Life Within the Cuckoo's Nest: June 2021

I took a break from writing for a while because pandemic life was really getting to me mentally and it was taking everything I had to survive each day. None of this has been easy. Very little of this has been fun, fair, or mentally stimulating. But even through the darkness that Covid-19 has brought to the world, I have tried hard each day to make it count; reminding myself that the sun will eventually come out tomorrow and all of this will be a beautiful memory of a time when we conquered what felt like the impossible. So here I am, 5 months later, finally having the time and energy to record our adventures. In fact, it is now the end of June and for the first time in almost 2 years, life is actually feeling normal again!! We have been going to the pool without masks on, the swings and parks are no longer chained up and blocked off, we have been allowed to go back to church, AAANNNDDD the world governments have been frantically working to come up with a vaccine for this awful virus that has plagued our world and they finally found one!! Getting vaccinated wasn't fun, because it causes similar symptoms to the actual illness and because I already have thyroid issues, my thyroid went insane and I was pretty sick for a couple of weeks. The first day after the vaccine, I couldn't remember my own children's names and Josh had to help me out in many departments because I seriously thought I was going to die. I got winded just walking down the hallway and was having chest pain constantly. I couldn't believe I let myself get this vaccine and just prayed that it would get better. And eventually it did! I now feel fine, and the CDC has said that anyone vaccinated doesn't have to wear a mask anymore!! YAY!!! So life has gotten progressively better over the past 5 months and THANK YOU LORD because I was about to give up!!! Now that I've given you a little snapshot of the misery of our lives, I will move onto the fun stuff! :)

I will start with a little snapshot of Isla being silly :). She LOVES glasses and wears these Mr. Potato Head glasses everywhere! hehehe! It is so dang cute! She also still loves to read books and we read constantly throughout the day and also before she naps and goes to bed for the night. I have seriously never seen a baby love books as much as she does!!! Maybe it is because she has grown up watching me homeschool her older siblings?? Who knows, but I love it! :)

Now I will move onto our very unique Valentines Day when we decided to take a trip to Hawaii :). I'm not gonna lie, celebrating another round of holidays pandemic style has been so mentally taxing and it has taken everything I have not to just give up and not celebrate ANYTHING! Because nothing is as it should be and there are so many restrictions to work around that it is almost impossible to leave the house. That leaves us with very little options besides creatively trying to make the best of it. So we went to Hawaii!! The kids LOVED IT and we ended up having so much fun! We got the idea when we went to Sprouts, the health food store, and saw all of these exotic fruits we had never tried before. Then we decided to buy them and make a party out of it! The kids drew up all sorts of adorable pictures welcoming us to Hawaii and Austin set up the cutest little fruit stand with a menu and everything :). Evie made a homemade Ukulele and Dad made us some Spam (because he said they eat Spam with everything in Hawaii)! We spent the day sampling all the exotic fruits, trying to figure out how to crack open the dang coconut, making umbrella drinks out of the coconut milk as soon as we finally were successful at putting a hole in it (hahaha), and eating the homemade giant Valentine cookies Mama makes for all of my loves each Valentines Day :). It was such a beautiful day and one we would have never thought of it it hadn't been for the pandemic. So in a way I am grateful.... :) After all, I have always said that yoga is about finding comfort in an uncomfortable situation. So we have done our best to make that happen in life and we are so much happier because of it! :)

Making homemade Valentines during homeschool :)

Valentines Day morning is always exciting when the kiddos wake up and come downstairs to their own special cookies baked with love from Mama :).

And this year they got some pretty cute socks too! :)

Nothing says Love on Valentines Day like cuddling up on the couch with my girl and falling asleep :). For a couple minutes at least... until Isla intervened.

Isla girl loves her glasses!

I am so grateful for my babes and the love they bring into my life, on Valentines Day and every other day of the year :).

Daddy bought Mama this beautiful silver locket that says "You are my sunshine" on it :). Inside the locket he wrote a little love note that I am not allowed to open up and read until after he dies. If that doesn't spell romantic then I don't know what does!!!