The announcement that school would be cancelled for the remainder of the 2019/2020 year at the beginning of April brought a lot of sadness, but also some closure. We resigned ourselves to this new normal and adjusted our schedule to make this time as pleasant as possible for everyone. Here is the schedule we are loosely following now:
Before 7:30 am: Kristin work/run/shower
7:30-8:30 am: Breakfast
8:30-9:00: Boys play together
9:00-12:00: Spencer - Grandpa's Wood shop (M/W/F) and school work
Mason - play by self, learning websites with Mom, preschool
12:00-12:30: Lunch
12:30-1:30: Zoom read aloud with Alicia and play outside
1:30-3:00: Spencer - piano, play in room, run with Alan
Mason - read with Mom, quiet time in room
3:00-5:00: snack, chores, screen time, play outside
5:00-6:00: Dinner
6:00-7:00: Family time - bike ride, walk, game, etc.
Playing together has definitely been a challenge for Spencer and Mason. With a 6.5 year age gap, there just aren't many things they both enjoy doing together. I have been trying to help them learn how to compromise and take turns choosing what they are going to do. Some days are rough and others are great.
Darwin took it upon himself to do a Zoom meeting with his grand kids three times a week for several weeks! He showed them lots of wood working videos, made and shipped the parts for bird houses and marshmallow guns to every family, and even hired a tour guide he met in Italy at Christmas time to teach Italian lessons to the kids for two weeks! Spencer wasn't always super interested in what Darwin was teaching, but I was so impressed with Darwin's desire to connect with his grand kids and to help them keep learning during this weird time of no school. I have always admired Darwin's passion for learning.
Spencer has done very well with his distance learning. It takes him 1-2 hours a day and he has been almost totally independent. Some of his teachers have been really good to send fun, optional assignments like earning a package of Orbeez for an extra-hard math problem, making a favorite snack, or learning how to do laundry. (Well Spencer didn't think that was so fun, but I loved it!)
At Caralee's suggestion, I have been helping Mason do a learning game called Teach Your Monster to Read. It challenges him a lot, but he is doing well and has learned a lot. The narrators are British which makes their pronunciation of vowel sounds tricky for Mason so I sit with him to help. Mason definitely prefers learning that way to having me do all of the teaching. ;)
As a 6th grade teacher in Utah, Alicia has been doing a read aloud with her class every afternoon. She was so thoughtful to invite Spencer to join and he has really enjoyed it. For some reason, our school district won't let teachers hold any kind of virtual meetings like that. Boo!
The government set up several protection plans to help families, but every one of them failed us at first. Alan tried to apply for unemployment right at the beginning, but the system was so backlogged by millions of other people doing the same thing, that he couldn't even finish the application. The government also funded billions of dollars in small business loans, but they awarded a lot of the money to bigger small businesses and it was all gone within two weeks. Uberthons and its' side company, See The Finish, did not receive anything even though Alan applied on the very first day. Lastly, almost every adult in the country was eligible for a stimulus check. Alan and I should have received about $3,400 in mid-April, but because we hadn't set up a direct deposit for our taxes this year, we had to wait.
This was all extremely stressful and frustrating to Alan, but we received a huge tender mercy when he finally figured out a temporary side job. He started delivering food from restaurants towards the end of April. The hours were flexible which allowed Alan to continue working for Athletic timing. And, the pay was actually really good. The demand for restaurant delivery was huge and Alan could match his pay from Athletic Timing by working about 30 hours a week. He would typically deliver for two meals a day, 2-3 hours each meal.
As for me, I kept plenty busy teaching Mason, keeping the house clean, and trying to keep everyone happy and occupied. I am naturally an introvert and don't mind staying home a lot, but it was hard some days. I just got so tired of doing the same things and listening to the same fights day in and day out. I don't have any friends that I can just call and chat with and I started really missing the connections I had with other moms from Church.
SO many pictures from April! I'll do separate posts for Easter and Spencer's birthday. These are all of the others.
I don't care much for practical jokes, but we celebrated April Fools Day more than usual this year since I had so much extra time to prepare. The boys woke up to googly eyes on lots of food in the kitchen. Then, we had a super fun dinner at the Fool's Cafe. I didn't get pictures of everything, but the boys had to roll a dice for their dishes and utensils and then had to fill out their menu without knowing what they were ordering. I kept the menu super simple for my own sake: grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, green beans, and brown E's (I made real brownies too!). Mason especially LOVED eating with crazy dishes! Poor Alan only ordered brown E's and a napkin for his appetizer and had to wait for some real food. Haha! We laughed a ton and Mason still asks if he can eat out of muffin tin for dinner occasionally. This will definitely become a new tradition.
Endless Lego creations. Spencer's carousel wins the prize for the coolest for sure!
I got teary-eyed when Mason's preschool dropped by this bag of activities. They weren't required to do anything of the kind and I was blown away by their care and concern for the kiddos. I've said it before, but Southwest Church of Christ Preschool was a tremendous blessing for us! The teachers and staff there are amazing, Christ-like people. Mason and I are so sad that it had to end so abruptly.
I don't mind doing home preschool with him, but Mason isn't the biggest fan. Here are a couple of activities he really enjoyed though.
We get outside as much as we can on dry days and we have been blessed with lots of them this spring. This puddle across the street was more interesting than riding his scooter.
This was Spencer's first virtual track meet of the season. Just Alan and Spencer on the track and no official timing. Mason and I tagged along just to get out of the house.
The setting for April's General Conference was different than any previous Conference. It was held in a small auditorium with only the speakers and camera man present. All of the music was prerecorded by the choirs. Besides Conference last fall right after our failed adoption, it was anticipated conference of my life. And, it was probably the best attended Conference in the history of the Church because so many people all around the world were just gathered in their homes with their families. With the whole world in turmoil, so many of us were praying for much needed hope, peace and direction. As we knew they would, those blessings came from Jesus Christ through our living Prophet and the other general authorities who spoke. There were some powerful talks. We were promised that this uncertain time would pass and that life would eventually return to normal and we were reminded to always look to the Savior. President Nelson announced a new Church symbol and a new proclamation about The Restoration of the Gospel. We also all got to participate in the Hosanna Shout from our homes and that was sacred and special.
This Conference was especially meaningful to me because I had prepared more than ever before. Last Conference, President Nelson asked the woman of the Church to study the priesthood and he asked everyone to study the Restoration in preparation for this Conference. I studied those things slowly with an Instagram group called Inklings and my testimony and knowledge were greatly strengthened.
It turned out to be a nice weekend even though we couldn't spend Sunday with Darwin and Debbie like usual. I attempted to make Darwin's German pretzels for Sunday lunch. They were ok, but not nearly as good as his. We took a nice walk after dinner like we do most Sundays now.
There was a knock on the door as we were reading scriptures that evening. When I answered it, there was nothing on the doormat but this envelope with $200 inside. We were shocked and can only assume that it was from someone in our ward. It was a humbling gift and we were so grateful for earthly angels who were watching out for us.
In April, the government began to recommend that everyone wear a mask when in public. Since hospitals and doctor's offices needed all of the medical masks, it was impossible to buy them. Debbie was kind enough to make cloth masks for the four of us. Mason and Spencer really only left the house to run, walk, or ride bikes so they didn't wear theirs much. I wore mine every time I went grocery shopping though. Stores started limiting the number of people who could be inside at once so sometimes there were lines to enter. Thankfully this line at Costco moved very quickly.
After Eric responded to a Twitter question about how people were observing their faiths during quarantine, he was interviewed by the PBS Evening News. They wanted a picture of how our family is having home-centered Church. We have been having a sort-of church meeting with Alan's family over Zoom every Sunday morning since this started. It's fun to see everyone and hear how they are all trying to stay sane during this craziness. Jeremiah was even able to join us from his mission in MT just for this picture. He doesn't join us on Sundays.
Painting Grandpa's bird house. Thankfully, we had a small unfinished bird house hanging around that Mason got to paint by himself. That saved us a few fights. :)
Mason loves creepy-crawlies and dirt!
Spencer continued having weekly Zoom meetings with his Deacon's quorum. They try to play a game each time. Some games have worked much better than others. I have been super impressed with the quorum president's willingness to try this and to connect with the boys. Spencer looks forward to it every week.
Mason wasn't happy about me taking a picture, but he did have fun making these bird feeders.
We finally put the training wheels on Spencer's old bike for Mason and he took to it really fast. Hopefully he won't need the training wheels for long. Spencer learned to ride a bike in this cul-de-sac driveway across the street from our house too.
We couldn't go out to eat or to the temple on dates, but Alan and I did start running together again. It's SO awesome that Spencer is old enough to watch Mason for short periods of time now! We started going on longer runs together most Saturday mornings. That definitely wouldn't have been happening if track season was happening.
Spencer made some granola bars for a FACS assignment one day. He has been getting lots of good cooking and cleaning practice lately. ;)
After years of me hoping, Alan finally had time to build garden boxes for me this year! It turned out to be a smaller project than I expected and allowed me to get the garden planted about a month earlier than I normally do. I'm excited to see how it goes! Mason helped me transplant our seedlings to bigger pots.
One Sunday morning, Spencer decided to help Mason build a cool truck Lego truck following the original instructions. Little did he know that it would take three hours and all four of us to finally find all of the pieces and finish it! Mason was in heaven!
Lots of bike rides and trampoline jumping. Mason always begging to ride to Stella Olsen Park so he could run around on the stage and trails.
Spencer completed two weeks of Italian lessons on Zoom with Angela (the tour guide Darwin paid to teach the kids). She was great and so sweet!
Mason lost his first tooth!!! It has been super wiggly for a week or so before it finally came out while he was running home from the park one evening. He was SO happy and SO excited for the tooth fairy. She brought him a quarter.
Spencer continued his FaceTime piano lessons with Kristen Cichoski. She started assigning him lots of hymns to practice so he could play for our little home church each week. We were given permission to administer the Sacrament in our homes if we had the proper priesthood authority. So each week, Alan prepared and blessed the bread and water and Spencer passed it. It was a sacred and special opportunity that illustrated the individuality of our Savior's sacrifice and I was so grateful to be able to participate. To Mason's delight, the pieces of bread and cups of water were much bigger than normal. Haha!
Spencer was supposed to participate in Junior Festival for piano in April. Instead of completely canceling the event, we were able to submit a recording from home. Here is Spencer about to start. He preformed his three memorized pieces very well.
Sunday evening walk at The Refuge.
Mason's sunflowers. The seed he planted at the kindergarten open house never sprouted so we planted new ones. They should be big and tall when school starts. We're praying that school will start like normal in the fall!
Oatmeal breakfast cookies for National Oatmeal Cookie Day. Made by Spencer!
I was so happy that Spencer's school did parade around town. A lot of schools have done this and we saw the elementary parade in April too. The middle school kids weren't as excited about it as the younger kids were, but I thought the teachers were awesome to do it. This truck was Spencer's language arts teacher's. Our sweet neighbor across the street gave Mason a brand-new package of sidewalk chalk right before the parade. Our neighbors have been so great during this time.
Mason discovered a nest in the tree on our front lawn while we were playing one evening. He was so excited! We got the ladder out to get a good view of them. They were so big that they were all squished in the nest and had all flown away just a couple of days later. It was a fun discovery.
