Grandma's Pool

The past few months have been especially tough. I feel like I'm constantly making mental PRO's and CON's lists. Pros and CONs of this weird year. One of the major PROs has been my parents pool. It has saved us mentally, emotionally and physically. It's been a safe haven of entertainment and fun. And a really good way to see my parents while social distancing. "Dolphin feeding time" is always a highlight.

No Masks please!

For the past couple weeks AZ has mandated wearing face masks out in public. I understand the recommendation and can see a need but it's not something I enjoy at all. It's so hot outside and breathing my own hot air and feeling it constantly on my face is not very fun. At work I wear 2 masks and feel very suffocated sometimes. This weekend it was really nice to find an activity we could social distance safely and get some sunshine therapy. We went tubing with the Talley family. We tied a few tubes together in each "group" and had a "snack tube" loaded up with yummies along the way. April started off in the boat with Chance but wanted to ride with me about 10mins into the ride. I of course was happy to oblige. It took us about 2 hours to float down our selected route, many times during our float the river was so slow Noah got out of his tube and pulled us girls. He is such a good sport and was so happy to help. I think all the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Not even 2 days after our river adventure Governor Duecy closed floating the river, bars, water parks and mandated no gatherings over 50 people. Also it was announced that school isn't opening until 8/17/20... originally school was supposed to start August 5th. I'm ok with school being pushed back (as long as it eventually starts up). I'm worried about businesses effected by all this and what it means for owners/workers. I'm really happy we got to float the river and I look forward to it opening up in the future so I can take my kids back.

April Graduating Preschool

Thanks to COVID she missed her her preschool Graduation. But I wanted to capture this little girl in the moment, as her adorable 5 year old self. So we had pictures taken. She asks me almost daily "Mom. When is the 'birus' going away?" It makes me so sad that she doesn't understand why she can't play with friends. She handles all of this craziness very well and helps me handle it as well. I really appreciate her daily (multiple times a day) hugging me and telling me "Mom. I love you so much". She is a tender mercy in this really tough time for me.

Callie's Palatal Expander

When Callie was 2 yrs. old she bumped her front teeth on some horizontal bars at the playground. She had some major dental work trying to save that tooth including a root canal, a zirconium crown, but sadly ended up pulling that baby tooth (1.5 years later). Her Permanent tooth grew in that spot (very slowly) and now we have waited for years for her to lose the other front tooth. It wasn't happening on it's own so we pulled that baby front tooth hoping to speed up the eruption process. Long story short she needs this expander because now there isn't enough room for her front tooth to erupt and we are hopeful the expander will do the trick. I'm really hoping it works and we can avoid Oral Surgery to pull that permanent tooth down to it's proper spot.
It amazes me that 7 years after a small fall at the park we are still dealing with dental issues. We will adjust this expander every other day for about 5 weeks and see how it goes. Fingers crossed!

April is Swimming

 "Maybe I don't need to be scared anymore" - April

This girl... sigh :) I'm so proud of her. In just 24 hours she has taken leaps and bounds in the swimming pool. Shout out to the amazing Mindi Bailey I just love her and I'm so grateful for her work with April. April not swimming is a sensitive subject for me. Mom guilt is insane and my almost weekly nightmares of her drowning are not fun for my anxiety I guess I feel like a failure because ALL my other kids were swimming by the age of 3. I have tried working with her many many times but she was just not having it and has been super scared of the deep end of any pool. I also have never bought floaties for any of my kids. But April found some at grandmas house and claims them as her own. (I'm not saying floaties are bad. Just my personal opinion they don't help kids learn to move their bodies the right way in the water.) I finally had had enough, I swallowed my pride and found an amazing swim instructor. Thank you Mindi for doing what I could not and instilling confidence in my sweet April. Today was just her 2nd lesson with Mindi. I just love how proud she is of herself and I'm so happy she is learning confidence and skill in the water.

COVID 19

My world has been turned upside down. When the global pandemic first reached the US we were on Spring Break and at the Faler Family Reunion up at the Gratitude Lodge cabin in Heber. It was announced that church was closing down, then school was shut down and everything else around me. I did not anticipate the severity or length of time this would entail. In my mind this was just an extended Spring Break and life would go back to normal... WRONG. After 2 weeks not only was school not resuming, I was still unemployed, and now I had to attempt to play "teacher". This honestly is something I never anticipated as a mom. I have always revered and respected my kids school teachers. When I go help in the classroom almost every single time I have thought to myself "I could never do that job" teachers are amazing. SO I was not surprised when playing teacher was a big struggle for me. I like doing fun things with my kids. I don't like being the mean one commanding school work. Thankfully I have very resilient children and we survived. We purchased another laptop for the kids to use and Mason was able to borrow a laptop from his school. My kids are probably not overnight genius' but I believe we did enough to keep the brain exercised and going. I tried to stick with a schedule and put as much fun in our day as I could. I'm hoping and praying that school returns in the fall.

All of that said, there is a lot I'm enjoying about social distancing. Our family outings and Sunshine therapy have been amazing. We have been going on lots of bike rides, hikes, "sleepovers" in the family room (or all on the bean bag haha), adopting pet turtles, reading, paddle boarding, and lots of weed pulling for our neighbor.

I'm so grateful for the amazing weather we had all of March and April.