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Xander’s bunny is such a curious little guy. Roman and I sat down to play some Sorry, and Clover hopped right onto the board…investigating the cards and pawns (he even tried to eat a pawn!). He’s so crazy…in the cutest kind of way.

Wow…it’s been a while since I’ve posted…about six months! I’ll try to go back and start from July and post forward to January. It might take me a while. So much has happened in half of a year!!!

Clover is such a funny little guy and so full of personality. When I was filling up his bins with fresh hay today, he literally hopped inside of them. Here he is dipping his toes in before making the leap. What a cutie…we love our bun bun.

I couldn’t resist getting this cute and cozy little bed for the bunny…he loves to have a lot of different places to hide.

We bought the bunny this fun little tunnel (the boys call it the “bunnel”, and he LOVES it!!! I found him sleeping in there today and was able to snap this picture of him. Precious.

Here’s a picture of Jonas and three of his friends (Henry, Ethan, and Bryant)…they were all in the same 1st grade class together. Now, they’re all headed into the 7th grade. Oh my heart.

Tom and the boys and I went out to Burns Farms this morning to do some strawberry picking. It was cold and blustery, but we made quick work of it and came home with a bag full of delicious strawberries.

The boys had their last Flex Day today (where they do school work at home at their own pace). They all finished before lunch, so we had an open afternoon to cook through our Raddish kit. Roman and I worked on putting the Baked Potato Bar together, Xander and his best friend Jeremy and I made Confetti Corn Muffins, and Jonas and I baked Shortbread Domino Cookies. The surprise for me was how much I loved chili, cheese, and sour cream on my baked potato…totally doing that again!!!

On New Year’s Day, we went for a long walk on the wonderful trails across from Xander and Roman’s elementary school that go all the way to Jonas’ middle school. Petra had a blast running around, living her best life in the great outdoors. Afterwards, Tom and the boys played some football on the high school football field.

We were so grateful and excited to get to spend one night at the Opryland Hotel and two days at Soundwaves (an indoor/outdoor water park) over Fall Break. We all really needed a break…and some fun.

Our favorite things to do were the: surf rider, lazy river, rapids river, lily pads, single/double/family tube slides, body slides, and mat racers. (Pretty much all of it…haha!).

We played all day on Friday and enjoyed a relaxing, quiet, and delicious dinner at the Coney Fork River Valley Grille on Friday night. (There was no loud music playing and they seated us in the very back of the restaurant next to the indoor fish pond, which was so soothing after a long day of waterpark fun.) Afterwards, we saw a spooky, Halloween themed light show in the conservatory called “The Phantom of the Atrium”. (I was so excited about sharing that with Tom and the boys because I remember seeing one of those there when I was a little girl.)

On Saturday, we played until we were all starving, shared a pizza and a chicken quesadilla for lunch poolside, and then played some more until we were all ready to go home and rest and relax from our fun-filled staycation.

(I didn’t take a ton of pictures because we were running around/in the water most of the time.)

Our AC was out this week…ugh!!! It’s been on the blink for a while now (it’s 10 years old), but several weeks of 90s just pushed it over the edge, I guess. The boys and I spent one rough night at home without AC (Roman woke up several times, sleepwalking/freaking out, and ended up in our bed…and I felt like I didn’t sleep at all). So, we spent what started out as one night and ended up as three nights in a hotel. The pool, breakfast, and the fitness room were all closed…but it was SO nice to have AC. We had to try to get out during the day, though, so we didn’t go stir crazy in the room. And we went home in the late afternoon/early evening to spend time with Tom and have dinner. Altogether, it was pretty stressful to me…just a lot out of control (along with everything else that’s out of control right now) and a lot of gear packing and hauling amidst the boys fighting in close quarters…so, I was in a pretty special place this week, mentally and emotionally. BUT thankfully we are all settled back in now and are very grateful to be home.

Here are some pictures of play time/screen time in the room (Jonas and I playing Dragonwood…such a cool game, Xander and Roman playing stuffed animals…that got a little crazy, and all of the boys cozed up with their stuffed animals, doing some tablet time).

Petra in black and white…

Photo credit: Roman Seyfried

It’s time for another round of “The Funny Things We Say”…

Tom: “You can do nothing upstairs and not disturb me doing nothing downstairs.”

Jodi: “Don’t point a gun at anyone. Even if it’s a stuffed animal rhino.”

Jonas: “Fun fact. You mess with Mom, you mess with Dad.”

Jonas: “Roman, you’re like full on yak right now.”

Jonas: “My face has awesome written all over it…it’s just written in invisible ink.”

Roman: “Petra, I had gravy…smell ME!”

Roman: “Mom, I know what a black hole is…it’s God biting on a universe cookie!”

Jonas: “Roman, you need a breath mint.”
Roman: “Oh yeah?!? Well, you need a body mint.”

To start the day, I woke up and ran 4 miles. I tell you what…it is SO different running in Florida…endlessly flat roads with almost no shade and early mornings where it’s already in the 80’s with almost 90% humidity. Phew! Another thing I noticed on my run is that the bay was SUPER calm (compared to the double red flagged ocean). One of my favorite things about Cape San Blas is that the Gulf of Mexico is on one side and St. Joseph Bay is on the other.

So, we packed up and headed for the bay in St. Joseph Peninsula State Park (which is a minute or two from where we’re staying). We set up our canopy on the very small shore (a lot of it washed away in Hurricane Michael 2 years ago, so they’re still rebuilding it) and took off in the water to do some snorkeling. Roman wanted to try to catch fish in his net, so he did that along the way instead. I ended up joining him later on (he caught two hermit crabs!), while Tom and Jonas and Xander continued to snorkel and worked on building a huge sand castle. Afterwards, we headed back to our canopy for some shade and snacks. The boys were asking to go home at this point, but they ended up getting into burying themselves/each other in sand and looking for hermit crabs, while Tom snorkeled and I sat reading under the canopy.

After lunch and quiet time, Roman and I headed to the pool while Tom took Jonas and Xander to the beach. Then, Tom and I set the boys up with a show to relax with and ran out to pick up some fresh shrimp at a seafood shop a few minutes down the road. We also ended up grabbing a stuffed animal for each of the boys at a souvenir shop next door (a sea turtle for Jonas, a dolphin for Xander, and a tie-dyed pirate monkey for Roman…all with Cape San Blas shirts on). It really cheered Xander up especially, since his favorite goggles got swept out to sea earlier in the day.

After dinner, we headed down to the beach, where the boys buried themselves/each other in sand, did some metal detecting with Tom, and had fun dodging the waves on the shoreline.

We burned through homeschooling pretty quickly today. The boys did coding (on Khan and Kano Code), worked on their math skills (on Beast and Khan Academy), and read on Epic. We skipped Mommy and Me Time and Science/Social Studies.

Then, we drove out to Smyrna for the dreaded haircut…it’s always at least one of them who is dissatisfied, and I get to hear about it the whole way home (and the rest of the day). Ugh.

We limped to the finish line, but we made it. 8 weeks and 40 days of homeschooling (crisis schooling) in the books…one and done (hopefully, if I’m honest).

Here’s to summer…

We ALL needed a Mental Health Day today. Thank GOD we could take one.

Week 7 of homeschooling in the Seyfried household is officially in the books. Only 1 week left to go!

Friday is our PJ day…it was a good day for it, as it was a chilly, rainy day.

Jonas played a Kahoot on text structures, progressed at his own pace on Beast and Khan Academy, explored Reading Eggs, and engineered some Lego creations. For Mommy and Me Time, we cuddled in bed together and read.

Xander watched a Brainpop video and took a quiz on idioms, played a few math games and progressed at his own pace on Beast Academy, explored Reading Eggs, and did some Mystery Science. For Mommy and Me Time, we cuddled in bed together and read.

Roman watched animated books of “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” and “The Three Pigs” and completed a Venn Diagram and watched an animated book of “I Wanna Iguana” and completed a T Chart, progressed at his own pace on Beast Academy, explored Reading Eggs, and did some Mystery Science. For Mommy and Me Time, we made chocolate chip muffins and played Clue Jr.

Week 7 is complete…only 1 1/2 weeks to go!!!

Mental Health Day!