Covid-19 at Home (part 2)

Another thing that I am excited about is that I started selling resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. My first (and free) resource has been up for around 3 weeks, and it has over 1000 downloads. Now I need to start adding more resources to make some actual money:)

I also compiled and edited a video for school about what was going on. The kids have been my guinea pig/demonstrators for all my STEM activities I am creating for my students. Andy built a Lego Bridge, Jay built a TP roll-er coaster and more.

John has been the most busy with Church worship, but our family was a big part one filming day, Jay helped out singing the doxology: Apparently Howling at the moon at 8pm is a thing, and we did it faithfully for over a week with our neighborhood.

Ellie tried out some of her own recipes:

She also started talking to her play-doh like she had her own youtube channel. We let the camera run, and did some editing of the takes:) We had some dress up days for spirit week (and added to our flipgrids and Zoom meetings in costumes), and even began wearing masks or other face protection when picking up the free lunches from the bus stop. Andy thinks his face guard is hilarious. John and I mostly wear bandanas.

I created my own version of Deal or No Deal for the kids one day when I had mom guilt about ignoring them for the few days before that because I was back to work (well, working from home on my computer and in zoom meetings most of the day).

I think they got a kick out of it:)

Apparently, the boys had their own projects going:

Ellie is so fun, and so messy and crazy all at the same time. She loves going for a walk to get the free lunch, and she tried some Moana Yoga to help me test some links:)

Overall, we are happy that we have our little family to be with, and so thankful for everything we have and can do. School work for the boys has gone well (maybe Andy needs a little more prompting sometimes). Our grocery pickup orders are for 5 days out, so I ordered on Monday and got a Friday morning pick-up time. Andy was pumped to see Apples in the free school lunches, because we ran out of those a few days ago, and he typically eats 2-3 a day on a quarantine day:) We have virtual happy hours with friends, Family zoom meetings on the weekends, and try to always go outside when we are on each others nerves. It is strange that everything is up in the air, but we didn't have too many plans besides Flag football (which is canceled). I'm wondering what will happen with their birthday parties, but we will have awesome decor and games even if it is just us (but hopefully a few people can come if we plan for the end of May). We miss seeing everybody:)

COVID-19 at home time (part 1)

So...we have been at home for over a month now. John has gone to work occasionally (to work alone in a field), and has gone to church to record church services as a worship leader, but Ellie hadn't left the house (except for walks) in 16 days when we went to Noah's drive-by Birthday parade. The middle of March we had a lot of fun coming up with activities, being care-free and playing. We did family game night each night, and then watched a movie or a show after that. We have enjoyed: Forged in Fire, American Pickers, Deal or no Deal, Elf, and a lot of Disney movies. We started with taking advantage of the extra time by sleeping in and then doing pre-school for Ellie each morning for 2 hours. Her favorite was "Bubble Pop numbers", Jay reading stories, and "Fairy Princess Math"

We have replaced a few things that needed it. We got a new faucet (and ended up taking out the sink to put it back in), We replaced our dishwasher, and got a new vacuum.

We spent some time cleaning the legos from school:

Building Forts, cuddling, lego projects, and costumes:

We had lots of different weather to play in:

Sometimes, we just needed a distraction from the house, and singing and dancing in puddles on the corner, was perfect. We tried to keep them busy with work at their "Desks", Music activities for Ellie, and Baking. They even added two tranpolines and soft pillows and seating to their room and called it the "trampoline park". They would get bored and say..."Hey, want to go to the trampoline park? Yeah!" and go to their room. It was GREAT, but then we realized it was only a matter of time before we would end up in the ER with that one (which was the one thing we were trying to avoid during COVID, so we shut the trampoline park down:)

Laser Tag, Nerf guns and Nerf wars have been a huge hit this "break". They found a few youtube channels of kids that have nerf gun wars with their friends, and suddenly it is cool again, which is great...because it is the theme of Andy's 8th bday party. After sorting out their stash of nerf guns and checking to see which worked, they got really sick of Ellie messing with everything and zipped her up in the storage (with mesh sides). They gave her pillows and stuffy's so she thought it was kind of cool:) Another highlight was decorating our car and going to Noah's Drive By Birthday Parade.

One highlight was decorating our car and going to Noah's Drive By Birthday Parade.