This is the Pandemic of 2020

Well, so far the Pandemic of 2020 (should that be capitalized? Is it an official title??) has been going on for almost two months. I officially started working from home on March 23. Its been good and bad, up and down. Hopefully documenting on this blog will help us remember the good times so we look back at this and think of it as just happy quality family time.

Here's what has been going on since we all officially had to Shelter At Home....

Owen's bottom tooth was loose for months... and it started to get really really loose. He was open to the idea of pulling his tooth out in a funny way, so we tried tying it to a basketball... but his tooth was too loose, and too tiny. we couldn't get the floss around there tightly, so needless to say... this experiment did not result in a pulled tooth.

Being at home all the time has made us not only have to find new ways to stay busy, but has made both Neal and I need/want to clean and organize more. I can handle a messy chaotic house when I'm not in it for 10 hours a day... but when that changes when you are at home 24/7. We made the boys clean their GROSS bathroom one morning...and Owen thought the whole thing was "icky".... ummmm yeah. Don't be messy and gross then!!!!

I think everyone during the Pandemic started doing home improvement projects.. and we were no exception. Our master bedroom was painted an light blue color, that one we got new carpet and a new bed, totally clashed. We had paint swatches painted on the walls for MONTHS and finally just got it done while we were at home. We painted it a light, warm tan and the boys helped!

We watched a lot of movies during Stay At Home. A LOT. Neal and I both had to work, there were plenty of rainy days so.... "go put in a movie" was uttered a lot. Some nights we had family movie nights.. those were my favorite.

We had a good run in April of sunny days though!!! Owen and I joined the mosiac trend and worked so hard making some beautiful backyard art.

We utilized our garage as "play space" more than ever before. Neal brought home a golf mat from his school, we got a net to hit golf balls and baseballs into, stuck the trampoline out there... whatever we could think of to give the kids a change of scene from being inside the house on the cold rainy days we had.

There was a lot of chatter on social media during the Pandemic about kids' schedules... if your kids should have one, if they shouldn't, etc. Our boys do better when they have somewhat of a schedule, so we tried to stick to one.
Everyday they had to read for 30 mins, and Owen set up camp a lot on our little bench by the windows to "read" (mostly look at pictures and recognize a few words).

More garage fun!!! The boys had a lot of dunking contests! 

Movie night. Again. And Neal is accurately showing how we all felt a few weeks in. Being together 24/7 is tough.I feel like there are very few families who are truly together 24/7 for weeks on end. The whole Stay At Home order lasted 10 weeks. That 1,680 continuous hours together.

Owen lost his first baby tooth on April 10th! It got super loose and he decided one day he was over having it hang on, so he agreed to let me pull it! It took one tiny yank, and out it came!! Good thing the Tooth Fairy found some cash lying around the house.. since we weren't super prepared for a lost tooth. :-)

We also took a lot of walks around the neighborhood. I found some fun neighborhood scavenger hunt ideas on Pinterest, and we looked (and found) several painted rocks. The idea with the rocks is to re-hide them, so we didn't bring any home. So we painted our own set of rocks to leave around the neighborhood.

Easter fell right in the middle of Stay At Home... we were bummed we weren't able to see family. We colored some eggs with the cool marker-spinner thingy that Grandma bought us a few years back.

Daddy and Henry were super intrigued by the egg coloring. 

Austin is acting more and more like me every day (kind of scary... I don't have the best qualities I want to pass on) and he loves to label things, and leave notes of instruction. He made sure to spell out for the Easter Bunny exactly what to do with their colored eggs. Thankfully the Bunny follows directions well and 12 colored eggs were hidden around the house!

Ready to hunt for eggs! But first, we must look at all the goodies left in our Easter baskets!!! The "bunny" left some high questionable (but seemed fun at the time) fruit flavored chocolate bunnies... let's just say sour watermelon white chocolate is NOT an appetizing flavor. #BunnyFail

Uh oh... looks like a pretty fierce bike gang is forming in the backyard. Maybe we can make peace them with them by offering them some popsicles.. The boys went through a phase for about a week where all they did was ride their bikes in the backyard. Much to Neal's chagrin as he watched his beloved grass get squished...

Quarantine hair... Austin decided back in February that he wanted to grow his hair out... he liked the long hair of a boy on his basketball team, and wanted the same look. Since everything was closed during Stay At Home anyway, it was easy to tell him "sure... grow it out!" He has hair like mine.. it's thin but there is a lot of it, so it gets kinked easily when he sleeps. LOL.

This also is a good representation of our overall mood... just... ugh. Well, Owen's face was more in response to having chocolate chip pancakes for dinner. :-) Let me tell you... I got really tired of making food all the time while we were home. Dinner every single night... in a normal year, we are only making about 3 dinners at home a week. Sports and activities meant a few nights we'd grab a sandwich, or just some snacks... so dinner ended up being pancakes a couple of times.

I won't lie... staying at home was really hard sometimes. Never getting a break from being together, trying to balance work when there was hardly any separation of work/family... but honestly, I think the whole thing was kind of nice. We got lots of little moments in between the stress and work where everything was peaceful and cozy... and if anything it brought us a lot closer!

Maybe.... we were a bit too close sometimes. Owen's got the smallest cutest little butt ever... but man does he fart big!! And he loves to time his farts and announce them and make jokes out of them. All of this and he's only 5 years old...the kid is going to be a hoot when he's a teenager.

One of the times the boys were down at Gramma and Grampa's, they build birdhouses with Grampa. It took us a few months but we finally got them up and ready for birds!! We sprinkled some bird seed around too. A few interested birds checked them out but never made nests in them. The bird real estate market must be pretty competitive if they passed up these gems. :-)

Stay at home meant lots of walks. Lots and lots and lots of walks. Sometimes several times a day. Poor Henry was exhausted the months we were all at home.. he was being exercised constantly!

Picnic dinner!! We also tried to do fun and different things while at home.. doing the exact same thing day in and day out becomes very mundane. Imagine that!

Most mornings were slow... the boys would crawl out of bed, snuggle on the couch and watch some cartoons while Neal and I started work and tried to get some things done and be productive in the mornings. Then around 9am we'd get them moving and get dressed and ready for "school" and the rest of the day. 

Quarantine hair was a real thing!!! The boys don't like at home hair cuts (but love them in barber shops...you know, just to keep life difficult) so hair grew and went a bit wild!

I love Austin's little face here... he is so pleased with life at this moment. The sun was shining, breakfast was served, and they had a little caterpillar friend in the jar that they hoped would turn into a butterfly. Mr. Caterpillar unfortunately died pretty quickly, however. 

This kid... he's the one that will put on a BIG show for the smallest little bump or bruise.. so when he had quite the wipe-out on his bike... that's what we expected. Well, it was a bit dramatic since Owen was the one that came running to the house to tell Neal he fell (I was actually at my office that day because we all worked just one day in the building by ourselves) and Neal had to scoop him up and take him home. After that he handled the road rash like a champ! He even got to the point where he was bragging about it a bit. 

Some days we ate breakfast like birds in our underwear and watched movies. Quarantine has no rules!

And some nights we had picnics and ate like dogs. Whatever tickled our fancy at the moment. (Henry really liked this fun activity since copious amounts of cheese fell onto the blanket for him to Hoover up)

Neal and I only own half our home. The other half is constantly in "fort mode" with all the couch cushions in use. The boys made several different types of forts over the last few months and had some sleepovers in their forts too. 

Neal took the boys down to Silverton for a parking lot drive-by kind of celebration for the graduating Seniors. They had fun getting out of the house and going somewhere new, even if it did mean staying in the car to keep our distance. It's funny the little things that started to thrill us. "Yeah! Let's go sit in the car today!!! That will be so exciting!!!"

It would be an understatement to say we haven't all been feeling stressed over these last few months. I have definitely felt it... I didn't sleep well, my stomach has been all over the place, I've had a few anxiety attacks. Kids show stress in different ways.. they've been acting out, doing everything they can to defy us, they've been picking on each other, crying over little inconveniences. Sigh. Mental health-wise, the Pandemic has been rough. 

We bought them a punching bag for the garage and it helped some in letting the kids get some energy out that was cooped up inside of them. 

Thank goodness for Backyard Parties!! It was a huge help that during Stay At Home, we had mostly nice weather. We had a few weeks in April and into May that were actually hot, swim-appropriate days! We got a cheap slip-n-slide that the boys spent hours on!

Oh Owen... otherwise known as "Boo Boo"... because...well, the kid is a big ol' booboo most of the time. He WRECKED on his bike right before Mothers Day and had a huge road rash on his arm and one on his side. The one on his arm was pretty deep and we were watching it closely because we thought it might need a doctor, but it healed up pretty quickly and never got infected. 

It didn't stop him from playing and having fun and being a kid though! Slap some big Band-aids on there, and he was good to go!

Neal got this Slip n Slide for cheap and it (sadly) popped pretty quickly, but still entertained the kids for an entire day! 

Mothers Day was wonderful, even during the pandemic. I like to stay home anyways... so we had a backyard party with the Slip n Slide, music, popsicles, champagne... and I didn't have to cook all day! My boys treat me really well! Except the small furry one. He walks all over me and blocks my view of the TV. #rude

My parents had this type of folding chair growing up (we called them click clack chairs) and I used to play in them this exact same way! Its so funny to watch your kids do the exact same things you remember doing.

Oh Austin... 8 going on 16... he built a little cell phone out of LEGO, and then announced that he had to "take this call" and went outside and proceeded to have a full pretend conversation. I went out to spy on him and he gave me the "one minute" finger!!! Apparently our working from home brushed off on him and since he saw us take phone calls a lot more often. 

While on a LEGO kick, Austin also decided that we all needed pass-cards in order to get outside into the backyard. He made us each one (including a tiny one for Henry!!) and placed him by the back door with labels. There was a little slot for us to put our pass-cards in, and the door would not open unless we used the cards. :-) His imagination is amazing... I can't wait to see where it leads him!

Well, that was Stay at Home for us... I went back to work at my office on June 1st and life started to feel a tiny bit more normal. 

Posts to come about how the early part of our summer went!