We got several pool days in this month!
With plenty of snack breaks - frozen fruit being a favorite.
Backyard s'mores
Lots of Lego and Duplo block creations going on in this house
Rock painting
Daniel pressure washed the back yard...and the kids.
They also had a great time making forts with the patio furniture and jumping on the furniture cushion pile!
Brooklyn and I visited her teacher, Ms. Jen (from a distance).
Stars Wars Day during distance learning - May the 4th be With You!
Preschool homeschooling
Quarantine Costco runs look like this (and takes 4 hours from leaving the house to finishing disinfecting):
(Art for Kids Hub) cards for the nurses, doctors & staff in the COVID-19, E.R and I.C.U. units at Sharp Chula Vista
Brooklyn was looking for a ladybug for her garden for so long and finally found one!
Baking coffee cake for Grammie (while wearing her new belt that she's obsessed with...that Grammie saved from 30 years ago)
Garage workouts - Landon beat Daniel at number of push presses. The kids joined us for a couple of workouts and biked along on some little runs.
We went to Landon's teacher, Ms. Rentner's, pop-up porch library and borrowed a bunch of books. Both kids were silent on the way home and went straight to the backyard to read all of the books. Landon wouldn't even get his swimsuit on until he finished a book.
We received our Coronavirus stimulus check and haven't been affected by Coronavirus, so we wanted to put the money toward some people who have been more affected. We looked into local hospitals, but no hospital in Riverside County seemed to be impacted much by COVID-19. We came across Sharp Chula Vista, who had staff that hadn't seen their families in person in weeks because they were staying in hotels to keep their families safe. So during Nurses Appreciation Week, on our 11th wedding anniversary, we donated Panera lunches and cards to 175 nurses, doctors and staff in the Emergency Dept, ICU and 2 COVID-19 units at Sharp Chula Vista. The kids were really excited to make cards (drawings from Art for Kids Hub) for the nurses and doctors, and they did a great job!
Sharp put a write-up about our donation in their Health News (https://www.sharp.com/health-news/temecula-family-supports-chula-vista-caregivers.cfm):
Giving to others is a value that runs deeply through the Kelepouris family. Nicole Kelepouris and her husband, Daniel, have raised their two young children, Landon (age 7) and Brooklyn (age 5), to think of others as often as possible.
“Every time they receive an allowance, they put some into savings, keep some to spend and share the rest with someone else. That’s our family philosophy,” says Nicole. “We talk about different causes they could support and the kids get to choose where to donate their money.”
Their recent donation to Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, however, was a family decision. The family received their stimulus check in April and knew they wanted it to benefit those serving on the front line.
“We know how lucky we are that we’re healthy and safe at home, so we wanted the money to help someone or something impacted by COVID-19,” Nicole says. “A friend who is a nurse suggested supporting the staff at Sharp Chula Vista.”
Nicole contacted Sharp Chula Vista and was put in touch with Christy Rheam, development associate at the Sharp HealthCare Foundation. Nicole learned about staff who are taking steps to protect their families, which sometimes means not being able to be close to them when they get home.
“As a mom, the thought of having to stay at a hotel for weeks or months away from my family, only communicating through video messaging and not being able to hug my babies is gut-wrenching," Nicole says.
She and her family were able to buy 175 meals for the doctors, nurses and other front-line staff in Sharp Chula Vista’s intensive care and emergency departments, as well as the hospital’s two nursing units, caring for patients with COVID-19. Landon and Brooklyn made a special donation all on their own: handmade cards featuring words of encouragement and support.
“It was Landon’s idea to make cards for the staff,” Nicole says. “He and Brooklyn love watching Art for Kids Hub, a family YouTube channel that offers art lessons. It was a great way for the kids to really understand the reward of doing something for someone else in need.”
The Kelepouris family decided to drive from Temecula to Chula Vista to hand-deliver the meals and cards. They were greeted by several staff members who expressed their gratitude for the gifts.
“We chatted a bit when they came outside to pick up the food,” Nicole says. “We asked what a normal day is like for them these days; they shared a little about what it’s like to take care of patients with COVID-19 and said it’s a different life inside the hospital.”
“The staff at Sharp Chula Vista were so appreciative and they’re going through so much more than those of us outside the hospital walls,” Nicole added. “We did what we could do and I would encourage others to do the same if they have a desire to help those on the front line.”
In the evening, the kids dressed up and served us our anniversary dinner (and ate theirs under the trampoline). Then we all watched our wedding video.
The next day was Mother's Day, so we visited both Babcia and Grammie. We took Babcia an In N Out lunch (Landon gave me a massage while we waited in the drive-thru line) in their front yard and Grammie a BJs dinner in their back yard. It was the first time we saw Grammie & Papa in 2.5 months and was so unnatural to keep our distance but so nice to see them.
Grammie and Papa set up a belated Easter egg hunt (and the kids had a water gun fight, played soccer and read books)!
On our way home, we took a detour to see the bioluminescent phytoplankton in San Clemente. The kids loved getting to put their toes in the sand!
Grammie even sent us home with a bunch of her famous "wawas!"
One day the kids did a whole bunch of worksheets together, having a great time working as a team.
We've read so many books to each other the last couple of months! Brooklyn has improved her reading so much this month, now reading "Pete the Cat" books with almost no help. Landon read 25 books in one day to fill up an entire sticker chart so he could watch a movie "and also because I like reading, but mostly I love watching movies." He did the same the next day and another time within a week.
The sleepovers continue!
Daniel went to Peter's for a boys' night Zoom call, taking all the precautions!
Family bike ride to picnic with apples/caramel, play Sequence for Kids and a few games of hide-and-seek.
Brooklyn and I had a great time playing Sight Word Bug Splat, borrowed from her preschool/Ms. Jen. It was perfect for her - sight words, a game and BUGS! Landon even joined in for a couple of games!
Distance learning continued. As much as Landon loves reading, he was very, very nervous about a reading assessment where he had to record himself reading and answering comprehension questions for his teacher to review. Poor guy.
The kids listened to the librarian virtually reading "The Book With No Pictures" while Brooklyn followed along in their book.
Superhero Day! Brooklyn has loved coloring for some time, and now she's begun drawing a bunch too.
These kids love dressing alike!
We tried to watch the jet flyovers (for the hospital workers), but we couldn't see them from our trampoline.
Brooklyn learned how to whistle, and Landon learned how to snap. For several days Brooklyn practiced her whistling pretty much every waking moment.
We had an at-home Mother's Day celebration day the following weekend, and it was perfect - cuddles and beer cheese fondue.
We started working on Landon't robotic Tumbling Hedgehog. He and Daniel put the motor together, I took a turn with him to work on the shell, and the boys finished it off.
The ice cream truck came by. Due to some COVID-19 reason there were only 4 choices, but the kids were happy with Captain America and Hello Kitty.
Letter practice!
Balance practice!
...with Rainbow Sprinkles!
When you're stuck sheltering in place, you get creative...like competitions of blowing Q-tips out of straws into the trash can.
Landon has enjoyed learning to draw with Art for Kids Hub for about a year, and Brooklyn just began to love it. One day she did 8 drawings with Art for Kids Hub because she was having so much fun. Sometimes they use oil pastels on the YouTube channel, so we bought some. The day they arrived Landon saw them and ran over to me to say thank you and give me a huge hug, all of his own volition (not an everyday occurance, so I savored it!).
Brooklyn caught another lizard. She held and pet it for over an hour until it dropped its tail and she thought she pulled it off and killed it (devasted her!). She got upset again when she couldn't find it. And again when she saw a butterfly and another lizard that she wasn't able to catch.
(Rainbow) Common Side-Blotched Lizard
They made a movie fort.
Daniel somehow convinced them to do his chores for him. Landon tested the chemical levels, and Brooklyn scrubbed the pool, pruned and helped replant some palms.
Daniel decided to take the kids camping one night...backyard camping. We set-up the tent....
...made camping grilled cheeses...
...s'mores, of course...
...prepared for the cousins, "Home Alone" style, to come by and scare us (as we did to them when they camped the previous weekend)...
We covered both gates, one with a string to lead to noisy kitchen utensils hanging on a tree and the other with Landon's motion sensing spy gear. Peter and Jacob stopped by and saw the string on one side so they went to the other side and got caught by the hidden motion sensor, and we chased them to the front with water balloons. Brooklyn wrote them a chalk message and decided to put squeezies out to entice them to come in "because Lucas loves squeezies...and Zoe too!" and was so proud of how clever an idea it was! She was so cute about it!
...played a couple of tent games (all 3 of them are better at Memory than me)...
...then I slept in my cozy bed while they camped.
In the morning I snuck into the tent while everyone was still asleep, and when Landon woke up we played a few domino games.
Family bike ride
After a while, Landon wanted to ride on the streets and Brooklyn wanted to stay in the dirt, so the boys and girls split up. On our way back Brooklyn wanted to take a break in the shade, and, as luck had it, she found a snail family that she wanted to take home.
She loves all bugs/spiders/little creatures!
Zoe had been wanting make-up like Brooklyn, so when she got it she requested a virtual make-up party. The girls did the moms' and their own make-up while Zooming.
Landon straps his favorite stuffed animal to his bike whenever he rides.
Brooklyn volunteered to do some Body Combat one day.
Family game of Twister, then the kids helped me cook. Landon really enjoyed prepping the veggies for stir fry, and Brooklyn loved making the fried rice and helping stir the chicken and veggies.
