Happy Easter!

It has been a really nice Easter weekend for us :)  The weather has been all over the place; sunny, cloudy, super cold wind, and snow... But it has been good to go out for our walks every day just the same.  We painted the living room window all sorts of colours, we made some chocolate eggs as we do every year.  We took the littles out for a drive to deliver some of them and just to get out of the house for a couple of hours.  It was a gorgeous, if chilly, afternoon when we went out and everyone was in very good humour!  It isn't easy for this social crew to stay cooped up all the time, but we are doing our best to maintain distance.

Feature window from the outside.

A secret note left for Momma to find during paint clean up.

Beautiful decorating effort by all the Kids>

Saturday brought quite a bit of baking.  I found myself unable to sleep early in the morning so I got up and started baking.  Bread and buns, because it's been a while and I wanted some fresh buns for supper over the weekend.  Then I had promised Girlie that we would make "bunny buns" like we have often done over Easter in the past, but that she recalled making with my mother a few years ago when we had been down visiting them once.  So we did that in the afternoon and they are nearly all gone now too!

We usually make the twisted bunnies and attempted "little bun buns" this time too. Didn't look terrific but they still tasted great!

 While I was working on those, Hubby directed the egg colouring. There was a wide range of artistic expression displayed, and all of the monsters had fun with Dad.

There was a Charlie Brown one, Pikachu, a few "people", a bunny, and some randomness.

Sunday morning saw lots of chocolate! We have been doing Home Church online with a few friends scattered in various places, and it was wonderful to be able to see and worship with them all through the sugar highs of children.  We are certainly blessed to be able to have a community of faith through the distances of country and pandemic.

After lunch, Hubby and I hid some eggs in the backyard for the crew to find.  All had sugar, some had scripture in them.  Their task afterward was to put together the story that we had gone over in pieces over the last few days and they did that, reading it all for the parents.  My heart was very full as I listened and helped the youngest with some of her reading. 

We went for a walk later in the afternoon, and then Hubby and I made supper.  Delicious chicken Alfredo.  Because it was still so bright and sunny we went for a drive, just because, and it made us smile listening to the kids talk, sing, and laugh with each other while we absorbed the setting sun and took the round about way home.

Teacher-led homeschool!

We have survived a week of teacher-led home schooling!

Between the 2 of us, we prepped and organized the space we have to facilitate learning.  The monsters each have their stuff from school in a set area, the tech being used to communicate assignments and concepts is charged and set for the new day, and all apps needed were installed.

No adjustment is perfect.  Everyone was happy to connect with teachers and friends from class, not everyone liked the new rules about what gets turned on when and where they needed to set computers up at.  There has been some adjusting for parents reading instructions from teachers versus what the teacher might suggest in class.  It has been very positive, though, and I am incredibly grateful for the teaching staff at our schools for working so hard to get the rest of the school year done in this way.  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

As this is all becoming routine now we have fewer complaints about the self-imposed schedule.  Staying in PJs all day during the week is not an option here.  Gaming all day long is not an option either.  The first couple weeks was mostly anarchy, and anything went.  Now we have pulled ourselves back up and are making routines to help us through.  There are daily walks, they aren't complained about quite as much as at first.  When weather is nicer (which it really isn't right now...) we do some running.  Showers happen, cleaning happens.  Regular scheduled bedtimes don't really happen, but they don't get really late nights unless it's a weekend still. 

This enforced time of not being busy has been interesting.  We are a close-knit unit all the time, but it has been neat to see the way the interactions between siblings shifts and changes with the zero physical interaction with others.  There are days of "I just need my space away from everyone" and days of "I can't get enough of talking and being close to my sibling."  The fire and gasoline duo of Girlie and Sergeant has mostly tempered and they have been best friends these last few days.  They go up ahead when we go for our walks and make up rhymes about things and people.  Just because.  Smarty is loved by his sisters so much, and he is so good natured about it, he gets mauled and hug attacked and he plays back.  Monkey is her regular monkey-self and because she is younger, she is having the most rocky adjustment.  Nothing huge, just really tired of all this stuff that she just cant even. 

Overall though, it has been a good week.  Hubby is doing some work from home, some office hours.  I am working what little I can with job volume significantly reduced.  Yesterday Sergeant helped me start cinnamon buns.  Girlie helped make a salted caramel frosting for them.  OMG, they really are the best thing in the whole world!!  I'll see if I can get a pic before they're gone and post it.