All kinds of celebrating and other stuff...

The last few Sunday nights we have had some friends over to play games and since it's summer break, they could stay late.  We were up until 11pm playing games, so I didn't have time to blog.  And me blogging during the week is a near impossibility.

So you get another long blog post.  Lucky you!

First off, here is a short video from Emilia's Kindergarten graduation.  There is like 30 more minutes of this, but I won't make you watch it all. :)

Next, Cecily had a birthday on May 23rd.  But we didn't celebrate until the next week.  She got a frosted brownie because that's what we wanted to eat.  Also, Mira was afraid that Cecily would burn herself on the candle, so my video of singing Happy Birthday to Cecily is overshadowed by Mira screaming that Daddy should not allow the be-candled brownie anywhere near her baby sister.

She seemed to enjoy the brownie well enough though.

The first week of June Springville had Art City Days.  The library had a "Teddy Bear Tea" that we went to.  They told us to bring stuffed animals, but then they didn't have tea or have them do anything with their stuffed animals. It was a little silly to bring them so we could carry them around to a whole bunch of activities that had nothing to do with them.  But the girls had fun anyway.  They drew monsters on coffee filters that then got sprayed with water to make them scarier.  They made hats and had a ring toss and some snacks, too.

That week, Mira an Emilia started ballet.  The city holds a ballet class twice a week for a month and it only costs $40.  Since its the only way we can afford it right now, we signed up both girls.  Unfortunately, they're not in the same class, so poor Cecily has to hang around the city building for an hour and fifteen minutes twice a week.  The girls are pretty darn cute in their leotards, though.

Mira is in the dark pink skirt

Mira's class was learning first position and Mira couldn't quite figure out turning her toes out.  Her feet were so unruly that she had to bend over and move them into the right place every time.

Mira moving her feet into the right position.

Emilia is in the colorful skirt on the left side.

Cecily being her happy self outside ballet class.

Cecily gets moved by the music. She bounces to the beat every time she hears music.

The city also put on a cake decorating contest which Megan and Ariana both decided to enter.  Here are them with their cakes.

Ariana and her best friend with their desert island cake.

Emilia and Mira looking at one of the other kids' entries.

Megan with her cake.

details on Megan's cake

cute little garden detail

That Friday, they had a children's art festival at the Springville Museum of Art.  The kids get to do a whole bunch of art projects and they let you into the museum for free.  We went with some friends from our neighborhood.

Last Saturday we went to my parents' house to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday.  Mira fell asleep on the way there.

The girls swam in the pool with Grandpa for a good hour even though it wasn't very warm outside.  They love it in the water.  It's a good thing Nana and Grandpa like the water, because this Mama isn't a big fan.

We had chicken Alfredo for dinner and Dad got cake for dessert.  Mom managed to get 60 candles on there and he blew them out in one breath! He's still a windbag at 60. (Love you dad! Wink wink.)

I was a slacker for Father's Day.  I didn't do much for my hubby.  I pledge to do better next year.  Mira's nursery leaders had her fill this out for him.  We thought it was pretty funny.

Here is Cecily playing with one of her birthday presents from Nana.

Emilia and I went to the library together the other night and the sunset on the way home was pretty amazing.

The week I was sick, Emilia and I took some time to paint some rocks for markers in our garden.

I love that Emilia will read books to Mira now.  They are so cute together.

Was that long enough for you? I'll try to keep it down in the future. ;)

24 hour bug times 5 and Facebook Funnies

Last Sunday I was laid out sick in bed. I didn't feel like being alive let alone blogging. I had a stomach bug that was so awful that I didn't know how I was going to make it another minute.  It started around 4pm Saturday night and lasted until Thursday morning.  Monday, I went to the doctor and he gave me a prescription for anti-nausea medication which allowed me to eat bread and other such highly innocuous foods without wanting to die. But I couldn't eat normal foods until lunchtime on Thursday.  I hope I don't get that bug again. Ever.

Last week Emilia graduated from Kindergarten, but the pictures were on my old phone and for some reason, they didn't get transferred to my new phone. Hopefully I can fix that this week and put up some pictures of it for you next Sunday. On the up side, I got a new phone! Yay!

Cecily is getting to be a pro at walking.  She was already a pro at getting into things, but she can do it faster now.

My dad came down yesterday and helped me put up the shutters I made months ago.  He's so handy! Thank you, Dadda! As Steve said before you left, there was no way he was going to go anywhere near them. :)

Steve hasn't gotten any of the jobs he's been interviewed for so far (3 of them).  He put in four more applications last week.  I hope one of them pans out.  He is very unhappy at work right now and I want him to be happy again. Nothing's worse than a man who is unhappy with his daily grind.

To end this rather random blog post, I'll give you some facebook funnies:

5/16/14
Mira was out by me in the living room and Steve was back in the bedroom getting ready for work. He made some noise, bumping into something or dropping something.
Mira: What's that noise, Mom?
Me: What noise?
Mira: *That* noise. (She thinks for a second.) Maybe a dinosaur came alive, Mom. Maybe a dinosaur came alive.

5/11/14
On the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house Emilia made up a song for me for mother's day. Part of it went something like this: It's Mother's Day. You're my mom. Sometimes you have bad days. But that's okay because your children still love you.

5/2/14
We were stopped for a lo-o-ong time at a light tonight and when it finally turned green, I (rather calmly) urged the cars ahead of me to get through the light.
Me: Okay guys. Let's go go go!
Mira: Good job, Momma.
Me: Are you congratulating me on speaking nicely, Mira?
Mira: Yeah, to the cars.
I guess I need to keep the road rage down a bit in the future.

5/1/14
I love how Mira tells me she's hungry:
Mommy, my tummy is groggling.

4/27/14
I hope nobody minds another poop story, because I'm gonna tell you anyway. Mira still needs help using the potty. I hear her call me in there this morning, so I go in.
Me: You pooped!
Mira: Yeah. I pee, too.
Me: You did both; you peed and pooped?
Mira: Yeah, they friends.

Two weeks is a lot

I didn't blog last week as a sort of Mother's Day present to myself.  I came home from G&G Watts' house and relaxed instead of staying up until 12:30am finishing a blog post.  That's a nice gift, right?

But now there is no way I'm going to remember everything that happened the week before this one. Because of the following pictures, I remember...

that on Monday, for whatever reason, I decided I needed to immediately find rocks for the slope at the front of my house.  The slope looks like this (or at least it did on the 5th).

The girls were outside with me while I was digging up rocks.  Well, Emilia and Mira.  Cecily was napping.  I can't take Cecily outside because her special ability to eat anything in front of her does not stop at food.

The rock pile in my back yard is apparently a great place for worms because I found a ton of them.  The girls had a grand old time taking each one down to our garden bed.  They were wearing gardening gloves for this.  Near the end, I found a huge worm, and to show the girls I wasn't afraid of touching them, I took my gloves off and let him slime me.

Mira thought that was totally cool and followed suit.  Emilia ran away.

Tuesday, I finally followed through on my mom's birthday present.  I told her I would help her organize her craft room.  The girls and I went up after picking up Emilia from her field trip to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point (it's like a petting zoo/mini farm). While we were cleaning, the girls napped/watched Frozen.  We found these old hats in the room and the girls wore them for the rest of the day.  So. Cute.

Oh, now I remember some stuff! Wednesday, I'm pretty sure I had a meeting.  Thursday, I got to go to my writing/critique group, which is my new favorite thing.  I love it! And I'm excited to do more writing with their encouragement and feedback. Friday, Alison, Ben, Megan, and I took my mom and dad out to dinner for Mother's/Father's day.  Just them and their kids.  It's a fun change of pace and something we've been doing for a few years now.

Saturday, G&G Watts took me to the nursery and bought me a bunch of plants.  Grandpa Watts has had the tradition for years now to give his wife and daughters (and daughter-in-law) flowers on Mother's Day. Last year and this year, since I live so close, he asked if I wanted to get flowers to grow instead of cut flowers.  Definitely! I also bought all my seeds and veggie plants that day and planted my garden.  I've got a little of everything: two kinds of tomato, peppers, cucumber, broccoli, carrots, onions, peas, lettuce, zucchini, and squash.

Sunday was Mother's Day and it was a good day.  Steve made me breakfast in bed. (Which is momentous because we've been married for 7 years and this is the first time that's happened.) We went to the Watts' for dinner, as usual.  Here is Grandma reading to all the girlies.

I don't remember anything happening Monday, but I took this picture of Mira.  This is her princess pose.

Since I got all those plants from Grandpa Watts, I felt the need to get them planted before I killed them in their pots.  This meant I needed to complete my revamp of the front slope.  On Tuesday, this seemed nigh unto impossible, but I decided to start by taking out the monstrous sage bush that was trying to take over the middle 1/3 of the bed. It took me an hour and a half to use those clippers (below) to cut the tops off. Then after Steve got home from work, he helped me dig out the roots.  To my great surprise and delight, that only took us another hour.  Yay!

Before we took the roots out, the pile was taller than and twice as wide as Emilia.

Wednesday and Thursday, I relaxed, trying to fight off a cold. I'm pretty sure we had a play date with one of Emilia's friends, too.

Friday, Jane, Meg, and Kate came to play in the morning, and in the evening, Emilia, Mira, and I went to the Art City Elementary School Carnival. It wasn't really what I think of as a carnival, but the girls had a blast.  Mostly, it was just blow-up bounce-houses and slides. It took Mira a good hour to understand the concept of waiting in line, but she was so cute once she figured it out. I didn't even see Emilia for most of the night because she was off hanging out with her friends (whose parents were watching them).

Mira going down a slide.  She was fearless.

Emilia is hugging her friend Maia. Behind Bubs is Maia's sister.

Mira patiently waiting her turn.

Emilia and her friend Alexia.

Saturday was a big day for me.  I have been pondering what to do with that front slope since the beginning of last summer.  I didn't know how to fix it up without spending a ton of money on it.  I live smack up against a mountain, but I didn't have any rocks to put in there to terrace it.  And I knew if I didn't terrace it somehow, the mulch and dirt would just keep sliding down the hill. After doing my research, buying rocks was out of the question.  Too expensive.  This was why I was digging up the few rocks we did have in the back yard last week.  Well, Saturday, I got a miracle.  Steve and I started hauling the rocks we had down to the slope. After we'd placed everything we had, we were dismally short of what we needed to make it look nice.  Then our neighbors and their two teen-age kids showed up, saying, "We're here to help!" And they had rocks in their back yard we could have.  Steve and the father and son went to get the rocks, while the mom, daughter and I dug out the dirt, so we would have a place to put them.  As we were doing this, another neighbor came by and said, "Hey, do you need more rocks? We have a ton of them in our backyard that we don't want." Of course we wanted them! After 5 hours of work, we have a completely redone flower bed and I had a really nice sunburn on the back of my calf.  Oops.

Once Cecily woke up, their daughter watched her while we worked.  The neighbors across the street let Mira and Emilia play in their yard with their kids for a couple hours, too.  We have AWESOME neighbors. I'll have to post pictures of the progress next week.  We all collapsed after our long day outside and I did't take a picture.

Me and Emilia and Cecily stayed home from church today because Emilia had a fever and lost her voice.  We also all stayed home for dinner so as to not pass the ickies to cousins. We had pancakes and bacon. Mmm.

On a very random final note, I love these curls.

Cecily Face

This week was much less filled up than last week--thank Heavens! It was wonderful not being so busy.  Not that I wasn't busy, just not AS busy.

Tuesday night I had a meeting.

I know, that's how I feel about meetings, too.

Wednesday, we got to play with Jane, Meg, and Kate at the park and our house.  It's been super windy here lately, so we flew kites at the park.  Jane and Meg had a blast.  My kids were either uninterested (Mira) or totally anxious about it (Emilia--for example, "Don't twist the lines!" "Watch out for that airplane! It might cut the lines!" "Don't let go! It might blow away!"-- I have no idea where she gets her anxiety from because I'm not a worrier, huh-uh.).

Thursday, Ben gave me the opportunity to photograph a house he just listed.  He told me about it Wednesday afternoon and the girls and I ran over there Thursday morning. It was empty, so I could bring the girls in with me. He needed the pictures right away, so I processed those during nap time.

Thursday night we didn't have anything planned, but the girls were at each others' throats, so I wanted to separate them.  I decided to go out with one and leave one at home with Daddy and Cecily.  I wanted to go to DI (thrift store) because I have been messing around with the furniture in my living room and wanted to see if I could find some things to fill in the walls and tables. Well, when I said I was going to DI, both girls wanted to go and would not be dissuaded.  So the three of us went and actually had fun! I found a bunch of stuff that was just perfect and the girls had fun playing with the toys and other things they found (like old trophies and Easter baskets).  I got them ice cream cones from McDonalds for being so good.

Friday, the neighbor offered to take the girls to the park with his little girl in the morning for a little while, then Emilia had school, then a playdate with a friend from school.  After I picked her up, we headed to G&G Watts' house for hotdogs cooked over a fire and roasted marshmallows.  Plus play time, of course. Steve had his game night that night, too, so it was good to not have to deal with the girls by myself all night.

Saturday, I went to the temple with the other ladies in the the new RS Presidency.  They picked me up at 6:30am.  If you know me at all, you will know what a sacrifice this was for me. :)  As soon as I got home, Steve left to pick up his friend's truck and head out to Ben's father-in-law's farm.  It's a dairy farm and they have a huge composter.  My dad tells me it's the size of our living room.  And it makes good dirt. So we got about 1000 lbs of compost for the cost of a 12-pack of Diet Coke--literally. While he was gone, Cecily went down for a nap, so I started weeding the huge flower-bed/slope in our front yard.  I did that for 2 hours and still only got 1/2 way done. Steve got back around 2, when we had to shovel that 1/2 ton of dirt out of the truck into various places around our yard, including the bed where I want to put a garden. As soon as that was finished, I showered, bathed all the girls, got us dressed and did my hair and makeup. I grabbed my camera and all of us headed up to the Riverwoods in Provo to do some family pictures for Ben and Haylee and then my whole family.  I was so pooped by the end of the day!

Nana, Dylan, and Mira at the Riverwoods where we took pictures.

Emilia made a bird's nest. It was pretty big and she was very impressed
with herself.  She wanted me to take a picture. :)

And for good measure, here is a link to a video of Cecily talking. I happen to think it's adorable baby talk.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=704619929579483