A Sweet Ending

With nature school and dance ending this week we decided to celebrate another wonderful (albeit unusual) year with floats from J&M Diner today! The coronavirus sure made for an interesting second half of the lesson year but these girls (and their teachers and friends) more than rose to the occasion! So impressed with the incredible ways that everyone found to keep the girls dancing and connected even if they couldn't be together at the studio, in the forest or at Girl Scouts or youth group! So grateful to have such incredible adults connected to us and our sweet girls! We truly are so  very thankful/grateful/blessed! Have a wonderful summer, everyone! Be well, stay safe, wash your hands and wear a mask! xo

This Afternoon

Emma painted the owl Miss Heather from Nature School gave each of the girls as their final project of the nature school year today. We were all super impressed with how beautifully it came out! xo

Why Hello There....

Gretchen has been so curious about the chicks and yet so gentle. They are not sure what to make of her but I love how both of these species have figured out how to co-exist together. If only humans could do the same. xo 

Here We Go!

Prep work before painting can begin. So excited to finally be redoing our room! Fingers crossed that the color we chose looks good on the walls! xo

On Memorial Day

Though it was grey, chilly and drizzly today David and I still went for our walk this morning. On our walk we passed by two monuments outside of city hall. We took a moment and paid our respects figuring that due to the pandemic this would be the extent of a Memorial Day ceremony for us today. After our walk we went to Lowe's to pick up a few things David needed to start painting our bedroom. We were really impressed to see a dedicated spot to the fallen. 

Memorial Day is a challenging holiday for me. Often times my birthday falls on Memorial Day weekend so there's always the challenge of balancing the celebration with reverence and honor. As a Gold Star family, there's also a personal connection and a deep knowledge that Memorial Day is for those who died in battle. 

For those who don't know, one of my father's brothers was killed in action in Vietnam. From the time we were little my brother, sister and I were taught the difference: Memorial Day is for those who died in battle. Veterans Day is for those who have served and Armed Forces Day is for those currently serving. Two are days for celebration, one is a day for reverence and remembering. "We don't wish anyone a happy Memorial Day just like we don't wish anyone a happy funeral." It is a lesson that has stuck with me my entire life. And so, I pass that wisdom on to all of you in hopes that you will refrain from saying "happy Memorial Day" and that you will take a moment today to honor those brave men and women who gave their lives in battle defending the freedoms we hold dear and the country the loved. 🇺🇸

My Quarantine Birthday

What an absolutely perfect day! From kicking off this gorgeous day with a walk  with my dear friend Jessica to treats/gifts/cards/messages/tests/phone calls and driveway visits to another delicious cake from Flour Bakery I couldn't have asked for a better (quarantine) birthday! Thank you, everyone, for making it so very special! Y'all sure know how to make a girl feel loved! xo

On My Birthday Eve

These gorgeous flowers and lovely book are from my soul sister/birthday twin Jannine for our birthday tomorrow! The girls and I had a wonderful time going to the flower farm today to pick up this sweet bouquet she ordered for me. The farm is about fifteen minutes from our house and run by the sweetest family. If anyone ever needs a gift idea for me I would always be happy to have a bouquet from Five Fork Farms! And I am looking forward to getting lost in this book as soon as I am done reading the Rachael Lucas book that I am currently working my way through! Thank you Jannine for always making our birthday so very special! xo

Summer begins....NOW!

Celebrating the end of another amazing lesson year as we always do- with ice cream! This year we didn't head to New City as we usually do as they weren't able to hand us a cone (they could have packaged up everything separately and we could have DIYed the cones once outside, but we felt it would be more fun and celebratory to go somewhere and get a treat that was assembled after you ordered so we headed to Trombetta's here in town instead. Our tailgating picture just sums up this pandemic perfectly (and really I should have gotten one of them with their masks on prior to this! Let the summer begin! xo

Grace's Astronomy Block

Though we weren't able to do all the things we wanted to with this block (due to the pandemic) we all still had a blast experiencing it! I learned so much right along with Grace and we are both looking forward to doing this block again next year when Emma does it. Here's to hoping we won't be dealing with a pandemic then too, so we can include things like the planetarium and books from the library (among other things)! xo

Hello, Amelia!

Someone is very pleased with herself! 

My mom suggested the name Amelia for her (in honor of Amelia Erhardt). The girls felt that was the most perfect name for her so now we have an Amelia in the flock! xo 

Well Done, Emma!

Emma wearing my sixth grade t-shirt can mean only one thing: her sixth grade lesson year has come to an end! She wrote a beautiful four page final paper on the lives of children of the middle ages (a final paper that I expected, by the way, would take her until Wednesday or Thursday to finish) and she was on such a roll that she just kept going until the entire final copy had been written! So incredibly proud of Emma for how hard she worked this year! She did a wonderful job on all her lessons though I am most impressed with how beautifully she wrote that final paper (all in cursive, of course!) and how much she loves doing PowerPoints (and how quickly she can make them)! One of the things we have always said to the girls is that they need to know how to do things "by hand" so if they find themselves without some kind of tech they can still function in the world. They have truly put that to practice even more since the arrival of the laptops. Both David and I are so proud to see them living that piece of wisdom fully. 

This the first year that the girls have not finished the lesson year on the same day. Grace is on track to finish up this Wednesday and as soon as she is done we will head out for our traditional end of the lesson year/beginning of summer treat! xo 

A Job Well Done

We are grateful to whomever installed this fence many, many, many years ago for it not only made our property even more charming but it kept our girls safe as they grew. A few years ago, when an ice storm brought down a major branch and ended the life of the girls' swing set the fence sustained so much damage too. Many discussions were had regarding the fence. Do we take it down and replace? Or take it down and transform the look of the property? I'll let you decide which one of us held each opinion (and chances are you may be surprised). After finally getting an estimate from a fence guy almost one year ago we realized that it was time to send this fence into full retirement as it would cost us $24,000 to replace it. And so, with gorgeous weather forecast for this weekend a dumpster was secured and the job was begun (and completed)! The tree trunk near the mailbox will come down tomorrow and the mailbox needs to be replaced (with something much prettier). We are all in awe of how much we love the new look of our property! We four were worried it was going to look strange, or that we'd really dislike it,, but we are all over the moon at how gorgeous it has turned out to be! Yet another blessing of this pandemic is that we were able to get this major project done all in the span of a day! So grateful for this gift of time that we have been given and the chance to do so many tasks and projects around the house to make our sweet, old farmhouse (and her grounds) even more lovely! xo