And here we are wrapping up week six. I'm pretty sure I would have laughed if you had told me on March 13 when the littles came down the hill from school that we'd still be home on April 24. Yet here we are...perhaps actually it's best I didn't know. I may not have been emotionally ready to handle such information.
Beyond the obvious of all of us being home, life has changed in subtle ways as well. Because we live so close to several stores, I'm used to shopping for just a few days at a time. But now there's exposure to other people to worry about, so I'm carefully meal planning, taking inventory of necessary ingredients and doing one massive shop per week. I suspect this change of habit saves money because there is less opportunity for impulse buying, but it does present quite a challenge to get everything needed to feed a family of 8 for a week in the fridge and produce bins. Thank goodness for an extra large refrigerator and hours of playing Tetris as a teen. This week I once again won the challenge...
Like the slack line, some time into this we remembered we had a quality bocce ball set that was too heavy to carry to the beach, so it is in great condition. Bocce has been the game of choice this week.
...and back yard during campfire dinner.
If there's a rough patch of time that some s'mores can't make better I'm not sure what it is. We've found many happy moments with marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers in our backyard since this craziness started.
And there's just something about a campfire...even if it isn't at a campsite...to bring out sibling bonding time. These two just sat and chatted for the longest time as we cleaned up all the sticky mess of having s'mores.
Bread-making continues to be something we're experimenting with. This week we got two varieties ~ Kylie's amazingly delicious sandwich bread...
...and Ian's whole wheat loaf.
M8 kids cooking nights continued with Nicholas's homemade dumplings night. He took complete charge of mixing the filling, complete with squeals of delight/disgust over squishing the raw ground pork and facial expressions to match.
In the end most of the crew got in on folding the dumplings and we had broccoli and cauliflower to go along with them. This was our first go at steaming dumplings and they were so much better than boiled!
We're managing okay, though Caleb indicates that staying at home for so long is the pits.
This smile...so thankful for it!
Four square has become a thing. One advantage to a big family is that you can have a pretty competitive game going on! Many afternoons and evenings have been spent trying to become King!
Reading time is part of our daily school routine. Many days the couch is where it happens, but sometimes we retreat to the quiet of his "bedcave".
My "N-twins." They're thick as thieves and pretty much inseparable.
Remote learning stations powering up for the day...
(the middle school set uses their school issued iPads)
I find that the days are full of interruptions, so it's hard to really delve into a big project. One thing I've been doing to beat boredom is expand my "tested and M8 approved" recipe binder. Thai peanut ramen with cucumber salad was a big hit!
Of course we're online for school daily, but there is also time to chat with friends via Messenger Kids, Zoom and Google Duo.
Long live spring flowers. Seriously, I can't remember such a lovely spring for years!
No comments:
Post a Comment