extended spring break

After the school's email declaring a two week "extended Spring Break", I kept seeing people posting their daily family schedules.  I wasn't overly concerned about recreating "school" for the next two weeks, I simply planned to read a lot and focus on a few math books we had.  I was happy to just have more time with my kids while staying at home. I had explained to my kids that we wouldn't be having any play dates since we were asked to practice "social distancing" to flatter the curve of the virus, but I knew that was going to be a hard concept for my kids to understand.

BUT, I had already offered to watch my friend's kids while she went to the doctor, so you better believe they were excited about their last play date for a few weeks.  Within probably 30 minutes, Evie and Brooke were decked out head-to-toe in princess gear...

Colby loved having Logan over to play superhero and bad guy :)  And Jack Jack spent the majority of his time playing with our little train set.  He LOVES that train set, which makes him super easy to babysit, haha.

The kids played remarkably well together for a few hours, but they were super disappointed when they heard Mandy at the door. I assured them that they could continue playing since Mandy and I wanted time to hang out as well.  I think since we all knew this was our last hangout in a while, we decided to make the most of it and spent the next few hours together.  It was good for our souls and was the perfect day.

The next morning, the kids woke up asking for another playdate with the Funderburks, but I had to remind them that we actually weren't supposed to be having friends over.  The day before was just a lucky exception :)  They continued asking several times over the next few days, but eventually realized that I was serious about my response.

Our days were spent doing a little school work, and LOTS of outdoor time.

Brooke made some pretty amazing chalk pictures, including this one of Princess Elsa.

We worked on a few outdoor projects, like gardening and trying to get ride of the cat urine smell on our front porch.  Yuck!!  We don't have cats, but we have noticed a few cats hanging around our house.  Then we started noticing the smell and we were all pretty disgusted.  The vinegar trick didn't actually work, but we sure tried hard.

And my very favorite part of our first week of "extended spring break" was when my girl learned how to ride a bike!!  I had suggested that we work on it, but she wasn't thrilled with the idea at first.  After riding around the block a few times on her scooter, she informed me that she did actually want to practice on her bike.

I ran behind her a few times, but could tell that she was able to balance fairly well.  When I was certain that she was stable, I would let go here and there and made a BIG deal about her independence.  Her confidence was growing and pretty soon, she didn't want my help at all.  It was a fairly easy process, but I still had to help her get started each time. 

Flashback to February 8th when we started this learning process:

She did fairly well balancing and was pretty motivated, but after a while, Kevin and I were both exhausted running behind her and she was getting burnt out.  We hadn't really worked on it much in the following weeks, so really this was only her second attempt at riding without training wheels.  She totally rocked it!!  She was super excited to show Kevin when he got home from work that night :)

Over the next few days, we went on a LOT of bike and scooter rides.  Brooke was determined to learn how to start on her own, and I was so impressed with her persistence.  When she continued to struggle, I wanted to swoop in and help more so she wouldn't give up. but she really wanted to do it on her own.  And guess what, she did!  It took a full day of trying, but I was so proud of her resilience even when something was difficult.  These were some great life lessons!

I'm so proud of you, Buggy!! And you were proud of yourself :)

Colby was such a good sport about going at Brooke's pace, but eventually he sat down to take a break while he waited for her to start again.  Sweet boy :)

Last random memory from our first week of "extended spring break" was face masks, haha.  Brooke asked me several mornings in a row, so I finally gave in.  I guess she loved when we did them during our Girl's Night, but unfortunately, I didn't have any more of that same face mask. We ended up doing this dead sea mask, but first had a little learning moment about the dead sea and the minerals within in.  That's kind of educational, right?

Colby even joined in on the fun, and since they both thought they looked like zombies, we had to take this picture...

It was fun while it lasted, but Colby was SO impatient when it came to taking it off, haha. Lesson learned, buddy.

So far, so good, on this "social distancing" life!