What a Year.

2020 was really one for the history books. This year started our as just a normal year, but quickly progressed into one that none of us will forget. 

As I look back on 2020, it is really hard to put all my feelings and thoughts down. What a year it has been. Joy, sadness, fear and enthusiasm are some of the emotions I have felt this year. I am amazed, shocked and proud to have lived during this pandemic and hopefully through it. 

Covid. The fear and unknown of Covid and constant changing information being thrown at us. Lockdown. Quarantine. All the Clorox and hand sanitizer. The store closing for a few months and the unknown of what was going to happen. Going back to work. Then not working. My dad having some health issues from medication he was taking and how scary that was. School shut down. Virtual school. Owen and Cash going back to school. Then back to virtual, then back to school. Eli starting middle school from the dining room table. The death of Kobe Bryant and Ruth Bader Ginzberg, Australian Wildfires. George Floyd's death and the conversations and protests around BLACK Lives Matter.....It was a year. 

We lost a years worth of family gatherings, holiday celebrations, kids going to school, kids being with friends. We figured out how to live, learn and commune remotely. Our world was rocked. People panicking and stocking up on food and leaving the shelves of HEB completely bare, the race to find any and all toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Clorox, water, the world was in a complete PANIC. 

I am so proud of how the boys have handled this unprecedented year. They took it in stride. Thank G-d they had each other, a wonderful yard to play in, bikes to ride, Messenger Kids and Xbox to connect with friends, they still had sports, and learned how to wear a mask anytime they left the house without complaints. They got creative with ways to pass the days with no friends, they settled in to this "new normal" and asked valid and honest questions about what was happening in our world and our country. I wonder what they will remember when they are adults about this time in their lives. I wonder how this will impact them. I wonder if we will ever really go back to what our normal used to be. So many things to wonder about and hope for. But as scary and crazy as this year has been, the boys have been absolute rockstars. 

As much as I am looking forward to a new year, we enter very timidly, but full of hope for a vaccine, and a glimmer of normalcy. 

Christmas/New Years Break

Usually the winter break is full of time with family and parties, get togethers and lots of time hanging out at my parents house. This year was a little different in that, well, there was none of that. I was feeling a little sad and anxious about how the break would look. But when it came down to it, all the pressure and expectations were gone and we ended up having a really lovely break. 

We waited and did all of our Hanukah gifts on Christmas morning like we have done the last few years. That seems to work best for our family. I honestly think it was the most fun Christmas day we have had!

Everyone was thrilled with their gifts (yay me!).  As the boys are getting older it is getting harder (and more expensive) to find gifts they really like.

It was a beautiful day and we spent the better part of the afternoon outside together. Blaine was off work this year and it was just a nice, low-key day all hanging out at home. We tried out our new basketball hoop, new shoes, beanies and hoodies!

Owen and Cash love going to work with me. I love it too, although sometimes I want to go to work to get away from everyone for a bit. But I have such fun memories of going to work with my dad when I was younger and I hope the boys have similar memories of being at the store with my dad, Rachel and I as well. So they got to come along with me a few times over the break. Janie usually puts them to work and they like to make bows. The main attraction though, is waiting for all the customers to leave and they run wild around the store. 

I do really get so much joy out of seeing them at the store. When they were both still virtual, they would come with me to the store and I would get them all set up upstairs in the office for school. They would call me downstairs on the phone a million times with ridiculous requests and questions and it just sounded like they were having so much fun up there together.

This guy. Well, we took these picture to send to a friend who gave us these pajamas, but he loved everything about the holiday time...the lights, Christmas trees, the presents, having everyone home all the time. This year the boys wanted them to each have their own wrapping paper so they knew whose gift was whose. Tripp came with me to get the wrapping paper and he chose Baby Shark paper. So when it came time to wrap gifts, and he knew which were his, he just started opening them! So I had to hide his gifts until Christmas morning. 

With the amazing weather we had, we went to the skate park almost every day. Here are a few shots from the park!

Just one of many random moments of these two being cute together.

This pictures makes me so happy. For so long Eli and Ty did not get to see each other because of covid. When we let up a little, we let them play outside together.  They needed it for their mental health. Eli and Ty, along with their friend Logan started riding their bikes to each others houses to play outside everyday. There are some good things that have come out of this last crazy year. Eli has gained a lot of independence in riding his bike around. Really any chance he gets he wants to ride his bike with Logan and Ty and they just yard jump to each others houses. 

But back to this picture....we had a random big rain and the two of them wanted to go out and play in the rain together. They have been best buds since they were 3. And they are at that weird tween age, so to see them playing like little kids together was so sweet! It reminded me that even though they are big and stinky and try and act all old and stuff, they are just still kids!

We traded in our usual New Years gathering with the Ladd's for our pj's and a fun blanket picnic on the living room floor with everyones favorite foods and sparkling cider followed by our own pop-its and sparkler show at 7:30pm (ha!). Owen was the only one who made it until midnight!

I needed to go to the Domain so Owen and Cash jumped at the opportunity to come with me. They saw a parkour course everywhere we walked as we aimlessly searched for the store I needed. They suckered me into stopping for milkshakes....and boy were they HUGE. They did not even make it through half of them.  But it was fun afternoon hanging out with these two.

Here is the bike crew that happened to land in our yard this particular day. They scored ice cream from the ice cream man who frequents our street.

Cash, Lola and Savannah got to have a slumber party at Ethans house! 

Owen and Cash both got new trick bikes for Hannukah. When they finally came, they went straight to work to put them together and get on the road. They have been riding them every single day since.

While it looked a lot different than every other year, it was a wonderful winter break filled with lots of fun, outside time and family time. We went back to school with a week of virtual learning before Owen and Cash were able to go back to in-person learning. Eli remained virtual!

No-mo Movember Please

 If you know Blaine, you know he does not grow much facial hair...at least not that isn't splotchy! So this year when November rolled around and he announced he was growing a mustache for Mo-vember, I am pretty sure I laughed it off. 

Well, he was the only one left laughing come December because he held out and grew himself a pretty impressive mustache! I guess if there was every a year to do it, this would be it....we don't go anywhere and if we do, we wear masks, so the stach was always covered up in public-ha!

He admired that mustache like nothing I have every seen. Even bought himself a little pocket mustache brush to keep it nice and tidy. I think he was just so shocked and equally impressed (along with all the guys he works with) that he was actually able to grow a thick, full on mustache for the first time in his life!

I gave him a hard time the entire time, it just wasn't for me. He had a hard time parting with it, but come mid-December it finally came off! 

I would give him subtle hints that it was time to come off. For example, I would yell "NO-MO MOVEMBER!" when December rolled around and I would catch him admiring his fluffy stache.

We took a few pictures for him to lovingly look back on.

Hanukah 2020

I really enjoyed Hanukah this year. Which is funny, because we did not do much. 

We lit the menorah every night and said the prayer. Thats it, really. We did not open any presents during Hanukah (we are waiting for Christmas for presents), or celebrate with all our cousins like we usually do. No latkes or dreidel. No night of opening presents at Lolli and Pops house. But every night we gathered around the menorah, the boys fought over whose turn it was to light which candles and we spent a minute doing it all together. 

On the first night we all toasted with some sparking cider after lighting the menorah and had baked potatoes instead of latkes!

The week leading up to Hanukah, Carol and Sharon put together a little art afternoon for the kids where they each got to decorate a menorah for our family. It was such a sweet and thoughtful thing to do and we all had so much fun! It was really cool to add this menorah to our collection that we all helped make.

On the last night, we had a family zoom with all our cousins who could make it and we lit the menorah together before lighting our own at home. It was fun seeing everyones faces but a Kruger/Lindauer zoom was a tad hectic!

The Friday after Hanukah was over, the boys and I and Rachel and the girls all went to Ethans for one of our fun dinners together and did a little Hannukah gift exchange for the kids. 

Needless to say, the make-up I gave the girls was a hit for all :) 

The week leading up to Hanukah, I got a call from one of the counselors at Kiker. She told me she had done little interviews with some kids at school and Owen was one of them. In his interview, he mentioned that he was Jewish and she said he seemed very proud of it. She was calling to see if he would be interested in making a video about how our family celebrates Hanukah that would be played for the entire school doing the assembly video on the last day of Hannukah. He said he would love to! We had a lot of fun making the poster and filming the video, and I must say, he did a great job!

Hannukah 2020 is in the books!