May 2020 (through Mother's Day) (Quarantine Continues - Coronavirus Pandemic)

The beginning of May 2020 has almost the entire US in a stay at home order. As the days are passing, the news is reporting more and more cases of Coronavirus in the United States and the cases in MN are really going up. So scary! Despite this rise in the cases, some states will start to loosen restrictions on what we can and can't do and will start to reopen certain businesses. Life may start to slowly return but I don't think it will be looking anything like what we are used to.

I have been coming across some gems online that make me laugh!

OMG!!! The last is so funny! 

I loved to watch Little House and the Prairie growing up and it's so true that Laura would get so excited to ride into town with Pa. 

We started off the month with Teacher Appreciation Week. We had a virtual PTP Board meeting (our first since distance learning has started) and it was nice to see everyone's faces and hear how everyone is doing. For this year's appreciation, our counselor had the best idea to provide lawn signs to every teacher and staff person at our elementary school to let them know and the neighborhoods know how much these people mean to us (Especially now!!)

The kids also submitted photos and a giant video was compiled with sweet messages to the teachers.

Ms. Ella's photo contribution:

It was also May Day! I had a few goodies left in my (forgotten) stash, so I was able to gift Ella a little May 1st surprise. We also had donuts for a yummy breakfast. :)

 Ella got flowers and chocolates delivered from Grandma Jolyn to brighten her May Day!

And her BFF Julia ding dong ditched a little sweet bouquet of Tootsie Pops!

To keep us going in May:

A new puzzle was completed! We have been searching Target for a new puzzle for weeks but they have continually been sold out and same with online options. Finally, there was a small selection, and I found this epic Pac Man puzzle! Ella did the whole thing herself before I even had a chance to help. Like I said, she's a master puzzler.

I'm still doing Pants Check Friday!

And, for moral support I spent some time working on Art class with Ella. 

She has to draw a real life animal face of her choosing.

Have I mentioned she doesn't like the art teacher and hates drawing?

And, did you know I'm terrible at drawing?

So, we both helped each other survive part 1 of the art assignment.

Apparently there are multiple parts of this assignment.

I told Jay Ella is spending more time working on this art assignment than she does doing her other school work combined! It's ridiculous.

But, I was super proud of my deer face. 

So, it's on the fridge. HAHAHAHAHA!

All of this screen time is making my eyes really tired.

I keep seeing blue light filter glasses, so I thought I would order a pair and try them out. 

They have zero prescription or reader help - the lenses are only to block out the blue lights from screens. The jury is out on whether or not they help. I can't wear them very long b/c they make my eyes feel weird. LOL!

Ruby Pearl was the first person out of quarantine for a hair cut! The Governor allowed groomers to reopen and we had an existing appointment on the books so it worked out really well. Sadly, Ruby really needed to be groomed about 3 weeks ago, so she was a hot mess and there were too many matted areas for the groomer to get out. Ruby had to get a really short cut again. Boo! It's not as short as the shave she received at a previous groomer, so that's good, but we're all ready for that cute curly fur to grow back soon!

Before:

And After: (can you even believe this is the same dog!)

She doesn't seem super thrilled with the cut, and Ella cried when she saw her, but friends, quarantine will do strange things to everyone! It will grow back!

Mother's Day 2020 - Stay at Home addition.

I decided to bake a dessert and came across a super yummy bar recipe online - Peanut Butter Smores Bars. Omg! These are good! Jay ranks them in top 3 of the bars I make, so that's pretty good! There are layers of cookie dough, chocolate bars, peanut butter and marshmallows and then topped with more cookie dough!

Mother's Day donuts from a fancy donut shop for the win!

Just working on my selfies...LOL! Baby Ella in the photo

And 2020 selfie with my 10 year old Ella. Where does the time even go?!

Proud of this one!

She made me a sweet card and a little art work for my home office too.

The Starbucks gift card was unexpected but appreciated!

I have some Bath & Body Works supplies on the way too - but due to the pandemic that shipment is delayed. Of course it is!!

 Tears!! 

Being a mom is hard. And being a mom during a pandemic when you have to stay home with your people all the time and work and teach and clean and cook and a million other things all the time is super hard. It's great that Ella is so sweet because when she isn't sweet I about loose my mind and need to remember that she really is a good kid!

And I love her to pieces too...

To top it off, this A-Z list of things apparently about me was on the back of the card along with an opportunity to color - how amazing! :) 

What would Mother's Day be without Mexican food?

For me, it wouldn't be a very great Mother's Day! LOL!

We ordered from a local Mexican restaurant and it was delicious!!
Side note: We tried to get food here on Cinco de Mayo but so did the rest of the families around - it was so busy we couldn't even get through on the phone lines to place an order! Good for them because the restaurants are taking huge hits during this pandemic, but what's a girl to do without her tacos on Cinco de Mayo?!?!

Letterboard courtesy of me this week:

Hoping you are enjoying your May and getting time to stream all your favorite shows!

We are slowly checking them off our Netflix list! What would we do without technology during the pandemic? It would be crazy. Thank goodness for it!!

April 2020 Happenings! (Quarantine Continues)

April 2020 - We spent the entire month in a Stay at Home order for the State of MN. Traffic seemingly halted. Anytime I went out it was to get groceries or take-out food. I didn't have to buy any gas. In looking at my bank records it was so weird to see barely any entries. When I was commuting and working downtown, there would be almost daily entries for coffee or lunch or shopping trips. Now, it was just INSANE large entries for Groceries. I have never in my life been spending so much money each trip to the grocery store. I used to freak out if my grocery trip was over $100. In April, I wish it would have been $100 a trip! But, we were eating at home almost all of the time. Breakfast, lunch and dinner and SNACKS all the time at home. It's crazy. 

Trips to the grocery store were much different in April. We have been wearing masks and gloves. It wasn't a mandate, but people are encouraged to wear face masks while in public places. No one is supposed to use the 3M N95 masks because those are the masks that health care workers are needing. The personal protection equipment (everyone now knows this is called PPE) was and is in short supply, so we are supposed to use cloth masks or non-surgical masks to help protect others when in public. The Today Show had a correspondent on one morning who demonstrated how to make a face mask using a bandana and some hair ties. So, I went that route. Only after I made it, I realized that I have WEIRD FLOPPY EARS! LOL! My ears will not hold up a mask that uses hair ties. I tried all types of hair ties in our house (and believe me, we have a lot of them) and nothing works with my floppy ears. HA!!! It still makes me laugh, but I was talking to my mom about this weird issue I have and she thought maybe I should try pipe cleaners! So, I dug in our craft supplies and made my bandana mask using pipe cleaners for the ear bands. Well, it works for my ears. Take a look...

However, we apparently only have NEON pipe cleaners in our craft supplies, so talk about a strange color combo! Maroon bandana taken from Ella's hip hop costume together with bright neon green pipe cleaner ear bands. LOL! When I was wearing this to the store I had to make sure my hair was down to cover up my ridiculous ear band situation. 

Another thought about wearing masks while grocery shopping: I get SO HOT! I don't know what the deal is, but I'm usually fine until I get to the check-out. Now, I have stopped going through the check-out line with a checker-outer and just do self check-out so that I'm the only one touching our stuff. But I think I start to get panicky with others in closer proximity to me (doing their own self check-out) and then I'm trying to hurry up and scan and bag and get the hell out! Half the time I can barely see what I'm doing because when I wear a mask it's like I can't look down? Do you know what I'm talking about?! Maybe it's just me. But, the struggle is real for me during self check-out. As soon as I'm back in the car and can remove the mask - HALLELUJAH!

And one last thing about the bandana mask. The first time I wore it was to Kwik Trip (best gas station ever) and I literally felt like a bank robber. I went to get some eggs, bread and butter (best spot in town for these items!) and wearing this mask I was certain that they were watching me thinking I was about to tell them to stick 'em up! 

I have now received an actual sewn face mask and have ordered additional ones with filters for each of us. I expect that this mask thing isn't going away any time soon, so I want us to be prepared.

This mask works well right now and the fabric is really great (ordered it from Love Your Melon), but I do wish it had the bendable nose piece so that I could form it over the top of my nose better. The additional masks I ordered will have that feature.

Other April happenings:

This one has been enjoying our constant company and I believe considers herself to be human. Here she is sitting across from me at dinner one night! She randomly decided to jump up on the bench on the other side of the table and sit there like - where is my dinner plate?! Umm....

 Our letterboard continues to amuse us - this one is courtesy of Ella:

Thankfully, the MN weather is starting to warm up so we have been able to get outside and go on walks! Ella is still pretty nervous to handle Ruby's leash, so we're trying to have her do it more and more so she will be comfortable...

As a 5th grader, Ella is able to participate in Holy Communion at church. It was going to be a big celebration on Maundy Thursday during Holy week, but due to the pandemic, church is closed, there is no Sunday school and all activities are cancelled or postponed. Our church is holding church services virtually, so Holy week was much different in 2020! For the First Communion celebration, we had a packet to read through to remind us (and teach Ella) what Communion is all about and why we do it. Then, during the Maundy Thursday service, Ella participated in her First Communion from our kitchen. We were asked to bake our own communion bread and offer either grape juice or wine. Let's just say we loosely followed these directions. I didn't want to waste flour on baking communion bread so I used a knife to carve the cross into a few vanilla wafers, and in a trip to Kwik Trip (still best gas station ever), they didn't carry any grape juice, so Grape Kool-Aid it was! :) 

We watched the entire service and then realized that we never did the Communion. I thought the pastor would have given a little message to the kids and then ask us to do the communion. Apparently we were supposed to pause the service at the time of communion, do the communion and then resume the service. Whoopsie! So, we did the First Communion after the service was over. And, I may have flubbed the words spoken with communion as well. Hey, what do you want? I'm doing my best here! LOL! It was a memorable experience that's for sure!

 Watching the service on the laptop computer

Our communion "bread"
(we all took Communion, but I forgot that I hadn't taken a picture, so Ella had already eaten hers....)

In thinking back to that night it was pretty much a circus, but such is life sometimes!

EASTER 2020

This year we were supposed to travel to be with Grandma Deb for Easter, but that couldn't happen this year so we stayed home, watched an Easter service, had an indoor egg hunt and made a feast for Easter lunch!

 Easter basket goodies! The Lego set was a hit - SOMETHING TO DO!!

Ella and I made Easter bunny cinnamon rolls for breakfast. 

They were HUGE!

For lunch, I made a ham (first time ever) with a bunch of sides!

 (before picture - never took an after one)

This was a giant amount of meat

 I got dressed in a dress, did my hair and makeup for Easter Sunday. So, I thought I should snap a selfie to commemorate this monumental quarantine achievement!!

So much meat!!!

We had to freeze a bunch of it, so we'll have to get creative on our recipes to use up ham.

Tina...come get some ham! (sorry, Napoleon Dynamite reference...which we have watched during quarantine and I'm happy to report that Ella loves it just as much and Jay and I do!)

The rest of Easter was spent like this....

it snowed out and it really felt like Christmas with all the food and the chilly snowy day! 

I apologize for how long this post is becoming!

But, here are some other April 2020 happenings and memories

 Ella worked on her typing skills

And this Meme (is that the right word?) that I saw online is probably my favorite of all time! I replace the word "second" with the word "fifth" and that's SO ME! 

yes!!!

We have been getting quite a few donuts to survive the pandemic.

Seriously, a lot. 

They are delicious.

I recommend a donut to save your sanity trying to work from home, be the teacher, do the laundry and all the other crap we are doing at home right now!!

I'm still baking...

Chocolate Chip cookies seemed like a good comfortable April choice

I was looking for something to do one weekend, so I elected to organize our supply of disposables:

From this madness:

To this:

So proud.

Also got through a bunch of old documents that needed to be shredded. 

As you can see, our circa 1995 paper shredder is still working! LOL!

 Our puzzle game is going strong. Ella is a master puzzle builder. Seriously, she is GOOD!

We tackled this one which is holographic and super hard. We first attempted it in the winter of 2018 (oh those were to days!) but it was too hard so we packed it up. Quarantine brought it back out (we have so much time on our hands!) Sadly, we somehow misplaced one darn piece! 

I'm sure we'll find that random piece someday and then we'll be all set! 

Ruby Pearl has been loving the sunshine on the deck 

(we need to refinish the deck! the home improvement project list is really getting long...)

It was my week to put up the letterboard message...

Newly added event: Pants Check Friday!

Due to all the donuts and snacks and basically wearing black yoga pants and a different top every day, I decided I should check in each Friday with my jeans to be sure I can still get those babies on!

 So far so good.

Bean Bag Toss was ordered, delivered and added to our backyard happenings!

Super fun with adult cocktails (kid only gets a kiddie cocktail)

Who doesn't love to read while on a deck and lounging in the sun?

People, let's be real. I miss a lot of stuff while abiding by the Stay at Home order. 

But, possibly most of all, I miss fountain pop. I love fountain pop so much!

There are few drive-thru options for Mountain Dew. 

But then I realized that Taco Bells offer Pepsi products!

Hurray!!! A Mountain Dew fountain pop for Taco Tuesday in April to the rescue!

Delicious.

April 2020 was a month of complete quarantine. The news was grim and the world is basically in lock down. The WORLD. It's something that our grandchildren will learn about. How we adapted. How we struggled. What our leaders did right and what they failed to do. 

I hope we all come out as better human beings and as a stronger world.

And hopefully, that time will be soon. We're all starting to get a little stir crazy here!