Happy New Year!

Fortunately for us, we are accustomed to spending the Christmas season at home, so things didn't feel too different this year. Emily's school did a modified version of their annual Christmas lunch and gift exchange. For her, that meant that she dressed up for the Zoom meeting and made a gift at home for her assigned buddy (which we delivered to the school in advance, and picked up the gift that someone made for her at the same time). Luckily, she never eats what they serve for Christmas lunch anyway, so this year wasn't any different on that front. :)

Ready for the fancy Christmas lunch!

 

She was definitely happy to have a couple of weeks away from school, but I also think that there was a lot of boredom, too. Without the usual play dates, she was reduced to FaceTime calls and many of her friends spent the entire call playing video games, so it didn't feel very rewarding. We did manage to get some cookie decorating in and Emily really took pride in creating elaborate decorations for each cookie. 

I suppose that this is consistent with her continued interest in art. She has become interested in Gacha life characters, which are a type of Japanese anime. She draws pretty regularly, but likes to do so on the iPad rather than on regular sheets of paper. I guess that drawing on the iPad makes it easier to correct mistakes, etc. 

Emily also participated in the Zoom violin concert that her teacher arranged shortly before Christmas. In addition to performing traditional carols with Abbie, she also performed Minuet 2 by Bach as a solo. I think that she was pretty nervous (I have heard it go more smoothly in the past), but it is still good to see how much progress she is making (excuse the amateur videography):

Emily was kind enough to make a present for her elf this year - a miniature backpack - and Frisbee took it with her when she left for the year. Christmas was good overall. Emily received some Beats headphones, a Mighty (a mini device for playing music), lots of clothes, American girls books, etc. 

Above, she is sporting one of the sweaters that she received, along with one of the many fluffy scrunchies that Grandma and Grandpa P. sent her, all while reading one of her new books. 

School resumes next Tuesday, and she claims that she isn't ready to start classes again, but I have a feeling that she will welcome the return of the routine. I know that I will!

Holiday Season

Thanksgiving has a little different meaning to Emily than it does to the rest of us because she isn't willing to eat most of the things that we eat on the holiday. She is happy to have croissants for breakfast, but that is pretty much where it ends. To her, the day is more about the Macy's Day Parade and the National Dog Show.

Ready for her Thanksgiving

 

This year, Emily made a plan to watch both shows with a couple of friends. She got up and got dressed in a nice outfit and then waited until it was time for the group FaceTime call. I think all three girls enjoyed the virtual party.

At our actual Thanksgiving meal, Emily was willing to eat cranberries, but nothing else so she had to fend for herself. She grabbed some graham crackers and used them to make little cranberry sandwiches. It wasn't much of a meal and definitely not as filling as our meal. The rest of us ate around 3pm and then were too stuffed to eat for the rest of the day. Given that we were full, I didn't even think about the need to feed Emily. Around 7:30pm, she came to us in the living room and seemed pretty irritated that we had never offered her dinner. Oops.

With Thanksgiving behind us, Emily was pretty antsy to set up for Christmas. I couldn't exactly figure out why, but then I remembered - our elf never appears until after the tree is decorated. I think she had some concern this year that COVID would keep Frisbee away. One of Emily's friends received a note from her elf, saying that it wouldn't be coming this year. I think Emily was concerned that Frisbee would send a similar note. Much to her surprise, she was happy to see Frisbee waiting for her when she woke up this morning. Frisbee did write Emily (and Abbie) a little note, saying that she was glad that we have been so careful about quarantine because it means that Frisbee feels safe visiting us. Yay!

Halloween

Emily's Jack-o-lantern

As I think that I have mentioned, Halloween is Emily's favorite holiday, so she was looking forward to it for a long time. On the day before, she designed her pumpkin and I carved it for her. She added the toothpicks, and I think that it turned out pretty well. Also on the day before, her school celebrated and all of their kids wore their costumes to school. Emily decided to be a vampire this year.

Dressing up for school

Finally, the official day arrived and she was curious as to what we were going to do to celebrate because we had told her that there were definitely surprises planned. We started the day with a trip to a local cemetery - an Emily request. It turns out that cemeteries are actually great places to walk around during a pandemic because there is almost no one else around (no one living, anyway). It was a beautiful day and we wandered around, reading tombstones. I think that Emily liked to imagine that she might see a ghost, but no such luck.

Pinata time

After lunch, we surprised Emily with a pinata in the garage. This is also something that she had requested and we were happy to do it. She had a great time whacking it and then ultimately collecting all of the candy that spilled out. After the pinata, we watched a Halloween movie. Emily requested the original 1931 version of Dracula. I had never seen it, and it was about like you would imagine, but she seemed to like it.

Hopped up on sugar

As evening arrived, we surprised Emily with a fully decorated house. Abbie put white lights along the floor, we set up a strobe light and some colored lights. We tried to set up a fog machine, but it didn't work. Oh well. Then we hid candy all over the house to create a candy hunt. Both girls ran around the house, gathering as much candy as they could find given the dark lighting, and then they had a mini dance party before calling it a night. Overall, I think that Emily was reasonably happy with the day.

10-year check up

Looking fancy

Emily had her 10-year check up with the pediatrician a couple of weeks ago, so we have some updated statistics to share! She is now 53.5 inches tall, putting her in the 28th percentile. From a percentile perspective, she is right in-line with where she always has been, so things are looking good.  

On the school front, things continue to plod along. Being online, and being the only one online, is not always easy, but Emily seems to be making the best of it. I had to meet with the teachers a few weeks ago to suggest to them easier ways to handle the logistics. Fortunately, they were receptive to my suggestions and things seem to be running more smoothly, which is good for everyone. Emily's 1st quarter report card came out last Friday and her grades are looking good. Now that she is older, she is getting actual percentage grades rather than just E = Excellent, G = Good, etc. Personally, I like the percentage system better!

Sporting her new Halloween sweatshirt

Given that it is Emily's favorite holiday, we are slowly gearing up for Halloween. We ordered Emily a new sweatshirt and a new t-shirt, both of which are loosely Halloween themed. The sweatshirt says, "Normal People Scare Me" and the t-shirt has potions, bats, and a spell book on it. We also ordered five huge pumpkins, which we are planning to carve the day before Halloween. Emily wants to make one scary and another not scary. We have also been trying to throw in some Halloween movies. We watched the Addams Family, and plan to watch the Nightmare Before Christmas, and Hocus Pocus in the coming weeks. Emily had never seen the Addams Family before, but I think that she really liked it. Hocus Pocus will also be a new one for us, but the Nightmare Before Christmas is an old favorite. 

Finally, Emily continues to entertain us with her interesting questions and her unique perspective. One day, she asked me, "Hey, Mom, is there a safe place for pigs?" I told her that I thought there were probably plenty of safe places for pigs in the world, but then she responded, "It seems like they are either on a farm where they get eaten or they are in the wild where they get shot." OK, fair enough, apparently there isn't a safe place in the world for pigs. I just hadn't thought about it before. LOL.

The Ups and the Downs

We are a month into the new school year, and six months into our pandemic quarantine. All things considered, things are going well. Emily's experience with being the only kid in her class that is attending school online has been hit or miss. With the teachers that are online, everything runs smoothly. With the teachers that are in-person, things get a little trickier. There have been multiple times where I have had to call the school to remind them to let her into the Zoom session, etc. 

As for her work, she has been doing great. She is on top of everything and seems to have no problems with the material. They took a diagnostic reading test at the beginning of the year and her reading level is very high. I was concerned that it would drop off over the summer, but apparently it did not. 

We are currently working on a book called Hounds Hollow. It is a spooky sort of a book, so it has definitely kept her interest. A favorite that we read not long ago was Alice in Wonderland. Emily really liked it. After reading the book, she and her friend watched the animated version together (over FaceTime) and she liked that, too. Her other obsession is with Gravity Falls. This is a TV show that she has loved for a long time, but she now has books that go along with the show and she loves those, too.

FaceTime with Grandma

Socially, the new school year has been hard because the other kids get their fill of interaction during the day, so they are less interested in FaceTime in the afternoons. Although she gets some calls with friends, she also takes advantage of calls with Grandma at least once a week. When Emily isn't talking to friends or family, she keeps herself busy with her drawing. She has been really interested in trying out different styles of drawing. She borrows from styles like anime and then creates her own characters. Here are a couple that I have been able to snag photos of:

Emily's art teacher at school has recognized her interest in creating new characters and has decided to customize her class requirements so that Emily can do more of what she loves. Emily is really happy about this. She also keeps asking me for private art lessons. I haven't set anything up yet, but I know that I need to. 

Other than art, we have also tried our hand at recreating Emily's favorite treat from Starbucks - lemon bread. We found a recipe that claimed to be a dead ringer for the original and we gave it a try. It was definitely good, but also not a perfect substitute for the original.

We are also back to violin this fall. After taking a break over the summer we are back to Skype lessons and Emily is making her way through Suzuki Book 1. She is currently working on Minuet III. After that, I believe that there are only two pieces left before she graduates to Book 2. 

Looking ahead, Emily is very excited about Halloween. Apparently, this is her favorite holiday of the year. This year is particularly good because it falls on a Saturday with a full moon. That said, I doubt that we will be attending the usual neighborhood party this year. We will have to see what we can come up with to make it fun.

First Day of School!

Today was Emily's first day of school for the new academic year. She has been so bored for the past few weeks and has really been looking forward to getting back to a routine. She was so excited that she was up at 6:30 this morning even though class didn't start until 8am. Her school decided to offer students the option of in-person or online instruction. We JUMPED at the online option, but apparently we were the only parents/students who did! Two of her teachers elected to teach online, however, so they have helpers in the classroom to provide a physical presence.  

Given that we are online, we decided that we better arrange a better workstation for Emily. So, this summer, we bought her a new desk and chair. She took pride in getting everything set up and arranged just how she wanted it. The desk is going to keep her much more organized than she was in the spring and she is very excited about having a more grown-up look in her room.

Emily was a little bit apprehensive about being the "only one" who didn't go to school in-person this morning, but her day went great. She just logs into Zoom for all of her classes and it is all synchronous instruction, so it is practically as if she is in the room with her friends. In fact, because the teacher is teaching remotely, it was hard for her to see all the students this morning so she ended up having them log into Zoom from their desks. Ha!

Today and tomorrow are half days and then full days will begin on Friday. Of course, having a half day today meant that when school was over, the boredom set in again. Both girls have been so bored that they decided to make boba together this afternoon. Other than that, Emily has been working on her drawing and going in the pool more frequently lately. Given that it is consistently 100 degrees, there isn't much else that one can do outside. 

She was particularly happy this past weekend because we got in the pool with her on three separate days. The pool is always more fun when there is someone to play with. She also entertained herself by setting up a sprinkler to spray into the pool and make things a bit more exciting. Yes, quarantine life is a dull life!

Long time, no post

As you might suspect, not much has been happening over the past six weeks. We are still in lockdown and Emily has been finding various ways of entertaining herself.

Looking more mature

She spent a few weeks doing camps with Abbie. They did a baking camp and a gardening camp, but then Emily started to prefer a less structured experience so they have mostly just been hanging out together. Sometimes they go for short bike rides in the morning before it gets too hot. They also play games together and Abbie has Emily help her with various projects like filming videos, etc. Emily has also been getting some of her summer work done, but the teachers assigned more this year than they had in past summers, meaning that there is still quite a bit left to do over the next month.

As for friends, Emily still has tons of FaceTime calls, some of which seem to go on for entire days! As usual, it is tough because so few of her friends are quarantining, so they may be at camps during the day and not able to chat other than at night and on the weekends. Emily also had me set her up with a penpal website called Students of the World. She started corresponding with girls from Canada, Austria, Russia, etc., but it quickly started to get overwhelming. Her typing is still a hunt and peck approach, so responding to even one person takes a long time if she doesn't have someone helping her.

With all of the hot weather that we have, I would have thought that Emily would be spending more time in the pool than she has been. I think that she got it in her head that she wants to stay out of the sun, so she has stopped going in the pool unless it is shaded, which doesn't happen until about 4pm every day. Even at that, I don't think that she is swimming more than once a week.

Although most days seem pretty uneventful, we do try to come up with sources of excitement from time to time. For the 4th of July, we planned a Mexican cookout that included fajitas and homemade salsas and guacamole. Then we bought Disney+ so that we could watch Hamilton together. Emily doesn't care much for fajitas, salsas, or guacamole, but she does love tortilla chips. :) This past weekend, we made a bunch of fruit syrups so that the girls could mix their own mocktails. Of course, anything sweet is right up her alley. Tomorrow, we are planning on homemade pasta and angel food cake in honor of Abbie's birthday. Emily helped me put together clues for a scavenger hunt for Abbie, so hopefully that will be fun, too.

As for school this fall, we have already told Emily's school that she will be on-line and we are fortunate that the school is offering that as an option for the families that need/want it. We have a parents' meeting next week so I suspect that we will get a lot more information about how classes will look, but Emily is definitely resigned to the fact that there is no safe in-person option at this point. To help with her workspace, she decided that she needed an actual desk for her room, so we have ordered one that will hopefully arrive at the end of August. I know that she is looking forward to getting a system set up for herself so that her papers can be more organized than they were this past spring!

Happy 10th Birthday, Emily!

It was not the plan to have Emily's 10th birthday during a pandemic. She had planned on a pool party with all of her friends, but . . . plans change. That said, I think that she had a good day today.

Emily's last day as a 9-year old

She was very excited about turning 10 and could barely get to sleep last night. I checked on her at 10pm and she was still awake. This was a shame because I was exhausted and Abbie and I were patiently waiting until she was asleep to set up her decorations and presents so that she would see them first thing in the morning.

Late-night set-up

As you can see, we finally got everything set up for her. It was a good thing because she was up before both of us this morning. Yes, definitely excited. :) In the morning, we also blew up a bunch of balloons with pieces of gold foil in them. You can see a small one in front of the presents. As I was trying to tie one, I lost my hold on it and it launched into the air, spraying gold foil all over. It made for a festive look. As for the remaining balloons, they made for some good games this morning and are still rolling around various parts of the house. Emily got some great presents this year - a snow cone machine with 10 different syrup flavors, animal puppets from Abbie, lots of books, LEGOs (of course), little glass bottles for making potions, art activities from Greg and Elizabeth, and an art book from Grandma P.

She spent most of the day playing LEGOs, but also made snow cones after lunch, and then got to work on her birthday cake. She decided that she wanted to make her own vanilla layer cake this year with buttercream frosting and unicorn decorations. We didn't have round cake pans, so we made do with rectangular, which resulted in a square unicorn head, but Emily didn't care. She was very pleased with how it turned out.

Four-layer Unicorn Cake

You can see that it has a mane, a candy cane horn, little pink eyes with lashes, a mouth, and little white ears. It turned out really well, actually, and the flavor was good. As you may notice, she is wearing the same shirt in the photo above as she was wearing the day before. That tends to happen in quarantine life. :) We did have a special event, though, that was exciting enough to convince Emily to change her clothes. Her dear friend, Ansel, whom she hasn't seen in person since March came over to bring her a birthday gift. We stood in the driveway with masks on and the girls were actually able to see each other and talk in person!

After 20 minutes together, her friend left, but then she called Emily on FaceTime as soon as she got home. It was fun because her friend ended up singing Happy Birthday with us, and then the girls watched a movie together. It was all very impromptu, but that is about as close as it gets to a "real" birthday party these days.

As you can see, Chad is holding the phone so that Emily's friend can see what is going on. Again, it seems sort of odd, but that is pandemic life. All in all, she turned 10 successfully. Now the only question is whether tomorrow will be too much of a letdown after all of the activity today. Hopefully, all of the LEGOs, arts and crafts, and books that Emily received will be enough to keep her busy for a few days!

Last Day of School!

Today was Emily's last official day of school. The year definitely ended with a whimper, rather than a bang. They had a very light workload this week and today was their last Zoom meeting, which was the end-of-year awards event. As it turns out, the awards were lame (newsflash - they are all advancing to the next grade and that actually counts as an award) and our WiFi failed partway through. Emily was pretty upset. I think that she had been looking forward to this as a special event and it was anything but special.

School Photo 2019-2020

What is special (to me anyway) is that this is the first year that the school has done individual school photos for the kids. We didn't have anything last year, but this year they started the (long overdue) tradition. It is actually interesting how they did it - rather than have a professional photographer come to the school, they made it an art project for the upper-level students. Although this doesn't result in the greatest finished product, I do appreciate the learning value, etc.

The awards event may not have included any newsflashes, but we do have one from the homefront. After seven years of commitment to becoming a baker (yes, that's right, this has been her goal since she was two), Emily has decided on a career change. She now has an interest in drawing and animation. She has been working really hard on her drawing lately and she is very serious about it. She'll say, "Today I need to work on drawing better jawlines." or "Today I need to work on drawing people from the side." She is desperate for one-on-one art lessons, so we will see what we can do.

These are a couple of her recent drawings. The first is a fairy princess and the second is a group of friends who fight monsters together. There is an entire backstory here. Saidy Dell (in the middle) is the shy one, and Lora Roks (on the right) is the more adventurous one (notice the ear and eyebrow piercings). The bird, Dead-beak, belongs to Lora, FYI. What Saidy doesn't know is that Lora and Jack Wolf are secretly dating. They don't want to tell Saidy because they don't want it to break up the group. LOL. As you can imagine, the story goes on, but this is just a taste.

Other than her drawing, Emily has been keeping herself busy with swimming, FaceTime calls, all sorts of projects in her room, and the occasional blanket fort in the living room! :)

Blanket Fort - notice that all of her animals were invited!

Looking ahead to the summer, we are not traveling and the kids are not signed up for summer camps, at least not outside the house. Rather, we have commissioned Abbie to design and run morning camps for Emily. The first camp, which will start in the 2nd week of June is called Basics of Baking and will involve all sorts of messes in my kitchen! I'll keep you posted on the rest.

On Lockdown!

Wow, what a month it has been since my last post! As I mentioned, we were skiing in Colorado and Emily and I got lots of time together on the bunny hill. She seemed to pick up right where she left off last year and had fun with it, I think.

Emily also picked up where she left off in terms of her obsession with building a snowman. She worked really hard at it this year, and actually ended up with a cute little product. It was incredibly difficult because the snow is so dry in Colorado, so it doesn't want to pack together at all.

Of course, we were super-careful during our entire trip, keeping away from other people, sanitizing all surfaces in our condo, and cooking in for our meals. Once we got back home, we started our official quarantine. Pretty quickly, Emily's school extended its Spring Break by a week and announced that they would move to online classes thereafter.

So far, Emily has been doing great with getting her work done online. She has been managing her own schedule every day and has been getting plenty of play time in between her work time. Her biggest annoyances are when her class does full-group Zoom meetings together. As you can imagine, kids tend to get a little goofy when they are all on a call together, which bugs her because it makes the lesson take more time than it should. She is also bummed about not being able to have friends to play with on the weekends. FaceTime calls have helped, but its just not the same as being able to ride bikes with friends, etc.

Of course, one of the big uncertainties in her life has been wondering whether the Easter Bunny would still be able to come during a pandemic. This morning, we learned the answer to that critical question - not even a pandemic can stop the Easter Bunny's magic!

She was pleased to find that he had put candy and little gifts in her basket and there were eggs hidden all over the house. Many of them were filled with money, which she always appreciates. Another special event today, we all got in the car together for the first time in a month and took a drive out to the country to see what we could see. We definitely saw some wildflowers, cows, and horses. It was a nice day to get some fresh air and treat ourselves to something a little different.

Trophy Festival

We are currently on Spring Break, and I will have updates on that soon, but I thought that I would do a quick post on Trophy Festival. This is the annual event for strings players in which they prepare and perform a piece for a judge that then provides them feedback on their playing. At the end, each player goes home with a trophy to acknowledge all the hard work that goes into the performance.

Waiting for her turn

Emily participated in this event two years ago, but did not participate last year because her teacher missed the deadline for registration. This year, she performed Andantino by Suzuki. I tried to get a video of it, but she refused to allow it. She told me that it would make her too nervous, so I was allowed to watch, but not record. Anyway, she did a very nice job and the judge complimented her on her beautiful tone.

Other than that, life has been very run of the mill. As a result, Emily has been really looking forward to Spring Break. We are skiing in Colorado again this year and as I get good photos/videos, I'll be sure to post them!

A Star is Born?

We may have a star actor in the making. Emily felt strongly that she wanted to pick up an extra-curricular activity that would allow her to form friendships outside of her school friends. She is interested in dance, but there really weren't any good options in terms of offerings and schedules. Most of what is offered here is ballet, which she feels like she missed her window on by not starting at age two. Sadly, she isn't too far off base. For her age group, many places are now requiring two days a week, or requiring that you can't take lyrical dance if you aren't concurrently enrolled in ballet. Apparently, by the time you are nine, dancing just for the sake of fun and movement is off the table in a class setting.

Anyway, beyond dance, her next interest was in acting, and she begged me to find her acting lessons. She is in luck because I found (what looks like) a great theatre class at a time that works with our schedule. It is for kids in 1st - 8th grade and here is the description:

"This well-rounded theater class will focus on training for the young actor. Learn to introduce yourself in front of an audience, and explore scenes from famous musicals and plays. You will discover your creative strengths and make new friends! Families are invited to join us for an end of semester showcase." 

She had the first class this past Monday and really enjoyed it. She was nervous about it all day, afraid that she wouldn't meet anybody or that the other kids wouldn't accept her. It really stressed her out, but that all melted away once she got to class. In classic Emily fashion, she hit it off with two other girls who are already friends with each other and are also nine years old. They happily accepted her and all is right with the world. She enjoyed the exercises they did and jumped in the car ready to tell me all about it.

Other than her new acting interest, all continues to progress as usual. School is going well and Emily has her Valentines all ready for the party next Friday. Maybe Valentine's Day will encourage me to finally get around to getting some new photos or video for the next post!

Happy New Year!

The new year is off to a great start. Emily went back to school yesterday and I think she was very happy to be back. She was really energetic and talkative after school. With the new year, there is a new seating arrangement and she is sitting with Quinn, one of the boys in her class that she has a minor crush on. It isn't all unicorns and rainbows, though. Apparently yesterday he kept trying to talk to her during lessons and she had to tell him to knock it off.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, I should back up and post photos from the holidays. Emily had a great season. We left off with her fancy school lunch, which I think she looked lovely for!

This is most of her class, and her two teachers, but there were two kids missing. As you can see, it is predominantly girls and they all get along pretty well, so it continues to be a great environment for her.

Emily managed to get a bit of skating in before Christmas and, true to form, made a friend instantly. She and this little girl just held hands and skated together almost the entire time. I don't know how she does it, but she can pick up a friend pretty much anywhere, anytime. In fact, she made a new friend in the neighborhood over the break and the girl lives very close to us, so that is a new, easy option for those days when other friends aren't available to play.

She also managed to get in a visit to Santa this year. Talk about last minute - it was December 24th and there was no line because all the other kids have parents that plan ahead! :) She planned in advance what to say to him. She told him that she "wanted all the people who don't have stockings, or a fireplace, or a tree to get at least three presents because I already have everything I need." So sweet.

However, she did put together a Christmas list this year and Santa did pretty well with it. Among other things, she got the American Girl bunk bed for Ann and her other dolls, she also got lots of books, two new watches, new earrings, and a Polaroid camera.

Christmas Morning!

Emily also had a good trip to New Orleans. She had waited a long time for beignets and bread and butter from Commander's Palace and neither disappointed. Although, we didn't manage to do another ghost tour, which disappointed Emily. She had her heart set on actually seeing a ghost this year. She also wasn't too happy with me when I told her that I could take her to a haunted hotel, only to find that I led her to a place that was literally called "The Haunted Hotel." On top of that, we weren't allowed to go inside the hotel, so all her hopes of ghosts were dashed.

Vacation ended with a few more play dates and a trip to the theater to see the newest Star Wars movie, which I think that Emily was really pleased with. She gobbled popcorn and watched wide-eyed. All in all, not a bad holiday break!