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. :)

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 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! :)

  It's finally October!! Evie and I kicked off the new season by decorating the house and today I started weaving Halloween into her bins and activities. Mondays are always rough for her so I mixed up a fun sensory bin for her today with colored (and regular) kinetic sand and some molds and cutters. She thought the cat cutter was Santa Claus which I thought was hilarious. We also picked out a Halloween outfit to wear to school today. She loves showing off her dresses so it gives her something to look forward to when she sees her teacher. She also got to wear these little bat bows we've been saving for this month. After that we did a few "games" on her Chrome Book (they are math lessons in disguise!) and then we played some princess games before she had to catch the bus. I'm so grateful that the weather has stayed pretty sunny and cool these last few weeks. Once it gets rainy and cold we're going to have to spend or lunches inside and while I have plenty of gam...

  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...

  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! 

  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...

  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...

  Today was Treat Street day!! We didn't do much that was exciting during the morning. We played some games, did some art and made some treats. But this evening we got to go down to Treat Street which is an event in our area where businesses hand out candy and coupons.  There are decorations, music, food and of course...CANDY! This is the first year Evie really understands Halloween so it was a lot of fun watching her get so excited every time she got a piece of candy she loved. It was a rainy night but we made the best out of it! I'm really excited to see how she will do on beggars night! Just a few more days and we can trick or treat in our neighborhood! :)

  Halloween week is half over already which feels crazy! This week has been hectic but we've managed to squeeze in some activities anyway. Today we had a scavenger hunt that led Evie to this banana flavored cotton candy. We made some foam pumpkins in the morning. This actually kept Evie pretty busy for about half an hour. I put some glue on the foam pumpkins and then she got to decorate them with tissue paper and some other accessories. She did a few of them and got pretty creative with it! In the afternoon we cleaned up the herb garden and ran around for a bit in the yard. It was pretty chilly out but we're getting close to not being able to go out at all much so I wanted to get out and take care of some things and get in an extra play day while we can. After we came back in we made some cookies and deep cleaned the house a bit.  We wrapped up the evening with some games before dinner and bed! It was a fun and busy day. :)

  It's day two of Halloween week and today we decided to try paint pour art. We made this fun pumpkin and also a drip painting on a canvas that's still in the process of drying,.  Evie had a lot of fun choosing colors to pour and then watching them run off the pumpkin. In retrospect we should have laid it flat to dry since all the color marble ran off but I also didn't want to leave it out all night in case it rained. Tomorrow we will add some leaves and a curly top! This evening we got to go to Nana's for family night and carve pumpkins with everyone. It's a family tradition and it's one of my favorite ones. Evie got to help clean out pumpkins and then she painted a little one as well.  They came out really well! :)