Week 4 of “family month” (or quarantine) is checked off. Does this feel normal yet? 😛
Week 3, Rylie asked a lot about playing with her friends. This week, going places was on the top of her mind. “Are we going bye-bye?” she’d ask eagerly as we walked down the stairs. “No Hun. Not today. We’re going on a walk.” or something along those lines.
Aaron’s company offers the option to stop working (no-pay) but still receive benefits. The business has been booming so Aaron took the option and has been working the biz full time and is really enjoying it. The paycheck isn’t to shabby either. I just keep giving all the glory to God for meeting our needs.
This week was hard for me. I am very good at keeping so busy that I don’t address the problem or emotions. My choice to transition from Theme Days to Theme Weeks allowed for more empty space in our day and although now I can say I’m working with that, a few days ago that was not the case. We’re all adjusting to this, and I know a lot of families that had a plan or a schedule and now are relooking at it and making adjustments as needed. This week felt like a growing pain week but on the other side I think I made some good choices.
For those curious, our theme for the week was JESUS in celebration of Easter.
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Day 22
Monday we spent all day outside. Literally. I had done some weeding on Sunday afternoon and it freshened up the space just enough that I actually like being there now.
The girls and I started by reading some books. I specifically pulled all our Easter themed titles and put them in a basket and it was a huge hit!
The only time the girls were inside was during quiet time. Otherwise, lunch, snack and dinner were all eaten outside. We even did a coloring craft to bless some old folks at a local nursing home and I did my best to write a scripture on the pages the girls scribbled on (to try to add something helpful to them 😛 ).
Oh, and Paisley had oatmeal for the first time! WIN.
Of course, it didn’t take long for her to become fascinated with the utensil that was providing her this new taste and she soon yanked the spoon out of my hand.
Day 23
Tuesday was a pretty low-key day. We played outside and I did some cooking. It was my first time making this recipe that is a highly praised soup that my mother-in-law makes for Tribe Nights. I felt like I had high standards to meet. I didn’t have all the ingredients either so I made a couple substitutes and was shocked to find that Aaron deemed it “better than Mom’s.”
Uh. WHAT!?!?!?!?
Day 24
Wednesday I started the thing God had been putting a finger on in my heart – homeschooling.
I know, that term isn’t anything special right now because everyone is kinda being forced to homeschool, but like I said in the post I shared on Thursday, this isn’t new for us. I had a hard time making it priority before but our current life circumstances has provided the perfect opportunity for me to get into a rhythm with the girls so when society reopens, we can keep this at a high priority.
I had worked with Rylie on her letter a lot before Paisley was born (back in August 2019) so I was surprised to see how hard she struggled to remember any of the letters except for R (probably because of her name 😛 ). I found myself getting extremely frustrated with her. Thankfully, I chose to pause, reevaluated the situation, and decided we would spend more time to break down each letter. So, we started at the beginning. I took our magnetic BizzyBrainz board and pulled out the upper and lowercase A. Then I took our Usborne Wipe-Clean books and we practiced writing. Finally, I printed out this handwriting practice sheet. Rylie did the top two capital letter lines and the first lower case letter line. She was so proud to show Aaron that night.
I’ll do a more expanded post on this another day but guys, the magnetic BizzyBrainz board is AWESOME! It has all the letters (upper + lower case), numbers and pictures of various jobs, objects and foods. It’s magnetic so you can put it on your fridge, white board or use the little foldout board they include. Definitely worth having!
To bless some friends, we also made sugar cookies. This is my third time making sugar cookies and I tried my blogger friend, Natalie’s, childhood sugar cookie recipe. So much easier than the way I’d been doing it. However, I’ve come to the very important conclusion that sugar cookies are not my calling nor are they a part of my giftings. I do much better with chocolate chip cookies 🙂
And we can’t not document this cuteness – Rylie on a walk. She said she was holding her two best friends’ hands. This girl! <3
Day 25
Thursday we learned more about the letter A by placing five pictures on one side of our magnetic BizzyBrainz board. Two of the pictures started with the letter A and I asked her to find them. She got Apple right away, but it took her a little longer to find the Airplane. I pointed out the first letter on each picture so she could see the differences. That’s how she found the airplane.
After that accomplishment, I laid out all the magnets and asked her to put all the food ones on the board. Emmaline’s job was to find all the animals – but she stopped after she found two and continued to play with them haha.
Before lunch, we spent some time outside running with our favorite cowboy friend – Woody.
I let the girls have some independent play while I read (and finished) the fourth Magic TreeHouse book – Pirates Before Noon. We’ve really enjoyed this series so far. The girls catch / understand bits of it but I can tell Rylie is enjoying it and will randomly bring up the story or characters at times.
After quiet time, we opened up a birthday package from Nana. My mom had asked me what Emmaline would love to have as a birthday gift and after seeing her enjoyment during her birthday tea party photo shoot, I decided she would love a real tea set (to replace the hodge-podge of items I gathered for the shoot haha). We agreed on a Melissa & Doug wooden tea set and my mom threw in the coffee maker too so there’d be enough supplies for everyone. The girls were ecstatic and loved offering tea and coffee to Nana via FaceTime.
This year I’ve really been thinking of Easter Traditions. We don’t currently have any but we might have a potential contender – honoring the Last Supper. I Googled what kinds of food Jesus had at the Last Supper and although most of it was ethnic, I saw stew on the list and knew that was plausible. I didn’t have most of the ingredients and wasn’t in a position to get to the store, so I opted for canned chicken noodle soup and homemade bread. The girls helped me set the table all fancy (cloth napkins and all 😉 ), I served their soup and poured them juice while we talked about the Last Supper & what Easter is all about.
“Rylie – do you know what Easter is all about?” -me
“Mhmm! Bunnies.” -Rylie
🤦🏻♀️
“Well…. kinda. But not really!” -me
😂
I also talked about Jesus breaking the bread, representing his body breaking for us. & we broke our bread and ate it together.
Then I talked about Jesus referring to the drink as his blood that he spilt for us.
*after drinking some juice*
“I just drank my blood?” -Rylie
…
“No. You drank juice. We’ll work on understanding it!” -me
😅
Day 26
We started our morning with taking Paisley to the doctors for her 6-month check up. I wasn’t comfortable taking the big girls (knowing they’d touch everything) so I had Michelle (my mother-in-law) come over to watch them. Thankfully, I already had her lined up because the day before the office called me and told me their current policy – just the patient and one parent. No second parent or siblings.
Sweet Paisley is right on track in every way and our doctor gave us some good tips for some next steps she gets to take.
Michelle had to make a pine straw (the business Aaron helped start) delivery and offered we could come with. Knowing the girls had been itching for a change of scenery, I said we’d love to join and we loaded the girls in the back of their truck and drove to make the delivery.
On the way home, we stopped at the yard where we get the pine straw from. The girls were intrigued to see what Daddy does for work and we talked about his job, the product and how it’s loaded.
Day 27
Our Saturday started off with a text from one of my closest friends saying she put some food in our mailbox. The girls were so excited when I walked back inside with the goodies. I’m continually shocked and thankful for the sweet friends I have in my life that want to love on us right now.
Knowing that Sunday’s weather was not going to be outside worthy, we spent a lot of time in our backyard.
After quiet time, I read a couple chapters from our latest Magic TreeHouse book (we’ve graduated to book 5). Rylie asked to read it herself and began to tell us a thrilling twist of adventures Jack & Annie (the main characters) were having in her own little world. I love her desire to read (even though she doesn’t know how yet) and imagination.
Once her story concluded, her and Emmaline went to play while I sat and read a chapter or two of my own book with Baby Paisley.
I remembered a local church was doing a drive-thru egg hunt so I loaded up the girls and we enjoyed their festivities. I packed each little lady a baggie with crackers, cheese, lunch meant and grapes inside. It was a hit.
When we had finished, I couldn’t bring myself to take the girls home just yet so we went to a local park and had a car picnic. I also taught Rylie how to play TAG and it was a highlight of my day.
Day 28
Easter Sunday!
I’ll be sharing more details about this day later this week but for now I’ll say it was a wonderful day with family and lots of fun!
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