Tag Archives: Eve

Mermaids at the lake

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We had a break in the rain today so I decided to take everyone to the lake! We brought a few friends along. It was low 80s, sunny, and a really lovely afternoon. The girls swam, some boys kayaked, other boys read, and the moms chatted.

Mermaids at the lake

Reminds me of a recent whale watch. :)

Just lounging about

Lex didn’t actually want to come, but he did a great job putting up with it and keeping the complaining to a minimum. He wasn’t in the mood to swim, so while the girls were in the water….

Fun in the sand

Lex was in the shade! :)

Do you see him way back there?! :)

We stayed for a few hours, then headed home. Ready for another rainy day tomorrow.

HBDE

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Today we celebrated this beautiful spirit and her 14th trip around the sun.

It was a normal school day, so Eve work up to presents on the table, but had to wait until after school before digging in.

All morning I thought about 14 years ago, at 7am when we were going to the hospital, at 10am when they broke my water, at 10:45 when that beautiful baby girl was on her way. They were nice memories. She is an amazing human being. Alan came over to celebrate with us so we were all together to open presents after school.

This was the year of wigs. This lovely purple one is for an Entrapta cosplay.

Percy Jackson is always welcome too.

We can’t remember what this wig is for. Pure silliness, maybe.

Did someone say silly? She’s wearing a red beret hooked over the purple pony tail.

I love this wild child more than anything!

Guess what was in the big box from Aunt Mandy? A sword! It works well for cutting ribbon, among other things.

This looks safe, right?

How is she so tall?!? I think she must be wearing huge high heels. Yep, that must be it. At least she’s smiling for the camera. :)

14

So many smiles for mommy today!

Just when we thought it was done, UPS came with a big box from Aunt Rosy!

Eevee of many looks.

We ordered take-out sushi for dinner (Eve’s favorite) and watched Pirates of the Caribbean (Eve’s choice). A good night was had by all.

Eve is a pretty amazing child. Full of laughter, creativity, imagination, and chatter. She makes me laugh, she makes me crazy, and she makes me happy. The other day I came home from school totally exhausted and stressed. The boys were at musical rehearsal so Eve put on a good show and we snuggled and laughed on the couch for awhile. It was awesome. I felt so much better afterwards. Another day I came home and found her outside, in her woodland fairy whatever whatever costume, reading a book. It was such a lovely sight and she even let me take a few birthday photos. She’s so good to me. 💙💙

This amazing child has changed my world and I am thankful every day for her presence in my world.

 

A tiny pandemic birthday party

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Eve’s birthday is coming right up so we had a tiny little birthday party. It has been so long since we’ve had company. It was a beautiful day so I set up the tables outside and the kids had a great time running around, laughing, painting, chatting, giggling, and talking about teenage stuff. It was awesome! My heart was very happy.

Outdoors and masked. As safe as can be.

Even Tsu came to the party.

This huge birthday cake looks small in his hands. These kids are all getting so big!

She promised me she was smiling behind the mask. :)

Blue ombre cake. Yum!

Pinterest worthy, for sure.

We are all so well trained from schooling in a pandemic. LOL. Space out at least six feet before removing the masks to eat.

Sarah bought Jasmine a hat. Jasmine was not amused.

Huxley wasn’t either. He looks more angry and aggressive than he was. Really he was just annoyed.

Back to work creating art, following the sun.

Even Laurens joined the party!

Artists at work

I love these kids. ♥♥♥

Weekend Update

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I know it’s only Saturday night, but I’m in the mood for a weekend update. :)

I came home from school Friday afternoon and found that Eve had decorated for Halloween. It made me SUPER happy to see the ghosties on the tree when came down our street. 🧡🖤

This baby tree is doing a great job holding up the bats and ghosties.

The porch lights were one.

When she started decorating the dog I knew it was time for a new activity. :)

I spent today cleaning the windows, cleaning the kitchen, and making two apple pies (one for the freezer), all while listening to an audio book. Then we ended the day with pizza delivery and a Zoom “book tour” with Rick Riordan. It was a lot of fun! Our book tour ticket included an autographed book and Camp Half Blood baseball cap, both of which are still in the mail. We had fun with the Zoom event though. We also got a hint at his next book series. :)

Hello Uncle Rick!

This platter has been on the counter all week and it was just calling for a pie! So I made one. :)

Tomorrow I’ll have to go grocery shopping and do some school work, but today I thoroughly enjoyed my Saturday activities.

Beautiful

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Eve has been doing a ton of drawing these days. She even saved up all her money and bought herself a sweet drawing tablet. Recently we were talking about time lapse videos (or “speedpaint” in YouTube terms) and I showed her a tool to make them. Today she made one and posted it on YouTube. I LOVE it!!  She is such a creative thinker. She gave me permission to share it here as well. 💗🧡💛💚💙💜 Enjoy!

(sound on)

Garden news

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We have been busy with the gardens this summer. Back in April we planted some Hostas and a rose bush, all donated by kind friends. In May we added some Morning Glories to the garden. The goal was that the Morning Glories would fill in the gaps between the Hostas, but instead they took over the garden!

The Hostas got pretty buried and didn’t do much growing. I have faith they grew roots though and will grow bigger next summer!  We even got three roses on the tiny new rose bush! I was shocked and thrilled. :)

Last weekend Eve and I decided to add a tree to the collection. The oak tree that the landscapers planted years ago died the first year and we have been thinking about a replacement ever since. Eve started asking for a cherry tree, and I love cherry trees, so we finally got around to making it happen!

We took our Tesla and went to the nursery, joking about who brings a Tesla to buy a tree, other than a Christmas tree, of course :)  When we got there, we saw another Tesla in the parking lot. LOL.

We found a Meteor Cherry Tree, the guy bundled up the roots and branches, and slid it right into the car! When we got home Eve went to work digging the hole and planting the tree. She was so confident that I went to the grocery store and let her plant the tree! She did a great job.

She named it George.👆🏻 Laurens supervised.👇🏻

Last week we had a few cold nights and frost took the Morning Glories, so over the weekend Eve decided to clean out the garden. Today we added some mulch and “put the garden to bed.”  :)

Eve is a great garden partner (as long as the spiders stay away). We almost got a free Meyer Lemon tree this week too! A lady was giving it away on a local listserve. I have always wanted a Meyer Lemon tree, so I was super excited when I saw it, but someone beat me to it. Oh well. I’ll be happy with George and the sleeping Hostas. :) Mostly I’ll be happy with my awesome green thumb daughter.

Life and such

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It is a beautiful day and it’s Friday and I’m in the mood to post a few pictures. :)

This was yesterday morning. I took the picture and sent it to my colleagues, saying “Sorry, I can’t work today. The cat has claimed my computer.” :)

We are all still in school, though the high school seems to have given up so starting next week Lex will have no more assignments, while Eve and I will continue plugging away for three more weeks.  :(

His birthday is Monday. The world was nice enough to give us all the day off.  We have plans to continue socially isolating at home.  There might also be a birthday world being built in Minecraft. I think Eve has been working on that the past few days.  We were joking (kind of) about having a birthday party in Minecraft. It would be fun if that worked out.

Today the Vermont National Guard did a fly-over with four fighter jets. It was part of an event honoring “essential employees” and first responders in the state.  The flew over all of the hospitals in the state, plus, I think, that big one right over the border. :)

We forgot until we heard a rumble in the sky, then we ran outside to see.  It was still a few minutes before their scheduled time, so we hung out outside for a little while, hoping that we hadn’t missed them. Apparently we were too late though. :( We did enjoy some time in the sunshine at least! I figured I should take a few pictures to prove that we do leave the house on occasion. :)

The backyard neighbors have a lilac tree that is starting to hang over our lawn. We might help ourselves to lilacs later this summer!

Eve tried to climb the tree and decided she is too big and/or the tree is too small.

Waiting for the planes on a sunny day.

The karate dojo has been doing Zoom lessons (like everyone else in these quarantine times) and the also post challenges or special activities sometimes too.  This week they posted the SHOE-do-in challenge.  Eve saw it and said, “That’s easy!” Then proceeded to do it successfully on her second try!  She was super proud of herself! Not because she worked hard at it, but because she’s naturally flexible. :)

We sent it right off to the dojo for bragging rights. :)

Finally, I started with the cat so I’ll end with the dog.

If I stay in one place for too long (like a few seconds), I ended up with a foot warmer. :)

Birthday Girl!

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Hey, we had a birthday around here.  Someone turned 13!!  Craziness!  Everyone kept asking “what are you going to do to celebrate?” but with social isolation and COVID-19 in the air, what could we do?!  We took a hike last weekend and celebrated the big day with birthday presents and waffles and “home school.”  She seemed to enjoy it though!

We started the morning as we usually do on birthdays.  A pile of presents on the table!

My baby girl is 13!!

Happy Birthday!

Eve opened presents and drank seltzer from her new favorite mug!

Maybe it’s time to cut back on the morning seltzer! :)

We all watched the present opening.

Eve had a very specific gift list, so she got very specific items.  She was happy. :)

Her favorite saying. Looks like she needs a nap already!

Talk bubbles need to be in the right place!

Lots of presents and cards kept her busy for awhile.

We had to take a short break so I could make waffles and she could do her Advisory Check-in for school.  But soon enough we were back to presents!

This present from Joyce was like a party in a box!

A fun, messy party in a box!

Cash and waffles! What more can a girl want on her birthday?! :)

The rest of the day was spent “at school,” in other words, sitting at the table in front of our computers.  It was a rainy day, so we did dog walks, but nothing else too exciting.  We are still working on the home/school balance now that they are one and the same.

Around dinner time we had a family “gathering” for cake and singing.

Oh yea, cake!

Quarantines = Video chat birthday parties. It’s a weird world we’re living in, but I’m glad the tech is there to support it!  I wish we were all together in person, but at least we got to see faces and hear voices.  <3

Eve ran away when everyone started singing. Remember when she used to LOVE the attention? Well, not so much any more.

Fortunately she came back for the cake. :)

We measured her on the wall at bedtime. She’s exactly the same height Lex was on his 14th birthday, which is actually a slow down in her growth spurt. We had fun looking at all the heights over the years. Then off to bed!

We now have two teenagers in the house. Yay and boo. She is an amazing girl, full of confidence and silliness and creativity.  I look forward to seeing the person she is becoming, but I also miss the smiley, bald little girl she used to be.  Fortunately she’s still smiley at home and still loves to snuggle!

A pre-birthday hike

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Now that we are all in Covid quarantine lock-down mode, it’s been interesting trying to plan a 13th birthday.  We had to cancel our big birthday trip, which was going to be her primary present.  I’ll reschedule it, someday, but I have no idea when that will be.  I ordered a few presents online, plus presents from family, but that’s all we got. I’ll make a cake on Tuesday. We asked Eve if she wanted to do a family outing and she decided on a hike. The forecast for the next few days is yucky, and we’ll be “in school” all week, so we took advantage of the dry weather yesterday and went for a hike up behind the school. There are trails there that the kids have gone up a few times in PE classes, but Alan and I had never been on them.  It was fun.

She’s debating about whether or not to let me take a family pic. It took some convincing, but…

She agreed to pose for JUST ONE photo! :)

I snuck a few others! :)

Look at this crazy landscape!

Huxley came with us too. Looking dapper (and dirty) in his fleece.

Eve drank from the creek, then taught Huxley how to. :)

We had fun exploring the area, on the well marked and not-so well marked trails. Towards the end we found ourselves back on the bike path, where, coincidentally, a guy Alan knows from the conservation committee was pedaling by.  We asked him about the brush clearing and he said there were invasive species in that area that were killing native trees, so last summer they brought up a “brontosaurus” to do massive clearing.  Crazy!  He pointed us to the trails website for more information.

The only down side to the day was the vast number of ticks we had to pick off Huxley!!  He’s wearing a flea and tick collar, but apparently it’s not working anymore! I ordered another one immediately! We all spent the rest of the day feeling like we had creepy crawlies all over us.  Yuck!