10 weeks in

Joel has enjoyed new freedom on his bike with friends these last couple months. They have discovered a couple "forests" nearby and have had fun exploring in the woods. We confirmed that it is indeed public, city land they are exploring and not someone's private property. :-) Greg and I went for a long walk one Saturday morning and documented our entrance into both the kids' forests.

what we imagine to be our kids' bike tracks in the forest

For her birthday, Mom M. decided she wanted our family and Eric and Leah's to come over, swim, have Miller tacos, and sing karaoke with the new machine Dad had gotten for his birthday back in February. Leah and I refrained, but everyone else prepared some songs to sing and performed for our entertainment.

Mother's Day gave us sunshine and time to relax. My kids showered me with lovely cards and words, hugs, and a gift of money to spend on whatever I want. Greg contributed, but they pooled their own money, which was very sweet. They know I like to shop online. After lunch the kids rode their bikes and Greg and I walked over to MD Arnold's house. We visited on the patio while the kids played in the hammocks that they rode home to get. Kari drove them back in the car. I didn't get a photo of my mom and me, but I did give her a Mother's Day hug, the first hug we'd shared in two months. We decided we are done physically distancing. It was a very nice day!

Other happenings: 

• We picked up the kids' belongings from the schools (drove through and received brown paper bags).
• The girls and I got "illegal," backdoor haircuts. (Shhh!) I'm doing my third round of covid cuts on the boys later today. 
• I installed a ceiling fan in Aubrey's room (another newly learned skill). 
• Kids continue to slog through distance learning. It's gotten easier, but I still have to help Grant quite a bit, and he still has tears now and then. I sat with him for an hour and half yesterday, trying to figure out how to do what he was supposed to do. 
• Kari finished her AP US History test! 
• I learned how to embroider and am working on embroidering tea towels like Great Grandma Carrie used to do. 
• The girls have been working on finishing up their songs for Junior Festival. 
• Kari has been spending time with friends this last week, as all her close friends' families have given the ok to hang out together. 
• Aubrey has been participating in baking club with Shauna, and we have been the lucky beneficiaries of her efforts--blondies, no bake cookies, lemon cookies, blueberry muffins.
• Kari decided she wanted to clean up all our cookie sheets and spent hours scrubbing them. They haven't been this shiny since they were brand new!
• I pumped my own gas for the first time in my life without help. (I did it once before when I visited Jane in CA to refill the rental car, but I had to ask a kind man for assistance.)
• Grant and I finished reading The Golden Goblet, and now I'm reading Pippi Longstocking with him. She sure is funny. Grant laughs out loud, and I love it. Our reading time together is sweet.

The last couple weeks have been pretty ho-hum. Our days at home are much the same. The weather turned more rainy this last week, which didn't help. Some stores and shops are starting to open, but our county isn't expected to officially open for some time. I'm trying to focus on the blessings and have a good attitude, but I admit this last week has been a struggle. My to-do lists are done. I've pulled all our weeds, planted my flowers and vegetable seeds, finished all our puzzles, completed all our home projects, baked lots of yummy stuff (and eaten too much!), and cleaned everything in our house. Yes, there is always more laundry and household chores, but this life of nothing on the calendar and nowhere to go is getting a little old.  God is still God, and while our circumstances have changed in a lot of ways, he has not changed, and our goal in life has not changed. Our purpose as believers on this earth is to glorify God in all we say and do, to serve him with our whole hearts and lives. When I keep that perspective, my attitude is a lot better. It keeps my eyes off myself and helps me see outside my little world. He will help me choose joy when I ask, and each day is a gift from God. I have to choose how I'm going to use that gift. Sometimes glorifying God is sitting patiently with Grant for an hour and a half while he struggles with distance learning (if only the links would all work and the instructions would all make sense!) and listening with empathy when he cries and says it's hard. Sometimes it's serving my family by grocery shopping and cooking them meals and food that they like, even though it feels like that is ALL I ever do. Sometimes it's texting with friends and encouraging each other or sending a note. Sometimes it's praying for my husband while he is on a series of difficult webex work conversations. One day this last week, I kept my nose in a book so my grumpiness wouldn't affect my family too much. I'm not always succeeding in glorifying God, but I'm trying and asking the Holy Spirit to help me on the good days and the bad.

8 weeks in

Hard to believe it's been 8 weeks since school was cancelled and all this craziness began. We've been doing more the same these last couple weeks. My to-do list is getting very short! I haven't pressure-washed the porch yet. That's the last thing on my list, for now. I did finally break down and clean all the blinds and windows, and I weeded the yard again this morning.

We've been playing games, and I've been listening to books and doing puzzles. Every Sunday night Greg and I have been playing games with friends over Zoom. It's been a great time to connect with our friends and laugh a lot. It's how we ended up with this giant roll of TP from the Pates, a joke from one of our Zoom game sessions. One evening we played a bunch of outdoor games with the Wilsons at their place--corn hole, basketball, jump rope, giant Jenga, shooting, horseshoe, and trampoline. Greg even made a scorecard. Jen was the ultimate winner, with Kari taking 2nd place. 

I put together my first iMovie of all our "virtual church" times so far at home. The kids are better at this stuff than I am. This last week Greg played bass with the worship team at the church office, and when Grant saw Greg on our TV livestream, he said, "Daddy is famous!" 
I decided to clean the oven last week and ended up dismantling the entire oven door, trying to get to the glass inside to clean it. Greg came down for lunch and found me struggling to figure out how to put it back together. :-) I didn't start with a plan and had screws all over the place. He helped me, and we figured it out together, with the help of YouTube, of course. We're all so amazed that we can see through the oven door now. Cleaning can be so satisfying!

It was an end of an era here last week when we passed our doll house, doll furniture, and Barbies along to Ellery. Aubrey, Kate, and Grant put all the right clothes, shoes, and accessories on the right dolls and got it all ready for her. Bye-bye dollhouse, hello more space in the bonus room.

Joel was saying one night that he never got to wear his "band" pants (black dress pants) that we bought back in December because of his broken ankle and cast in the winter and because of coronavirus this spring. Turns out, they wouldn't have worked this spring anyway. He couldn't sit down. He had us laughing pretty hard with his "tight pants" singing and dancing. "My tight pants are the tightest in all the land!"

The most exciting thing that's happened recently was that Aubrey got her braces off! She was supposed to get them off in April, but coronavirus made that impossible. She was one of the very first to get her appointment rescheduled on May 1. We had to call when we pulled into the parking lot, and she went in alone. I had to wait outside out in the car. We got Jamba to celebrate afterwards and had caramel apples that afternoon. She's a happy girl.

The kids started making a Rube Goldberg machine one Sunday, just for fun, not for an assignment or anything. They worked on it all afternoon, and it grew and grew, eventually making its way down the stairs and into the front room where a ball was supposed to be launched into a bowl. They worked on it for hours without a full successful run. By Wednesday morning, I needed it to be done (wanted my house cleaned up again), so I stepped in to help. I even skipped my webinar class that afternoon to work on it with Joel. He was determined to make it work. It was unbelievable how many times we set that thing up. I spent hours on it with him, setting it up over and over again, tweaking one part, only to discover another failure point. I became the Jenga/domino engineer and got that part dialed in. Finally, when we were about to give up around 4pm, we had a successful run! We jumped for joy, yelling and screaming with relief. And then we cleaned it all up. :-)

silly cat

Greg planned a date night in for us one night last weekend. He order gnocchi from Boccelli's, and we had dinner up in the bonus room and watched a show while the kids made nuggets and watched shows downstairs. It was great!

Our vanilla wafer pudding trifle dessert one night. We're still doing a lot of baking and cooking.

The girls did some more acrylics painting, and I finally did the oil painting I've been wanting to try. I followed Miss Mustard Seed's landscape tutorial and got lost in my painting for a solid 3 hours. It was so fun! I learned a ton and made a big mess, but I like how it turned out. I'm going to frame it!

I bought a case of Kirkland toilet paper eight weeks ago, one week before all the coronavirus craziness started and it became scarce. Just this week, we reached the TP numbers that start making me nervous, and I was forced to buy a pack at Fred Meyer. Now I know that our family of six, three males and three females, goes through one case of Costco toilet paper in a little over 8 weeks when we’re all home. Helpful information, don’t you think? Didn’t know that before! 

We've still been going on daily walks. Sometimes Greg goes on his own at lunch, but most of the time I join him. This week we've been going on a walk after dinner, too. The weather has been amazing. We've been blessed with beautiful spring weather this year--one of God's gifts during this strange time we're in.

 
This was on Kari's stories on Instagram--beautiful sky at sunset.