Week 45 at Home: It's a Beautiful Day

What a great week! I was able to tackle a new project at work, which forced my brain to focus on a different part of our business. More data, less content. It's always good to stretch yourself a bit beyond the comfort zone. Plus, I squeezed in a shopping trip while Ava was at her baton class on Tuesday night, so that brought its own level of joy that only Target can give. Ha!

Besides twirling this week, Ava has been working hard on mastering her accelerated algebra class. She has begun to ask for more help with her target checks, and so far it's been easy, but I'm looking ahead to when she moves on to even more advanced math. It has been a long time since I've done calculus or trig, so we'll see how it goes when she gets to that point. This coming week she'll register for her 8th grade classes, and then she happily reminded me that after that, she goes to high school. Nope. Not yet. Our little 12 year old isn't ready for that. Gah.

But, our little 7 year old had a successful re-entry into 1st grade this week. They are back in school, full-time, as of this past Thursday. He was so excited to see all of his friends and teachers, and to eat the school food, hee hee. When I got home on Thursday morning after dropping him off, I might have had a little meltdown. *sob* I missed him! It has been super quiet during the day with him at school. Ava is so happy to have the house without the little "rat", and to be honest, I was able to focus on the data work that I needed to, so it was easier for me, as well. BUT, it was such a joy to pick him up at the bus stop each day! I pray that he stays healthy and enjoys his time in school.

G is so creative with his legos...he made a replica of my desk with my monitor, laptop, and chair. So cute!

Ava and I made homemade ravioli and an antipasto salad last Saturday for dinner. It turned out great, and we didn't even have any leftover! It did take us about three hours to complete everything, so I'm glad we saved it for a weekend night dinner. Next month's kit is Family Fun Night, with a baked potato bar, confetti cornbread muffins, and shortbread domino cookies. The bonus recipe is sheet pan baked nachos, so I think we're going to tackle that tonight for dinner. If we can make homemade pasta, I feel like we can pretty much do anything!

I caught her with a mouthful of food here, hence the strange expression on her face :)

On a national level, I was so pleased to see the lack of violence leading up to the inauguration on Wednesday. Reading the news in the last few days has been so different. I look forward to seeing where the new administration takes our country!

Comments

Goodbye Sweet Spanky

This is a post that I'm not very excited to write. As you probably know, our oldest dog, Spanky, had struggled with health issues (ear infections, seizures) his whole life, and recently, his health had severely deteriorated. He hadn't been eating, his ear infection was so severe his face was swollen, he had a hard time getting up the stairs, and he very rarely wanted to play. Last week we got a few tail wags from him, and he ate a few bowls of food, but it was a 50-50 chance that he would actually keep the food down. On Thursday, we made the decision that if he wasn't any better by this weekend, we were going to put him down. I know Scott didn't want to make that decision as Spanky was a very special dog to him - he truly was his little buddy, following him around everywhere, wanting to be wherever Scott was, and howling his sadness whenever Scott would leave him. Throughout Friday night, it became clear that Spanky wasn't going to have a miraculous recovery...

Happily Ever After?

Lately, I've been adding to the Disney Princess movies in our collection. Last week I bought Beauty and the Beast for Ava. That was never a favorite movie of mine, but now that I've seen it several times in the last week, it's growing on me. I figure this is a good chance for me to catch up on some of the stories that I missed out on! Watching all of these princess movies has me thinking about fairy tales...why is it that it's always the evil stepMOTHER? Or the mom is dead, and no one has taken her place? Very rarely is it the father who is evil, or dead. This has actually come up as a topic in more than one conversation lately, and has me a bit intrigued. Fairy tales are often not very happy - and usually someone dies at some point. I was a giving an overview of Snow White to a friend of mine, and as I was going through the story, both of us were horrified at the message - mom dies, evil stepmother wants to murder her pretty stepdaugh...

What's Black & White?

It's officially summer in Minnesota. We've passed the 1-2 weeks where it's pleasant outside, and have moved into the hot and humid midwestern summer season. This calls for some FUN in the SUN! We were hoping that Ava would enjoy the water a little more this year than she did last year (I took her to several weeks of swimming lessons in a lap pool, where the temp of the water was just a wee bit too chilly. It didn't go well for either of us.) Plus, she has a new swimming suit I was anxious to have her try out, so at the very least, I knew she would look cute. :) So, Daddy decided to set up the sprinkler for her one night after dinner. This, too, did not go very well. Perhaps it's because he sprung the sprinkler on her without warning, causing her to run to me, with fear in her eyes, and very wet hands... After that, we never got her to come near the sprinkler (way to go, Daddy), and she decided to play with my potted flowers...with h...

Go, Go, Goers!

Search This Blog