April 10

Our germ farm after two weeks of growing bacteria. Wash your hands kids! Especially after playing on playgrounds, typing on our computer, and touching handrails! 🤢. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the Wal-Mart Petri dishes are. They really are cleaning extra good right now! 

Lucy and I had fun making this craft that Nonna sent her.

I promised Elliott that if he got his schoolwork done without lolligagging (he is a master piddler) that I would take him to the bike trails at a park in town. He’s been asking me to take him for a very long time. He has never been so motivated to get his schoolwork done! 

It was so much fun! We rode three different trails and went about 8 miles. My legs are toast! Next time we will know to bring bike helmets, bandaids, water bottles, and towels to clean up (we got pretty muddy).

Julia and Kat both had Zoom (online meetings) with their youth group small groups last night. Can’t you tell Julia was thrilled that I was taking a picture? The youth pastor and worship team have done a good job of sending out weekly worship videos.

And... the kids early Easter/Quarantine present arrived! A ping pong table! Lucy was a good helper putting it together.

April 9

I am tired of doing dishes. And this mess is after just one meal! The dishwasher should be here soon. Our current dishwasher is only good for being a dish-drying rack. 

Tree trimmers trimmed up ours trees yesterday. We hadn’t done that in 14 years, so it was a little past due.




Gus loves his kids. He’s an excellent tutor.

April 8

Julia started NTI (Non-Traditional Instruction) yesterday. Hopefully this week’s assignments (or lack thereof) are to let everyone acclimate to this new online learning/submitting assignments in a new format. She almost got the entire week’s assignments done in one day. 

Kat has weekly video conferences for her English and Algebra 2 classes.

Chores, chores, always chores...

Elliott is learning about the Integumentary System skin, hair, and nails) for anatomy. We did a couple of experiments yesterday about temperature changes.

April 7

We’ve discovered a news program called CNN 10. It gives the kids a daily highlight of the most important world news. While they were watching it, they started working on their Covid19 time capsule. 

I made homemade cinnamon rolls and made a few deliveries to friends’ porches. 

Julia and Kat have really been getting along so well these last three weeks. Makes my heart happy. 

April 6

I introduced Lucy to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat yesterday. She thought it was strange. Julia watched it with me and then I introduced her to Les Mis, which is my favorite.

Our cucumbers and sunflowers are sprouting.

Kat and Clay did a lot of yard work Saturday. Yesterday we all laid around all day until about 4pm. We decided to get out of the house and practice social distancing at a park. By the way, after this is over, I never want to hear the term “social distancing” again. It’s about as favorable as hearing the words “Polar vortex”. Nope! Get out of here with that crap!

Some families cooperate and take cute selfies. Not mine. I thought our first family trip in the car in 3 weeks should be documented.

Frisbee golf and fresh air for the win.

Nonna read Elliott and Lucy a bedtime story. 

Spring Break is officially over. The kids are so thrilled to be doing schoolwork again-not! This week Julia starts with NTI (Non-Traditional Instruction). We have no idea what that will look like. 

April 5

We played a lot of video games this weekend.

The “bird” feeder is quite entertaining still. 

April 4

This is what the kitchen looked like when I went to bed Thursday night. 😳 Clay stayed up until 5am yesterday installing the garbage disposal.

Our dishwasher, which has been on it’s last legs for years, finally bit the dust. Our new one should arrive in about a week. Talk about good timing!

Easter has snuck up on me this year. I got out our minimalist Easter decorations yesterday. 

Kat, wanting to earn money for clothes, spent hours on Thursday and yesterday pulling weeds. 

We got some treats for a family movie night last night. We are trying to make life fun even though we can’t go anywhere. Sugar makes everything better!

April 3

Lucy and Abbie kept in touch throughout the day with video calls. Technology is amazing!

Here’s our germ farm on day 7. Wash your hands people... ATMs are bacterial breeding grounds. And look at the Petri dish from the apartment complex handrails. Yuck yuck yuck!

As I was waking from my nap (these have become a part of my daily quarantine life) to cook dinner, I found Clay getting ready to dismantle the sink plumbing so he could install a garbage disposal. Thankfully he stopped long enough for dinner to be prepped, eaten, and cleaned up. He continued on with his garbage disposal quest after dinner. 

Hopefully he’s able to complete this project faster than he did the master bathroom project. I kind of need my sink!

April 2

Gus has loved having everyone home.

This qualifies as a lunch when you are on quarantine. Hot fudge cake and ice cream.


I updated the school calendar and got the kids’ schoolwork ready for next week. Our calendar has never been so bare of activities (no co-op, piano lessons, gymnastics, jiu jitsu, wrestling, 4-H club, AWANA, or field trips this month). 

I attempted to play an April Fool’s prank on Julia.

It was a cool, cloudy day, so Lucy and I spent the afternoon inside doing science projects.

We are going to watch the seeds germinate.

We made epsom salt crystals.

We learned about density by floating an egg in salt water. 

And then we started a garden. We are attempting to grow sunflowers, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers. 

April 1

Clay is enjoying shopping (almost daily) at Home Depot and Lowe’s since there’s not much else to do. I am not sure what he will do with himself once his Honey Do list is done. 

Day #2 of Spring Break spent cutting grass. 😂 The kids haven’t complained too much about the quarantine this week. Probably because they know I will give them schoolwork if they complain about being bored. 

Nothing like a “friendly” game of Monopoly during a quarantine.😬