April 2020 High Lows

April was a bit crazy in the Snow household to say the least so let's get to it.

H I G H S
+Taylor turned 5! His quarantined birthday consisted of strawberry poke cake and playing with his gifts. He loves when he gets mail and packages delivered specifically for him so birthday cards and a few presents coming in the mail from family made his day complete.
+The kids loved Easter. Coloring eggs and getting goodies in baskets is pretty exciting when you're a kid. I don't think Olive quite grasps the concept of the Easter bunny coming into our house and Taylor has a curious mind and has been surprising me with questions like "how can a bunny carry a basket?" and "how does a bunny know how to hide eggs?" He might be onto us.
+You may remember that I finished my fostering classes back in February. Because of scheduling conflicts with work trips and then the Coronavirus happenings, Andrew's finally two classes kept getting pushed back. But he finally finished his classes this month. We both individually completed 11 in-person classes and a few online classes for a total of 53 hours of training each. That doesn't include the stacks of paperwork completed, the many hours of in-home interviewing, or the preparation and execution of a successful home inspection. We submitted to the state and six days later, our license was approved!
+Speaking of, we have a new house guest. Baby J has been the apple of everyone's eyes. He is just the most lovable baby and we're so happy to have him in our home.
+Before the Coronavirus, I had never participated in a Zoom call. Now they are a regular occurrence for me. I have loved getting on Zoom calls with friends for late night chatting and with family for playing games together.
+We finished planting our garden. It's pretty much all tomato plants because they're easy to grow and I know we can eat a lot of tomatoes. Maybe next year we'll branch out more.

L O W S
+Everyone has heard of the terrible twos, but we're experiencing the less often discussed threenager phase and furious fives. It's been rough parenting wise.
+Being a foster home means tons of paperwork, phone calls, meetings and doctor appointments. Everything is being done remotely (besides the pediatricians) because of the current circumstances which means I have at the very least one Zoom call a day. It also means I have to always have my phone on me. If you know me, you know I'm not the most responsive via phone. Now I have to be vigilant 24/7 to not miss any important calls or emails coming in. It has been a real adjustment.
+We have a newborn in the house so I've been getting a lot less sleep and my Dr Pepper addiction is in full force.
+Coronavirus. We didn't really go many places before, but occasionally I'd take the kids to do something for a change of pace or I'd casually walk the aisles of Target or I would send Andrew to pick up groceries and he'd have the older two tag along. It's been weird never leaving the house. Worth it though to help slow the spread, but definitely looking forward to things easing back into some sort of new normal.