Today Teague decided to make chocolate chip muffins. He left them on the stove to cool. The next time I walked by, Alex had tried to claim a particular muffin (the one that he thought had the most chocolate chips). Kaitlyn saw that and thought it was a great idea so she did the same thing.
Someone was thoroughly enjoying his quesadilla for lunch today.
Wade always has time for a hug with Kaitlyn.
These three are constantly building couch forts or just dogpiling on each other.
These are some of my recent favorite pictures of Ben.
He ventures outside when requested and seems to enjoy it, but I wouldn’t say he loves basketball or being outside.
Kaitlyn chose a GoNoodle for her movement break today. Ben wanted to participate too. As soon as Ben saw the iPad he ran to get the headphones – note that they aren’t actually plugged in.
Today they played cars.
Today I attempted real haircuts for the boys. I really just attempted to barely trim the boys, but everybody is starting to look shaggy and it doesn’t appear haircuts are going to be normal again anytime soon. In general, the haircut went about as well as the pictures I asked Alex to take. (Here’s hoping the world opens back up soon.)
Behold the rare sight of these two working together on a Lego project.
The Legos started even before breakfast today.
After Kaitlyn’s latest haircut session with her dolls, I kept worrying she would attempt to cut her own hair again. I have talked to her several times. I thought I had hidden all of the scissors. Obviously those weren’t working. It was time for a new strategy. She and I got on Amazon and we picked out a doll with long hair that was bought just for haircutting. I told her she could cut all she wanted. When the doll had no hair then we would buy her a new doll. Fingers crossed that this works…
Family movie.
Our old house didn’t sell immediately and we were anxious to move last summer. We moved some stuff and furniture, but left the majority of our things for a few weeks knowing that a house sells better when it is staged. Then we moved it all and left the house on the market. The house still didn’t sell. We didn’t officially pull our house off the market with the pandemic but we knew no one would be looking. We used this time to do some of the upgrades we had been hoping to avoid. We painted, put in new carpet, and upgraded the fireplace area. We also decided to remove the large green hutch in the kitchen area to make the room seem bigger. During all of this we got a new listing agent and decided to try again knowing we would be one of the few houses on the market because we weren’t worried about having people walk through our house, which is thankfully empty.
The boys.
Sunday morning silliness.
We were all ready for a break. Today we did chores, played outside, and finally got around to some chores at our old house too.
These guys spent the day cleaning up the leaves at our old house. Here’s hoping it sells this spring.
Kaitlyn spent the afternoon talking to her friend across the street with the street between them. At one point, that involved them both getting umbrellas.
Throughout the day, I gather books from all over the downstairs and put them in this basket at the backdoor. Ben loves to sit and go through them. His favorite are the ones with pictures.
Keeping up with Ben while keeping everyone else on track during school hours is proving to be very challenging. My favorite time of day is nap time. Today, I walked into the kitchen to find HUGE purple circles all over the bench cushions in our window seat. There were no markers in site so I am hoping and praying they were made with washable marker. I have no doubt which child decided to redecorate for me.
Update: I washed the covers and all the marker came out! Crisis averted.
Alex’s choice in clothing is getting wackier and wackier.
Daddy did the reading tonight about Dr. Seuss.
All of this schoolwork is rubbing off on Ben. He wants to practice his writing.
Alex convinced Teague to play basketball and before long Ben was trying to join in too.
Now the question is whether he is really doing schoolwork or just watching YouTube.
It seems like everyone everywhere has made loaves and loaves of Banana Bread this quarantine. I will on occasion bake it, but I can’t stand to eat it. In our house, we make chocolate chip pumpkin bread!
Today is a Lego day.
Teague is an awesome big brother. He seems to have so much patience with his little siblings and is always happy to provide some entertainment.
Teague is rather enjoying the lazy remote school life.
Super Kaitlyn to the rescue.
Alex was nice enough to take a few minutes with Ben on his iPad.
Poor Pepper. She loves having her people around all the time but she can’t stand it when anybody is outside without her. Alex is outside playing basketball in the rain and she is running from window to window in a frenzy.
Shooting hoops in the rain.
Everybody loves when Daddy is reading bedtime books.
It’s Monday. We had the normal craziness and a little birthday celebration thrown in too.
Happy Birthday to me!
Lego cities – day in and day out.
My heart sank when I sat down to my computer and saw the green lines on my screen. The last time this happened, Wade was able to fix my computer by baking some components. However, I’m always afraid of lost data and being without a computer for a long period of time. This time it was a quicker fix and I am once again thankful for a husband who can fix most anything.
I was taking pictures of the kids playing outside from inside the house. Alex decided to get up close and personal with the window.
Teague always has some kind of delay tactic when it comes to showering. I am not sure the picture shows it clearly, but these pajamas are laid out very neatly as if a person is inside or a flat-lay is being taken.
Lego cities – day in and day out.
In this crazy year that is 2020, we not only got April snow, we got 5 inches! As luck would have it, I had just put all our snow gear away last week. I dug it out and we went outside to play. Alex was agreeable to joining us for a little snow play.
Random snow – in APRIL!
I will be the first to admit there has been less supervision of Ben in the chaos of the last few weeks. He is into everything all the time – but mostly because I am trying to keep the other three on track with everything they are doing. Wade is busy figuring out a new job with a new company combined with working fully from home.
At some point I realized Ben was getting his iPad at playing at will. I put it up on a high shelf and thought that would take care of the matter. Today I walked in and Ben was again playing his iPad. It took some strategic questioning to figure out if he got the iPad or if one of his siblings got it for him. Once I determined Ben got the iPad, I asked him to show me exactly how he got it. Below is his demonstration.
Movie night.
Movie night.
These kiddos are taking their forced “recess” time pretty well. Pictures show they are actually having fun.
These two spent the afternoon racing.
Kaitlyn seems to prefer dress up clothes for class these days, but no one minds. An upside to remote learning.