Mostly a birthday and Frozen is ridiculous

I'm wracking my brain trying to think what we did this last week. I felt like I was busy, but apparently not with important or interesting things. Except Mira's birthday. She turned 3 on Friday! We didn't have a party for her or anything, since we already celebrated with family and she doesn't really have friends.  It was pretty cute Friday morning, though.  She woke up and Steve got her some breakfast while I tried to sleep a little bit longer.  Neither of them remembered it was her birthday.  Then Emilia woke up right before Steve left for work.  I didn't hear her, but she must have told Mira, "It's your birthday, Mira! You're three today!"  Because then Mira came running out of her room and I hear her yell, "I'm phree, Daddy! I'm phree, I'm phree!" To which Steve responds, "You're free? That's great, sweetie." And he goes back to packing his lunch.  She tries to correct him, but she's not getting anywhere, so I finally go out and say, "Steve, she's not 'free,' she's 'three.'"  "Oh!" he says. "That's right! It's your birthday Mira.  Happy Birthday!"

I asked Mira what she wanted to do for her birthday, and out of all the choices, she wanted to go to ToysRUs to see if we could find an Elsa doll.  If you don't have little girls, you may not know what a freakish phenomenon this show is, but EVERY little girl in America stinking LOVES Elsa from Disney's Frozen.  It's ridiculous. Silly even.  Every adult I talk to is like, "Why Elsa?  She's not even the nice one." I happen to think both girls are a little messed up and I blame terrible parenting via Disney's writing team, but that's another story altogether.

Apparently Disney had no idea the movie (or character) was going to be popular because they have grossly under-supplied the demand.  You cannot find an Elsa doll ANYWHERE. I have been looking for at least a month for anything Elsa and have been completely unsuccessful. I found them on Amazon, but everything on there is around three times the retail price.  I don't care how much my kid wants a toy, I am not paying three times retail.

The lady at ToysRUs told me that they get shipments on Fridays, so they occasionally will have Frozen toys before noon on Fridays.  Mira's birthday was on Friday, so we headed over around 10:30.  They had one Elsa item.  It was a wig.  Woot.

We went back out to the car and I called 6 different stores to see if they had anything Elsa and they all told me no.  One went so far to tell me that they had a shipping problem and wouldn't have more until the end of May.  I then called my mom to see if she could find anything online and I could drive to pick it up. I ended up driving over to Grandma and Grandpa Watts' house to look on the computer, too.  When I did, Amazon actually had an Elsa Barbie-size doll for only $16.99.  When I put it in my cart, there were 12 left.  At the same time, my mom found ONE Walmart in all of the Walmarts in Salt Lake and Utah county that had a single Elsa item in stock. It was a 6-pack of all the characters in the Polly-Pocket size for $25. I took maybe 5 minutes to decide which to get and by that time, ALL 12 of the dolls on Amazon were gone. I couldn't purchase the 6-pack from Walmart either, it told me they were sold out.  Luckily my mom had put it in her cart and was still able to purchase them or Mira would have been without a present for her birthday.  It is craziness!

Below is a picture of the girls with their new Frozen toys.  I have no idea why Bubby is making that face.

Daddy playing Frozen with the girls.

Earlier in the week, I took the girls to the park because it was beautiful! Like 62 degrees.  In March!

Mira is getting really brave, going down slides by herself.

These spin-y things are SO much fun! Like a roller coaster ride that doesn't move from that spot.

Emilia is getting brave, too.  She was climbing all over.

Bubs didn't have a nap the day we went to the park.  Steve needed to mow the lawn and I ran to grab some dinner.  When I got back, I couldn't find Mira.  She wasn't playing outside with Emilia and when I called for her inside, there was no answer.  We finally found her on the floor of our bedroom like this:

For her birthday, Nana Frohlich made Mira a frozen dress that turned out so cute (it has a see-through cape and everything).  Of course, Mira can't have an Elsa dress and not Emilia, so Nana was nice enough to make Emilia one, too.  Such a loving Nana they have.

Saturday, we tried to put up shutters.  It was so unsuccessful! One shutter now has three different sets of drill holes in it and will probably need a 4th before we get these stupid things hung.  So frustrating! Guess we'll try again next week.

Action-packed weekend

Steve took Thursday and Friday off this week to use up the last of his vacation days that he would otherwise lose on the 31st.  It's been so nice having him home so much this last month!

First off, some pictures from last week I missed:

Nails for the girls for St. Patrick's Day: rainbow and a pot of gold.

Emilia reading The Cat in the Hat to Mira.
(She is wearing a leprechaun hat she made at school.)
Cecily felt she must be a part of the fun, too.

Our St. Patty's Day meal. Orange and green? Yes. Irish? No.

I can't remember anything happening Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday, Steve had Ben and our friend Jason over for LOTR card game. Then Thursday he let me write for a while in the afternoon and he had his regularly scheduled game night.  Friday, Emilia didn't have school, so we had planned a trip to the Dinosaur Museum with Megan, Cari, Febe, and Nana.  This is like our 7th time going, so it's no longer new, but I enjoy each trip. Dinosaur bones are so fascinating and thinking about what it would be like if they were still alive like in Jurassic Park or Primeval (the movie and TV show respectively).  I also ponder each time I'm there the idea that these animals were supposedly alive on Earth billions of years ago--and we have evidence of them through their bones and eggs and footprints and fossilized imprints--but at the same time I believe in what the Bible says--that God created this earth and Adam and Eve were our first parents who probably lived about 6 thousand years ago.  I imagine there is a good explanation about how those can both be correct and I look forward to asking God about it when I have the chance. :)

I love Emilia's face in this picture.  They were in a "cave" looking at fossils.

Cousins making things fly in an air tunnel.

Friday evening, Grandma and Grandpa Watts took the two older girls for a sleepover and Steve and I took Cecily to Barnes & Noble for a date night.  We didn't buy any books, but I always love wandering through the stacks.  I've always had a great love of books and that hasn't changed as I've aged. Maybe someday I'll have a book to add to the collection!

Saturday I went to a writing conference from 8am-4pm.  I didn't feel too awful about it because G&G Watts had the older girls until after lunch, so Steve only had to watch Cecily for most of the time. I enjoy going to writing conferences, but I always come away just a little discouraged. Getting a book published the traditional way is a daunting task.  After I got home, Steve and I discussed the conference for a while and then fed the girls dinner.  I really enjoy being able to discuss literature and other media with my husband.  It's one of my favorite things about our relationship.  We learn from each other (or at least, I learn from him) and we understand each other better as we talk intelligently about deep things.

After dinner, I got in my head that I needed to complete something this weekend that Steve was home, so I painted our garage.  I was glad it only took me about 80 minutes because that was about all the time I had before my light ran out.  And it turned out so good! I'm excited to show you once we get the shutters up.  Maybe we'll finally get around to it next weekend. Cross your fingers for me.

I also had to get our house cleaned Saturday night because we were hosting the birthday dinner for Mira, Dylan and my mom today.  Then this morning before church, I busted out some pizza sauce,  baked sugar and double chocolate chunk cookies, and frosted the sugar cookies, including a large one with a picture of Elsa from Disney's Frozen on it. I'm a little crazy, I know.

Not a culinary masterpiece, but pretty good for me!

Dylan and Mira looking slightly less enthusiastic than me. :)

Nana Frohlich made these Anna and Elsa dresses for the girls. 
They LOVED them. Mira walked around like she was the bees knees
for the rest of the night.

 We had a good time hanging out with the family.  The kids play so well now that they are a little older.  It was fun to watch Mira and Dylan hug each other and follow each other around as they played Frozen.  After the family left, we had our neighbors over to play a round of 7 Wonders (a board/card game) and a short game of Oh Heck (or Big Bertha). It was a great way to end the week.

Some pictures of Cecily I took the other night after the other two were in bed:

She's pulling up to standing like a pro and starting to try to walk along furniture.  Often she'll think she has a handhold when she doesn't and she will face plant.  She has so many bruises on her forehead! It's kind of sad.

This is what pictures of her usually look like.  Such a little busy body!

Emilia took some pictures with my phone.  She can be quite artistic sometimes.  My favorite is this one with the upside-down cars.

She told me her blankie was making a smiley face.

back and forth & Facebook funnies

This last week was pretty normal.  Steve and I kinda went back and forth watching kids for a lot of the week.  Wednesday, I volunteered to teach the young women at church some cake decorating basics.  After I got home, Steve went to play the LOTR card game at a friend's house.  Thursday, I went to a movie with Haylee and another friend.  We saw The Book Thief and I enjoyed it.  It was thought-provoking without being totally depressing. Friday night Steve went to the temple.  Saturday, I put a first coat of brown on our new shutters and ran some errands while Steve updated our budget and scrubbed the kitchen floor (isn't he a good hubby?). Saturday night, we hung out with our good friends the Childresses.  I stayed late and watched Young Victoria, which I also enjoyed.  It was very well-done and again, thought-provoking.  Today was interesting with Mira having 3 accidents, two of them not at home and not the easy, wet kind.  I don't know what her deal is, but I hope she grows out of it soon.  On a happy note, we let Cecily cry it out for 2 nights last week and she is now sleeping at least 6 hours at a time at night and I feel like I wake up rested.  What a thought!

I don't think I took any pictures this week. And my phone just locked up trying to look

And from Facebook:

3/14/14
Our dinner conversation started out like this:
Mira: We don't eat people, Daddy.
Steve: Yes, we don't eat people. That's gross.
Emilia: What are those people called again?
Steve: Cannibals.
Emilia: Do they wear red and black capes?
Steve: Uhh....no.

3/8/14
Driving to the duck pond park as a family...
Mira: We're going to April!
Emilia: No! We're going to a park. We're not going to April. April is a month. It's a month, Mira.
Mira: Daddy, we going to a month!

3/6/14
Mira: Look, Momma! I cut [my chicken nugget] myself!
Me: Wow! You did. Good job, Mira!
Mira: Yup. I awesome, thank you.
Nothing like raising humble children. 

2/14/14
I made my girls nutella sandwiches for lunch. Mira got clementine oranges and Emilia got 1/2 an apple.
Emilia: Seeds! Look seeds, Mira! I can take them out and we can plant them.
Mira: Take out our sandwich seeds, too. And plant them!

2/10/14
Driving to Grandma and Grandpa's.
Emilia: Mom, Cecily's awake.
Mira (who can't see Cecily): No, she not.
Emilia: I can see her. Her eyes are open. Hi, Cecily!
Mira: She NOT awake.
Emilia: Yes she is.
Cecily giggles.
Mira: NO SHE NOT! She asleep!
Steve: Mira, are you asleep?
Mira: No, I just happy.

2/5/14
Emilia often gets focused on what's going on inside her head so much that reality no longer registers. Just now, she left the breakfast table to use the restroom and when she came back, she exclaimed, "Oh! I guess I accidentally took my shirt off!"

1/28/14
Occasionally, when Emilia sees me right after I get dressed, she says in an an awed voice, "Wow, Mom! Great outfit!" I know she's trying to be flattering, but she sounds so surprised that I wonder what she thinks of how I dress the rest of the time. 

1/28/14
The other day in the car Mira got talking about Elijah's baptism. Emilia often says it "bap-a-tism," and Mira couldn't remember it exactly, so she called it a hip-a-tism.
"We go to 'Lijah's hipatism. When we get hipatized, we become....hippos!"

1/12/14
In the car on the way to my parents house...
Mira: Mom! a speedamint!
Me: Really? Where?
Mira: There! There's another one. Daddy! There's a speedamint!
Me aside to Steve: She's saying "speed limit."
Steve: Oh, I see. So, Mira, what's *your* speedamint?
Mira: A girl! (said with both the 'r' and the 'l' as a 'w')      

Work and fun

How to sum up this week?

Well, I could say, Cecily is still not sleeping, Mira is getting easier, though she still drives me crazy sometimes (like today when her pooping in her panties nearly resulted in the destruction of our car's transmission--yeah, ask me about it sometime!), and Steve isn't happy with his job.

That's a pretty quick summation.

For a little bit longer version, see below. :)

Wednesday, I got the idea in my head I was going to try to make pizza using a new dough recipe. I have two neighbors who are pregnant at the moment, so I thought I might make a little extra and take some to them.  Oy.  Me and my big ideas.  I did end up taking them both pizza, but for some reason, I was worn out after dinner.  Go figure.  Wednesday night, Steve had a friend come over so he could teach him his new favorite game, the Lord of the Rings Card Game.

Thursday, my parents came down to visit.  Instead of having my dad help with the bathroom (which I've given up on because it keeps becoming a more and more expensive endeavor), I had him help me build some new shutters for my house.  We only got 2 built before they had to leave, but I finished the other 4 that evening.  Steve had game night that night, too.

Friday, Steve took the day off (to use up some more of that time off he'll lose otherwise), and we ended up splitting up Mira and Emilia in the evening because they were at each others' throats. Steve stayed home with Emilia and they played My Little Ponies and Gandalf and then got in some Lara Croft: Tomb Raider on the computer.  Mira and Cecily and I returned a sink (that we're not using on our not-update of the bathroom) and then went to PetSmart to look at all the pets we are not going to have in the immediate future. :)

Saturday was a crazy day for me.  I accomplished a ton and it was AWESOME. I fed all the girls breakfast; showered; primed all of the new shutters; read books to the girls; cut Steve's hair; loaded, ran, and unloaded the dishwasher; painted sample colors on three of the shutters; took the girl's to the park--with Steve; and shopped for new summer clothes for the girls, since spring apparently sprung in the first week of March this year.  I LOVE days like that.

Today was not so much fun, but I won't go into it. It was a good evening with Grandma and Grandpa Watts. 

Emilia's wildlife

Emilia likes to act out the shows that she watches. There is a pretty regular rotation of My Little Ponies, Curious George, Wild Kratts, and Barbie/Fairy/Disney movies.  The other day, she came to me and asked if she could take pictures with my phone.  The last time I let her do that, she decided to have a pony fashion show where she took so many pictures (mostly blurry) of her ponies standing in a line that it filled my SD card.
So this time I told her, "Five.  You can take five pictures, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy."
She skips off with my phone, and I probably go to change a diaper or feed someone, because that's what I do these days.
A few minutes later, Emilia comes back.
"I took five pictures, Mom."
"Oh, good.  Thank you."
"Look.  They are of the local wildlife. Just like George.  He takes pictures of the local wildlife for the nature exhibit."
I take my phone and look at the last five pictures. This is what I find:

This is a stuffed frog, if you can't tell.

Wasn't that creative of her? She is so deliberate and thoughtful! She makes connections to the things she sees and hears and reads that amaze me all the time.  I'm glad I get to learn from her as her mom.

I have cute, crazy, funny, stubborn, sweet, sleepy kids and a pretty awesome husband

It was a little bit of a rough week for us, but nothing terrible.  Steve took Thursday and Friday off, partly because he had 6 days off that he needed to use before the end of March, and partly because we wanted to do some work on our kids/guest bathroom.  Maybe I should say I wanted to do some work on our kids/guest bathroom and Steve was kind enough to be willing to work on it with me.  I also thought this would be a great time to work on it because my dad was still off work from breaking his ribs five weeks ago, but was well enough to help us do some plumbing. Well, we did no bathroom updating.  Not a single thing.  We didn't even buy any of the things we would need to update a bathroom. I tend to get a little edgy when my plans change.  Probably because I take so much time making the plans that when they change, it's a lot of work down the drain (that was a pun that I totally intended). :)

Our little ballerinas

Steve did work on our bedroom on Saturday while I braved Costco crowds with 3 kids. You can look at the pictures here and here, but we used to have wainscoting up in our bedroom, which I tore down and put up in Cecily's room.  That was a couple months before she was born, and we haven't fixed the walls in our bedroom yet.  It needed to be done.  But whoever put up the wainscoting was a little trigger-happy with the nail gun and we had probably 50 nails stuck in studs.  I tried pulling them out once, a couple months ago, and was totally unsuccessful.  I in no way have the hand strength.  So it was up to Steve.  It took him 3 hours, but our room is now free of finish nails sticking out of the wall.  Yay, Steve!

Cecily has this way of always looking surprised.

She also smiles a lot. :D

I have a red-head. Yay!

Feeding herself some dinner.  So far, she's not picky like the other girls.  I hope it sticks.

Friday, Steve and I got to go on a date.  One of Steve's coworkers was in a play at Hale Center Theater and was kind enough to give us two tickets to Friday's showing.  Nick and Wilda were good grandparents/parents and agreed to babysit for us. We had a tasty meal at Iggy's and then went to see Big River.  Big River, if you don't know (I didn't), is the musicalization of Huck Finn.  It was rather blah. But dinner was good! And we were on a date sans kids.  I'll take it!

Practicing the art of the "selfie."

Here's a funny story for you:
After our play/musical was over, we went to pick the girls up from Grandpa and Grandma's house.

When we get there, Cecily is still awake.  It is 10:30 and she has been up since around 4.  She is so-o-o exhausted.  But that's been her MO lately.  She just does not want to sleep. So, I put her in her car seat and rock her for a little while until she calms down. I then go to get the girls' shoes and coats on, while Steve took our stuff and Cecily out to the car.  Nick and Wilda have two twin beds in one of the downstairs rooms, which is where the girls were sleeping.  I decided to do Emilia first, because she will usually get her own stuff on and walk herself out to the car, but I knew I would need to carry Bubby. I try to wake Emilia up, but she is pretty far under.  She opens her eyes and I tell her, "We need to get your coat on.  We're going to go home." She shies away from me and tries to talk, but can't really, and it comes out sounding like either she is crazy, or she thinks I am and she doesn't want to catch it.  "Uhh.hhhhh.....Ummmmm...Ehhhhhhh...."  I tell her again,  "It's okay, Sweetie.  It's just Mommy, we need to go.  Let's get your coat on."  "Ehhhhhhh..." Shying away.  So I sit her up, and start putting one of her arms in the coat.  She starts making this noise like there is a snake trying to eat her arm off.  She's whimpering.  I feel bad. But at the same time, it's a little humorous.  I'm trying to put her coat on, she has her eyes open and can see me (I think), but she's acting like I'm a cannibal or a snake who has it in for her.  I start giggling.  This makes her even more nervous.  More, "Uhhhhhhh....Ehhhhhh...." while sort of trying to lay back down and go to sleep.  I giggle more, she whimpers more.  This is terrible.  I go get Steve.  Hopefully she won't think he is trying to eat her.  Steve is on his way, so I decide to get Mira's coat on. I go to get her sitting up and realize that she is not wearing any clothes.  Not a stitch! She is cuddled up to her blankie, half way under the covers, her naked little bum sticking out for all to see.  I start giggling again and go to find out what happened to her clothes.  "Did you know Mira was naked?" I ask Wilda.  "No!" "Yep, she's naked as a jaybird."  I go downstairs and find her pajamas and panties in front of the toilet all wet from an accident.  She had tried to get to the toilet, missed, taken all her clothes off and crawled back in bed.  No reason to tell anyone, right? Nakedness is the new PJs. Steve has already taken everything out to the car, so I have to make him go get her clothes that she came in, so I can dress her and get her out to the car.  She wakes up pretty easily and gets dressed without a problem until I tell her that we have to get her shoes on so we can go out to the car.  Apparently, she didn't realize she wasn't staying all night. I finally got her clothed, coated, shoed, and carried out to the car, but by this time she is hysterically screaming, "NO! I WANT NANA!" (We never call her Nana--that's what we call Nana Frohlich, but Bubs insists on calling Grandma Watts Nana, too.) "I WANT TO SLEEP AT NANAS! TURN AROUND.  I SLEEP AT NANA'S. GO BACK, MOMMA! I WANT TO SLEEP THERE!" This ridiculously high-pitched screaming goes on for our entire drive home--which Cecily somehow sleeps through--and continues until after we take everyone and everything else inside.  At which point, she finally realizes that we are not going back and manages to calm down and talk to me.  She cuddles up to me and talks sweetly about how much she loves me.  Ah, that child. We now have a date for them to sleep over at Grandma Watts' house for her birthday.  And somehow, nobody seems to be scarred for life.  Phew!