Adventures of Evie

  Well it's been a hectic and rainy week. We haven't been able to get out much because it's been so yucky. Don't get me wrong, the rain has been needed for the grass and our garden but it hasn't made for a fun week of evenings. So today when we saw the sun peeking out, we knew what we had to do; PLAY! Earlier in the week Evie's sloth machine yielded a messy play day so we took advantage of that today and used our new paint blobs and paint guns to have a paint fight. We had some of these earlier in the year and enjoyed them but now they are 75% off so we ofc had to grab a ton of them to finish out the summer with. After we got cleaned up we decided to take advantage of the evening and went to Kings Island for some fun! Only a few weeks until our last summer together without school looming is here. :( It's going to be bittersweet but I feel so lucky to have been given so much time with this kid. We have had almost two entire years of time together that we wo...

  It's the final day of Dance Camp 2022! Today they did jazz and showtunes. At the end they did a little performance which was based on The Greatest Showman. It had a little bit of ballet and some jazz in there too. Evie really loved today. I have considered putting her in a musical theatre class at a nearby studio but with hip-hop and gymnastics and school it just seems like too much. I think she'd love it though since she LOVES to perform. She is always the brightest kid in the room. Everyday one or more of the other moms would comment to me about how vibrant Evie is and I just love that. She really loves to show off and be in the spotlight and it makes her so happy to entertain people. I can't wait to see where those attributes will take her later in life and how they will shape her opportunities. I'm a little sad camp is over this year and Evie was DEFINITELY sad but we have about four weeks left until Miss Natalie is a weekly part of our lives again and we are both...

  Dance camp day two! Today they got to learn about tap dance. Evie really loved this one. She ran up to me when I got there at the end for her performance and said "Mama! Mama! THESE SHOES MAKE NOISE!!!" She did really well at the dance too but it was an Encanto song today so I'm sure that helped. Still didn't prefer tap to hip-hop which I'm not super sad about because even though the tap was super cute I can't imagine listening to practice for tap all year long.  I'm sure she'd have those shoes on any chance she got! It was a lot of fun watching her learn little dances the last two days. She has done AMAZING. It's hard to believe how much she has grown and learned and what she has become capable of in just the last year. I can't wait to see what day three brings,

  It's finally here! Dance Camp! Evie has been waiting ALL summer for this. She loved gymnastics camp but we haven't had any dance since the recital in June and she has been really sad to not see Miss Natalie every week. It's a rainy week too which works out since she'll be at the studio all morning. There were three camps this year and this overachiever really wanted to do all three but due to travel plans we already had in place we couldn't do more than one. Maybe next year. Today the focus was on ballet and hip hop. She has been asking about ballet and I've told her I just don't feel it suits her personality but I was really looking forward to seeing if camp changed her opinion of it. It definitely did! She said she really liked it but she did like being able to jump around and do tricks in hip hop better. Miss Natalie also has a mix dance class so I'll be interested to see at the end of camp if she wants to switch it up and try mixed dance! She reall...

  Today was a big day for us...Evie had her kindergarten assessment. When I registered her back in February we had a paper which told us what she needed to know for the year. Or rather, what they wanted her to know since there was no real requirement for anything. Since she already knew almost everything on the list we have focused this past year on just reinforcing that knowledge and pushed a little further in some areas. This is the day we have literally been working all year for! I was a little nervous about it...not because I felt she'd do poorly but just because this is when we find out if I've done an OK job preparing her or not. She was VERY excited to see her new school. They took all the kids back and then brought them back one by one with their assessment sheets and some feedback for the parents. Evie did really well. The teacher told me she was very smart and very sweet and that they were looking forward to having her in class next year.  So long story short she did...

  This weekend was our girls trip to Toledo, OH. We got to go with my mom, nieces, and two of my aunts. We did a similar trip last year and it was a lot of fun and this year did not disappoint either.  We got to go to a GORGEOUS beach and Evie had so much fun swimming with her cousin. We also ate at the famous Tony Paco's restaurant which was delicious.  Of course we had to find some science too! The Imagination Station downtown was a ton of fun for everyone. We all got to pitch in and build an arch, we tried an anti gravity room,  and Evie's cousins got to ride a bike across a tight wire! It was super fun.  All good things must come to an end though. We are very grateful and lucky to be able to do things like this with our family. I'm glad to have the opportunity to experience those things with everyone. :)

Photo by Maria D Photography Today was a pretty rough day for us both. It started out OK and we had a lot to get done today but it went south as the day went on. After I got off work we headed out to get an oil change before a planned play date. Unfortunately the play date didn't work out so we stopped to grab some lunch and then mail a few things. Then we came home to start packing for our weekend trip tomorrow. Later in the evening we had a little sunset photoshoot and after we finished it Evie INSISTED we climb up the "Rapunzel tower" in the park. It was HOT but I obliged her and we climbed the tower and enjoyed the view. We got home late which made for a cranky little girl so we had some snuggles and headed to bed. Tomorrow is our girls trip and we both could use one! :)  

Well we aren't back to 100% today but there has definitely been an improvement in Evie's illness so we did some easy science today! We have these fun little Mr. Bubble bath potions I picked up awhile back so I put two of them into her sensory bin table with some bottles of water. She had a ton of fun pouring the water in and watching it fizz and then when she finished both potions she spent a while pouring the colored water back and forth to make new colors. The potions were on sale when I bought them and they're a little more pricey now but since the bottles are reusable it will be really easy to pop some new bath bomb dust in there for future play time! We made it to family night as well which was nice. I was worried we'd miss it this week since we were both so sick but she was very happy she was feeling good enough to go play with her cousins again! :)

  We had a super rough weekend. Evie was sick and had to use her nebulizer often. She couldn't sleep because of her breathing and coughing and she didn't eat much either. So today we didn't really do much other than try to recuperate from the last few days. We ate some soup, took lots of naps, and Evie learned how to play Animal Crossing. She spent a lot of her time just playing with design and dressing up characters at Harv's Island but we also went ahead and made her a house of her very own. It was a relaxing day and we definitely needed it. Hopefully tomorrow we will both be feeling much better! 

  Today was the end of a long and rough week. Between working 50+ hours, staying on top of regular things, a sick cat, and various other struggles it's just been a long one. Evie was incredibly emotional today and at one point she yelled at me that she was VERY ANGRY and then she went to her bed and fell asleep. Which was for the best. She definitely needed a nap. When she woke up she was still feeling down but much less aggressive. So we went out for a little girls day pick me up. We grabbed some bath bombs to take fluffy, foamy, flowery scented baths in and some macarons to munch on and then Evie splashed around at the splash pad for an hour or so. Emotions are really hard to handle sometimes when they are big so we also had some one on one time and played games and talked about how to handle our feelings in a bit more of a healthy way. Here's hoping next week is better but at least we have made it to the weekend. :)

  Today was Evie's second week of gymnastics camp. They had a theme today of Under the Sea so she got to make a little whale hat and also they played some under the sea games. She really loves the bars and today she also got to use the rings which she was pretty excited about. It's really fun to watch her build her skills and get so excited about how strong she is. This was her last camp week for gymnastics but she has dance camp in two weeks and then in September she's back to weekly classes! It's going to be a busy fall for us. :)

  Today was our water play day and since it was so hot we decided to skip yard play and just head to the pool. Evie has learned to swim underwater and while she is still shaky at swimming ABOVE it learning to swim under has opened up whole new worlds for her. She happily swims across the pool and back all day long now. I do have to watch her more closely now since she is sans floatation devices but it's so fun and rewarding to watch her learning new skills. Once she has got above water swimming down she's going to be unstoppable. 

  This past weekend Evie and I visited the Boonshoft Museum. She wanted to take Kumi with her and even though I was worried she would get lost, I ended up letting her. I thought we put her in the backpack for safe keeping when we headed up the climber in the middle but when we went to leave we realized she was gone. Evie was very sad about it and cried a lot. We checked lost and found but unfortunately no one had turned her in. So I went home with a very sad little girl. However, on Sunday when I called they said they had her! So today she came home with another postcard about her adventures at Boonshoft and a cool space necklace with hand painted (super fun let me tell ya!) beads.    We also had cooking day today! Evie got to make orange creamsicles. Although she didn't end up liking the final result she did a great job whipping them up! She has lots of little cooking tools and I want to start really teaching her how to use them and cook for herself. Obviously it will be...

  Today we had a messy play day. Evie had a slime table last week and really loved it so this week I decided to try chia seed slime. I figured it would go one of two ways; either she'd love it, like she loved the slime one, or she'd hate it like the spaghetti one she had last Halloween. It ended up being a huge hit though. Recently she's been watching me play Animal Crossing on the Switch and one of her favorite places on the island is the museum. She always has a ton of questions about dinosaurs and fish and everything else in there. We've been talking a lot about evolution and the extinction of the dinosaurs so for this table I did half chia slime and made it green to create a sort of swap situation. Then the other half I added baking soda and vinegar and her little volcano we made ages ago and she had a lot of fun moving the dinosaurs out of the swamp and into the line of fire of the volcano! One thing I will say about chia slime is that it is MESSY. We did this in t...

  Today we had a creative day and made some paper dolls. These were so fun to color and put together. We used sticker paper for the hair and accessories and then Evie had a ton of fun making a bunch of dresses for hers and popping them off and on. She was phenomenally proud of her coloring as well. She kept telling me how she couldn't believe she stayed inside all the lines so well. It was fun to take some time and be creative together. Of course once we finished a few we had to play with them!! She made up some super epic stories for them as well. :)

  Today was a BUSY day for us! First we did some art camp and today we made rocket cards!! These slide up and down on the front of the card so you can "launch" them into space. They were really fun to make and decorate. Evie made hers mostly pink and also made sure to add an extra window in the bottom for a "snack station".  She did a really good job at cutting out the pieces and gluing everything together. We skipped one day of art camp this week so we're going to do the virtual makeup on the weekend. After we finished those up we put them aside to dry and then got ready to head out for the afternoon. First we drove to the doctor to get her last COVID shot. So as of today she is officially FULLY vaccinated. We are out and about all the time and travel often so this is something I've been very much looking forward to. Even though we do mask up in crowded spaces it's such a relief to know that she has an extra layer of protection.  Then we headed up to Na...

  This week I decided to set Evie up with some various stations she could play/learn at. I was pretty sure she'd gravitate toward the STEM and art tables but she is also huge into sensory play so I wasn't surprised when the learning table was the only one untouched at the end of the day. She started at her chem table. I set up this little chemistry set for her to run some color experiments at and she had a lot of fun mixing them in the tray and watching them bubble and fizz.  But once she saw her sensory station science was off the table. She spent the rest of her hour right here playing with her slime! Last night I prepped this by making a double batch of fluffy slime and then I put a variety of mix ins in the little jars for her to open and mix into her slime. Unsurprisingly they all went in at some point. It was fun to watch her mix them into the slime though. She was very excited at the end to see how her creation would look all mixed together and then she spent a ton of t...

  Today was family night and we celebrated Independence Day just ONE more time with my family. We had a pretty relaxing morning and played together and worked on her reading. But our afternoon was a bit frustrating. Road closures meant detour after detour that left us stuck in the car for almost an hour and a half on the way to Nana's. Then our cupcakes that we made for family night took a tumble when someone decided to run a red light and almost hit us. Thankfully we made it to Nana's house all in one piece (the cupcakes not so much)! When we got there we sat down with her cousins to make tie dye shirts. Evie's turned out really nicely. This was a "two minute" tie dye kit (which really took about 25 minutes but still not bad!) so they were done pretty quickly. Then we ate dinner with the family and headed outside for some smoke works. Evie also got to do her very first roman candles (with her cousin helping)! She was really impressed by them! It was a fun night a...

  It's finally Independence Day! We spent the last few days celebrating by watching fireworks with family, playing with sparklers and snakes and smoke bombs and grilling out. So today we decided to take it easy. Last night we stayed up late catching fireflies and playing with glowsticks so today we slept in and then headed to the pool for a swim. After the pool we came home and had a chalk dust fight. Then we took showers and cleaned up for lunch. After lunch we played outside and relaxed and just enjoyed a nice evening at home. Tomorrow it's back to the grind! :)

  Today was a half day for me at work and after I got off we had a ton of errands to run. After we finished up with those we just wanted to come home and relax. We played in the pool, ran through the sprinkler, and just had a lot of fun being silly and enjoying the weather. This evening Evie really wanted to make s'mores so I picked up the stuff for it while we were out and we made some before we did her bedtime routine. Life has been super hectic lately so we haven't had a ton of time to just relax and stay up late and exist so it was nice to take some time today to just do nothing and enjoy each other. We also visited the library since it will be closed Monday and we needed some new books! It was a super fun way to start July! :)