Adventures of Evie

  This morning when Evie got up she ran over to her chalkboard so she could leave me another little hint about how she really wants to join competition cheer at her gym. She showed me all her tricks, reminded me that she's learning to tumble, and also did a little made up cheer for me. A few weeks ago she saw a flier at the gym for cheer and she has been begging me to let her join but honestly, between school, dance, gymnastics, and general life we just really don't have the time. I can't see being in the gym another day a week and then there is also tryouts and of course the actual competitions. I think she is really capable of being dedicated and I know she could do amazing at it if she really applied herself but I also think she'd burnout doing so much. I also worry about how stressful competition can be for younger kids. So despite her pleas she will have to wait at least another year for it.  At lunchtime she got to paint a little ceramic witch. I was actually real...

  Today was a super hectic day. Between overtime and school pickup and gymnastics and making a ton of phone calls it was just super crazy. Evie mostly colored in the morning. She is really getting into coloring and making art. She will make a picture, cut it out, and then hang it on her art wall that we made by gluing clothes pins to the side of a cube unit. It keeps her busy for hours and I always enjoy seeing what she's made and hearing the stories she tells me about each one. She was extra excited about the gym tonight because she got to practice her bar skills. They're working on pulling up and hanging and while she is great at this from a lower distance, she was a little shaky on the high bar today! She was super pumped up to come home and raise her kip bar to practice though so we spent a little time doing that before we headed off to bed. Just one more day before the weekend. :)

  Today we did a little bit of STEM. It's been awhile since we did anything super out of the box and we had this kit that we got from my aunt which they used at Girl Scout camp. It has everything you need to make a little robot out of a toothbrush. We had a lot of fun assembling him! Once I got the wires attached to the battery Evie got to decorate him with pipe cleaners and googly eyes. He came out really cute and we had a lot of fun watching him bumble around! Evie also got to learn a bit about circuits and batteries. It was a fun break from homework! ;)

  It's Nana Day! The weather has gotten so chilly that I think our outside lunch breaks are coming to an end. Today we scored this kip bar and since the bars are Evie's favorite part of gymnastics, she was keen to put it to use as soon as I got it built. We spent most of our morning cleaning up the office and working on the last of her homework for the month. Then it was off to Nana's house! When we got home we also spent some time outside checking out Jupiter. Evie was incrediby excited that we could actually see it from our house. She has always been super interested in space and I love to see how she lights up when she gets to talk about it and see planets and stars and moon phases in real life. Maybe someday she actually will be an astronaut ballerina and she can tell me what it's like up there in space. ;)

  So it's not October yet but we are sooo close so I've been weaving Halloween things into Evie's day. Usually it's creepy lunches but today I made her a little sensory box and it was a pretty big hit. I ended up making the slimes since I intended to get some floam and whatnot from the dollar store but mine had none today. So I just made her some crunchy, standard, and butter slime and then added some scented playdoh to one of the compartments as well. She loved it but then asked me toward the end if we could fill ALL the holes with slime. So we made some fluffy slime and some cloud slime and she filled the remaining holes with kinetic sand. Evie had a tough time getting off to school today. I'm not sure if it was because it's a Monday or because of some things that happened over the weekend but in either event she cried all the way to the bus stop and all the way onto the bus. So when she got home we spent some extra time playing together before we went to make...

  Today we took a little nature walk to look for colored leaves. Evie usually spends her bus stop time challenging her fellow stop mates to look for feathers, sticks, leaves, and other things but on Fridays its just her and I so we spent our lunch time doing our own hunt for signs of fall. There are plenty of colored leaves on the ground already and we also had fun looking at the texture differences from the yellow to red to brown leaves. Evie is also working on her computer skills and we're testing out various online curriculum games to see if any will work for her as possibilities for next year if we choose to school at home. She spent some time on her Chromebook playing some games and just working on her mouse skills. We are very much looking forward to this weekend and getting into some fun! :)

  It's Thursday and it's also Tie Dye day for spirit week. Evie had planned to wear the shirt she made at Nana's house awhile back and her tie dye leggings today but unfortunately she also wore them last week and they hadn't made it to the drier yet. So we opted instead for this dress and some rainbow unicorn leggings.  Before school today we put up a few of the Halloween decorations around the outside of the house. It's not quite October yet but it feels close enough!  This evening she also started up gymnastics weekly again. We did the camp and have been in monthly classes and clinics since I like to keep summer free of classes so we can just relax and have fun. She was really excited to get back into it but she's also outgrown all her leotards from last year so she had to wear one of her dance ones. I guess we'll have to work on getting some new ones! Only one more day left this week and then we're in the last week of September which feels crazy! 

  Since Evie has had mounds of homework lately we've been spending our mornings mostly working through it. Our evenings are full every week with family time, the gym, the dance studio, friends, and weekend shenanigans but we've managed to squeeze in some fun STEM activities, art and play here and there. Today we had hip hop class. She has been begging me to sign her up for karate and competition cheer but there just isn't enough time in the week right now and we're also entertaining girl scouts so it's just too much!  This week is Spirit Week at school and today was crazy sock day. Evie chose one mermaid sock and one Halloween Harry Potter sock for her crazy socks today. She has been doing better about going to school and seems more comfortable being there but she still struggles with her teacher. I'm hopeful that if we choose public schools next year she will be assigned to a teacher who is more understanding, fun, and flexible. Her current teacher is very stri...

  This morning when I got up for work I had a pop up on my phone about a fog warning. When I looked outside I could hardly see the neighbors house behind me and I just KNEW Evie was going to be excited when she woke up to see that we were in a cloud. Fog is one of her favorite weather phenomenon's. She just loves the idea that she is inside of a cloud that's on the ground. So this morning when seh woke up, even though it had already dissipated some we went out for a morning walk and she experimented with how things looked the closer or futher away she got to them. After awhile we came in for breakfast and I let her have some computer time. She chose to make some music and play with Elmo today. There are some really fun and educational games there and there is also a ton of art she can make which she loves. By afternoon it was sunny and clear again. Today is hat day at school so she got to wear her rainbow bucket hat and she was very happy about that. Of course we had to swap it...

  Today we did some art work outside. It's been a really sunny week and it's going to start getting colder soon so we put some paper down and got some finger paints and stamps and brushes and then just made some fun pictures! We've been working on handwriting lately and when I asked Evie what things she wanted to do this week drawing and science were high on her list. This was a super easy set up and I love that she wants to create so often. I love crafts and drawing and creating things too so it makes me happy to see that she shares those interests. :)

  Today was a busy day! We spent the morning cleaning the house and drawing pictures. Then we played some kids charades and Pictionary with her white board. Aft er that she was off to school! From school we got to go up to Nana's house and Evie got to spend a whole evening with JUST her Nana and no one else. She made a little unicorn, played with endless amounts of play-doh and got to eat her dinner from a fun plate. She had a ton of fun and it was a great start to our weekend! :)

  This week we've been working a lot on some review and easing back into more activities. Evie has been spending her morning coloring, making art, and riding her power wheel as the last days of summer start to trickle into fall. Once it's colder we'll be stuck in the house so we want to take advantage of these last mornings we can still run around and play. We did some number review this morning and then I had Evie sit down and do an assessment on the computer. She has over and over again told me how school is so boring for her and she "already knows all of this" so I wanted to see how accurate that really was. Most of her homework is definitely things she knows but it's also been a lot of just handwriting practice and a little bit of math. But surprisingly she rated pretty high on the assessments. She needed a little help setting up some of the larger problems (she still can't really read yet) but ultimately landed on a total score that put her at a secon...

  Today Evie woke up really tired and a bit cranky. I had some worksheets for her to do but she wasn't super interested so instead we did some sight word practice and then she drew me some pictures. Drawing has been a big hobby of hers lately and I love getting to see how her interests and hobbies are growing and changing . First she drew me a bird.... ...and then she made a penguin for me as well. She made the penguin pink because pink is her favorite color. She is getting SUPER excited for Halloween. She currently has about four outfits specifically for the week of Halloween at school and she really cannot wait. So today I wove some fun Halloween surprises into her lunch box. I can't wait to make more themed lunches. It's one of my favorite parts of the day to watch her face light up when she sees what I've made her.  From school we went straight to dance and since she was already tired she wasn't really feeling it today. Miss Natalie gave her a big hug and was su...

  This week Evie has gotten her first actual homework assignments from school. At first she was really excited about it and then when she realized what it was like she immediately changed her mind. Yesterday her homework focused on her writing the word "is" and she really struggled with making her  s's. So this morning I left her a sheet of tracing for them and she actually sat down and got started on them all by herself. She did really great at it and after she finished she really wanted to write some more words... So I set her up with a sheet of paper and she wrote some more things. Then she decided to use my calendar sheets to write her name. She did pretty good! We also used the chalk board a bit to practice some sight words and she wrote the word "is" a few more times. It's starting to come along now and I love that she not only jumped right into learning this morning but she also wanted to keep going and practice and learn more! :) To finish up our nig...

  Fall is coming! Today was pretty chilly so we spent most of it hanging out in the garage and playing. Evie is still really loving zooming her power wheel around and making up fun stories to play about where she is going and what she is doing. Over the weekend I picked up some Halloween themed snacks to start weaving into her lunches. Today I gave her some cherry cotton candy, gummy eyeballs, and sprinkles for her treat portion of her lunch. I snagged a few Amazon deals over the weekend as well and one of them was this fun Sprinkle Art kit from Crayola.  For $5 it felt worth it to try out. Essentially you color the pictures with glue...   Then you choose your sprinkle color and it feeds into the covered box, and you shake it up...    Then you just repeat with other colors until your picture is done. She had a lot of fun with this one but even with the cover it can be a bit messy. I'm glad we kept this one in the garage! I think the tray will come in handy for o...

  It's FRIDAY!! It's been a long week and Evie and I have both been counting down til today. It did not disappoint. She spent her morning doing Aquabead's and then coloring and tracing shapes. Then it was off to school while I worked more and did some cleaning. When I picked her up she was in the best mood. She said she had the best day ever at school...but then let me know it was because her teacher was sick and they had a sub. lol I guess she hasn't come around to her teacher yet. After we got home we played with some silly string... ...and then did some yard work. I am so ready for the days of NOT having to mow the lawn weekly. We got some dinner and then headed to the park for some playtime before bed. Evie found so many kids to play with and she even ran into her bus friend (seatmate) and they were so happy to see each other that they hugged til they fell over. We stayed for about an hour and a half and then headed home. When we got home we made some rainbow smores...

  Well we jumped back into some learning at home today although I had planned to take this week off. It was actually Evie who wanted to do it though and that's really encouraging for me because it was a great reminder that she does love to learn even if she sometimes needs some breaks. I really enjoy doing these activities with her and sometimes it feels like maybe it's me that really wants to do it and maybe she should just be playing all day. So when she asks to learn or do an activity I'm reminded that it's not just for me and that she truly doesn't want to just play all the time. She is actively seeking out knowledge and learning too. Anyway today she wanted to make "puzzles" with her math erasers. We snagged these from the Target dollar spot like a year ago and they have been really great for working with numbers. I set up a few simple addition and subtraction problems for her and she did really great at figuring out the answers (which were all 5 by t...

  We are still taking it pretty easy this week with lots of outside play and coloring and board games. Evie finally got the hang of her powerwheel and has been zooming around on it non-stop this week at lunctime. The weather is cooling down some which has been really nice too. Today she got off to school without a hitch and when I picked her up it was time to go straight to dance. After dance class we grabbed some dinner. Evie wanted Chic-fil-A tonight so we stopped and ate outside and it was a nice little dinner date. I am excited that fall is coming up but also a little sad that our days of playing outside and eating outside and just BEING outside in general are quickly coming to an end with the impending cold of winter. So even though we got home close to her usual bedtime we took her powerwheel to the park and then she ended up running into two of her friends and having a short impromptu play date. Tomorrow she's out of school for an OT appointment at Children's so we can s...

  Today was a busy day but we also took it pretty easy. Last week Evie really struggled with going to school. She was so excited the first week, the second she was hesitant but cooperative, and last week somewhere around Wednesday everything went sideways. She cried. She ran. She hid. She yelled that she was "NOT GETTING ON THE BUS!" Of course, she did. But definitely not happily. So we took a little step back this week. She loves the activities we do and was sad about not waking up to one this morning but I think maybe it's time for a little break in the structure. We all need mental health days sometimes and every so often...maybe a mental health WEEK. Today she got on the bus no problem, however, when I picked her up she had a bone to pick with me...see last week I talked to her school counselor just to see if anything changed in class that may have caused her to suddenly be so adamant about disliking school and see what we could do to get her back on track. I told her...

  This week has been an emotional one for Evie. I'm not really sure why, it seems like a lot of the kids at her school had a really hard time adjusting this week. She had a hard time getting on the bus and then she was out for a doctors appointment which didn't help. I am hoping the upcoming week will go better but in the mean time today we decided to take it easy and do some coloring and some sensory play. I needed to clean out the snow bin from a few weeks ago so I gave Evie a bin of water and the bin of snow and "ice" and let her mix it together.  We briefly discussed why the water turns into a thick slime if you add too much snow and then Evie set about mixing the beads in to fresh water until they got slimy and then getting fresh water and repeating the process. They ended up pretty clean in the end and it was a fun activity that took absolutely no effort on my part. We have also resumed our after dinner park trips. Over the end of the last week Evie finally deci...