Happy Thanksgiving.

This week was better. I'm not even sure why. Maybe because I had Thanksgiving to look forward to. And Emilia was home all but Tuesday. Steve had Thursday and Friday off. So the whole family was around for most of the week. It was nice.

1/2 the Frohlich Clan. I was going to take a picture of the other 1/2 but not everybody was sitting. And then we prayed and the food distracted me.

We spent Thanksgiving day with my family, Friday with Steve's family, and Saturday we spent most of the day unsuccessfully trying to get out of the house to get a Christmas tree. We finally got everyone in the car and to the tree lot around 1pm. I was past caring about a tree at that point, so I told Steve he had to pick it out. He didn't like any of his options at the tree lot, so we drove to Home Depot instead. They had a ton of small trees for $20. We decided to get a small tree because of the tornado we call Cecily. My hope is that if the tree is up on a table, she will be less tempted to pull it over, climb it, or pull every ornament off the first 4 feet of the tree. I just didn't want to fight with her for a month. So we ended up with a small tree for $20 and it's a nice tree. It smells good, too. My favorite part.

Friday we made "gingerbread" houses at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I think the girls enjoyed it. Steve and I made one together and I'm proud of how well it turned out. We make a good graham cracker engineering team. :) That night before we went home, Emilia decided her house was a gingerbread man trap. She was very excited to see if she had caught anything the next day. When she found out that we weren't going to be there really early in the morning to check on the trap, she was very upset. Thankfully, Aunt Cindy was kind enough to very seriously take directions from Emilia for checking the trap and guarding any caught gingerbread men.

Mine and Steve's (left), Emilia's (center), and Mira's (right).

A close-up of the stained-glass (melted gummybear windows).

Emilia also has gotten this rebellious streak lately. But she's so funny. She always tells us when she's misbehaving. Friday night, we got the girls in bed and Steve, as he was shutting the door, said, "No reading." An hour later, Emilia shows up downstairs wearing a hat and a dress/blanket and starts asking me questions about Saturday.
"Why aren't you asleep?" I ask her.
She just keeps, literally, saying, "Hmm.  Hmm.  Hmm.  Hmm. Hmm. Hmm."
"You don't know?"
"I do, but I don't want to tell you," she says,.
"Did you stay up reading?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to have to take away your reading lamp, since you didn't obey."
"I know. That's what you should have done if you didn't want me to read."
"Umm...no. You should just obey your parents."
"Oh."
That kid.

We had a cold that we passed around the family this week. That's why Emilia didn't go to school on Monday. It was a pretty short-lived cold. It was only bad for 1 day for me. Cecily has it the worst, but that's not really surprising since she is the littlest.

I also thought I should make a list of things I am thankful for. So here you go:
My home.
A husband who works hard to support us and who helps out around the house.
Three girls who are healthy, and sometimes happy. (Although not usually all at the same time.)
Christ. His example and his words guide my life, and his atonement makes me whole.
So much beauty around me.
A free country, brave soldiers, a good upbringing.
Family. All of them.
Food. Tasty and abundant.
Vehicles that work.
A heater. And warm blankets. And wheat bags. Socks.
My health. Skills, opportunities, and a sound mind.
Friends.
Plumbing. Internet. Hospitals. Netflix. Refridgerators and freezers. Vacuum cleaners. All those little things that you don't think about.
A warm winter (so far).
Steve's new job. And good health insurance.
Sleep. Dreams. Hope.

I'm sure there is more, but I won't bother you with them.
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Stuff we do

Hrm...
I had a lot of struggles with depression this week. I don't remember most of it. I know on Thursday night, Emilia had her Thanksgiving program at school. I'll do a separate post for that because all the videos are on Steve's phone. She did great, though, and she was very excited to perform with the other kids.

I also did a little bit of Christmas shopping this week. And re-potted all the plants in my house. I also managed to lose my glasses while taking a nap.

Last night I went over to Megan's house to help her work on all the remodeling they are doing. It's going to be beautiful when it's done.

So sweet when she's asleep.

A fun shopping buddy.

This plant was yellowing and I wasn't sure why. I guess this explains it.

It was at this point I realized I should have used the garage.

Mira fell asleep watching TV one day.

I gave Cecily a haircut

It was warm enough to go to the park without coats one day this week. This is them pointing at a dinosaur skeleton under a climbing wall.

And here is a video of Cecily for you:

Retreat week

On Thursday, I left to go to my writing retreat. The three days prior to that are kind of a blur. I did highlight my hair one of those days and then had to go get it fixed by a professional. It was only a small fix. I didn't totally ruin my hair or anything. It's blond again. Not that you can tell in this picture.

I really like how my hair curls now that it's long and I've been looking into helping it look its best. I found a book called Curly Girl: A Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Handbook-Michele-Bender/dp/076115678X/) that gives a lot of great advice. One of the things is to not dry your hair with a terrycloth towel--because it takes too much moisture out of your hair. They recommend using an old t-shirt, so I've been doing that to see what I think. The best part is I look like a "Girl with a Pearl Earring" every time I wash my hair. :)

Thursday morning, I ended up having two of Mira's friends over to play. Not the best idea when you're trying to pack for a long weekend, but I can be rather dense when it comes to time management.

Mira was making funny faces at me while I was working on my computer.

Thursday afternoon, I took all the kids to my mom's house so that she could watch them until Steve got off work. I then drove to my friend's house so she could drive us the rest of the way to the retreat.  Of course, after months of unseasonably warm weather, it decides to snow for the first time this year, on Thursday. So not only did we have to drive up into the mountains in a snowstorm but we got ridiculously lost. What should have been an hour and a half drive ended up taking us four hours. Bah!

But it was SO worth it! I had an amazing tmie.  This was our view from the condo we rented:

I volunteered to make the breakfasts while we were there. One morning I made them all shaped pancakes. They turned out really good.

I got a ton of writing done, ate SO MUCH good food, laughed and laughed and laughed, and got to know some amazing ladies even better. It was a balm for my soul. Looking forward to another one next year! :)

When I got home this morning, my kids were excited to see me. But Cecily was the most excited. It made my heart happy that she was so excited to have me back.

Her face when I walked in the door:

I am so blessed!

All about Cecily

Cecily is the cutest kid.

She loves kitties lately. And purses.

She has a great big smile that will light up a room. She has an enthusiasm for everything that she does that often makes me want to be more like her.

A selfie. She giggled when she saw herself.

She has the cutest little voice and her vocabulary is getting bigger. She has been yelling "light!" lately and pointing at all the light fixtures in the house because that is the most recent word she learned.

 She is also a terror. She gets into EVERYTHING.

More kitty love. "Meow. Meow. Meow." All day.

She has cut her hands on Steve's razor that she found in the bathtub. She cut her fingers on knives she has climbed on the counter to get. She has cut her fingers on the glass in picture frames because she took it off a table, figured out how to get the back out and dumped out the picture and the glass and then started playing with it.

 She is constantly spilling water out of glasses all over herself and the floor and the table and the counter and the bathroom and the hallway (those have all happened in the last week).

Kitties in purses. Even better.

She is learning how to use a spoon by herself at 17 months because she's annoyed that I might not let her have the spoon when she wants a bite. She is constantly eating or finding things to eat or finding things that she shouldn't eat and putting them in her mouth anyway. She likes to pull things out of cupboards, bookshelves, closets, drawers, boxes, baskets, you name it.

Trying to pour water on her own head. She wasn't very succesful. But she was very enthusiastic.

I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a room, had Cecily look up at me, drop whatever she has in her hands and run. She knows. Usually she's giggling as she runs, too. That child! I told my mom tonight, "I love this child. But I love her more when she's asleep." She is amazing and exhausting and I love her to death.

We had a pretty normal week. Laundry and grocery shopping, some trips to the park (because really, what is with this AMAZING weather!?), and stuff for callings. The primary program was today and my parents and Steve's parents came to watch. Mine stayed for dinner. I was very proud of Steve. I have never watched a primary program where the kids knew the songs as well as his. They knew all the words to all the verses of all the songs. They sang like they meant it and I could tell they wanted to please him as they stood up there. It was impressive.

Cecily got down from her spot so she could go eat Nana's food.

On a completely random note, I pulled out my garden this week and was impressed by the root system on my cherry tomato plant. So impressed that I took a picture.

This coming week, I have my writing retreat. And I am SO-O-O excited. So excited.

Halloween 2014

I seems like I didn't do much this week. Halloween was on Friday, obviously. We will talk about that in a second. Monday I got to hang out with my friend Gina. It was fabulous. We went to see the movie Meet the Mormons. We were going to see The Giver, but the dollar theater was closed because they didn't have any water apparently. Meet the Mormons was pretty good. And my money is going to the Red Cross, so there's that. Friday was Steve's last day at his old job. Monday he starts at Oracle. He was telling me that it feels funny because he's never actually been to their offices.  All of his interviews were over the phone.

We had a trunk or treat on Wednesday at our church building. And a chili cook-off which I did not win. It was cute: They announced the chili cook-off in primary for a few weeks before the event so the adults who teach the children would know about it, too. Emilia would come home and say, "Mom are you entering the Chili Cook-Off? You should enter." I'm not sure why she wanted me to enter. It's not because she thinks my chili is amazing. She refuses to eat it whenever I cook it.

Since Emilia was being Elsa for Halloween, I thought she would look even more like her if her hair was curly. We never get up in time to have time to curl her hair before school. So I thought we could do sock rollers the night before.  This is her after I put them in.

About 20 minutes after she went to bed, she came and found me. "Mom, these are too uncomfortable. Will you take them out?" Gah. Fine.

Friday, we went trick-or-treating around the block. It was windy so we didn't go for too long. Here is all of us together.

That's it for us. Hope your Halloween was happy and safe!