Oh, July, what can I say. We floated through it. We kept busy. The month disappeared somehow.
And still we're careful. I've started running errands, returns at first and most recently school supplies (although sometimes I ask- why?) and even some fun clearance finds (Christmas in July indeed!), and at first it was too much. Too much to think about, too much work to navigate (all those arrows and directions and people to go around and all), too much to plan, and all. I got overwhelmed very easily. Eventually I got used to it, but I'm still careful about when I go. The kids never set foot in a store until very very recently- they just didn't need to truly, so why? I'd rather keep them away and be extra careful. I still send Ben grocery shopping- I don't like grocery shopping in the best of times, I certainly wouldn't like it now either. Anyway, I can tell you that the day I set foot in Target for the first time...oh, Target, how I missed you! I was so excited and I had a tiny bit of fun in there...the kids were thrilled when I got home with goodies!
July started out really hot, too. So we spent a lot of time indoors. We cleaned bedrooms and the playroom (packing up/donating toys that don't get much use anymore), we dreamed of a great playroom reorg, we played games, we watched movies, we read books (we read a lot!), we crafted, we played eye cars (quite a lot- Daniel has recently been into them more again- it's so cute!), we played Hot Wheels, we played Lego (always Lego!), we built with blocks, we got old basement toys out, we played play-doh...oh the list goes on. Really it's been a month of rediscovering old toys and things and it's just been the most fun. Screen time happens only in the late afternoon on any given day, or the occasional early afternoon episode of How It's Made or a Harry Potter movie, speaking of which...
Annabel finally finished the Harry Potter series this month, too!! (Daniel and I also finished the last of it as well.) Such a big accomplishment for her! She's officially a Harry Potter fan. Her entire Christmas list will be Harry Potter stuff I believe. Our library's summer reading program prizes are rather pfft so I made up my own with the kids' input- and of course all of Annabel's revolved around Harry Potter, namely a Funko Pop figure, a new Character Compendium (which she LOVES) and a small Harry Potter Lego set. It's been so fun! Of course we've now watched all the movies, too. Anyway, SO proud of my girl for reading all those pages and pages and PAGES of Harry Potter adventures. Annabel used some Christmas money she still had at Barnes & Noble to treat herself to Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, which she immediately devoured as well. Now Daniel and I are reading that one, too, at her recommendation. The fun continues!
Bike rides and walks still continue. We still love our fire pit. Annabel enjoys her outdoor times with her friend Aggie. She even enjoyed time in the pool at her friend Katelyn's house one morning (so nice that they have their own pool in their new house now)- Annabel has really missed pool time this summer, but we're just not quite that comfortable with public pools, and most that are open are only open to members anyway, unfortunate but understandable and quite fine with us anyway. We are missing being able to take trips this summer, very much actually, but, it's for the best. We stay safe. We stay home. We do our part. We have quite the collection of masks now, all made by Grandma Mary Kay, and it's so fun. The kids will need them for school anyway and I like having extras on hand, for washing or putting in this car or that bag or whatever.
The end of the month brought the big school debate to the forefront of our minds. Our district announced its fall plans, with frustratingly little detail provided and next to no information for families to work from, and we had exactly one week to decide which plan we wanted to do, which had me rather panicking. Ben and I kept saying we basically had two bad choices. We had to make an informed decision with no information. It was a really tough week. My head hurt so much that week.
One choice for fall school was hybrid learning- with two or three days in school, A/B groups (Annabel will have ZERO friends in her group, all her friends have last names on the other side of the alphabet- boo!), and then two or three days of remote learning (depending on the week, Monday was the switched day). The other choice was to do online only, but this would have had us in what amounts to another school in itself entirely with the way they set it up- we would have nothing to do with our home schools with this plan- I didn't love that. And I just really didn't like eLearning last spring and we feared it would be more of the same this time around with this plan (and the hybrid for that matter, on its online learning days- like we said, bad choice both ways possibly). I had one of my best conversations ever with our principal on the phone as she so very generously gave me an hour of her time to answer my questions and concerns to the best of her ability, never swaying me one way or another even a little- I was so grateful and appreciative. It was a wonderful chat, really.
Ben and I had reservations about both schooling options, truly, and did not know which we liked best. We sort of decided on hybrid (I hated eLearning in the spring as I know I've said before- it was woefully inadequate), but the in-person thing really scares us. Class sizes will be way down and that honestly was a huge factor for our decision. We also learned that Annabel qualified for Honors Reading and her Honors teacher was AMAZING last spring (she truly is THE reason we'd do hybrid), so we believe that with math and reading taught by that teacher, this hybrid format will serve Annabel well (they were not promising honors instruction with online only, which I didn't like one bit either). Daniel- beginning middle school- it's going to be SO different no matter what. My heart just hurts thinking about all this for him. In the end, I believe he'd do better in person, meeting the teachers he'd be doing work for and all, and I think not going at all would set him back whenever he did return, and he very honestly said he preferred in person to live online instruction. We wanted to honor that input. So, we were sorta in the hybrid camp...but still convincing ourselves daily and still reserving the right to change our mind, as the deadline to choose kept getting delayed. IN THE END, after all my hours of debating and fretting and panicking (honestly, even just the idea of school starting period was half my puddle of tears...I never like the kids to leave and go back even in the best of times, I was just so sad)...after all that, the district pulled way back, and up and changed their plans, and now we're all online only for the first six weeks to start, we'll also start later (we would have started mid August, now we're looking at the beginning of September), and they'll re-evaluate every six weeks with hopes to phase in hybrid if you so choose. So who even knows?! To be honest, this is what we wanted anyway. We wanted online, we wanted the district to figure out some more stuff, we wanted more time...and now we'll get that time...we think, because like I said, who knows. This could change again, haha. In any case, we have all school supplies on hand and ready for whatever (because I still do love a good new collection of supplies and I'm that prepared). And so we wait.
But first, we soak up the rest of our days together. Because I get another whole month of these kiddos to myself!
I'll let the pictures tell the rest of our July story!
Me- at TARGET!! YAY!
Target finds! Eye cars, a puzzle (I feel like I have to stock up on these now, haha, since they were so hard to find before!), paints, Lego Mini-figures, and mini Harry Potter cars- fun fun for all!
Daniel immediately started playing with eye cars all over again. (We go through phases.) He loves these Thunder Hollow beat-up cars. They are very cute and well done, too. He has quite the collection of these guys. So fun! This is a tower he made of several of them. We kept trying to make it taller and taller and this is how far we got- 9 cars!
Snugly boy, lion in hand, and check out that pile of books on the table...he reads quite a lot actually. These are mostly comics though, but hey, whatever floats his boat. He reads novels, too- loves to reread old favorites which I think is cute.
Silly boy, lion on his head!
Cozy time with Cosmo while Grandma Cheryl reads aloud on Zoom! (We've now read 4 books with her! Still going strong!)
Cosmo in my library book bag.
4th of July fun. We debated and debated even going. But this field we go to is seriously our biggest secret- it's never crowded and so we were very much socially distanced from other families. That was the least of our worries. However this year there were TONS, and I mean tons, of houses in the area shooting off some major fireworks of their own in competition with the town's official fireworks. It was so very distracting- I hated every minute and I love fireworks, but this was just too much. Oh well. We are still glad we went. My favorite part- good old fashioned fun in the field!
Shutterfly ran a super good deal on photo books that 4th of July weekend. I messed up some pages, so I took pictures to remember where to put things before I got too far. A fun share here of my process, I thought! (Side note- this book finally just arrived today, too!)
I discovered adult paint with water books this month! Oh my goodness so fun!!
My furry company while I work on my computer in the library.
We have decided we have mountain goats for cats. They love to be up as high as they can be. And they eat everything. So, mountain goats.
More eye car fun!
Lego game fun! An oldie but goodie. It's been a while since we played this one.
This is a weird picture, but part of Annabel's story, so here I put it. I have self-determined, with the help of Dr. Google, and have always been sure anyway, that Annabel's pretty much allergic to mosquito bites. She got two really nasty bites that inflamed, swelled, bruised, hurt, felt warm, and so on. The only thing that never happened was fever or shortness of breath, otherwise we'd have been at the doctor, but she had every other symptom in the book, according to Google. This isn't the first time either- she's reacted to bites like this many times before, but this time was really bad, I thought- bad enough I took pictures to document the swelling. And Annabel was miserable with them, though she was absolutely amazing at never scratching them. We had to resort to liquid Benadryl at night to get her some sleep, and then Benadryl cream for daytimes. It took quite a few days for the bites to really subside and now we are SUPER careful whenever she's outside, like paranoid careful. We spray the heck out of her and we have a Thermacell thingy now, too. No bites since, I'm happy to report. But sheesh, this time wasn't fun, poor baby.
Cosmo, Cosmo, Cosmo- how can that bin be comfy?
Or this bag? Really? The places we find these cats...it cracks us up or melts us right down. I keep telling the kids- being cute is a survival thing. I read that somewhere. It's totally true. We melt when the cats are so cute and they get tons of love.
Ziggy in a box lid on the floor. Sure, why not. The cats loved the new lids Grandma Mary Kay and Grandpa Larry brought them one day. Happy kitties.
See? Even cuter!
And still cute!
Annabel and I are still working on our altered books. Here are a few more of my pages so far. I'm having the most fun with this!
And yes, this is Daniel I inserted into this page! In one of my all time favorite pictures. He's 18 months old in this picture. SO cute!
Kitty hiding in our screened porch. They love to go out there!
Our house painting finally got finished! We LOVE our newly painted deck and all our new furniture finally set up again!!
Kitty company again.
We celebrated Josie's 5th birthday with a socially distanced party. It was sweet to see her. And so good to see all of my family, even if we couldn't hug.
Silly boy at Grandma Mary Kay's wearing a mask, upside down. I had to take a picture.
Play-doh fun! It's too funny to reconnect with play-doh lately and the kids are so silly with play-doh now. They play with it so differently from when they were little. Cracks me up.
Our district's initial plan for fall school. This has all been redone now though. But this was on my mind much of July.
Classrooms will be SO different this fall. It's going to be so weird. In fact, Annabel had testing (for Honors Reading) mid-July and it looked like this and she just said it was so weird and kinda creepy. Sigh. Different world.
Daniel wanted me to take a picture of how he'd pushed the cars aside and dug to the bottom of this bin. Sure, buddy. He's too funny.
I love Daniel's expression in this picture. He loves our cats so. It's the sweetest.
Back at the play-doh.
Annabel is all ready for Honors Reading testing in this picture. She said it was weird and kinda creepy to be there, with the building all quiet and the desks set just so. She was excited to wear her new Stitch themed mask that Grandma Mary Kay made her though! She wore a Stitch shirt, used her Stitch pencil case, and had her Stitch mask- she loved matching it all up! She took a book to read and many pencils, hand sanitizer, a water bottle- she was well prepared. I dropped her off (we weren't allowed to walk up, to my dismay- it was all very structured, do not get out of the car until given permission, stand over there, do this do that, ugh! and I had to pre-check her in acknowledging no symptoms an hour before drop off, which was early as it was!) and promptly bawled my eyes out as I drove away. I felt like I was sending her into the lion's den...just the sending of her into the school, into this place that is sterilized and regimented and all, amidst all this virus scare...it was scary. But to be honest, it was also a really good experience for us, doing the testing this week, because this was all while we were debating hybrid/online only schooling and it was good practice for what the fall would be like- I was glad for this perspective actually. I felt lucky that we did the testing in this way and had this opportunity. This was the first time she'd even seen any of her classmates, too, which just added to the weirdness of all this.
Blurry picture, but you can see how the kids all had to stand so far apart while waiting to go in for testing, that teacher there is squirting the kids' hands with sanitizer, there were even orange dots sprayed on the ground and all. Really just so weird.
Kitty company while Daniel and I played eye cars during Annabel's testing. It was nice to have that one on one time with Daniel that week.
More eye car fun!
(And the boxes- those have been a blast for the kids, too, let me tell you!)
Cute kitty pictures! I can never have enough.
I finally got a video of Cosmo opening a door!!
Christmas in July! Litographs had a sale, so Annabel and I grabbed cute scarves. Hers is purple print with Alice in Wonderland text, mine is Little Women and navy. Very cute! We had fun shopping online and snagging a good deal!
This is where Cosmo just landed one day, all tuckered out apparently.
Sneaky kitty. We see you Cosmo!
Cosmo really wanted to be in this bin, I guess. He had to push this toy out.
Two kitties, all tuckered out. So cute.
A new favorite spot of Ziggy's- this little cubby in Daniel's desk. It's so cute. We don't think Cosmo fits, but Ziggy sure does and loves it in there.
Cosmo didn't want Daniel to do his Lego project I guess. He sat on the instructions.
Love fest with Ziggy and Annabel! We love how he literally grabs Annabel with his paw. And yes she wears her robe even in the summer, all the time.
Craft time...Annabel started this loop yarn project she got for Christmas. It's so fun and easy. It will take her some time to get it done though- we got two rows done this time. The end result will be so cute though- it's a Stitch picture!
My mom came over one Saturday afternoon (Ben had gone to her house to help install their new TV, so I couldn't go there as easily as she could come here) so we could watch a family friend's wedding on Zoom together. The wedding was sweet and bittersweet- a real treat to be able to see though. A sign of the times- Zoom weddings. The newlyweds looked so happy! We wish Allen and Neyda all the best- they're darling. This was the first time my mom had set foot in my house since we couldn't remember when...it has been that long. It was strange and wonderful and yes we did sit socially distanced. (My mom has since come again one more time to surprise us and do our read aloud in person! That was so fun and yes that too was socially distanced. We're glad school will be online to start because that reduces our exposure and means we can still sorta see my parents. It's still hard not to hug though...that thought really struck me all over again this time around.)
Instagram fun from Mo Willems, a favorite author. His pigeon books are a hoot and I've loved them since my teaching days. I like this revision...only when it's safe for everyone. If only the rest of the world listened...
The kids got our plank blocks out one day and I was thrilled. I love these things. They made some fun things! Annabel started out making this structure. Daniel made a marble maze. Then, having been inspired by Daniel, when he was done and she had more blocks at her disposal, Annabel made a skeeball game. It was all so fun! The skeeball game stayed out for days and we'd have fun giving it a whirl now and then. Very cute and clever!
Summer reading prize for Annabel- the new Harry Potter Character Compendium! She was SO excited when it arrived!!
My welcome kitty. He's perfect!
I made the mistake of opening this door in front of the cats one day while working in the playroom. They are a little obsessed with it now...and since they can open the playroom door on their own now...oops.
Cosmo sits and waits for this door to open. Sometimes he tries to open it himself. (He can't get this one open, we hope!)
Give a kid a box and they are happy. Give a kitty a box and a fuzzy ball and they are happy, too.
Daniel's very cool Hot Wheel track contraption! Love this!
Annabel was beyond thrilled Cosmo snuggled up with her while we did our Zoom read aloud with my mom one day. So cute!
And that's a wrap for July, mostly- at least the random fun stuff. We had some other adventures which I'll share in another post soon, too. I'll be sure to enjoy August as well- as much as I can!
