5 different lists

I make lists.  When I'm stressed out and overwhelmed I make lists of all the things I (think I) need to get done. Then I can prioritize and check things off and it helps me to feel more calm.  It also helps me to weed out the things that I feel like need to get done, but really they don't. Like the skirts I kept telling myself I needed to sew for Emilia and Mira's costumes--that they didn't ask for, but I thought would be cute.  They got crossed off my list really quick this week.

This week, I starting making a list and then had to break it out into 5 different lists because I had so much going on...
Monday: Trick-or-treating party
Tuesday: Meeting for activity on Saturday
Wednesday: Steve's birthday
Thursday: Steve's game night
Friday: Steve going to BYU Football game
Saturday: RS activity, Primary Program practice, dinner with Watts'
Sunday: Dinner with Frohlichs

Most of my week was spent gathering, making, and organizing stuff for the Relief Society activity on Saturday.  (Relief Society is the women's organization for our church.) We were having breakfast with some musical numbers, four twenty-minute classes, lunch, and a keynote speaker. I am on the activities committee, and I was put in charge of flyers and table decorations. I decided for table decorations, I wanted to do flowers and fall grasses, plus (perhaps) acorns, painted tree branches, or pinecones. We didn't have much of a budget for the decorations, so to make my vision a reality, I needed to cut wildflowers and grasses, arrange wildflowers, find or purchase vases, gather pinecones and tree branches, and decide on table arrangement of said decorations.  It took A LOT of time.  Mostly because I'm a perfectionist crazy and enjoy decorating.

This is how some of the flowers turned out.  I forgot to take a picture on Saturday of the tables. It was a busy busy day.

Monday, we had trick-or-treating.  Steve's grandma (so the kids' great grandma) lives in an assisted living complex in Orem.  Monday, they had an activity where the residents could invite family to come watch a magic show and go trick or treating within the complex.  I had Emilia and Mira's costumes done (not that they were complicated), but Steve's costume still had a long way to go.  I wasn't planning on trying to finish it Monday, but since it was going to take so much work, I decided it would be nice if he could wear it more than once. So I worked like a mad-woman to get it complete enough to pass as a cohesive costume. I sewed the stuffed gorilla skin into a wig, sewed the horns to it, made a dragon foot, and sewed a tail. I think it turned out pretty good.  And the kids loved the magic and candy, too.

Tuesday during our meeting, Steve texted me to let me know our washing machine died. With water still in it, of course.  Poor Steve spent a few hours draining it after I got home.

Wednesday was Steve's birthday.  He had to work all day, and somehow he managed to mess something up on their server at the last minute and had to stay late to fix it. So, not only did he have to have a cold dinner, but I had to leave him to put the girls to bed by himself so I could go buy a new washer.

Thursday was Steve's game night, which I felt he deserved since he didn't have a great birthday.  And Friday, he was offered a ticket from a friend at work to go see the BYU home game, so I had the girls by myself all day. Emilia was really cute.  When she found out Daddy was at a football game, she wanted SO badly to go.  She offered to pay for tickets out of her allowance! We'll have to use some tax return money next year to get the family tickets to one of the games.

Sunday, was our Primary program.  This means during the first hour of church, the kids sing the songs they have been learning over the last year and give lines about the theme. Since Steve is the chorister for Primary, this was a big deal for him. Saturday afternoon--an hour after I got home from my activity--Steve and Emilia had practice for the program. They spent two hours there and as soon as they got home, we headed to Nick and Wilda's to celebrate Steve's birthday.  They made a scrumptious dinner for us, we played Boggle, and had cake and ice cream.  Sunday, my whole family came over to celebrate Steve and Alison and Cari's birthdays, so we had to make sure the house was clean and ready for a houseful somewhere in there on Saturday.

This post feels a little disjointed, but I have no idea how to convey all the things that went on this week in a cohesive way. Unless I write even more than I have already. Yeesh! 

The girls playing with Daddy when we went to visit for lunch.

The girls using the bench seat to read books together. I love it.

We can be normal

In thinking about the past week, I couldn't think of anything ridiculous we did. Amazing, right? No misadventures for the Watts' this week.

Tuesday night we all went to DI together, and since Steve got home from work later than I anticipated, it was a late outing for the girls.  So they were crazy. (read: Mira was running all over the store screaming and being totally defiant. Erg.) We needed to go to DI because Steve wants to be discord for Halloween.  Since I'm going to be the one making most of his costume, I didn't want him waiting until October 27th to figure out what he was doing.  We did some research the previous week, so we knew the direction we wanted to go, and on Tuesday, we did the shopping.  If you don't have small girls in your house, you probably don't watch My Little Ponies, and therefore you don't know who Discord is.  He is a "bad guy" who causes chaos in Equestria.  The character is voiced by and based on the character of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here is a picture of him:

So far, I've gotten his horns done and cut up a poor, innocent stuffed Valentine's gorilla for a wig to sew them to.  Steve helped me, and we both agreed that it felt a little weird cutting him to pieces even though he'd never done anything to us.  Hopefully he'll feel good serving a purpose as a hairpiece.

On Friday night, we took the girls to a pumpkin patch here is Springville that has a ton of activities for kids and is totally free.  It's called Jaker's Pumpkin Patch.  They had free wagon rides pulled by a tractor, some cages with small animals like goats (or sheep--I didn't go over there, so I'm not sure what it was), pigs, and a mini llama, some slides made of that black-ribbed construction tubing set on hay bales, a jump pit full of corn kernels, a mini-maze for the small kids, a "fort" for climbing on, and a large "maze" for the bigger kids, which was really just a place to run around in.  The only thing that cost money were the pumpkins and we didn't even buy any of those.

Steve and Emilia figuring out which way to go next.

Mira coming out of the maze (in pink).

After the sun went down it was pretty freezing, so we packed up and headed to a new place in Provo called "Cubby's" for dinner. We enjoyed our dinner and no one exploded or fell or backed into anything. Wahoo!

Saturday was mostly uneventful.  I was frustrated with not getting anything done and not being able to get anything done, so I ended up sifting billions of rocks out of the dirt in the bed in our back yard in an attempt to find a place to plant iris bulbs I got for free from a neighbor.  Honestly, it was more like sifting dirt out of my rock bed as the rocks made up about 3/4 of the volume of what was sifted. I supposed that's what I get for living this close to a mountain.

In the afternoon we watched the BYU football game online.  It was a crazy game! BYU barely won 47 to 46. BYU made records in both how many plays were made (115) and how many first downs (41). BYU had over 600 yards of offense and gave up 120 yards in penalties.  Insanity.  But it was a really fun game to watch. I didn't even crochet like I usually do watching games.

I also got to go see a chick flick with my friend Gina Saturday night.  We saw Austenland.  It was good to get out. And it was also good that Cecily didn't need to eat while I was gone. She WILL NOT take a bottle, so Steve would have been up a creek (read: crik) if she had needed food.

One last thing...I tried to do a post on this earlier in the week, but my phone hasn't been functioning well since it's almost out of storage and I haven't figured out how to delete (or decide what is) unnecessary stuff.

Emilia really impressed me a couple times recently. First, her school did a fundraiser a couple weeks ago.  It was a "walk-a-thon." The kids collected donations (either per lap or single amount) and then one day at school, all the kids ran/walked laps on the track for an hour. They each got a card like the one above, and someone marked the card each time the child completed a lap.  One lap=1/4 mile.  Emilia showed me her card when she got home.  She did 18 laps! That's 4.5 miles--in an hour.  And she's only 5.  I was floored.

Then, a few days ago, she came to me after school and said something about being VIP.  For kindergarten, each week, one child is highlighted, and that person is called the VIP.  They bring a poster telling about themselves, and they can bring a treat, and they get special treatment for that week.  She started out by saying, "Mom, when I'm VIP, I'm going to pick Sam and Jarom to get Smarties with me."  I didn't realize they got to pick 2 people to get smarties with them, but I wondered why she would pick Sam and Jarom instead of her friends Elli and Alexia.  I asked her, "Aren't you friends with Alexia any more?"  And she responded, "No, I am friends with Alexia. But Sam is so quiet, and Jarom hasn't gotten picked in a long time." That just melted my heart and made me proud to be her mom. What a sweet girl I've been blessed with.

Halloween's a-comin'

We've had a busy week, mostly because Halloween is this month. Mondays are my laundry/cleaning/grocery shopping days, so they're not really fun for the kids. When Emilia was at school, I decided to spend some quality time with Mira. She wanted to build with legos and we made a house and a cake. She was very proud of her creations. (And she loves a good "cheese" smile these days.)

When we got bored with Legos, Mira grabbed my phone and wanted to take pictures.  So we got a little goofy.

On Tuesday, Emilia's class had a field trip to "Pumpkinland." We've gone there for the past two years as a family, so I knew it was a fun little place for the kids. Emilia wanted me to come with, so I volunteered to help. I told her teacher that I would have my two other girls, but I would be able to watch a couple extra. We were supposed to be at the school at 8:30am, but of course, I didn't make it there with the three of them until 8:45. Mrs. Miner had assigned me two other girls from Emilia's class, which was quite do-able, I thought. "Make sure you keep track of the kids," she tells us. The kids, including Emilia, loaded up on the bus at 9am, and I put the other two back in the car and we all drove up to Pumpkinland. Mira was not happy that she couldn't ride the bus with Yaya (Emilia). But I wrangled her in. Then, as soon as we get out of the car, she throws a fit again. But it's a screaming, nobody-can-understand-anything-at-that-pitch, type of melt down, and all the other mom's are there to witness it. I can't spend 10 minutes reasoning with her, because I have to go get the girls from the bus, because somehow everyone seemed to get there faster than me and Emilia and her friends are staring around wondering if I forgot about them. Mira, still screaming at the top of her lungs is going back and forth between pounding her fists on the ground in a tantrum and running after me, screaming that I'm leaving her. I finally get her to calm down as we're walking into Pumpkinland, but by now the two other girls are paying no attention to me. There is a short corn maze to start out the Pumpkinland experience, so we head in. About 3 minutes into the corn maze, my diaper bag starts sagging down and rubbing on the wheel of the stroller. I bend over and figure out a way to keep it from falling down again, and by the time I look up, the other two girls are gone. Disappeared. I look down every aisle and there is no sign of them. I'm calling their names. Nothing. Emilia's calling their names. Nothing. Great. I'm the mom who lost the only two kids she was in charge of. I run into Mrs. Miner, and she's really nice about it, but I can tell she's not going to trust me with kids on an outing ever again. We finally found them at the playground that's all the way at the other end of the park. Everybody is supposed to load up by 11, so at 10:40, I make them pick out their pumpkin and stand by the bus, so we can't lose anyone again. Emilia is riding home with me, so someone else can have the spot on the bus, so after the other two are loaded, I get my girls in the car. As I'm loading, two buses from another school pull into the parking lot. They are directly behind my car, but I can't wait for two buses worth of kids to load up and get settled before I leave, so I back out, slowly. Wham! I totally run into one of the buses. Turning around, I quickly pull forward, but I see two women giving me the "Oh wow!" look. I figure there is no way my car did any damage to a school bus, so to avoid any more humiliation, I just pull out of the parking lot. It's not until I pull into the gas station at Costco that I realize a plastic covering on the back of my car fell off somewhere. I drove back when I was done with errands and found it, thank goodness. But I am never volunteering to help with Emilia's class again. Not if I have to take the other two girls with me. Nope, not ever.

Emilia, Mira and other kids from Emilia's class by the giant pumpkin. This is before I lost the other girls.

Emilia and Mira in the smelly "petting zoo" area. They had fun.

For some reason, Tuesday afternoon, I randomly decided Mira needed to try potty training again. This torturous experience is just too traumatizing to put into words.  Therefore, I will skip to the part where Steve and I decided Friday morning that, for the sake of the sanity of our entire family, we will just have to try again another time.

This decision made our trip to "Barnyard Boo" Friday morning much easier on me. We've been to Barnyard Boo as a family for the last couple years, too. This time, we went with my mom, Megan and her kids, and Haylee and her kids.

Both my girls decided to be cats this year.  Emilia has decided that cats are the coolest animals ever, and Mira just wants to do everything Emilia does.

Their costumes were really easy.  Just all-black clothes. I painted their faces with inspiration from the face painting at Steve's work party a few weeks back.

 Emilia rode the pony, but Mira was having none of that.

 There are a couple buildings that resemble an old western main street.  One of them was called "Miss Kitty's Dance Hall."  I'm pretty sure Emilia really thought she and Mira were co-owners of said building.  Here is them dancing with Cari in the "dance hall."

 We did the wagon ride as well.  Here's a picture of Megan's brood.  She took a picture of mine, so I don't have it. :)

 They had a couple games set up that the kids could play.  I was a little disappointed.  In previous years, they had face painting and each game gave the kids a little prize.  No face painting or prizes this year.  Here's Emilia and Mira "boo-ling."

Then Saturday, we went to the zoo with Nick and Wilda.  We had a wonderful day.  They took us out for lunch at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries before heading up to the zoo.  They took Emilia and Mira on the carousel, and let them buy a souvenir before we headed home. Then, when we got back, they took us out for ice cream at Farr's Fresh, one of mine and Emilia's favorite ice cream places.  It was exhausting, but we had a great time spending the day with Grandma and "Bumpa" as Mira calls them. And we made it the whole day without any misadventures. Thank goodness!

The gorilla's were on the same level as us.  When one started walking toward Mira, she was so cute! She started crying and ran the other way.  She's no dummy! That guy was big!

Emilia didn't mind the big animals.

Mira really likes elephants. You can see one behind her.  They had a mommy, a daddy, and a baby elephant at our zoo.

Emilia was SO excited to sit by the big cats. There may or may not have been tears because someone else was on them when we got there.

Grandma with the girls.

Daddy and Mira. The only time they'll be taller than a giraffe. :)

A little hard to see, but there is a sea lion there behind us.

The grizzly bear didn't bother Mira nearly as much.  But he wasn't looking at her either.

Today, we had church, Nick and Wilda came for dinner, we Skyped with the Nelson cousins, and some friends/neighbors came over to play Dominion after the girls were in bed.  Life is pretty good.

Crazy week

This week has been so busy!  I feel like I wasn't at home for more than a few hours all week.  Not that it was anything exciting.  Monday, Steve had the afternoon off, so I took Emilia to pick some more raspberries while the other two were napping.  Then, after some pancakes (with fresh raspberries), we headed to the Provo Temple for family night. We'd never taken Emilia to the temple grounds before. We hoped she (and Mira) would feel the Holy Spirit and God's love for them as we walked on the consecrated grounds, but I think they mostly just wanted to play in the water fountains. Oh, well--maybe next time, eh?

Cecily had two doctor's appointments; one was to see if her head is too flat and to see if she may need a helmet to fix it.  We'll go back in in a few weeks to see if it's getting any better.  I'm supposed to keep her off her back as much as possible.

I also made a couple of trips to pick up some stuff to help me reach my goal of regular exercise.  Exercising seems to keep my depression in check and I REALLY want to fit into my pre-pregnancy pants again.  I hate maternity pants. With. A. Passion.

I also had to make a trip to Costco and to the grocery store. And we visited Steve's parents on Saturday and mine today. So much driving!

Besides a few pictures, that's about it for the week.

I get this smile every time she wakes up and I go in to get her. It makes my heart happy.

Look at those thighs! Such a chubber.