St. Patrick's Day 2020

The kids were staying at Grandma & Grandpa Hoekman's house for Grandma Great's funeral on the evening going into St. Patrick's day so we got a little creative with our celebrations. ;)  These two were so excited to make a Leprechaun trap. 

Here is their finished masterpiece.

The next morning, they were pumped to wake up and see these little Leprechaun footprints leading to the trap! They didn't see any little green creatures but they did find some tiny garden gnomes and treats inside. Big shout out to Grandma for making things magical.

We said goodbye to South Dakota and made the trip back to Wisconsin. Not gonna lie, it was very hard to give those hugs goodbye - we truly were not sure when we would see our family in person again. All around us schools and businesses were closing. Grocery stores were being overwhelmed, toilet paper shelves were empty. We were not being told to wear masks or PPE at this point but there was definitely messaging about protecting our elders. I remember a post stating, 'Your Grandparents were called to war. You are being called to sit on your couch!' We listened to the news constantly and started watching public health websites post daily numbers. That being said, we tried to make life as normal and 'fun' as possible during this crazy time so you better believe that we still wore our St. Patrick's Day gear on March 17!

Here is the crew outside! As you can see, I still do not trust little Leo on those cement steps! So lucky to be a mama to these three kiddos.

Of course we drank some green milk for dinner.

Here are some flowers from grandma's casket. Lucy was so careful to take them home and was sure to save the petals.

We made a stop at Roosevelt Elementary on our way back to the house; because the kids missed the last day of 'in person' school due to the funeral - we picked up a packet of homework from the office. We had some worksheets and journals to get us through a few weeks of 'At Home' learning. There was a quick note from the teacher as well as a bag of crayons, scissors, pencils, glue, etc in case we didn't have supplies at our fingertips. Looking through the assignments and seeing the calendar of at home time extend into April made the whole situation seem more urgent and real. 

One cute thing to note - Mrs. Wisse did send home Roman's sweet St. Patty's day art project. :)

Goodbye Grandma Great

On March 12, right when the world was starting to close down for quarantining and flattening the curve - we said goodbye to Great Grandma Lorraine Storm. We were sad, of course, but also so, so grateful that we were able to have had these precious years for our children to meet their great grandmother. I never knew any of my great grands so I am forever thankful that my kiddos could meet some of theirs! Also, looking back, it was a blessing that Grandma passed away right before lock down. I am happy that her last days were spent with family at her side rather than being lonely and isolated. 

Great Grandma Storm was the last of our grandparents to pass away so it was definitely the end of an era for Dan and me.

I just love that Lucy's honors Grandma through her middle name. I know that our Lucille Lorraine will continue a legacy of kindness, generosity, and love.

Because of the changing world around us, grandma's funeral plans shifted too - we went from a full prayer service + funeral plans to family only services. Our family traveled to South Dakota and Dan & I went back and forth on whether it was wise to take the kids out and expose them to germs. In the end, we did take Lucy and Roman to Mitchell for the service and burial and left Leo with Grammy Sharon. The big kids got all dressed up and were very proud that they looked so sharp.

Leo hung out with Grammy Sharon for the day.

In the end, I am very glad that we decided to bring the big kids. It was good for them to be with the family and important for them to say goodbye. This was Roman's Kindergarten journal entry the day that we returned to Wisconsin - It reads, 'Look at the casket. I was sad that she died. My family was there.' You can tell he did a lot of processing on this day. 

We will miss you and love you Grandma but we are grateful that you are at peace and are reunited with Grandpa in Heaven! 

March 2020 - The last 'Normal' Days

I'll be honest ... March has always been my least favorite month, the magic of winter is definitely gone and spring still seems far, far away. There are no holidays on the horizon and the days are bleak. Well, March 2020 sealed the deal and it proved to be one of the l-o-n-g-e-s-t, gloomiest months ever! We started out strong - I had a work trip to Florida on my calendar and we were supposed to take the train to visit Chicago over spring break. COVID 19 had been in the news over the weeks and months leading into March but it always seemed far away - outbreaks in China, Italy, and Spain. We would get periodic updates of positive cases in Washington state or New Year and even a couple in Madison but it still seemed liked a distant problem. It still seems hard to imagine how quickly everything in our lives came to a screeching halt. We started hearing rumblings of disruptions is early March; my HIMSS conference which is huge (40000+ attendees!) and was supposed to have President Trump as a featured speaker this year was cancelled less than a week from when it was slated to kick off. I was disappointed to miss my trip to Florida and to lose the opportunity to learn about the latest and greatest in electronic health records. That being said, in my mind, I still chalked up the HIMSS cancellation as one out of an abundance of caution, thousands of health care and IT professionals from across the country and world probably shouldn't meet up, potentially spread germs, and then go back to their home clinics.

That same week, UW Madison announced that students would not be returning to campus for weeks after spring break due to the virus. Life continued to move forward in Eau Claire, our family went to a STEM night at Roosevelt. 

The kids loved going to various learning stations.

And meeting up with their friends. We didn't know it at the time but this ended up being last time that our whole family set foot in Roosevelt! :(

Leo had a pajama day at his daycare in early March. Doesn't he look ready for the baseball season? He moved up to the Butterfly Room with Ms Maria and Miss Megan in January and was loving life with the 1 to 2 year olds.

This kiddo loves popsicles & sometimes falls asleep in his high chair depending on the day. :)

We continued to spend time outside and eagerly anticipated the arrival of spring! 

We visited the library - Leo loved this abacus in the children's area. 

I even optimistically snapped a picture of upcoming spring break events at the library. Even though my trip to Florida was cancelled, we were still planning to send the big kids to camp at the YMCA Sports Center and visit Chicago over the  break from school.

Roman worked on putting together a castle that he received for Christmas. This guy has such a big imagination and loves all things castles, knights, pyramids, and ancient Rome.

Lucy continued with her dance classes. She was taking ballet, jazz, and tap in 2020 and this is a picture from one of her last classes in the studio. 

Our poor pup had a very painful split toenail in early March. He was limping around so we scheduled a visit to the vet. Ranger ended up getting it removed and the vet bundled up his little paw.

Paw all fixed up, antibiotics given, let the lounging commence! :)

Early March was the last time that we were able to go out to eat before the state went into lock down. We went out for Mexican food on one of our last trips to a restaurant, Tuesday March 10. Of Course Roman was a total goof and he pretended to jump on the back of the stone lions in the lobby. Haha!

By the end of the 2nd week of March, COVID had been declared a pandemic, Tony Evers announced that all schools would be closing for the next 3 weeks (Eek!), and that all non-essential businesses would be shut down for the next few weeks. Even with all of the obsessive news watching, all of the monitoring of the Johns Hopkins website looking at the COVID numbers climb, that state of affairs still felt pretty hopeful and even cozy. We got so many emails from businesses stating that we were all in this together and that employees would continue to be paid during this time. We truly thought that if people did hunker down and stay at home that we could 'Flatten the Curve' and that life would go back to 'normal' somewhat soon. We started mentally preparing ourselves for a few weeks of homeschooling, no daycare, and having both Dan and I working from home. 

We kicked off our Quarantine time with a movie night.

These three love to snuggle together with popcorn and treats on Friday nights.

On Saturday, March 14 I dropped the kids off at their last Art Class at UW Eau Claire to have their final session and pick up all of their art projects. They were so proud of their masterpieces! 

Here are some of their shell drawings.

Here we are in front of the fine Arts building. During their class, Leo and I zipped to Target - our usual Saturday morning routine ;) It was during this trip that we first found the aisles of toilet paper were bare, the clorox wipes shelves looked like an apocalyptic wasteland, and there were no wet wipes for the baby! People were doing their shopping on the cusp of spending days at home and the shelves were becoming scarce. It was pretty disconcerting but it also reminded me of what a privilege it is to live in America and to even have the expectation that shelves would be fully stocked. I recalled traveling to places like Serbia and Cuba where shelves were bare or certain items on a menu just weren't available because ingredients were out.

We had tickets to see a performance of the Hobbit at the Children's Theater on that Saturday afternoon. Dan and Roman had been reading an illustrated version of the Hobbit and Romy was so excited to go to the show. Dan and I decided it would be safe to do one last event out before quarantining for the rest of spring. We went out to eat at the Classic garage before heading to the theater. Dan was sporting a beard even before the world started to pivot to leggings, sweats, beards, and limited showering. Hahaha! 

Leo loves eating at Classic Garage too! You can tell that he was in his early walking days with a big old bruise on the head. Ai yi yi!

Roman loves that they regularly switch out the cars on display inside the restaurant. 

After lunch we made our way to the theater. You can see that the backdrop was a map of Mordor!

Lucy wanted a picture with Gandalf. The show was awesome and we are so grateful to have a Children's Theater in our neighborhood.

Ending the post with some of the kids' art prints from class. I just love how these beauties turned out! 

We would spend the next weeks and months looking for unexpected beauty in a world of uncertainty.  

Late February Updates

Here is how we wrapped up February 2020 at the Storm Household...

We got this awesome tile in the mail! I had ordered this for Daniel's 40th birthday - our former vet from Madison's wife is an artist and she creates these amazing pet portraits. I just love how this turned out!

We celebrated Roman's half birthday at the end of February. 

Lucy made him this precious card which had been handing on Roman's bulletin board ever since. Man I love these kids so much.

Roman brought little cupcakes to share with his Kinder class. 

He came home with a fun straw as a gift from Mrs. Wisse and had a can of Fanta as treat.

Check out this fun half birthday crown!

We went to Roosevelt's Kindergarten Arts night. Roman had some beautiful art on display and we heard his class perform some very sweet songs. 

I started a project for Lent to clear out 40 bags of donations/trash from our house. I made it to about 5 or 7 bags before this effort went to heck! Maybe next year! ;)

We try to get to the dog park almost every day, even in the winter.

Sometimes the big kids come with me to explore.

They like crunching through the ice and snow.

Don't let these pictures fool you, I am sure that they were throwing snow at each other a minute later but they do look cute for a moment on this patch of ice!

We had the best visit to High Rollers with some friends in late February. These are two of Lucy's besties - Brooklynn and Abigail. These girls love to skate. :)

There is an arcade at the rink and these ladies played lots of games/earned tickets all afternoon too. We didn't know that the world was about to change dramatically due to COVID in just a few days so I am very grateful that we were able to have this fun time before everything shut down!

We continued our tradition of eating Lucky Charms on March 1st. Roman especially loves getting our annual box of rainbow marshmallows and lucky shapes.

The kids participated in a crazy sock day 

On March 1st Lucy was able to celebrate her first Communion. She took classes with Pastor Mary & wore a special dress to the big event.

A friend of ours snapped this picture from her pew - we were the first family to get Holy Communion on this Sunday. There is a stained glass window if the front of the church and, with the sun, it cast a rainbow down on Lucy & the patoral intern. I love it but Dan keeps joking about the 'clown hair' effects. Haha! 

Lucy felt like such a grown up! This was also the first Sunday that Leo 'escaped' during the service and walked/ran down the aisle. For a beginner walker, the kid sure is fast! All of our babies are growing up!