Covid 19 days...

All kinds of changes have happened this year with Covid-19. We haven't really gone anywhere or done much to be safe. All the holidays we spent with just the four of us and we only saw family over zoom calls. It was weird. 

We have spent a LOT of time keeping O on top of their schoolwork and making sure things are getting done AND turned in. It's a LOT of extra stress, frustrations and even tears to manage it. 

Sometimes we just need to laugh so then we call cousins and it's always fun to be completely silly with them!! 

During all this at home time the kids have gotten even better at making their own meals. Lucius loves making pasta roni. He can do it mostly by himself now, but I won't let him drain the water yet. My sister was severely burned when we were kids doing that herself, so I'm waiting to let him do it. 

 

I've been going into work this whole time but mostly been working with the kids in emergency childcare. When we switched to in person I was still with the child care for two weeks and then moved back to the school to do recess duty for the K-4th graders. I where all kinds of Covid protection, which is interesting, but not as horrible as you might imagine. 

We've played a LOT more screen time on tablets and on the nintendo switch. The kids even play online with friends on the switch while having their friends on facetime or just a phone call to chat with them as they play. 

 

School from home has looked a lot like this most days:
 

 

A lot of Lucius' school work has Covid-19 themes running through them. I found these two pieces on his bedroom floor when I put him to bed. His handwritting has improved greatly and I was really impressed with how neat it was now. It was surprising because I haven't seen him write much this past year because everything was done mostly online.

Lucius is now playing Barritone on top of Trumpet. Since all his band instruction so far has been over zoom his teacher isn't sure if there's something wrong with Lucius' Trumpet or if its just Lucius not being able to play the higher octives on the trumpet. So now he has two instruments he only plays once a week during his zoom band lesson. 

We've made lots of yummy bread. our new favorite is the overnight focaccia bread.

And because we're home a lot I occasionally find time to deep clean. I found these shirts in a bag of saved hand-me downs. They are by far the oldest pieces of clothing I own. Both are approximately 23 years old and have spent much of those years moving from one storage bin to another (same old story: I always thought I’d wear them again and never did). I’ve finally let them go and they have new owners who think they’re pretty great shirts.

It’s not hordeing if it can be used again at some future time, right?!

Cross country ski adventure...

With an very nearly 13 year old, my days of toting around a diaper bag are long gone. However I still occasionally have to pack (or remind the kiddos to pack for themselves) a bag of necessities. You know... “happiness vitamins” (aka snacks). As we prepare for a planned outing & adventure day. It could be an hour, it could last all day; purely dependant on attitudes and energy levels. The sheer amount of “hangry antidotes” we need to keep the day successful and positive is astounding.

 

The day started off okay, we were up in time to hit the road. It went sour REAL quick when some argument happened between the kids in the car before I even got out of the house. Once we got to the park where I rented skis we checked in a little early. Miko was doing okay till we got outside to put the ski's on and they were different from what we've rented in the past. So that frustrated them and me. O could not seem to recover so they spent the next 30 minutes complaining to me, to the point I said "go ahead of me and leave me in peace!!!" Hooray for awesome parenting skills, or not.

We lasted about an hour and took the trail loop twice I think. Then everyone was sick of feeling the weight of O's crabbiness and we returned the skis. Both kids were in way better moods as they treked over to the big sledding hill. I believe they went down it two or three times and were quite finished. I was also quite done with that monstrous morning, so we went home again. All I can say is, I tried...

 I can now inform you that all the snacks in the world can not tame an overtired preteen. Uffda! We survived the adventure but it wasn’t pretty.

O turns 13 years old...

On Jan 3rd it was official: we have a 13 year old... its been quite a ride with this one. Never a dull moment and we are constantly kept on our toes. Every year brings its own joys and challenges. Seems like not so long ago we were rocking our sweet babe to sleep that very first night. Happy Birthday to our first born!! We love you no matter what and we always will. 

Not super often we get to see this smiley face!! 

This face is more what I see most days.

Photos were taken by Slow Road Photo in our garage last September when we realized school photos weren't probably happening this year with Covid. I didn't get a school photo last year of O so I wasn't going to miss another year. 

We celebrated O's birthday with lots of Nintendo switch time and their favorite dinner from Pancheros. We also ate more ice cream for dessert. They opened their gift too which was a whole bunch of colorful new t-shirts (I know, we are super awesome parents!)

O has also been taking long naps some days when things are too stressful. Some days it's close to three hours and we have to wake them up. Most often those naps are because we have completely stressed them out asking weather or not they did their schoolwork. 

One Second Video continues for 2019 & 2020...

It wasn't too long ago I realized I never quite finished my one second videos from 2019 and 2020. I believe 2019 was one of the biggest "I missed lots of days" videos so date. 2020 was a lot of the same old same old, having been stuck at home most of the year due to Covid. But even through Covid there was plenty of outdoor summer fun. 2019 was just rough starting from Sept 2019 straight through to 2020. On days I was too emotionally drained, I didn't take videos. 

All that to say- here are a few home movies to keep the tradition of one second videos alive! 

2019 video:

 

2020 video:

Valentines day...

 I hardly ever celebrate Valentine's Day. Jerimy and I got engaged on Ground Hog's day so we usually go out then. But I happened to watch a movie on Friday that had a pretty great song in it. SO I spent close to three hours on Saturday morning looking through old photo albums and taking pictures of old photos. Then strung them altogether in a three minute long video for Jerimy! 

I thought I'd share it here because, well, I can and want to look back on it. In some ways we have really changed, in other ways not so much. 

Christmas 2020

Christmas 2020 was an interesting new experience. We decided that we would not be joining extend family at any gathering because Jerimy had a cold that wouldn't go away and I had been working in childcare with several quarantines this fall. So we celebrated quietly with just the four of us. The kids opened gifts, after waiting FOREVER till Daddy and I got out of bed... which was maybe around 7:30 or 8am. They opened Santa's presents and then did a little treasure hunt for presents Oma sent for them (because they were too large and awkward to wrap). 

It was hiding under our bed... 

We facetimed with some family off and on during the day. 

Lucius spent a great deal of time building all his new Star Wars lego sets.

 

 

The kids enjoyed some video gaming time, sledding and we build a 1000 piece Lego puzzle.

And just for the record, 12.14.2020 was the date we officially told our soon to be 11 & 13 year old that we, their parents, are Santa’s helpers. Being Santa’s helper means we can create a sense of magic and wonder during the holidays for them, which we fully intent to still do. Pretty sure they’ve had their suspicions but they’ve never really wanted to know the truth till this year. The oldest was still saying “its just a story!!” out loud while to the youngest had his "ah-ha" moment when listening to this picture book, which explains why parents pretend to be Santa for their kids. 

 

 Something I made for the kids this year and added it as a christmas gift were art portfolios. I went through their school papers and found some fun art pieces to put into these 11x17 inch albums so they could easily flip through and see all their art work. There's plenty of empty pages left from them to fill with even more art master pieces.