Miss Eve is at her first ever sleep over tonight. I just went up to check on the kids, like I do every night, and she’s not in her bed. That makes my mommy heart sad. I’m sure she is having fun, hopefully sound asleep by now, but I want to snuggle her and kiss her sweet face. Growing up is hard, for mom!
Eve used her “Christmas Shopping” coupon today and we went shopping, to the grocery store! That’s where she wanted to buy presents, and that’s where I needed to buy groceries, so it worked out very well. Lex came with us, which complicated matters a touch because her main idea was a gift for Lex. Luckily she is a clever one and turned a complication into a great time at the grocery store! She took one of the paper bakery bags and carried it with her, sticking gifts in it along the way. She snuck away from Lex (I knew where she was going) to get his, then discussed gift ideas with me for a few other people. At one point, standing in the candy aisle, she lamented that she would never be able to buy a present for me because I was with her. I asked if she had an idea and she said yes, it was right in that aisle. Silly girl. So I walked on down the aisle and she snuck something in her bag. A few minutes later she started a story with, “Mom, when I was getting the Swedish Fish… OH NO!!” She’s so dramatic with her reactions and I was laughing hysterically. The whole way through the store she was talking about how excited she was and she kept asking Lex if he wanted clues about his present. When we got to the checkout she slipped back to the candy aisle and swapped my Swedish Fish for something else. Then she asked the checkout lady to put the bar code reader INTO the bag so Lex and I would see her presents. The lady was very sweet and played along happily.
The whole way home Eve talked about her gifts. “Mom, do you think dad will like the gift I got for him?” “Lex, can you guess what I got for you?” “Mom, your gift is the biggest!” On and on she went and I enjoyed every minute. She was so excited about giving gifts. Then she says “Oh, I feel like a million pounds lighter. Like a big weight is off my shoulders” (or along those lines) I asked why and she said, dramatically, “I was so worried that I wouldn’t have time to get these presents. I’m so relieved that we went shopping today and I was able to get this big job done!” Ha. She cracks me up!
When we got home she went right down to the basement to wrap everything. She told us that she would probably be down there for hours! Not that long later she was done and she snuck all of the presents under the tree, giggling and merry the whole time. Grocery shopping with Eve has never been more fun. That was my true gift from her.
Sweet gifts from Santa Eve nestled all snug under the tree.
Eve: “Hey, there’s a thrift shop. Can we go thrift shopping? What, What? What?”
Macklemore’s Thrift Shop
She had us in stitches!
Look who made the newspaper yesterday! This makes her look like a pretty fierce player. :-)
Eve had an assignment to take a picture of herself at her favorite spots in town for a social studies project. She chose the river. It was a beautiful afternoon and the kids had a half day of school, so we decided it would be a good day to take a trip to the river. Despite my protests and reminders that is November, she insisted on bring her bathing suit and googles with every intention of swimming. She was even upset that she couldn’t find her snorkel. She’s a wild one, that girl!
Eve at her favorite place in town.
Then this happened. Of course.
It’s November, in Vermont, but hey, let’s go swimming!
As it turns out, the water as pretty cold. Surprise! A few weeks ago she and a friend had noticed something in the water and they thought it was a net that their class had left behind when they went to the river to study crayfish. Ever since then Eve has been committed to getting that net back. I think that was a big part of her motivation to go swimming today. That and, of course, she loves swimming!
Despite the cold, she persevered.
I sat on the shore and had fun taking pictures. :)
At one point she calls to me, “You’re lucky you’re not in this cold water, mom!” I called back, “Luck has nothing to do with it! I KNOW what river water feels like in November!” She was actually talking to me the entire way out and back. She likes narrate her world. I wonder who she got that from. :)
Yeah, this is what the river in November feels like!
She did it though! As she made her way out she began to realize her goal wasn’t actually a net at all, but a Black & Decker Weed Whacker! It was out deep enough that she had to push it back in with her foot and the stick a bit before she could pick it up. She consider just reaching down and getting her whole arm, upper body, and probably face wet, but opted to push/pull it along with the stick instead. :) As she got closer to the shore she was able to pick it up.
When she sets her mind to it, this girl can do anything! I love her commitment and passion.
Success!!!
Her skin was red and frigid when she got out! I toweled her off and wrapped her up as quick as possible. She loved it. :)
We weren’t sure what to do with the weed whacker though. It had been in there for many weeks and it was wet and stinky like river water. Yuck! I did not want it in my car. We brought it up to the marking lot and left it leaning against a railing. Hopefully someone will stop by and do something with it.
Eve is planning to write the story as a book and read it to her class next week. I hope she does! I’ll be sure to share here as well. It’s always an adventure when Eve is around. <3
Eve decided our house isn’t scary enough for Halloween. Think this will help? 😮👻👻🎃
Eve had a dentist appointment today to have a tooth extracted. The big tooth behind is about a quarter way in and almost sideways, while the baby tooth isn’t even loose yet. The dentist strongly encouraged taking out that baby tooth to allow room for the big one to grow in straighter.
Eve strongly disagreed. She disagreed last night and again this morning. She stomped her feet, slammed doors, and yelled “It’s my body so I should get to decide what happens to it!” You go girl! Except when mom says otherwise.
I picked her up at 11:45 today and she amped up her protests. She crossed her arms and stamped her feet and refused to move. When I tried to move her she cried and fought back. I tried bribes (your favorite smoothie from Panera!), and rationalizing (painful braces for years!), and eventually resorted to threats (no field hockey game tonight!) before she got in the car, with much gusto, yelling, and door slamming. Repeat process to get her out of the car and in to the dentist’s office.
There the nice lady at the desk said the dentist was running about half an hour late. Ugh! I asked if Eve could at least eat her lunch while we wait and she went back to check on the specifics of the procedure and see if eating would be ok. She came back a few minutes later to say that they were going to open another chair, she was going to assist, and the dentist would run two procedures at the same time. Sure, I guess that’s better then fighting with Eve in the waiting room for half an hour!
As it turned out, we have a new dentist now. They sent out a letter several weeks ago saying the practice had been sold to a new guy and the transition would begin. I was not excited about that when I got the letter, shortly after our awful last visit to the dentist, and dreaded even more change in the office. Turns out it was change for the better!
It took me, the hygienist (lady from the front desk), and the new dentist all working together to convince her to get into the chair. He PROMISED he was just going look at her teeth and assess the situation. She very grudgingly got into the chair and even more grudgingly opened her mouth. He took a look and then started telling us that the new research shows its better to leave the baby teeth in and let nature take it’s course a bit longer. He said that new studies have shown that when you remove baby teeth all of the other teeth loosen up a bit, taking up more space then they should and not allowing the others to come in properly. I think that’s what he said anyway. Basically you end up with the opposite result than you expected. He also said that studies in the past didn’t take into account growth and the extra space that creates. All said and none, this new dentist recommended NOT taking out the tooth, at least not yet. He said we should let that new tooth get at least three quarters of the way in and then reassess, assuming the baby tooth is still in the way.
And just like that Eve was right back to her old self! Chatty, smiling, happy. She ate her sandwich in the car and I brought her back to school. Now I’m home, recovering from the emotional beat-down, and she is enjoying the rest of her day with all her teeth still intact!
Run Eve, run!
“I HATE socks!” said Eve, growling in the mudroom. “I can never figure them out!!”
It was a beautiful day today so we decided to get carve pumpkins. I had planned to take the kids to the local farm stand and pick out a few, but Eve wanted to pick her own right from the pumpkin patch, so we turned it into a lovely fall outing. Things got a little dicey on the drive down when the skies opened up and everything got soaked, but by the time we got to the pumpkin patch it was blue skies again. Thankfully!!
When we arrived Eve saw a horse drawn wagon ride and decided we should do that first. The wagon brings people up into the apple orchard, but we weren’t much in the mood for picking apples so we just road the in the wagon for the full round trip.
Grandpa Tom and Eve, enjoying a lovely day at the apple orchard.
Seeing dad and Eve in the wagon together reminded me of a picture from when she was a baby (I just spent ten minutes reading baby Eve posts, cracking myself up, but can’t find the picture. I think I have a hard copy I’ll try to add here later). I tried to recreate the picture, but Eve would have no part of it!
I mostly just got a lot of this. She’s not very cooperative with the camera these days.
I had to settle for this. Not quite the same, but the memory is there anyway. :)
These two were happy to cooperate with the camera! :)
After our wagon ride we took a run through the corn maze. I was surprised that Eve so eagerly agreed to go, after she was so grumpy about the last corn maze we did! Fortunately this one is much smaller and only took us half an hour.
Then we passed through the pumpkin patch and Eve decided she’d rather get one from the pre-picked pile. Crazy girl! I thought it would be lovely to take a picture of them in the pumpkin patch, but we are nearing the end of the season and the pumpkin patch isn’t really very lovely anymore. Oh well. We moved on to the pumpkin pile and made our selections. The usual rule is to pick a pumpkin you can carry, but Eve chose a HUGE one and Grandpa Tom happily carried it for her. She’s a lucky girl. :)
Weighing our pumpkins. We had 63lbs of pumpkin! I love this scale.
We also picked up some apple cider and dried corn to decorate the house.
Back at home Lex decided he was too tired to carve pumpkins right away, but Eve was raring to go. She also was eager to do it herself! She quickly decided some help with the scooping out the guts part would be ok, but she did most of the carving all on her own. I sat by, watching and hoping we would not see any blood! (Speaking of blood, while this was going on Lex was at the table and suddenly said, “Hey, I lost a tooth!” They are so much less eventful these days!)
Ready to go!
Scooping out the guts is hard work!
She drew a bunch of sample faces on the white board (I should have taken a picture of that!) and eventually decided on a basic pumpkin face. There may have been a bit of persuasion in there as we all told her how tricky it is to carve curves and details. She learned pretty quickly herself once she set to work carving the face!
It is a very chilly night, but we slipped out quickly to light the candle and put Jack on display for all to see. Hopefully he’ll have a friend join him soon when Lex gets inspired to carve his pumpkin.
Two little pumpkins sitting on a porch. She is also making a scary Halloween face, or so she told me.