Cecily lost a tooth. Jules is cute.

I should be starting dinner right now, but instead I am writing a blog post and cruising Facebook while waiting for pictures to upload.

A lot of these pictures have been posted to my social media accounts, plus videos that I can't/won't upload here (because it's a huge pain in the rear).

Jules is cute. 

She's in the stage where she loves shoes, especially if they're too big for her.

She has always been a Momma's girl, but lately, she's really loved her Daddy, too. She snuggles with him regularly and she likes to give him a hug every morning after she wakes up.

She is an extremely fickle eater. She could eat half a pound of blueberries one day and then hate them for weeks. She's currently on a pancake binge, so I've been making protein and banana chocolate pancakes for her.  She'll eat anything with chocolate. Never fickle about that.

Her hair is long enough to put it in a ponytail. And she loves going for walks.

She's like the kid in Signs. She leaves water and milk sippies EVERYWHERE. She also loves the My Little Pony minifigures we got ages ago, jewelry, wet rags, balls, and rocks painted like ladybugs. So the one picture, which she arranged herself (not knowing I was going to take a picture) was so perfect.

I told you last time that I needed to make more salsa. I was so busy that week, but the tomatoes wouldn't wait. So I canned 17 more jars of salsa with the help of my children.

 I also dried cherry tomatoes like I said I needed to.

Jules points out butterflies whenever she sees them in books or video games or on TV. It's been a few months since we've been to the butterfly biosphere so I decided to take her one day while her sisters were at school.

Apparently she likes the idea of butterflies way more than the actuality of them. She was terrified. I was a horrible mother and made her hang out with me while I took pictures. They had a ton of new gorgeous butterflies! And they kept posing for me.

I broke the rules and touched one.

 Cecily has been bugging me to make a recipe with her from the cookbook she bought last year. So last Sunday, we picked out a recipe we had all the ingredients for and make it. They were M&M cookies. And they turned out terrible. Crispy to the core. But we spent time together and that's what the goal was for me, so I was happy we did it.

Cecily lost another tooth this week. The companion front tooth to the one she lost a few weeks ago. All she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth, I guess? She actually doesn't seem bothered by it in the least. And this toothless grin is adorable.

 School pictures were this week, but I hate paying for them when I can take good (or better) pictures myself. So we had a photoshoot yesterday. I'll post those when I get around to processing them. They got to have a sleepover with their friend Cassie Friday night so she came to the photoshoot too. All my girls love her so much. Jules wanted her attention just as much as the other 3 this time.

This week should be normal busy for me. So we'll see you again next week, hopefully. :)

Active

Hmm...did I actually post last week?
I think I did. Go me!

Here is a random picture of Jules.  She loves sitting on our sink/counter and "brushing" her teeth. She asks to do it every day. But if I actually try to brush her teeth, she hates it and runs away. Haha.

Monday was Labor Day. And we went to Thanksgiving Point gardens in the morning. Since we've been there a number of times this year, Steve suggested taking small items that we could photograph with the flowers. The girls didn't get much into it, but Steve and I enjoyed it. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day:

(notice K2S0 on the crane's back)

It was too bright for her to look up at me. Haha.

Toothless was my item. I thought these bulbs looked like they were from an alien planet. I also thought they looked like something else, but I'll keep that observation to myself.

The Koi will almost crawl onto shore if you get a bunch of them fighting over the fish food.

I think I told you last week that I decided to make my own baskets to put under my bottom shelf in the living room. This is the start. I'm crocheting with kitchen string around some rope. I'll likely need most of both of these skeins in order to finish the basket at the size I want it. The bigger it gets, the more crazy I'm feeling for taking on this project. It takes FOREVER to do one round.

Jules still loves playing with crocheted kitchen dish rags. She spent at least twenty minutes piling them up and then changing the order, then laying them all out next to each other, etc. She's not super easily entertained by herself, but these rags are a constant source of enjoyment for her.

I can't remember what day we did it, but I forced the kids to help me switch out clothes from summer to fall. It's such a chore because we can hand clothes down over and over again. So we have to go through the hand-me-downs and see what fits and what suits their style. Some things they'll just let sit in their drawers for 6 months because they don't like the color or how it pinches right *here*. So we have to try stuff on and make piles and fold/hang new stuff, etc. It took us close to 4 hours to do three girls. Jules just gets new stuff each time. It's so much easier!

One day after Emilia got home from school, Jules laid down on the floor near Emilia, so Emilia laid down next to her and they just chatted for about 15 minutes. It was really cute.

I don't have any more pictures from the week. But we also drove up to East Canyon Resort on Friday afternoon to spend some time with my parents. They have a timeshare there, so they'd been there all week. I was supposed to take all the girls, but Cecily threw up Friday morning and Steve had a small fever. So I just took Mira, Emilia, and Jules. We played shuffleboard and miniature golf and the older two girls went swimming (and Emilia got sunburned). Jules took a good nap and slept well that night even though we were all in the same room, so that was a blessing. However, on the return trip, Emilia got so carsick that she threw up and didn't tell me in time to get the door open. Ulgh. I cannot handle throw up. Especially not when I'm pregnant. I made her clean it up herself. Which makes me feel like a terrible mom, but we didn't need two of us throwing up, so it is what it is.

I did a lot of work for my business this week. I had two custom covers and I sold a few premades, which is REALLY REALLY good. I was very excited. I do have to make some adjustments this week to a premade set that will take quite a bit of time (somebody wants me to age a 20 something to a 50 something on 3 covers--oh boy), but I don't have any other customs scheduled, so it should be fine.

I also canned 17 quarts of pickles yesterday after we got home. I had a jar break when I put it in the canner, but after I fished out all the cucumbers, I was able to put it in a new jar and they all sealed, so YAY! I shouldn't have to can pickles again for 2 years, so I'll take it.

I need to can salsa again this week. And dry cherry tomatoes and parsley. And maybe do something with all the apples still on our tree. So much to do, so little time.

Gettin stuff done

There are a bunch of Jules photos this week. She's just so darn adorable. Though she is also getting into the terrible two zone and is pushing back a lot lately. We're not allowed to help her eat difficult foods. She'd rather starve. She says she wants to eat strawberries and then gets mad when I give them to her. She must have all the kitty stuffed animals in the room no matter what. Etc.

But she also says "fox" without the 's' sound at the end super excitedly. She calls noodles "noony" and pizza "szoppy" and she says "umm" with her head tilted to one side when she's trying to remember something. She often asks for songs, meaning she wants us to play her favorite music through our Echo Dot. She tries to talk to Alexa ("sexa!") and gets annoyed that she won't listen. She dances around waving her arms saying "muk amok amok" excitedly and calls her blankies and kitties "deedees." She loves the cat, but whenever she's playing and the cat comes around, she pushes her away and says, "No! Go way!" because she thinks the cat is either trying to steal or eat her toys (she sometimes says this to us when we're doing something she doesn't like).

The other day, her sisters mentioned pancakes and she hopped up and ran over and with a big smile said (and signed) "Caycake?"
I responded, "You want pancakes?"
"Yeah!"
I told her, "Okay," but didn't get up right away, so she looks up at me and smacks arm hard.
"Momma, caycake."

Haha. She knows what she wants.

She brought me headphones the other and shoved both them and my phone in my lap. So I turned on some music. And she stood like this, very serious, for a good 15 minutes.

I bought a bike helmet for Mira that has a fake mohawk on it. Jules likes to put it on and wander around. This was too cute.

Her sisters like to dote on her and make her "beds" and "thrones."

Two Saturdays ago the whole family helped make our first batch of salsa for the year. 9 1/2 pints from our own tomato plants. I also canned 7 pints and 1 quart of peaches that same day. It was kind of a long day, but also very satisfying. Especially when the lids make that popping noise.

Cecily likes to put her monkey backpack on her and take her for walks. Jules puts up with it for a while.

Cecily lost a tooth at school, so she got to wear it home in a nifty tooth necklace. She now has a slight lisp that is so cute. When she was telling me the story of how it fell out, she said, "It wasn't completely out and it was quite unpleasant." Haha.

A runny nose has been going around the house. Jules got it the middle of the week and she's been miserable for a few days. I let her watch a lot of baby signing time. She asked for a bed and her one favorite puppy while she watched.

I treated myself this week to a new toy. I've had a small Wacom drawing pad for like 8 years now, but until I started this book cover business, it hasn't gotten much use. But lately, I've had more need for it and I've been feeling like trying to do illustrated covers. Plus, Emilia is determined to be a manga artist (or an anime animator) and draws daily. She wanted to get better at doing digital art, but the Wacom pad was hard for her because it didn't have a screen. You just draw on the pad while looking at the computer screen.

So with my earnings from my business, I bought a new drawing tablet. It shows the computer screen on the tablet, so you can draw directly on your picture. Emilia's been using it every day and loving it.

I haven't had time to really try it out. I guess I hit the nesting period of this pregnancy because I all of a sudden want to decorate every room in our house. I rearranged the decor on the high ledge in our great room on Friday. Yesterday I redid all the shelves next to the fireplace. I also ordered rope to make myself some huge baskets to go on the floor under the shelves to hide all the junk we have to store in the living room (mostly Jules' diapers and toys and books, and then blankets).

Cecily got into the mood and redecorated all the shelves in her bedroom. She took pictures of all of it, but I'll just give you these two. I thought the second one was funny.

We visited my mom this week, too. My mom wanted some help taking pictures of all the gorgeous cards she's been making. And they're going to visit Megan for a couple weeks, so we wanted to see them before they go.

Mira went to a birthday party last night. She said she was the only one who showed up. Poor girl! I don't know if it was because of COVID or not, but that's just sad. Today we've had a slow day and I took a nice long nap. I think tomorrow we'll try to do a family activity outdoors before it gets too hot. It's supposed to be 95 degrees tomorrow -- and then 65 degrees on Tuesday. Weather is weird.