This Week in School

We've had some absolutely beautiful weather this week and we've been outside quite a bit. There was some tape left after our chalk walk last week so fit in one last driveway mural yesterday...

Jonathan's class has a a Facebook page where he posts (or I post, really) different activities that we do throughout the day. Yesterday, his teachers posted a video where they read a story to the class and they asked the kids to draw a picture and "write" about their favorite character in the book. Here is Jonathan's entry where he chose "cupcake" as his favorite character...

Jonathan was also continuing his recycling project at home and made a representation of Athena out of recycling things from our house...

Today, J's art teacher asked the children to create a picture of their pet or favorite stuffed animal. In keeping with the Athena theme, he used colored pencils and markers to show his favorite pup...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33cEmXjZSnI&feature=youtu.be

A Love Story...

Beans is in love.

That's right, our younger pup has met her match. Our neighbors next door used to have a basset hound named Sidney. Sadly, Sidney passed last year. Recently, through the fence next door, we saw the next generation of basset hound to follow in Sidney's footsteps. Meet Humphrey!

A word about Humphrey's name--when we first met him, he was known as Bogie. According to our neighbors, he wouldn't respond to that name so they changed it to Humphrey (as in Humphrey Bogart). And yes, he is as cute in person as he is in the pictures. Anyway, Athena is lovestruck! She waits by the fence until Humphrey comes to his side of the fence to visit. She would stay there all day if she could! Some might refer to this as stalking...

She even hides behind the bushes while waiting. Anyway, once Humphrey comes to the fence and starts whining, Athena runs over and starts barking which then spurs Holly to bark (doesn't take much!) and then Humphrey barks too. It's like a Hound Dog Fest! Jonathan loves Humphrey too and insists on calling him Bogie. Bogie for life!

Here are some other things we've been up to...

Watching The Honeymooners:

Baking cookies:

Measuring our irises that are starting to come up:

Practicing yoga which now needs to be done online, via Zoom:

And this, because we didn't get a proper St. Patrick's Day celebration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL-oiT9XTco&feature=youtu.be

Yes, we do have another child but he prefers that I don't take his picture while he is doing his online learning through school! 

Chalk Your Walk

People are finding all manner of ways to keep their kids busy during this social distancing era of life. A friend of mine saw and suggested this "Chalk Your Walk" thing where you decorate your sidewalk and/or driveway and she also showed us how to make these "taped" pictures! We put the sidewalk chalk to good use on this beautiful day!

Also, we tried a new real estate strategy!

Although we've been sticking to somewhat of a schedule, the boys are technically still on spring break. Starting Monday, Chris will be getting more regular work and Jonathan will have some activities too. However, our day consists of new ways of communicating and getting around. We did a FaceTime with Grammy and also with Bennett. We also took a nice walk/bike ride on a "new" street after lunch. Our field trips consisted of curb side pick up of dog food in Brookside and dropping off Cameron's iPad at his house. While on this last mission, we saw Christopher's art teacher walking her dogs and then Cameron came out and, from 6 feet away, caught up with Chris. We also chatted with his teacher. I think everyone is becoming more social, albeit from a distance, but I've had more conversations with people who are walking by because we are all craving the interaction! Meanwhile, our dogs are super happy because we are here at the house all the time and they are getting unlimited attention!

What's Happening

Throughout this odd time of being at home so much, people everywhere are getting creative and figuring it all out. For starters, although the economy may be having many issues at the moment, I would highly recommend investing in companies that make sidewalk chalk...

Parents everywhere are sending their children out to see how much of the driveway they can cover in an afternoon!

Another thing that's happening in our house is: Athena is looking cute as usual and both dogs are getting completely spoiled. They do not want this "stay at home" business to stop!

Many of the boys' lessons and classes are going online for the moment. Today, Jonathan had his yoga session via Zoom and also got to chat with a number of his friends from school via Zoom as well. It was really fun! And I'm learning quickly how to make all of these things work. Yesterday, we had church from our couch in our PJs on Facebook:

Christopher's dance classes will also be a combination of videos posted on the school website and Zoom classes starting tomorrow. Chris watched a few of Joseph's videos today and learned "Vanishing Lake," a new set. Now that we don't have the dance floor in the playroom, Chris has moved to the driveway to try out his new steps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-hCC0-pxbA&feature=youtu.be

"Ordinary" Saturday Morning...

Why not document an ordinary Saturday (which is actually starting to look like every other day of the week except Daddy doesn't have to park himself at his "work station" also known as the dining room)? I wish I had pictures of the first thing this morning but I'll just tell you about it. I went to Target to see if I could get my hands on some paper towels. I was there about ten minutes before it opened and we were all kind of just standing in the parking lot (six feet away from each other of course) and waiting in the cold for the doors to open. Everyone was silent. I was thinking of saying, "You guys! We have a chance right now to talk to multiple people before we have to return to our homes--let's have '6 feet away conversations'!" Alas I did not say that but it would have been interesting to see who would have taken the bait. It is the midwest after all... I just needed two things at the store (paper towels being one of them). When the doors opened everyone who had been standing 6 feet away from the next person went right into the toilet paper aisle and were, therefore, 6 inches from the next person. I was able to get my paper towels which were in an adjacent aisle. I made it home in one piece and proceeded to wash my hands for 20 seconds while singing Lizzo in my head...

Meanwhile at home, this is how our kids were spending the morning while I was the sacrificial shopper...

Jonathan was assembling Legos:

Chris was working on developing his car company (I'm not kidding, the kid is going to have a business plan and a patent by the end of this quarantine!):

Holly was getting cozy on the couch:

And Athena was working hard at being cute:

Meanwhile, Daddy is on the elliptical and I went for a walk/run. I probably ran more than I should have but that is what this being home bound stuff is doing to me!

We've Been Social Distancing?

That's my excuse, anyway, for why I haven't written on the blog for, say two whole months. Actually, prior to the current pandemic, we were actually quite busy getting ready to move to New York while also getting our house here ready for selling. Three weeks ago, we were showing our house to multiple potential buyers and keeping everything clean and tidy. Now, well, we've all been home 24/7 including the dogs and it also rained much of the week so you can imagine what the floors and couch have looked like. Glad I got the carpets and sectional professionally cleaned! (Sarcasm). Anyway, I was going to take a bit of a break from the blog until we relocated to New York, but given the circumstances (lack of potential buyers and lack of good spring sports on television) I will resume our updates.

Unfortunately, the current lockdown came right around our favorite holiday of the year--St. Patrick's Day. It went from a season of busy-ness and dancing to absolutely nothing. No matter though! The boys put together their own reel to entertain us...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tuWcwa22Ko&feature=youtu.be

And Jonathan dressed up and decided to look pretty Irish! (This outfit, by the way, is the same suit Christopher wore when Jonathan got baptized. J just about fits in it)...

We've also been doing a lot of cooking, given the amount of time we are spending in the house. Some of our quarantine recipes include: artichoke garlic bread, vegan quesadillas, chocolate chip banana muffins, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and thin mint gelato! The boys have really enjoyed several days of that gelato in between two cookies...

Before the weather dropped 40 degrees between last night and this morning, we had beautiful weather (in between the rain of course). We've been going on lots of walks and bike rides and have been decorating the driveway (and J's pants)...

And today, we took a field trip to the CVS drive through. Jonathan likes to wear my long black coat around the house. Today he wanted to wear it on our drive. So you know what? Wear the coat boy! 

Ceili Time

Last night was the second annual O'Riada Manning ceili and silent auction fundraiser and it was a very fun night! It was in a new location this year--Drexel Hall which is the home of the Kansas City Irish Center. Chris and I got there early to help set up and here is Chris sharing his wisdom about how to get the most bang for your buck at an auction...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKo0dMIwqxw&feature=youtu.be

The kids had a great time showing off their dance moves! Chris and Gabe went out and did their reel together...

The boys were also busy making what they referred to as "death juice" which essentially consisted of every ingredient at the ceili, from hot chocolate to marshmallows to lime juice to queso. Yuck! Fortunately, no one drank it!

And finally, Jonathan participated in the ceili dancing this year! It essentially involved him being spun around and directed by older girls so who could complain? He stuck with it though until the end...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzrK5K9lOc8&feature=youtu.be