Mira's birthday, spring break, a baptism, and Easter

Spring has definitely sprung around here. Flowers and budding fruit trees and rain. Lots of rain. ;)

The kids had spring break the first week of April. We didn't plan well, so we only went out of town Thursday afternoon through Sunday.

But we did enjoy our time at home. Playing with friends, watching TV, and visiting Nana.

Thursday afternoon, we took the girls to the Provo Rec Center. We decided to brave taking Jules and it went pretty well. We definitely ended up leaving earlier than we would have before she was born, but she was really good, considering.

Friday through Sunday we went to St. George. We hiked in the Red Cliffs recreation area first.

The water was mountain run off and freezing. But the kids all got in -- in their only clothes.

The weather was in the 70s and perfect the whole weekend.

It was General Conference weekend, so we watched that with family.

It was a good relaxing weekend.

Cecily drew these one day. I am so super impressed with her artistic skill lately.

I arranged these flowers for my friend who's going through a hard time lately and dropped them off one day.

I also made this bib before we went down to St. George. She's been so super drooly lately.

I didn't do a party on Mira's birthday. We were in the midst of Marie Kondoing and spring break and all sorts of goings on, so we finally had her birthday party on the 15th. It was a tea party and it was so much fun to put together.

Mira was baptized on the 14th. There were 4 other girls that all got baptized that day. AND Dylan was baptized that day.

After everyone left, I started going through my fabric and craft supplies. It took all afternoon just to go through the fabric. It's not that choosing what to keep or give away that was so hard. It was deciding how to organize it after.

I love the faces Jules makes. She cracks me up all the time.

I also designed Alison's wedding invitation this last week. Did I tell you I took her invitation photos, too. I think they turned out really good.

Friday, Cecily had a field trip to the zoo and Steve was able to go with her. He took a 1/2 day off at work and the two of them had a lot of fun. I was feeling bored and stuck in the house, though, so Friday night, we got takeout and took it to a park. Then we went to the used book store and let the kids pick out some books. Mira read a bunch of books to Cecily so she would know what she wanted to buy. It was so sweet.

I did Easter baskets on Saturday so I could keep the Easter Bunny separate from the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

Then Saturday night, I took Emilia out on a mother-daughter date to Fiiz drinks. We got "dirty" drinks, macarons, and a red velvet cookie. Emilia loved the massive amounts of sugar, obviously.

Such pretty girls on Easter morning.

And now we're at my parents house, eating ham, potatoes, jello, cheesecake, and Easter egg candy. It's been a good day. *sigh*

Family and birthdays and such

With Megan here the week of the 17th-22nd, we had a lot going on. We had a family dinner on the 17th, we all went to a movie (How to Train Your Dragon: the Hidden World--so good, BTW),

we put together puzzles and played games, went dress and venue shopping with Alison for her wedding in July, the girls had a sleepover with their cousins, we had family pictures taken, and we had another family dinner at my house.

Cecily also had a field trip, Mira had a birthday party to attend, I went to a movie with a friend, and had my weekly writing group.

This week was also pretty busy. We paid $150 for the auto place to tell us they couldn't fix our car because the part is no longer made and they couldn't find a used one. That meant driving Steve to and from the auto place with kids in tow and still making it to school on time, etc. My ministering sister came by for a chat, I spent some time with one of the sisters I minister to who is mostly homebound, I baked 30 potatoes for a teacher appreciation lunch, got Mira a birthday breakfast and brought treats to her class at school on Thursday, Grandpa took us out to dinner for Mira's birthday,

Mira had practice for the song she singing with the other girls getting baptized on the same day as she is, Mira went to Dylan's birthday party, Emilia went to the birthday party of one of her best friends, I took engagement photos for Alison, and today I met with my new Activity Days partner to plan the next few months of Activity Days. Oh. And I Marie Kondo'd our kitchen. For three days straight.

Cecily got mad at me one day and drew these faces to represent how I had changed her mood from happy to sad to angry. I was mostly impressed with her drawing. :)

sisters, sisters

I feel like we don't really do much most weeks, so I'm having a hard time posting. It's a lot of hanging out at home and entertaining a baby and her sisters.

Steve bought me nail polish for Valentine's day instead of flowers. I was so excited for it to arrive. This particular brand is made by one of my high school acquaintances, so that makes it even more fun.

Jules will be 3 months on Tuesday. I'll do my best to take a nice picture of her. She's getting more and more chubby. She's still incredibly easy--she's started sleeping 7-8 hour stretches at night--and rarely cries unless she's hungry. She recognizes her daddy's voice and will turn toward it. She gives Daddy her biggest smiles, too. Cecily loves taking pictures with Jules, but the rest of the time is pretty ambivalent toward her. Mira is so so so helpful. She's really good at figuring out what the baby needs and is happy to feed, hold, burp, talk to, and entertain the baby. Emilia is also willing to help, but she doesn't enjoy it. The baby stresses her out. I think she'll like Jules a lot more when she can ask for what she needs. :)

I told you in my last post that Emilia had gotten a student of the month award. Mira got onea few weeks later. And at parent/teacher conferences this week, all of their teachers only had good things to say about them. I have a good bunch of girls, and I'm proud to be their mom.

The weather has be rather bi-polar here in Utah. Snowing a couple inches with a high of 28 one day and sunny and almost 60 the next. On the days it's nice, I try to get the girls outside and myself, too, if I can fit it in.

Last week, Alison moved from Colorado back to Utah. Her husband, James, has been here for a month or two already, along with their dogs. So while my parents were out in Colorado helping Alison move her stuff, I got to go to my parents house t let the dogs out.*singing* "Who let the dogs out? Who? Who who who?"

The family has been working together on "Tidying Up" Marie Kondo style. We've only gotten through clothes and books so far, but it's actually been really fun. Even the kids have been willing participants. I have no pictures of the before and after. I'm so bad at remembering to take the befores.

Mira gets to start activity days this year and she had her first activity yesterday. The stake put on a great event for all the Activity Days girls in the Stake. So Emilia went to, it just wasn't her first one. They both seemed to enjoy it (and the treats they got at the end).

Emilia's growing up. She had "maturation" at school a couple weeks ago. In North Dakota, we just called it "sex ed" but I guess parents are more sensitive on the verbiage here. She said they separated them out into boys and girls and the girls giggled about all the embarrassing things they had to talk about. We had a discussion after school about the things they talked about and it was good. I love that my kids are open to talking about bodies and functions with me.

Since the girls all got mostly As (or 4s or Es--Why can't they just give normal grades?) on their report cards, we took the girls out for ice cream at Farrs. Rewarding my kids for being awesome--and getting tasty ice cream out of it to boot--is one of my favorite parts of parenting.

Megan and her family just got into town last night. They're spending their spring break here. I'm excited to hang out with them this coming week! (Plus, we'll actually do stuff I can tell you about.)