Yes, It's Been a Year and a Half, but I Get Reminders on My Phone Now So Maybe it Won't Happen Again?

 Life happens, right? 2020 hit hard. Since I'm a stay-at-home Mom, you might think I wasn't really affected too much. After all, it's right there in my title: stay at home. Except, I like liked to take my kids places a couple times a week where someone else planned the activity and I just got to enjoy being with my kids. We went to storytime at the library every week. Caleb had just bought us a membership to the children's museum. We went grocery shopping all together, which totally counts.

And then, suddenly, all of that stopped. I was not prepared. I like to be prepared. And it was only supposed to be two weeks. (HAH!)

After falling over and reeling a bit, I came up with some plans. Not all of them worked so well, but one of them was this ABC craft for Jo. I tried to include Micah, but he wasn't super interested. Over a few months, she put together these crafts I prepared. Most of the ideas were from this page, but for a few of the letters, I liked other options better. 

We had them as a border in our dining area for a good portion of the year.

I think N is for Night might be one of my favorites she did. She had a blast painting it and got very creative. Jo splattered some blue paint over the page because "it's a rainy night".

I took up cross-stitching, which I kind of fell in love with. Here's my first project - a good reminder for every day:

Pattern from Etsy

I also took up watercolors (I found a cheap set at Meijer) and I'm having a lot of fun with that. I created a painting board for myself, so I can paint at the table if I want, and then move the painting off the table without disturbing it.

I sanded, stained, and sealed a pine board from Lowe's, then added two handles on each side to make it easier to carry. A year and a half later (with lots of use), it's still in perfect condition.

These were some of my first painting attempts. I've improved so much since then (more on that later), so it's fun to look back on.

Lots more has happened since then, and you can actually look forward to reading more about that because I've set reminders on my phone to write. :)

Love and Sunshine,

Leah Joy