The week after the Staleys left, Emilia had her birthday. She turned 12. 0_0
She hasn't wanted a themed party for a while. She's too cool for that. But this year, she wanted to have an Animal Crossing party. Which just meant she wanted an Animal Crossing cake and she wanted her party favors in white boxes with red ribbons and a red balloon attached like the gifts in the game.
One of her friends has a high-risk family member, so we had the party at a park and everyone wore masks except when they were eating and they all ate at different tables.
Here's her cake. We made all the decorations out of marshmallow fondant ourselves.
Here's the table with the party favors.
One of the activities--the only one really--was painting wooden plaques to hang on their door or in their room. Most of them were disappointed with their outcome because they're girls and they're 12. I was kinda sad about that. But they seemed to enjoy the painting, so that's something.
One girl got sick last minute, so we ended up bringing home some of the party favors. Jules was most excited about the balloons, even though you can't tell by her face in this picture.
We went to see my parents one day. Jules asks to see them at least once a week. She was mostly reading this book *to* Grandpa. (She calls him Papa.)
She often has to fall asleep in the car because our schedule doesn't allow for us to be home during her naptime. But I thought it was especially funny that she fell asleep with her hand on this book.
Steve's work had an outdoor movie viewing the Friday after Emilia's birthday. The movie wasn't going to start until after dark, so we left the kids home with Emilia (we can do that now! woohoo!). And Steve and I went. When we got there, they had pizza and candy and a guy doing balloon animals and face painting and tons of Lendio swag and I felt super bad that we didn't bring the kids. So I grabbed a bunch of the swag and brought it home to them. Mira made this out of a glow-in-the-dark necklace.
Jules was doing stickers with Cecily one day. This is how someone looks every time Jules does stickers. :)
We had our friend Cassie over for a sleepover one night. I took the girls to the farm at Thanksgiving Point. Jules loves the animals so much. The other girls love the pony rides (except Emilia--though she did try one go-round) and the baby animals.
Jules begged to go on the horses every time, and then cried the whole time they were walking.
The next day, I took them to a nearby splash pad. It's a new one out in Eagle Mountain. The older girls were surprised at how much fun they had. They keep telling me that splash pads are for little kids. But Jules was in heaven. She filled a cup with water and dumped it out like 700 times. She was mad when we made her leave.
This new swimsuit of her kills me. Her chubby legs and that little skirt just make me want to squeeze her.
She usually wakes up if I so much as touch her door, but she was really worn out one day and I sneaked a peek. That tummy! Those feet! Chubby legs. Ugh. I love her so much.
She always sleeps with that blanket in her mouth. Funny girl.
I can't remember why we were laying on this blanket. I also don't know how I turned on portrait mode or why it only tried to make my forehead look smooth.
Jules, Emilia, the cat, Legos, books, headphones, and someone else's toes. Maybe we could squish more on that couch.
We did another splash pad a few days later. We were all getting really bored at home. We also stopped at Nana's for a few minutes after this.
I took the younger three to DI one day. I was looking for a few items. Jules thought riding *this* pony was super fun. We used a lot of hand sanitizer that day.
Mira found these shoes and would have taken them home if I'd let her. Aren't they atrocious?
The older three had dentist appointments recently. Jules was running around like a mad woman, so one of the assistants gave her a set of headphones and Jules laid on one of the beds and contentedly watched a show for over 1/2 an hour. If you're not aware of the new trend in children's dentistry, the TVs are on the ceiling so kids can watch while they get their teeth cleaned.
This was one of our DI finds. So cute.
On Wednesday, the 5th, we decided to go to Seattle to visit the Nelsons because we NEEDED to get out of the house. And we love the Nelsons, of course.
We left Saturday morning. Because we're nothing if not last-minute planners. We left our house around 9:15 am and drove all the way there. We arrived around 12:30am (our time--11:30pm for them). It was a LOOONG drive. Especially the last couple of hours. But the kids were so good. No complaining. No fighting. They were always happy to hop back in the car and get going after our food/potty breaks. Even Jules. I didn't know how she'd do cooped up in the car for 13 hours. But as always, she was amazing. She didn't even cry when we put her back in the car for the last leg after we'd already been on the road for 9 hours.
The first day there was Sunday, so we had church together and the kids played. I read a book, mostly interrupted (glorious), we had a yummy dinner, and Steve played a game with Emilia and Meg.
Day 2, we went to the sound. Basically, it's the ocean, but there's islands in the way. It was probably my favorite day. We played in the sand, the younger three swam in the shallows, we found crabs and the girls picked them up and played with them and gave them names, I found live sand dollars with their fuzzy bottoms and collected dead ones and other shells, and we picked up pizza on our way home and thoroughly enjoyed snarfing it after a day in the sun.
The kids were always switching cars. Meg rode with us to and from the zoo the next day and Cecily and Mira rode in the Nelson's vehicle.
The Seattle zoo is no San Diego, but it was definitely fun. We got to see giraffes, hippos, rhinoceroses, a sleeping lion, a red panda, flamingos, zebras, a humorous orangutan, wolves, and penguins. The tigers and snow leopards were hiding.
Jules loves all things animals. She especially liked the giraffes.
On Day 3, Steve was generous and offered to stay home with Jules, Cecily, and Laef, so Nicole and I could take the older girls on an adventure. We decided to take a ferry to one of the smaller islands and go souvenir shopping and get treats. We got to the dock about 1/2 an hour before the next ferry, but it was already full, so we had to wait an hour and a half. It worked out though, because we were within walking distance (a couple blocks, at most) from the rose garden and Japanese garden. The perennial dahlias were in bloom and many of them were the size of Jules' head. They were gorgeous.
We had to cross a bridge to get to the gardens and this was the view of the sounds from above.
The perfect symmetry of this variety was mind-blowing.
When our turn for the ferry arrived, we were stuck in a spot that we couldn't open the doors to the car. We were disappointed, but stuck our heads out the sun roof and windows and made the best of it. It was a short ferry ride--only about 20 minutes.
After driving off the ferry, it took us another 20 minutes to get to the downtown area of the island. We parked at the grocery store so everyone could take a bathroom break and then we walked from one end of main street to the other. Sadly, most of the shops were closed because it was a Wednesday and their hours were only from Thursday to Monday.
BUT! The food places were all open. I wanted to eat at all of them. There was an Indian place that made my mouth water just from the smells wafting out the open front door. Tbere was a NY pizza place where they were literally tossing the dough in the air and pulling pizzas the size of a small table out of the oven. There was a bakery that had 7 different gluten-free options (I think I tried 5 of them). The lemon bars and strawberry shortbread were so so good. Then there was the Glass Bottle Creamery. The whole store was about 15 feet wide with freezers along one wall. They had daily flavors and we got to try a few before picking our cones. Mira and Emilia got cookie dough, I got elderberry oat, Mira tried the raspberry vinaigrette, but didn't like it. They also had plain vanilla and a dairy free toasted coconut that Nicole got. It was also delicious. The kids even said theirs was creamier than they were used to.
When we got back to the ferry to head home, they were running late, so once again, we parked and ventured out of the car. We were able to walk under the ferry bridge and step in the water. The kids found more crabs. Bigger ones this time. I found a couple of cool shells. And I picked about a pound and a half of blackberries that were growing wild on the hill.
We weren't trapped on the ferry on the way back, so we all got out and went to the front of the boat. The kids were enthralled with being over the water. And we even saw a harbor seal.
Day 4, we decided to go on a hike on Mt. Rainier. We loved our hike last time we were here. We ended up driving a lot more than we hiked, so that was a bit of a bummer. But we got to see two waterfalls and the wildflowers were gorgeous in full bloom.
The clouds over Mt. Rainier even cleared up for us on our way home.
We left Friday morning. My plan was to get a hotel in Boise for two nights and just explore the city a bit as a family on Saturday. But everyone was cranky from late nights and missed naps and not enough healthy food, so we only stayed one night and drove home the next day.
Jules was up way too late as we were trying to get 6 people settled into the hotel room, but her sisters kindly made her a nest on one of the beds and she was at least able to be calm for a bit.
We arrived home Saturday night and got everyone down at their normal bed times. Sunday was a pretty relaxing day to ourselves, but Monday was a hectic nightmare for me. The kids were starting school on Tuesday and needed laundry done and school supplies shopped for (because they didn't give us supply lists until that day). Walmart was so cleaned out, I'm surprised we were able to find everything we needed. A small mercy from God, I think. Emilia had a 7th grade orientation that morning and a young women's activity that afternoon. We had the Strattons coming for dinner the next evening and bathrooms desperately needed cleaning and vacuuming needed to be done and floors scrubbed.
Tuesday, I had a book cover that needed finishing ASAP, I had an appointment to get my hair cut FINALLY (I realized I hadn't had it professionally cut since last July for Alison's wedding), I had to get all the kids off to school and get things for dinner prepped, and then we had the Strattons here for the evening. It was so lovely to see them and have them in our home. I'm so glad they came!
Wednesday was a little calmer, but I had my first doctor appointment. For what, you ask? Well. I accidentally got pregnant again. Yikes! It was so out-of-the-blue, completely not what we were planning. It was a real shock when I figured out that I didn't have the flu, I was morning sick ALL THE TIME.
I never in a million years imagined myself as a mother of 5 kids. It feels super overwhelming in pretty much any way I think about it. I'm going to be 42 when this baby is born. 42! I'll be 60 when they graduate from high school. We're somehow going to have to cram 5 kids into the minivan (it seats 8, but those middle seats are not what I'd call roomy or comfortable, especially for long-legged Emilia. But I'll have 2 kids that need to be strapped into car seats, so she'll have to be shunted to the back if we're all in the car together. And there's no way we're all fitting in one hotel room anymore. 0_0 I'm going to have to split my time between all these little humans and it already seems like I don't have enough to go around.
We'll make it work. And we'll love the heck out of this little one, just like we love the rest. It'll be interesting though. Very very interesting.
Life is crazy. The world is crazy. But life and the world are beautiful, too. I'm just trying to navigate in between.
