Enjoying the Simple, Quiet Days

    Though we are a homeschooling family we still normally have a fair amount of coming and going at our house. We have church twice a week, the boys and Debora were in Theater this Spring, We had volunteering at the nursing home and at Rotary, Music students coming and also us going to friends and friends coming to us and more. But like everybody else around the country (and actually the world) that came to a screeching halt recently. The last play practice was on the 11th and the show has been delayed. Debora's last day of school was the 17th. The 15th was our last time at church and that was a pretty light crowd. Rotary's last meeting was the 16th and it was super small. We have mostly just stayed at home.

     We love being at home but to be perfectly honest we also like going places and we love to spend time with others. So though it hasn't been completely easy (as I am sure you can relate to) it has been a time of peace and joy and lots of fun too. We are trusting that those making the decisions about the stay home orders have done their research and are acting wisely. Most of all we trust that God understands exactly what is going on, and as long as we seek His will He is going to work things out for our good.

   So I thought I would share some of the fun things we have been doing....

 Celebrating! For St. Patrick's Day we wore green, decorated with green, ate potatoes, Irish Stew and Irish soda bread. For the first day of Spring we also set the table prettily and then did some more decorating such as my mantle below.

Painting. The girls and I had fun painting one night and now have some decorations for our mantle this spring.

Outdoor Time. A lot more time has been spent outside. Here the boys were checking out the river and how it was opening up as it came to us. They are out on the ice but standing over top of a log that is down in the water.

Music. Debora is learning to play the Ukulele and others of us have been creating quite a bit of music as well.

Log Splitting. Aaron has made it nearly all the way through the pile that needed to be split.

Recording Music. In the last post I shared "Consider the Lilies" the result of this recording session. Megan had a cold and had lost her voice so she wasn't a part of the music making. Aaron, Debora and I did that this time while Jonathan with some assistance from Megan did the recording, the filming and the editing.

Reading. Lot of reading has been done which is really fun. Megan has been catching up on some old magazines.

Campfires. They are peaceful and fun.

Kayaking. Yes it is still quite early but Aaron tends to be impatient about that. He uses ski poles to push himself in the kayak across the ice and then has fun paddling in the open water.

Story Writing. Megan has been doing a lot of writing lately and her current project has been a long story set in Finland that she and Aaron have been working on together.

Sewing. Debora learned to sew making cloths masks for a local place that was wanting them. She and I had fun working together on that. I am modeling one down below.

Swinging. The boys had a lot of fun this week creating a new, big swing. They have a platform that you climb on and then jump off while on the swing and the swing has to catch you. It is a bit of an adrenaline rush. That has been a highlight of the week.

I like these pictures that I caught of Aaron. Jonathan made a video of the swing in use too:

So that is some of what has been going on at our place lately. I would love to hear from all of you and hear about the fun things that you have been doing as well.