Adventures of Evie

  It's finally here! Halloween! Evie has been counting down to today. It was a busy one for us! This morning we made some fun pumpkin suncatchers. I love doing these because all you need is some black paper, scissors, tissue paper, and clear contact paper. They are super fun and require almost no set up. This one I freehand cut and we have tons of tissue paper squares we bought at Micheals over the summer.  He came out great! It didn't take her a ton of time to do this one but it was enough time for me to throw together lunch for us at least! ;) After she got out of school we headed up to Nana's to celebrate my brother and his new wife! We all got wedding cake and dinner and then we got to trick or treat together too. It was a lot of fun. It's been a long time since I trick or treated in that neighborhood and it was fun to see Evie enjoy it too. :)

  Today we had some fun with ghosts!! We made these little ghost hand prints which were really fun. The black marker we used was a washable one so unfortunately it looks a little green in placed but Evie had a lot of fun making these and she also had fun painting my hands and making me make ghost hands too. 😂 While those were drying we made some ghost faces on coffee filters to play a fun game... Ghost Races!! I gave Evie a straw and then we both blew the ghosts across the floor to try to see who could be the fastest. This was a real WINNER. She played over and over and over and when we finally were tired of that we put the straws under the ghosts and blew them into the air to watch them fly. Super easy, cheap, and really fun one! :)

  Today we made some ghost art! We started out with the intention of making some spiderwebs but Evie couldn't manage to get the beads to roll evenly so we swapped it up and made some ghost splat art instead. This was actually super easy and not even very messy despite how it looks! We grabbed a box, some construction paper, some beads and white paint and then just threw them all in a box and shook it! For the splat we put paint and water in a cup and tossed it in while shaking. It came out really fun and she LOVED this one. She asked to do it over and over. Luckily we had plenty of paper! And the best part is that at the end you just throw the box and beads right in the trash so there is zero mess and zero cleanup. :)

  Today we decided to spend our break time making some fun art. It's been a little tricky balancing our learning/craft time since school started. She still does learning programs and we still do worksheets here and there but it's tricky trying to do art and other projects like we used to since time is limited and I can't just let her get messy anymore. It's been frustrating for us both but we're working around it. So today we did some pumpkin art. She got to color and put stickers on foam pumpkins to make them into jack-o'-lanterns. She had a lot of fun with this and really got creative with drawing the faces on. She also got a fun Halloween themed lunch today! I love to see how surprised she gets over these and which parts of it turn out to be her favorite. :)

  It was finally warm enough to go outside for awhile today! It's been very chilly in the mornings lately and while I can appreciate that it's no longer too hot to exist at 10AM I'm also not loving being cooped up inside all day. Evie isn't either. We were both in much better spirits today after being able to spend our lunch outside.  We made some chalk art, made up stories about the characters, and ran and played for awhile before it was time to get ready for the bus. Even then Evie was happy to race me down to the stop and ran around playing and singing while she waited for it to come. Fall is heavy upon us but we were both happy for a little sneak of summer today. :)

  Over the weekend, after we returned from our fun trip to Indianapolis with Nana, I spent some time re-organizing Evie's desk. She has a desk for work and a desk for sensory play and art and her work desk has gotten overrun with forgotten markers, homeless crayons, and stacks of abandoned worksheets that she gave up on halfway. After I got it all cleaned up for her she was super excited to do some of the sheets I put in her folders for her. So, not one to discourage learning, we did a few of them together.  She's been working a lot on counting and also getting her numbers written just right so this was a great way for me to see what she is struggling with at school and try to help her correct it. She did sheets until lunchtime and then we had to get ready for school. I miss the days when we had all afternoon to have water fights and make slime and color on the driveway. I'm definitely missing summer already! But we're making the most of fall for now. ;P We also did som...

  It's finally Friday! It's been really nice outside too so Evie got to dress herself today and of course she chose a skirt and fancy shoes. She paired up her pajama top with a fun skirt and looked very holiday ready!  Since it's Friday I let Evie order her breakfast in bed this morning and have some TV time while she ate it. After that she got to start packing up her own suitcase for the weekend. She has been really wanting to go to a hotel and stay and swim and she's been VERY upset that we have no upcoming trips to look forward to. So I told her if she does her chores all month without complaint I'd take her on a weekend trip. We invited Nana to go too and she is incredibly excited for it. One more day and it's here! ;P

  Today was a busy day for us. Evie did some worksheets in the morning and then we started cleaning since we are taking a short trip this weekend. After she got off of school it was time for gymnastics. I realized AFTER we got there AND after she was already in her leotard that it was pajama week and by a stroke of luck I happened to have thrown an old pair of pajamas in the backpack as a back up outfit in case anything happened while we were out one day. So she got to change AGAIN. Things have been really hectic for us lately so sometimes things fall through the cracks! She had a lot of fun in class. They had a new instructor for the day and they got to play tug of war and some other group games. It's balance week so they've been working on balance and form. One more day til we're off on another adventure!

  UV/Glow week continued today with this cool glow water experiment. This activity actually worked out really well because this morning when Evie got up she wanted to take a bath. So I set up some test tubes and some containers and filled them with tonic water, we popped her blacklight in the bathroom and she got to play with the water, some neon paints and some other fun things while she took her bath. Ultimately the paints ended up in the water and the whole thing was glowing which was pretty cool but before that happened it just looked creepy and dark. She had a lot of fun with this one and loved watching the tonic water fizz and light up. We still had plenty leftover so I'll probably toss some in her sensory bin later this week and she can finish up playing with it. This has been a really fun week so far though! :)

  We're still learning about glow and also UV light this week so today I gave Evie some neon paint and let her paint a picture with her black light. She thought it was SO cool that her art glowed as she made it! When it was finished, we turned the black light off so she could see what it looks like without the UV light on it and we talked about the differences. It came out really cool looking! She loved this so much that she did a few of them but then she ran out of paint. This is definitely going on our list of crafts to repeat in the future though! We spent some time at the library today after school and then headed home for the evening. Evie also had book club today so she got to dress up as a character from her favorite book and then she got to talk about the book and why she loves it. She dressed up as Lucy Pevinsie and had so much fun telling everyone in class about the book . After she finished I surprised her with an LOL insider her Magic Mixie cauldron. I threw a bunch of ...

    This week is GLOW week. We are learning about what makes things glow and also talking about UV light. Today I set up a little bin for Evie with some neon foam alive and a black light bar. She had a ton of fun playing with the sand and was really excited about how much it glowed under the light. While she played we talked about phosphors and the color spectrum. She was really excited about being able to see the "magic" ultra-violet light that she can't see without the black light! After she finished playing I challenged her to hold things up to the light to see if they would glow or not. Even when they didn't she loved seeing how they look different in the black light vs just regular. This project was definitely a hit and I can't wait to see how she likes what I have planned for the rest of the week! :)

  It was finally a bit warmer out today so we got to take some time on our lunch break to play outside. While we were playing and walking the neighborhood we found some super pretty leaves. Evie told me they looked like leopard print. We did our best to track down which tree they were coming from but in the end we never saw one. On the way back I challenged her to find the prettiest leaves she could though and she found some speckled ones and also a really pretty deep purple red one. This morning she got to make use of her new menu's too! I made her one for lunch time and one for breakfast. For the most part they are filled with things we always have on hand and of course I left a space for specials so I can toss things in there to mix it up as needed. She ordered the french toast sticks this morning and I let her know for a special she could have a drizzle of caramel which she was VERY excited about. And since it was Friday and it's been a LONG week I also let her order coffee...

  We continued talking about bugs today and for fun we made our own too! We talked about what bugs use their various parts for and then Evie got to put together her own using clay and some different bug parts. Hers had a lot of wings!! It was fun to watch her make the shapes and tell me why her bug had wings and only a few legs and he also needed sunglasses since he lives in the VERY hot.  Even though we haven't had as much time for activities recently with school, work, and sports it's always nice to take some time to just play and interact and create. :)

 Today we started learning a bit about bugs. It felt like a theme we hadn't visited in awhile and also it's kind of along the Halloween lines since bugs are creepy and crawly! We started by talking about ants and how they can hold 5000 times their own weight! Then she got to wear this little ant head and we played a game where she had to take food off a picnic blanket and put it on her back and take it back to her ant hill. The first one to get all their food back won.  Next we played bug bingo and tried to see who could fill their card first. She was really excited about all the different bugs in this one. Some she had never even heard of! After school it was time to visit Miss Natalie for dance class! She has been so tired on dance nights that we may switch to another night. It's hard for her to keep up when she just wants to rest. But we'll see how it goes as the recital comes closer. :)

Today was our first back to school day of the week. Since I didn't want Evie to get too messy before school we skipped the sensory bins today. She has been absolutely obsessed with the moon lately and she wanted to look for it in the sky (even though it was too late in the day to see it anymore) so we went out to try. We didn't find the moon and there weren't a ton of clouds either but she loved pointing out the wisps she saw. We had another creepy meal with some Halloween shaped pasta and a jack-o-lantern garlic toast before she headed off to school. Then it was off to Nana's to spend time with cousins and enjoy a hayride!  :)

  Today Evie got to stay home from school since it's Indigenous People's Day. We did spend a little bit of time this morning talking about what that means and why we observe it, but since i've been working a ton recently we also just wanted to have some fun today. We have been learning about the origins of Halloween this month and about how some of the original Pagan traditions of the day have turned into the things we still do to have fun. We also played with this super fluffy foam bin! She had tons of fun fishing out spiders and eyeballs and other creepy crawly things with the skeleton hands. I'm still working the season into her lunches here and there as well! Today she asked for a snack plate, which is essentially a lunchable and we mixed it up by adding some fun fall shaped chips and salsa. It's supposed to stay warm for the first half of this week so hopefully we can make the most of it and spend lots of time outside before it turns cold again! :)

  Today is movie night!! I don't know how long it's feasible to do these but they are so much fun for me to set up so I hope to make it a regular thing for a long time. Tonight, we had a themed movie night.  This is actually our second one, we did Luca last week and it went pretty well but this week I had more time to get things set up and it was so much fun! First I always surprise her with the menu  and some ticket stubs.  Then when she gets home from school she gets to see the whole set up and we eat dinner together and then snuggle up with popcorn and sometimes a movie theater candy and watch the movie together. It's a really fun way to relax together and end the week. It also gives me some motivation to tap into my creative side and make a really fun evening for both of us. I still have memories of fun little things my mom did for my siblings and I when I was younger so I hope this is one of those things that sticks with Evie when she is older. <3

  Today I set up a little creation station for Evie. I found some trinkets at the dollar store for this and also some tiny scented play doh's. Then I added eyeballs and beads and some things we had around from last year to help fill it in. Evie was really excited to make some monsters when she found it today although she was not the hugest fan of the scents of dough. She made me several witches and also this rendition of Anna from Frozen (notice her streak)! It was fun to watch her create and since the doh was only $1 for 6 I didn't have to worry about if she mixed them up or let them dry out which is always a win! Today was also Golden Slothtato day! We have a little Toca Boca capsule dispensing machine and once a week if she has completed all her chores INCLUDING the optional ones she gets to put a coin in and get out a Golden Slothtato. This week her prize from the box was an art kit!  Typically her golden slothtato prizes are activities or outings but I managed to snag thi...

  Today we did some fun experimenting with "ghosts"! Since Evie was a baby we have been dissolving packing peanuts in water and its something she has always loved to do. I frequently get boxes of nail polish full of these dissolving peanuts because of my nail blogging so today since I had a whole box sitting around, I decided to set up a Halloween themed one! During her lunch break today I had her draw faces on some of the ghosts. She had a lot of fun making different expressions on them and coloring them in various ways. Then when she got home from dance class I gave her the box of them and let her dissolve them into this pumpkin full of water. She had a ton of fun with this and also with dumping the pumpkin bucket over and letting the peanuts splash around everywhere while she stomped and smashed them! It was a fun and free project! :)