Adventures of Evie

Today we made some glow worms! These acutally glowed A LOT stronger than I anticipated and it was pretty cool to play with them. They started out squishy gel and then we added them to liquid and the longer they were in there the more firm they got. We let them sit out for awhile after we were finished with this to dehydrate and then threw them back in to see what would happen too. Evie loved taking them in and out of the dark to watch them glow! In her little jar they kind of looked like glowing brains.   This was a fun, not very messy activity and the worms lasted for hours of fun before they started to get dry. We also made some sticky slime today and MAN was it STICKY. I expected it to be since that's literally what it was called but it was EVERYWHERE. I'm glad we did that one outside! :P

  It is finally starting to clear up outside and it wasn't super rainy today (although it was pretty hot!) so we got to get outside and play some! Today we made a clay volcano and Evie got to use fizzy tabs and water to make it erupt! We did this before with baking soda and vinegar and today we got to talk about why it works with citric acid and water too. Eruptions are ALWAYS a hit with Evie and she enjoyed making the little volcano too, although the clay was a bit hard to work with since it had started to set up some. It was still fun to watch. :)

  Today we had a completely lazy day. I actually didn't even take any photos today because we didn't do much. This one is from the weekend when we had an impromptu birthday party for Kumi. Evie's ear improved only slightly today and she was still very tired, so she slept a lot and spent most of her day in bed. The air quality today is in the 200's and honestly, I was choking just being outside for a few minutes so playing outside wasn't going to happen anyway. We ate pizza in bed and played Dreamlight Valley and Animal Crossing and watched Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom so many times that Evie was slipping into a British accent by bedtime. Even though we accomplished very little it's important to have rest days, especially when you're recovering from illnesses so that's exactly what we did! Hopefully her ear is healed up soon and we can get back to the fun stuff though!

  Well today was a doozy. Last night Evie's ear started hurting again and it kept her up all night long. I have no car today so of course I can't take her anywhere so we did a telehealth consult with a doctor first thing this morning. They prescribed her some antibiotics for an ear infection but unfortunately they sent them to the wrong pharmacy so I couldn't go and get them either. Super fun. Most of the day she was in bed and crying and while I gave her some Tylenol to try to help it didn't seem to last very long. Luckily this afternoon we were able to get her medicine (and also my car back) and as SOON as she had it in her ear she immediately fell asleep. We went up to my moms and celebrated her Aunt Hannah's birthday. It was a long day filled with ups and downs but hopefully things will look better tomorrow. 

  What a way to start the week...over the weekend my car broke down. It has been having issues for several months now and three trips to the shop has left me with zero answers so far. But things went VERY south on Saturday so we decided to have it brought in again. Evie got to watch them tow it away around lunchtime. Luckily I don't need it for awhile. It was sunny out so we got some outside time in which was a nice break from being stuck inside so much recently. We also started up some schoolwork again. I found this fun note in my Animal Crossing mailbox today from Evie. It's so funny to see the stuff she sends in there and it's great to watch her spelling and reading improve from doing something she enjoys. Since we're stuck home for a few days I have some fun things planned for us to do in the yard this week. Hopefully we can get back to the pool some too. :)

  It's finally Friday! Also it was finally not pouring rain, stupid hot, or hazy and unsafe to be outside! So we decided to take a girls day and have some fun. We played, we ate pizza by the slice, we got coffee and cupcakes and ate them on swings. Evie got some new earrings and some new outfits. We played some arcade games, and then we just walked for a bit and enjoyed being outside. On the way back around we grabbed some new bath bombs and macarons for the road. It was a fun way to end what has been a really long week! :)

  This year our yard has been FILLED with animal activity. It's been really fun to watch. When Evie was about 3 there was a nest of bunnies in our yard and since then we haven't really seen any much. But this year they have built another nest and it's been so fun watching them bounce around and nibble on the flowers in Evie's wildflower garden. We got to watch them this morning and they were even running around Evie as she played in the yard, bouncing from the trampoline to the front garden to the under the fire pit to avoid her! The rest of the day was spent cleaning up some more, making dinner together, and then Evie started to complain that her ear was bothering her so we went to bed early. Fingers crossed it's feeling much better tomorrow.

The weather has been so up and down these past few weeks so today when we found a break in the rain we took advantage of it! I took Evie to a new park I've been wanting to try out. There are so many in our area and we have only been to a few of them so this summer I wanted to try to explore and see what the others ae like. This one had a small play area, a small splash pad, and some little trails that took us through the woods. She really enjoyed the paths. They were short enough that she didn't lose interest or get tired which was great.  Along the way we found some berries, leaves, and a few other little treasures that she could learn about. She gathered up some of them and we took a picture so that we could leave them in nature where they belong. On the way home we found TWO additional parks and one had a zip line which is one of her favorite things to do at the park! We have a couple more new parks on our list to try this year so here's hoping that we find more wins! :)

 Today was a busy day! This morning we had Evie's six year wellness check. I can't believe how big she is getting. It's all going by so quickly and yet so slowly at the same time. After that we spent some time cleaning up the house before heading up to Nana's to play some games, eat some food and enjoy time with family. :)

  Today it was gloomy and rainy so we decided to do a fun craft and make some boats! We got a paddle boat kit from KiwiCo and it was a lot of fun to decorate them and even more fun to wind them up and watch them go! We decorated the sails with rainbows... And pieced together all the parts while we talked about why boats float and how the rudders work and how the paddle helps the boat move. She liked learning about the parts but what she liked the most was winding them up and setting them on their way! 

 Today we headed home from vacation. It wasn't the most fun day but we all got home safe and sound and that's what matters the most. Evie had a great time in Chicago and we got to fill in three more states on our 50 states map. This leaves Evie with 30 states visited and 20 to go. That's pretty darn good for a six year old! Especially considering she has also been to 9 countries! I'm really proud of what an adventurous little spirit she has turned out to be. I'm hopeful we will have another small trip on our horizons this year but who knows with how busy summers and falls tend to be. I'm so grateful to be able to take her so many places and for the experiences we have together. Hopefully there are many more to come. :)

  Today started off fun and relaxing. We headed out to Oakwood beach and set up for a fun day of sand, sun and waves. Evie had a ton of fun playing in the water and building sand castles. But somewhere along the way things went south....QUICKLY. We had a little flimsy umbrella for the day and I had gone to sit under it for a bit to get out of the sun when the wind started to pick up. Not surprising I mean, this is the WINDY CITY, right? But as quickly as it picked up it started to get really ANGRY. I decided to put the umbrella down to keep it from breaking or flying away but as I was struggling with the clip I suddenly heard Evie screaming and running past me yelling that the sand hurts. Swiftly the umbrella clipped up (pinching my finger in the process) and at that point, with blood running down my hand I started to feel the sting of the sand pelting me EVERYWHERE. In my eyes, my ears, all over. I stuck my finger in my mouth to stop the bleeding, threw some towels over Evie to tr...

 It's finally Evie's birthday and for her birthday she BEGGED me to take her to the Museum of Ice Cream. So here we are. It's very....pink. Honestly the entire experience was FULLY curated for amazing photos and it was also a lot of fun. They take you in small groups which is awesome since we were really able to enjoy each space and spend the time we wanted to. We were greeted by an ice cream subway and the choice of a dark or milk chocolate ice cream bar. After we ate that we moved on to another room where we got an overview of the museum. Evie got her special birthday girl crown and button which says "It's my birthday!" Throughout the museum as people greeted her with "Happy birthday!" she continued to ask me, "How do they know, mama?" and I just kept reminding her of her little birthday pin. Further along we got to use magnets to write what we love, what we dream of and where we are from. There was another ice cream station with pink ice...

  It was a gloomy and wet day for our second Chicago day so we decided to head out to LEGOland Play. This was a lot smaller than I expected it to be but it was really cool to see all the LEGO designs. There was also a lot of places to make your own LEGO designs and we all had fun making different things. After we played and built we took in a 4D movie and then rode a LEGO themed ride a few times. She loved the ride but the 4D movie not so much. A HUGE crowd from a daycare arrived a bit after we did and it got loud and overrun quickly so we made our exit and headed downtown instead. Once there we stopped by XO Marshmallow to grab some hot cocoa and flavored marshmallows. I got s'mores, Evie chose birthday cake and Scott picked salted caramel. They were all really tasty. Evie also tried some cotton candy marshmallows but she didn't love them. I grabbed some butterbeer marshmallows and Ooey Gooey Marshmallow pints to go and we headed back to the hotel for a night of swimming and r...

  This year I let Evie choose her own birthday trip and she chose Chicago. Largely I think because I had been talking earlier this year about how she hasn't been yet. I don't think she really knew what to expect from the trip but sometimes those are the most fun! One thing she did NOT love was the L. In Boston we ride the T and the bus often and she always is so excited about it. Not so much for Chicago's L. It was loud, bumpy, and we had to walk a lot farther to our destinations due to the fact that it's much less robust than the T. Still, we made it work. On our first day we visited Cloud Gate, which she was enamored by. It wasn't too busy which was nice and she got to look for herself in all the angles of the bean which was fun. We also took a trip to Navy Pier and she rode some teacups and a carousel and then we headed to the Childrens Museum. She says she prefers our museum but I think this one was really fun too. It was a busy but really fun first day!

Today we played with some color and some science! We started with a black wheel which Evie got to spin around. When it spun, all the colors of the rainbow could be seen in the center which she thought was really cool. Then we experimented with black on our own by dropping black ink onto a coffee filter and then using water to see what colors would bleed out of it. We saw mostly reds and greens on that one. Finally we got some water based inks and dropped them into some milk. Then I gave Evie a cotton swab with soap on it and as she swirled the cotton swab around the colors disappeared. This was her favorite of our experiments for the day and she repeated it many times!   It was fun to watch the colors swirl and fade and eventually disappear into the milk. While she swirled we talked about emulsions and how the soap was forcing the milk and the inks together while without it they just sit separately. It was really neat playing with "magic colors" today and I definitely think w...

Today Evie woke up in a grumpy mood. She didn't want to do school work, didn't want to play with her sensory bin, and definitely did NOT want to get dressed. Usually I can offer her a warm bubble bath or a glow shower and get the day rolling on a better foot but today she wasn't into even that. So I took her outside, gave her some paints and paper and let her make some art. After awhile she was feeling more open to some activities so I grabbed some round things we had around and we made some bubble art with watercolors.  They turned out really neat and were lots of fun to make!   

It was too cold to swim today so after school and work (and a little bit of cleaning) we decided to play out front with some chalks again. We made this game to play and then Evie made me a few smaller games to play too! It was really fun to see what she came up with and how she would make the game work. Mostly she made me avoid things!   After that she used the chalk to paint designs on my legs and arms and we added some hearts to her cheeks and flowers, bees and other assorted things she likes to her legs as well. We were both pretty exhausted today so when we were finished making art we took showers, snuggled up in our bathrobes and had pizza while we surfed YouTube playing song and movie guessing games. It was a relaxing way to end the day. :)

Well the pool was open again today and even though it was chilly Evie was super excited to get in again! We had the bag all packed up so we headed down straight after work/school. She swam and ate snacks and read a book to me. A lot of her friends showed up today which was nice and she also found out she loves to paddleboard.  Then we headed out to pick up her cake. There was a huge kerfuffle with the cake and even though I purchased it in plenty of time and called to verify that it was finished they had closed up the bakery when we arrived. It took three people and about 20 minutes to find the cake but we got it! While we waited an older gentleman gave Evie a shiny penny and a coloring book for her birthday. After we checked everything was good we headed up to Nana's for her celebration. She loved her presents and the cake was super yummy. Only one week left til she turns officially 6. I can't believe how fast it's flown by. <3  

Today we had planned to go to the pool after school and work but after we packe up the whole wagon and walked all the way down there we realized it was closed for the day. Apparently some tiles needed replaced. So we trekked back home and played with chalks in the driveway instead while we waited for the mailman to deliver a package we have been waiting a few days for.  We had a lot of fun making words, letters, games, and our favorite TV characters. Evie's friend Avery even came over for awhile and joined in. After lunch we went out back to play with some dolls. For some time Evie has been BEGGING me for an American Girl doll camper. This stuff is SO huge though and between an LOL house, a Barbie house, an Americal Girl doll house, an ambulance and everything else I've been hesitant. However, when she spotted one WITH the Jeep for $2 there was no stopping her. It was missing a lot of peices, including the oven door, couch cushions, and trailer hitch so while we played with the...

Summer is officially here and even though I had planned to wait until fall evie has been super excited to jump into first grade work. So we are continuing with the schedule for home schooling. Today we did some math, reading, and a little bit of handwriting practice. There were no fun puzzles or games today but she still did amazing with it and we were done within about half an hour.   So we headed back to the pool! Today she learned to do an underwater handstand! She was so proud of herself and so was I.