Week 798, or so it feels.  Everything would be perfect if they'd just cancel school!  This homeschooling is for the birds!  

Kade got to go on his first turkey hunt this year.  Luck hasn't been with him so far, but he's going out again this weekend and I have a feeling his time is coming.  He's loving every minute of it and he's definitely the hunter in the family.

They had a school assignment where they had to use the letters in their name to describe themselves.  I had to giggle at his "E"..."I eat".  Yes he does!  I swear they are both in a never ending growth spurt that started the day school let out.

My dad gave Mason his old lawn mower.  He drives around the yard pretending it's his combine.  It's providing hours of fun!

Catfish hunting

Last weekend I took out a couple loaves of frozen bread dough to use for homemade pizza crusts.  I put them out in the morning, went outside for the day and completely forgot about them.  I could not stop giggling when I came in and saw this.

So, of course, I had to show the boys.

Erik got in on the action too!

We were all laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.

I don't even know what week we're on for home schooling/social distancing.  I do know that the weather has finally turned and these boys want NOTHING to do with school work!!  They head outside in the morning and don't come in until 7:00 for supper.  I'm about ready to hang up my imaginary teaching license and call it good for the year!

We got word a week or two ago that there may be some temporary furloughs and pay decreases at our jobs.  Erik got notice that he is taking a 7% pay decrease and will need to furlough for 6 weeks.  Basically he's making about what he did 2 years ago and since our finances haven't changed since then, we'll be fine.  It also means that he has most of the summer off.  He's not been outwardly showing it but I can tell he's secretly pretty excited about this.  So far, my pay and hours are basically the same.  I will be taking an extra day or two off every pay period but I have a feeling my work could pick up soon.  So, I'm enjoying my days home while I can!  And let me tell you, if I have to start going in to work more, then we will DEFINITELY be playing hooky from home school!!

Easter was a bit different this year but we still hid some eggs and had a delicious brunch of egg bake and monkey bread.

It also snowed 9 inches on Easter so we laid around all day watching movies and zooming with family.

We played a silly game when we were eating.  You had to take a bite and not smile.  If you smiled, you had to do 5 push ups.

Guess who smiled!

Umbrella Day for school

So we had our first taste of spring a couple weeks ago.  Since then it's snowed 9" and of course, stupid me, I washed and put away ALL of our snow gear.  This isn't my first rodeo so I'm not sure why I fell for it when MN teased us with 60's and sun.  Anyway, Erik and the boys managed to accomplish a somewhat big outside job in that little time!

But first, the weekly update.  School is still going fairly well.  I don't love it, the boys don't love, Erik really doesn't love it on the days I'm at work and he's trying to work from home with our handsome, little scholars.  But, we don't complain because we know how lucky and blessed we are.  Everyone is still healthy, happy, we all still enjoy each other's company, and these boys (Erik included) are eating me out of house and home!

Mason's Easter art project.

He named him "Roley" (pronounced Rawley).

It was "Hat Day" at school that day!

For real, it was.  

All of the teachers were wearing hats for their online classes.

A picture of Mason's daily journal that we submit to the teacher every Friday!

Onto the project.

When we moved in there was a basic swing set in the back yard.  The boys played on it exactly 6 times in the 6 years we've been here.  Being the age appropriate hoarders that they are, they've always refused when we say we should take it down.

Since Kade has been mowing though, he's changed his tune.  Mason was happy to help when he realized it meant he got to destroy something.

I tried to talk them into keeping the base of it and attaching a porch swing to put by the fire pit.  I lost.  The lumber is going to be used to build a lean-to for firewood.  Lame.

 With the weather warming up the boys have been really into baseball!  Well, Kade is ALWAYS into baseball but this is the first year that Mason has shown a lot of interest too.
It's fun to see them playing catch, batting and watching Kade help Mason with techniques and skills.  Now, fingers crossed their season doesn't get canceled!  So far it's still on but I'm worried its not going to stay that way.  Kade will be even more devastated than he was about March Madness being canceled and I'm not going to lie, I might shed a few tears too.  I absolutely LOVE watching them play.  In the meantime, they'll keep practicing and if the season is canceled, I'll count my blessings that I still get to see them having fun out my front door.

I've been trying to remember (and remind Erik) to take more pictures during this time to document what we've been doing during this unprecedented experience.  After looking through the pictures I had to giggle because I realized that we haven't been doing anything different!  Besides the boys being home from school and Erik working from home every day, we've literally been doing what we've always done!  Obviously, for the most part, we were hermits before it was required of us!

Brother snuggle time

We watched the movie, "Little Giants" and Mason went through a couple day phase of being a football player.  Here he is "training" in pants and jersey.

Kade helping Mason get his reading done.

Last spring, while I was on a run, I got chased by a family of weasels.

A couple days ago the boys caught this guy in our shed.

That's called Karma, weasel!

They let him go on the way to Whitewater when they went fishing.  This little fella can now chase another poor schmuck just trying to get some exercise!!

Mason, bird hunting.

I don't think they even got a nibble but they were just happy to be out of the house for awhile!

First day of online learning...and the "fun" begins!!!

Week 2

We're still holding strong here!  Everyone is healthy and happy (for the most part).  The days when it's been raining all day get a little long and tensions run a little high but as long as we can get outside, we're good!  

The boys are very good at playing with each other.  I told Erik the other day that I'm very thankful this is happening when the boys are at the ages they are.  They're self sufficient, they play well together, we don't have to watch their every move like we did when they were toddlers and we are still in charge of their social life so whatever plans we make (or lack thereof), they have to go along with anyway.  I can't imagine dealing with this when they were babies/toddlers or trying to keep teenagers in the house and away from friends. 

Unfortunately I still have to go in to work and my work isn't really slowing down all that much yet.  And school starts back up (online) on Monday.  So the "honeymoon" is officially over in 4 days.  It's been a great ride: we've stayed up too late, watched too many movies, ate too much popcorn and other treats and hung out in the same clothes for a few too many days in a row!  So far, we're all still enjoying it!!

Fishing for alligator gar off the front porch

Kade wanted nothing to do with my picture taking but I did manage to get a couple thumbs up!

Hopefully these are the last pictures of snow!!

COVID-19

I just had to use that as the title of this post, if anything, for easy reference when we're looking back on this memory!

We're on Day 2 of "social distancing" and the hardest part has been getting some WiFi time for myself to do a post!  Between Erik working from home and hogging all of the internet speed and the boys using the laptop to do their learning games, it doesn't leave much left for me.  

So it turns out "country living" can be used interchangeably with "social distancing" so, so far, we haven't noticed much change from the norm.  Again, we're only on Day 2.

We sent the boys to school on Monday and Tuesday of this week.  Who knows if they'll get to go back this year and we wanted them to have some closure with their teachers.  Kade has taken this pretty hard, he LOVES his teacher, so we've had some tears.  He's wanted this teacher since he was in 1st grade because of the NCAA tournament.  Apparently Mr. Matejka has been known to show a game or two during class and he has them fill out a bracket.  So, when that got canceled we had some EXTREME disappointment.  Then when we realized they might be done for the year...well....to say Kade was sad is an understatement.  Since we aren't sure ourselves, we haven't really told him what the future holds so right now they think they're going back in 8 days.  And, maybe they will!!!

I don't think Mason truly grasps what's going on but he did ask today (again, Day 2) when he gets to go back to school.  I'm actually having a little harder time with Mason's situation.  I feel like Kindergarten is such a special year and I feel bad that Mason's kindergarten experience might be cut extremely short.  I know he won't remember it very well and maybe it's because he's my baby, but I'm sad that he might never get to go back to his Kindergarten classroom.  He also LOVES Ms. Tuohy and I feel terrible he might be done with her.  She's been wonderful with him, with patience beyond measure, because we all know Mason can be a bit much at times!  

However, Mason's love of sleeping in, along with his amazing imagination, has made his transition into hermit life quite easy!  Kade, on the other hand, thrives on structure, plans and socialization.  Hopefully he can learn from Mason, relax a little and go with the flow.

A few weeks ago, I took these 2 days off (Thursday and Friday) to watch the first round of the NCAA tournament with Erik, while the boys were in school.  Obviously plans have changed but it's been nice being home with the boys, knowing there's nothing to do and nowhere to be.  We've watched movies, drawn pictures, done a bit of school work, played basketball outside, went for a run, stayed up late and slept in.  I know this could be a loooooooooong situation but right now, I'm loving every minute of it.  I'll still have to go in to work like normal, but we have been told we can change our hours to work around our children's schedule.  And, soon, online learning is going to happen and maybe the stress will pick back up.  So, we're making sure to bask in the quietness before the possible  storm.

Anyway, so far we're healthy, happy, and enjoying each other's company.  Fingers crossed it stays this way!!!

Fishing on the "beach"!

Thankfully we were able to watch the last boys basketball game before everything got canceled.

We busted out some VERY old warmups (Erik's dad's when he was in high school!!) to help cheer on our Eagles.

And our very own Mason got Student of the Week in P-E the week before everything got shut down!!

He said he knew it was going to be him when the teachers said this to describe the winner, "And sometimes this kid can be a little crazy..."