Virtual soccer practice!

A new day, a new technology challenge: how can Graydon hear see *and hear* instructions for his "virtual soccer practice?" With the piano lesson tablet hooked up to ancient external computer speakers, of course!

Day Two

I dare you to TRY not to laugh!

Wiley sneakily turned on the video on my phone. The rest is history!

Day One

Day one of assembling Daddy's Christmas present.

Virtual piano lessons

Another adjustment: we have a tablet permanently set up at the piano for the boys' piano and "musicianship" lessons. This is a photo taken during Graydon's lesson. It's been nice to be "present" for some of their lesson time. There's a silver lining to everything!

Our project for this weekend

Ok, so it wasn't that involved - we bought them as a kit. Neal, Wiley, and Portia assembled them and Mami stained them (with leftover stain from the deck - skipping the run to the hardware store). In the setting sun, they look pretty good! They'll go on the front porch so we can be social from a distance as all of our neighbors run, walk, stroll, or otherwise slowly locomote by. One of the silver linings of this crisis is that we have *much* less vehicular traffic on the street, and many more neighbors out for some fresh air every day.

Even Maren wasn’t spared...

...in the cascarone battle that followed the Easter egg hunt.

Mmmmmmmm

White chocolate bunny ears!

Happy Easter!

Here's our crew getting ready for their egg hunt!

The great jelly bean sort

It's not quite like Bertie Bott's but some of the flavors still needed to be sorted out.

Wiley helped, too!

Making masks

Graydon has taken to making masks. He wants to make enough for us as well as to share with friends. The fabric was from when Wiley went as a pumpkin for Halloween *in utero*... see blog post from 7 1/2- ish years ago!

Cautious Canadians

A few of our neighbors have Canada geese decoys that they periodically move around their yards. Now, even they are sporting masks.

Soccer while Social Distancing

Graydon and his soccer teammates have really been missing playing with one another, so one of the parents came up with this great idea of how they can all work on something together while we wait this virus out at home. Even their coach has a cameo at the end!

Graydon’s closet

We rearranged kids in bedrooms today and Graydon now has his own closet (and room). These are all of his clothes that we could plausibly hang up.

Kids being social with distance

Graydon and his best friend used gmail chat to set up a Zoom date this evening. They're certainly learning plenty about remote communication these days!

Entertainment strategies...

Legos. Lots of legos.

Mami, look how strong I am!

Rain can’t stop them!

Luckily Maren caught them in time to get swim suits on them. Running around in the back yard in their birthday suits is fine, but when they jump so high, they are visible above the fence!!

We're making the best of being home-bound and appreciate all the things we have here to help pass the time and get kids' fidgets out.