6 months of COVID-19 Life

I can't believe that we've been living this weird pandemic life for 6 months now. We have been living like this for half of a year. I know when this all started in March, we thought it would be a few weeks and then we would have things under control and life would go back to normal. Now, 6 months later, those hopes are gone and a new understanding has settled in. This is life for the foreseeable future. This is the new normal. It's equal parts depressing and liberating letting go of my expectations for my old life to return. 

We are mostly still staying home. We are mostly still isolating ourselves. I'm still trying to keep my kids away from others as much as possible. I don't want Tucker exposed with all his respiratory issues. 
Back in July we made the decision to keep our kids home from public in person school and we intended to do virtual school through our school district. 
But then we talked with the kids. We learned more about the expectations for virtual school and we decided to homeschool. So the day before we left for Oregon, we turned in our chrome books and I unenrolled my kids from the Bentonville Public School district. It was a terrifying decision. Now I am solely responsible for their education. But knowing how hard and involved virtual school was in the fall, I feel good about the decision to homeschool instead.  Now that doesn't mean I haven't had more than my fair share of anxiety over this new prospect. But I do feel like it's our best option. 
I was most nervous for the amount of my energy that will be needed each day. It's so much of me for so much of the day. I go from "Mom "in the morning, helping the kids get ready for school. Then I'm "teacher" from 8:30am - 2:30 pm each day. And then back to "Mom" again from 2:30 pm to bedtime. I hardly have any time alone and we are all together, all the time. This still makes me so anxious. I feel like this has definitely been a circumstance where Heavenly Father has had to qualify me for this calling. He has needed to make me more than I am because I can't do it alone.  And I am learning how to rely more on him because I like to do things on my own. 

I really like getting to work on our "Come, Follow Me" lessons each day as part of our curriculum. That is the best part of this setup. I get to make our school day into whatever I want. 
We do language arts, math, history and science. But I also add in a daily scripture study and some life skills each day. I hope to add in art, music and P.E. too. There is so much to consider but with a little planning and preparation each week, I can make it more manageable. 

So homeschooling is the biggest change since my last "COVID-19" update. 

We are still working on our fixer upper house. Of course, while we were in Oregon for a month we didn't make any progress. But now that we are home, we are working on it any chance we get. 
That's something else that has been hard on me. Chris is gone a lot in the evenings, working at the house. And I'm home alone with the kids. I put them to bed and then I'm home at night until he gets back from the fixer upper. It's very isolating.
However, I have been going to "High Fitness" classes 2-3 days a week and that helps me. They are usually in the evenings and while my days are still long, I like having exercise to look forward to. Chris says I can go out with my friends whenever I want so I can have breaks. However, I feel guilty leaving because he either can't work on the fixer upper and then we are even further behind or he has to take all the kids to the house and then he isn't as productive. It's hard. I will be so happy when this house is finished and we can be done with this commitment. 

On the COVID-19 front, cases are still on the rise. Our state started school in person on August 24th after delaying for two weeks. But now students have been in school for about 3 weeks and although cases haven't skyrocketed like I thought, cases still are on the rise. As of today, our total confirmed cases sits at 73, 211. It's crazy. I really hope that after the election in November the crazy amount of cases drops off and we realized the media has been using COVID as a scare tactic. But who knows? 

We've started doing ZOOM sacrament meeting now. It's every Sunday at 9:30 am and it lasts for about an hour. We still haven't had the required 14-day downward trend we need to return to in-person worship. So I guess until then we will continue with the ZOOM church. I kind of like it. It's hard to get kids to sit still but it's good practice for when we eventually get to return to church in person. 

I think that's everything for now. Stay tuned for some more boring pandemic life. 

 

Tanner's Magical 11th Birthday Party

Tanner begged me for a birthday parade. I thought it was kind of funny since his birthday had passed already. But since his siblings all got a parade and he's not going to school this year, he really wanted to see his friends and I couldn't blame him.  So I arranged a birthday parade for him the day after we got home. He loved it so much. I was just relieved people could come since school had resumed here in Arkansas and people are back to their busy lives. 

Tanner was so excited to see his friends. It was adorable!

Some friends from school and some from church and then some cousins came by. He loved it. 

I love this shot of the Quale family pulling up with a party in their car. So freakin' fun!

Our cute little neighbors made signs and stood across the street and cheered for Tanner during the parade. It was so cute. 

Our primary presidency even came by and decorated our driveway with a cute birthday message for Tanner. So cute!

                                                      

    Tanner got lots of presents and a sonic drink- it was a pretty great birthday parade. He was so happy. 

                                        

Then yesterday we had his birthday party with his cousins and grandparents. 

Tanner has been waiting to have this "Harry Potter" themed birthday party for over a year. 
Sadly, he waited to have his big birthday party with his friends for his 11th birthday because you go to "Hogwarts" when you are 11. So he skipped having his big party on his 10th birthday in lieu of having a magical 11th birthday. But then COVID hit and ruined that. So we had a small family party but I did my best to still make it awesome for him.  

Here was the party setup. 

 I had so much fun making all the magical treats to feel like he was at Hogwarts. 

These little golden snitches were so cute. 

  

I think I have finally found a great butter beer recipe. This drink was so good! 

All the little witches and wizards loved it. 

 

 

These little "Bertie Bott" boxes were a labor of love. I cut them out on our drive to Oregon and then I bagged the beans of every flavor and glued them inside and tied the boxes shut with the gold ribbon. 

These chocolate frog boxes were also a labor of love. Inside each box was a milk chocolate frog but the real treat was the box. I spent about 3 hours cutting and folding these boxes. I watched TV while I worked, but even so- they took a long time. But Tanner loved how authentic they looked. 

We had potion bottles and candles all over the table to help with the magical atmosphere. 

These bottles of "liquid luck" were a huge hit with the kids. 

Tanner wanted to make sure he had the best of luck on his birthday. 

I did my best to make the party feel as authentic as possible. Aren't these book covers fun? 

His cake was pretty fun to make. I ordered the gum paste scarf on etsy and then cut the glasses and scar with my silhouette using a sugar sheet. I love how it turned out. 

 

Luckily for me, "muggles" were welcome at this party so I got to attend!

This boy looked so great. He wore his entire Harry Potter costume and he loved how he looked. 

 

Aunt Laura came in full Hogwarts robes and it was awesome. Her and Tanner looked so cute together. 

Don't Nanny and Papa look so cute in their glasses?

After all the cousins arrived, they visited "Ollivander's Wand shop" and they were ready to get sorted into their houses. 

After the sorting hat did it's job, the kids were all divided into their houses. 

 

 

Tanner was happily sorted into Gryffindor. He was so relieved. 

Somehow, Nanny was the only one who was sorted into Slytherin. We are very concerned since there hasn't been a witch or wizard gone bad that didn't belong to Slytherin. 

Nanny was also appropriately concerned. 

We also face-time with the Aunts, Uncles and cousins who couldn't come and we sorted them into houses too. This was pretty funny. 

 

After everyone was sorted we headed outside to play quidditch. It was pretty comical to watch. 

 

Next we opened presents. Tanner loved all the transformers and legos he got. He was so happy. 

 

After opening presents and playing quidditch, we sang to Tanner and cut the cake. 

 

Tanner loved his "Marauder's Map" too. 

Then we just all hung out and goofed off together. The cousins played, the adults chatted and we enjoyed the rest of the day together. 

Happy birthday to our favorite Hogwarts student. I love this boy so much. He made me a mom 11 years ago and I will forever be grateful for him. He's such a great kid. He's just good, just plain good. We love him. Happy late birthday, Tanner!