Life as a Yowler

The Yowler family has been surviving the quarantine. I’m not going to complain. I realize we have it easy. We are literally staying home on our butts and staying safe. I know we’re blessed. But I’m also going to be real. It hasn’t been easy. There has been fighting. Emotions and moods have been ALL over the place, mine included. My kids each have the energy of a regular child hyped up on 12 cans of Mountain Dew. I am used to being on the go. Being forced to do nothing but stay home and stare at each other has not always been refreshing. Here are a few of the things we’ve been up to.

We have discovered step by step drawing lessons for kids on YouTube. It really is amazing for un-crafty and un-creative mothers, such as myself. It’s literally just like watching an art teacher. My kids love it and it helps them get their creativity out. They all love crafts, especially Brielle.

We had some trees cut down around our house several months ago. We cut them down with plans to plant grass and make a yard, then eventually build an addition onto our house. Brandon has taken this last week and worked on cleaning up the trees that were cut. Joah and Brielle have been helping him, partly because they’re good kids, but mostly because they are working on paying off debt. Joah shot a playhouse window with a BB gun. He also crashed a 4 wheeler. Brielle broke a tv. Kids are wonderful!

Brandon first chopped up the tree trunks and mulched the branches. Then he ground the stumps. He also took the opportunity to grind our direct tv cable cord. In case anyone is curious, they are not able to do house calls right now. So that leaves us without cable during this time of being home constantly. Are there worse things? Yes. Good thing for our Office season dvd’s. It’s what we’ve been watching. And for those like “why the world not Netflix or Disney +?” That would be because our only internet option where we live is the pits. We usually use all of our data in around 4 days for the entire month, so streaming shows is not an option. We are still the old school dvd people.

As hard as this has been at times, there have been lots of things that I love. I love the slower pace of life. I love the extra family time. We’ve been reading books together. I have been reading the kids the Ramona book series. They laugh and laugh. I think they can all relate to Ramona. Brandon has been reading them The Wingfeather Saga in the evenings. This week we’ve been reading the Easter story and doing our resurrection eggs(kids absolute favorite).

We’ve been occasionally going insane and needing a change of scenery. When this happens, we drive to our motor home and sleep there. The motor home is just parked at our shop, for those judging. We still aren’t interacting with anyone, except our family.

Brielle is obsessed with cooking lately. She begs and begs to help me in the kitchen constantly. The boys are obsessed with riding 4 wheelers. I told the boys to go run around outside today after school. Caed goes “ mom, I won’t run. I’ll drive.” 🤦‍♀️ Isla is obsessed with asking “what’s that smell?” Literally all the time she asks. Sometimes I really don’t know what she’s smelling, so my go to answer is “I think that’s your dad.” She loves Disney Princesses. Equally as much as she loves princesses, she loves villains. I’m not sure if I should be concerned or just hope it’s a 2 year old stage  🤣 She begs daily to watch The Grinch, Cruella, Maleficent, or the Evil Queen. 🤦‍♀️  She is quite the chatter box. She’s constantly talking. She says mom at least 5000 times hourly.

I’m thankful for the warm ish weather. We’ve been heading outside as much as we can.

I’m learning during this season, to give myself grace. As long and school is done, chores are done, and reading is done we’ve been watching extra movies. Some days we head outside all day. Some days we watch 3 movies. I’m trying to find balance. We take things one day at a time. Some days go smoothly. Some days, I’m thankful for grace. I think all of us are really forced to deal with issues right now. I mean where are we gonna run or escape to? Uncertainty and unknowns are really tough for me to deal with. I can’t stand not knowing when/if  things will go back to normal. I’ve been working on totally surrendering. I’ve been reading my kids this Bible passage daily and I feel like this is our family’s lesson in all of this. God has been teaching me a ton and revealing a lot to me.

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

This is my prayer over my family, over my country, over this nation!