Quarantine TV

Surprisingly, we have kept the technology and TV watching to a minimum during the stay at home order, but we have found The Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix and have been enjoying watching an episode most nights as a family.

Fine Arts Festival

Ali and Logan's school hosted the Fine Arts Festival at their Middle School one of the first weekends in March. Logan had two pieces of art displayed (the piece on the bottom in the first picture and the one on the top in the second), and they both played with their band. It's fun to see them developing new talents!

Quarantine Dating

Jason and I have been looking forward to Ali and Logan being able to babysit for us when they turned 12 for, well, 12 years. Of course, they turned 12 right as we were ordered to stay at home, except for essential things like food and medicine. So Jason and I decided that during this quarantine ice cream is essential for our family. Every Saturday we go out, just the two of us, to the ice cream store Oberweis and sit in the parking lot talking for an hour. Then Jason goes in the store (keeping shoppers to a minimum) and picks two new quarts of ice cream that we then take home to share with our kids. It's not how we imagined our dates to be, but we are enjoying it nonetheless. And it has become a fun diversion for all of us since we've each rated all of the flavors over the weeks; we'll tell you our favorites when this is all over!

Prepped

Thanks to Aunt Deni we're ready with masks which is good because they will mandatory in public places starting May 1st here. The kids' schools will be remote learning through the end of the school year and Jason's work is heavily hinting that even when restrictions are lifted they will still be asked to work from home...it's gonna be a long time before life gets back to "normal." Good thing I love these faces; I see them a lot! 

Max

We sure love this dog.

 

He likes to be involved in whatever is happening.

One of the few occasions that will cause him to bark is when there is a toy under the couch.

 I've never seen a dog stretch out on his stomach with all his limbs out like this, but Max does it a lot.

He loves to be outside, and now that it's regularly a bit warmer he spends hours a day in our backyard. He has become a bit of an escape artist (annoying), but otherwise he runs sprints around the yard, chases leaves or birds, or often sits on the deck keeping watch.

He does think anything on the floor is a chew toy, and many of Jake's toys have ended up like this.

He loves his kennel and often goes in there for naps or around 7-8pm for bed. If the door is closed, he waits till we notice and open it for him.

 He loves to bask in the sun.

He was a good choice for an addition to our family and the kids are as enamored with him now as they were when we brought him home.

Stay at Home

We've had a Stay at Home order in Illinois since mid March. Currently it will remain in place through the end of April but the Governor has said the kids will not go back to school this school year. To say it has changed things around here would be an understatement. I have been so pleasantly surprised, though, at how well the kids especially have adjusted. They have been very nice to be around and we've had a lot of fun with them. Jason has also been working from home; we've enjoyed getting to spend the three hours he normal commutes playing with him!

This is a very common sight: at least two kids in the dining room doing school work, wearing PJs. Jason's company gave everyone $1,000 to make their work from home experience more comfortable and we used part of that to buy a chrome book for the kids to use for school work and we rented one from the school district as well. That has made all the difference in the world-the one week where we had one computer that four people needed was tricky to say the least. Now we have a good system and I am so thankful Ali and Logan can do what they need to with little or no direction from me!

Jake doesn't get dressed until he feels like it, usually after lunch and sometimes not until he changes into clean PJs for bed! He's also sporting a haircut I gave him. I've done three so far: Logan (whose turned out quite nice), Jason's (hard to get wrong), and Jake's (the best thing I can say about his is that it is shorter...)

In the month or so before the quarantine I did something I seldom do: I bought quite a few "surprises" for the kids, planning to give them to them during Spring Break. I bought these things over the course of a few weeks and kind of lost track of how much I had gotten, until the pile got quite large. I have never been so grateful for a pile of frivolous purchases in my life. They have been put to good use and brought lots of fun and happiness. Play dough and play dough toys were one.

Several puzzles were also a huge hit.

For her birthday Ali had wished for lots of Dungeons and Dragons things and they spent days planning for the game and then more days playing. Great timing!

I've been wracking my brain trying to keep the sisters in the Relief Society connected when we can't be together. I have organized a Zoo Hunt (everyone put stuffed animals in the windows and we drove around to see them, leaving messages in sidewalk chalk), a Scavenger Hunt, a challenge to do something physical as a family and post pictures, and a challenge to minister to their sisters in an unusual way and post pictures. Some were more fun than others, but most were well received!

The weather has been nice most of the time and we've really enjoyed being outdoors. Here are the kids playing 500 in the backyard (with an added call of "Moose" -their nickname for Max- which to win the points they have to be the first to touch Max).

We've gone on walks around lakes near us.

This walk had a great hill.

This walk had a great lake.

And Jason has gone on bike rides with the kids. This picture sums things up quite well-look at the sign!

Jason has made the best of the situation, as he always does. He spends almost all his time in the basement bedroom as he both sleeps and works there!

As for me, I'm keeping it all running and enjoying my "me" time the only way I can: by staying up way too late. But I'm also loving sleeping in until 9am every day; sleeping in is one of my most favorite things in the world.

These five are some of my most favorite people in the whole world. Being stuck at home with them could certainly be worse!

Drawing

Eli's been drawing a lot again lately; I love to see what he does!

Happy Birthday Jake!

This boy turned five today! He was SO excited for his birthday and was SO pleased and thrilled with everything that we did for him, making it such a fun day for all of us. 

He loved his Olaf cake (he had lots of ideas for his cake, some of which toys don't exist or couldn't get here fast enough in this slower shipping Corona virus world. I took a risk and ordered Olaf without consulting him, and thankfully when I showed it to him he was thrilled). Chef Jake helped make the cake.

Jake was so much fun to watch opening his presents. He was so happy and thankful for everything he got. He even had two friends who stopped by to wish him a happy day (from a long distance away) and loved his phone calls and FaceTimes with family members who called to send their love. It really was a joy to watch him be so happy.

Our whole family was so excited for Jake to join our family five years ago! He is such a creative, smart, friendly boy and we love him so!

Reading Buds

Jake has become interested in some of the chapter books Eli has and sometimes Eli will read them to him; makes my heart happy!