Her kindergarten year was not like anything we could have predicted- remote for a month, small group (2 hours twice a week) for 3 months, and hybrid (2 full days per week) for 6 months. She learned to read (100% of credit to her teacher), loved helping her teacher, played fun imagination games with friends, and made some amazing projects. Her final project was an animal research project. She chose the cheetah and made her first poster board. She brought it home along with a pile of projects.

Sloane’s last in person day was Tuesday 6/15 and they had an indoor camp out. Sloane brought a flashlight, a book (Sisters a graphic novel), and a blanket (crocheted one from Jesse). They had marshmallows and made crowns with their camp names on it. Sloane was a fairy princess, of course.

On Wednesday we went to a picnic at her school with all her classmates (include the other half that went on the opposite days!) We were able to see Sloane run around (with masks) with her classmates. She really loved her classmates Snow and Emma. Soren was trailing behind them and having a ball. Plus there were popsicles and ice cream! We even got a picture of Sloane with her teacher Mrs. Morrison without masks on.

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Sloane told us in the weeks leading up to the end of school that she wanted to go to kindergarten all summer. She didn’t want the year to end. Since having school end, she has been loving vacation- bike rides, new playgrounds, Camp WeWow podcasts, and trips to the beach!

So we thought Soren could be trusted with scissors. Once when he was around 2, he cut a bit of Sloane’s hair in the back. We put the scissors up high and only had supervised use. We thought he knew to only cut paper….. we thought wrong.

In April, I gave the back of Soren’s hair a trim. He had this patch of super long hair coming off the crown of his head. I think this gave him an idea.

About a month later, Adam left the kids at Sloane’s desk watching an animated book while he pulled together lunch. He came back to this.

The funny thing is that it actually looks pretty good. The curls hid any uneven spots. And I think he was just tired of the bangs hanging in his eyes. But the scissors went back up on top of the fridge for a bit.

On Thursday, our 8 year old cat, Murdoc died. It was very sudden and really hard for us all. He was a stinker, but a lover. Adam and I got him from Bennett’s pre school whose cat had kittens. We brought him home on Memorial day weekend 2013, the same weekend we got engaged. We named him Murdoc because it was one of Adam’s top names and I didn’t want to name a human that. We called him Mur-mur and kitten-bear.

He really challenged me (because he liked to pee not in his litter box), but I loved him. Murdoc would always curl up with me when I was sitting in comfy furniture. This started when I was pregnant with Sloane continuing through nursing both kids in the recliner. He also kept my legs warm when I would watch tv or do chart notes after the kids went to bed. His favorite spot at our house was on a pillow under Sloane’s bed near the heat vent. It is covered in fur and Sloane doesn’t want us to clean it up so she can remember him.

We buried him in our backyard with roses from our garden. Sloane showed her sadness with tears and wanting to talk about things we loved about him. She said she loved that he would let her pick him up. Soren was dealing with it by saying he didn’t like Murdoc because he bit him. Soren really did love Murdoc but couldn’t express his sadness in other ways. We are going to paint rocks to put over the spot and Sloane plans to paint a grey cat with the letter M and hearts. There is definitely a hole in our hearts now, missing our one leg warm, mustachioed little grey cat.

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