I needed some alone time last evening, and the rest of the fam was watching a movie I didn't care to. So, I was upstairs crocheting and doing my own thing when I heard loud shrieking coming from downstairs.  It is always hard to tell around here if the screaming and yelling is of the laughing kind or the crying kind.  Usually it is the laughing kind, but tonight I couldn't tell.  After a while Caeden came upstairs and said he missed me and asked me to come down.  This is what I found...

Also, I asked Annah to put away her recorder from elementary school, but Caeden got a hold of it and repeatedly played That's What Makes You Beautiful. 

Also, Annah decided to make buttered noodles and refused to share.

These teenagers are so silly.  And I love them.

Jeremy's 45 birthday!

It's Jeremy's birthday today!  

He turned 45, and we celebrated with a DQ ice cream cake--his favorite!

These guys are very proud of their "quarantine hair!"

Sylvia found out this week that she was chosen to be drum major for marching band this fall.  However, this comes with knowing that there may not be a marching band season, or it will look very, very different than in the past. It was another sad reminder when she had a zoom meeting with Mr. M and the band leadership team today. I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk, and all the kids decided to go with me even though it was raining. Caeden decided to go down the slide at the playground in the rain, just to be silly.  

It actually was nice to get out and walk around even though it was raining.  I jokingly sang this song that I learned in elementary music class, thinking they would laugh and make fun of me, but they actually liked it. It is one that has stuck with me almost my whole life now.

Ryan came over tonight after work and there was some Mario Kart for Jeremy's birthday. 

Happy birthday, Jeremy!  We love you and are so thankful for you!!!

More projects around the shelter-in-place-house

We are slowly working on a few other projects around the house while we are sheltering in place.

This weekend/week Jeremy has installed a new water softener.  In the kitchen, he installed a new faucet with a sprayer in the head, and also a drinking water filter with its own faucet. He also ran a new hose from the drinking water to the ice maker which required moving everything out of the lower cabinets, moving the stove, and the fridge. He is a regular plumber this week!  And he made about 7 trips to various home improvement stores, even though he tried to order everything on line and just pick it up. (I will say that Lowe's remains not great with online orders, geesh.)

Sylvia helped with installing the faucets in the kitchen.

I've been working on trying to reorganize our den.  It has become a dumping ground over the past couple years, and I really want it to be organized and usable. Plus, I love my red shelves and I want to be able to see them because they make me happy!  

This is an in-progress photo. Since Annah finished school this month, she moved her school things out. We bought a new iMac and cleaned the desk when we set it up. I moved the tall white hutch into the bathroom and switched the rusty white cabinet into the den. It is full of yarn. I condensed my finished crochet projects into 2 red bins and took a bin of party supplies upstairs to go in the hallway closet when I get around to reorganizing that. I condensed yarn into fabric bins on the red shelves. The biggest part of the mess in the den now is actually items that are waiting to be donated to Goodwill or Mission Mart, but no one is accepting donations in the middle of a pandemic.  I will keep plugging away at this room forever, I'm sure...At least we can walk through it now.

Annah decorated the front and spine of a cardboard binder for me to use for crochet patterns.

Sylvia doodled the back.  I love that it has both of their very different artistic styles on it! 

About a month ago, we got Caeden some audio recording equipment and software. He has been using basic Garage Band on the iMac or his iPod/iPhone to make beats and produce music, and we wanted to invest in him a bit more since he seems to have a talent for it.  When we discovered our old iMac was too old (We've had it almost 10 years!) for downloading updates anymore and we got the new one, we also bought a little Sauder desk and moved the old iMac into the music room for Caeden to use. Sometimes he lets us listen to his songs in progress.

The music room is also in progress...The shelves I bought for music books a few years ago are leaning, and Shannon is going to reinforce them for me when he comes back to help with the entry way project. So...we are trying to get some things done around here, slowly.

Last Day of School?

Today was the kids' official last day of school--more than 2 weeks early, actually, due to the COVID19 shelter-in-place order and remote learning.  Honestly, neither of them had much actual class work this week, but each had a few Zoom meetings to see their teachers and classmates and say goodbye for the summer.

I honestly almost forgot to do last-day-of-school photos, since they haven't grabbed their backpacks and driven off to school for 61 days!

Sylvia actually liked the online learning for most of her classes. She liked that she could go back and re-watch specific parts of lectures as many times as she wanted to. She liked the fact that classes and lectures weren't interrupted with other students' asking questions. She missed in-class discussions, friends, music, and lots of other things though. 

Even if the end of it was odd, there were plenty of awesome, amazing things during her junior year. 

Caeden did not like remote learning at all--except for Zoom meetings with his favorite teachers/classes, Biology and English. It wasn't that a lot of work was done during those Zoom meetings, but the teachers needed to see their kids just as much as the kids needed to see each other and their teachers! (On one Zoom with his English class, kids were apparently showing each other around their houses, and kind of having a show-n-tell where they were trying to come up with the weirdest random item they could find in their house.  One student showed up with a baby, and he won!) I know for sure that remote learning was just as hard for the teachers (if not harder) as it was for the students. For Caeden, it was very hard to stay focused and complete his work at home. He usually does almost all of his work in class, and he feels like home is where he unwinds and doesn't think about school work.  So staying on task with classes on his own was a bit rough. Also, Caeden is such a social person; not seeing his classmates and friends has been the hardest part. We did grant him the concession of SnapChat, and he has connected with so many friends that way...it has been the best thing for him, really...as much as I hate SnapChat and hate to say that.  

His freshman year started out loaded not only with new classes and high school academic responsibilities, but vocal jazz, marching band, cross country, and fall play keeping him at school for about 13 hours a day! Talk about ending the school year in complete opposite! 

Now officially a senior and a sophomore, oh wow!

I'm calling this group the "socially distanced skateboard gang."  Coby bought Caeden a skateboard and gave it to him today so he could actually skate with them; so sweet. And they got Jackson to come along too! 

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." - Proverbs 17:17

Jeremy took Annah to Greenville today to move the rest of her things out of her dorm room.  They were able to get most when he rushed down to get her in March, but there were still a few of the larger items, like her rug, microwave, rolling cart, mattress topper, etc. 

Once the university was able to set the protocol for COVID-19 move-out, she had to request an appointment. She didn't feel there was time last week during finals, so today was her assigned day.  She was given a 3 hour window between noon-3pm. Only one person was allowed to go with her on campus. Only one person per floor of the dorm could move out at a time. Traffic into and out of the dorm was one-way...up one flight of stairs (She lived on the 3rd floor.) and down another flight. Face masks were required to enter the building.

Annah's roommate Tori had moved out last week, and left this on her whiteboard along with a letter and a gift. Annah had to call her once she had emptied and cleaned the room to "check out," since Tori was also her R.A. 

She had to lock her room key and her mailbox key in the room, rather than turning them in to a Resident Director.  Jeremy said they didn't see anyone else in or out of the building while they were there. What an odd feeling. 

 Jeremy took Annah to Doc's house to turn in her choir folders and music, and she was able to visit with him (from 6 feet away).  Jeremy sent me this picture he took from the car, and I just cried. We love this man, and are so thankful Annah had daily influence and encouragement from him throughout this year.  He was one of the biggest reasons she went to GU, one of the biggest helps in getting her there, and he encouraged her even today. 

That was definitely the best last stop/encounter Annah could have had in leaving Greenville.

When she got home, she and Sylvia made room for all of the rest of her dorm room stuff, and she put up her little message board in their room.

Entry Way Project

We've lived in this house for almost 19 years, and the entire time I've been wanting to do something about the entry way. It is tiny and has no electricity or lights in it. 

More than 12 years ago, Jeremy and my brother and Dad hung new drywall around the window Jeremy replaced. I'm pretty sure it was years later before it was mudded and taped and sanded.

Two years ago, my friend Dawn started helping me get a vision and plan for decorating and organizing the space.  She drew this sketch, and we talked about wallpaper, ways to light it, storage options for shoes, using things I already have...

I finally painted the room for the first time since we've lived here.

Over a year ago, I bought peel and stick wallpaper and supplies to apply it, and 6 Trones from IKEA. 

And, Dawn and Shannon came over to measure the space for wooden things Shannon would build and help with.  I brought up trim pieces from the basement and figured out which ones will go back up.  I am THE slowest person at decorating.

I am so scared of wallpapering.  I've been putting off and putting off applying this peel and stick stuff for over a year, because I am scared to death to hang wallpaper without my mom! I decided last night that it was going to get done today.  Sylvia agreed to help me.  She had a Zoom farewell meeting at 10:30, and after that we started.

We tried applying the paper horizontally to make the small room look bigger, but our old house is so crooked, and I am so NOT knowledgable about applying wallpaper, that after more than an hour of fighting with it and not having a second ladder to get Sylvia up to the height I was at the top of the room...I decided it was not getting hung horizontally!

We put up the piece we'd cut to hang horizontally in a corner, and I calculated.  There was no way I had enough paper to make the repeat come out even this way.  I texted Dawn and called my Mommy (who is a major wallpaper expert!!) and they both agreed that it was totally fine not to match up the repeat. 

 Two hours in, we had one partial strip of wallpaper up.

I was getting so frustrated!!!  I was scaring my poor Sylvia!

I thought I had bought enough paper to do the whole room, since it is so tiny and has 3 big doors and a window in it. Alas...I had not! And this particular pattern is not available anywhere anymore, since it's been over a year since I ordered it.

 I was able to piece together enough to cover the spaces that will be exposed on 2 walls.  The current look is still very much "in progress," but hey, it's been that way for almost 19 years!

I have to say, I am not a fan of the peel and stick wallpaper after today.  The bubbles do not come out as promised, and I think it kind of stretches a bit if you pull it off and re-stick it too many times.  Thankfully, this brand, Repeel, you can do that! 

Today's lesson--well, not really a new lesson; I already knew--I am a terrible DIY-er!

20 years

It's our TWENTIETH wedding anniversary today! Clearly, we are not on some tropical getaway relaxing in the sunshine to celebrate. But, to me, being at home together with my dear husband and children is even better. I am so in love with all of them, and so grateful for the life God has given us. It is not "perfect" in the eyes of other people, but the Lord has blessed us in more ways than I could even try to name.

Obviously, we spent the day at home.

My brother texted us this...

Jeremy worked [from home] all day. I made us grilled cheese for lunch. 

We made and kept our pact not to buy each other gifts. We are getting a water softener next week.

There was silliness...

This evening, he grilled some fantastic ribeyes, and the girls made a peach cobbler and we all had a lovely dinner together. We played Tenzi and hung out in the living room. It was a great day. Lots of love and time together with those we love most. Thank you, Jesus.

FaceTime Cello Recital

Sylvia's teacher, Dr. Ransom, has kept up lessons via FaceTime during the COVID19 shelter-in-place order, and today she hosted an end-of-semester FaceTime recital for her students. 

It was quite a bit less nerve-wracking than a recital in-person, I think.

 Sylvia played Bach, which I love to hear.  I just cried watching and listening to her, thinking of all the things she has missed out on these past couple months.  

I'm so glad Dr. R made sure this recital happened. 

I just love to watch and listen to Sylvia play. 

First Year Done

My favorite part of Annah's workspace are the snacks that appear daily.  Nice choice on the Oreos for the last day, Ann.

She did it.  She finished, and she is so glad to be done with this school year.  Right now she has very few positive things to say or feel about it, but I pray that one day she will be able to look back and be so thankful for ever part of it. 

I am proud of her for continuing to try when she really did NOT want to. I am proud of her for enduring Music Theory 2, Audiation 2, and Class Piano 2 with essentially no instruction for the entire semester.  I am proud of her for completing a 6-credit Humanities: Philosophy of Religion course that was super intense. There was more learning about being a grown-up and dealing with the unfairness of life than we would've wished for her this year, but I can totally see God's hand in all of it.  Even though it feels like almost everything is uncertain for her right now, I cannot wait to see where the Lord takes her next!

Drive-Up Birthdays

I think one of the most fun things to come out of the COVID-19 "social distancing" orders are the drive-up birthday celebrations and parades!

Sylvia organized two today for her friends Briley and Alexis, and they were so surprised! There were lots of smiles and cheers and even a few happy tears! 

Caeden and I watched Solo today, continuing Star Wars in chronological order.