How’s everyone hanging in lately?

It’s time for Part 2 of my “Quarantine Thankful List.” {If you missed Part 1, you can read that here.}

As we’re rounding out Week 6 of all this, here are some more things that have been pleasant little surprises during this quarantine life:

daily assigned chores
We have a loose schedule for our days, which is more category-driven than time-driven. And one of the items on the list that has to be accomplished every day is a chore for each child.
I write the job for each child on the dry erase schedule in the mornings, and it has to be accomplished at some point in the day before electronics can be played later in the afternoon.
This is great for a couple reasons:
One is that I get 3 small jobs accomplished each day! Granted one of them is usually to unload the dishwasher. (Anyone else wanting to vote their dishwasher low-key MVP of the pandemic? We run ours once a day, sometimes twice!)
The other great reason for this is that I sometimes make the “chore” something like “play a card or board game with your little brother of his choice” or “do something kind for someone else.” And THEY have to arrange this. It forces them to think of someone besides themselves AND it takes up a little more time in the day! Win-win!
weather
Aside from the current yucky weather outside my window at this very moment, the overall weather of the quarantine has been FANTASTIC! I don’t know where all these beautiful sunny days were during the soccer season when we had half our games canceled, but even so, I would take the beautiful skies and comfy temps now for sure!
It has given my kids no excuse for not playing outside at some point, and it’s made all my walks even better! I don’t want to think about being quarantined in the blazing hot of the summer, with no guarantees that pools with be open. So I won’t.
e-books from our public library
With extra time available for reading but no access to the actual library, the ability to check out e-books has been a lifesaver!
I will say my youngest and I have been using it the most since the middle kid is reading through the Chronicles of Narnia with me, and we own those in physical form. But we have been THROUGH some e-books the last couple months!
mixing handwriting and Bible verse memory
One of the other daily tasks for my 6-year-old is a short handwriting assignment.
At first I was just assigning random small paragraphs for him to write, and then it occurred to me that I could make the actual passage meaningful!
So now I choose a short passage (usually 2 verses or so), and he writes is every day. And the bonus is that he can recite it by the weekend! {I’m sensing a multi-tasking trend here that I LOVE!}
getting to hear kids play the piano every day
And one more of the daily tasks is that each child has to do something “artistic” each day. For the youngest, sometimes this means he colors a picture or watches Lunch Doodles with Mo. The older two have to practice piano to get ready for their virtual lessons on Fridays.
This means that I get to hear the piano every day! {And 90% of the time this is a happy occurrence. I will admit that the pieces they’re practicing for their recital next month can get a little . . . tiresome.}
But in general, I love hearing them practice and am happy they again have zero excuse for being able to practice right now!

Ok, so that’s Part 2 of my Happy Quarantine List! I’ll keep working on coming up with more, and I hope you’re thinking through what might be on your own list!

Here’s another adorable family photo session from this past fall when we could do these sorts of things.

Can you believe I had two sessions so close together with other families with three little boys??! I love it!

Enjoy! <3