Halloween Van Decorations

Last Sunday afternoon Ross took the girls to run some errands with him and bought each of them a special treat while out. Lucy showed me her treat (fall-themed window clings) when she got home, but I didn't see Molly's treat (Halloween window clings) until I got in the van on Monday morning to go to the gym. Molly was in her seat and I looked back and saw the static clings on her van window. I was so surprised to see it and just laughed and laughed because who has Halloween decorations on their van windows?! I took a picture and sent it to Ross asking if he knew about this. I figured for sure he didn't know and that he'd be upset about it. He replied saying yes he'd seen it and that she was putting them up on the way home from their errands. This just cracks me up! Molly ended up taking the decorations down and putting them up on the window in her bedroom. I kind of wouldn't have minded if she'd left them up in the van, but it definitely would have posed a problem when rolling down the window!  

Molly's Creations

Molly has been our child that likes to draw on things....without our permission and often without our knowledge. She's drawn on the window seat bench in our family room. She's drawn on the wall in our dining room. She's drawn on the dashboard in our van. And she's drawn on the wall and tile in our family room. The video of her drawing in the family room came up on my TimeHop last week and I had to share it. You can watch her here! Now, we don't just let her draw freely in our house, and she doesn't do it anymore. All of these were done probably when she was between 1-3 years old. With all of them except the family room, we had no idea she had done it until we found it afer she was done. What a fun little one she was and is........ :) 

Going To School

I took these pictures one day before school and then after I dropped the girls off watching them walk into school. I'm so thankful that they do get to go to school for two days a week. I really wish it was all 5, but I'm thankful for 2. I also love being able to drop them off in the morning at the end of the sidewalk so I can watch them walk into school. :) They have both been SOO good to wear their masks and not complan. I'm very thankful for that, too! 

Three Years....

I just hit the three-year mark on the TimeHop app! This means I have checked TimeHop everyday in a row for three years! That's 1,095 days..........don't know if I should be proud of that or not. :) 

Here's what I wrote about it for my two-year anniversary last year. I wonder how long I'll keep this up?

Found!

We have some nice decorative boxes that store some of Molly's play things. One box is full of our My Little Ponies. One box is full of all the figurine characters Molly likes to play with like the Frozen people, the Doc McStuffins people, the Paw Patrol, etc. And there are a few other boxes with other miscellaneous toys in them. We keep all of these boxes on shelves in the playroom. Well, recently I was looking for these boxes but could not find them. They were not on the shelves. They were not in Molly's room. They were not under any beds. I even looked in the basement and couldn't find the boxes anywhere. I asked Molly where they were and she had no idea, either.

They were just lost, until one day when I was doing the wash. I was standing at our washing machine and looked over to my left and saw this old cabinet we used to have upstairs in the kitchen. It has a door on it that opens to a storage space. For some reason it hit me that I needed to go check in the cabinet to see if anything was in there. I opened the door and found ALL of the missing boxes! I just laughed at this and I knew immediately who had put the boxes in the cabinet! 

I called Molly downstairs to see what I found and she was as surprised as me! You can watch her find them here! 

Robes As Jackets

Because when you're cold, why not wear a robe to the gym!?  

No More Sears!

A week before school started I took the girls to Urban Air Adventure, an indoor trampoline park/climbing gym/obstacle course adventure park that's located inside our local mall. At one point during our time there I happened to look out the window and see two men taking down the Sears sign from outside the old Sears store. Our Sears was supposed to close mid-April, but it ended up closing in March due to the Covid shut down. I took the girls there on March 13, the Friday before the shut down began. We were at the mall already and decided to go to Sears to see if we could get any good store closing deals. We did end up getting some jammies and a pair of boots for Lucy for next winter, so our last ever trip to Sears was a success! 

Seeing the sign come down was kind of funny to me. It was like the end of an era! I think that back in the day we probably did our fair share of shopping at Sears, but I can't say it's a place I ever frequented as an adult. 

When I first looked out the window I saw the R and S had been removed. I went back to paying attention to the girls, and the next thing I knew, the S E and A had been removed, too. It was funny to me how quickly and easily the sign came down...simply erased from existence after all those years of being in that mall at that location.  

Silly Girls

Last week the girls had us blow up a bunch of balloons for us and they were playing with them. Then they decided to put them in their shirts to pretend like they were pregnant. We had a good laugh at this! It would be so much fun some if they are pregnant at the same time to get this picture out and take a "then and now" picture. :) 

First Week Of School!

Last week was our first week of school and it went really well! Due to Covid, Springfield is doing a hybrid model for school this quarter. The students are broken up into two groups based on their last name, A-K or L-Z. The A-K group goes to the school building on Mondays and Tuesdays, while the L-Z group is at home doing work on their own. Everyone stays home on Wednesdays and does virtual learning with their teachers, and then Thursdays and Fridays the L-Z groups goes to the school building and the A-K group stays home to do their work. I was very surprised that SPS chose this option and was quite sad, mad, disappointed, etc., with this decision. It took me a few weeks to finally (kind of finally) be okay with it. 

Our week began last Monday with school at home. I have my class on MWF at 9am, so the girls came to the gym with me on Monday just like any other day. We started in on their school work when we got home. Lucy received a video message from her teacher with assignments for the day and Molly had been sent home from K meet the teacher day with some worksheets to do on our home days. Overall our day went really well and I was very proud of how they both worked. I realized, though, that I need to schedule more breaks in during our home school, especially for Molly.

Tuesday was the same as Monday and both girls worked really well. Wednesday was different. Lucy began her day at 8:30 with a zoom meeting with her teacher and whole class. They were on and off of zoom meetings throughout the morning and worked on assignments in the meantime. Molly had a zoom meeting with her class and teacher at 8:30 also. I had to sit with her and help her. That zoom call was the worst call I've ever been on. One student on the call was sitting next to a sibling who was also on a zoom call and that student didn't have on headphones, so all we heard was the other teacher teaching that student. It was so frustrating because we couldn't hear our teacher at all! Even our teacher was frustrated! She ended the call a little earlier than had planned because of that, so we just started working on the few things Molly had to do. I know this is the first week of virtual learning and it will get better, but Wednesday was a stressful day! 

Thursday and Friday, however, were great days! Both girls were so excited (and a little nervous) to go to school. We woke up and got ready that morning then took some pictures outside and we all went up to the school together to take more pictures. The doors didn't open until 8:30am, so we had a few minutes to wait and when the doors opened, they walked in together. You can watch them walk in here.  I picked them up that afternoon and both girls said they had a great day! 

I uploaded the pictures in the wrong order, so start from the bottom and scroll up to see everything in order. The first few pictures are from the week before school started when we had a drive-thru meet the teacher event for Lucy, got to see the class lists posted at school, had an in-person meet the teacher for Molly, pictures of their "first" day of school spent at the gym, some pictures of our home school work, and also a picture of their backpacks and lunches on the first day of school. I've taken a picture like that on the first day since Lucy started preschool and I really don't know why. :)