Another Week of the Same

Did you have a good year? Since last Sunday? Was your year ok? Our year was ok.

April is going to feel like ten years.

It's fine. We're fine.

But mostly I feel so weird as we push pause (long pause) when we were already gearing up for a big life transition. I wish so much this could have happened when we were getting settled in a new place, with unpacking and projects to occupy our time. But I'm trying to focus on the positive. Life is known here. We don't have stresses to figure out on this side of our change. We are just taking our days slow, sticking to our quarantine routine, and praying for positivity and good news.

It's hard to mentally revisit my week when days are all the same. Our highlights were making a fire and s'mores early in the week, having a pizza and movie night this weekend, lots of walks together, Michael getting out and playing socially distanced tennis with some residency friends, reconnecting and staying connected with friends on Marco Polo, baking some new recipes, and just trying to hold on to what normalcy we can.

Michael and I watched Tiger King and reminisced about when he sat next to that crazy guy on a flight. We started Dirty John and Michael keeps falling asleep in the episodes, so I end up reading all about the real life story online. People have such crazy lives! Crazy, crazy lives.

The craziest thing I did all week was make lemon sweet rolls instead of regular cinnamon rolls. Felt like a total risk. But they were delicious.

The craziest thing Michael did all week was bring a grocery bag on our walk and fill it with maybe a hundred acorns and throw them all over our backyard so we can keep being super entertained by our squirrel friend.

The craziest thing Westin did was try fasting for the first time even though he's just a little 5-year-old cutie. He made it to about 10am and said a prayer in my closet before coming and telling me he'd like to eat breakfast now. Sweet boy.

The craziest thing Bennett did was jump from our big couch to our little couch with surprising force onto Michael before any of us knew that was about to happen.

The craziest thing Camden did was wake up every three hours one night. I much prefer his one-wake-up nights.

So, not as crazy as tiger zookeepers or SoCal con-men, but I'd much prefer our lives to those. I cannot wrap my mind around an entire April of this. Followed by a May/June of moving prep and heading out. The world has shifted. We still don't know the extent of it. I'm grateful we are in a good situation to weather this storm. The memes are keeping me alive.

Hot Dogs and S'mores and salad to add some variety to life.
Boys were thrilled. Westin asks so often, "Is it a good day for a fire?"

This is their homemade fire pit and fire the next day, next to their homemade fort.

Westin loves his homework, but he never wants to stop doing it.
So then I feel like we always end on a negative note, because he does too much and then gets grumpy,
but if I try to end him before that happens he's grumpy because he wants to do more.
So, the beginning and the middle are going pretty well. The end, always a miss.

I highly suggest being in isolation with an 8-month-old angel.
I highly suggest you skip the laundry part.

Last week I found a Chef of the Week idea on Pinterest for Westin.
He was so happy we'd keep doing that on Wednesdays like he does at school.
This week I told him he was Chef of the Week again, but he also got to imagine what the snack would be.
So I asked him what he needed,
and he said they each needed a banana, a string cheese, and apple slice or a cheeto, two oreos, some peanut butter, and something square.
Then he made this racecar, complete with an apple slice spoiler. The chex mix is the window. He loved it.

We have an eccentric squirrel that lives in our backyard.
Tons of flips and tree jumping and frantic acorn burying.
We watch him a lot.
We are home a lot.

"Send a picture to my teacher of me doing my work, mama"

First chat with his best friend, Weston!
They were so cute!

The next day his entire class did a chat on Zoom.
His poor teacher -- so many kindergarteners SO excited to talk to her.
She's an angel.

Kitty is starting to trust Westy boy more and more.
She still steers clear of Bennett :)

Bike rides and campus explorations. 

Who wants to get out of bed when you've got this cutie to snuggle with.

We've been planning (ok I've been planning) on making cinnamon rolls for conference weekend.
And that weekend somehow just keeps feeling farther and farther away.
March keeps on going.
So today I decided, I can make cinnamon rolls whenever I want. Maybe I'll want them again next week, maybe not. Both are fine.
And our sweet friends left a bunch of lemons on their porch from their tree and texted us to come get them,
so lemon rolls happened instead! We all really liked them. I really liked baking these today. I never like baking.
But it felt like a tangible, relaxing, slow, measurable, comforting thing to do and it was the main event of my day.

Social Distancing

I've been putting off this week's post because writing this requires a type of energy I have hardly any of right now. What a crazy time to be alive. We spent our entire week either in our house, backyard, or on a walk. We had so many moments of connecting with each other more than usual, doing fun things together, and slowing down in a lot of good ways, but of course that is also super challenging for three little kiddos and a mom. Friends and places really break up days, and we have been working out our own new routine through this unique time. It's also hard to send Michael to the hospital every day. Fingers crossed we're distancing ourselves early and enough for him to not be in too serious of a situation.

Our Socially Distant Routine:

We try to do prayers and scriptures and Bennett's songs (days of the week, months, ABCs) during breakfast so they're checked off our list. We also make a whiteboard list of "Thing to have fun, Things to get done" which drives Westin throughout the day. He loves lists like his mama.

During the rest of breakfast time I do my daily diastasis recti workout and stretching. Then I put Camden down for his morning nap and the boys play outside while I drink my same smoothie every. single. day.

When the boys come inside we do some of the things on our list that are school or cooking or craft oriented. Then we read a lot of books.

When Camden wakes up we load up and walk one mile to the sloped tunnel that the boys love to speed through on their balance bikes. Between walking the two miles and taking a few rounds on the hill through the tunnel, that's usually 45 minutes of outside sunshine and moving.

Then we head home, eat lunch, and everyone has quiet time or nap time. Westin gets up first, and he and I then do yoga. (Cosmic Kids yoga for him, currently-free Down Dog yoga app for me). If Bennett stayed awake during quiet time he joins us, otherwise he has a good nap. 

After that, we finish other things on our list -- Facetime family, email Westin's teacher, more backyard time, make food, etc. We always end the pre-dinner day with picking up the house before the boys watch Wild Kratts, and I finish dinner.

Then dinner and stories and bed.

This routine worked itself out pretty well and we stuck to it every day this week. My kids are so much happier when they know what's next, and when they have choices within a frame. They decide what we do, but the routine and the types of choices are pretty patterned. Westin chooses what we focus on for school time -- he wanted to learn about noses, how to draw a shark, why chameleons change color, etc.

I've loved my time with my boys this week. I haven't loved getting lost in reading statistics and news articles about months of social distancing when I'm finally left to my own thoughts at night. I can't believe this week was only one week. I wish I knew what the future looked like more but I know that's how literally every person in the world is also feeling.

There are A LOT of quality memes out there right now. I've laughed at so many.

But this has been my favorite thing I've seen posted:

It took him 45 minutes to write his teacher his first email.
He loved it.

He's doing SO GOOD at reading.

I really loved listening to this talk this week while I folded laundry.
Quarantines do nothing to slow down laundry.
No one told laundry that the world has significantly changed.

Leprechauns brought breakfast!

Green Yogurt Parfaits for lunch

They loved this leprechaun craft.
I'm not a cutesy crafty mom BUT Westin loves celebratory food and celebratory crafts,
so we do them. And they make him really really happy, so then it's fun for me too.

Green Eggs and Ham and Green pancakes and Green grapes for dinner.
(Lemon Chia seed pancakes with Maple Greek yogurt topping -- my favorite pancakes ever.)

Bennett paints this reusable watercolor pad every single day. They're great.

Wednesday is Chef of the Week day at school,
and Westin was pretty excited when I told him he was our Chef of the Week at home!

Apple Monsters!
I'm glad I randomly put those eyes in my walmart pick up one day for my baking cupboard.
And thank you, Pinterest, for fun snack ideas with zero prep.
I don't know how moms used to mom without google and pinterest,
my creativity is not very innate.

This is how Bennett woke up on Thursday, and kept complaining about his ear.
This was his first ear infection. We did a drive through pick up of antibiotics and he's been feeling way better.

Reusable stickers are Bennett's current favorite thing.

Art Hub on YouTube is so fun!

My lifeline right now.

Parfaits every day. Half Yogurt, Half Cottage Cheese. Try it.

Kitty took a snooze on Westin's bed and he thought it was so funny.

A new home for Mr. T!

Facebook Live Singing Time! Westin loved seeing some friends on TV.

Back to NOT Reality

We pulled into Fresno on Monday night. The drive that day was not our smoothest -- we took an earlier, longer break than normal to catch up with my friend Denise in Las Vegas (which was so fun! I worked with her back in my Imagine Learning days), and then Camden once again cried as we approached the Boron exit. I never want to see the Shell station of Boron, California ever, ever again. Ever. I didn't even get the other boys out, just quickly fed Camden then made it to Chick-Fil-A in Bakersfield. Camden had a huge blow out while there, and the wipes were left in the car thanks to the quick change in Boron. One-parent road trip stops are the worst part of those drive days, but I really love the actual driving. And Westin and Bennett were so, so great. 

They fell asleep 90 minutes from home, and stayed asleep while I completely unpacked. It was so good to see Michael and be home with him! Then we transferred the boys to their beds and the next day Westin didn't even remember it. He asked me if daddy was at work when we got home, and I told him that daddy had gotten him out of the car and put him to bed. He thought it was so funny that he didn't even remember seeing Michael.

I loved seeing Westin walk his cool walk back to school on Tuesday, and a few of his friends gave him hugs as he got to his classroom. He loves his teacher and friends and school SO much and it makes me happy. Bennett was excited to be back with his speech therapist this week, too. He loves giving her a big hug when he sees here and when we leave. She says he's doing so well.

Michael's cough is getting better, and he's happy to have us home with him. Now we are just entering this weird social-distancing world that collided with that moment when you've eaten all your food before a vacation and planned on eating all your cupboards because you're moving soon. Which means I go back and forth between calmly resigning myself to just eating all the randomness in our house over the next few weeks to stress-planning a trip to Costco in which I load all three of my kids up to get there 45 minutes before the doors open and buy all the things. I switch between these two plans every 10 minutes or so, which brings me to my shout out that this yoga app is currently free since we're all staying home and becoming big balls of anxiety.

Sunday was a really great day between all my internal anxiety. I loved home church together, and the sacrament together, and seeing Benny start to sing songs with us and hear Westin's sweet prayers. We did a little object lesson with pepper/dawn dish soap to teach both the importance of washing hands and relating it to making good choices to keep the Holy Ghost's protection with you.

I can't think too hard about the fact that Michael spends all day every day at the hospital. I'm just going into this week hoping to connect with my kiddos and make the best of our extra time together, and maaaaaybe spring clean and organize all the things. Maybe. This quickly changing situation felt so weird from Friday on.

I'm so curious what next week's blog post will look like. Normally I have a pretty solid guess but at this rate, who knows what life is going to look like in the coming weeks. I'm grateful that we are so minimally affected by such a huge thing, and I recognize how privileged that is. I hope we can do some good this week.

This doesn't look as yummy as it was, but we celebrated pi day with
homemade pizza and a last-minute frozen pie. Westin chose cherry.

Home church after party