Easy and Fun Idea for the Kiddos

Here’s a great idea for your kids that takes minimal to no prep at all – host a sleepover in one of your kiddos’ rooms. Or, if they normally share a room, let them sleep in the living room.

As we speak, my girls are in Squid’s room giggling away. We set up Wormy’s sleeping bag on the floor next to Squid’s bed, and laid down the following ground rules (aka summer band camp rules apply):

1. We shouldn’t be able to hear your voices from outside your room.

2. You must get some sleep. If you are crabby tomorrow morning, there won’t be any other sleepovers. If you are in a good mood tomorrow, maybe we can do more of these.

That’s it. Simple enough. We didn’t want to kill ALL of their fun. At Christmas time, we have a tradition in our house that we sleep in the living room with the Christmas tree lights lit all night. If your kiddos sleep in the same room, maybe you could do something fun like have them bring their sleeping bags to the living room and pop on a fun movie. My kids never fall asleep if there’s a movie on, but maybe you’ll have better luck.

Either way, I’m sure my girls are going to be talking about this for awhile!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

It Takes a Village…

Two days ago, my little cheerleader Wormy had a rough day. And when she’s having a rough day, you know times are stressful. There are many mornings I think to myself “why do I need to get out of bed this morning?” Then, Wormy comes bounding in, tells me it’s cuddle time, and then tells me she’s hungry and we need to get our day started. Who can resist those big smiles and hugs?

So, when Wormy was upset Sunday morning, I knew it was going to be a long day. She was crying about every moment going wrong for her. Finally, we just sat in the recliner and cuddled. I told her it was ok to be sad and upset. And then we just sat there. No reason to go rushing off, plenty of time to just sit and be sad, which is not normal in our lifestyle. It was weird to think that it was nice to take time to honor those sad feelings, and let them have their time.

After posting Wormy’s sad face on facebook, so many of my friends and family jumped in with encouraging words, funny videos, virtual hugs, and acknowledgements of their own bad day. I shared each and every message and text with her, and it cheered her up so much. “All of these people sent messages for ME?” She said there was no way she could be sad again until the next night’s bedtime, thanks to everyone’s well wishes. She got to talk to her grandparents online, she got a parade from some close friends who she adores, and she got to play outside on a nice sunny day. By the end of the day, she was feeling much better. We had the added bonus of a video chat set up with a friend from her class for the following day as something to look forward to.

The moral to this story is be sure to take time to feel sad, upset, lost, and/or stressed. Once you acknowledge these feelings, know that there are many people out there who are willing to help you through them. We are all here with you – even if it’s not in person! Say the word and help will arrive.

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Saturday Night at the Ballet

We’ve been living it up on the free performances! Last night, we watched Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” stream (a new one each Friday night!), and tonight was the Opera National de Paris production of “Swan Lake” (they have many more productions to watch on their site). It is like PBS’s Great Performances on steroids over here. I’m not sure which is better, though – watching the productions and thinking about how there’s no way we could have had this great of a view in the seats our family can afford, or watching my 5-year old daughter completely captivated by both performances. My 10-year old loved them both, too, but I kind of expected her to be into it all.

We had a turkey in the freezer from back when they were cheap (Thanksgiving time). We decided to make that and have “Thanksgiving in April.” As we sat down to eat our feast of turkey and stuffing, we went around and thought about all the things we are thankful for in this crazy time. It was nice to focus on gratitude, instead of stress and uncertainty. I highly recommend it to anyone else who may have bought a spare turkey last November!

Mmm, mmm!

Here’s the links to the Paris National Opera and Andrew Lloyd Weber streams:

Paris National Opera (they have the Barber of Seville and Carmen coming up!): https://infos.operadeparis.fr/optiext/optiextension.dll?ID=LhgLgkNYkqX4QHBDMRrImMymEk0xmadHzdGlgJQFYkBNAlCvTKVkJTsuLXcA2JT8ItkVIC0KnBjQ3q5T3nmHMM7SHL59L

Andrew Lloyd Weber (next week is Jesus Christ Superstar): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmPjhKMaXNNeCr1FjuMvag

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

A Resource to Help

Here is a resource our state has put together with tips on coping with staying at home: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/resilient/index.htm. There are all sorts of ideas for staying in contact with others safely, taking care of yourself, and even help for those who are working in the medical field.

We didn’t do anything exceptionally wild and crazy today to share with you all. We did enjoy the Andrew Lloyd Weber stream of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, and we watched “Onward” on the day it came out (thanks, Disney+). We spent every possible moment outside today in order to soak up the warmth before the cold comes back. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Isolation Kindness Challenge

Today was really good for our souls. It was a bright, sunny, warm day. And we had big plans to brighten our day and the day of others!

The girls did their schoolwork outside today. Squid took over the play set – I brought out a bean bag chair and a blanket for her (since it was still a little chilly in the morning), and she got right to work. Wormy and I worked on the deck. Working outside made schoolwork fly by!

Working hard…

After lunch, we went out to the driveway to create our own backdrops for some fun. Wormy wanted to be a butterfly, so she made butterfly wings for us to take turns getting pictures inside. Squid wanted to draw a cat and the Eiffel Tower so that she had ‘souvenir pictures’ from our couch travels last week. I wanted to draw the infamous “Up”-inspired balloon backdrop. It was really fun and they all turned out really well!

I’m sure you’ve seen this great idea floating around the internet

My favorite part of the day was a birthday parade we created throughout North Prairie. Three of Squid’s friends have birthdays today. A few weeks back I got to thinking about how rough it would be if my girls had birthdays during this time. I know how much Squid was looking forward to celebrating her friends’ birthdays with them (she even had a countdown on her chalkboard in her room). If that’s how excited SHE was about their birthdays….what about the girls who were having the birthday? I knew those girls would remember this year’s birthday very well, as it is so odd. However, I really wanted to create a way for them to remember this birthday for as a HAPPY memory instead of as a year their birthday wasn’t celebrated in the way they wanted.

Squid’s classroom has a Facebook page, set up by her super awesome teacher. I used this page to ask if any families would be interested in parading past the girls’ homes on their birthdays. The response was overwhelming! So many families were willing to do it! And, when this afternoon’s meet-up time came, there they all were. Some with balloons to drop off, others with amazing signs, and so many with some great yells of birthday greetings! The birthday girls definitely felt special, and it was SO great to see families from the girls’ school again! So many smiling faces! Squid’s teacher and principal were even part of our parade! How cool is that? It made me so happy that my girls go to a school with such caring families and staff. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I got a little (or more) teary-eyed during this event.

Playing “Happy Birthday” out a car window. Something to cross off the bucket list (after I add it on there first?!?)

Today was exactly what we needed. We ended with a beautiful walk through the subdivision. It’s days like today that help us get through the craziness of our current situation.

This brings me to my challenge to you all – in the next week, in what way can YOU make a difference in someone else’s life? How can you bring happiness to others? Even the smallest gesture can bring that same happiness right back to you!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Crossing Things Off the List

We are now halfway into our 3rd week of this self-contained life and I feel like we are finally getting the hang of this. Although, as I say this, I should point out that we are not without the difficulties of those ‘bad days’ where you feel like the walls are closing in.

Today wasn’t overly fancy. However, my one tip for you today is to think of those things you’ve wanted to get off your To-Do list that have been on there for weeks, months, and maybe even YEARS. For me, this meant finally teaching Wormy to tie her shoes. I remember needing to be able to do this in order to go to kindergarten (or maybe that’s what my parents told me?!?). Squid had to learn how to do it before she got through kindergarten. Now, Wormy has not heard boo about having to learn to tie her shoes. So we hadn’t done it. It’s not that we didn’t want her to learn…it just was at the bottom of the to-do list. WAY at the bottom.

It had been a struggle with Squid, so that is probably why this was not moved up on the list. We even had to learn a ‘new’ way to tie shoes that worked better for Squid.

Fast forward to today. I sat down with my hiking shoes and Wormy. She got one shoe, and I got the other. I walked her through it once, and she followed really well. I showed her some tips to tweak her skills on a 2nd try, and then she was determined to try it herself. On the 3rd try, she nailed it. I thought it was just luck. Nope. She did it again. I figured she wouldn’t remember how to do it in 10 minutes, so I made her show her daddy when he came up from his online meetings. Nope. Still got it.

FINALLY it was nice out today – sun shining, warm temps, so we went for a walk. I had Wormy tie my shoes for me. She still had it. In fact, I had tied one of my shoes before I had her tie my other one. The shoe I tied didn’t make it through the whole walk. The shoe she tied did. Maybe she should teach me?

In other news, I also think I have completed my New Years resolutions as well. Guess I need to revise them a little….

Hope you all had a great day!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Hogwarts School is Open!

Today after the girls got done with their online class work, Hogwarts was in session! Since we are *hopefully* going to Universal Studios in Orlando this summer (fingers crossed!), my husband and I have bought the interactive Harry Potter wands on eBay to save some money. Since Squid is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, after having completed the series in 2 months, we knew she would be begging to get a wand. We also knew Wormy wasn’t going to want to miss out on this, too. However, if you wanted to do this at home, you could just grab some branches from the yard! You can easily find spells online to learn as well.

Since the wands came in the last few weeks, I decided we should put them to good use. We are going to learn a new ‘spell’ each day and practice them so that hopefully by the time we get to go to Universal and try out our skills in Hogsmeade, we will be pros. I did not order myself a wand, so I used a good ‘ole fashioned music baton!

The girls don’t know it yet, but the Hogwarts Sorting Hat is arriving tomorrow as well. We will definitely be sorting the girls into their respective houses and having fun with that tomorrow. Listen for yelling if Squid doesn’t get put into Hufflepuff….

However, for today, we learned the “Silencio” spell. I drew the wand movements on our chalkboard and had them practice over and over again. The kept calling me “Professor McGonagall”. We then grabbed out favorite stuffed animal and practiced the spell on him/her. I also told them that they could use the spell on each other, but that they needed to remember to “unsilencio” each other, as well, or else the spell will no longer work. Hahaha.

After we got done working on our spells, we did this amazing Escape Room designed by librarians in PA. The Escape Room was really fun, and both girls were able to contribute answers to the questions. You can find it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflNxNM0jzbZJjUqOcXkwhGTfii4CM_CA3kCxImbY8c3AABEA/viewform

Until tomorrow, fellow Harry Potter fans!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Benvenuto In Italia

For today’s staycation, we toured Italy with the girls. My husband went to Italy this summer on a music department trip, and I had traveled with my sister in the summer of 2005.

Beautiful Florence in 2005

We started off by showing the girls our travel photos. Squid was not so thrilled about all of the naked dude statues in Florence. Wormy was a little too excited about the naked guy statues…..I had been to Florence/Pisa, Rome/Vatican, and Naples/Pompeii. My husband had gone to Venice, Rome/Vatican, and Florence/Pisa.

Ahh, I’d love to go back to Italy!

After we were done, we had lunch. I made my mom’s Spaghetti Carbonara recipe. I had also picked up some sparkling Italian sodas from Aldi the last time that they had the Italian-themed foods.

I forgot to take a picture of my beautiful plate of food, because who can delay bacon eating?!?

We watched a travel video on Rome and the Vatican, where Squid decided she was going to become a world-famous sculptor. She plans to sculpt fully-clothed people eating food in various poses. We also decided that all of the beautiful floor-to-ceiling paintings must have been the result of a different time period of self-quarantine! We’re debating whether we can cover our house in some Renaissance-style paintings….

Oh, the Vatican…

We took a few great virtual tours. We visited the Leaning Tower of Pisa through this link: https://www.touristtube.com/Things-to-do-in-Pisa/Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa-360 and we did this FANTASTIC tour of the Vatican through this link: http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/tour-virtuali-elenco.html. We followed that up by learning some great Italian phrases through this site that pronounces them all for you, too: https://www.transparent.com/learn-italian/phrases.html#Basic%20Phrases. After that, we were going to go outside to play Bocci ball, but it was raining when we looked out the window. Instead, Wormy was inspired by the walls around the Vatican and built her own walled fortress….

That’ll keep the enemies out…or at least inspire them to nap.

The girls haven’t been sleeping the best lately (has anyone?!?!), so we all decided it is nap time now. After that, maybe we’ll check out some Bocci Ball. Tonight, we are going to do takeout from the best Italian restaurant around – Napoli’s in Burlington. We are all looking forward to that! We’ll probably snuggle in afterwards and watch “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” because that’s as Italian as I can get with kids’ movies…

I’ll leave you with this beautiful Italian sunset to inspire you to look on the bright side. My dad always takes sunset pictures on vacation, and it is definitely something I’ve inherited as an important feature of any of my vacation photo collections as well!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Going to Jamaica!!!

Today’s staycation featured a visit to Jamaica. I had to work again today, so my husband had the lead on this one. He showed the girls the pictures from our honeymoon in Ocho Rios. The girls loved all of the pictures of food. There’s never any doubt they’re related to me! Ha!

They then got to experience a Dunns River Falls climb, through this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/SaeeaA8UmMU. It totally reminded me of our own climb up the falls.

Next, my husband showed the girls this video (https://www.visitjamaica.com/listing/luminous-lagoon/457/ and https://youtu.be/sIMWQwWeeYY) of the Luminous Lagoon, which is one of my favorite stops in Jamaica. It was so neat to be out in a boat looking at this glowing water as we went around the area. This was Wormy’s favorite of the things we showed her.

My husband also taught the girls about Bob Marley, and played his music for them. We had toured Bob Marley’s house when we were on our honeymoon, and my husband has always been a big fan. He also showed them Google Earth views of the island, and they had fun ‘exploring’ the area.

Throughout the day, we dressed up in our swimsuits (had to have proper beach attire on). We were going to set up beach chairs on the living room floor and read, but since it was so nice out, the girls went out to play instead (with clothes on over their swimsuits…it wasn’t THAT warm out). We also decided to move the indoor picnic for lunch outside as well. Thank goodness for lovely weather! We also drew some friendly messages in sidewalk chalk at the bottom of our driveway to say hi to the neighbors. Wormy’s said “Love you,” and Squid’s said “Stupid coronavirus.” We also decorated in hearts to help those on the heart scavenger hunts.

I was going to teach them the art of haggling with some printed off Jamaican money images and some little toys, but since it was nice out, we’ll save that skill for another time. We went for a nice long 2-mile family walk through the neighborhood. Then we came back and watched “Cool Runnings.” By the time the movie was done, the jerk chicken I had marinated was ready to be cooked. I served it with peas and rice, and this great bottle of Welch’s non-alcoholic sparkling strawberry daiquiris. The girls were panting from the heat of the jerk sauce, but they admitted to liking it….after they had some cheesecake to cool their mouths.

I can almost smell the jerk sauce by looking at this picture!
The spice made my girl’s eyes water!

Needless to say, both girls are very interested in going to Jamaica!

Lisa WernerLeave a comment

Date Night! At Home…with kids?!?

I have been working so hard to make sure that my girls have been taken care of emotionally during this self-quarantine, but I wanted to do something for my husband. Both of my daughters love to set up a “Problem-Solving Workshop” where they ask my husband and I to bring our problems to them and they brainstorm solutions for us. I absolutely love this, and it was Squid’s original idea a few years ago. Every so often, it makes a comeback, and my husband and I scramble to come up with problems for them to solve.

This time, I decided to bring the idea of hosting a Date Night for Daddy to them. They helped me plan things out – including offering to serve us as waitresses, distract my husband while I cook, and entertain themselves while we ate. It looked great on paper (or in our case, shared Google Doc), but would it work?

After we got done watching our afternoon movie (or the down time where I get my work done), Squid tried to talk her daddy into going downstairs to play a card game with her. It was a tough sell, but we finally got there. I think my husband finally figured out we were trying to get rid of him from upstairs!

I cooked some seafood we had in the freezer (yay for cleaning out the freezer), and it was perfect since Squid is allergic. I had some mac & cheese individual cups that I made for the girls. While my husband was downstairs, I got dressed up just like I would for a normal date. Wormy got dressed up as a waitress, and went down to retrieve Squid and her dad. When my husband got upstairs, I told him what was going on and he decided he was under dressed.

I left detailed instructions for Squid, and the girls became the waitstaff. We had sparkling cider for our beverage, and then the girls served us our appetizer. While we ate that, they finished mixing up their mac & cheese and brought it downstairs. They came up and served us our main course, then went back downstairs to eat. Of course, this is the first time EVER they ate their meal quickly, but they were excited, so I didn’t complain. Squid serenaded us with live piano music while Wormy cleared the table. They then brought us our desserts and went downstairs to clean up their dishes.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. We got a little adult time, which we found out we didn’t have much to talk about since we’ve been in the same place for the last week. We actually spent most of the time talking about how good the service was at our little restaurant. When the meal was through, I made sure to tip each girl a dollar. They were definitely the most attentive waitstaff I’ve ever had. 😀

Sorry I didn’t take any pictures. I was busy with my cute date.

Lisa WernerLeave a comment