Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Well, it's been a day of big emotions, lots of good on the home education side, and complete exhaustion.
The day started with a bit of a lie in. Shawn had an 8:00 call so he took it down in the kitchen as Rylie and Scottie were asleep on my floor. The second he went downstairs though, Scottie got up and I had to make her lay back down so she didn't disturb him. He returned to the bedroom and around 9 and I sent the girls downstairs while I got dressed and put my contacts in. They ate a quick breakfast and were excited to jump into their activity books.
While they were working on their language arts, I made myself a cup of coffee and got to work getting dinner in the slow cooker.
Once I got dinner going, I moved the kids on to some math.
There is nothing like the children running out of hand soap in the girls' bathroom and seeing only a single spare bottle in your stash, during the middle of all of this health scare lock down stuff. When that happened last week, I put in a very quick order for hand soap from bath and body works to replenish my stash. It arrived today so I unloaded it and gave the girls some spares for their bathroom, Ben some for his, placed a couple under the kitchen sink and took the rest to my stash in our bathroom.
Shawn decided last week that maybe it would be a good idea to start a sourdough bread starter. It's so much work but it's been fun. I hope it all works out and we get delicious bread out of it. Today was the first day that we had to deal with it twice in one day. For some reason, unless we have a ton of company over, my kitchen is fairly chilly so we read that in the oven with the light on is a great place for the sourdough starter to sit. I have a really bad habit of not checking inside the oven before preheating, so I left myself a little note, to remind myself not to kill our starter.
After dealing with the starter, I took the kids downstairs for read aloud.
I made it about 5 minutes before Shawn texted saying he was having a hard time napping and wanted to know if I was interested in yoga. I ran upstairs to change and we sent the kids to their rooms to read while we did yoga in the basement.
After yoga, it was time to feed the starving children. I cut up some turkey and cheese, gave them some crackers, hard boiled eggs, and each a hot cross bun.
While they ate, I watered the plants and admired the St. Patrick's decorations I put up this weekend. I never finished putting the decorations up, but wasn't quite in the complete festive mood. You wouldn't have known that if you saw me today though because I was wearing a green shirt with shamrocks on it and some festive jewelry.
We also got this thing last week called an ecosphere. It's really cool and is a self sustaining sphere with 8 shrimp inside. They are all named Frederick.
After lunch, Ben and Sydney did the dishes. Sydney unloads the dishwasher and Ben reloads it. Then the kids ate some cookies with milk.
The kids gave Ollie a festive bowtie. He looked too cute!
Then it was time for the afternoon of activities I had planned. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we watched a bit of an Ireland documentary that talked about Ireland way back, and then a short video of a few places in Ireland so the kids could see what it really looks like there. It's beautiful and someday we hope to go.
The next activity was one they'd been waiting for all day. They were so excited to watch their favorite author/illustrator Mo Willems and get to doodle with him.
After doodling and learning to draw their very own Gerald pictures they really needed to get moving. The girls' Art teacher and P.E. teacher got together and made an exercise video for the kids to workout with. They loved it.
After getting their blood moving, I had one last planned activity. I got out some green and yellow acrylic paint and cut up a couple potatoes so that they could paint on some card stock. They used the potatoes as stamps and brushes. I didn't get a picture of the finished projects but I'll try to get a picture in the morning as they are in the girls' bath tub currently. We put them there to finish drying since it was a bit too windy outside this afternoon.
After all of this, I received notice that Kansas schools would remain out for the rest of the school year. Rylie's fever also came back around this time. We realized we only had the current bottle of Tylenol left for her so Shawn decided to run to the Walgreens right down the street. As he was walking out the door he yelled for us to put the dog in her kennel and load up in the car. He thought we were in need of a trip out so we went in the car, down the street to a Pokemon gym that was having a raid. Me, Shawn, and Ben participated in the raid and then we all went to Walgreens where Shawn went in and we all sat in the car, the gas station, and then the car wash. It was nice to get out since this was my first time leaving the house since last Thursday. In the car, we broke the school news to the kids. They are very sad about not getting to see their teachers and friends.
When we came back the kids occupied themselves while I took some of the liquid from the slow cooker, put it in a pan and cut up the cabbage to cook in the liquid. The slow cooker was just too full to add the cabbage to. The girls played some Uno (the favorite card game in the house) and Ben ran on the treadmill.
We ate dinner which turned out delicious, as it does every year. Then Shawn did the dishes while I picked up the leftovers and got the coffee pot ready for tomorrow morning.
The kids all went to bed, later than their normal bed time at 9 but then read for another 15 minutes. After all the kids were asleep, Shawn and I snuck downstairs to the kitchen, made some chamomile and lemon balm tea to drink with our banana bread.
We did our second round of messing with the sourdough bread starter and watched an episode of Outlander.
Now, it's late. I'm debating on reading a chapter from my book or just going to sleep. Rylie's already moved into my room on my floor. Luckily she doesn't feel like the fever is back. Shawn is in a meeting in the kitchen with the people in Singapore he was supposed to be with this week before they cancelled all of the company's travel.
It's so late and the kids won't sleep in, in the morning. I should put the book away.
Here's the deal. The uncertainty of what's ahead makes it really hard to sleep. I decided to take on teaching the kids lessons everyday to give them some normalcy but I don't know if it's helping. We don't know if school will start up virtually on the 30th or what will happen but I'll do the best I can with them. I can't promise every day will be today with fun activities and so much learning but I'll do my best. Somedays may just be playing outside in the driveway and yard, or watching movies. We all need a little comfort and sometimes lazy days and snuggles are the answer. In the mean time, I'm trying to log it all here. I'm sure this will be a crazy time we'll be telling our great grandkids about.
Well, it's been a day of big emotions, lots of good on the home education side, and complete exhaustion.
The day started with a bit of a lie in. Shawn had an 8:00 call so he took it down in the kitchen as Rylie and Scottie were asleep on my floor. The second he went downstairs though, Scottie got up and I had to make her lay back down so she didn't disturb him. He returned to the bedroom and around 9 and I sent the girls downstairs while I got dressed and put my contacts in. They ate a quick breakfast and were excited to jump into their activity books.
While they were working on their language arts, I made myself a cup of coffee and got to work getting dinner in the slow cooker.
Once I got dinner going, I moved the kids on to some math.
There is nothing like the children running out of hand soap in the girls' bathroom and seeing only a single spare bottle in your stash, during the middle of all of this health scare lock down stuff. When that happened last week, I put in a very quick order for hand soap from bath and body works to replenish my stash. It arrived today so I unloaded it and gave the girls some spares for their bathroom, Ben some for his, placed a couple under the kitchen sink and took the rest to my stash in our bathroom.
Shawn decided last week that maybe it would be a good idea to start a sourdough bread starter. It's so much work but it's been fun. I hope it all works out and we get delicious bread out of it. Today was the first day that we had to deal with it twice in one day. For some reason, unless we have a ton of company over, my kitchen is fairly chilly so we read that in the oven with the light on is a great place for the sourdough starter to sit. I have a really bad habit of not checking inside the oven before preheating, so I left myself a little note, to remind myself not to kill our starter.
After dealing with the starter, I took the kids downstairs for read aloud.
I made it about 5 minutes before Shawn texted saying he was having a hard time napping and wanted to know if I was interested in yoga. I ran upstairs to change and we sent the kids to their rooms to read while we did yoga in the basement.
After yoga, it was time to feed the starving children. I cut up some turkey and cheese, gave them some crackers, hard boiled eggs, and each a hot cross bun.
While they ate, I watered the plants and admired the St. Patrick's decorations I put up this weekend. I never finished putting the decorations up, but wasn't quite in the complete festive mood. You wouldn't have known that if you saw me today though because I was wearing a green shirt with shamrocks on it and some festive jewelry.
We also got this thing last week called an ecosphere. It's really cool and is a self sustaining sphere with 8 shrimp inside. They are all named Frederick.
After lunch, Ben and Sydney did the dishes. Sydney unloads the dishwasher and Ben reloads it. Then the kids ate some cookies with milk.
The kids gave Ollie a festive bowtie. He looked too cute!
Then it was time for the afternoon of activities I had planned. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we watched a bit of an Ireland documentary that talked about Ireland way back, and then a short video of a few places in Ireland so the kids could see what it really looks like there. It's beautiful and someday we hope to go.
The next activity was one they'd been waiting for all day. They were so excited to watch their favorite author/illustrator Mo Willems and get to doodle with him.
After doodling and learning to draw their very own Gerald pictures they really needed to get moving. The girls' Art teacher and P.E. teacher got together and made an exercise video for the kids to workout with. They loved it.
After getting their blood moving, I had one last planned activity. I got out some green and yellow acrylic paint and cut up a couple potatoes so that they could paint on some card stock. They used the potatoes as stamps and brushes. I didn't get a picture of the finished projects but I'll try to get a picture in the morning as they are in the girls' bath tub currently. We put them there to finish drying since it was a bit too windy outside this afternoon.
After all of this, I received notice that Kansas schools would remain out for the rest of the school year. Rylie's fever also came back around this time. We realized we only had the current bottle of Tylenol left for her so Shawn decided to run to the Walgreens right down the street. As he was walking out the door he yelled for us to put the dog in her kennel and load up in the car. He thought we were in need of a trip out so we went in the car, down the street to a Pokemon gym that was having a raid. Me, Shawn, and Ben participated in the raid and then we all went to Walgreens where Shawn went in and we all sat in the car, the gas station, and then the car wash. It was nice to get out since this was my first time leaving the house since last Thursday. In the car, we broke the school news to the kids. They are very sad about not getting to see their teachers and friends.
When we came back the kids occupied themselves while I took some of the liquid from the slow cooker, put it in a pan and cut up the cabbage to cook in the liquid. The slow cooker was just too full to add the cabbage to. The girls played some Uno (the favorite card game in the house) and Ben ran on the treadmill.
We ate dinner which turned out delicious, as it does every year. Then Shawn did the dishes while I picked up the leftovers and got the coffee pot ready for tomorrow morning.
The kids all went to bed, later than their normal bed time at 9 but then read for another 15 minutes. After all the kids were asleep, Shawn and I snuck downstairs to the kitchen, made some chamomile and lemon balm tea to drink with our banana bread.
We did our second round of messing with the sourdough bread starter and watched an episode of Outlander.
Now, it's late. I'm debating on reading a chapter from my book or just going to sleep. Rylie's already moved into my room on my floor. Luckily she doesn't feel like the fever is back. Shawn is in a meeting in the kitchen with the people in Singapore he was supposed to be with this week before they cancelled all of the company's travel.
It's so late and the kids won't sleep in, in the morning. I should put the book away.
Here's the deal. The uncertainty of what's ahead makes it really hard to sleep. I decided to take on teaching the kids lessons everyday to give them some normalcy but I don't know if it's helping. We don't know if school will start up virtually on the 30th or what will happen but I'll do the best I can with them. I can't promise every day will be today with fun activities and so much learning but I'll do my best. Somedays may just be playing outside in the driveway and yard, or watching movies. We all need a little comfort and sometimes lazy days and snuggles are the answer. In the mean time, I'm trying to log it all here. I'm sure this will be a crazy time we'll be telling our great grandkids about.
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