pandemic from our perspective

 I love using this blog as our family scrapbook. 

I have always thought of it as a safety net in

case my computer crashes and I lose all my photos. 

Well 2020 was sure to deliver on that front...and guess what, 

I didn't have to freak out about losing everything as much 

as I would have without this. My favorite photos are 

safely tucked away in this little corner of the internet.

And lets be honest, there are plenty of pictures

on here. Not every photo, but enough to hold our family's memories.

I also don't dive deep into my thoughts on here, so just know

that this is a surface scrape of the pandemic from our little house.

That being said...holy cow. 2020 has been a rollercoaster. 

I remember feeling really good about everything and

then just hitting a wall. I counted how many weeks

it had been since we started quarantine. 

Eight. 

Eight weeks. 

Turns out that was my limit. 

(dear future self-next pandemic, start getting breaks in 

wherever you can...it's gonna be months and you need

to prepare for a marathon of quarantining, not a sprint)

Josh has been picking up so much of my slack. 

Helping with the laundry, helping with dinners and lunches. 

(He started working from home 2 years ago...but usually worked

through lunch.)

Lucky for me, he has always helped with dinner dishes, but

now the stack of dishes was a mountain by the evening.

Let's just say the house has been falling apart. 

For me, the hardest part is never having a moment alone.

Josh works in our room, so I can't escape there.

Brooke is really good at playing in her own little world. 

Tate is really good at entertaining himself outside.

Paige is really good at playing with me.

Did ya catch that last sentence? 

Convincing that big kid to play with siblings takes work.

Once she gets started its fine, but getting started can be 

a struggle some days.

Homegirl is always within reach and usually talking my ear off.

Then the littles are always needed snacks cause duh.

Mom life y'all. 

Fast forward to the end of the summer and having to decided

on Paige's school situation was exhausting. So many things

to consider. So many "is this the right choice" moments.

It was rough and all consuming.

Then we got to do that all over again in October when

we decided to homeschool. Now we're in a good

groove and things are feeling easy again. We've adjusted.

(But oh my goodness is it gonna be hard to get that

kid excited about going back to school again.)

Needless to say, we're tired. We're worn down. But we're hopeful 

and we're making it. Josh and I are a good team most of the time..

and for that I'm so thankful!

pandemic from paige's perspective

 PaigeyK! PaigeyK!

Obviously this has been the strangest

time for Paige versus the other kids. 

Let's just start by saying Paige has had the

wonkiest start to gradeschool. 

Kindergarten ended in March and then went virtual. 

First grade started(ish) and then stopped for her in October. 

That's just strange, y'all. 

When she has a full year of school its gonna blow her mind.

(and probably crush her soul a bit)

So back in March, Paige left school for spring break 

and then never. went. back.

We keep telling her that schools don't just close. They don't

just offer online options and go through allllll this trouble

every now and then. 

Let's be honest, it still boggles my mind.

Paige has handled it like the little go-with-the-flow champ that she is. 

She transitioned to being "homeschooled" in March easily. 

I loved getting the assignments on Sunday night and having the whole 

week to turn them in. 

That was my kind of ideal. 

Then first grade hit and we made the choice to send this

social little butterfly to school with her friends. 

Boy did she need them. 

That choice was so stressful. Just stressful to actually make 

a choice, not necessarily stressful because she was going...just 

hard to make such a big decision with almost no information. 

By day 3 she didn't fuss about the mask.

But then by the second week of school, the honeymoon phase 

and excitement of being back was gone. 

I wish I had this documented somewhere to remember the 

exact timeline...but pretty much around week 2 she

started crying most mornings about going to school. 

Then it got to where she was crying every morning. 

Then it got to the point that she started crying at night about

having to go the next day. 

It was rough. 

(worth noting-there was only 1 other girl in her class and

because of covid, classes aren't allowed to play together...so they

were solo everyday. Thankfully it was the sweetest

little girl)

She would come home somber. She didn't have much

to say about her day. She wasn't talking much and was

just sooooooo far from being herself that Josh and I started

talking about taking her out of school. 

Round 2 of making the same stressful giant decision. 

Can you see the worry on her little face?

This kid is so incredibly aware of everything around her

that we were realizing that being at school was stressing her

out more than the last 6 months combined. 

Not worth it. Not even kind of. 

But she's also so trusting and such a good listener. Lots of talks and

more school details later, we decided to keep her home. 

The final drop in the bucket (that had a lot of drops) was learning that they were

on their computers a lot of the day to streamline with

the kids who were doing school from home. 

Totally makes sense, but we sent her to school hoping that 

she wouldn't be looking at a screen all day. 

Re-enter happy Paige! She was back!

We did "homeschool" with the school's curriculum for

a few weeks (month? I genuinely don't know)

and then ended up taking her out of school. 

Something I never expected to say:

"I'm homeschooling Paige."

We make sure to meet friends at the park a few times

a week. Trying so hard to make sure she's still getting

plenty of chances to play with her friends. 

But you know what? 

Its great!

You know what's even better?!

We're homeschooling with friends. The irony is that

one of her friends we're schooling with started

the year in class with her!

She's soaring and I've adjusted to having her

as my side kick all day every day. 

Starting the week after Thanksgiving, we rotate 2 days

out of the week with our friends.

She loves the day that "the boys" come here and

probably loves being dropped off at their house even more. 

(I have a new love for Thursday mornings when I'm kid free!)

Josh and I try to remind her that when school is fully in

session and everyone is back on campus, she's going to have so much

fun seeing allll of her friends again!

Pray with us that she transitions back easily. 

It's not gonna be pretty...she's adjusted well to this homeschool life.

pandemic from tate's perspective

 Oh Tater Tot!

When all of this started back in March, I thought 

this kid would never willingly rejoin society. 

He was so content to be home all day. To catch

any bugs that he wanted to and never have to even

think about putting on shoes.

Let's pause that thought to appreciate the next photo.

(Oh dear.)

Honestly, I thought it would be an absolute struggle

to get this kid ready for school. 

Wrong!

He is sooooo happy to go to school! I'm guessing that

it's because he has a new little friend there.

He's just like the rest of us...a lover of people!

Gah. He is just the cutest.

He does miss the bouncy house play place more than anyone

in the family and talks about it often. 

He even has Brooke asking about it and I'm not convinced

that Brooke even remembers it. 

The girl refused to get on any of them...so in

theory she shouldn't be asking about going there.

Oh Tate Man, I've loved the extra time to hang out

with you. Thanks for keeping life fun. 

You little stud muffin.

Aaaand here's Tate's 2020 smile on command. 

The struggle is real, y'all. 

pandemic from brooke's perspective

 Then there's this lil nugget. 

There is zero awareness in her little world that

things aren't quite right. 

We'll just start this post with one unfortunate part of 2020...

When you ask Brooke to smile, this is what you get:

My own little bulldog, this one.

So instead, I ask her "what does a snake say?"

Better!

But mostly I just talk to kids while I'm taking their

pictures...finding out what they think is funny and go from there.

Look at the wonder in those lil 3 year old eyes.

2020 in a photograph:

Ok, but seriously. This kid was already spending her days with me, 

so transitioning to spending her days with me was no different. 

She does get to see Paige a lot more than she would have, so I'm

thankful for that.

She's in preschool now and loving it. Every time I pick her

up and ask about her day, she says

"I made friends today!"

So happy to be moving back into some normalcy and that

Brooke is still getting a chance to go to school with

peers and be loved on by the greatest teachers!

pandemic for the siblings

 From the perspective of the kids all

together, the pandemic has been so different than

normal life, but then so much the same. 

(let me preface with I tried to pare down how

many photos I was adding to this. I just have no

control...they were being cute and I just kept clicking. 

There's zero wonder why my computer crashed.)

To completely paraphrase, 

these kids have been great.

Now, is everyday peachy?

heck. to. the. no.

But lets be honest, most of those rough days

were from me getting frustrated quickly or 

when we had too many consecutive days inside

because of weather, or because we were watching

too much tv.

But man. Those good days were good.

It's actually hard for me to think alllll the way back

to March when all of this started. 

Remember when quarantine was only going to be 2 weeks long?

Bahahahahahahahaha

Joke's on us. It's December and the world is still weird.

It's been fun to watch them interact (when they're

not arguing.)

Paige and Brooke can get lost in 

"mom and her baby" play.

Tate and Paige can get caught up reading a million

books instead of going to bed, or make up extravagant 

games on the driveway, or morph their fort into whatever they want

it to be that day. 

And then there's Brooke and Tate. Those two can catch anything

that wiggles or crawls. They can spend eternity outside carrying on. 

But I have to stay in earshot because it can flip on a dime and they can

be mad at each other quickly...but then they can also resolve

things in seconds...so there's a delicate balance of getting involved in their bickering.

Over all, they have been fine. They are young enough to not really

understand that things are different right now. 

It helps that school is back in session (at

least for the little ones)...so that adds some normalcy

and some routine to our weeks. 

Our "bubble" of people is pretty small aside from

the whole preschool thing.

Soooo thankful for our friends that we are still seeing.

I would be a crazy lady if it weren't for them.

Our favorite bounce house play place being closed

has probably been the most devastating blow to them.

That place, plus going to church. It's crazy to think that

Paige would be in the big kid area on Sundays now. 

That will be such an amazing transition back. 

Oh Taters, testing out the waters of being the only brother. 

He loves with his whole little self and man alive

can he hug and cuddle and tackle with force.

These sister don't seem to mind.

Lucky to have this crew to make me crazy and make

me so proud!

nintendo

Another very important thing happened in July.

We introduced the kids to Nintendo. 

It was a hit. 

They didn't care that they couldn't even pass a level...

probably because they didn't even know what levels were for awhile. 

Is this not the face of complete awe?

Oh yes, this is Nintendo from the 80s.

Keeping it classic over here.

For so long they would play "pow" where

Mario and Luigi would just play against each other. 

They would laugh and carry on!

Paige picked up on it pretty quickly...

...Tate was just happy to play.

After a few months, he got to the point that he

could pass level one. 

(they didn't play for very long periods of time)

Paige was into it!

And definitely had quite a few set backs!

They are currently not allowed to have tv, but we

might need to bring this little activity back when they can.