June Summer Fun

 Despite all the pandemic craziness and nothing about life being normal, we are doing our best to make the most out of our summer. We had a great time in Texas, visiting the Thornocks, but now we are home and trying to make our own fun here. 

One night we caught fireflies at our friends' new property. The kids loved this so much. I don't know why we don't do this more because they absolutely loved it. 

We had to stay up late because we had to wait for it to get dark but this only added to the magic on the night. They loved staying up late.  

Tanner was pretty good at Catching fireflies. It was so fun. 

Tuck also loved it. He used a net at times to help him catch the bugs. 

Bailey didn't want to leave. She had the best time catching fireflies. She caught so many. 

I love the pictures of Benson looking at the bugs in the jar. They are so funny. He was always so shocked when one of the fireflies would light up. 

It was so fun to see the Lowdens and to catch fireflies together. 

We FINALLY went to our pool too. We've been waiting for the pool to warm up a bit and for it also not to be crowded. We finally got a day to go and the kids had so much fun. 

They played together for about an hour and a half before we were too cold and hungry to go on. 

I sure love this little mermaid. 

Benson loved floating in the donut floatie. 

I also took the kids to "Hobby Lobby"  to buy new beanie boos. We had to wear face masks and wash our hands immediately afterwards, but it was worth it. They love their new beanie boos. 

We checked another item off our bucket list recently by getting snow cones. We went to our favorite snow cone stand, "Brain Freeze" and it did not disappoint. We love their snow cones and their whips. So yummy. 

Everyone loved their snow cones! 

We also made sidewalk chalk ice and played with it on the driveway. This was such a mess but so cool. 

Tucker's sweet artistic heart especially enjoyed it. 

Benson wasn't really into making pictures as much as he was into making messes. 

Tanner put this ice cubes on the hill of our driveway and tried to have them race. It was slow going but made some pretty colorful designs. 

I think sidewalk chalk ice was a hit with everyone.
We have more fun planned for the month of July and even though Dad is leaving for annual training, we are going to make the most of it. This virus is making a lot of normal life very strange but we are surviving and can't wait to see our cousins and other family over the 4th of July weekend. 

Father’s Day 2020

Our Daddy is SODA-Lightful! We sure love him and we had the best time celebrating him today with delicious food and fun games. We put together this soda bar for him today because Dad loves soda and soda syrups. He thought it was pretty great and we all enjoyed delicious drinks all day. 

We are so very grateful for this wonderful man and all he does for us. He's an incredibly hard worker, worthy priesthood holder, faithful leader  and wonderful father.
I'm so grateful for him and we feel so lucky that he's ours.
Happy Father's Day to our favorite Dad. 

3-Months of Covid-19 Life

We've now completed 3 months of life since our world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Many parts of the world have slowly phased into reopening. The state of AR has been reopening and life feels a little bit less weird. However, with businesses reopening and parts of life resuming, the cases of COVID-19 in Arkansas are definitely on the rise. As of today, we have had 11,547 cases of COVID-19 in the state. We also currently have 4,338 active cases in the state. It's crazy how fast it's spread since we started to phase into reopening. It makes me really nervous. I don't think we have reached our peak yet for infections so it's only going to get worse. It's terrifying. I'm trying hard not to live in fear but it's hard. 

 Since I already wrote about the end of school and how Covid-19 affected our school plans, I won't cover that again. Summer has been in full swing and even though we can't do most of our normal summer stuff, we are trying to make the most of it. We can't go to the pool with friends, we can't go to the splash pad or water parks. We also aren't able to see our friends or do most normal things.

But one good thing that came from us staying home was Tucker learning how to ride his bike.
We had tried with him in January but he wasn't quite ready, so we took off his pedals and turned his bike into a balance bike. After a few months of learning to balance we felt like he was ready to try again.
Dad put his pedals back on and then Tucker hopped on his bike and just took off. We didn't help him at all and he did so great. We were so proud of him. He's a rock star and he did so amazing.

We were all so thrilled for him. It was so cute to watch the kids all cheer for their brother. 

Now we have three little bike riders and we are so proud. 

Besides Tucker learning to ride his bike, not a whole lot has happened here. We are kind of surviving summer right now. It's not been our typical summer and I've struggled  a little bit with it.

I always love summer but it feels like the kids have already been home for a whole summer so I kind of feel like normal life should resume now. I'm going to work hard on helping the kids enjoy their summer and find some fun things we can safely do together. This is really a strange time we are living in right now. It's been hard in so many ways but it's been good in some ways too. I'm trying hard to find the good everyday. Some days it goes better than others but I'm going to keep trying.

It's really strange how many aspects of life are just different now. How many things we took for granted that we now miss. It's been hard to adjust in some ways, but in other ways it's been really freeing. Toilet paper is back in stock. Most items, actually, are back in stock at the stores. However, chlorox wipes are still hard to find. We are seeing our cousins and grandparents still but that's it. We still don't hang out with friends. We still don't go to birthday parties for our friends or to the pool.
We are trying to navigate this weird time the best we can but sometimes its just hard. Sometimes I feel like we are all so sick of each other but other times we are totally content together. It's a roller coaster of an experience and we are doing our best to figure it out.