Lots of pictures

This post has LOTS of pictures. I got all the pictures off Steve's phone and there were some from December and forward that I didn't have.

My mom and dad went to Arizona to visit family a week ago and they brought back lots of strawberries. I made strawberry syrup, strawberry donuts, and these strawberry scones so far. I also want to make a frozen strawberry dessert.

The Curly Girl technique is working so well. My hair was really curly this week.

Mira had a friend over Friday. They went outside to play and I could hear them having a great time. I went out once because they needed help with something, but mostly I let them play and entertain themselves while I worked on writing. About a 1/2 later, I hear Mira at the front door saying, "Mom, can you let me in without looking at me?" Oh dear. I opened the door to find this. But this picture doesn't even do it justice. The had covered both sides of their arms and hands and their legs up to mid-thigh with orange, red, and blue marker. You can see from the smile on Mira's face that she was very proud of herself. This was fun stuff! Good thing her friend's mom is laid back. I just laughed and laughed. Kids!

Saturday, Mira turned 4. I'm so excited to spend this year with a 4 year old Mira. I like her smiles and her humor and her exuberance and energy. She has the spirit of an angry wolverine if you cross her, but hugs and understand can usually talk her down now.

I let her choose between a party and going somewhere fun with 3 friends. She chose to go to Kangaroo Zoo with three fiends. They are all in this picture, but that's as still as they were for most of the party.

Gallifrey, Alison's dog who is living with us for a while, used to live with my mom. Who spoiled him rotten. He's always very sad when I sit on my chair with my computer in front of me. He thinks I like the computer better than him. He's probably right. He wasn't going to let the computer win today though. He hopped up anyway.

This is Steve's view from his new office building. Pretty cush, right?

Nick partying with his granddaughters a while back.

Cecily and Febe at Nana's house. Probably for Ben's birthday last month.

I've been volunteering at Emilia's school every other month to help with the Great Artist Program. Basically, the point is to teach kids that art is fun and isn't more difficult than learning to break things down into circles and squares and such and then adding color. Every month they copied a different Great Artists work. They did Matisse, DaVinci, Monet, van Gogh and more. Then a few weeks ago, they picked their favorite piece and had an art show. Emilia chose her Water Lilies. She did great. You can tell, she is not a muted-colors type of girl. :)

Fancy Nancy has a spa day book and every once in a while Emilia sets up a spa and wants us to go. A few Sundays ago, I had my fingernails done, got a back rub, and had my hair "curled." She tries so hard to please and to be productive.

On Tuesday this week, our ward put on a pinewood derby for the entire ward. Usually just the Boy Scouts participate, but they decided to let everyone join in this time around. Steve and I didn't have any interest, but Emilia asked me several times if we got to go, so I bought a $3 car kit and we made a car. It had three cuts and one of them was so badly done (with a circular saw because that' all I have) that I had to borrow a wood file from a neighbor to try to salvage it. I was happy with the results, although we didn't do better than 3rd in our heat because there was too much drag and it wasn't quite heavy enough.

Theirs is #28 with Duplo Ariel as the driver.

Over 50 people entered cars!

Emilia and Mira watching the races (blue and pink shirts).

Cecily was happy once Steve gave her a cookie.

Emilia's 2nd race.

Grandpa was reading to cousin Leif and Cecily last night.

Since all the cousins came down for Mira's birthday, they played the whole day together. The other girls decided to make Mira queen. She had a throne and people waiting on her for nearly an hour. It started to go to her head. :)

Thinking about parenthood

This is a quote I read recently on Pinterest:

I've been striving to live by it over the last few weeks. Meaning, I've been striving to see the ups and downs of life as normal, especially the downs. When I have to strap my screaming kid into the car while the other two complain that they don't want to go and crying that a shoe fell off and they are hungry and begging me to go get a toy or take them somewhere fun, I try to remember that life isn't supposed to be bliss all the time. It's supposed to be hard so that I can learn and grow.It helps me to be less angry with my kids for "ruining the moment." It helps me be happier when I get to eat a quiet lunch, even though the explosion of food and dishes that came from feeding my kids lunch is still sitting all around me. So it has helped me to feel less "robbed" of peace and prosperity. And the crazy thing is, it takes it from a negative and turns it into a positive. I feel more peaceful and prosperous simply because I don't feel like my balance is somehow negative.

I am still not great at it, but I am getting better. And therefore happier.

I also read this articles this week: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meg-conley/5-things-i-learned-when-i-said-yes-to-my-daughter-for-24-hours_b_6858718.html

I thought, "Wow, that's a great idea! I want to try that." But then when I thought about it more, I didn't know how I would work the logistics of it with Emilia and Mira. I think Emilia's requests would have been fun and interesting, but I'm pretty sure Mira would have picked "play with [whatever set of toys I'm interested in at the moment]" every time. And then how do you define when that is "over?" So it would have turned into a Mira "yes day" or a "Mira is going to cry every time it's not her turn anymore" day. On Friday, Emilia had a day off of school, and I didn't have anything planned. So I decided to try having a "yes day" in my own head, but not tell them about it. It turned out really great. They had a dental appointment at 8:30 in the morning. I miraculously got us all there in time. So they got a treat from the dentist and a free ice cream cone certificate for not having cavities. They wanted to eat it as soon as we finished at the dentist's which was around 9:45am. I thought that sounded gross, but they were sure, so I said yes and took them for ice cream. We also took the car through the car wash, rented Big Hero 6, had pizza for dinner and finished gluing rocks to their fairy house. We had fun together.

Mira used to hate going to the dentist's office. She would kick and scream until I had to hold her down so they could clean her teeth. I hated doing it, but she would get calcium build-ups that made her teeth look black. But about a year ago, I decided to practice with her for a few days before. I would have her lie down on the couch and pretend I was the dentist and brush her teeth. I also let her bring her blankie and a stuffed animal to the office with us. She still doesn't love going, but no more fits.

Last Sunday, the girls decided to put on a concert at Grandma and Grandpa Watts'. They got up on the hearth and sang songs. Cecily had to get in on the action, too. She was especially excited about the clapping. :) Cecily also loves the marble run that Gma and Gpa have. She concentrates so hard on getting marbles into the starting gate. It's adorable.

Lots of projects and a bad-guy-shooting flamingo. :)

Recently, I decided that I didn't want my bedroom to be the dumping grounds anymore. It has been for a while because it's the only room upstairs that has no hope of being as put together as I would like. So since it won't look good even if I keep it totally clean, I tend to think, "What's the point?"

Because of this decision, I started a lot of projects. However, my main focus lately has been my book. Since I'm pitching it to an agent in May, I need to get it totally polished. But last Sunday, Steve expressed despair at how many projects we have sitting around.

This week was writing group, so after Steve told me that, I decided that this week instead of writing in my free time, I would read submissions and work on projects.

I accidentally took this when I went to take a picture of the headboard.

Monday, I built a headboard.

It really didn't take me more than a couple hours. I found the plans online and bought the wood a few weeks ago. Borrowed my dad's brad nailer and voila! New head board. I was pretty awesome that day, though. I also volunteered in Emilia's classroom, did five loads of laundry (AND folded it), made dinner, exercised, and painted one of the closet doors three times so I could rehang Steve's tie rack (when the door dried, of course).

Tuesday was a crazy day. Had to grocery shop and had a presidency meeting and a counseling appointment. Steve's new health insurance pays for counseling and I love going. It's a nice perk.

Wednesday and Thursday I put a coat of stain on the headboard each day.

We also had a pony spa day and Steve played LOTR on Wednesday.

Friday, I was supposed to babysit, have my mom come down to help reupholster our couch, and the girls were invited to a birthday party. Of course, Cecily woke up with a rash.

So my crazy day went something like this: I took Cecily to the doctor, found out she was probably not contagious, brought her home, got lunch for the kiddos, my mom arrived, got lunch for the two of us, stripped 300 staples (give or take) from my couch, used the old fabric as a guide to cut my new vinyl, helped sew it back together, picked up Emilia from school, got her and Mira off to a birthday party, made dinner, finished fitting the new fabric to the couch in order to find out that we didn't have the right size staples, put the girls to bed (with Steve's help) and then watched Leap Year with him.

Before

About this point in the project, I tried to put tufts in the back of the couch without buttons. It didn't work. I succeeded in putting holes in my material. So the girls and I took a trip to Joanne's with a detour at Krispy Kreme. The donuts were "Hot Now" so we had to go in and get our free sample.

During

After

Last Sunday Mira was telling Steve about her stuffed flamingo. "Look Daddy! This blue one (the tail feather in the middle) is for shooting bad guys. But it can break. So the purple ones protect the blue one so it doesn't shatter." She is such a hoot!

A new post, a new car, a new roommate

I feel sometimes like our lives are so routine that it's really not worth telling all of you about it. But I do anyway. So sorry if we're boring. :)

Nana reading to all the girls when she came to bring Alison's stuff.

Alison did move in last Sunday. So we are squishing 6 of us plus a dog into our 4-bedroom house. Steve feels like we need to get rid of more stuff so he doesn't feel cramped. It's probably not a bad idea, but I mentally went through all the stuff we have and I feel like we use most of it. Or we need to occasionally. For example. We have a closet full of blankets and sheets. Ones we don't use on our beds or for picnics. BUT, when we have people visit, and stay over night, we use almost the entire closet getting beds made. I'm not sure what we would do if we didn't have those waiting. See what I mean? Would you keep all those blankets for a once-a-year occasion? If not, what would you do for the visitor's beds when they do come?

This week was rough because all of us were in terrible moods. Cecily is determined to get what she wants at all costs. Usually it is food or an electronic device. She can figure out a way to climb onto pretty much any surface if it has one of those two things on it. She's also big enough now that containing tantrums is nigh unto impossible. I have nearly dropped her a couple times because she has flung herself backward hard enough to loosen my grip on her. Stinkerpants McGee. That's her nickname.

Also, I think I missed telling you about Steve getting rear-ended on the interstate. That happened on the 24th of February. He was going 65 when a kid missed that people were slowing down and smashed Steve's bumper. He got hit hard enough to break the bolts on the driver's seat and cause $3000 damage to the rear of the car. We didn't care about the car--it was on it's last legs anyway. Burning/leaking oil, clutch going out, paint peeling off everywhere, pieces of the interior falling apart. So the $1800 the insurance decided to give us was a LOT. But I'm very grateful that Steve was fine. He had some whiplash and soreness the day of the accident, but no lasting problems it seems. Yesterday he spent about 8 hours looking at used cars. He ended up buying an old Toyota. Hopefully it will be as good a car for us as our Saturn was. That thing almost never needed repairs and we've had it for our entire marriage.

Mira and Emilia being rock stars.

Mira set these four books out the other day and told me they were titled from top left to bottom right: "The Witch's Explore, Buildings Go Down, Mountain's Believe, and The Pink Page." I should letnher title all the books in the house. ;)

Below is a picture of Cloudsdale (from My Little Ponies) that Emilia looked at the draw the picture below it. I was impressed with her skill.

normal stuffs

This last week was a busy one. I had something going on every day. I know this because I remember saying that to my parents last week. But I honestly can't remember what I was supposed to do on Monday.

Tuesday I had a presidency meeting, Wednesday Emilia got out at noon and I had visiting teaching appointments. Thursday Steve was supposed to have game night, but he ended up just having a friend over to play LOTR when D&D got canceled. Friday, Megan had a Pampered Chef party at her house around lunch time. And Saturday, we finished cleaning out the room in the basement so Alison could move in today. We hadn't planned on it, but we got to see Nick and Wilda Saturday night when they took us out to Cracker Barrel where I ate too many corn muffins and biscuits. Okay, who am I kidding? Can you really eat too many of those things? :D

Wednesday was pretty fun. I packed a picnic lunch before we left to get Emilia and we immediately went to the park after picking her up. We ate with our coats on, but it was a fun picnic. Then the girls played for an hour on the slides and swings and building "cakes" with the wood chips.

Emilia picked out this outfit yesterday. I love her sense of style.

She just looked so cute brushing her teeth, I had to take a picture.

I found some glow-in-the-dark assembly-needed dinosaur skeletons at the $1 Store around Christmas. It was fun putting them together yesterday.

Mira found a metal hanger and was playing with it the other day.

Emilia's spelling test. She got 100%. She has gotten 100% every week except one. She is amazing.

Mira did a goober smile the other day at lunch and insisted I take a picture. Cecily is naked in the background because she doesn't get to wear clothes when she eats a Nutella and peanut butter sandwich. (affectionately called a "chocolate sandwich")