Out of the mouths of babes

This little girl made sure my day started off on a wonderful note. 

Every morning, she wakes up and goes out to the dining room where hopefully, her bowl of chocolate Malt-o-meal warm cereal awaits for her to be slurped up through her straw bowl.  She will usually then, come back to bed to snooze more, depending on the time she crawls out of bed.  

Today I got out of bed before she came back and was in the bathroom when I heard her come back in.  When she realized I was not in bed, I heard her disappointment when she moaned, "Awww!"  I opened the bathroom door and asked her if she wanted to crawl into bed to snuggle and she perked up and exclaimed, "Yeah!"  We curled up under her blanket and after a couple minutes, she turned toward me & nuzzled in close and said, "I luh you Mommy".  I didn't fully hear her and said, "What?" and she said it again in the sweetest little voice..."I luh you Mommy".  My heart melted and I squeezed her with a huge grin on my face as I said to her, "I love you too baby".  I can't think of a better way to start the day!

A missed post...

(I knew I had written something in between, but I didn't post it for some reason.  This would have been a post from last month - still not frequent posting, but it's something!)

Today ends a 4-week stretch of doing distance learning school at home with the 2 younger boys.  It actually only amounts to 17 actual days of teaching, but it certainly seems longer, especially when I think that we're only half done if we end up doing this until the end of the school year.

Summer fever has already struck them, especially after a 5-day Easter break, but I think that will improve as the weather does.  It's funny how we can spend time outdoors during the winter, but when we have cold spring days, nobody wants to go outside because "it's too cold!"

What I've learned through this process...
- The more organized I am for school, the messier my house is.
- When we do clean up more than usual, it only lasts for a couple hours.  I cringe to think of what was in my carpets now that I have all hardwood floors that need to be vacuumed/swept at least every other day.  I really should invest in a robot vacuum that could work for me at night.
- Distance learning works for our family but leaves me little energy to do much else. Thankfully half of our kids are self-sufficient for their schoolwork!
- Bella's vocabulary is improving by having her siblings home all day and she loves having them around! I do as well because they have more energy to keep up with her when I don't.

Updates

On my last post, I stated I had more time to post...apparently 2 months went by faster than I can type.

We survived 6 weeks of distance learning and I was fairly pleased with how it went in our household.  Don't get me wrong, there was a definite learning curve and getting into our groove, but once I realized that for Noah, learning starts better with a couple of familiar silly morning songs, our days went a little better.  School at home can be challenging with younger siblings though, and Bella sometimes slowed the process, but it sometimes produced a laugh.  Here she is "helping" them with their PE class.  She might be a good coach for " The Biggest Loser" one day...

This whole experience has had its ups and downs, but overall, I would say we have had it pretty good compared to what some are going through.  Both Jason & I have been able to do a majority of our work from home so our incomes haven't changed.  Actually, in the last couple months, he managed to re-start his farrier business after a 15-year "retirement" from it and that has been going well thanks to social media and word-of-mouth.  His groundskeeper itch has also been scratched thanks to an opening with a guy who has his own lawn care business and that Jason knew from his time at MHS.  The downside with working that much gets you this tired...

With those additions and less money spent on activities, we hope we can catch up where we've gotten behind and try to improve on some things that have been put on the back burner.

My favorite moments about this time has been watching the kids grow in their relationships with each other.  There is actually less fighting than I thought there would be and I catch them in small moments doing really sweet things together.  There have been games played, lots of trampoline time, sidewalk chalk drawings, lounging in the sun, and bike rides.  Don't get me wrong, everyone has had more than their share of excess tech time some days, so there is some guilt that comes with not having the gumption to fully take that option out of the picture, but sometimes Momma just needs a break!

When it gets 80 degrees in April and this is all you have for a pool.

Bella's way of enjoying bubbles                       When tired hits you hard

 Our most recent family picture taken at Easter. SuzyCat was not amused, lol!

During this time, we are counting our blessings and trying to appreciate our time together.  We miss seeing everyone more often, especially during times when we are normally together as a family.  At this time, the restrictions are beginning to lighten, but we anticipate that things will get worse before they get better again, so we take each day as it is and try not to worry too much about all that's going on.  We try to stay safe and be responsible to keep the most vulnerable safe, but also caring for their physical and mental needs.  We are trying to "catch up" on the things that have been put aside because we know that soon enough, we will be back to a life of crazy, but that's just a given with a family of 8.  To everyone out there, we miss you, we love you and we hope to see and hug you soon!