Winter Break

Annual School Photo

Emily has been having a good winter break, but it is going too quickly. She can hardly believe there is less than a week left before school starts again. She is definitely not ready to go back. She did get those two bottom teeth extracted, and has slowly adapted to chewing with even fewer teeth in her mouth. Other than that, there hasn't been too much excitement to report. Her face rash cleared up but she is still struggling with lots of acne. I suppose it comes with the territory when one is 13. 

Christmas Day

I think she had a good Christmas this year. It was a bit different without Santa, but again, that comes with the territory at this age. The elf didn't appear right away, but apparently she didn't want to see Frisbee anyway. Poor Frisbee. She also wasn't particularly interested in watching Christmas movies, complaining, "I have seen this so many times." LOL. She got lots of good bedroom decor this year, which I think she was happy about, and also received the above-photographed Moose mug, just like in Christmas vacation. Abbie received one, too. I think Chad and I thought it was funnier than either of the girls did, though. 

As for New Year's Eve, I think we are planning on a rather quiet night. Abbie will likely be out with friends, so it will be up to me and Emily to pick a movie. I have had such a hard time convincing her to try good movies lately. I practically had to beg her to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off earlier this week. She ended up enjoying it, but it was a miracle that she even tried it. Yesterday I tried to convince her to watch Uncle Buck, but no luck. Instead, we settled on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is good, too.

Thelma and Louise

Other than movies, Emily has been entertaining herself by playing with the kittens - Thelma and Louise - that we got in November, doing daily workouts with her friend Morgan, having the occasional sleepover, reading a little bit, and drawing. She continues to be a pretty big homebody. I often invite her to accompany me to the store or out to eat, but she usually declines. Fair enough. There will be plenty of running around when school starts up again.

Holidaze

Trick-or-treating

All of the Halloween festivities feel like a lifetime ago. Emily had the two sleepovers - one at our house and one at a friend's house - and did her trick-or-treating. She didn't get much for candy, but it was fun to run around with a friend.

Sleepover

Perhaps needless to say, two weeks in a row of no-sleep activities left her pretty tired. Then, she and Abbie went to Minnesota for Thanksgiving, which made for a busier break than she would have had otherwise. 

Now, we are in the final push before Christmas break. She had her winter show choir concert last night and will have her winter theater production on the 13th. There will also be final exams to contend with. I am sure that the break will be a welcome relief when it finally arrives. She has been struggling with a mysterious rash on her face, likely an allergic reaction, which has been making it tough to sleep. And, her teachers seem to be piling on the homework and projects. So, as you can imagine, she is walking around in a bit of a daze, trying to keep up with everything.

So far, the only thing scheduled for the Christmas break, other than the holiday itself, is a tooth extraction. Yes, she needs to have two more baby teeth pulled to make room for some adult teeth. That is scheduled for the 19th and sounds to me like the perfect excuse for some much needed R&R!

Halloween Sleepover

Let the Halloween whirlwind begin! Today, the middle schoolers are wearing their costumes to school. Emily is going as Alice in Wonderland this year. Originally, the plan was to be 'Demented Alice in Wonderland' but I guess the 'demented' part was going to be too difficult to explain so she just went with the original.

Tonight, Emily is having six girls over for a Halloween sleepover. We have decorated the house with a few spiderwebs and gourds. Emily has plans for pizza, all sorts of junk food, and a movie. I am a bit worried about the drama that can come from shoving all these girls into a small space for a long time, but Emily says, "Oh yeah, don't worry. There is always crying at a sleepover party. It usually happens at 3am when people are overtired." Ugh. Perhaps this is part of the Halloween terror. 

For the actual Halloween, she is planning to go to a grade-level party with a friend of hers. Then, next weekend, one of her friends is having a belated Halloween/birthday sleepover. Hopefully this will be enough Halloween-related activity for her.

In other news, we had her annual check up a few weeks ago. She continues to grow and is currently 5'1.75" to be exact. She is incredibly excited because the doctor now projects her to be at least 5'5" tall. Having always been the littler little sister, she is very excited about the prospect of being the bigger little sister. We also had her parent-teacher conference yesterday. Not surprisingly, she is doing great and her teachers are happy with her. :)

7th Grade!

Its hard to believe, but Emily has been in school for almost three weeks already. So far, 7th grade has been going well and the friend situation seems to be under control. She likes some of her teachers better than others, but that is to be expected. The biggest piece of her schedule that took a little while to nail down was her athletic requirement. She started the year enrolled in field hockey, but very quickly realized that she knew nothing about field hockey and had no interest in playing it. Instead, she switched to cross country and seems happy with the choice. On days that are too hot, they stay in the weight room and she seems to have taken to that as well. 

Obligatory 1st day of school photo

A couple days before classes started, one of Emily's friends arranged for one last summer hurrah - a bunch of girls got together for dinner and a live performance of Frozen. Emily was a little torn on whether she wanted to sit through a musical or not, but she was so glad that she did. She absolutely loved the show. 

Since school has been in session, there have been a few football games and a few sleepovers on the weekends, but nothing as fancy as their evening at the theater.

As we inch into fall, Emily's thoughts naturally turn towards Halloween - her favorite holiday. There is at least one scary movie on her "must see" list that is either already in theaters or will be soon. She also already has plans for her costume, but I can't give it away yet!

Summer Camp

It has been a couple weeks since Emily returned from her two-week adventure at summer camp. The short version of the story is that she really enjoyed it, but she doesn't plan to go back. LOL.

Induction Ceremony for Trojans vs. Spartans

The longer version of the story is that she really enjoyed the people she met - lots of girls that she really enjoyed hanging around with and getting to know. However, 14 days/nights in 100+ degree temperatures without any air conditioning, even at night, was not her favorite. 

Neon Dance

She definitely came back with more maturity and confidence. She now knows that she can spend two weeks away from home and do great on her own. The key is just to find a camp with cooler temperatures or air conditioning!

Hawaiian Dance

One thing the camp was really great about was taking tons of photos and uploading them daily. Then, the app software used facial recognition technology to identify photos of your child and highlight them for you. That definitely saved me from hours of scrolling!

They also made it easy to send emails every day, which definitely helped with initial homesickness. Emily received at least one letter every day she was in camp. She became friends with a girl who had been attending camp for four years and had only ever received one letter, which was to tell her that her grandparent had died. Poor thing. 

The girls all exchanged phone numbers so hopefully they will keep in touch. There is one girl who only lives about an hour from us, so maybe they will even get together at some point.

When I picked her up, I was pleased to see that Emily did a great job keeping track of all of her stuff. We got her home, got everything washed, and got her settled in. She still has some summer homework to complete, but the first day of school is still over a week away so I guess there is plenty of time. LOL.

Dog Days of Summer

We have reached that point where the only options for keeping cool are hiding in the air conditioning or finding a place to swim. Emily has been doing both over the last couple of weeks. After two weeks in Minnesota, during which she kept busy with day camps, shopping, and a Taylor Swift concert, she returned home and has been swimming, playing with water balloons, and going to water parks with friends.

Pre-concert

 

If you look carefully at Emily's hand in the photo above, you will see the other big development from this summer - we finally got her a phone of her own. I think it will come in handy when the school year starts up again, but for now, she doesn't use it much.

Late into the Night

Other than trying to stay cool, we have been busy getting Emily ready for her two-week camp adventure, which starts on Sunday. She has a huge packing list and everything needs to be well-organized and labeled. This camp seems like a pretty well-run machine with all sorts of systems in place for getting campers moved in and settled.

She will be in a rustic cabin with 8-12 girls and 2-3 counselors. There is no electricity, so no lights and definitely no air conditioning. Fortunately, I think the kids spend a lot of time in the lake and the pool during the days, but I don't know how comfortable the nights will be for sleeping. It sounds like they keep everyone pretty busy, but also provide downtime in the afternoons, so hopefully she will have fun but won't be run too ragged. 

Once she returns from camp, there are a mere two weeks left before school starts up again. Hard to believe!

Thirteen!

We officially have a teenager in the house! Emily turned 13 on the 3rd (obviously) and we celebrated with a pool party on the 2nd, followed by a small sleepover that night, followed by a small family party on the actual birthday. I left for Switzerland on the 4th, so it has taken me a while to get a post made, but at last here we are! 

She requested chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, which we had, but then there were leftovers. Emily was a trooper, though, consuming probably three cupcakes on the day of her party and two cupcakes on her actual birthday. It was a tough job, but she managed to suffer through. LOL.

All of that chocolate must have given her the energy to grow because I returned from Switzerland to find that she is now as tall as I am. We confirmed it both by standing in front of the mirror together and with a tape measure. It appears that she is now 5'1"! Needless to say, she is pretty pleased with this.

Meanwhile, the summer seems to be flying by! Later this week, Emily will fly to MN for two weeks (with Abbie), then she will be back in Texas for two weeks before her two week summer camp at the end of July. Once that is over, it will be August and we will already be thinking about the new school year. Crazy how quickly the time goes.

School's Out for Summer!!

We made it! Emily is officially on summer break and she is definitely pleased with the change. :)

Last Day of School

 

The last few weeks weren't too hectic, but there were a couple of award ceremonies (at which Emily received an award for French - her least favorite subject, ironically), a geography project, and final exams. The exams seemed to go reasonably well. As for the geography project, most of it was completed in school, but the at-home component was to make a food from a foreign country and then bring it in for people to try. Emily opted for a Japanese dessert and we made a Japanese strawberry shortcake. 

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

 

It was a very long, involved recipe that turned out great but also just tasted like an American strawberry shortcake, so much more work for not much additional benefit. It did look beautiful, though, and some of her classmates thought that she bought it rather than made it. The fact that I went to Michael's for a doily and a disposable cake box probably didn't help matters.

Emily has made herself a rough summer schedule that involves reading in the mornings, etc., but I don't think she has actually implemented the plan yet. We need to get her summer reading books so that she actually has something to read in the mornings. Perhaps more importantly, Emily's 13th birthday is less than a week away and we have not yet sent out the invitations - yikes! She has the guest list, but I need to finalize some details before we can send the invites. She would like to have a pool party with a larger group of friends and then follow it up with a sleepover with a smaller group of friends, which is sort of a tricky maneuver to pull off, so we'll see how it goes. Stay tuned!

End-of-Year Activities

Spring always gets busy with end-of-year activities. We kicked it off with Emily's induction into National Junior Honors Society a couple weeks ago and it will continue over the next few weeks. Next Tuesday is the middle school choir concert, and I believe that Emily has either a small solo or will be featured as part of a small ensemble, so I am interested to see how that goes. The following week, the choir will be competing in a local competition, followed by some fun at a local indoor water park. There will also be the usual end-of-year class party, which will be at a local arcade this year.

NJHS Inductees (apologies for the poor image quality)

Emily has also become busier lately because she decided to pick up an after school volleyball class that meets on Wednesday afternoons and has been participating in a memoir-writing seminar on Friday afternoons. Needless to say, with everything going on, Emily has been pretty tired lately. She uses the weekends to recharge her batteries as much as she can, but she is definitely ready for summer break!

As for summer break plans, Emily is planning to spend some time in Minnesota, and also planning to spend two weeks at a sleep away camp. This will be her first time going to sleep away camp and I think she is really looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be a great opportunity for her to spread her wings a bit.

Spring Break

Emily had a pretty quiet spring break this year. We didn't go anywhere or do anything particularly exciting. Many of her friends traveled, though, so there weren't many people to hang out with. We did manage to make a trip to the mall and get her some swim suits for the summer.

While at the mall, she had to get some pretzels and take a selfie for her friends because her group calls themselves the Pretzel Gang. Two of the Pretzelers are Morgan and Laila, who Emily continues to have tea parties with every other weekend. The girls take turns hosting and this past weekend, it was Morgan's turn again.

Emily loves getting dressed up for these events. I think the next one will be back at our house again. There is also a watch party for the latest episode of The Owl House coming up. This is an animated series that they all seem to love, so we may be hosting that sometime soon, too. With any luck, it will correspond with the next tea party. :)

On the school front, Emily has a volcano project due next week. With any luck, this will be the last volcano that we ever need to build. It is definitely not my favorite activity. We bought all the supplies over the break and Emily has the shape the way she wants it, but there is still plenty of painting, etc. to do this weekend. 

Sorry there isn't more excitement to report, but sometimes boring is a good thing! :)

Middle School Narratives

It is one of my favorite times of year again - narratives season for the middle schoolers! This is when the teachers take time to write individualized feedback for each of the students in their classes. It is great to see what they see. There are usually compliments and areas of strength along with areas to work on. Here are a few tidbits in terms of Emily's strengths:

From her Earth Science teacher: "Emily is an enthusiastic, dedicated learner who exhibits a positive outlook and attitude in the classroom. She communicates well with students and teachers, and asks questions when she is unsure of the material."

From her English teacher: "Emily enters English class each day by sharing a gentle greeting and lovely smile. She is not only a talented English student but a wonderful citizen as well . . .Emily LOVES to write and our Quickwrite Wednesdays. She possesses strong writing stamina and is able to take creative risks. Emily's writing contains "voice," a skill that is not common for sixth grade students." 

From her French teacher: "She is a bright and kindhearted student who always comes to school with a positive attitude." 

From her Geography teacher: "Emily is smart, creative, and hardworking. She naturally asks the bigger picture questions in class, and she is very easily able to empathize with someone else's perspective. These are two skills that show her maturity."  

From her Math teacher: "Emily is a sweet and respectful young lady. She is focused and attentive in class and has strong organizational skills." 

In terms of her areas for improvement, there seemed to be consensus that her teachers would like her to speak up more in class, both in terms of projecting her voice and also asking questions in whole-class settings. That is definitely consistent with what I know about her. She likes to hang back and observe more than she likes to get into the middle of things. 

While I find the narratives exciting, I think Emily has other things that she finds more exciting. As for what she has been up to, drawing is always on the agenda. Here is one of her recents:

She also thoroughly enjoyed having an entire weather-related week off from school a couple weeks ago. She, Morgan, and Laila managed to get together for a tea party. Emily and Morgan got everything set up and I was impressed with how elaborate it was.

As for something that Emily does not enjoy so much, we are still doing weekly violin lessons, but Emily is not a fan. We'll have to see how it goes, but this may be our last academic year for violin. That said, I had fun capturing the photo below during lesson this week. Notice the little spy in the window.

Our crazy kitty is often finding her way onto narrow ledges both inside and outside the house, and seems to enjoy hanging out on the roof of the house. I suppose that it makes for a good view, but it makes me awful nervous.

"Holey" Christmas

Rather than a holy Christmas, Emily had a rather holey Christmas. Shortly before Christmas, she had her four canine baby teeth extracted, which left pretty big holes in her mouth. Her adult canine teeth have already formed and developed mature roots, so they need a little encouragement to erupt or else they will end up impacted. It was a quick procedure and she did great with it, but it was still something different for her to get used to. While she was still under IV sedation, I didn't think she could hear me and I was telling the oral surgeon how tough she is about stuff. Imagine my shock when she came to and, eyes still closed, said, "Thanks for saying that." Definitely took me by surprise.

Christmas Eve (with Home Alone in the background)

Also, shortly before Christmas, Emily took the plunge and got her ears pierced. She definitely wanted them pierced, but it was more painful than she expected so she has already decided that one set of holes is more than enough.

Now that she is back to school, things seem to be rolling along pretty smoothly. So far, there hasn't been too much homework and she has been having fun with friends on the weekends. There is not much excitement for the next few weeks, but in mid-February her entire class will be taking a three-day trip to the state capital, which will likely be eventful.