Sibling Revelry: quarantine

On Sundays after church I go visit my grandma. She's in an assisted living home by the church. Here she is after I put some make-up on her.
This is Wyatt's set up for sleeping.
I love how much these 2 love each other.
Maddie wanted me to order her a hat, so I ordered one for me too.
Youth activities. Wyatt had to come and he was a good sport to act in their skit.

Giselle is 17!!!! She's made so many good changes this year and we are all very proud of her.

Fresca.

G's parking spot at school:

I took the younger kids and some friends to the lake one last time before school starts. They had a blast and we basically had the whole place to ourselves.

Amelia's hair looked like this and it just makes me laugh so much. I don't know why.

Everyone trying to cool down in this summer heat.

Post Father's Blessings and the night before the first day of school!

And the 2 older ones are off! Will especially is glad for the dress code change so he can wear boots and jeans to school everyday.

Tyler finally morphed the playhouse into a more functioning coop and it's so much better. I still need to paint it and there's still a few more changes, but it's so much better!

Tyler's birthday at Braums. Of course he didn't eat anything there, but the rest of us are happy to celebrate.

This is Giselle reading her patriarchal blessing that she just got in the mail. It was such an amazing experience to hear her blessing and she determined to live so that all those incredible blessings can be hers.

Her favorite sisters! We had them over for dinner even though they are not over our ward, but Sister Harris (her bff) was going home the next week.

My piano ensemble started up again! I might have strongly persuaded some friends to join (so the class would have enough people to make) but it makes it all the more fun.

This really is true. I love homeschooling. I love the freedom and how I don't have to play into the system. And I get to be around them all day. They get to be outside. They get to build legos all day. I get to take time to make sure they do the work right and neatly. I get to spend more time on what they need. We can go slow. We can wear our jammies. I know that when I pick up a book from our curriculum it's not going to have woke messages I'm going to have to navigate. We study art and poems about singing. We read a lot together. It's really the greatest.

Maddie had a celebrity sighting with Sister Cordon.

Amelia came with me for a visit to GG.

And some homeschool photos.

And Mee-Wee in her roller skates.

January 2021

This month will probably go down as one of the most life-changing months of my life.

We started with an impromptu drive to Buc-ee's on Maddie's last night home and bought traditional Texas stuff for her to take back to Idaho. She was ready to head back, but it was nice to have her home. It just feels good to have all your people under one roof.

Things I find funny:

Amelia dressed for our "snow." A few flurries.

Cozy corgis. Homey pics I like. I've been craving cozy lately.

Big thing #1--We all got Covid. Since right after Christmas I had a stuffy nose. And then I had a sinus headache. I thought nothing of it. Mountain Cedar is intense this time of year. And other than congestion in my nose and on again/off again sinus pressure, I did not feel sick. But then I suddenly couldn't smell the onion I was cutting for dinner. So I took a bite out of it, like an apple. Yep, no taste. I debated getting tested, but Tyler actually thought sure, why not, maybe the info will come in handy later. And yes, 4 days later my results say positive. This launched a series of events that caused a lot of anger, frustration and blaming. I was genuinely surprised how much judgement other people have for you when you have covid. How you handle it. What you do. But luckily I had my own spiritual answers for what was best for my family. And I learned who my real friends were. I also realized how STUPID all the protocols the school has in place for kids and exposure. The whole world has lost their everloving mind. I still never felt sick. It took awhile for the headaches to completely stop and my sense of smell has taken a hit. It is very annoying. But, we decided to take all the kids and finish our quarantine in a cabin by ourselves in Broken Bow. At this point, Tyler had 3 days of feeling crummy and a little run down (and no taste) and Will and Giselle felt a little tired and blah too.

We did online school every day and then we explored and hiked as soon as that was over. Online school is THE WORST. You sit there all day in front of a teacher who is also trying to teach a class in person. And for Wyatt it was even worse than that. He was supposed to take benchmark tests and get his accomodations and I got to witness first hand how behind he is and how he is really just pushed through. The boy needed me there for every single bit of work. And that leads to:

Big thing #2: I sat there with Wyatt and felt the strongest prompting ever that I need to homeschool him. He needed me, one-on-one to fix all the things that have been let go. I cannot deny how strong it was. So I told myself, ok, after this summer, next school year we will do this.

Seriously such a beautiful place.

I was so sad I couldn't really taste the cobbler....

We got back, our "quarantine" was officially over but the school said the kids couldn't go back unless they wore masks. And since we don't do that, I kept them home even more. And then I decided to not even sent Wyatt back. We are doing this NOW. So here he is on his first day out of public school.

I love this little scene so much.

And this scene where Tyler is teaching Will some skills as they lay some vinyl flooring inside my cupboards (so nice and easy to clean now!)

I'm getting chickens this year. I don't care what anyone says about it.

A boy sleeping with a wooden chest in his face.

A portrait of me, done by Amelia. No feet, but she's got the ripped up jeans and music shirt down.

How our homeschool day looks:

Tyler and Will drove up to Idaho to bring Maddie a car that we bought her.

Amelia's last day in public school. She was begging not to go also and honestly, she and Wyatt are doing the same stuff and it would make things easier for them to entertain each other and then I didn't have to wake up and pack one lunch, why the heck not, so I took her out too.

Big thing #3: I also started school. I had registered at the end of last Fall as a real student at Collin because I thought I wouldn't be doing much this semester. I figured a few music classes and lessons for me wouldn't be too bad. Little did I know how much I'd be doing and how much time school takes. I'm gone physically in class all day Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then add in extra rehearsals, extra lessons, recitals I'm supposed to watch each week, and just the sheer practice time. Every single moment of every single day I say to myself, I should be practicing. Unless I'm actually practicing. And then when I am practicing, I'm using every ounce of brain power to memorize and learn these pieces. And then, there's homework, reading, studying, ear-training. It's a lot. And I love it all (maybe not my theory teacher) but I want to be HOME and present and be able to clean my house and putter and educate the kids (which I really am loving). So, sometimes I think we have to go down a path to know we really don't want to go down that path. I've always regretted not getting a music degree, and maybe I'll work away at it slowly, but right now, I just want to be home, with my family (and yes, playing the piano a little).

Some more pics of Amelia I took from her teacher's facebook group. Sometimes I look at these and see how much fun she was having and all she was doing and I ask her, "Do you miss school? Do you like being homeschooled?" and she answers resoundingly I LOVE BEING HOMESCHOOLED.