Adventures of Evie

  This week I am on a staycation from work so I spent a lot of time today getting some things done around the house. One of those things was to clean up some of the stuff in the backyard. When I went out I let Evie come and play and she discovered some leaves in the pool. But to her surprise they were trapped under a sheet of ice! She really wanted to rescue them so I tipped up the pool to allow the water underneath to pour out, thus freeing the leaves. Once the ice was free she spent some time examining the pattern on the back that was made by the bottom of the pool. Then she had an idea... She asked if she could smash up the ice and I told her that was fine so I set it on the grass and she grabbed her T-ball bat and went to town! Once it was in smaller pieces she tossed them at the bricks on the patio to break them down further and then we got warm water to see how small she could get them. Some of them got so thin she could see right through them which she found VERY exciting! I...

  Today was a busy day for us! Evie had a dentist appointment this morning so we had to hustle to get there on time. She did amazing at her appointment. Her teeth look great, no cavities, and she got a fun bouncy ball on her way out for doing so great. After the dentist we headed to Target to get her some new flossers. Last time we were there they said she didn't need to be flossing yet but this time some of her teeth were a little closer together so they want her to start doing the back ones. She is really excited about it and I want to take advantage of her excitement to work this into her routine before it wanes! All in all it was a pretty good visit! After Target we grabbed lunch and headed home to get her off to school. :)

 Today was Evie's first day back at school after break. Needless to say she wasn't super excited about it. When she got out she seemed down and when I asked her about it she let me know that they all changed seats due to the quarter change and now the boy she sits next to spends the day bullying her. He refuses to call her by her name, colors on her shoes, pushes things off her desk, and is generally negative to her. I made a note to talk to her teacher about it and let her know as well that she is a smart, strong, and amazing little girl and she should stand up to him. It makes me sad that kids are already being awful and it's only kindergarten. To cheer her up we went to the library, found some new books and games and then grabbed some ice cream. Evies favorite is mint chocolate chip -- hold the chips. Then we came home, ate dinner, had some snuggles, and read some of her new books together. <3

  Today was movie night! We had a lazy morning just snuggling, watching Blippi, and having a leisurely brunch. Then we started prepping for movie night. Tonight is Disenchanted and this one was a BIT tricky for me since I have not personally seen it yet. But we did some Google searches and managed to come up with a fun menu without spoiling the plot!  Evie had a lot of fun helping me make a magical cheesecake but she didn't love eating it! ;)

  Thanksgiving!! Today we got up and ate breakfast and made some slime. I gave Evie a ton of glitters to jazz it up a little bit and she had a lot of fun making it pretty. After that we headed off to family. Evie had THREE Thanksgiving dinners to go to today and she was pretty tired by the end of the day. Her thankful list this year included her mama, her family, her house, and her school. <3 

  No school today! It was so nice outside and today Evie and I could finally have a MESSY play day!! I have a TON of paper I've been shredding up from old documents and whatnot and we took the bucket outside and had a pretend blizzard. We even made snow angels! It was really fun to be able to get outside and play and run around and pretend and not have to worry about having somewhere to be.  The cleanup was pretty easy on this too. Just use a blower to send it all into the grass! ;P

One more day of school this week. I'm actually really excited to have Evie home for a few days because I miss being able to have messy play mornings with her. Now we have to be careful not to get too messy before she has to go to school. We worked on some fall worksheets that her teacher sent home today. I think she has completely wrapped up her homework packets at this point so that should give us a few days to just have some fun together. :)  

  This week is a short week for Evie. She only has school Monday and Tuesday but she still has PLENTY of homework to finish up. Since we have a few days off this week we spent the morning today wrapping up some of her work. After school we had makeup gymnastics and to Evie's surprise, her friend Quinn is in Monday gymnastics class. She was really excited to see her and have class together. Now she is begging me to switch her nights BUT I reminded her that her other friends are in her Thursday class so either way she will miss out on her friends. It was a fun evening though. :)

  Well Evie was still feeling under the weather today and with so much going around at school I decided to keep her home again. She spent another day mostly in bed with some occasional bursts of energy to color or dance for a bit before lying down again.   She also spent some time in her little carboard car "selling" me ice cream while I worked. We have a busy weekend ahead of us so fingers crossed she will wake up feeling lots better in the morning! 

  Today Evie slept in for a LONG time. At 11am when I went to go check on her she was still fast asleep. Her breathing seemed fine, she wasn't especially hot, and nothing else seemed amiss so I woke her up to see how she was feeling. She said her stomach hurt and she didn't feel good. So I called her out of school and she spent most of her day in bed. Later in the day she was a little better and bored so we broke out this crystal dig kit to do.  She did pretty well with it but it took her several back and forths to get it all the way out. She ended up with Pyrite which was the one she was hoping for. It was fun for her to get to find the surprise and also to learn a little about pyrite and how it is made. Hopefully tomorrow she will be feeling better.

  Today when Evie woke up she was tired. She got up late which is already out of character for her and with all the illnesses going around school right now I just have a feeling we're headed into some rough times. Since she was feeling run down we played some games instead of focusing on book work today. She wanted to play this Bluey game that she LOVES and it's an easy one for me to keep up with while I'm working. We did a few rounds of it before lunchtime and then got bundled up to go to school. We've been going to the bus stop a little later each day, playing with how late we can leave and still catch the bus. It was snowing on the way today and Evie was really excited to catch snowflakes with her tongue and watch them fall onto the grass and sidewalk. I'm hoping for some bigger snow days soon but for now we'll take what we can get! :)

  We're still moving through Evie's homework books today again but after she got a few pages completed I let her do some fun stuff too. We started this craft which is supposed to make a scarecrow for the fall season but Evie thought the balls made him look more like a snowman. So he's a snowcrow! She had a lot of fun putting him together either way though. She left off his hair and mouth to make him look more like a snowman and we added a fancy stripe to make his hat look fancy too. I have to admit he does look quite snowman like! After school we headed up to Nana's for family night. It's always fun to spend the evening with family. <3

  Evie has had a lot of homework to do for kindergarten this last week or so and we've been working on it in blocks so that she still has plenty of time for play and also for making fun crafts. Today we made turkey hats. She wanted to color hers to look like a peacock for some reason and it came out looking pretty cute. It's getting a lot colder again so we can't go outside during lunch anymore either but we're making the most of our indoor time. This week Evie got a fold up castle and baby station so we've been doing a lot of make believe play in them during lunch hour. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break when we can have some longer blocks of time with one another again. <3

  Today was rainy and gray and if you think that stopped this wild child from going outside to play you are mistaken. The rule has always been if there is no thunder or lightning, she can play outside even if it's raining and she took FULL advantage of that today. While I was making us lunch she took my phone outside and made videos of herself singing and dancing in the rain. I love how she doesn't let the rain get her down BUT she did have school today so she had to change her clothes and go to school with wet hair. Not that she was going to let that bother her either!  Last month Evie got to turn her chore points into a weekend trip and all she wanted to do was go and swim in a hotel pool. We took the trip and had a blast but the pool was closed for maintenance so she never did get to swim. This week we finally got to go swimming and she was EXCITED. Her gym offers tons of classes and each class has a once a month open slot where kids can come and just use the facility for f...

  This morning when we went out to play Evie spotted something in our tree she hadn't seen before. There was a seed pod on one of our Magnolia trees. The seeds looked like bright red beans and she was VERY curious about them. So we pulled a bunch of the seeds down to get a closer look.  Originally I considered planting one with her so she could see how they grow BUT some online research led us to the discovery that to do this we'd need to peel off the berries, soak the seeds, scrape off the wax coating, and then bury them in dirt and keep them cold for several months before planting. So we nixed that plan! It was, however, a great opportunity for her to learn how important animals are to how things grow. We do keep a veggie and herb garden and we talk often about how important bugs and bees are to plants and to us but it's always great to have a chance to teach her about how to respect the animals, plants and just the wonderful earth we have been given to live on. So I let ...

 It's another art day! Last night Evie and I used some colored glue to make outlines of leaves on paper. Everyday when we go to the bus stop we kick up the fall leaves and try to find the prettiest ones. She has quite a few of them shoved into her backpack at the moment and my pockets always end up full of them on my walk back. This morning the glue outlines had dried so I gave her some watercolors and let her start filling them in. She had a lot of fun making dots and blending the colors together to make the leaves look just how she wanted them. When it was all done we hung it up on her art wall to give it a nice festive, fall pop! :)

  Today we did some art together. Evie loves to draw, paint, and create and I have some crafts I've been saving for rainy days and cold weather but she was feeling kind of down this morning so we sat down to do one together. She got to paint and decorate this little clay unicorn. At first she said she wanted to make it just like the one on the box but then she decided to go in a different direction. She used all her favorite colors AND all the glitter. Of course. 😂 I love seeing her create and it was fun to see where her imagination took her with this one. Yesterday after school we had parent teacher conferences and today there was no school. Her conference went really well. Her teacher said she is a little ray of sunshine, a joy to have around, and that she cares deeply for her peers and always wants to help everyone which is great to hear and not surprising to me. After that we picked up some books at the book fair and that reminded us that we haven't been to the library sin...

 It's still unseasonably warm out and we are taking full advantage of it and spending most of our mornings before school outside. This morning we found a caterpillar and talked about different kinds and what they will turn into. Evie was very surprised ro learn that they do not always become butterflies and she really loved looking up what the different moths and butterflies and figuring out what this caterpillar would be one day (our best guess is a Pearl Crescent butterfly).  She also took some time to play some T-ball and run bases while I tried to catch the ball (and her)! This morning before we went outside, we also set up a little LEGO town and she played with it for awhile while I worked. She has a ton of worksheets to do for kindergarten this week and next which is no fun at all but we're working around it with fun stuff too. :)

 It's finally Friday! Today is our last "lazy" day for a few days! This morning we played some games together and Evie made some art. Then we went outside to play in the leaves. It's been SUPER windy these last few days and while the leaves are making a huge mess everywhere they are also just so pretty blowing around in the sky. Evie was having tons of fun throwing them over her head and grabbing fat handfuls of them and just letting go and letting them swirl around her and I managed to snap this cool photo of her in them. It's hard to believe that just a few years ago she was lying in a big pile in that same spot, bundled up for the cold weather and smiling for fall photos. She is growing up so fast and I still feel lucky that I get to have so much time with her to watch her grow and learn. :) After school today we met a friend in the park to play and then we grabbed some groceries and headed home. We have a weekend of play dates, movies, photos, and birthday par...

  Today we spent some time outside cleaning up the yard for the winter. She has a lot of toys still hanging around out there and while it's still plenty warm enough to play it probably won't be for long. We have a really busy weekend this week so we're spending the last half of the week just playing and having fun. As I was cleaning up some of the weeds and things in the garden Evie reminded me that her bookfair book about fairies said they sometimes leave notes for you if you have a fairy garden. Of course over the summer Evie planted her own fairy/butterfly garden so she raced to see if there were any notes in there.  I had FULLY forgotten about what the book said but I sent her to find a shovel and quickly made and buried a little fairy note for her. The note told her that the fairies really loved the garden she'd made them and had left her a little gift at the front of the house in her bee garden. So she ran up to see what it was. I had shoved some candy beside her ...

 It has been so nice out this week and even though it's not the norm and that's probably NOT a good thing we've been soaking up the sun while it lasts. Today we spent our lunch break playing outside and Evie spent her morning decorating dolls with putty, coloring and cutting out pictures for me, and practicing her balance on her beam. After school we went to IKEA. Not for any real reason it was just a fun mid-week outing and it's a place she LOVES to go. It's not usually busy through the week so she got to test out all the little houses and sets and she had a blast. Only a few more days til the weekend!

  Today was a weird day for us. It's usually family night but since we went up to Nana's yesterday we were going to do library day today. However, it 's book fair week at school and Evie was so excited about the books she bought that she didn't really want to go to the library and get more today. So we stayed home, read books, cleaned, (worked lol), and then before bed I set her up with another glow shower. I found some neon bath paints at Target for $1 each and they did not disappoint. I set up her black light and the paints and she had a blast making art and words on the shower walls. And bonus, it's soap so she and the shower walls all got nice and clean too!  We also found a whole trail of candy on the way to the bus stop today which was pretty fun for Evie to chase after and collect. We're both a little sad about the end of Halloween but we're gearing up for the winter season already. :)