Stress, mess, and the honor roll

You know how in Disney's The Little Mermaid, Ariel gets frustrated with Eric right after she gets legs and blows her bangs off her forehead? I feel like that right now. It's been SUCH A LONG WEEK. Mostly because my book cover clients have been nitpicky and slow to respond and then I grabbed a couple of new clients that would only book with me if I could help them immediately. I should just stay off the cover design groups because my schedule is full, but new shiny things are so exciting. That is until I'm trying to finish something at 3 am and thinking "why in the world did I think I'd have time for this?"

So I'm stressing out and not getting enough sleep. How are you? Haha.

Life hasn't been incredibly exciting otherwise. 

Cecily and Mira started gymnastics again, so I get to add that to my schedule. I'm really grateful we were able to figure out a way to afford it. And that it's during Jules' nap so I don't have to entertain her in a small cold room for an hour and a half. But they don't have wi-fi, so it's hard for me to work on covers while I'm there. Who in the world makes people sit around for hours and doesn't give them wi-fi access? I find it a little ridiculous.

The girls had a play date with our friend Cassie on MLK day and then a sleepover that Friday because they hadn't gotten enough time with her. They went to her house for the play date and got to go to a cat cafe. Apparently, that's where you pay to pet cats who've been rescued. The point being that people can interact with them and hopefully adopt one, saving them from being euthanized. I still think it's silly to pay to pet cats when you have 1 (us) to 4 (Cassie) of them at your house already. But what do I know? Anything for a good cause, I guess. And the kids loved it.

For the sleepover, Cassie came here. There was much video game playing and talking about pop culture while listening to music. It's still too cold to play outside though they did try to ride bikes I think. Cecily and Mira are getting really good at it. They ride their bikes to school every day now. One of the first surprise Christmas presents I have ever bought for my kids that they've actually liked a lot and used. Miracles do exist!

The next day, Saturday, Steve and I went on an organizing kick. We bought a new dresser to replace the one we were using to hold office supplies in our living room, so the one we had been using could be put back in our bedroom with its mate that was rescued from holding computer stuff and the downstairs TV by a DI entertainment center find. That meant a trip to Ikea and two hours of putting together a dresser with instructions lacking any written words. We also bought new luxurious towels for me and Steve and went through all the old towels. We made some into cleaning rags, and the rest we're donating to an animal shelter. Cloth doesn't break down easily in garbage dumps so we were looking for a more environmentally friendly way to dispose of them and found that suggestion online. We also moved shelves into Jules' closet to hold baby supplies and toys and another shelf into the downstairs bathroom so we can keep the towels for each bathroom in their respective places. (The downstairs bathroom didn't really have a storage area appropriate for towels before.)

Camber (Cassie's mom) stayed for dinner and games when she came to pick up Cassie that night. She introduced us to Quacks of Quedlinburg, a fun game mostly of chance, but with enough deck-building type strategy thrown in to keep it interesting.

This Friday night Steve and I went on a date and ate some delicious Indian food. Like really delicious. I tried Dosas for the first time, we tried their appetizer sampler, and Steve had the grill sampler, including a lamb chop. And the waiter commented on my pregnancy, asking if it was a boy or girl, then brought us a full order of our favorite appetizer, the fish Amritsari, to celebrate our coming little one. We were so stuffed. If you live in Utah, check out Saffron Circle in Riverton. Highly recommend.

Steve had a game night. Megan making a calendar featuring the grandkids motivated me to process the photos I took of my kids back in September. And I took some photos of Jules using a step stool/chair my dad made and would like to sell. You can look at the pictures here if you're interested: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-81Z-qm5G5XyQd4Q3IaQxW8EjzDa0YRt?usp=sharing

Megan needed some other pictures for the calendar. So here's Mira and Dylan "twin cousins." (Born on the same day in the same hospital an hour apart.)

And Ben and Haylee and their newest, Owen Benson Frohlich:

I went to DI one day just so Jules and I wouldn't have to stare at each other all morning. We found this pretty globe.

And I quote, "Mommy, help! Mommy, help! I stuck!"

I don't know why I always think to take pictures when I'm wearing my workout attire. But this is me 7.5 months pregnant. Some days I think, "Wow! This baby belly isn't that big! Maybe I'll be able to slim down fast after this one." Other days not so much.

Remember how I said in my last post that Jules loves all things artistic? Well, she's discovered that she can write on things other than paper. It's a little hard to see, but her hands are her favorite. She also covered a pair of pajamas in green marker the other day. She scribbled in the same spot on her leg for so long that it soaked through to her skin. I washed them 3 times with 3 different stain solutions and they still look like a 2 year old drew on them. She's also drawn on my kitchen chair fabric, her sisters' Switch, our kitchen tile, and most of the rest of her body (in small ways). So I've started hiding all the markers and pens in the house. I also put the crayons where she can't reach them as a preemptive measure against scrubbing crayon off walls.

When Jules watches Octonauts, it's often on the tablet on my bed. We were washing sheets this day (because Jules drew on them with a marker). I thought the position she picked was funny.

Emilia was on the honor roll for both term 1 and term 2. She got chips as a "congrats" from the school last term and a can of soda this term. Her sisters were jealous. I was proud. She seemed non-chalant about it. :)

Yesterday, we organized a bunch more stuff. You'd think having only lived in this house for a year, we wouldn't need to completely reorganize everything, but it was definitely needed. Or at least my pregnant brain thinks it was/is. 

--We got rid of our baby doll toys and our LOL dolls and put Octonauts and dress-up stuff in those bins instead. We cleaned out Cecily's dresser and closet and put a bunch of stuff in the garbage/DI pile, then made sure everything we put back had a place. 

This is our mess of a DI pile now. You have to schedule an appointment to donate stuff and we had to schedule our three weeks out. So for now, we get a mess. Sadly, I feel a need to organize this, too, because if we take it like this, DI won't take the time to put the Barbie clothes into a nice bag or keep the baby stuff together.

--We went through our bedding and the toys that were thrown into the extra closet in Mira's room and got rid of stuff and put together the sheet sets that had been thrown in there separately and made sure the kids could reach all the toys. 

--After kids were in bed, I cleaned off the downstairs craft table and moved all the crayons/markers/colored pencils to a high shelf nearby and found a place for everything else that didn't get thrown away.

Oh before bed, Cecily and I separated the crayons into colors and put them in a divided container. I find the kids use them more when they can easily find the color they want instead of having to dig through a jumbled box o'colors. I figure it'll get dumped out accidentally within the week. But it's a pretty rainbow for now! :)

Now we just need to move the Go-Go Smart Wheels into the bigger bin I bought at DI, organize my closet, and reorganize bathroom stuff now that we've made so much room by getting rid of towels. I'm sure I'll think of something else to organize or paint or clean before I'm done with those things though. Don't worry.

Today we had church online, Steve got a calling and both of us got set apart. He's the Primary chorister again! Did I tell you I got called as a Sunday School instructor for the 12 year olds (Emilia's class)? I fell asleep during online Sunday School and then kept sleeping for like 2 hours. Thank heavens for naps! Cecily and I made chocolate muffins, Steve made dinner, and I read the sub for this week's writing group and finished a blog post! Yay me. :)

Jules is one of my favorite things and Mira's room is now pretty

All of the pictures I took two weeks ago were of Jules or things she does. That whole week was kind of blah. The highlight was going to my parents' house one day after school.

Jules is at that stage where she just wants to get everything out of it's place. Just to see it there. And then she moves onto the next thing. This was every clean bowl in our cupboard, plus 5 cups, her breakfast plate (which she likely didn't eat more than 2 bites of--because she's also in that stage where she only eats two bites of anything before getting bored). She will often get all the bowls out, take each one, cover her face with it and yell something. So she dirties every bowl. But if I tell her to stop or to put them back, or say anything she doesn't like (saying she can't watch Octonauts right now is the most likely to evoke this response), she yells, "No Momma! Stop talking!" It's so funny. But I have to try to keep a straight face and tell her that it's not nice to speak that way.

Another example of food she decided she HAD TO eat and then took one bite and was done. This is an uncooked lasagna noodle. I would have stopped her with this one, but she found it while I was in the shower and I found it on the floor outside my bedroom when I got out.

She's so incredibly adorable, though, it's super hard to resist her when she's not screaming at me. She's also super polite. All of my kids have gone through a polite stage at this age. Hers has just lasted longer than I remember the others' lasting. She is the best at saying thank you. When she's throwing a fit over something (like giving her milk in a sippy instead of a cup, even though she said she wanted it in a cup five seconds ago) and you end up giving her what she wants (I try to do this whenever it doesn't matter--like with a cup vs a sippy, not when she's throwing fits over wanting to eat chocolate instead of dinner), she still has huge alligator tears streaming down her face, but she calms down enough to give me a sniffly "thank you." She says excuse me when she thinks she's gotten in your way or when she pretends to burp or toots. She says you're welcome and please. And she says sorry all the time about the funniest things.

Some of my favorite things she does currently:

Instead of "tiger" she says, "tigey."
Instead of orange she says "ongey" (said ohn-gie)
She calls her belly button her "beebo" (it's from a book we own)
She calls Baby Yoda either "Cute" as in, "Come back, Cute!" or "Where Cute?" or "Googoo" (his real name is "Grogu").
She LOVES sunglasses and wears them inside the house daily, switching between the four pairs she owns every couple of minutes.
She can name pretty much any ocean creature you can throw at her, but her favorite bath toys are still My Little Ponies and cups.
She always shares her food with whatever stuffed animal is nearby.
She loves going "round and round and round in circles"
When she wants to get up on the bed or sit on the counter while I brush my teeth, she says, "Uppadown?"
When she sees the cat right away in the morning, she often greets her by saying, "Morning, kitty! Nice to meet you!"
Her favorite pants are the red leggings she's wearing in the picture above. She asks to wear them every day.
She thinks the word "oops!" is hilarious. Especially when Cecily says it.
During Christmas, she would spontaneously start singing, "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," and she often asks me to sing songs about either frogs or Jesus.
She tries to count things all the time. She knows most of her numbers--just not which order they go in. So often it comes out, "One, two, seven, eleven, eight!" or something similar.
She loves drawing, coloring, painting, using markers, etc. Anything artistic, she's excited.
I don't know if this is a favorite thing, but she loves chocolate more than anything else. Chocolate will calm her down from her biggest fits. She will eat it for every meal and snack and not get tired of it. For example, chocolate milk and a chocolate muffin for breakfast, a chocolate protein bar for lunch, a kitkat to calm her before her nap, etc. She ate probably half of the chocolate we got from Santa this year because her sisters were not wise enough to put it out of her reach and she ate EVERYBODY's.

 We were driving on the highway one day last week and we saw the steam coming from the smokestacks of the steel refinery nearby. I tried to take a picture (which is below) but it didn't turn out super good. I was stopped at the off ramp stoplight and had to be quick. But as soon as she saw it, Jules pointed it out and said, "Steam vents!" And I was like, "Wha....? How do you know what those are?" She excitedly chattered about the steam vents for a bit before I realized she must have learned about the ones on the ocean floor from Octonauts. Haha. She's so super smart to have related the two. It amazes me what she understands.

This past week was mostly me doing book covers and painting stuff. Steve had to work a lot this last week (like 60 hours, maybe?) because his company gets a lot of business from the Stimulus Packages that go through and one went through last Friday (I think). So he had to work a lot of the day Saturday.  

I was not looking forward to another Saturday of managing the kids by myself and sitting around the house, so I bribed the kids with cookies and mixed sodas to help me paint beds in Mira's room. Between Friday afternoon and Saturday at 11pm (the kids were not up that late--I was doing one last coat on the bunk beds) we painted three twin-size and one full-size bed frame. 

Monday, I painted the trundle frame and the safety bar for the bunkbeds. 

Tuesday, I went shopping at DI and found a dresser for Mira and a scratched-up Ikea Callax bookshelf. Mira's closet is a walk-in closet with lots of shelves, so she'd previously just been putting her pjs and underwear and socks in bins on the shelves. But it was NOT working for her. It was always a disaster area in her closet. So in doing a room makeover for her, I wanted to get a dresser that would help keep her stuff more organized. So Tuesday afternoon and evening, I sanded both the dresser, which had been poorly stained like a dark cherrywood color previously, and the bookshelf, and put a coat of white paint on them.

Wednesday, I painted them. The stupid dresser took three coats of paint, even though I sanded it almost down to the bare wood.

Thursday, my parents came out to help me. I was going to paint the walls white, but after all the painting I'd done, and after looking at the new bedding and how much brighter the white on the beds made everything, we decided the gray would suit and to save ourselves the effort. Instead, we organized her closet (this took a majority of our time!), washed and put all the bedding on the beds, moved the dresser and bookshelf in and filled them, and made 5 throw pillows and a pillowcase.

We all really really love how it turned out.

I stayed up way too late making book covers the rest of the weekend. There is an auction coming up in one of the groups I'm a member of and I can make a lot of money off auctions, so I tried really hard to up my game and make them amazing. Plus, I won't be doing any custom work during March (I'm taking maternity leave), so it would be good to have a little extra income to make up for it. It's a vetted auction, so you only get in if the moderators think your stuff is good enough. I'll find out tomorrow or Tuesday if any of them was accepted, but even if they're not, I'm so proud of them. Definitely some of my best work.

Tonight we were delighted to have the Kerbys--Gina and Josh and Allie--over for dinner. We've all had Covid, so we figure we're pretty safe getting together. The food was delicious and Gina and Josh were kind enough to indulge Steve in his latest favorite game, Everdell. It took us 3 hours to finish. That's what I call good sports! Not many people are willing to put up with a 3-hour board game.

I was going to read a book tonight, but I wrote this blog post instead. Because I love you. And I really do like having a record of my life. Now I must go to sleep. A 42-year-old 7-months pregnant lady should really be getting her beauty sleep, right?

Awesome Christmas and New Years (mostly)

I'm so tired. I said that last time, but it's true again. I am feeling pretty good though! I'm tired because I stayed up stupidly late the last two nights.

I got a positive Covid test on Christmas Eve, so we've had to quarantine for the last two weeks. It hasn't been as bad as I would have expected. But not getting a single break from my kids for two weeks straight apparently has made staying up until all hours of the night to work on projects without--
--interruptions
--loud noises
--screaming fests
--requests to change bums or find devices or make life-altering decisions
--having to make food for someone
too appealing to resist. It really was stupidly late. I'm definitely not 20 anymore. But also not old enough to have overcome this bad habit.

(Christmas nails we did some time before Christmas:)

At the beginning of Christmas week, I was tired and had an extremely stuffy nose with the very slightest of coughs for 2 days. Since I was so tired, crocheting was actually a great way to pass the time, since I could sit around under a blanket and still accomplish something useful. So I crocheted A LOT.

Over the two to three weeks before Christmas, I made:

1. A Baby Yoda for Jules (the small one in the first picture--she's holding it in the second)

2. leg warmers for Emilia (she's holding them in this picture)

3. A unicorn hat for Cecily

4. A Baby Yoda for Mira

5. A Woodstock (Snoopy's friend) for Cecily

 

6. A Sailor Moon for Emilia

7. A shepherd to go with our "gingermans" nativity set (we already have Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, 3 wisemen, an angel, and two sheep). (I don't have a picture of this one)

Christmas Eve was pretty low-key. I finished up crocheted stuff and the kids played. Steve had it off work, so he worked on my website for a while and played with the kids for a bit. He may have watched football? I don't remember. He's watched football quite a bit over the break. That night, we had street tacos for dinner for the first time and EVERYBODY ate them with all the fixings in the little tortillas. It was miraculous. While we ate, we watched Mickey's Christmas Carol and then we watched Christmas Chronicles (Netflix original staring Kurt Russel as Santa) while eating junk food.

These are lego ornaments Cecily and Mira made one day before Christmas. Cecily's is the "ball" and Mira's is the candy cane.

Santa came that night and the kids woke us up at 7:30 to go through stockings. Then Steve made double chocolate muffins (which turned out really really yummy) while I went back to bed (I was still pretty fatigued from Covid).

This is the note that Mira wrote (but Cecily mostly dictated) to Santa:

It says,

"Dear Santa, (or Saint Nick)

Please put chocolate in ornaments

Also, thank you for all your gifts to us. :)

Merry Christmas,

Mira, Cecily, and Emilia"

We have ornaments on our tree made by Aunt Megan that hold a Hershey's kiss. Santa is supposed to fill them each year, but he forgets a lot. Apparently they thought he should be reminded. I'm positive Santa appreciated the reminder and got a chuckle out of it.

After breakfast, we opened the immediate family gifts. This was definitely my favorite part of the day. I had been looking forward to my kids opening their gifts for weeks and I had worked so hard on their crocheted gifts. It was such a joy to see them light up after opening each one. 

Even Jules was a joy to have around. In the past, my two-year-old children would open one gift and then want to play with it for the next two hours and be mad that we were "making" them open other gifts. They would also not really understand that if they tore the paper, there would be something fun underneath it. But Jules was sufficiently excited about her first gift--wanting to open it and play with it right away--enough that she was distracted with the rest of us took a turn opening something. But when it came back to her, she was excited to open another gift. It was easy to see she understood that something fun would be under the paper and she fastidiously ripped away pieces until she could get out whatever it was.

As soon as we were done opening gifts, I made the kids clean up the mess and put away all their new items. (I'm such a mean mom, I know. Haha. But I'm in a much better mood when the house isn't in chaos, so really it works out in their favor.). :) We finished just in time for my parents to show up. They stayed outside, but brought their gifts and the gifts from the extended family gift exchange, and Christmas treats that we were supposed to have the next day at the family party. They left everything by the door before knocking. We left our gift exchange gifts and our gifts to them on the porch, chatted from 15 feet away for a few minutes and they headed back home.

Later in the day, we did a Zoom meeting with them and opened our gifts for each other. It's always a madhouse when we do it when we're all together, so this was a nice compromise. I was excited to get a new double-waffle maker. Steve informed me that my Christmas list sucked this year, but I loved all my practical items that I received. I'm pregnant, so I didn't want clothes. It's the time of Covid, so I never wear jewelry. I never have time to paint my nails and I doubt that'll change for another two years. My current hobbies include making book covers and making more book covers and everything I might want for my business is better paid for by the business so I can write it off. Steve doesn't like giving practical gifts (because he doesn't like getting them, I suspect). But that's what I needed this year, so . . . *shrug*.

Christmas night, we cooked steak and homemade gluten-free mac n cheese for dinner and it was delicious.

Later, we had a Zoom meeting with Steve's family, including our nephew, Brant, who's currently on a mission. We did a quick scavenger hunt and talked about our favorite Christmas gifts and then they chatted for quite a while after that. It ended up being nearly a two-hour meeting.

The day after Christmas, we Zoomed with my siblings and parents. We opened our gift exchange gifts. It wasn't nearly as long as the Watts meeting.

This last week wasn't super exciting since we were still in quarantine. We hung out, used Christmas gifts (Cecily and Mira got a Nintendo Switch, everybody got new drawing utensils and pads, everybody got new books, Emilia got a new Steam game, etc.), ate a lot of junk food, and Cecily and Mira played in the snow until it melted too much. I only had 1 very easy cover and 1 paperback conversion to do for custom work, so I've made a few premade covers and worked on graphics and wording for my website.

For New Year's Eve, we got pizza from Main Street Pizza, a family favorite. They're all the way down in Springville though, so it took me a good 1.5 hours to go pick it up and made a quick grocery store stop at Reams (also in Springville). Man I miss that grocery store. Not something I ever thought I would miss. 

Steve also made savory chicken wings, we had Martinellis and dirty Dr. Pepper/Sprite (soda with flavoring syrups and cream). We played Codenames via zoom with Steve's parents and the Strattons and laughed a lot. We had so much fun, we decided to do it again the next night. All his siblings and parents were able to make it this time. I also Zoomed with my parents and played a game during Jules' nap that afternoon.

We had a whole list of other activities to do on NYE, but we only made it through playing games, writing down goals, and having a dance party. So over the last couple days, we've been doing some of the other activities. Last night, we all sat down and sketched together. Today, we made Spritz cookies and did a Lego challenge (everybody had 30 minutes to build a monster). We still didn't get to watching a movie or trying to make snow cones or playing HORSE with our mini indoor basketball hoop. I guess those will have to wait for another holiday.

On a less fun note, last night, an hour after she was supposed to be asleep, Cecily came upstairs to reheat her wheat bag which had gone cold while she was reading far past her deadline to shut off her lamp and go to sleep (as was Mira). She put it in the microwave and jumped around and jabbered while she waiting (as per usual) and then when the microwave beeped, she yanked the bag out. Now she's done this several times before, once managing to pull the microwave plate out with the bag and dump it on the counter. She's come close to pulling the plate out at least 3 other times in the last few weeks and every time, I warn her to be slow when pulling the bag out. Well, last night, she was in a hurry and wasn't paying attention and yanked the bag out again. Out came the plate, which shattered on the floor. But not only did she manage to break the microwave plate, but the glass cooktop of our stove  as well. Needless to say she was scolded. There was a lot of crying. And vacuuming. And tomorrow we get to spend $750 on a new oven. Happy New Year to us!