I emailed Katie’s teacher to see if she would be willing to take an end-of-year photo and she was! (She actually lives about a minute from us so we went to her house!)
And the comparison between start and end of year.
Saying goodbye to second grade!
Author Archives: Jen
I let her wear MY lipstick today.
She bugs me to wear lipstick all the time and I usually hesitate because I know she won’t want to deal with taking it off. But today I let her as a special treat because we were going to be seeing her teacher.
The application is all hers—I didn’t help one bit (color me impressed!!) but she did whine a little when I told her she needed to do three layers AND put on gloss. (And later in the day she was positive it was coming off and I assured her it was not.)
My first sugar in weeks.
Tom thought he was buying me a sugar free drink. I knew better but opened it and drank it anyway. It was delicious.
Just chillin’ in my egg chair loving a perfect weather day.
I predict we will have exactly three more of these days all year.
Today’s family walk!
Katie is more excited than she looks as she picked this route. She just wants to go play in the gross water and was mad at us for making her take a picture.
Back to the Future!
We invited friends over for a physical distancing movie night.
We introduced the kids to Back to the Future. It had a lot more language in it than I remembered… Katie whined that she didn’t want to watch it but of course she ended up liking it.
It’s been awhile for a margarita…
I stopped drinking because I’m trying to lose weight and margaritas don’t work with that plan…and I’m not a fan of diet drinks (Skinny Girl margarita? Barf). Once in awhile I will have a small cherry vodka and pop… Not very exciting but it’s something to drink by the fire instead of water. But I’m down 12# so there is that.
Katie was here.
Sooooooo many lilacs on our walk!
We went for another walk in our neighborhood today—we wanted to see how long it would take Owen to walk to school. Turns out it’s about 15 minutes door to door! (We have no idea how long the bus route will take but we figured at least it’s a backup!)
Anyway…there were a TON of lilac bushes among the whole route. I finally stopped to take a picture with some. These were white but there were all colors!
After our walk on the way home we stopped at the elementary school where I had seen a gigantic lilac bush and had been wanting to go back and snip some for a bouquet. Unfortunately they were mostly dried out so I only got a few small sprigs. Katie wanted to hold them and then turned into a ham.
I love a huge fire.
Katie wanted to be like mommy.
I guess I could attempt to do the whole graphic like mine…maybe next time.
(No she’s not in SeneGence makeup…yet. Though honestly she needs the LipSense because the lipstick she put on got all over her shirt and her face yesterday.)
Behind the scenes photo selection.
When I take my eye look pics, I usually have a few “sets” to choose from. Some days it’s easier than others. Some days you’d be surprised how far your head moves between the eyes open and eyes closed photo. Some days I cannot decide and have to ask a friend. Today I ended up choosing the top pair, which is my normal style.
HABANERO!! Finally!! And wow does it pull orange on me!! I tried doing a bit more makeup today to offset it but I’m still not sure it works. It’s not bad, just not my color. Or maybe it doesn’t go with the eye makeup I picked? Or my outfit? I don’t know. I just know it’s not love. What do you think? Be honest.
50 feet of slip and slide!
Friends bought the same slip and slide so we decided to have an outdoor playdate and hook them together. The kids stayed far enough apart for me to not worry too much.
Of course after a while it devolved into this game:
Why not wear makeup on a random Tuesday?
Maggie’s sweet face then and now!
Goodbye fifth grade!
Owen’s teachers planned a goodbye meeting at a local park. People were really good about having masks and/or keeping a safe distance…
The kids were all really excited to see each other and actually talk to each other.
The teachers walked around to see everyone and say goodbye, and I was able to take the end of year pic. Not quite like other years…but definitely one for the memory books!
I guess these are now my official fire pants.
Our first fire casualty of the season…
Scout Backyard Campout
Since Covid-19 has thrown everything out of whack, a scouts weekend camping trip was turned into a backyard campout. The boys had a schedule to follow including camp setup, meal planning, zoom calls, computer check-ins with photos, and games!
FRIDAY
We borrowed a small tent from friends and both Owen and Katie LOVED hanging out in it. We put it up in the morning and they pretty much spent all day in and out of it, sometimes together, sometimes alone. They were coloring and listening to music and who knows what else.
And of course Owen loved starting a fire!
Katie really wanted to sleep outside with him but he wanted to do it himself. We were slightly unsure he’d last all night, but he said he’d be fine but asked if we’d leave all the lights on…so it was basically daylight out there.
SATURDAY
The night went fine and he stayed out all night!! Tom assisted with getting the fire ready for cooking breakfast but Owen did most of the actual food prep!
Both kids LOVED cooking over the fire… Katie—who generally says she doesn’t like hot dogs—cooked and ate TWO!
Owen decided to let Katie sleep with him the second night and she was over the moon. They had another official 9:30 lights out but she says they stayed up really late! And again, as bright as day out there.
SUNDAY
Overall we were really impressed with how much Owen enjoyed spending time in the tent and prepping and cooking food! He’ll be even more ready if and when actually camping weekends start again!
I just want to be this comfortable.
Is that too much to ask?
I’ll allow you to take my picture.
Maggie—then and now!
I think I’m doing quarantine wrong.
Can I just say that I am legitimately jealous of anyone who is getting to binge watch multiple hours or hundreds of hours of TV? (I just deleted 325 episodes of Ellen because I will NEVER have time to even start catching up.) Or anyone who has had time to reorganize their pantry? (That’s legit the one thing I wanted to do and I haven’t even come close to being able to do it yet.) Or clean out closets? Or cook a bunch of new dishes? Or do some crafting? Or read some books?
I don’t know what I’m doing but I feel like I’m doing this quarantine thing all wrong. Pretty much nothing in my day to day life has changed except my kids are around 24/7 and I don’t get to run out on errands.
Me in one of my happy places.
Getting the hang of the big slip and slide!
It took them a day but they finally have the hang of how to really maximize their runs! Now we need to make sure it doesn’t end at the fence!!
Last day of school and eLearning (2nd and 5th).
Katie picked out this fancy dress to go to school supply pickup. Of course she hadn’t showered in three days.
She missed her last class Zoom meeting where they were going to share their goodbye posters so I posted it to the school’s page and sent it to her teacher.
School supply pickup was more emotional for me than I anticipated. I might have gotten a little teary-eyed as we drove away. I asked Katie if she was okay and told her I was sad so it was okay if she was. She said she was a little sad but she was okay. Leave it to Mom to be overly emotional.
Then we had to go through a huge garbage bag of Katie’s stuff…including…a lunch bag. Thankfully it was empty!! We were all thinking we’d have to just toss the whole thing. Phew! Oh, and we had an outfit change!
Then it was time to take Owen’s pictures—-and he hadn’t showered in awhile, either. But Tom had given him a buzz cut.
Normally last day of school pics are just me and the kids…
…but since Dad is working from home, he got in on the action. #gonnamissthisbench
Green onion experiment!
A friend told me that green onions would sprout in water so we tried it. And whaddya know? It worked! It’s not enough if you need a bunch of them, but if you just need a few tiny pieces for a garnish, this is perfect.
Deep dish pizza #2.
Our side? Roasted butternut squash, bacon, caramelized onions, Honeycrisp apple, and smoked candied walnuts with a Chipotle sauce. Or mostly this pizza.
Kids side? Pepperoni.
Kiss My Sass + Peacock Pearl
So I tried the Kiss My Sass and Peacock Pearl today and it was as good as I wanted it to be.
Let’s take a nice one and a silly one.
Their words, not mine!!
Owen mask modeling
Testing our new Norwex masks for a kid-size face. There was a tiny learning curve—he had it upside down at first.
