Corona Quarantine Week 1

I have been documenting each school day on my blog to remember this weird time.  Thought I would just kind of cut and paste my posts into the blog until school ends:

I love to cook. And honestly when life gets overwhelming, getting lost in a new recipe often helps me feel less anxious. When my twins were little, I cooked more gourmet dinners than ever in my life. It was a coping mechanism. I went to the store for carrots today because we were out and my kids take carrots almost every day in their lunch. It was nutso craziness. So many people, filling carts, long lines...I came home feeling panicked. Then all the emails and texts, church is canceled, theaters are cancelling their performances (I was supposed to see Dear Evan Hansen at the Eccles tomorrow 🥺), school has reduced hours. The panic elevated. So here I am enjoying the lovely day outside at my grill, grilling chicken satay with a cashew peanut sauce. And I can honestly say, I definitely feel better. Even if my Dear Evan Hansen show that I have been anxiously awaiting for months is cancelled tomorrow😭!!!



One of the many great things that came out of at home church today. This would be Camden's pictures of baby Jesus in swaddling clothes (full beard). I love it! 😂

Also we each drew a picture of a church leader.  Everyone could totally identify Daddy's picture of Jay Riley with his smoker and can of soda.

Corned beef and brussel sprouts. They are basically baby cabbages so that works too right?

Home school day one is going well! We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

Everyone finished their home school assignments, helped do some spring cleaning, then they had some outside time which consisted of golf and massages for the person not currently hitting, and then turned themselves into Leprechauns! Survived day one of home school and social distancing!





Home school day 2/St. Patrick's Day: The leprechaun left a bunch of jokes around the house. 
Carter was not happy he only brought paper until he discovered the leprechaun had also hidden gold coins somewhere the kids would find them while doing their chores. You could hear Camden screaming in excitement in the garage when he opened London's dog food container and found gold! The boys had to send in a video of them singing this song for their musical theater class. They loved the verse about twins again. Everyone organized their bathroom drawers! We went on a hike to our favorite secret waterfall close by. 
They all excitedly packed their camelbacks with water and snacks in anticipation and Liv put in a green hair bow?. 






Then we came home and fingerpaited! Happy St. Patty's!



Olivia decided with all her free time now is the time for her theater directorial debute. She took around audition fliers to all the neighborhood kids and while those auditions will likely have to be done via video she has been working on some choreography. #copaconnects

Homeschool day 3: I woke up to my shutters shaking. I guess we had an earthquake. Everyone else slept through it. The kids helped me clean and organize all the cupboards of food/snacks/baking supplies in the kitchen. It was rainy and cold today, so we did Go Noodle instead of outside time. Then, for art they each drew a self portrait. I think they actually did rather well!  


Liv has been into making cookies with her free time.


Homeschool day 4: Is it spring break yet? I'm pooped! PE day me and the kids went outside this morning and played a fun new game called SPUD. The boys worked on their animal reports and sent a video of them reading to their teacher. Each went through their 72 hour backpacks and changed out the clothes for clothes that fit. Then, for art time we made these labor intensive snowflake cookies from a package we got as a Christmas present.


Homeschool Day 5: TGIF!!! We lived through week one. The kids begged for buttermilk pancakes with buttermilk syrup. So I made some with frozen blueberries and raspberries. They turned out delish and totally worth the extra effort. The boys were challenged to read somewhere they never had before so Camden and I squished into the driver seat of my car. 

Liv powers through her stuff and then is such a great helper to me with helping her brothers finish their stuff. The kids clean and organized all 3 fridges in my house today! It was nice today so the kids played basketball on rollerblades and hoverboards for some outside time--I should have videoed that was awesome. We made homemade silly putty for art. 
Oh an in between all of that I worked back and forth with our neighborhood techie @tthorsted 🙏 to submit a of video of Liv telling her storytelling competition piece to the national timpanogos storytelling judges to hopefully earn her a spot as a youth storyteller in September. 🤞 The boys teacher asked them to send a video response to her about how they liked this week. I uploaded Carter's video. Camden similarly does not like all the spring cleaning and extra jobs his Mom is giving him, but loves that most of his assignments are in conjunction with some sort of video to watch and respond to.

Love the creativity being stuck at home all day with only your siblings for entertainment inspires. Camden is posing while Liv draws a digital portrait of him.