So. The end of March. It was Mira's birthday that week. On Monday. On the Friday before, she informed me that she wanted to have her party on her birthday. *smacks head*
Sure! Let me just whip that out for you. No problem!
She ended up helping me with most of the preparations on the day of her birthday, so I guess it worked out.
She wanted to have a Wings of Fire themed party. So we found a quiz online that showed her friends what tribe they would belong to. And then we printed out a Wings of Fire name generator. You know the kind--"If the first letter of your last name is X, then your first name is _____" sort of thing. You can see Mira's name tag in this picture.
She asked for a chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting. We settled on putting Oreos and cookies and cream bars on top. They also played some team relay races for candy, made paper airplanes (that they were supposed to decorate as dragons, but didn't), and got golden eggs full of candy to take home. I didn't even help with the airplanes. I was worn out just getting everything else ready, especially because Emilia had an appointment in Salt Lake that morning.
I also had a doctor appointment later that week and decided to start getting back on social media in order to ramp up my business a little bit again. I took some pictures thinking I could use them as my profile pictures.
They turned out kind of awesome. :)
This one 👇 especially. 😂
Typical day in Harrison-land.
The Saturday and Sunday after Mira's party, we got to watch our church's General Conference. We also had bathrooms to clean and a house to vacuum, and bags to pack.
Also requisite, a cute manicure. I was very proud of how this turned out. I only had to redo one nail three times. (I do a lot of shaking my head at myself in real life.)
We had to pack bags because we were leaving Monday afternoon for Colorado to visit my parents and the Staleys. We meaning, me and the kids without Steve. I was worried about two 8-hour drives with 5 kids by myself. Especially with Harrison and how active he is all day.
I would never wish my kids to be really sick, but . . . Harrison got really sick Sunday night. And it made the drive to Colorado a breeze. He literally slept the entire time we were driving. He woke up when we stopped for gas and had dinner, but other than that, he was asleep.
It rained a lot in Wyoming and we go this gorgeous full rainbow over the highway on our way there.
I only took one picture while we were there. This is from the second floor looking down at Nana and Grandpa on the big couch, Mira reading, and Megan (you can only see her legs) on the small couch, and Febe and Jules playing around the purple chair.
Oh, we did take a picture on the way home.
Luckily, my mom and Megan took more pictures than me.
Three days after we got home, it did this:
And then all that melted and now it's just cold and not snowy.
I was eating breakfast with Jules and Harrison one morning and Jules' eyes were fascinating me. They're brown in the middle and fade to green. If you enlarge this first one, you can see it perfectly. It's lovely.
She's officially given up naps. It was a good run while it lasted. She still needs a nap some days, which means, I usually find her like this right before dinner. Or she falls asleep in the car on the way to or from errands.
I had my first mammogram that same week. From what I'd been told, I thought it was going to be a torturous, horrible experience. It wasn't even close to giving birth, as far as intrusiveness or pain, so I wasn't super bothered by it. Every week, Mira has gymnastics and I have writing group via Voxer on Tuesdays. Cecily had activity days that week, her first spring soccer practice and her first game on Saturday.
Friday night, Easter activities started. Our city held a teen after-dark Easter egg hunt that night. Emilia decided to go and Steve drove her because he wanted to get some dinner for himself. They said hundreds of teens showed up and there was less than a soccer field worth of eggs laid out on the grass. The "hunt" lasted less than 2 minutes.
Saturday at 9am, both the city and our HOA had an Easter egg hunt. I wasn't going to wake any kids up to go to either of them, but both Mira and Jules were awake by 8:30, so I had Mira take Jules to the HOA one since it was two blocks away. They said there were 4 groups sectioned off and they let kids hunt by age group. They also had chocolate milk and muffins for everyone. I'm glad at least some of the kids were able to attend. Jules came home raving about it. That girl LOVES eggs. Eggs of any kind. She loves cracking real eggs. She loves playing with her fake carton of eggs. She loved the dinosaur egg we got for her. She makes nests out of blankets for them and keeps them warm waiting for them to hatch. So getting to hunt for eggs with candy in them was a dream for her. :)
The next day, Easter, the girls got to search for their Easter baskets in the morning. We had church at 1pm and both Steve and I had teaching assignments that day. I taught 13 yo Sunday school and Steve taught the primary singing time. He had a fun idea to make a big picture of the tomb with Mary sitting in front of it. Then he put the stone in front of it. The better/louder the kids sang, the further the stone rolled away to reveal the empty tomb.
I talked with the kids about the week leading up to Easter and showed videos from our church's video library about that week. It seemed like they were impacted by it, so I think that's a win for me.
After church, we took this picture.
This week, Cecily had two soccer games and a soccer practice. The week we went to Colorado, I picked up a job for re-covering another six Amish romance covers. It was a boon to our finances, but it's got me swamped for work. I've had 3 other covers, three paperback wraps and an audiobook conversion plus four of her covers in the last three weeks. Prior to that, I was doing maybe 1 cover per week. So more than double what I've been doing since Harrison was born. 😲
One thing that has helped tremendously is the realization that Harrison is still bothered by milk. It was Megan and my mom that figured it out. While we were visiting, they were wondering why he was so whiny all the time. I thought he was just a whiny kid, but they thought it was more than that. They suggested trying almond milk for him since he was sensitive to dairy products while I was breastfeeding. I tried it right away and it's been miraculous the difference. He went from maybe napping 20 minutes to an hour during the day to taking two 1.5 hour naps most days.
Today was a busy day. It started with Cecily making french toast for Steve and me before we woke up. She found a recipe in her cookbook and just made it. Mira even helped her to remember to use gluten free bread for me. And she wrote us a thank you note for being such great parents. She is such a super sweet child. She wants everyone to feel loved and have all the things that will make them happy.
After breakfast, Steve went to get my Dad's truck from Alison and I sent pictures to my mom's skylight frame. When he got back, we tore apart the old play structure in our yard and cut down the lilac bushes I managed to kill when I cut them back two years ago.
Then Steve hauled the stuff away, I folded clothes, did the dishes and got the girls to help me straighten the upstairs. I had Steve bring home pizza for dinner. We're both pooped.
Oh, here's a picture of Harrison eating the eggs I made for Jules while standing on a chair.
And a fun one looking through a toy we got Harrison for his birthday. See his little face peeking in there?
