Monthly Archives: April 2020

It was another fun day with Grandma Debbie. It was windy and kind of chilly today, so they weren’t outside as much as usual, but they did find an excavator to look at (and Xander took the photo of my mom and Augustus!).

I never quite found the rhythm to my day. I cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, finished my May Day order macarons, and a few other things. Sometimes I think when I’m so busy with the boys, I actually get more done because I never stop moving and squeeze a million things in every spare moment.

Back to normal tomorrow. We have more airplane and cloud activities to keep us busy!

It was a rainy day, but we were busy! We started the day with play-dough. They played independently with it for about 20 minutes, which is pretty good.

We moved on to making a sky picture, gluing cotton balls for clouds and adding a little airplane.

We moved on to an activity where they had to use clothespins to pin the number on the airplane. They both really liked it, even though Augustus doesn’t really know numbers yet. After that, Augustus glued numbers onto an airplane and Xander colored his. The idea was to add the numbers in a row, like windows, but they didn’t want to do that, which was fine. They still each did their own version.

Next we did an experiment where we created rain in a glass. We used shaving cream and then squirted colored water into the “cloud” which eventually came down and “rained”. After that, we spread the shaving cream all over and they got to play in the clouds. Sometimes the boys don’t like getting their hands messy, but they enjoyed this activity today, so I was happy.
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Because it was supposed to be rainy all day, we planned a movie afternoon. I found these little baskets which made perfect treat holders. They watched “Planes” which is a Pixar movie from the people who made “Cars”. Not the best Pixar movie of all time, but it went with our theme and they liked it.

Nate got home around 3:30 and they all headed to the basement to play for a while. I made Thanksgiving dinner tonight- turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes and corn.

After dinner, Nate gave the boys a bath because I zoom called with some of my summer staff. It was SO good to see everyone and get a blast of camp energy. I am still very hopeful that we will all be together this summer.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to go back to sunny and wonderful, so that will be nice!

It’s a new week, which means a new theme. Our theme this week is airplanes and clouds. We don’t have very many airplane books, so I filled in the shelves with some of my other favorites.

This morning I had my 8 week post-surgery check up, so Nate was home with the boys. I set up a scavenger hunt for them and at the end of it was a very fun surprise- foam airplanes! The Nelson kids had these and Christine recommended them and she was right! They are very fun and when you throw them, they loop in a circle. They are also more heavy duty than other little foam planes I’ve seen.

Nate said the boys were very excited to run outside and use them and that they had a blast. We played with them later in the day too and I agree- very fun!

When I got home, we had lunch and some rest time. And then Xander was ready for more airplane activities. Xander has really embraced both our daily schedule and the themes. He still checks the posted schedule sometimes and he will often say, “let’s do another theme activity” which is cute. I think the we all do best when we have a schedule and the themes provide enough variety to make each day fun.

We built a cardboard airplane, that could use some paint, but they lost interest pretty quickly, so we’ll see if we keep going with it tomorrow or if it ends up in the recycling bin.

Augustus spent some time rolling around in a box- I’m not sure what kind of activity that was, but he was happy and occupied, so I count that as a win.

The day was GORGEOUS and 70 degrees out, so we had dinner outside, followed by a campfire (with s’mores of course!)

The boys played while Nate and I enjoyed the campfire for a while and then it was time for baths, books and bed! A great start to the week! The boys aren’t super into airplanes (and neither am I), so we’ll see how the theme goes. We had so much fun with superheroes last week, but I’m hopeful that they enjoy some of my programming.

It was a great weekend! It flew by and I barely took any photos!

Saturday we started with our typical Saturday brunch. I almost always make french brioche french toast and bacon. Xander said he didn’t want that, he’d prefer scrambled eggs and toast. As I was serving breakfast he said, “actually I changed my mind, I want french toast” which is something he does a lot. That little dude ended up eating 2 pieces of french toast, 2 pieces of regular toast, eggs, and bacon. I think he’s growing.

The boys spent the entire day outside. They played with Nate while I was at the grocery store. They rode bikes. They “helped” Nate rake the yard and clean up sticks. They drove their jeep and went to the secret lair. It was a gorgeous day and they were very busy.

When we came inside, we made some worms and dirt for dessert. A few scoops of pudding, a few scoops of crushed up oreo and several gummy worms. They were very excited about it.

Both boys were exhausted by the end of the day.

Sunday is Grandma’s day and it was a great one as always. They started the day in pants, but we packed summer clothes “just in case”. Of course they both ended up in tank tops and shorts right away. They rode bikes, played outside, put together a new puzzle, played in a tent.

I picked the boys up in the afternoon and stayed for dinner because Nate was golfing. We got home in the evening and jumped right into the bath tub, relaxed, played a little and went to bed. It was another fabulous day!

We played outside- the weather is warm and sunny and it is so nice to go out without having to bundle up.

Then we played a fun superhero game that Xander got for Christmas. You pick 3 cards- that tell you what to do for instance, spin around with Thor’s hammer behind your back or jump up and down with Captain America’s shield between your elbows. The boys had a lot of fun with it.

After lunch, my mom came over and she and the boys played nonstop for 4 hours. They filled the pool, drove the jeep, rode bikes, played in the sandbox.

I jumped on the quarantine bandwagon and made some bread from scratch. It turned out great!

And now we have 2 tired boys, ready for bed.

Today was a good day, but I was struggling personally. Over the past 5 weeks of quarantining, most days have been good. It’s been exhausting and there have been some tougher days, and definitely some moments I wanted to pull my hair out. But overall, I’ve been enjoying our time at home. When Xander was born, for a little while, I thought maybe I would want to quit my job and be a stay at home mom. And this time has been pretty much as I’d envisioned (minus the global pandemic part)- frolicking through the back yard, doing crafts, making pinterest-y snacks and being part of every waking moment of my children’s lives. For the most part, I’m really enjoying this time together.

But I miss going to my office. I miss my job and the community I serve. I miss our routine. And I’m stressed out about the summer- I don’t like any of the options. I want to run camp. This is my 21st summer of camp- I can’t imagine not going. But I don’t want anything to do with any situation that would put kids at risk. I don’t want to go to the woods and be responsible for staff and kids who could get very sick. When the quarantine started, I thought maybe camp was far enough out that life could go back to normal in time to run summer programming as planned. But as we get further and further away from that possibility, I alternate between hope that we can run a shortened season, and despair that we will not be at camp this summer. And the unknown is so hard to handle.

Up until today, I’ve been pretty zen-like. I’ve had a”wait and see”, stay chill and plan an activity in the meantime attitude. But today I felt like my head was going to explode. I just couldn’t find my balance and my energy was just out of sorts.

So today was hard. And I know that’s normal- there will be good days and bad days. So I’m being patient with myself. And luckily both Nate and my mom were here to take over, so I could pace, and struggle through the day.

And tomorrow is a new day.

The boys wrestled and played for another 30 minutes while I was cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry. At one point, I hadn’t heard them for a while and I found them in our bed- they’d cleared off all the pillows and blankets and were wrestling around. 

Small group time was a superhero craft- they colored the bodies and then we added their heads.

Then it was rest time.

After rest time, we went back outside to ride bikes and play int he secret lair.

After bath time, Grandma Renee read the boys some bedtime stories.

It was a very good day!

Another great day with Grandma! They came home tired and happy. I went into my office for a short while, worked, baked, relaxed and I’m ready for another superhero day tomorrow. I love Wednesdays so much!

A very busy Tuesday! Yesterday I told the boys I was going to hide Easter eggs, which was sort of a backfire, because it just meant they got up early and were zooming around doing the activity before 7:30! Each egg had a letter in it, and 4 of the eggs had jelly beans. If they found all the eggs and arranged the letters in order of the alphabet, they would get the jelly beans. They did a really great job!

We went outside for a very short time. It was chilly and they weren’t really excited to be outside. All three of us ran 2 laps around the house, which they actually sort of enjoyed.

When we came in, we did a “rescue” activity. They had to pull down and unwrap the superheroes. Augustus loves destroying things, so this activity was ideal for him.

Snack time once again had me saying, “step away from pinterest” but I’m still enjoying these projects and the boys get very excited, so it was a win, even though this was a little tedious.

Our next activity was solo cup towers. We started out using monster trucks to knock them down, but Xander really liked building the tower in different ways. Augustus knocked down most of them, but this kept them busy for a half hour, two times during the day.

Lunch was Captain America shield pizzas (I was on a pinterest roll today!). And then we were back outside for several hours. Xander found some cans of silly string, so that was 3 minutes of fun. Then they rode bikes (Xander had some cool tricks to show off) and then we went to the secret lair for a while.

It’s a new week and so we have a new display of books! Xander wanted a PJ Mask week and Augustus wanted a Spiderman week, so that’s how we ended up with the all encompassing Superhero Week!

We kicked off the day with a Captain America shield fruit plate. As I was arranging fruit, I thought to myself, “I need to step away from pinterest!” Except that I have several more fun food plans for the week, so stay tuned!

When I said, “ok, let’s go outside!” Xander replied with, “my stomach hurts for going outside” and Augustus said, “let’s go to the donut place” so that’s how morning outdoor time turned into walking to the bakery. Just as we got home, there were drops of rain, so we ate our treats inside.

We had a superhero training course to kick off the week. The boys had to do a version of hopscotch, spin around, zig zag, do jumping jacks, do push ups, hop over a rope, run in place and then jump to the finish. They did a really good job and we practiced over and over like real superheroes do to get strong.

For small group time, I printed off some PJ Mask coloring sheets, which weren’t a hit as my boys are not big on coloring. Xander liked the counting/matching activity (he had to count the objects and then glue the number next to it) and the matching game that they colored and then we cut up and played.

We ate lunch and then we headed outside. We were outside from 12:45-4pm today. They didn’t even have rest time today! We played in the sandbox, we rode bikes, Nate came home and hung out with us. Then my mom came over at 2 and played.

They set up another obstacle course, they played with sand, they played with chalk.

Not only did we skip rest time, we also skipped snack time, so we had a pretty early dinner and then bath and bedtime. It was a great day!