Quarantined - Week 6

Casen had a pleasant surprise Monday morning when he checked his agenda and his work load was decreased. Yay!!!! We were so glad after last week's work taking a little more time than his normal due to a research project we were working on. I am here to tell you, we have some serious work going on over here!!!! Camden did awesome with his school work and finished off his week with a Zoom meeting with his class.

Of course a lot of the week has been spent loving on the puppy. She is doing really well at night. She sleeps in a kennel in our room and I generally wake up around 3:00 am to take her out and then she goes back to sleep until between 6:00 and 7:00 am. We of course are doing our best with potty training. She honestly has not had that many accidents, probably because we don't let her. We have her outside every time you turn around.

Growing up we had a dog, Snickers, who
laid like this and I love that Nina does too!

Sweet baby girl!

On Monday I had to go into work to pack up my clinic. We are having renovations on our school that are happening sooner than expected since they can get in there and start working with no students at school. Lots of tossing old things and packing it up. I have now moved to the library and am working from there as I will be having parents come up to the school to pick up their student's medications. Between that, performing health surveys on the staff, and then attending Zoom meetings, I am staying up at school until 2:00 or so mainly on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will say, it is nice to see other humans and interact with them. :)

Before pics:

After pics:

The boys and I were able to accomplish yet another project this weekend. We added a flower bed to the back of the house. Ever since we got patio furniture last year, Camden and I have wanted to add some flower beds. I let last summer get by me, but with COVID, I had no excuse. We started preparing the bed weeks ago, but due to the quarantine, we could only do part of it until we could get out and about to buy some plants and mulch. Due to restrictions of how many people can be in the store (25% capacity) as well as standing 6 feet apart, I had to wait in line awhile to get into Home Depot. Of course, picking out plants was not an easy feat because most of the flower bed is in the shade and I am not a fan of a lot of the shade loving plants. But, with my mom's help, we got the flowers picked out and planted and once they grow and fill in, I think they will be perfect!!!

They bed we dug weeks ago.

The line at Home Depot

The boys were great help!

The finished product!

Also, my barber shop opened up this week. . . everyone was tired of looking shaggy so they all received hair cuts. I thought they turned out fine. I probably could have cut more off of Casen's but he has a head full of cowlicks and I was scared I was going to have hair sticking out everywhere. I will tell you, I was a bit disappointed not one of my customers paid nor tipped me. Maybe they were trying to tell me something . . .

Bathroom - make shift barber shop.

Cheaters were required 

The fresh haircuts (minus gel in Camden's to make the mohawk).

Just a few more tidbits from our week . . .

Our pepper plant has a pepper on it!!

Nothing like jumping on the trampoline
with the sprinkler.

More guitar playing.

Quarantined - Week 5

We have been tackling our school daily. The boys get up, eat breakfast and then get to work. Casen has had more school work to do compared to Camden, which to me is a bit surprising. His teachers sent out a survey last week asking if the parents felt that their students had too much work, just the right amount or not enough. I had no problem with what Casen was doing, however it was considerable more time and effort then Camden. During his Zoom meeting Friday with his class, I heard his teacher tell them that their work load would be decreased some, but when we pulled up his agenda for the week, that was not the case. . . perhaps next week it will be different. So until then, we will plug away at the class work.

Casen during his class Zoom meeting

For the past year, off and on, I would tell Shane how much I missed having a dog. With our schedules and the boys sports, it was never a good time to add a dog to our family. Enter in the pandemic and our schedules are wide open. So last week, Shane broke down and agreed to us getting a dog now since we would be home to spend time with her and train her. We searched several different breeds, but ultimately decided on a miniature schnauzer. After searching and searching on-line, Shane came across a family near downtown Houston who had a litter that was just about ready. The owner sent us pictures and we were in love. There were two little girls who we liked the pictures of and were picking between but wanted to see their personalities in person before deciding.

On Wednesday we packed the boys up in the car and told them we were going on a drive just to get out of the house - they had no idea what we had up our sleeve. We headed downtown and stopped at the house where the puppies were. The boys were all confused. The nicest Hispanic family welcomed us into their backyard to see all the puppies. The boys finally realized we were there to pick out a puppy. There were 7 puppies in all and 3 girls we could choose from. We fell in love with the darker puppy, who was the runt. She would just sit back calmly and watch all the others. We also liked a salt and pepper one, but after seeing how sweet and calm the dark one was, we all decided on her.

Now, what to name her? On the way home we discussed a few names, however Shane already had a name in mind. . .  the boys have been learning Spanish via Duolingo and so he threw out the name Nina, since niña is girl in Spanish. Casen said, "I think it is the perfect name since niña means girl and we got her from a Spanish family!" :) So, Nina it is (just pronounced Neena). 

We are all absolutely in love with her!!!! Even Mollie, who we were concerned about, has been curious and watches her constantly. I believe she is still trying to figure her out, but at this point seems ok with her. Casen is praying that Nina will be his dog and sleep with him and just love him. Since Mollie is only nice to Camden and for some reason just does not care for Casen and still will attack him, Casen just really wants an animal that he can love on and will love him back.

Nina doing school work with the boys.

Mollie is very curious!

If you know me, you know being at home all the time is not my cup of tea. But, this time definitely allows me to do some things at home that I have been wanting to do. This week, I tackled adding cabinets to our laundry room. I have never been a fan of the open shelf above our washer and dryer due to the clutter. We use the hanging bar to hang our laundry on, so I knew I could not rid of that. Luckily, there are prefabricated cabinets which were the exact measurement I needed to fill in my space. Yay!!!!

Quarantined - Week 4

Up until this point, the boys have been doing their school work, but no grades have been taken. As of this week, the boys will now being doing their work for grades. The district has said that they can not make any less than what they made on their report cards for the third marking period, but they can improve their grades.

I realized that I am not the best teacher. I forget that Casen is seven years old - literally I was talking to Shane and said something about Casen being eight and he gently reminded me that he is only seven. I have allowed him to do his school work daily by himself, checking on him as needed and realized he really needs more one on one attention to learn some things, just as any second grader would if he was sitting in a class. So, next week I believe we will change things up a bit with him. Camden is doing great and of course if he has any questions or concerns he checks in and we review things together. They are both learning geometry right now which I love, so all is well in the Math world!

Mollie helping Camden with his school work

The boys are continuing their music learning. Camden has learned how to play the chorus of 'Push It' on the guitar. He is currently following the Fender App. He loves it and is so proud of what he has learned. Casen continues to beat on either a pillow or drum pad and is rocking it!

Our pepper plant is doing awesome. All the special attention and water the boys are giving it is paying off.

I returned to work this week. I am expected to go to work on Tuesdays and Thursdays now to perform a health survey and temperature check on staff that will be having contact with the public by handing out paper packets. On Tuesdays I will be working about two hours on campus and on Thursdays I will be there closer to 3 hours as I have to get there earlier to ask one of our assistant principals the health survey as well as take his temperature prior to him boarding a bus to deliver packets to those that don't have transportation to come to school and pick theirs up.

Camden asked me to text a picture of myself with my mask on, and his response cracked me up!

This week they announced that proms will be cancelled and our high school graduations are being moved to July. While they still have not cancelled school, we can easily read between the lines and see that we will not be returning to finish out our 'normal' school year. I am not going to lie, this is difficult news to hear. As a person that works in the education field, it is hard to think about those students who love to come to school because it is their safe place, their get away. Home, for some, is not a fun place to be. Maybe some are without food, support or the love they need. Some are tending to their siblings while their single parent is out working to make ends meet. The days are long and hard for those kiddos and they are who I worry about the most. I feel for all the seniors who were looking forward to making memories with their senior class. Those senior memories that most of us think back on fondly and reminisce will look completely different for this senior class. For some, this is what they have been looking forward to for the majority of their life. I loved my senior year and have such fond memories - it makes me sad that their memories are going to be centered around being quarantined.

Camden had his first Zoom meeting with his soccer team. It was fun to see all their faces - as much as it has been nice to slow down life during the quarantine, we still miss soccer and baseball!

Last night we had S'mores and they were YUMMY!!!

Today is Easter and while we did not buy new Easter outfits or dress up and go to church, we watched an Easter service from the comfort of our living room. Of course, the Easter Bunny left baskets with lots of yummy treats and we had an Easter Egg hunt.

Counting their money!