trying to embrace the traditions

There are certain things that we are outgrowing in this household. We have a very well stocked craft room, for example, that no longer sees as much love. Gone are the days of junk journals, scrapbooks, coloring, sewing, and all things girly. It's okay, for now. Aging brings progressing and my little teenager has progressed into a lovely child who crafts less and wants to hang out more.

Gone also are a lot of the cutesy holiday traditions. We have not colored Easter eggs, painted them, or decorated them in at least 2 years. We still have egg hunts, but it's the decorative plastic eggs or the ones filled with fun directly from her Easter basket. That's okay, too. That one always confused me. How did we get from the true meaning of Easter to a bunny to egg hiding? 

No longer do elves hide on shelves for us, either. We do get him out from time to time and hide him from each other. She now enjoys hiding our elf before smaller children come over, so they can laugh at whatever shenanigans our elf is up to. Passing on the joy is part of the fun. We enjoy that part now. 

On to Halloween. Our little town hosts a Main Street trick-or-treat complete with a party and we outgrew that about 2 years ago. Now she trick-or-treats with friends and I pick her up with just enough time to spare to watch her trick-or-treat at 2 amazingly decorated houses on our street before it ends. This one hit me in all the feels. For 3 years now she has gone to a friend's and years 1 and 2, mom and dad trailed behind at a safe distance. Last year they walked the neighborhood alone. 

Halloween has never been my favorite. I appreciate the costumes and decor, but ehhh. Not my thing. I enjoy creating my daughter's costumes and for a while, she would let me go as her matching pair. That was the best. We were Ariel and Irsula. We were Gamora and Groot. We were Alice and the white Rabbit. We were Wonder Woman and Super Woman.

Now that is gone, too. So no matching costumes, trick-or-treats, and no party. Even the pumpkins got the shaft! Last year's pumpkin sat on the porch until it rotted because it was supposed to get painted and never was. Same with the year before. It has been almost 3 years since she willingly carved a pumpkin.

Insert: younger cousins! They wanted pumpkins, they went and got them. She actually enjoyed carving this pumpkin until it came to the goo part in the middle. She says EW to the goo. But she created a design and carved it all by herself. So not all is lost in the land of wonderment and childhood. I have hope yet 😀

flower mazes are the best

Has anyone noticed that their phone might be listening in? I KNOW I am not the only one. We heard about a sunflower maze that was fun and by dinner three different Facebook posts for sunflower mazes popped up and I saw two ads in my emails. Oh, they're listening, all right. And if I am that entertaining, then carry on. I will turn the volume up :)

On to the sunflowers, though. Hebron, Illinois has a maze with a petting zoo and we heard it was fun. We were also going to tack on an afternoon of swimming because I have a friend who lives 10 minutes from there. What are the odds? Well, Sunday a storm blew through and it wasn't good. We changed plans Monday morning right at go time.

We ended up at Skelly's in Janesville, WI. Now, as a local girl, I should be up on local activities and such. I honestly only just heard of this place recently and visiting has never really come up. We figured we would give it a go. It had a cute farm feel that was very reminiscent of Edward's West. The maze had 2 options and the one we chose had a free sunflower (you choose it and clip it) plus a free donut in the shop. What more could these girls ask for?!?

We had an apple cider donut sundae and coffee cookies n cream ice cream. It was heaven! Smelling the various wax melts wasn't the easiest with a mask, but we picked a citrus sage scent to finish off summer break nicely. Everyone was pleasant and it was better than I could have expected. My only regret was not buying the tea towels with the funny, kitschy sayings.

It's almost August, which means it is almost back to school. We are still smiling. We are still grateful for all the extra family and bonding time we have been able to have. We have enjoyed summer. And we can all agree that sunflowers are happy flowers, so every time we walk past our new bouquet, we have more reasons to smile than ever.