One Day At A Time

Hello world!  Hope you are all doing well and staying healthy.  It has been a month now since everyone was encouraged to stay at home.  Did you have any idea it would last this long?  I laugh even as I type that because I know that in reality it is going to last much longer.  (insert a long, heavy sigh).  Like many of you we are making the best of it.  Here is a little look at our life lately.

Someone sent me a text recently and asked how I was doing.  I replied with this picture.  Homeschool has been a lifesaver for us.  It is keeping us busy, occupied, and sane.  You know I have always loved homeschooling and I am thankful that although not much of life is normal these days, school goes on for us as usual.  It makes life not feel so crazy, at least for most of our day.  

 Ben working on language.

Ben working on Science.  We were learning about electricity.

 Our current Science lesson is on magnets.  This has been a fun study so far.

A missionary friend posted this idea for growing beans in a bag.  We made ours and taped them to our school room window.  We are not studying plants in science this year but it is still a fun project to do.  It has given the boys something to look forward to each school morning.  They cannot wait to see what their beans are doing and if they have sprouted yet.  I will keep you posted on their progress.

We are missing our co-op families!  One morning last week while I was cooking breakfast, Ben walked into the kitchen and showed me these bracelets he had just made.  He said, "Look mama, I put all my friend's names on them."  All the names were his co-op buddies (Joseph, Sam, Mo, and Benji).  We are so thankful for the friendships that our homeschool co-op has provided for us.  We look forward to the day we can all be together again. 

We are doing a lot of extra art these days.  Here the boys had made crowns as a birthday celebration from one of the videos they had watched.  This was from the Mo Willems videos.  We are no longer following him, but instead have started watching another daily art lesson called Draw Everyday with JJK.  We love his videos!!  He posts new ones everyday on YouTube and I think he just finished week 4.  We started two weeks ago from the beginning so we are a little behind.   At the end of his lessons he brings his kids in to do family drawings.  This is our favorite part.  We have learned a lot of fun doodling games from watching him.  Check out his series on YouTube.  

On one lesson they learned how to draw facial expressions.

 They have become doodling fanatics!  They doodle on everything these days.

Our IMB missionary families serving in the Americas recently did a Homeschool Spirit Week.  Each day we did something fun and then shared pictures on our private page.  Our activities were:  Monday-Super Hero Day-in honor of hospital workers, first responders, grocery workers, and all other essential workers.
Tuesday-Crazy Hair Day-we can't get haircuts, so why not celebrate the craziness?

Wednesday-Dress like an Old Person Day--and pray for those most at risk
Thursday-Jersey Day-In honor of our favorite sports teams that can't play right now
Friday-Pajama Day-the best part of homeschooling!
We did three of the days.  Here are some photos of the boys-

crazy hair day

 My caption was- They are rockin' the lock in. 

jersey day

 pajama day

They are still doing their karate lessons through Zoom.  Here is a photo from a recent class.  Can you spot my two?

We are spending a lot of time lately in the backyard.  We have even had a few meals out there, just for fun.   The boys are creating all kinds of fun games to keep themselves busy.  Here they are playing football one afternoon.  To improvise they used a plastic ball and are wearing a bike helmet and a motorcycle helmet.  They are so fun.

 

I saw a lot of posts on Facebook one day last week about the super moon.  I went out on our patio that evening to look for it.  Our view was blocked by the neighbor's house but what I did see instead was a lot more exciting.  We did not think we could see the Fuego volcano from our house due to trees that have grown on a nearby property.  Little did I know you could see it at night if it was erupting.  If you look closely you will see the orange dot on the photo.  That is lava coming out of the volcano.  I got to see it erupt twice before I headed back inside.

We are continuing our weekly Friday pizza and movie night.  We normally get Little Caesar's pizza every week but with the curfew we can't get out to pick it up.   Instead, I have been making our own for the past several weeks.  Last Friday I made BBQ chicken pizza.  It is a favorite of mine from Papa John's.  It turned out delicious, and I will probably be making it again soon.  I love to cook but I am getting very tired of having to cook everyday.  I am so looking forward to the day we can go sit down in a restaurant again. 

What the boys love most about Friday nights is getting to stay up "all night long".  At least in their minds that is what they think.  They set out with big intentions but usually by around 10ish you'll find Cruz like this.  This is him on a recent Friday night.  Poor thing!  Quarantine is hard work. 

We recently began a daily focus on Easter using our Resurrection Eggs.  We do the Bible study every morning after breakfast.  We also sing a few Easter themed hymns to go along with it.  We have one more egg left to open tomorrow morning on Easter Sunday.  

We have been a little sad this week because had it not been for the virus we would have been spending some time in South Carolina with our two partner churches.  They were flying us in for Easter week and had a lot of meetings, activities, and fellowship times lined up for us.  We had been looking forward to our time there and were so sad when we had to cancel.  We did get to participate online in a prayer service with one of the churches this past Thursday evening.  David shared a ministry and family update and then got to pray for the global church.  These two churches love us well and we are so thankful for our partnership and relationship with them.

Lastly, for this week's Friday movie and pizza night, we decided to put the tent up in the backyard and make it a camp out.  The boys were very excited about that idea.  Here is Cruz helping David get it all set up.

ready for a fun night!

I was excited too until I saw this sign taped near the door.  It was a little reminder that I am definitely outnumbered in this household.  

They did let me in though and here is a photo to prove it. When I informed them that I would not be cooking for a party I was not invited to, they had a change of heart.  ha  I look terrible but it is a true reflection of life these days.  Who has time for make-up and hair when you cannot leave the house.  I had no idea how good it would do us to camp out.  Something about being in that tent made us feel like we were far away from home.  We had no thoughts of the corona virus, or anything else that might be stressing us these days.  It was a great mental break.  It was a fun night and I feel pretty certain we'll be doing it again tonight.   

Happy Easter everyone! 

Life Lately

It has been a while since I have updated my blog. Like everywhere else in the world, life is turned upside down lately.  This post will be a mixture of what we are doing now and a little of what we were doing before we went on restrictions and a curfew due to the corona virus.

Thankfully, the one thing that is keeping us going and on a normal routine is homeschool.   It keeps us occupied for most of the day and our minds off the current situation around us.  We are currently on two weeks of being in and the President just announced this weekend that he is extending it two more weeks.  I keep relating life to Groundhog Day.  It sure feels like it.

Here is a recent photo of Cruz in school.  All I can think of is "when did he get so big?"  I will share more down below of some of the extra things we are doing in school these days to keep us busy since we are not getting out. 

This is a group photo taken of their karate class in late February.  At the time they were working on their upcoming exams that should have taken place this past Saturday (March 28).  The boys were looking forward to performing and getting new stripes on their belts.  We have no idea now when that might take place.

Thankfully, their karate instructor started offering classes on Zoom to all of the students.  That is giving the boys something to look forward to and is a great form of exercise a few days a week.  Here are a few photos of a recent class.

Isn't technology great!

 

We had gone into town for lunch one February Sunday after church.  While walking back to the car Cruz ran into a metal garbage box and cut his eyelid.  Antigua has these on poles all over town.  They were just the same height as his eye.  He now has another scar to add to his face.  He is getting quite the collection.

Just like in the States, churches here are now closed as well.  We cannot have any gatherings of any kind or size.   Instead, we have enjoyed getting to worship with several of you online.  If your church does a live broadcast, thank you! What a blessing you are to many.

Prior to the virus, we had been spending a lot of time scouting out a few back up hotels and restaurants for upcoming teams.   At one particular hotel we loved this sign they have on the rooftop patio.  We do love Antigua!!! and the views from this terrace were amazing.

I cannot tell you how excited we were about all the teams we had lined up this year.  Just last week our mission board, IMB, announced that all volunteer trips were cancelled through June 30.  I may have shed a few tears when I read that.  Mission teams bring life to us in so many ways.  Having to cancel some was very hard.  On another sad note, that announcement also meant that we can no longer host our two Summer Sojourner students that were coming to work with us for six weeks this summer.  Our hearts are sad, but we are praying that we will be able to pick back up in July with the rest of our teams.

That same evening, while out scouting, we ate supper at one of the boys favorite restaurants.  I think they would eat their chili bean nachos every day if we let them.

A conversation we are now having often in our home is "Where are you looking forward to eating at when this is all over?"  Sunset Terrace is definitely on their list.

We hosted a team from our home church in early March.  I will try to post about that week soon.  We had no idea when they left that they would be our last group for a while.  Just a few days after they flew out things started shutting down around here.  That included the airport and borders.

We are missing our co-op classes that meet every Thursday.  We are keeping in touch through a Facebook page but really miss the weekly face to face interaction.  We recently had the upper elementary science kids record one of their experiments and post it on our group page.  We were learning about electricity.  Here are a few photos I took of the boys doing theirs.

watching pepper jump from the plate onto the balloon 

We are doing this 30 day LEGO challenge.   The boys are loving it.  Below are a few photos of some of the things they have made.

We did this indoor scavenger hunt.  We asked another family to do it with us and then we video called them and showed each other what we found.  It was a fun activity for the kids.  This same family gave us a fort challenge.  We had 30 minutes to build a fort and then we showed each other what we built via video call.  Thank goodness for technology and how it is helping us pass the time these days.

Every afternoon at 1:00, our time, we are tuning in to the Cincinnati Zoo's live videos where they feature a different animal each day.  We have learned so many cool animal facts by watching these.  After each video they give you an activity to do.  On this particular day we were learning about a cheetah cub named Kris.  This is the cheetah Ben made.  You can watch these videos on Facebook by visiting the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden's page.

The boys made these yarn wrapped letters one afternoon.  I saw the idea on Facebook.

Another fun thing we are doing are these table talk conversation starter questions.  I feel like we are all cooking more these days.  That means more opportunities to enjoy meals around the table.  I am trying to keep the topics light by adding in these questions.  It has provided us with a lot of laughter.  It has also kept the topic off of the corona virus at least during meal times.

We are starting week 32 of our school year today.  Hopefully, if we all stay well, we should finish strong by early May.  

Lastly, Cruz came down for breakfast one morning last week dressed like this-

He said he was ready to fight the corona virus if it came to our house.  I had to laugh.  The boys are keeping us very entertained these days.

We send you all a big hug and wish you good health and peace of mind.  Pray for us as we are praying for all of you.