We discovered this destroyed Xbox controller this morning—little orange pieces of Nerf foam that had been picked off the controller the previous night when they were all playing. So it was Owen, Katie, Aiden, or Evan…yet every single one of them flat out denied it. Because of course.
We had a quick rainshower and Katie always runs out to see if there’s a rainbow. There rarely is but there was today. I’m hoping it’s a sign that things are going to get better.
Then the kids went out on their bikes to look for the end of the rainbow.
Well today started out okay with me waking up before my alarm and I got to have some nice leisurely quiet time before the kids got up.
And they showered without much drama and they ate breakfast without much drama and we took school pictures without much drama… And then the shitshow started.
Owen had some technical difficulties dealing with an external monitor and Bluetooth headphones and Google meets and when I asked him if these were the same headphones that he used last year he said yes but they didn’t work for Google meets then either.
YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE TOLD US THAT AT SOME POINT BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL?! (What I was screaming in my head—not what I said to him.) But he was completely losing it and this was him just four minutes in to Remote Learning. /cry/ Even though I wanted them home to be safe…THIS. JUST. SUCKS.
But things have gotten a little better since 9:04 AM when it was the worst and I think we might make it through this day without me needing to drink a gallon of margaritas.
I went outside to enjoy the weather in my egg chair…and Owen came out on a break and he seemed much better.
Even though the kids weren’t going to school buildings, we still dressed for first day of school pictures!! (I made them shower and make their lunches, too!)
Sometimes random pics turn out better than you expected. I kinda love this one in black and white.
And sometimes they’re just okay.
It’s so awesome that this field is across the street at the park! Tom just carries down the pitching machine and a bucket of balls…
I decided to use a mask recipe this morning and I made too much so I called Owen in. He’s such a good sport!!
So I get home from my haircut and there’s pineapple chunks in the sink. WAIT, WHAT?!
I innocently ask about it. NO ONE HAS ANY IDEA WHERE IT CAME FROM. I say it looks like someone ate a fruit cup and threw out the pineapple. Nope, neither of them. I look in the garbage and yep, there’s a fruit cup on the top. YET STILL NO ONE ADMITS TO IT.
REALLY?! This is getting ridiculous.
Normally it’s school supply drop-off…but not this year.
Waiting in line to pick up Katie’s Chromebook.
Owen’s turn.
It was hot and sunny so Owen came over to sit under the shade for a bit.
Found this around the house. I have no idea when it was from or what happened.
One of the new mom friends I have has a pool and invited our small group over for a play date! I was sitting in the water for most of the time (it was HOT) so I only got one pic to show Tom (who opted to stay at home and work on the garage).
The kids had a blast on the diving board and the slide. We had fun watching them of course. The parents basically stayed in the shallow end and visited.
It isn’t quite the same as there are only three teams (instead of like six), spectators need to stay six feet apart (and wear masks to and from the fields) and the boys can’t sit on the bench and also need to stay six feet apart when not in the field…but it does feel good to have a little bit of normalcy again. Tom is once again an assistant coach.
Owen thought he wanted to also catch this year but after doing one game and his back hurting (!) he opted to stick with pitching (and of course he loves first base but they still get rotated through all positions).
They don’t quite manage to stay six feet apart, but at least we’re outside in the sun and fresh air.
Here’s a compilation of some of Owen’s game time today. Papa requested some as they won’t be able to make it to a game this season.
So with my love of margaritas, can you believe I’ve never really made any? (Well, I have made a special “beergarita” for parties, but that really isn’t a margarita as most people would think of one.) I even bought the Margaritaville drink machine to make them but never really did anything except use it with premade margaritas.
Enter our new friends Lindsay and Mike, who regularly (and quickly!) make frozen margaritas. Of course I had to ask how they do it… And turns out it’s super simple.
The funny thing is they make completely different ones. He gives her crap about using limeade vs real limes and she gives him crap about taking longer to make his. Both are good but I’m usually lazy so I’ll do the limeade ones!
I did my very first batch—actually in my Vitamix—today. And they were super easy and super delicious.
I actually got out the margarita machine for the kids to make lemonade slushies! They came and sat at the bar and said “This is like being on the cruise—you just hand them your glass and they refill it!”
Anna had the idea to take all the kids to Goodwill and let them pick out something to take apart (okay, destroy). So we all masked up and wandered the aisles until the kids found fun stuff. Then we just gave them screwdrivers and let them go.
We have been leaving the kids for short amounts of time to go run errands. Tonight we decided to run to Aldi.
Owen generally texts us at some point just to check in and let us know they’re okay. This was today’s conversation.
I about died when I read his WTH comment. I mean yeah, technically swearing, but it fit perfectly. I actually couldn’t stop laughing as we were walking through Aldi.
Katie loves running so when I was clearance shopping at Kohl’s today I picked up a pair of running shoes for her (like not just generic tennis shoes). She was SO excited she wanted to go out and run immediately. So Owen went around the block with her on his Segway.
Actually it’s give a kid a phone and a cat…
We knew storms were coming (I even moved patio furniture) but then we heard the sirens! Everyone down to the basement—cats and all! Owen actually did really well for being the one who gets super freaked out about storms. I worked on getting the pantry organized and opened a bag of M&Ms as a treat for everyone. Tom was working on the bathroom toilet as we learned it’s in need of fixing. It only lasted about an hour, nothing bad happened, and then it was back to normal!
Washing ALL our dishes for an undetermined amount of time because one of them is lying about things that happen during dishwasher duty and neither will budge. Owen tried to take one for the team and admit to it but he has been too adamant for too long that he didn’t do it so we didn’t fall for it.
And the look on their faces when they thought they were getting close to done and then turned around to see all the dinner dishes STILL on the table was priceless.
Amazingly, all the kids played really well together for like two hours.
They spent their first night out there last night while I was at my mom’s night. Tonight Tom is at a guy’s night (totally separate from the moms I just met!) so they’re out there again! They love it!!
Solo stove fire going. I’m drinking. Tom is cutting wood from our trees with a chainsaw. Katie just put on an Elena princess dress. Owen is talking about mages and normal knight boots?!
They were running late so this is where Owen was perched, desperately waiting.
He’s fine but has a scratched cornea. Always wear safety goggles, kids.
After Anna dropped the kids off from their overnight stay, Owen started complaining that his eye was bothering him. I figured he had an eyelash or something in his eye so told him to let it water and flush itself out. Nope, still there. I looked, nothing. I then tried to rinse it out—a challenge considering everything was obviously packed and I couldn’t find my saline, squirt bottles, or eye drops. (I might not have been in the best frame of mind, either. After another long day with the movers, now I’m having to deal with this at 3pm.)
So then it became the challenge of him letting me actually get his eye rinsed out. First he wouldn’t even let me get near his eye. Then he kept shutting his eye. Then he couldn’t tip his head back. Good times. I finally got some water in and he said it really hurt. Hmmm, that’s not good. So then I had to decide whether to see if we could get in to his doctor, go to urgent care, the ER, or try his eye doctor. I picked eye doctor and of course they had no appointments locally (they are five minutes from us) but a sister office 30 minutes away had an opening…so off we went. One quick look with some eye drops and yep, two small scratches. We were in and out within about 15 minutes.
And you can believe we had a big conversation about preventing things like this because the simple act of not wearing goggles meant we had to pay $70 for the appointment, $15 for the meds, and then another $70 for the follow up appointment. I told him we’d obviously always take care of these things, but that money could have gone to…a whole year of Netflix. Or about six trips to Culver’s. Or half of an Xbox. You should have seen the look on his face when he learned that. So hopefully that sunk in.
So how did this happen? The boys were (apparently) sanding wood blocks with a block and sandpaper—no power tools involved because David had wisely put the kibosh on that. I asked why he didn’t wear goggles and he said there was only one pair and one of the boys was smashing something into pieces so he wore them. Owen said he would sand and tried to keep blowing the dust away from him…?!
I finally got the kids to make pictures for the annual calendar contest…I loved both of them but unfortunately they didn’t get selected.
Daddy and Owen were painting the garage while Katie was having her waterslide party. Yes, it’s purple. We only use Home Depot or Menards “oops” paint colors ($30 vs $120 for five gallons) for garages so it was bright peach or this. We figured the purple was meant to be.
Also, Tom’s sprayer died about 3/4 of the way through…so we ended up buying a new one. We hated to spend the money but he will definitely use it for future projects.
Once we showed up to check on them, of course Katie wanted to paint, too…so we let Katie do her name.
Playing while Mom and Dad work.
