towards the end of our time in florida, the concern over the coronavirus was just picking up. we definitely gave a little extra thought to the fact that we were in a city with an international airport. but mostly, we had no idea that things were about to get real crazy real fast.
when we got home, we attended to some standard life things. a dentist appointment for the lidkids, where extra attention was given to washing hands and wiping everything down. a grocery trip to restock our house after two weeks, where i laughed that toilet paper was being hoarded. i’m not laughing anymore. annababy had her regular wednesday night dance class, which would end up being the last one. and we had a very fun dinner party with some friends we haven’t seen since before our road trip. we laughed and talked about the strange state of the world. we may have even joked that if this was an apocalypse movie, there would be flashbacks to us on that night, joking about toilet paper hoarding. i’ve maybe watched too many zombie movies.
dentist. 
no more tp forever. 
last dance. 
pre-apocalypse dinner friends.
after co-op on the thursday after we got home, i picked up an excessive number of seed packets and potting soil. we were planning to have a fun little garden, if we could find some sunlight in our wooded yard. but, with the looming lockdown, the whole thing felt a little more doomsday prepping and a little less homeschool fun.
horticulturists in training. 
careful planting. 
doomsday homeschool.
we planted zucchini, yellow squash, roma and big boy tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, snap peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, lettuce, jalapeno, poblano and bell peppers, carrots, onions, basil, mint, rosemary, cilantro, and dill. like i said, excessive amounts. it wasn’t long before we had sprouts, which is always super exciting.
cutie gardener. 
proud plant mama. 
babies.
and then. lockdown. our co-op was canceled (along with the rest of schools). stay at home orders were issued. activities were put on hold. i mean. you know. no matter who you are reading this, you were there.
i had to laugh on that first monday morning. at all the moms posting online about their new adventures in homeschooling. their schedules. and charts. and lovely first days. so cute. over here, life went on mostly as normal.
fireside math. 
official homeschool chair of the day. 
us history via libertys kids. 
anna and her school mascot.
our first moment of feeling the effects of the lockdown came when anna’s dance class rolled around on wednesday night. we cleared out the school room, set up derek’s laptop for a zoom meeting, and everything went well. (since then, it hasn’t. the novelty wore off. the classes have been frustrating for various reasons. some of anna’s friends have quit. and we are looking forward to real classes someday in the future.)
there has been a lot of painting and crafting over here. we’ve busted out some long hoarded crafts. and the school room is basically just a big studio for the kids to destroy with paint and hot glue.
one cool thing about the quarantine has been all the great people giving of their time and talents for free. lots of live concerts from the living rooms of rock stars, children’s books read aloud by the authors, and free art lessons by famous artists. one such artist, wendy macnaughton, has been signing in every weekday, giving a kid friendly drawing tutorial on instagram live. she’s basically the mr. rogers of the quarantine generation. we have joined in several times.
warmups. 
lidkid art class taught by wendymac. 
today’s subject. rainbows. always a hit.
anna and i discovered another instagrammer, who had a live lesson about painting with acrylics, where anna painted this really cute cat, and then was suddenly OBSESSED with acrylic paints.
awaiting instruction. 
acrylic cat. 
more free art time.
also, like the rest of america (the world?), the quarantine saw us really up our baking game. it’s still a bit tricky with my ancient oven. and i would love to have un-burnt orange countertops for my photo ops. but alas, such is not my life.
strawberry lemon muffins. 
everything but the kitchen sink cookies. 
apprentice.
at this point, anna barely needs me. she can locate all the ingredients, follow a recipe to a tee, put the baked goods in and out of the oven, and *mostly* cleanup. her favorite is snickerdoodles.
during. 
after. 
before.
i busted out some leftover frosting (from what, i’m not entirely sure) and let the lidkids have a little decorating class. isaac, who has 8 weeks of cake decorating class from co-op under his belt clearly knew more than me, so he ignored me, but anna and hazel proved to be excellent students and we look forward to opening our future family owned cake shop.
as my little seedlings began to sprout and the weather got warmer, we made plans for a little garden plot. what started as a little homeschool activity, quickly ballooned into a very expensive and time consuming (and slightly frustrating) venture. one warm saturday, the kids and ruby all chipped in to help build some raised bed gardens. it was all hands on deck. and then we even got to see the grandlidboms for the first time in forever when they came by, bringing our favorite mexican take out, for a social distancing picnic in the garage. a lovely day.
builders. 
careful measurements. 
power tools. 
landscapers. 
6 feet of separation garage picnic.
in our backyard, we have been expanding our usable (and sunny) space by taking out a lot of new growth, along with one giant tree. when the new tree crashed down, we discovered a squirrel nest had come down with it. we found all the babies, four in total, and put them in a box near the tree, hoping that the mama would come get them and take them to her back up nest (which apparently all squirrels have). before nightfall, she had taken two of them (or something else did), but we had to bring the others in. since we weren’t super confident in our ability to keep them healthy overnight, we called a rescue place that happened to about a mile away, and took the two babies there.
official squirrel rescue team. 
the unretrieved babies.
aside from baking, yard work, art, and school, some puzzles were completed. and then. i am not lying when i tell you that each time, ONE piece managed to fall to the floor during cleanup. and ruby finds them. and chews them up. and it’s maddening. so if you want a puzzle, i’ll pass them along, but they are for sure each missing a piece. (there’s a few more not shown).
national parks. i miss you. 
waterfalls.
also games. so. many games. hazel’s favorite is keys to the castle. but there’s been machi koro. and ticket to ride. and slamwich. and derek even bought us a stranger things monopoly game that consumed three nights and brought me to the brink of rage.
keys to the castle. 
machi koro 
my calculating opponent.
stranger things monopoly. early on. pre-brink-of-rage.
and now, for some extra random photos from march.
amazon box for the win. 
upside down tv watching. 
anna’s gerbil had babies. 
reading enthusiast. 
bedtime shenanigans.
and lastly. no monthly round up post would be complete without a ruby collage. she’s a big fan of us always being home. or at least i like to think so.
life is hard. 
so hard. 
doofus. 
watch dog. 
snuggles.
phew!
that was a long one. who would have thought there would be so much to post about in what was basically three quarantined weeks??
I loved reading this review of the month!