Go, Go, Goers!

This past week was the 2nd week at home for the kids/me. It was WAY easier than last week because it's technically their Spring Break, so I didn't try to force any school work on them. And life was good! It was a bit Groundhog Day-ish, tho....every day is the same: we wake up, come downstairs, work, chat, close up the laptop for the night, and then have family time. There's nothing interesting to break it up...but, as long as we're all healthy, that's what matters. We received all of the info that we need so the kids can start their Distance Learning this coming Monday. I'm impressed that the schools have been able to pull this together and come up with a comprehensive plan on how this is all going to work. G has a video conference call on Monday morning with his class/teacher, so that should be super fun to observe, lol. We now know that they won't go back to school until May 5, at the very earliest. I've heard that it's possible they won't go

Well, last Sunday we got the news that all MN schools were closed until at least March 30 (we know now that they will be closed past that date, and at that time, we'll move to distance learning...not sure how that's going to work, but we'll give it a shot. We don't have a choice!) So, Monday morning started the work / school from home schedule. I ran to G's elementary school on Monday morning and picked up packets of homework that his teacher had organized for him. And then on Monday night, Ava and I ran to her school and picked up items from her locker. So, this is the real deal. They're home for an indefinite amount of time. I've been playing home school mom and also work-from-home mom this week and it's absolutely exhausting. I came up with a daily schedule the kids needed to follow, including homework, music, outdoor time, game time (yeah, that really sucked...they don't like playing games together), and a virtual field trip. G happily comple

Welllll.....this was an interesting week. We had a whole lot of extracurricular events planned for this week, and I'm pretty sure we didn't do any of them. Happy hours were skipped, but shopping trips to Target and Walmart increased. And we are prepping to get really comfy at home for a while. Let's see....what happened that was not COVID-19 related? G had a good second session at therapy, and we enjoyed a family dinner out at Carbone's afterwards to celebrate a good previous week for him. He also came home with a very loose bottom tooth this week. When he left in the morning, it wasn't loose, but something "just happened" on his bus ride home, and it became super wiggly, out of nowhere. Amazing! (We did quiz him to see if he had bumped his mouth or bit into something, but he claims he didn't...the tooth just became loose on its own. Hmmmm...) It's hard to see, but the bottom one on above my thumb is barely hanging by a thread! Ava had a

We had another fun-filled, busy week! The kiddos both had friends over on Sunday, so we had a full house of people, plus our basement was getting the ceiling sprayed Sunday morning (knock-down texture) so there was even more activity here than usual. But, the ceiling turned out great, and he only needs to come back maybe one more time for touch-ups and then we can move onto the next part...painting! Hooray! I'm so excited to be getting close to having a basement where we can let the kids have fun during the summer. Scott and I started off the workweek with our annual tax appointment on Monday night. Last year was such a mess with needing to do our 2018 taxes, an amended 2017 tax return (due to Scott's work making an error with his 401(k) ), and also his uncle Tom's 2018 taxes. This year was a breeze and we were done in less than an hour. Scott and I were able to enjoy a quick dinner out, as Grandma Karen was at home with the kiddos...as always, thanks for the help with

Another week, another creepy find in the back of the pantry... Just kidding, we normally have a good idea of what food we have available, so imagine our surprise when Scott pulled this bad boy (and then two friends!) out from the pantry this week. The day the potatoes made their appearance at our home was a funny one. The kids met me at the garage door as I got home, and were giggling non-stop. They wouldn't tell me what was so funny, and wanted me to see for myself. We were all quite taken with and impressed by the fact that we had been harboring a potato family that clearly wanted to run free. Ava decided to take the potatoes to school for an extra credit presentation to her science class. People from other classes even came over to admire them. I told her to let people know that we generally don't have this kind of experiment growing in our house, lol. G's been behaving so well in school that we rewarded both kids with a trip to Carbone's for dinner on Tue