snow and sunburns

This week was a good week for me. We got our carpets and livingroom furniture cleaned on Monday. This meant that I had to move all my furniture out of my living room and family room. And that inspired me to rearrange things a little bit when I put stuff back in. I liked how it felt open and uncluttered when the furniture wasn't there, so I tried to make it feel that way when I put everything back in. I like the new arrangement a lot.

Also, it took me three days, but I was able to go through all the toys in the girls' room and rearrange and declutter so it all fit better. And I spraypainted a sunburst mirror that I inherited from my mom. And I covered the boxes for the shelves I got from Ikea that you can see in the background of the photos below. The shelves are cheap (only $35 a piece), but then they wanted $15 a piece for baskets to hold stuff. If I had filled the shelves with those baskets, it would have cost $60 for the baskets! That's almost double what I paid for the shelf! So, being me, I decided to find a DIY solution. What I found? 12x12x12 moving boxes from Staples for $1 a piece, which I covered in burlap which was $3 a yard. So for less than $4 a piece, I have nice-looking "baskets" for my Ikea shelves.

Emilia and Mira got chocolate all over themselves and thought it was really funny.

I tried to capture a picture of Cecily in her adorable outfit, but she would not stand still!

So sweet when she's asleep, though.

The weather in Utah may be less predictable than the weather in North Dakota was. This week Wednesday, it snowed. Mira was SO excited. She got into her snow clothes and hurried outside. When I looked out, I saw her sitting on the hill, eating handfuls of it. Then she started crawling, caterpillar-style, through the snow so she could eat it without having to use her hands. Silly kid.

Then yesterday, I picked lilacs for my table and Mira and Emilia got swimsuits on so they could run through the sprinklers with their friends. Earlier in the day, we took the girls for a picnic and to feed the ducks. There was a momma at the canal who had 11 babies. Three were a couple months older and eight were little little. They were all adorable, but I was surprised to see that many with one mom. The beauty of the day made us feel thankful for God's great creations. And Steve got sunburnt. :)

Spring Break, Easter, Silly kids

Two weeks worth today because I totally forgot last Sunday. We were at Megan's house for Easter Sunday and to watch the last session of General Conference. Looking through the pictures I have for you, I can only come to one conclusion: my kids are crazy sillyheads. And they are so fun.

Cecily has been going through a phase where she doesn't like to wear her diaper. Or perhaps it's just that she doesn't like to sit still long enough to have it put on.

The full moon was so huge the other night driving home from my mom's house.

Here are the girls playing outside at Megan's house. We do Easter baskets on Saturday morning so that we can focus on Christ on Sunday. But besides Easter and General Conference, we were also celebrating my mom's, Mira's, and Dylan's birthday. So they got a few new things to play with that day anyway.

 

Grandpa an Lincoln.

Dylan and Mira playing on Nana's tablet.

Here are some more of my kids being silly. I wear my hair up in an old t-shirt for a little while after I shower and when Cecily got out of the tub the other day, she wanted to wear something on her head. She was so cute, I had to take a picture and then then others needed pictures taken, too. Of course.

This last week was spring break for Emilia. A couple of the days, she and Mira and the other girls in the neighborhood played outside for 5+ hours. It was glorious. There may have been angels singing.

On Wednesday, Steve took a 1/2 day off of work and we had some fun. First we went bowling (I did the best with a 154). Then we put Cecily down for a nap at his parents' house. We were lucky that Wilda was off work with a headache so we could leave her there. We took the older two to Nickel City. (A little arcade where you pay to get in and then all the games are a nickel.) Then we got Cecily and we all went out to dinner at a pizza place called Malawi's. It was a fun day.

Mira did a victory dance every time she rolled the ball. It made me giggle. 

Cecily thought the ball ramp was an excellent slide.

 

I also had writing group this last week and they were troopers and read over half of my book this time around. I'm excited to have it close to polished. The writing conference is next month. Happy Day! :)

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. :)