MediterraneanBranzino 

They are both in the thick of finals this week and they are helping each other study for French by quizzing each other. Love listening to them study together. Haha, this’s parents’ dream!

Shane’s end-of-season music concert. He started School of Rock band in the past winter to switch things a little bit from his one-on-one guitar lesson with his previous teacher. At this school, he has a chance to be in a rock band and he gets to enjoy playing with other kids. 

Thanks Julie for hosting a girls get together~

from our garden.

Everyone in the house had their own agenda on this Memorial Day, except for Chloe and me. So we went to have sushi for lunch and ran some boring errands together. I have to say, if I was around her age, I would want to hang out with this girl all the time and be her best friend. Here’s a few things about my 14 yr old.

She’s not very competitive with her school work. That’s not to say she does not try. She tries her best but is ok with her grades when it’s not close to perfect. She always thinks she’s going to get 100(!) on her test but the test score is not the point. The point is she feels confident that she’s fully prepared for the test and for that, I applaud her attitude.

She loves her friends, but she puts her own boundaries and talks over with me for things that she doesn’t agree or bother her about what’s going on around her. Which I love and appreciate very much.
She’s modest about spending money on things such as clothes and shoes. I have been practically begging for her to pick out new sneakers for months, and she just says, it’s fine… she can still wear the old ones. Meanwhile, she has tears and holes in them.
She has her own unique style and enjoys putting her “outfits” together each day. She experiments with make up sometimes and on Sunday nights she has “self-care” ritual, which involves exfoliating, mud facial, face masks, etc.

 She loves music and is so proud of her playlists she complied. She has 2 a.m. playlist and 3 a.m. playlist… I’ll never know if she’s actually up at those hours…
When she has free time, she likes to browse at stupid memes and ticktocks and all I hear are giggles and silly laughs coming from her. Her laughter cracks me up!
I don’t have to ask her to practice her piano and drums. She’s responsible with things she has to do. Just last Friday night, I was feeling pretty tired and secretly didn’t want to drive the kids to church youth program so I  didn’t remind the kids and hoped that everyone would just forget. Until she came and asked if we were going. When I told her I didn’t feel like driving in the rain, she said, she made a commitment and she has to show up. So we went and I was so proud of her.
This kid loves to run and skateboard to relieve her stress. 
Girl, you are pretty cool.