her to cry.  I love hearing him talk to her.  He will call her his little "sweet sweet", he's heard his Daddy.

Yes he was giving her a ladle to play with

 

We bent the rules for a day to let Kate spend the day with her bff for his birthday

We've been taking good care of Suzy and Denny so they don't have to be out and this is how I'm greeted when I come bringing goods!   Masked up and don't try to come inside! Lol!

We've had lots of time to play cars which means we dump them all out and sort them by what they do.  I think he may have a tad bit of OCD in him because believe me he lays out the rules for me when I separate the cars.

So...Suzy left us a few things on our porch and one was popsicle sticks.  She thought the girls could use them for something.  I honestly thought we probably wouldn't ever use them but then one day I told the girls to get crafty and make something special with their sticks and they did!  Kate made a pretty cross/Calvary picture with hers and Cohen made Suzy something with her name on it out of the sticks.  They do good when you give them projects!  Kate even made a few more thinking she might go into business selling hers for $1.  This girl is all about doing jobs to make some money.  She may come out of quarantine better than anyone!

 

So backing up to Monday of last week...Kate chipped her tooth again!  This is her tooth that broke last year and we have to have bonding put on it.  I think the bonding has broke off I know 3 times now.  One was only a month ago!  I thought I might just lay down and cry, which I feel that way probably once a day but ugh!   You can see her cute, chipped tooth grin.   Last week it was cutting her own hair and this week her tooth.  I don't know if I want to know what's next!

 Kelly's has really made our yard so pretty.  And one thing about all this, we are home to enjoy looking at it every day!  In fact the girls are helping plant and maintain it all!

 Baby girl loves her feet!

Another masked visit!  I'll take those over none at all though! 

Friday Kelly decided he would give Bryce a little hair cut.  The boy needs a hair cut so bad!  Me and him both actually, but lets just say there is no way Kelly is coming near me with clippers.  I don't think he should have came near Bryce!  I guess we can add "jacked up haircut" to the list of corona memories!  We got a laugh out of it all and when Bryce looked in the mirror he just giggled and said "look how high it is"...that would be in the front with his bangs.  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry but I guess it grows fast.  Until then I'll be asking anyone to fix it.  I mean it is long on top and who knows what you call it in the back!

 

 

 

apparently a straight line is overrated...

 We stopped by to see our sweet neighbors up the road on a walk one afternoon.  I loved seeing Cohen and Liv sitting there talking.  Cohen just loves her. 

probably one of my favorite pics of E.  She is learning to wave and is so precious!  And the sunglasses are just too cute!

Ellington had such a cute little Easter outfit to wear and here we were again...all dressed up with nowhere to go.  Had to take a picture at least.  

Clapping is another thing she loves

 

Since Sunday called for rain most of the day we tried to squeeze in our outdoor egg hunting on Saturday.  The kids have always loved egg hunts and me too!  

 

Pop and Sug stopped by real quick to hide some eggs in the yard for the kids too.  Here they are waiting at the door to run out...then it was a blur once the door opened.

This cracked me up... Bryce showing us his Easter bunny while wearing his Christmas pjs.  This is pretty normal over here though.

 Then it was Sunday!  While this Easter looked alot different from our Easters in the past, we still were celebrating our Risen Savior!  Saturday night we had still got to take flowers to the church for the cross that is out front and when I went back to see the finished project I thought it was one of the prettiest things!  This cross is one of my favorite Easter traditions.  Normally we have a family picture out front but even though we didn't get that I wanted one of it.  Y'all these days/weeks are hard and they aren't getting any easier.  Everything is just so uncertain...when will this end, how do we even go back to normal life, what needs to change,  how much do we miss what it used to be like and how much of this simple life do we want to keep.  Its just overwhelming at times, but one thing is for sure...God is good all the time!  He is all over this situation and we can find some comfort in knowing that.   I know I need all the comfort I can get most days.  I want to get some freedom back, I want to see people and not be looked at like I'm committing a sin if I do.  There is a season for everything and hopefully a lot of good will come out of this particular season.  I know for a fact we will look back on these calm days and nights and miss them.  We have to find the beauty in everything and one thing that was beautiful this past week was definitely this cross and what it signifies!

We live streamed our church Sunday morning...some little baby slept right through it this week.

We thought this would be what Easter would look like.  Matchy matchy!

 

Instead we looked like this, and yes I stumbled up on these ears cleaning out one of my many boxes this week and made them wear them for a quick picture.  Actually I made Cohen, everyone else cooperated pretty well.

 

Then last night we had one more egg hunt inside this time...back in Christmas pjs.

Then we had a sleepover in our bedroom since the weather was supposed to get bad.  We weren't mentioning that part to the kids except Cohen knew and she also knew something was up sleeping in our room.   They all slept through it all though!   I hope everyone stayed safe and had the best Easter possible.  It will definitely be an Easter we'll never forget!  And never forget no matter where you are or what your Easter looks like...the tomb is empty and HE IS RISEN! 

one managed to get in the bed with us.

Spring Break is over...now week 5 here we come with digital learning...say prayers for us!