SD 80

It hit me today how long we’ve been socially distancing and dealing with this quarantine.  Too long. And it’s become apparent that even though we can’t see as many people or be in as many activities, we are still too busy.  I never thought doing less would be more exhausting. 🙄🤯. Nina and pops left today.  We miss them already.  I thought we’d have a nice slow family day but it ended up being busy.  All good things but it’s now almost midnight and we’re all still in the midst of busyness...I miss quieter days of early bedtimes.  But it was a good day...church online, cleaning, cat trapping, 3 zoom calls (hs soccer, middle school leaders, youth group...too much...I’m over zoom! 😤).  But I did get to see my bestie for her bday tonight and Shelby dropped off jed to caretaker Ethan and the two youngest got pool time with friends.  It was all good.  But this mama is ready for a vacay.  And not the one where kids are involved 🤯

SD 79–the cake bake shop for Shelby sweet 16—and kittens!!🧁🎂😻😻

What a fun day out with Nina galavanting to Carmel and indulging in cakes and pies and macarons at the Cake Bake Shop.  Such a beautiful place and bc of covid precautions we pretty much had the whole fancy room to ourself.  The cakes were huge, glittery and amazing (mine was featured on Oprah!). It was a fun girls day out/late sweet 16 celebration for Shelby.  Thanks, Nina, for such a special treat!!  And we feasted on Olive Garden take out for dinner and yummy bday cheesecake for dessert.  Plus the best thing was seeing our kittens again!  We love our Rudy bobtail and Oscar normal tail! 😹😹. And Hailey and Nina tagged along this time and Hailey fell in love with Jewel a black fluffy furball.  Now they are begging for 3 cats!!  Oh if we could just have a house full of kittens and they cleaned their own litter box! Lol 😻😻😻😻

SD 78–chillin and canoeing, picnicking and Culver’s

A nice mix of a day… I wasn’t feeling well this morning but pulled myself out of bed and went to meet one of my students. I have to say I think our preschool class this year was the absolute best and these kiddos are like family to me. I had plans to do a little walk around iu or something fun like that but it ended up raining and since I was feeling like poo I put my feet up for a while and rested while the kids did puzzles, wii and hung with Nina and pops. We got a call to trap kittens a couple hours later so nina and the girls and I headed to help our feral cat friends. 😻😻And after that we headed to Griffy Lake to canoe and kayak for a little while and then picnic at Lower Cascades by the waterfall. Such a nice day and evening and good times with Nina and pops… No one fell in the lake and we got a lost frisbee down from a very tall tree after about a half an hour of throwing shoes at it. 😂Cheap thrills LOL 😹and we end of the evening with dessert at culvers. Getting sad that Nina and pops only have one more day here but very relieved we get to follow them down to Destin and then to Fort Lauderdale! Hurrah!!🎉

Sd 77

SD 76

One of these days we’ll stop the social distancing countdown right? 😷 Though mostly these days I don’t feel too distant… I’m just really tired of masks and the weird new protocols.  Today was filled with busyness and laziness!  Two dental appointments, two haircut appts, a run to school for free school lunch, thank you writing and a lot of this and that… But the evening ended nicely with a date with my hubs… Chick-fil-A take out, driving and walking around the lake, eating dinner in a place that smelled like dead fish, and feasting on freddys custard at a cemetery. 😂 It was the essence of romance 😍. But it was nice to have peace and quiet and be together.  And Nina had 4 kids with her shopping and getting moes. Pops had Dyl at b-ball practice.  And took them all biking and running tonight. It’s definitely nice to have helping hands.  And big congrats goes out to two steg kids...Dylan won first prize for his codirected holocaust movie at the Telly awards (that he, ash and kev were all in as well). No idea what these awards are but Mariah Carey has won one so it’s a big deal I guess.  Also a huge deal is Shelby found out she was voted president of the orchestra for next year.  I won’t tell you her reaction bc it’s typical Shelb style🤣🤪 but I’m proud of her and know she’ll do a stand up job!  Way to go shelberino!  You can now officially be in charge of your bro who will be a freshman cellist! 😂🎼. So very proud of my kids… Even in a pandemic year they are still thriving! 🎉

SD 75

A very lazy day here in the steg household… I think the most excitement was Dylan finally got his haircut because you should know “it was weighing him down. And he was having trouble sleeping it was so long”😂 and pops came to the rescue three times… Once because Ash accidentally ordered Starbucks online and had to go pick it up…then to get Dylan his haircut after a 2 1/2 hour wait… And third to go back and tip the haircutter because Dylan forgot to do it while he was there🤦‍♀️ Pop saves the day! And he even bought us mother bears pizza for dinner! I spent the day working on thank you‘s for teachers and getting those mailings ready to send out… The kids helped with their teacher stuff… Hailey did puzzles all day… Yes she is that bored… Shelby had a couple zoom calls and lessons. Dylan was with pops a lot, did some basketball etc. etc. and we had a rousing game of wiffleball. Nina helped Sue sue most of the day. I’ll be honest the lazy days are nice and I kinda long for a day where I can say that I was bored. Today I wasn’t quite there yet. The only bummer was it rained the couple times I tried to go out and set up water stuff for Logan so we ended up putting his bathing suit on for no reason. Oh well. 🤷‍♀️

SD 74–Memorial Day ❤️💙🇺🇸

A wonderful Memorial Day at the lake dam with Nina and pops...picnicking, fishing, hammocking and just having a nice relaxing day.  Ended the evening with Dylan’s fav thing—b-ball. First practice back since March for travel ball.  He was in heaven.  It’s been a great family weekend.  Good for the soul to see family in person again! 🥰🥰

SD 73–Dylan’s backyard grad!

What a fun day celebrating Dylan’s 8th grade graduation in our backyard with Nina and pops!  Great weather great food great laughs and a happy family.  My heart is full! 🥰👍

SD 72

Are we really Social distancing anymore? I guess I need to stop putting that as my title LOL. It was the best day because we finally got to see for our family members’ faces in person!  Yay for a double visit from both ninas and pops’!!!  Kevs parents did a backyard visit and then Nina and pops from Florida surprised the kids and showed up at the back door.  Yippee yay yay!  It’s been a great day! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

SD 71

Busier days and trapping cats! 😻oh and Hailey finished her freshman year of college!🎉

SD 70–The day Dylan virtually graduated middle school

Days are seeming more normal here. Seeing more people (visited one of my sweet preschool students, saw a sweet friend who brought us surprise pizza after my broken phone mental breakdown and saw more friends later on for lo and ash). Dyl hangs with our neighbor friend every day doing b-ball outside. And Shelby played with her gerbil and made cat toys all day. It would have been a perfect day had my phone not completely crashed yesterday and I lost five months of stuff. That was a tough thing to handle overnight. But on the happy side out super awesome tall Dyl virtually graduated from middle school today!  We are so proud of that cool kid and excited for his high school career! Hopefully we can have a nice backyard graduation when the weather is better!👨‍🎓👏🙌👊

SD 69—the day my phone died...

...And I lost so much info I cried. I had a feeling the day was coming and in the midst of a stressful Kroger run my dear phone rolled out of my cart to its final death.  To say I was devastated was an understatement. 💩😢😫. It was already an emotional day dropping off the kids iPads at school and picking up their supplies and being met by hazmat suits😜😷

SD 68–kitten meet n greet

I was so plum tuckered out last night that I forgot to post! And it was actually an awesome day because we got to meet our new kittens! Ash and Shelb went with me to our friends house to see them. We also got to help socialize some feral cats and check in and medicate some other new kittens. It was a full evening of kitties kitties kitties! But we can’t wait to have our new kittens pretty soon!

SD 67

Well today was my official last day of work! And probably the first day that has felt normal in the last two months. I worked a full day getting all of our kiddos’ scrapbooks to them and saying our goodbyes… But definitely strange doing so through mast faces and air hugs and air kisses via a drive by! Not an ideal send away for preschool kids who love to be loved! 😫😷🚙🚗But we made the best of it and it was a bittersweet day of saying goodbye to so many families that were so dear to us this year!  What a crazy ending to a school year! And for my partner in crime and myself extra bittersweet since we are both staying home next year with our families and not working at all. Though at this point I’ll be shocked if we’re not homeschooling our own children. But it was a good morning of seeing lots of people, and besides the masks and a bit of social distancing it was great to socialize and see faces again and even have lunch together with teacher friends. Plus we got to stop by one of our favorite preschoolers’ homes and catch up for a bit as well! I love it when preschool parents become friends! I’m very blessed this year! But I definitely missed my family today and it gave me a tad bit of anxiety to be gone all day.   This pandemic time has shown me how much I actually love to be home!  And I don’t really like to miss being home when my family is here… I’m honestly not sure what they did all day… I think Logan played wii LOL And when I got home he watercolored about a dozen papers LOL. Dylan was on his phone with his friends most of the day and outside playing with a friend doing basketball and other games…He’s Mr. social. Ashley was on the phone most of the day with her friend planning their virtual lemonade stand...Shelby played with her gerbil and did violin and had a virtual lesson… Kev worked all day and got us our free school lunches… And Hailey finished her bio exam thankfully…The days just go on by!

SD 66

It’s been a rocky day and I’m glad it’s over.  I am heading to bed now and hoping to start the week off better tomorrow!

SD 65

Well today our county finally moved to stage two of quarantine. For us that meant nothing because we are still going to try to keep mostly to ourselves. The only venturing out we did was when Kevin went to Lowe’s to get garden stuff. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the entire main floor which definitely needed it after two months of quarantine and homeschooling.  Poor Hays is in the depths of college exam despair. I feel for her because I think even cleaning looks exciting compared to what she was doing. And of course shelb had fun planting the garden tonight with daddy. It’s nice to get things done but I kind of long for a little bit of relaxation. We haven’t really had a ton of that even in these last two months because there’s just been a lot of busyness going on even in isolation. Hopefully tomorrow can be slightly relaxing but Sundays tend to be very busy with 3 to 5 church zoom calls   Oh joy… Have I mentioned zoom is my least favorite thing about quarantine. 😖🤯

SD 64

Well tonight at midnight we officially move to phase 2 of social distancing. Though my observation while bike riding through the neighborhood tonight is that most people have already moved to phase 2. I think half the neighborhood had people on their front and back porches cooking out and chatting. I get it. We all need some social interaction. Tomorrow stores and restaurants will partly open again. I’m not saying I’m going to go to them, but it’s a weird feeling to know we are moving back to normal. I’m not sure I really want to go back there.

Sd 63

SD 62

This day has been one where I wanted to cry and just crawl into bed… Having an early morning dental procedure that didn’t go as planned and then working six hours while feeling kind of cruddy was not what I had hoped for. But the good thing is is it’s almost done and I can move onto the next one LOL 😖

SD 61

SD 60

It hit me today that we have been social distancing for about two months! In many ways it feels like it’s been a year but in other ways it seems like it just started. And I have to say I kind of like this new normal if we wanna call it that. I get a little nervous thinking about jumping back in to any kind of activity or even doing simple things like going back to church.   It’s made me realize that I really like to live a simpler life and don’t really need a lot of contact.  I love quieter days and less chaos because I’ll be honest our house is not really quiet or non-chaotic anyway LOL. This was the first Monday in the last two months that we didn’t have school. It was strange to not have an agenda when I woke up. And to be honest I didn’t get a whole lot done and it was nice.  And now we essentially have three months off from school. I’m pretty sure I begged and prayed for a summer like this along the way in the last two years. And my new prayer now is that I don’t waste it. That I have the energy to invest in my family and the energy to get my house back in order and make a new more organized way of life. But this week I rest. I’m not gonna lie the last couple weeks have been tough. And I think I finally realize that I do deserve to rest...and maybe part of this pandemic is God allowing me to do that. I sure pray so! Because I want to have my energy for my family💗

Happy Mom’s Day! SD 59

What a beautiful and wonderful and restful Mother’s Day! Definitely weird to not have to go anywhere but definitely a dream come true as well! I always wish for a Mother’s Day to just stay home and I believe this is the first one we have actually gone absolutely nowhere unless you count a walk. I loved having all my babies under one roof on Mother’s Day as well as enjoying yummy food, movies, games and a little walk in the nearby school nature preserve. I definitely miss seeing my mama since she should’ve been here for this Mother’s Day, but I’m very thankful for FaceTime where we could see both Ninas! There is something to be said for the slower lifestyle.  I was very grateful for a very slow Mother’s Day after such a crazy emotional week!

SD 58 spa day for Shelby

Today was a nice lazy ish day...We had our surprise sweet 16 spa day for Shelby and just chilled in our new living room which is our dining room LOL watched a couple old Disney movies ate good food and had little to no agenda. Hallelujah!

SD 57 first day of summer!!!

Waking up to being soaking wet in a tent is a great start to summer!  This mama I exhausted!  I’ve had a hard time keeping my eyes open. The end of school combined with the sweet 16 celebration was great but energy zapping!   Excited for the weekend of rest! 🎉😴

Last day of school! Chs 27 sd56

 Woohoo!   We made it to the last day at of school!  And it was a crazy one including a late sweet sixteen scavenger hunt with two new kittens arriving in the steg house soon.  The kids are sooo excited!!!😻😻

Shelby is sweet sixteen!🎉🎉🎉

Wow.  What.a day. So blessed by friends and family. Shelby had a most wonderful day filled with drivebys, a parade, a zoom call trivia with fam, a glamour shot shoot with mom and a real photo shoot too!  Tons of friend and family lovin and beautiful gifts and delicious food. Love our Shelb so much and she deserved a special day bc she’s beyond special!  Love you Shelby grace and will write a more special bday memoir later 🥰🎉🥳Happy quarantine Sweet Sixteen!!!💗🌸🌷

Chs 25 sd 54

Woo hoo! Someone is almost Sweet 16 and she’s letting us know it! And the best part is she finished school today—2 days early!!!🎉

Chs 24 SD 53

Well it was our first day of the last week of school! I cannot tell you how excited we are for Friday and to just have it all over with! I don’t mind the social distancing at all but I’m just kind of over the e learning. Lots of bday prep today for our sweet 16-er which is hard to do when we’re all in the same house and never leaving LOL. Not much element of surprise unless we are banning her from certain floors of the house! Which we have done! So she turned to cleaning today which is what she usually does when she’s bored LOL.  May the fourth be with you!

SD 52

Cake, videos, zoom calls and a surprise teacher drive by!🥰🤪🤣😜

SD 51

A beautiful day here but we’re in birthday prep mode for the sweet 16 so we got a lot going on even In this pandemic time! And Hailey is making us a very fancy meal called ratatouille where she’s making her own pasta and vegetable mix. I feel so cultured LOL and we have to dress up and use use manners!  Heaven help us!  Ha! 😂💪

Sd 50

Long day. Shopping. Everyone is back out like life is normal. Supposed to be allowed out tomorrow but our stay at home order is extended 2 more weeks.  Sigh.