The crazy Easter bunny!

The Easter Bunny has never made it easy in this house to get the basket of goodies. Claire has to go on an egg hunt. Each egg has an exercise she has to do and a clue to find the next egg. Thankfully, she has enjoyed this every year!

 Stand on one foot for 30 seconds...

 do 20 sit-ups...

 search around the tree in the rain...

 do twenty mountain climbers...

 search by the garden hose, and many more!

 Finally the last clue...go look inside the car. This one took a while because she didn't think to look in the trunk until she had searched every other part of the car, including under the hood!

 But when she found the basket, she was so excited!

 Her favorites this year included the Visco girl stickers for her water bottle and laptop, the How to Survive Anything book, and the beach towel. She also got a fondant kit for baking, some candy, a few inflatables for the pool and a daily devotional with journal. The gifts are fun but we also spent lots of time talking about the real reason we celebrate Easter! God is so good, even in these uncertain times!

Happy Easter from our home to yours!

Celebrating the Resurrection of Christ is a bit different this year but we can still celebrate. We watched our church service on television, did Facetime with family in MN so we could all "be toigether", and Claire and I made a sign at the end of our driveway.

Claire also got to do egg dying. 

Claire has found a new hobby!

We have done LOTS of walking around the pond and have noticed many people fishing. Claire started asking about fishing. Of course, Jeff was over the moon and quickly got his poles and lures ready! They have gone fishing multiple times a day and even though they haven't caught anything yet, Claire still loves it! Hopefully soon she will catch a nice bass!

We have a baker in the house...

Claire has found a way to entertain herself once her school work is done and Mom is still working. She has taken her love for baking and is working on perfecting it! Each weekend she looks up recipes and picks three things she wants to try to make for the week. Then on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday she makes one of the items she picked after her school work is completed. This is a great way for her to become even more independent in the kitchen and gives her something to occupy her time while I am still working. Every once in a while she asks for help, but she has gotten this baking thing down pretty well! She has even taught me a thing or two that she has learned on baking shows, like what a jimmie is!

 Last week we had homemade blueberry muffins with a crunchy top, cookie cake with fancy frosting, and mint chocolate brownies. It is a good thing I have time to exercise in the mornings before logging in to work because having all of these amazing desserts in the house can be very hard to resist!

Claire has also taken on the love of preparing meals for us for dinner. We have loved placing our order and then showing up to eat! The weather has been so wonderful, we have spent many evenings eating out by the pool. I have to say, I am thankful for the time to slow down and enjoy time together right now!

COVID-19 and homeshooling part 2

When you want to stay away from grocery stores and people because of the virus, you end up getting lots of things on Amazon. That means you have lots of boxes laying around. Claire decided she wanted to make a "School room" and went to work talking through how she would create it with the boxes. We planned it out in the garage and then assembled it in the house.

 She made some shelves out of some of the box flaps, made files to store her papers to do and to store the papers she has completed, made a "shelf" to store her phone on (held up by a pineapple can!), and even made a pencil holder from the boxes! I loved watching her creativity come to life! She even got some of the photos from her room to decorate her "office"!

You can't study like this in the real classroom at school!

Once she has her schoolwork completed, it is time to have fun! So far she has finished everything except 30 minutes of reading within 2.5 hours so she has all afternoon to have free time. The pool was calling yesterday afternoon. Way too cold for Mom to get in but she had a blast and came up with some crazy games for me to judge her on! Loving this time to really get to disconnect and focus on this precious gift from God!