I'd rather die than get the Corona Virus

Hallee said she would rather die than have the corona virus, funny girl. It is interesting to hear them say things that give me a glimpse into what they are thinking.  This is such a crazy and uncertain time and it's hard to know exactly how it is affecting the kids.  My older kids don't think it would be a big deal to get the virus, but I think Hallee and Wyatt worry about it.  The last week and a half feels like it has been two years.  We have had lots of emotions at our house.  We all feel sad and disappointed with all of the activities that we are missing out on. We all miss hanging out with our family and friends.  None of the kids are big fans of online school.  I think they are all surprised by how much they miss school.  We have all had breakdowns and cried when we felt overwhelmed and hopeless. We have all been annoyed with each other because we are spending all day every day with each other. We have all snapped at each other because we are all on our last straw multiple times a day.  I have to constantly manage my thoughts when I want everyone to be happy and remind myself that we all need to feel however we feel and that's okay if my kids don't like my decisions, that is my job. I have a really hard time with that because I want everyone to be happy and I hate when people are mad at me or don't agree with me.  I'm working on it though.  I even got coached on it last week in my life coaching program and that helped me get more leverage on it. It's hard to be confident in your decisions when you don't know what the right decision is or there is no right decision.  I feel like I don't know what I should be doing right now.   Should I go to the store, should we eat out, should we visit family? Some of it depends on the day.  Some days I feel very anxious and overwhelmed and I just need to survive on those days and keep everything simple. Right now we are pretty much staying at home.  We get outside every day and I do some shopping by myself, but that's about it.  We have gotten take out food and I still get my Sonic drink every day. Keith is working at the office because he doesn't think he would be able to work from home.  He is on calls or listening to calls a lot and that wouldn't work with four kids at home.  There is only one other guy who is consistently in the office with him.  He said it is weird because it is so quiet and the lights are on sensors so he ends up in the dark a lot because all of the lights outside his office go off because there is no movement. With all of that being said, we have had a lot of good times too.  I don't take pictures of the hard times, so I will just write about those, but I have lots of pictures of our fun times over the last couple of weeks.

Hallee has had fun making rainbow loom bracelets.

Wyatt went through a couple of days where he wanted to dress up in nice clothes and tell jokes. He called it "The Wyatt Show." 

He is such a funny kid.  Luckily, all of this craziness doesn't seem to be effecting him too much.  He has hard days like the rest of us, but overall he is handling it well.  I'm so grateful for that.

He wanted to practice typing so he gathered jokes and typed them all up and then read them to us one night.

I woke up feeling really anxious and overwhelmed on Saturday.  My kids are doing well at taking care of their school work on their own and things had been going fairly smoothly so I wasn't sure why I felt so burned out.  After Tiff told me how good it felt to get out and roller blade it hit me that I hadn't hardly had any alone time.  I'm used to my quiet days with lots of time to myself and this has been a big change for me.  I still have quiet time in my room when all of the kids are doing something, but I'm constantly interrupted with problems, fights or someone needs something.  I enjoyed going outside with the kids all week, but I was constantly being bombarded with, "Mom watch this!"  I decided I needed to get out alone.  I went to the Provo River Trail and just walked and listened to podcasts.  It was so great to not worry about if my kids were in someone's way or if they were touching something they shouldn't be.  The sun and fresh air were so good for me.  After that I went to Sonic and got ice cream and just sat in the parking lot and ate it alone.  After that break I felt ready to take on life again.

While I was gone Caitlyn and Keith put this game table together.  We had been debating on getting this for a while, ever since we rearranged downstairs.  When I heard that school was canceled I went ahead and ordered it and it was delivered on Saturday. 

It has been a great distraction for us this week.  It has hockey, foosball and pool.

We have all had fun playing together.  I think pool and foosball are our favorite.

Everyone is spending a lot of time on electronics so it is nice to have another option.

Wyatt was channeling his inner ninja one day.

Hallee has been playing with her beanie boos a lot. 

This picture doesn't show it well, but it looks like Cailtyn has barely passed up Keith on height.  She loves to tell us all that she is the tallest in the house.

We had another church from home this week and we did it over facetime with my parents. The kids made this stand out of blocks.  Hallee led the singing while Caitlyn played the piano.

Wyatt said the prayer.

My favorite part is having Keith and Jonah administer the sacrament.  It is definitely something special to have them do that in our home.

Jonah gave an excellent talk on Grace.  He didn't want to, but he did it anyway.  Last week he broke one of our rules for cell phones and got his taken away.  I kept feeling like we needed to give him grace.  I told him that if he would watch the video of Brad Wilcox's BYU devotional, "Changed by Grace" that he could get his phone back.  He happily took the deal and hopefully learned something, judging by his talk I would say he did.  I'm hoping that the life lesson along with the lesson will help it sink in.

Caitlyn gave a beautiful talk about the scriptures and why they are important.  She loves to share what she is learning in seminary.  I'm so impressed with her studying.  Her scriptures are covered in notes, highlights and sticky note.   After that mom gave a great lesson out of Come Follow Me.  It was really nice to do that with mom, dad and Alexys.  It was nice to feel connected!