75 months

Never did we think they would leave for Spring Break and not return to their classroom for the remainder of the year. While this wasn't the perfect way to end the year our girls girls rocked eLearning with few complaints the last 9 weeks of school. C continued to see her friends and teacher online on Thursdays for some singing, dancing, storytelling and show and tell, she liked to watch and listen but was very shy about participating, at time we saw the school side of C at home, not the wild child she is for us! I lost count of how many video's her teacher made (over 100) to make online learning engaging for these Kindergartners who were forced to a computer instead of coloring, cutting, and gluing in their classroom. Her teacher even took extra time to make special videos for her and couple of the other kids who were more advanced and needed more challenging things to do. I'd look over to the computer daily and see a smile on her face and she was read a book, taught a social skills lesson, doing math or watching a video that her teacher made just for her.

She really enjoyed their one science lesson where they had to build a boat out of Legos, float it and then see how many pennies it took to sink the boat. J did the experiment with her, she says she is the Lego master of our house, and surprisingly enough, C's boat was built better than J's! Watch the video to see and to find out how many pennies it held!

The day before the last day of school they had their last class meeting, watched a cute slide show put together by her teacher (totally made mom cry) and the kids all virtually received their Kindergarten certificate. The last day wasn't much work and her teacher read them some stories to close out this chapter. We had to make a trip up to school to pickup their supplies they never took home when we left for Spring Break, her teacher heard we were there and came outside to say goodbye (even though we will see her around) and give C an "air hug". It is hard to believe that Kindergarten is over, both of the girls had the same teacher for Kinder and this time will always hold a special place in my heart. I just wish C would have gotten the last quarter in person but if we had to do it virtually her teacher was the best one for the tough job!

 
This cycle of our butterfly garden came to an end this month. The last of our monarchs hatched and we noticed the orange Gulf fritillary caterpillars were back and one day looked to the neighbors fence to notice something weird hanging, to our surprise it was the start of a cocoon, these guys cocoons were much different (and uglier) than the monarchs. Maybe we missed the cocoons the first time around when we thought we had lost them, when they are all done they looked like something shriveled up just hanging there. We caught one starting to make his cocoon and decided to bring it inside the screen for a more up close look at the process. He made his cocoon and then notice about 7 days later that it was starting to hatch! We watched him hatch, dry his wings and take flight on the patio. While this seemed like a good idea, the hard part was getting him out! Luckily after a few tries we were able to get him on the spider web broom and release him outside into the garden. What a beautiful orange butterfly the ugly cocoon turned into, it's amazing how things morph into something else! We really enjoyed this round of our garden! The milkweed is all gone so now time to clip everything back and wait a month or two for the next cycle to begin.

Quarentine continued and we spent Mother's Day weekend with Grandma and Grandpa, Saturday we BBQed some ribs (with even more sauces to try) and swam at our place and then took to their house on Sunday for a BBQ, the weather was lousy so no swimming was had, the girls were ok with that because they got to get all dressed up and actually do their hair! The also made me a fabulous grilled cheese for lunch and bought me some cool new running sunglasses.

To give mom and dad a break the girls have been staying over at Grandma and Grandpas house one night a week, the house is so quiet when they are gone we don't know what to do with ourselves! Their American Girl doll carriers have come in handy to take their dolls (and of course their change of clothes) back and forth with them. They have taken over the guest bedroom so that they can play in their room without having to put things away to get the trundle bed out, they are pretty comfy in the giant king bed! Grandma got a new vacuum that came in a HUGE box, the girls wanted to turn it into a car so they got Grandpa to help them engineer one and couldn't wait to show it to us when it was done, and how they spin crazy in it in the garage! Grandma pretty much lets them do whatever they want while they are there and gave them real makeup to style their barbies, and they use crayons to color their hair!

I finally had to sew the girls each a mask, of course they chose their fabric, and they had their first outing out (other than to G&G's house or just riding around town in the car) to the dentists office. C didn't get a clean report and had another little cavity on her back tooth, the dentist did find the slightest wiggly tooth and she was so happy to tell daddy about it, not her cavity, when we got back home! We are all enjoying our local donut truck and treats on Saturday mornings, its the first thing the girls ask for when they wake up and kind of now expect them each week, I guess it isn't much to ask for when you've been in quarantine for over two months! We continue to swim, do puzzles, ride bikes, cook, clean, play games and whatever else we can think of to occupy our time, who would have ever thought we'd be stuck in the house for this long!

Nana joined our quaranteam and came to visit just after Memorial Day, the girls were so happy to see her, they hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving, might have been the longest they have gone without seeing her since she moved to Georgia. With not much to do we spent a lot of time in the pool, playing games and doing puzzles. She had sent the girls a new butterfly puzzle for her visit and in I think two days it was done, we are all addicted to puzzles! The weekend after Nana got here daddy and I took a drive to "pick something up". They had no idea what we were up to and were so surprised when we came home with their cousin in tow! She had been quarantined at her grandparents on the east coast and thought it would be nice for the girls to have some time together instead of her going back to Georgia with her mom and brothers. They were all excited to see each other and while we were still stuck at home it was nice to have two new people to be stuck at home with!

 

We started online kids art classes this month, we needed something new to do and a way to kill some hours each week! C had been to the studio a few times with J and was excited she got to do "big kid" art classes. We decided to try it out and see what it was all about. With not much to do we were looking for new things to occupy some time after school, we were even able to get their cousin on Facetime and do the lesson together, then she joined us in person for a few while she was here visiting! C is really enjoying the classes, I think her favorite one so far is the watercolor cake that she did, she loved adding her personal touches to it, the rainbows and cat ear, she even loved it so much that she made her teacher one for her birthday and mommy dropped it off at school in her mailbox for her. We might have anther artist blooming!

Here are the pictures from the month.