Conference Weekend/Coronavirus Craziness

At the end of this past week the CDC put out new recommendations that we wear face masks if we go out in public, so I've sewn a few for our family. Our stake was asked to sew some for some medical personnel in need a little over a week ago, and I made 2, sent them in and intended to make a lot more, but never quite got around to it, then when the CDC said we should wear masks this weekend I made a few more.

What a weird world we live in right now.

This weekend was General Conference and it was, as President Nelson promised in October, a conference never to be forgotten, and definitely a conference like no other. Only the first presidency and those who were speaking during the session were invited to be there in person and it was held in a small auditorium on Temple Square instead of in the Conference Center.
Talks all weekend focused on the restoration of the gospel and the first vision, since it is the 200th anniversary of the First Vision. This morning President Nelson announced a new Proclamation on the Restoration of the Fullness of the Gospel and led us in a Hosanna shout. We told our kids that was a unique thing they got to be part of. The only times I've participated in a Hosanna shout was at the dedication of temples and the conference center.

During the last session President Nelson spoke one last time and announced 8 new temples, including one in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and one in Shanghai, China. I was shocked at the one in Dubai, as the first temple in the Middle East, but when the one in Shanghai was announced I was beyond shocked. I gasped and teared up, which made Ryan and Megan worry. Ryan came over to give me a hug and Megan asked why I was sad. Ryan told her it was probably because China is where the Coronavirus started so I was worried for the workers there. I explained that having a temple allowed to be built in China was a very special thing that the world has been waiting for a long time.

Homeschool take 1

With COVID-19 in pandemic status, the governor mandated that all schools be closed for two weeks, which was then extended two more weeks, and finally last week they announced that schools will be closed for the rest of the school year. So since Spring Break ended, my mom and I have been team teaching school. Since Todd has work and Savannah has law school, their kids come and do school with my kids. The first week was a lot of trial and error. Figuring out how to keep 8 kids in 7 different grades occupied and productive was a little tricky. And most have some online aspect, so we had to figure out how to apportion the computers and the tablets so they could get done what they needed. By the second week we figured out a schedule that worked ok and it went pretty smooth.

My kids start their official day at 8am with a rotation of chores, piano, and scripture reading for 20 minutes each. Ryan is super on top of things in the mornings, and he is often done with everything before 8am. I love coming down to read my scriptures at 6:15 or 6:30 and he is sitting on the couch with his scriptures open and taking notes in his Come Follow Me notebook I made for each of the kids at the beginning of the year. He loves his new quad he got for his birthday and is really eating up the scriptures. 

 The Knights come over sometime in the 8:00 hour and play outside (morning recess) until school starts at 9:00. The elementary school has been producing their daily broadcast that the kids usually watch at school with announcements, the pledge, and usually pictures of some staff members participating in the virtual spirit day (they have one planned every day to help the kids feel connected). The kids love it, and it's a good way to officially start our school day.

To start school, we do 30 minutes of Spanish, a lot of it using Rockalingua, which has catchy songs that help the kids learn the vocabulary. Here they're learning their colors:

And learning names of frutas:

 I love that they can just lay down on the rug as part of school. There are some perks to school at home.

After Spanish the kids split for school work, half on computers/tablets, the other half doing school work or lessons with Grandma for 45 minutes. They get recess and snack for 30 minutes, then come back in for 45 more minutes of schoolwork, switching who is on/off of electronics. Except for Rachel. Pretty much all her school work is online so she just has a computer the entire time. Then at 11:30 we do an art project until noon when the Knights go home for lunch. At 1:30 we have either PE or science or another special activity at Grandma Knight's house for about an hour.

The first week we did school Peyton and McKenzie came out and joined us for a couple of days of school (with a sleepover at Grandma's as a bonus). It was fun having them do school with us. Unfortunately, since Marie works at a nursing home we don't want to take any chances of spreading Coronavirus, so we are just video chatting occasionally now instead. They plan to join us (virtually) for art at least one of the days this week.

 Grandma has great lessons with the younger kids every day, reading books, playing math games, teaching them how to tell time, and all sorts of fun.

We've done a variety of art projects...

nature art:

 Drawing on Art for Kids Hub on YouTube:

 We've done Calvin (not on Art for Kids Hub, which made us appreciate the effective teaching of the Art for Kids Hub guy):

 Garfield and Odie...

 And we've done some rock painting and chalk art:

The kids have participated in some of the virtual spirit days. We take a picture and share it on Facebook where they can see some friends and staff members' pictures, too.
Some they've done are:
Crazy Hair Day:

 Hat day (we went on a hike to Cienega Creek Preserve that day):

 Read outside day:

 And every Friday is Spirit Day (wear your school shirt or colors):

 The first Friday of no school the teachers did a car parade to drive around the neighborhoods and wave at all the kids. It was awesome and the kids and teachers loved it.

 Unfortunately the governor issued a stay at home order last week, so the teachers can't do the car parade like they were planning to do every Friday. But at least we got one in.

Every afternoon Grandma's house is the hot spot for fun. Some days the kids just jump on the trampoline run around for PE to get their energy out, but she plans a (usually science) lesson a couple times a week, and organized activities at least part of each PE day.

The kids learned about chemical reactions by watching Bill Nye and making volcanoes in the back yard, and freezing their own ice cream.

PE with water is always fun. They got a double slip 'n slide for lots of fun:

 And this past week they put up a new above ground pool for more water fun. Add in jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler and water balloons and these kids are loving Water Wednesday PE.

For PE and science we went on a hike to the Cienega Creek Preserve. The kids built a dam, made moss balls, and noticed little wigglers in the water. We wished we had a microscope. Then the next day Ms. Bradshaw loaned us one for the rest of the school year, so we need to go back and get a sample of the water to see what we can see.

 Grandma planned a great math lesson involving 2D and 3D shapes, then the kids built some shapes and dipped them in bubble solution. The 3D shapes turned out really cool after you pulled it out of the bubble solution.

Fridays we do a bit different than the rest of the week since Savannah doesn't have classes, so her kids stay home. We do a few extra chores on Friday, so they have a little more time than normal for chores instead of having Spanish. Then at 9:30 we do writing, specifically in their journals so they can remember this unique time in history, then it's creative time until 10:30. Creative time is mostly doing a Lego Challenge from a list I printed out. Or they can choose something else, but they seem to like the Lego option. Then at 10:30 or thereabouts we watch Mark Rober science videos on YouTube since he is doing live science classes 3 times a week (which we never manage to catch live). Then lunch and free time.
I am really enjoying school at home more than I thought I would (I am very grateful for the teachers providing materials for the kids to do), but by Thursday afternoon I am ready for a nice break from the mental effort. And just in time. I am so grateful for my mom for helping make this happen. She is a huge help. Having just 8 kids seems like not too hard compared to the 30 kids in some of my kids' classes. But they are almost all in different grades (except Eloise and Annie), so it does complicate things. But we can do this. Vail School District is running with this motto during the school closure: We got this. And so far we do.

Ryan turns 8

Ryan is 8! He's getting ready to be baptized, but with the Coronavirus we're waiting a month to see if things calm down a little in the hopes that more than 8 people can come to his baptism (current rules for being in the church building). 

I've made a quilt for each of my kids when they turned 8. Here is Ryan's:

He picked the pattern and colors, but it was nearly a year ago, so it was mostly a surprise for him.

Since Ryan's birthday was over Spring Break we decided it would be best to have his birthday party a little early before everyone left for vacations over the break, so we had it the last day of school. Turns out that was a great choice because by the time his birthday had rolled around we were in full-swing social distancing because of the Coronavirus and birthday parties were a big no-no.

Ryan wanted a pizza and movie night for his birthday. And a pizza cake. We got pizza from Little Ceasar's for the boys for dinner, and I made a cake that turned out pretty good looking like a pizza.

All the boys eating their pizza.

With that many little boys running around there was A LOT of energy. Thankfully one of the moms stayed and helped me corral the boys. We sang Happy Birthday, then he blew out his candle, and let the cake eating begin.

We had just enough time after that to open presents, then start the movie. Ryan got a ton of LEGO sets, which he was very excited about.

On his actual birthday Ryan decided he would rather wait to open his presents from Mom and Dad until we had our family birthday celebration the following Sunday. But he did get Minecraft that day from us and spent a loooong time playing. He's been asking for Minecraft for a long time. We don't have any computer games or a Wii or anything, so his only exposure is at his cousins' house, and they don't even play all that often, but it was enough to get him very excited about it. The girls were pretty excited about it, too.

Our neighbor, Shannon, also gave him a birthday present on his actual birthday. He had told her he likes Hatchimals. He meant the Hatchimal collectibles that are tiny that his sisters have and he has a couple of, but she had never heard of them, so when she went to the store and had someone point her in the right direction, she ended up getting him the biggest Hatchimal we had ever seen.

It's a Lalacorn and can hatch over and over, and sing, play peek-a-boo, be hypnotized, and all sorts of stuff. He loves it. And has had to wrestle it away from his sisters quite a bit.

Today we finally got to celebrate with the family. When we were discussing what kind of cake he wanted we debated for a little while making cake pops that look like the Coronavirus since that has taken over our life right now, but he decided he preferred a Minecraft cake, so we went with that:

 Grandma and the cousins enjoying the cake:

Out of all his presents, Ryan was probably most excited about his quadruple combination scriptures. He is such a good kid and tries to do what is right. He feels his emotions intensely so he can get very frustrated, or very excited. He loves anything sports related. If he had his choice he would be doing karate, tennis, running, and basketball all at the same time, but we make him choose one sport at a time (besides mileage club where he gets to run as an after school club), so it's just basketball for now. Or was just basketball until the Coronavirus shut all activities down. Ryan is a math maniac and absolutely loves a math challenge. He is curious and loves reading non-fiction and learning new facts. He also has started to love reading fiction chapter books recently. He and Megan still get along so well; they are best buds. Ryan and Annie are not nearly the enemies they once were and while they still have their moments, there is a lot more getting along and playing nicely than there is fighting. Ryan also loves piano and is making great strides. He practices so much and never has to be reminded to practice. He's going to be a great pianist in no time. 

We are so glad to have Ryan in our family. Our boy that is full of energy, he balances out the girls pretty well. And he is so happy to have boy cousins living nearby for now, too. Happy birthday, bud!

Post-quarantine Spring Break

Thursday my friend, Karolee, called from Utah where she was for a wedding. She said all the grocery stores were cleaned out because of the Coronavirus and people freaking out. She was worried that by the time she got back to Tucson our grocery stores would look like that so she asked me to pick up a ClickList order for her from Fry's. I went Friday to pick up her order, then went inside to do my own shopping since I'd been sick at the beginning of the week and hadn't gotten around to it yet. Most things were still available, but there were some shelves that were starting to get cleared out. 

By the end of the day I guess the shelves were even more bare and they've been hit or miss ever since then, getting semi-restocked as trucks come in. We are thankful we've pretty much followed the counsel to keep a 3 month supply of food we eat on a regular basis. It has brought a lot of peace of mind.

Because of the Coronavirus everything got canceled over the course of a few days. My inbox had email after email of one thing after another getting canceled or closed: all church activities, temples, Ryan's basketball league, gymnastics, schools, libraries, etc. We are staying home trying to stay out of the way of the virus and help stop the spread.

Monday I figured Civano Nursery was a safe place to go because it's outdoors and not crowded. And I needed some plants for my garden. Over Rodeo Break we got manure and compost and weeded the garden to prep it for planting, and my plan was to actually plant the garden over spring break. Some of the cousins wanted to come with us, so we went and saw the goats and rabbits, and I left them to play in the sandbox while I went to hunt down the plants and seeds I needed.

They had a good time and I was able to come home and get all the plants planted. I still have some seeds to plant, but I'll get to that soon. Hopefully the blueberry and raspberry bushes I got actually produce something...

Tuesday Grandma invited us to go to Sabino Canyon with her for a picnic. Apparently everyone in Tucson had the same idea. If stores and indoor places aren't safe because we have to social distance, at least the outdoors would be safe. The parking lot was completely full. But after hiking in a bit we found a pretty good spot for our picnic next to the creek with running water and no one around for the most part.

We ate our food, then the kids played in the water for a good long time.

A couple shoes were lost down the stream, but for the most part the kids just had a good time and worked off a lot of their energy.

Yesterday was a bit rainy, but nature rewarded us with a beautiful double rainbow:

At this time of uncertainty and insanity where we're all experiencing things we've never experienced before (school closures, being encouraged to work from home, not go out at all, closing down businesses, toilet paper and other shortages in the school, and the possibility of a real strain on our healthcare system as numbers of critically ill patients is expected to rise in coming days), it is nice to see a reminder of God's promise to never have such widespread destruction as happened at the flood. There happened to be an earthquake in Utah yesterday, too, just adding to the craziness.

We've got just one more official day of Spring Break, then after the weekend we are "back to school," but staying home. Teachers will start sending out work for the kids via Schoology and we'll see how the homeschooling thing goes. I think we'll be just fine here. We have a plan for our new routine and I think the kids will get into it and do well with it. It is nice to have all plans canceled for us and just have time to be at home together. There are blessings to our forced quarantine.