Week 9: Plans, Plans, Plans - Some are Good and Some are Bad 🎵

This week involved Andrew and the boys planning Mother's Day fun, reading construction plans for the playset, planning E's 7th birthday party and considering plans for a cottage purchase (what!?! where did that come from!?!).

Click on any photo to ENLARGE.

Sunday May 10th

I thoroughly enjoyed Mother's Day. Bit of a sleep in, breakfast in bed, homemade paper-crafts, renditions of "Happy Mother's Day to you," and a keepsake mama-kids photo. E helped me set up the camera for the picture.

I love that the kids are willing to take pictures and once we start they want to start doing all combinations of adults/kids. Here's a fun one of them with Andrew.

While T was having quiet time, the three of us played Ticket to Ride Jr., a kids game I can whole-heartedly recommend. Andrew and E prepared Shrimp en Papillote with egg noodles, which was SO delicious!

Monday May 11th

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." 

Or the snow as it was today. This quote was on a shelf behind a child psychologist who was leading a Parenting During Quarantine Zoom call today. So while many people were complaining about the very late spring snowfall - I was very grateful for the excitement it brought the boys and the time it gave me to attend the parenting call as they played in the backyard.

Trying to solidify E's French number sense, I put up un-vingt from this free printable in our main living space near to where we work on distance learning from school. E's really taken to photo-taking and does a great job and ensures that there are some everyday photos of me in the mix!

Tuesday May 12th

Had a good chunk of one-on-one time with T this morning, doing a little workbook he found on the shelf (erasable crayons are crazy!).

Since we'd missed seeing the snowbirds fly-over (heard them at least) we drove to a parking lot where we'd be able to see our local Waterloo Warplanes flyover of the hospitals. It was cool to be able to see a shark flying in the air and emotional to see the wing tip to the hospital!

E had a video call with a friend he hadn't spoken to since school let out for March Break and started working on the 5 W question words in English and a pizza/fractions unit in French for distance learning. He and I also spent an hour cleaning and sorting through his bedroom before bed.

A friend and I had an evening driveway visit with a couple who is usually in our Small Group from church, but hasn't been able to find a good solution for their video calls yet. It was so nice to catch up with them, even on a chilly evening.

Wednesday May 13th

Wednesday started with a hypothesis: E will like his breakfast creation - toast with yogurt and cereal on top. Experiment proved the hypothesis true, even though I couldn't stand to look at it.

Andrew's parents came up to help us build our playset on one of the few sunny and warm days this week. It was about 75% complete when they left and would have taken Andrew and I several days (and been a lot less pleasant) if we'd done it on our own.

Andrew's mom brought lunch, a vegan shepherd's pie made with broccoli crumble and a homemade rhubarb crisp - YUM. For dinner, I made our favourite sweet potato quinoa bowls for dinner with a bunch of fancy sauces and toppings, which is a ton of work but SO delicious!

Thursday May 14th

E has been building a Pokemon Lego kit he'd received at Christmas and is loving both the building and the characters right now! The boys played independently with them as well as with trains for quite a while this morning.

E and I did a lot of distance learning today as we hadn't done much on Wednesday and were planning on playing hooky on Friday. E and T spent their screen time on a book app, where E had to read the books to T. Almost every day, E reads at least one book to T.

Friday May 15th

We drove up north and looked at a few cottages after doing some research on different cottaging areas around us. We aren't currently planning on putting an offer on any of the ones we saw but haven't crossed the possibility completely off the list either. If you have any cottage buying tips let us know!

Also got a pile of mulch delivered today! Though won't get to the gardening until next week.

I spent time on most evenings this week, making plans for E's 7th birthday party to be held online. Today we sent out the invitations and E's looking forward to it. I've been pleasantly surprised with how well he's taken to the situation of not having a regular birthday.

Saturday May 16th

Beautiful weather! I'm finding my new perch overlooking the playset including comfy chair and side table.

Andrew worked on the playset all day and commented that he's doing it at a quarter of the speed and half as good as compared to when he and his dad were doing it together :) Definitely appreciate the skilled help on Wednesday! That being said, he did a lot - climbing wall/ladder, shelves and benches, captain's wheel, telescope, and SLIDE! Still need to stake it and then the swings can go up and we need to come up with a bottom of slide solution.