What We've Been Doing

I saw this on my FB feed yesterday. Can anyone relate?

It's another beautiful Tuesday and here's a little bit of what we've been up to.

We are still limping along with our online learning for the kids. Mark is getting tired of this and frankly, I don't blame him. I know they have to be doing something for the school to get funding, but I don't see much value to what they the kids are doing. It's all busy work to me.

Mark has Zoom calls with his 2nd grade class twice a week and he's getting tired of that too.

The big boys finish with schoolwork in an hour and have the whole day free for videos games. 

Swimming has been part of his day for the past few days. It's still too cold for me to get in the pool.

We've continued with our piano lessons online. I'm not sure he's getting the most out of it, but it keeps him on a schedule and he enjoys it. It's been a struggle getting him to practice though.

And I do love to hear him play.

Our little garden is growing so fast. I'm hoping for some homegrown tomatoes soon. Mark loves watching for the changes everyday.

We had our cleaning crew come yesterday so we picked up lunch, ate on the patio and relaxed out there until they were done cleaning.

This one has the best smile out of my 3 boys.

We've been collecting food donations from Michael's soccer team the past couple of weeks. What a great project for the team to come "together" and help those in need. We were able to load up our truck and drop off more than 2 shopping cartful of groceries, baby supplies and medicines. 

Michael has been driving and is ready to get his driver's license, but with the DMV offices closed, we haven't been able to. His permit expires in July so I hope we can squeeze it in before it does.

 There's also been a lot of lounging around in his boxers too. Love this little guy.

Friday Favorites

Good morning, Friday! To be honest, Friday is still my favorite day of the week, even during quarantine. It's like the first bite of a piece of my favorite dessert - so good and I know that there's still more to come.

I'm playing along with Erika and Andrea this week to highlight some on my favorites.

{ONE}

Waking up and having some quiet time to myself in the morning. The weather here has been picture perfect. I go out onto the patio, have my coffee and work on my blog for a little while before going into the garage for my virtual workout. This leads me to my next favorite.

{TWO}

I have been working out with Camp Gladiator off and on for a couple of years. Mostly off. I didn't sign up until last October mainly because I didn't think it would make it to their workouts enough to make it worth the membership fee. Well, now that we are in quarantine, I have been working out at least 4 times a week and I'm feeling stronger.

{THREE}

I love these tennis shoes. I've had my Nike AirMax for almost 3 years now and they've been great. I can probably still wear them for another 1 year, but I was getting bored with them so I got these Reeboks. Getting new shoes is a favorite.

{FOUR}

This boy's "new" haircut is a favorite. During soccer season, Michael wanted to get a mullet. I was not a big fan, but I agreed. I didn't realize how ugly a mullet could be until I saw it in real life. Then I realized that soccer season will run through Christmas so his mullet will be in holiday pictures. I nearly had a heart attack. But let me tell you, that mullet was loved by all (except his mama) and it earned this almost cult following. The soccer moms nicknamed him the "Mullet Magic." The team all chipped in to get him the money to maintain that mullet, and Coach drove him to the barber shop to get it trimmed. Opposing fans even took to shouting at him to "cut it off!" as an insult.

Anyway, after the season was cancelled, he agreed to let M give him a buzz cut. I think he looks much better without the mullet, but I do miss the "Mullet Magic" mystique. Haha!

{FIVE}

Homemade pizza is a new favorite. I've been trying to find new things to make for the boys and discovered that homemade pizza is pretty easy. I buy the pizza dough from Trader Joe's and can customize the toppings for each kid. Michael is likes the classic pepperoni pizza and Matthew loves the Margherita pizza. I even use fresh basil from our garden.

The Little Things

It's a another beautiful day in my quarantined world. What day is it? It's April 94th, I think. Haha. Just kidding. But seriously, I think one of the best things to come out of this COVID 10 pandemic might be the memes that are floating around. Y'all, we have some very creative people out there and I'm thankful they are using their powers for good.

Here are some of my favorites.

And thank goodness for my Margarita Mammas. They are my Walnut Grove tribe. We are a bunch of moms trying to make it through online schooling without going coo-coo for cocoa-puffs. We share good news and bad news, we vent about anything and everything. And we have lots of laughs. It's still not the same as our margarita lunch sessions, but we are dreaming about relaxing on a patio somewhere with a margarita in our hand and the kids safely at school.

And we share bad haircuts - there have been a few...

I'm also thankful for me CG workout girls. We see each other in the mornings during our Camp Gladiator virtual sweat sessions. Working out at home has been my anchor for the day. I wake up, have my cup of coffee and some alone time, workout, and then the day starts with "homeschooling." These ladies keep me motivated. In fact, we decided that our regular trainer has been working us too hard so we are exploring our options. So there, Monica and Brooke! We will go back to Monica and Brooke of course because we love them, but we've decided we need a little break from too many burpees and bear crawls.

I can't forget my PTO ladies - specifically the high PTO exec board. We've been busy trying to figure out what to do for our graduating seniors who will miss out on so many special moments- Senior Picnic, Baccalaureate, Prom, Grad Night and of course graduation to name a few. We have had to cancel Grad Night, which is a huge deal here for our seniors. We are just moms trying to at least do something a little special for these kids who have so much certainty in their lives right now. I'm thankful to "see" these ladies and work to make virtual Grad Night happen this year.

These are the little things that make me smile because...

But who's counting?

A Season Cut Short

Life around is not quite like it use to be especially in Spring. Right now, Mark would be in the middle of his soccer season. Michael would have just finished up his school soccer season and started up on the second half of his club soccer season with Classic League. His school soccer team would have made it far into the playoff this year, I think. M is still probably mourning the cancellation of the playoffs more than any of us.

I must admit, however, that it really stinks and I'm really sad about it too. This year's team is one of the best teams in a while and I honestly think that they would have done really well and had a great chance to win a state title.

They only lost 1 game the entire season during preseason. They easily won all their district games and only allowed one single fluke goal. I am so proud of all the boys, but I'm especially proud of Michael. He worked hard and has grown a lot (in soccer). He earned a starting spot on Varsity and him and Eric are the 2 best players on defense. He was amazing to watch. Watching Dragon soccer was the highlight of my week and I know it was for M too.

It brought me so much pride and joy to see him out there. It brought me so much pride when his teammates' parents tell me that he is needed on the team and the team would not be the same without him playing. It brought me tremendous pride when he broke his wrist and parents would come up to me to tell me that he needs to recover quickly because they need him to play.

So it really stinks that we are not able to see what more he can accomplish this year with his team. Sure they easily won district and they got to celebrate that before the season got cancelled due to this stupid pandemic but man, I would have loved to see him and his teammates take their talents as far as they can go. 

It would been awesome to see this team win a state title for their school. All the boys on this team loved each other and supported one another. It was plaint see that they really enjoyed being a team. Plus, loved their mommas and really enjoyed being with them during our games - even in the frigid cold. It would have been an amazing experience for Michael as a player and for me and M as his parents.

I know he has one more year left, but I just don't know if it's going to be the same. Maybe I'm mourning the lose of this season as much as M does. Stupid COVID 19. Please go away....

Monday Mash Up

Happy Monday! Are you losing track of the days like I am these day? We had a good weekend. The weather the was great which made me a little happier. I did some baking and some cooking.

Yesterday, I baked some cookies and banana bread and made a lasagna. Not everyone ate it - Mark won't touch it and Michael says he hates it. So I basically made a complicated home-made lasagna for 3 people. Good news? we can have it for lunch the next day. The bad news? Matthew decided he didn't want lasagna for lunch so we were down another man.

I have found that getting up early during the week and having some down time before getting the boys started on their days have made me a happier, more sane person. It only took me a few weeks to figure this out - haha! So now, I wake up, have my coffee, see what is ahead of us for the day. Then I do my virtual workout. We don't get started with school until about 10:30.

We work for about 2 hours and then it's lunch time. After lunch, they are free to do whatever they want. Mark plays on his iPad with his friends and the other two boys go upstairs and I don't see them again until they come down for a snack or to ask me what's for dinner - haha!

For the first couple of weeks, I was beating myself for not having more family time, but I'm over it. They don't want to and it gives me a break to watch some shows and work on projects.

Michael and I planted planted a veggie garden. He made a raised garden bed last year and it's pretty darn good. I love it.

We tried planted squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and some bell peppers last year. It was a bust. The tomatoes had lots of flowers but never produced any fruit. Cucumbers would have itty bitty cucumbers and then it would shrivel up before it was ready to be picked. Same thing with the squash. So this year, Michael decided to that we should just plant tomatoes and jalapeños - he planted 4 jalapeños plants. It's for his jalapeño margaritas. I better get a lot of darn margaritas out of those 4 plants. Just sayin'.....

COVID 19 Pandemic

My goodness. It's been a hot minute since my last post. So many events and milestones have passed that I haven't documented. Thank goodness for Facebook. The boys can get a quick catch-up from that if they ever feel the need. While it's true it's been busy, the real reason is that I wanted to backtrack and write about things that have happen since my last post. Every time I think about catching up the task seems to be too much to handle so it kept putting off. All that to say that it's been a long time and I won't be able to catch you all up. So, I'm going to start fresh.

Today is the start of the 4th week of quarantine and will start the 4th week of online learning for my boys. We got word from our governor that schools will be closed for the rest of the year. Which means no end of school events, no more soccer playoffs and so many other things that I know a lot of kids were looking forward to. It's such a sad time for them and also for us parents.

This COVID 19 pandemic is such a strange time. We are getting along fine with the shelter in place order. In fact, I think my boys are living their best lives. A couple hours of schoolwork and then the rest of the day to play video games or watch Youtube. In all honesty, I'm enjoying not having to drive them from one activity to the next.

The worst part about this whole thing is that I'm having to cook more than I normally would. So I guess you can say I have a blessed life when my biggest problem is figuring out what to feed my kids. I know that there are many families out there who have it much worse.

I don't know when we will be allowed to do everyday normal things again, but in the meantime, I will take this time to start posting again and carry on and wait to see how things shake out.