Happy Thanksgiving.

This week was better. I'm not even sure why. Maybe because I had Thanksgiving to look forward to. And Emilia was home all but Tuesday. Steve had Thursday and Friday off. So the whole family was around for most of the week. It was nice.

1/2 the Frohlich Clan. I was going to take a picture of the other 1/2 but not everybody was sitting. And then we prayed and the food distracted me.

We spent Thanksgiving day with my family, Friday with Steve's family, and Saturday we spent most of the day unsuccessfully trying to get out of the house to get a Christmas tree. We finally got everyone in the car and to the tree lot around 1pm. I was past caring about a tree at that point, so I told Steve he had to pick it out. He didn't like any of his options at the tree lot, so we drove to Home Depot instead. They had a ton of small trees for $20. We decided to get a small tree because of the tornado we call Cecily. My hope is that if the tree is up on a table, she will be less tempted to pull it over, climb it, or pull every ornament off the first 4 feet of the tree. I just didn't want to fight with her for a month. So we ended up with a small tree for $20 and it's a nice tree. It smells good, too. My favorite part.

Friday we made "gingerbread" houses at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I think the girls enjoyed it. Steve and I made one together and I'm proud of how well it turned out. We make a good graham cracker engineering team. :) That night before we went home, Emilia decided her house was a gingerbread man trap. She was very excited to see if she had caught anything the next day. When she found out that we weren't going to be there really early in the morning to check on the trap, she was very upset. Thankfully, Aunt Cindy was kind enough to very seriously take directions from Emilia for checking the trap and guarding any caught gingerbread men.

Mine and Steve's (left), Emilia's (center), and Mira's (right).

A close-up of the stained-glass (melted gummybear windows).

Emilia also has gotten this rebellious streak lately. But she's so funny. She always tells us when she's misbehaving. Friday night, we got the girls in bed and Steve, as he was shutting the door, said, "No reading." An hour later, Emilia shows up downstairs wearing a hat and a dress/blanket and starts asking me questions about Saturday.
"Why aren't you asleep?" I ask her.
She just keeps, literally, saying, "Hmm.  Hmm.  Hmm.  Hmm. Hmm. Hmm."
"You don't know?"
"I do, but I don't want to tell you," she says,.
"Did you stay up reading?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to have to take away your reading lamp, since you didn't obey."
"I know. That's what you should have done if you didn't want me to read."
"Umm...no. You should just obey your parents."
"Oh."
That kid.

We had a cold that we passed around the family this week. That's why Emilia didn't go to school on Monday. It was a pretty short-lived cold. It was only bad for 1 day for me. Cecily has it the worst, but that's not really surprising since she is the littlest.

I also thought I should make a list of things I am thankful for. So here you go:
My home.
A husband who works hard to support us and who helps out around the house.
Three girls who are healthy, and sometimes happy. (Although not usually all at the same time.)
Christ. His example and his words guide my life, and his atonement makes me whole.
So much beauty around me.
A free country, brave soldiers, a good upbringing.
Family. All of them.
Food. Tasty and abundant.
Vehicles that work.
A heater. And warm blankets. And wheat bags. Socks.
My health. Skills, opportunities, and a sound mind.
Friends.
Plumbing. Internet. Hospitals. Netflix. Refridgerators and freezers. Vacuum cleaners. All those little things that you don't think about.
A warm winter (so far).
Steve's new job. And good health insurance.
Sleep. Dreams. Hope.

I'm sure there is more, but I won't bother you with them.
I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Stuff we do

Hrm...
I had a lot of struggles with depression this week. I don't remember most of it. I know on Thursday night, Emilia had her Thanksgiving program at school. I'll do a separate post for that because all the videos are on Steve's phone. She did great, though, and she was very excited to perform with the other kids.

I also did a little bit of Christmas shopping this week. And re-potted all the plants in my house. I also managed to lose my glasses while taking a nap.

Last night I went over to Megan's house to help her work on all the remodeling they are doing. It's going to be beautiful when it's done.

So sweet when she's asleep.

A fun shopping buddy.

This plant was yellowing and I wasn't sure why. I guess this explains it.

It was at this point I realized I should have used the garage.

Mira fell asleep watching TV one day.

I gave Cecily a haircut

It was warm enough to go to the park without coats one day this week. This is them pointing at a dinosaur skeleton under a climbing wall.

And here is a video of Cecily for you:

Retreat week

On Thursday, I left to go to my writing retreat. The three days prior to that are kind of a blur. I did highlight my hair one of those days and then had to go get it fixed by a professional. It was only a small fix. I didn't totally ruin my hair or anything. It's blond again. Not that you can tell in this picture.

I really like how my hair curls now that it's long and I've been looking into helping it look its best. I found a book called Curly Girl: A Handbook (http://www.amazon.com/Curly-Girl-Handbook-Michele-Bender/dp/076115678X/) that gives a lot of great advice. One of the things is to not dry your hair with a terrycloth towel--because it takes too much moisture out of your hair. They recommend using an old t-shirt, so I've been doing that to see what I think. The best part is I look like a "Girl with a Pearl Earring" every time I wash my hair. :)

Thursday morning, I ended up having two of Mira's friends over to play. Not the best idea when you're trying to pack for a long weekend, but I can be rather dense when it comes to time management.

Mira was making funny faces at me while I was working on my computer.

Thursday afternoon, I took all the kids to my mom's house so that she could watch them until Steve got off work. I then drove to my friend's house so she could drive us the rest of the way to the retreat.  Of course, after months of unseasonably warm weather, it decides to snow for the first time this year, on Thursday. So not only did we have to drive up into the mountains in a snowstorm but we got ridiculously lost. What should have been an hour and a half drive ended up taking us four hours. Bah!

But it was SO worth it! I had an amazing tmie.  This was our view from the condo we rented:

I volunteered to make the breakfasts while we were there. One morning I made them all shaped pancakes. They turned out really good.

I got a ton of writing done, ate SO MUCH good food, laughed and laughed and laughed, and got to know some amazing ladies even better. It was a balm for my soul. Looking forward to another one next year! :)

When I got home this morning, my kids were excited to see me. But Cecily was the most excited. It made my heart happy that she was so excited to have me back.

Her face when I walked in the door:

I am so blessed!

All about Cecily

Cecily is the cutest kid.

She loves kitties lately. And purses.

She has a great big smile that will light up a room. She has an enthusiasm for everything that she does that often makes me want to be more like her.

A selfie. She giggled when she saw herself.

She has the cutest little voice and her vocabulary is getting bigger. She has been yelling "light!" lately and pointing at all the light fixtures in the house because that is the most recent word she learned.

 She is also a terror. She gets into EVERYTHING.

More kitty love. "Meow. Meow. Meow." All day.

She has cut her hands on Steve's razor that she found in the bathtub. She cut her fingers on knives she has climbed on the counter to get. She has cut her fingers on the glass in picture frames because she took it off a table, figured out how to get the back out and dumped out the picture and the glass and then started playing with it.

 She is constantly spilling water out of glasses all over herself and the floor and the table and the counter and the bathroom and the hallway (those have all happened in the last week).

Kitties in purses. Even better.

She is learning how to use a spoon by herself at 17 months because she's annoyed that I might not let her have the spoon when she wants a bite. She is constantly eating or finding things to eat or finding things that she shouldn't eat and putting them in her mouth anyway. She likes to pull things out of cupboards, bookshelves, closets, drawers, boxes, baskets, you name it.

Trying to pour water on her own head. She wasn't very succesful. But she was very enthusiastic.

I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a room, had Cecily look up at me, drop whatever she has in her hands and run. She knows. Usually she's giggling as she runs, too. That child! I told my mom tonight, "I love this child. But I love her more when she's asleep." She is amazing and exhausting and I love her to death.

We had a pretty normal week. Laundry and grocery shopping, some trips to the park (because really, what is with this AMAZING weather!?), and stuff for callings. The primary program was today and my parents and Steve's parents came to watch. Mine stayed for dinner. I was very proud of Steve. I have never watched a primary program where the kids knew the songs as well as his. They knew all the words to all the verses of all the songs. They sang like they meant it and I could tell they wanted to please him as they stood up there. It was impressive.

Cecily got down from her spot so she could go eat Nana's food.

On a completely random note, I pulled out my garden this week and was impressed by the root system on my cherry tomato plant. So impressed that I took a picture.

This coming week, I have my writing retreat. And I am SO-O-O excited. So excited.

Halloween 2014

I seems like I didn't do much this week. Halloween was on Friday, obviously. We will talk about that in a second. Monday I got to hang out with my friend Gina. It was fabulous. We went to see the movie Meet the Mormons. We were going to see The Giver, but the dollar theater was closed because they didn't have any water apparently. Meet the Mormons was pretty good. And my money is going to the Red Cross, so there's that. Friday was Steve's last day at his old job. Monday he starts at Oracle. He was telling me that it feels funny because he's never actually been to their offices.  All of his interviews were over the phone.

We had a trunk or treat on Wednesday at our church building. And a chili cook-off which I did not win. It was cute: They announced the chili cook-off in primary for a few weeks before the event so the adults who teach the children would know about it, too. Emilia would come home and say, "Mom are you entering the Chili Cook-Off? You should enter." I'm not sure why she wanted me to enter. It's not because she thinks my chili is amazing. She refuses to eat it whenever I cook it.

Since Emilia was being Elsa for Halloween, I thought she would look even more like her if her hair was curly. We never get up in time to have time to curl her hair before school. So I thought we could do sock rollers the night before.  This is her after I put them in.

About 20 minutes after she went to bed, she came and found me. "Mom, these are too uncomfortable. Will you take them out?" Gah. Fine.

Friday, we went trick-or-treating around the block. It was windy so we didn't go for too long. Here is all of us together.

That's it for us. Hope your Halloween was happy and safe!

Festivities and a quest

The end of October is always busy because places around here start having a lot of free stuff for families and I feel this compulsion to take advantage of it whether it kills me or not.

Monday, Great Grandma Watts's residence put on a Halloween party for the resident's families. We went last year and had a lot of fun, so we were excited to go again. Unfortunately, it didn't go nearly as well this year. One of the attractions last year was that there was a magic show. But the room they held it in was a pretty small room and they crammed chairs in there to seat everyone and then wheeled and walkered residents in at the ends of the rows. So nobody could get in or out or have leg room or take a kid to the bathroom when needed. Cecily was tired before we even got there, so after about 30 seconds was trying to climb the random grandma at the end of the row. The woman resident behind us was giving us dirty looks because she wasn't able to see, or she thought we were going to try to take over her saved seats, or maybe she was just afraid Cecily would try to climb her too. I don't know. Mira was also tired. She lasted three minutes. Finally, I handed them both to Grandma and Grandpa Watts, who were two rows behind us in chairs that weren't blocked by two walkers, a man in a wheelchair and a territorial 80 year old. Emilia lasted around 20 minutes before she broke down in tears. She was loving the show, but the magician was picking volunteers, and he was only picking from the kids that were seated on the floor up front. Life is so unfair! Finally the show was over and we took the kids around trick-or-treating at the resident's doors. They had some treats for everyone, too, which Cecily devoured because she was tired. That girl is going to be in trouble as a teenager/adult. She thinks eating will solve all of her problems. If she's hungry, she eats. If she's tired, she eats. If she's mad, he eats. If she's sad, she eats. It's ridiculous.

Wednesday, I took the younger two shopping. Everybody needed some clothes for winter and Mira was excited to get some new leggings. They were troopers: four stores and two hours later, I took them to the "Treehouse" to play before heading home.

Cecily and Mira going down the slide. Cecily is so fearless. And she LOVES slides.

Mira watching a gaggle of children play king of the hill. She's not really into playing with kids she doesn't know.

Thursday was Steve's birthday. I didn't take any pictures that day, so you can have the picture from last Sunday that I told you I would give you this week. We gave him our presents before he left for work, I made him the dinner he requested (chicken sandwiches and french fries), and he went to a friend's house to hang out that evening. Nothing amazing, but I hope it was a good day for him.

Friday, we got a babysitter and went on a date to celebrate his birthday. We went to the Cocoa Bean and got frappes (the Giradelli white chocolate raspberry was divine) and then to Barnes and Noble to pick out a book each. He was also really nice and allowed me to return the clothes from the Wednesday shopping trip that didn't end up working out. I didn't have to do it with 2 to 3 small people in tow, and he got to listen to the BYU football game on the radio, so it was a win-win, I think.

Saturday, we took the girls to a pumpkin patch here in Springville. They had a bunch of stuff for the kids to do, so we were there all morning. We had a bunch of small stuff to finish up while Cecily and Mira (thank goodness) napped. That night, some friends came over and played games.  It was a pretty good day.

Mira in the mini maze.

The girls with daddy after they buried him in corn,

A nice family shot?

The adorable Miss Mira buried in corn.

Daddy taking Mira and Cecily down the slide the first time. Cecily would have gone down it for the rest of the day if we'd let her.

And last, but not least, I went on a quest this week to bake 7 different kinds of zucchini bread in order to use up the last of my zucchini. I did accomplish the goal of making 7 different zucchini breads. I did not, however, use up all the zucchini. I also tried to make V8 Splash juice by juicing some of my carrots and tomatoes. I of course added other ingredients, according to a recipe I found online. It ended up tasting pretty terrible. I should have know when the recipe called for pumpkin that it was going to be a little weird. Then I decided to freeze some in  ice cube trays because then I could throw it in smoothies and not waste it. Because it wasn't good enough that I would just drink it. I'm such a glutton for punishment sometimes. Not only was it messy to juice everything with my parents' juicer, but then I had to use the blender to mix it all together. I'm not used to blending juices, so I didn't realize that when you start it, the juice sprays up--all over the clean dishes next to the blender on the counter. Then, when putting the trays in the freezer, one tips over, dripping juice down the entire length of the freezer, where it freezes, of course. So then I have to spend a 1/2 hour heating a dish rag in order to unfreeze the juice enough to to peel off my freezer and all the food on the right side. Bah.

A couple of my monster carrots that were juiced.