I can't believe this virus has been in our lives an entire year. Here are all of the things, I'm sure I've missed a lot, that I'll remember about the time of our lives that we were, "locked down".

1) Our "Happy Life" playlist. Certain songs take me right back to those months. 

-"Home" by Philip Philips

-"Home" by Edward Sharpe

-"Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" by The Beatles

-"Our House" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young (SO much of them!)

2) Lots of walks

3) Jonathan being home
4) Barrett being a quarantine baby
5) Chick fil a Fridays
6) all the outdoor toys

-Ninja line

-outside bar

-soccer nets

-bubbles

-sidewalk chalk
7) kids learning to shoot a bow and arrow

-even on Easter Sunday 
8) Home school

-ughhhhhhh
9) Zoom calls

-ughhhhhhhh
10) Georgia getting a lot closer with Barrett

11) Being worried the first few days

12) Then spending the next several months not worried AT ALL

13) Jonathan working in a small "office" in the corner of our room. We quickly learned the office set up in the formal dining room would not work for us.

14) The kids discovering the fun in having a record player

15) My stepdad being put in memory care

16) Jonathan making bread A LOT

17) The Marco Polo app with my Baylor girls

-still going strong!

18) Outdoor PE

19) Georgia practicing gymnastics on a bar attached to two trees

-lots of gymnastics practice in general

20) Lots of cooking

21) Lots of music

22) Being outside ALL THE TIME

23) Painting

24) Walking in on Jonathan's zoom work calls

25) Having really great weather so much of the time

26) So much remodeling, home projects, and yard work.

(This was the first week in. That "office" quickly got moved and remodeling the dining room was one of the first projects I tackled)

Corona Life - Week 11

I'm assuming these are still "corona life" posts even though our state is opening back up. I wore my first mask last week for my annual exam because I was required to so that I could enter the building. Take that as you may...although my doctor and kid's doctor said they were excessive. Moving on. All of that to say I'm not sure what the big marker will be to say we've officially moved on from here.

Sunday

It was rainy here for us but the kids didn't mind. They had popsicles and played in the rain while on the trampoline.

Monday

We had a laid back Memorial Day. We had some plans but cancelled them due to the forecast of 80% chance of rain.  Well, it didn't rain so that's fun...but we enjoyed our day. Georgia played and swam with friends and we had my mom and grandmother over for hot dogs and copy cat chick fil a sandwiches. I got the kids light up necklaces, sunglasses, bubbles, silly string and glow sticks for a fun summer surprise.

Tuesday

Jonathan had to go into work again today. It's kind of rough him not really having a set schedule and not knowing when to expect him to come home but I guess we're making it. We sat outside a lot to play with the bubbles and Barrett practiced crawling and finding things he shouldn't.

Wednesday

I don't remember a lot about Wednesday...I know I dug around in the attic a lot and Barrett had his first experience with bedhead! Those, "I just woke up, sleepy eyes" are the best!

Thursday

Barrett said, "Momma" for the first time.  He has no idea what any of his "words" mean but he's still said them. We also played with bubbles a lot. I had a shoot this evening and ended up with quite a few chigger bites. Ugh.

Friday

Did errands and played outside. Had CFA like always. Georgia went to her cousins after lunch and swam all day and spent the night. I can't believe how old she is looking these days!

Saturday

The girl cousins came back to our house for breakfast and spent the day riding their bikes and playing. Me, my brother, and step brother all have girls that span about 18 months. Molly Kathryn and Abigail just finished fourth grade and Georgia just finished third. G and MK are actually one year, one month, and one day apart. I had a shoot this evening and doubled up on bug spray this time. Georgia spent the night with my mom this night. I think she likes spending the night with my mom to get away from her little brothers.

Sunday

I had another shoot this morning and dealt with some computer issues. Luckily I got all of that sorted out. We spent the rest of the day at home.

Tomorrow we have big changes coming: Jonathan is going back to his office full time. We've had him home for THREE MONTHS. That's a long time, y'all! It's going to be a rough adjustment for the four of us left at home so hopefully we hit a new normal quickly. The only thing we have on our plate is Georgia's gymnastics, which bumps back up to 3 hour classes. Timing that with naps is a bit tricky but manageable. Keeping up with the happiest boy on the planet...also on my list. Ha.

Corona Life - Week 10

Just in case you're keeping count...this was our 10th week of homeschool, our 9th week of lessons from Georgia's school, and our 11th week at home. Wow. We live in Texas and our state is opening up and so far has no spike in numbers.

Sunday was all about Georgia's party.  Running last minute errands, getting set up, and eventually...the party! She had a really great time!

Monday we did school and Georgia started back at her gym. They've cut it down to 7.5 hours from 9 but we're all so glad to have one little part of our life back to normal. Georgia and Milam need some time apart and I need someone to burn all her energy.

Tuesday we buckled down and finished all of Georgia's school work and got it turned in. With Jonathan starting to spend some time at school and gym starting back I needed "homeschool" checked off of my list. We also started to get that awful Texas heat + humidity so its now hard to get out of the house. I need all the summer help I can get. Milam and I did play baseball for a bit and it was so cute. He kept saying, "oh mommy, you're such a good thrower!" "Look mommy! I hit it! I'm so proud!" I kept putting my hand up to give him a high five after each hit (pitch, not tee) and he would go in for a hug every time. It was the cutest.

Wednesday Georgia had gym, it was our first day with no school, and it was really, REALLY hot. I can't complain too much though because since the "stay at home order" started we've been blessed with really great spring weather. I knew it had to come to an end. Barrett has also started feeding himself and its super cute and means sink baths. We just can't get enough of him.

 

Thursday

Georgia had gym again and then I don't remember what we did the rest of the day. Oops

Friday

Jonathan worked most of this week and really odd hours. Milam had his last speech class on this day. I did some cleaning. We played outside.

Saturday

This day was super exciting because we got a treadmill. A friend just gave it to us and we're LOVING it! Jonathan has his bike trainer and weights in the garage and now we have the treadmill. Makes a nice little home gym. Georgia spent a lot of time with my mom (much needed time for them both) and I took the boys to Sonic.

Jonathan has been working a lot lately so my days are kind of just blurring together. I cannot believe Barrett has done three monthly shoots under house arrest...and he's only 7 months old.

Corona Life - Week 9 AND Mother's Day

Week 9 of homeschool

Week 10 at home 

(Milam has been home 11 I think because he had a small cough the week before so I kept him home even though he didn't have a fever. Ugh)

(Just some back story on our time the past couple of months)

I have really enjoyed all this time together but it has been a time of a lot of change for our families. Other than the obvious changes like Jonathan working from home and the chaos (and good) that comes from that, my mom over did it cleaning out the garage and injured her back.  I've been helping out a lot at her house because her 96 year old mother lives with her. She was cleaning the garage because my step-dad has a high stage of Alzheimer's and after a stay at the hospital for pneumonia (non covid) he went to a rehab facility and now he's at a memory care residence because it is no longer safe for him, my mom, or grandmother for him to live there.  My mom hasn't seen him in almost two months because of this covid ridiculousness and up until this week she was barely walking. Once her doctor reopened she was able to get an injection to speed up healing. So, it has been great in a lot of ways but really life changing in others. Alzheimer's is an absolutely heartbreaking disease. I hate it for my babies that they won't have the PawPaw memories they deserve because even though he doesn't know them now he loves them so much. It's entirely unfair because my step-dad is a living saint (I love my dad and he in no way replaced my dad when my parents divorced and never tired) and this disease in no way honors his spirit. I'm not writing any of this for sympathy (although my mom could always use your prayers) but I just want to fully remember what this time was truly like for our family.

In a moment of Rona, home bound, frustration I told Jonathan for Mother's Day I just wanted to talk to nobody all day. Then, on Mother's Day he made me breakfast in bed, brought me a ton of chocolate, a target gift card, $20, and a super cute itinerary. The itinerary told me to go on walks, shop at Trader Joes with my $20, spend my gift card at Target, listen to a lot of Fleetwood Mac, get dinner at Flower Child, and enjoy a night to myself at a hotel. When I realized he had booked me a hotel and planned a whole day for me to be by myself I was super taken aback and not at all excited. It seemed odd to me that I wouldn't spend Mother's Day mothering but then I was out on a run by myself about to check into the hotel and then clean up to go shopping and was like...this doesn't suck and then I remembered I TOLD HIM I DID'T WANT TO TALK TO ANYONE ALL DAY. Oops. It was actually really nice. I ate a lot of chocolate, bought beautiful peonies, shopped, watched Home Town while I ate my yummy Flower Child glow bowl...and then actually did a lot of work but I got so much done because nobody was distracting me. It was great.

On Monday I came home and it was back to reality. I didn't even really start waking up until 8:30. We did some back and forth parenting while Jonathan had meetings and we played outside a lot. Barrett crawled ONCE! Just once but it was still forward progress. He'll make some progress and then we all jump and cheer and he gets so excited that he drops and buries his face and smiles and laughs. It is so darn cute. 

Tuesday we had a lot of school work to catch up on since I was out of the house Monday morning. We played outside, Jonathan worked on building a bike with my brother, it rained, I went to the store for my mom (she has two bulging disks so that stinks), Barrett worked on crawling and devoured some corn bread.

We went on two hikes this week. Milam feels really cool when he gets to ride trails on his bike. He loves it.

On Thursday Georgia went to spend a few nights with Jonathan's parents. So things were a slightly slower pace for us. Jonathan actually had to go into work that afternoon. Then, we ate dinner and took a walk to my mom's.

Friday Milam had two zoom meetings and it rained.  That's all I remember about Friday.  Oops!

Saturday I know I ran a lot of errands and Georgia came home from her grandparents. I did a lot of birthday prep for Georgia. She turned nine on Sunday!

What have your covid schedules been looking like?!

Corona Life - Week 8

I wrote an entire post but it got deleted so here are the pictures.  I'm done.

 Blue Angels fly over

 Mother's Day