June 9

June 8

Happy Anniversary Grandpa & Lulu!

Other than Clay playing banjo, I didn’t take any pictures this weekend because we literally did nothing worth photographing. 

This girl has training today. 

June 7

Clay bought a new banjo and has been practicing. 

June 6

Lucy used her allowance to buy a Barbie that she could play with in the bath. 

Clay decided a few weeks ago that he wanted to store his shoes in the basement. Some of them are “collectors items” (he is a shoe hoarder). Lucy helped me put together a shoe rack.

What a wild Friday night, right? I am more hesitant of going out at night with the riots and looting than I ever was when the Covid19 quarantine started.

Elliott is at the lake with his friend Jack this weekend enjoying some guy time. 

June 5

This note from Lucy was sitting on my bed when I got out of the shower. ❤️

Summer reading

I took Kat to Target to swimsuit shop. The store was open, but all the doors were boarded up to protect it from looting. So sad. 

Elliott and Lucy’s Iowa basics scores came back. Math was both of their highest scores. I knew that would be the case for Elliott because he likes math (and science). We are going to emphasize reading and writing next year with both kids. Elliott’s overall score was 50th %. He is an average student. He probably could have scored higher, but he doesn’t enjoy schoolwork and doesn’t give his best effort. Lucy’s high math score surprised me. She struggled with math in first grade. It clicked more for her this year. She was in the 99th % for computation and 87th % overall in math. What the what!?! Her scores were similar to Julia’s and Kat’s scores at this age. She is an above average student and a hard worker.

June 4

Summer fun. This was all before 11am. I am going to need some things to open for the kids this summer before I am worn-the-heck out! Ha!

June 3

We have begun our summer rules. The kids have to do a chore, get dressed, make beds, read for 30 minutes, do something creative, etc before they can get on electronics. Well, this is Elliott being creative. Sort of?

Julia drew one of her favorite singers again (Billie Eilish). The top picture is from a year ago. The bottom one is after an art class at school. 

New curriculum arrived yesterday! The kids were far more excited about the bubble wrap that came in the box.

Amelia spent the night with us last night.

The kids cleaned baseboards, vacuumed all the vents in the house, and dusted all ceiling fans and light fixtures. They WILL be kind to each other and respectful towards me, dagnabbit! Elliott and Kat (the two biggest offenders this week) have been invited to fun things this weekend. I told them they could go- IF they are nice. Shoo! This parenting things isn't always fun. Definitely never easy.

Local grocery and department stores closed at 5pm and are boarding up their windows.

Our city has been experiencing protests (mostly peaceful, some not) over the deaths of several black people in the US who have wrongly been killed recently. The protests started on Friday. Looting has been happening most every night as well. It’s heartbreaking. People are exhausted, emotional, angry, and hurting. 

One weird thought I have had... what about Corona virus? Nobody talks about it now. It will be interesting to see if we have a spike in cases due to all these people gathering in large groups. 

June 2

The kids and I painted the shed yesterday while Clay was at work.

We had plans to get together with friends this week, but a couple of my urchins have been disrespectful towards me and each other, so they are going to spend the week getting some chores done around the house. 

June 1

We had a fun day celebrating Clay. Eating at his favorite restaurant, taking a nap, and his Duncan Hines dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate fudge icing.