Quarantine Life Recap Part 3: April 1 – April 11 2020
April kicked off with knowing we’d be sheltering in place for the month.
Georgia’s stay at home order went through April 30th.
While it was frustrating news, it was also NEWS and a date and something solid to hold onto with hope.
Zach is self employed and his job is going into businesses to offer insurance benefits to employees.
Basically. No WAY he’d be able to work with sheltering in place orders.
Most businesses aren’t open and those that are have only essential staff. If a business isn’t even having customers come in they def won’t be allowing their benefits guy to come in!
This concern has been THE biggest one for our family. No work as a self-employed individual means no income.
We are thankful for our budgeting (but learned a lesson in this to always have your emergency fund IN THE BANK and NOT in stock!) and have faith that Zach will be back to work as usual soon!
In the meantime we tried to make as many fun memories as a family as possible to make sure our kids look back at this time with JOY 🙂
I’m thankful I had MY hair cut and colored before all the crazy chaos started but the boys weren’t so lucky and they were looking rough pretty quickly into everything!
It was time for CORONA CUTS!
We originally planned to just trim around Kye’s ears but then Zach said “why not” and went for it. HUGE improvement although still not an ideal look for them 😉
Total redneck style with the blower to get all the hair off of them 😉
You KNOW we are in a crazy time if ZACH PARKER offers for us to have a PET.
Yall. Who is he and what has quarantine done to my husband? 😉
Zach was working in the yard and found a little turtle and brought it to show us and OFFERED to let us keep him!
Then he even made a great home for the turtle too!
We named him Mortimer after Mickey Mouse’s original name (his nickname is “Little Savage”)
I’m basically obsessed with him. I had SO many pets growing up and I love having a fun friend to check in and care for during all of this.
I mean how awesome is this little home?
He lives on the back porch and I bought this food dish for him!
Zach planted legit grass and everything for our little buddy to enjoy and I researched and got him this turtle food and also some cat food as I read they enjoy it too!
Our neighborhood has been awesome with having local food truck vendors come park at our playground to serve our neighbors.
We haven’t participated in a lot of it because we are trying to spend as little money as possible this month (for obvious reasons) and we bought plenty of groceries at the start of the pandemic so we really had PLENTY to eat at HOME.
But who can pass up some snow cones for the kids? 😉
G-Mama stopped by to see the kids (from a distance!) and enjoyed getting to see them and catch up a bit and I had a lunch date with Tiffany to hang out a bit and catch up as well 🙂
Mema’s birthday is April 6th so we joined with other family members to surprise her with a drive-by birthday greeting!
The kids loved making the poster and Mema’s reaction was BEYOND adorable. It made MY day seeing her so overjoyed!!!
It was great to get to drive by and see all the cousins too 🙂
Our original plans for Spring Break this year were to go to Disney World for Kye’s birthday celebration.
Obviously those plans changed but Zach actually ended up being at our Disney House for Spring Break!
The exterior of the house needed to be painted so he went ahead and went down to get that done and had his Dad go with him so they could enjoy their yearly father-son golf trip.
Zach’s big gift for Christmas from his parents is the golf trip with his dad and they had planned to go in mid-May but it really was such a good thing that they went ahead and went when they did!
How crazy is it that everything is closed but GOLF is still open?!?! So crazy to me! Of course that’s Zach’s luck to still have his favorite thing open to enjoy 😉
They had THE best trip. Golf was SUPER cheap so they were able to play at better golf courses than they’ve ever played, they didn’t have to be put together with random people when they played so it was truly just the two of them for the trip which was awesome, and Zach played THE best golf of his life.
He had some super rare thing to happen in golf where he got a double eagle and is now featured on the IG account of the golf course (Streamsong). They gave him all kinds of swag to recognize this crazy hole he had!
Such a great quarantine memory 🙂 And the double eagle has become the new “catch” haha
While Zach was gone I wanted the kids to have as much as a true Spring Break as possible. I didn’t worry about working on the blog and focused my time on really pouring into them and making the week FUN!
We kicked it off with our Onward movie night (you can read the details here!)
I saw early on with the quarantine life situation the idea to use painters tape to make designs with chalk and I loved the idea and knew the kids would too but also wanted to reserve it for a bit further into things 😉
I’m so glad I did! We spent over two hours working on designs and I LOVE any activity that Kye is into too! I feel like the girls are easy to be excited about something but Kye is a little tougher to really impress and he was all about this!
Usually during nap time I work…if you’ve noticed there have been a LOT less blog posts going live during quarantine!
I made the decision to ENJOY these days. We’re so blessed with GORGEOUS weather right now so I want to soak that up with the kids and not be stressing out about posting.
It’s really been great for me with the blog and my overall attitude about it. I’m enjoying it MUCH more now that I’ve let go of so much of the pressures I’ve put on myself over the years.
If I only get 2 blog posts up a week, that’s fine! I’m not too far from being caught up to real time and it’s okay to not post 4-5 times a week!
We’ve been LOVING the pool and the kids and I spent just about every naptime reading by the pool and swimming (it’s still too cold for me!)
About the best thing I can offer the kids right now in all of this is FUN FOOD 🙂
I did a Publix run before Zach left and got “junky cereal” and supplies to make some fun snacks (like cinnamon sugar pretzels).
We also picked up CFA one night and it was the first non-home meal the kids have had in this whole thing and omg it was SO GOOD.
We did Mommy’s famous “Junky Breakfast for Dinner” which is always a hit (the kids LOVE my cinnamon rolls).
A great thing to do with the kids at home is bust out the random stuff that doesn’t get played with often to give it fresh life!
They were SO excited about painting using our easel (we’ve had this since Kye was 1 or 2 it’s been awesome) and even Kye did a painting!
I also found this smaller easel with a chalkboard and dry erase board that they enjoyed too.
We pulled out the magna tiles and the little people and had a fun time doing centers where one kid would paint, one would play with some toys, another would play with others. It worked well and they loved doing “center time.”
With school being canceled the rest of the year our district kept Spring Break as usual but did announce they’d start having more legit school stuff starting the week after.
Tess’s teacher went ahead and started reading a chapter book via videos which is great because she does a chapter at a time and Tessie can watch during screen time 🙂 She LOVES it!
We rode the golf cart a good bit and used it as a chance for Kye to go ahead and start practice his driving skills!
Britt lost a tooth and pulled it out all by herself and is now beating Kye on the number of teeth she’s lost!
We ended our Mommy fun week with the kids having an epic sleepover in the playroom together staying up late playing games. They loved it!
Our Disney Cruise plan was tough for me emotionally. My original plan was to keep rebooking the next sail date and I just started feeling really overwhelmed and discouraged by it all and upset with having to disappoint the kids over and over.
Of course the kids didn’t know ANYTHING about my feelings and I had a really rough night one night where I just needed to be sad about things and frustrated over not being able to plan for the future and not having a way to make things up to the kids.
The next morning I woke up and the kids surprised Zach and I with a “trip” because THEY had felt badly that Zach and I were missing our Aflac trip to NYC (which honestly in all of this…I NEVER even thought about it or was disappointed about missing it b/c I’m just so upset for the kids trips being messed up).
It was such a cool “God moment” because I was worried all night about how to make things special for them and then woke up to them wanting to make things special for me. I have pretty amazing kids 😉
They had a hotel set up and labeled the downstairs rooms and made our bed up to look like the Disney House does when we arrive.
They brought me breakfast in bed and even performed entertainment for us too. SO sweet!
Something I’m thankful for in all of this is that we live in such a great neighborhood community!
We have green spaces within the neighborhood and Zach thought it’d be fun to ride the golf cart to one and play some football as a family.
It was SO nice and FUN and the kids have LOVED going back!
Even with Tess getting a football injury…yall I about PANICKED at the thought of her perfect baby teeth falling out too soonnnnnnn. Thankfully we’re a couple weeks out and they look okay so far. Fingers crossed!
As I mentioned…we’ve simply had AMAZING weather.
We are blessed in so many ways throughout this experience but THE thing I keep saying over and over and over is how much God has blessed us with GORGEOUS weather.
Usually this time of the year is all over the place. Crazy hot or crazy cold even. But we’ve had PERFECTION.
So many walks. So much time outside. The sun is good for the soul and we’ve been soaking it up!
Spear oh Spear haha
So he now has started stripping the sheets off his bed as well as he figured out how to remove his backwards zip PJS.
AND he busted a hole in his crib tent. SIGH.
We started having him wear both the pjs backwards AND the sleep sack backwards and it’s helping…for now.
And Zach rigged up the crib tent hole with zip ties that worked well!
Even though he’s still my wild man he is also growing up a TON and starting to really be a BIG BOY in so many ways!
He’s legit more helpful with chores and tasks and is getting more obedient and just responsive to us.
All of this time at home together has been incredible for his speech. He’s had a HUGE explosion and I doubt he’ll qualify at all for services for much longer.
He is also doing AMAZING with the potty. SO much time at home has been great for him with that as well and I would say it’s safe to say he’s COMPLETELY day trained at this point.
He goes on demand and as long as we take him frequently enough he doesn’t have any accidents!
He finished up his round of medicine with the rash and it INSTANTLY came back.
UGH. Bless he was MISERABLE. I didn’t play games or wait around this time and went back to the pediatrician right away.
This time I had all the kids with me b/c Zach was out of town so the dr came to the car to see us rather than have us go inside (I took a picture of the covid-19 question sheet they gave me).
She said he really needs allergy testing (no where is offering it right now) but that it’s pretty much for sure an environmental allergy.
She gave more meds to help keep it at bay until we can get in somewhere to be tested. At $100 per prescription refill I hope it’s SOON!!!
Lots of fort building has been happening as well as more than the average amount of screen time and family game time too…several late nights for us all for sure and lots and lots of lazy mornings.
Tess is so precious. Whenever she plays the song Zach sings to her (“Never Grow Up” by Taylor Swift) on her iPad she literally cries. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It’s so sweet!
The kids and I have become pretty obsessed with Just Dance! It’s a great workout and super fun (our fav song is Mr Policeman)
Britt finished reading Alice in Wonderland from her Enchanted Collection book series and Tess learned how to cut her own nails (whoop whoop!)
A favorite glass of mine got broken from childhood, I’m pretty hardcore about USING things that have sentimental value. If you don’t use it, what’s the point right? So sometimes things get broken and that’s okay.
Kye and I officially wear the same size shoes! Which is a perk for me b/c I’m totally borrowing his slides 😉
I have such sweet boys! Spear has started to say prayers at meals and bedtime and he said “thank you tractors” Boy LOVES tractors!
Kye asked me to start praying with him at night when I tuck him in. Sometimes he prays, sometimes I do and I love that he asked me to do that with him and it’s a time I cherish.
Zach is really enjoying the quality time with the kids and has taken it very seriously really pouring into them.
He’s been so patient teaching them things and including them in projects and cooking etc.
He is a BIG reason our kids will have such great memories of this time together!
As I mentioned in a prior quarantine post I’m trying to really take all the pictures and screenshots of things I want to remember during all of this crazy time!
It’s so interesting running errands and seeing how things are constantly changing.
I scored toilet paper and had a high like I get when I score a hard to get fastpass at disney! It was a RUSH haha!
I included slides to show what our shelter in place / stay at home order in Georgia included as well, it ended up being extended through April 30th.
Video should auto play in this post or you can view it here!
