I need to simplify

I thought last week was busy. This one was even worse. I made a list at the beginning of the week of all the things I needed to finish. I showed it to Steve and said, "There is not a way to complete everything on this list even if I ignore the kids all week. I don't know what to do." He kindly offered to do a couple of the things--laundry and grocery shopping--to ease my burden. But I still didn't get everything done. And I still ignored the kids for most of the week.

I did take the younger ones to a park one day. The trees are just beginning to change color here.

Part of the problem this week was that I had my writing retreat all day Friday and Saturday. So I had to get everything done that I normally do, with two fewer days to do it in. Plus I had to read all of the submissions this week, which ended up totally about 180 pages in Microsoft Word. That's a lot of reading. The view from the condo was gorgeous, though.

I also needed to process the pictures I took when we went to Boise a few weeks ago. My contract says I will get the pictures processed in approximately three weeks. And this weekend was the three week mark. I could have done them this week, but the couple was asking about them and I have a lot to do this next week, too, so I decided to be uber busy last week instead of this week.

Decorating for Halloween was also on my list, since I knew if I didn't do it this week, I wouldn't do it all because it's not worth changing all of my decorations for a couple weeks. Plus, the girls enjoy it so much, I like to be festive for them.

We also took the girls to Cocoa Bean one night this week and watched Empire Strikes Back for the first time with the older two. That needs to go down in the record books. :)

I was sad that I missed my Grandpa Frohlich's 90th birthday party. I couldn't swing two trips to ND in one year, but I'm sure they had a great celebration without me. Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

preparing

It seems like a lot of this week was spent preparing. Preparing for Halloween, preparing for a garage sale, preparing for Steve's birthday, preparing for a writing retreat...

I worked on Halloween costumes for the girls. Mira wants to be a "rockstar bat." So I'm making her a rockstar costume and bat wings and she is wearing them together. That's Mira for you. Emilia wants to be Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon 2.  I got Mira's costume done Friday. It was super simple. Emilia's will be quite a bit harder. But I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Mira mostly figured out this configuration for Cecily's GoGo Smartwheels herself. We wanted to remember how to do it again next time, so I took a picture. :) For those of you with little ones, these are GREAT toys.

We had a garage sale yesterday, so Thursday, I helped a friend go through her storage space to find stuff to put in the garage sale. We had a bunch of stuff, but not enough to make for a big sale, so I asked a bunch of neighbors if they wanted to go in with us. This friend said she'd like to, but she didn't want to risk the spiders in her storage space. That's why I went in and helped. I also baked about 6 dozen giant cookies on Thursday to sell at the garage sale. Ends up, buying muffins from Costco is much less work and much more profitable than selling cookies.

But the sale was successful, though stressful, since no one was helping this year. It was just me and Steve and one of us had to be taking care of the girls.

This neighbor that I helped find stuff for the garage sale is the same neighbor that is babysitting the girls for me once a week. It's a service exchange sort of thing and it's been super helpful for me. And the girls LOVE her.  This is what they did this last week with the neighbor's bubble gun.

Steve's birthday is coming up in two weeks and he's turning 40. I'm trying to put some fun plans together for him. I hope they work out!

A pepper I grew in my garden. My first ever completely red pepper.

This coming week, my writing group is having a writing retreat. We are renting a condo not far from my house and writing and giggling for two days. I had to get the housing squared away and babysitting for the kids. The only thing left to do is figure out food and we are set! I'm excited for the writing time. And it's always a blast to spend time with friends away from the kids. I'm grateful Steve encourages me to do things like this. I've also been keeping up on my writing goals.

This next week will probably be more of the same.  I need to finish Halloween decorations and costumes, read all the submissions for my writing group, and do some more birthday planning. I'm looking forward to it. :)

Blessed

My computer is not recognizing my phone at the moment. Probably one or both of them need to be shut off and turned on again. Or my phone needs a total reformat. That would be fun.

I did manage to get some of my pictures off before this malfunction, so you'll be getting a few anyway. They're not necessarily in chronological order, so sorry if it's confusing.

Last weekend, Steve and I had a private weekend without our kids thanks to my wonderful family. Nicole Nelson and my parents took our girls Thursday night through Sunday. Steve and I were invited to the wedding of a friend in Boise, ID, and since we were going so far, we decided to use the time to celebrate our 9-year anniversary. It was a fun weekend for everyone, I think.

Besides attending the wedding, we had dinner with the friend and his family, and I took wedding photos for them. Steve and I also got to play tennis, write, go to the temple, and visit the Boise Art Museum.

On our way to Boise.

We encountered a pay phone, which we had been talking to our girls about on our way to Nicole's house. I had to snap a picture because they didn't know what we were talking about!

These pictures accurately portray how much fun our children had during the weekend. (A lot.)

This weekend was General Conference. The talks were inspiring, and uplifting. I can't wait to read them in the Ensign. We were lucky enough to be able to watch with Steve's sisters, Heather and Nicole, and their families. It was nice to have playmates for our children, too. I got to listen to more of Conference this year than I have in five years.

This weekend, Emilia, Mira, and I also had our art in an art contest/silent auction to benefit families of children with rare and undiagnosed diseases. Each of us created art and donated it to the organization and then they sold it through a silent auction. Each of the the girls won first prize in their age category. Emilia won an art class and Mira won a family day pass to all of Thanksgiving Point's attractions (Thanksgiving Point has a dinosaur museum, a discovery museum, beautiful flower gardens, and a petting zoo/farm). I'm excited for them to be able to use their prizes. I'm also very proud of their willingness to participate and help others.

Our 3 pieces of art

Mira (and Cecily) with her art (the pink and blue flowers).

Emilia with her art. Didn't she do a wonderful job?

This past Friday night, Steve and I were able to attend the BYU football game with Nick, Wilda, and the Strattons. It was chilly--mostly because it rained on us about 1/2 the game. But it was a decently interesting game, and no one received a season-ending injury (like three of our players did--including the quarterback--when we went to a game last year).

The clouds right before we left for the game. Pretty, but ominous.

I feel very blessed to have a wonderful family, to live in a beautiful place, and to have a faith that sustains me. God is good to me and I love him with all my heart. Thank you for the good influence that all of you have had on my life. May God bless you, too.

A good, packed week

Monday night, my good husband sacrificed his own desires to do something that he hates to do, just to help me stress less--clothes shopping for the girls. I LOVE shopping. Love it. But shopping for the girls stresses me out because I would love to buy everything cute that I see. But I can't because we're trying to stick to a budget. So I have to decide which cute things to buy and how many, and which new things to buy to go with old things. And it just helps to have another decisive person around. Plus, clothes shopping with three girls that like to run off, pull piles of clothes off shelves, hide in racks, and generally make chaos while I'm trying to make decisions, doubles the difficulty.

Tuesday night the kids went to bed early because they'd been up late with us shopping on Monday. My good friend Gina came down to visit and arrived right about the time they went to sleep. We had a great night chatting and eating good food.

Wednesday night, the young men and young women in our ward came over on a "service scavenger hunt" and we had them move the pile of dirt that has been sitting on our back patio since we dug out the leaking part of our foundation a few months ago. I was super grateful for the service and it only took them about 20 minutes.

Thursday was a pretty regular day and it was nice to have it be calm. Then Friday, my mom and dad came down to help me can some salsa. I despise canning. I am terrible at it. I mean, it usually turns out pretty good in the end, but the process never goes right. After they left, I headed out to go to writing group, and Steve took the girls to Emilia's school carnival. They all said it was a blast. And I enjoyed talking writing and eating good food with my writing group ladies, as always.

At the carnival

On the way home. They look happy to me.

Yesterday, Haley, our niece, played at a concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake. They didn't allow kids under 8, so I stayed home with the girls while Steve went with his family to tour Temple Square and go to the concert. Nick took them to Cheesecake Factory. I am a little jealous. Though Steve let me have his leftovers for lunch, so that made me feel better. :)

The group at the Conference Center to watch Haley's performance.

Steve and his parents.

While he was gone, I took the girls to Art City's Heritage Days. The girls got wooden nickels to spend at the Penny Candy Store and free popcorn. They got to race paper boats down the splash pad, get their faces painted, watch a potter make a pot, create their own button (the kind you pin to a backpack), and do a weaving stick thingy. It was a lot of fun. Emilia ran into a friend while we were there, who ended up coming home with us, and then after dinner, we did Cecily's favorite family activity--playing Mario 64.

Getting ready to race bananas at Heritage Days.

Watching the potter(ess?)

Today (after church) has been spent hanging out with the Coombs family at Grandma and Grandpa Watts' house. Haley and Emilia orchestrated a "Marble Madness" park, where they set up a marble run in the basement, sold tickets, and handed out "food" and prizes when your team's color won the marble race. They made the tickets, and signs directing us to the park. It reminded me immensely of our adventures with the Richau cousins when we were little. Good times.

They were so beautiful walking into church, I had to snap a picture.

Labor Day vacation

You didn't get a post last week because of Labor Day weekend. Our family had an exciting weekend, and I didn't get home until Monday night at bedtime, so blog posts were set aside.

(Cut off is Febe) Mira, Dylan, Cari, and Emilia with their faces painted on Saturday.

The girls and I went up to East Canyon where my parents and Megan bought memberships at a small resort. Mostly it's for camper/trailer camping, but they have a block of condos where the members get a few days a year. They were nice enough to use their days on us over Labor Day, so eighteen of the nineteen members of our family stayed in two adjoining condos for 2 1/2 days. The resort has lots of activities for families, too, so besides playing games and watching movies, we had the option to hike; play tennis, miniature golf, shuffleboard, or ping pong; swim in the pool or splash in the splash pad; fish; do some target practice at the gun range; or the kids had two play areas--one playground outdoors, or a bunch of toys and games and kids tables indoors. Plus we had lots of tasty food and treats. I think everyone had a blast.

The one member who was not at the family gathering was Steve. He stayed home because he entered the 3-day Novel Contest. This means, he signed up to try to write a 50,000 word book in only three days. The contest starts at midnight the Saturday before Labor Day and ends at midnight on Monday. There was no mobile network or internet connection at the resort, so I only got to talk to Steve once during the weekend when I called from the lodge's land line. Steve didn't make 50,000, but he did get 30,000 and a complete story. I think he could have done more if he could have turned off his inner critic and just wrote down whatever came to his head. But he finished and I think it was a good experience for him. I'm glad he did it.

My kids and Megan's kids waiting for the adults to check out.

Shuffleboard

On Monday, Labor Day, we had to check out at 10am from the resort, and since Steve wasn't finished writing, I took the girls to go see their cousins Jane, Meg, and Kate. They were out at the swimming pool when we arrived, so the girls read books while we waited (Cecily napped). I love that Mira can sit for close to an hour pretending to read anything that strikes her fancy. In this picture, she's reading a hymnal.

This last week, I was in recovery mode again. Steve hadn't touched the house all weekend (I didn't expect him to) and I hadn't left it in a tidy place. Plus, I had laundy to do and groceries to buy. Emilia had two soccer games and Mira had another day of preschool.

A reservoir called Little Dell that is up East Canyon.

On Thursday, we had some friends come over and we baked and decorated sugar cookies. I enjoyed the process and having friends there to help and to keep the kids engaged. Usually, I end up helping them all decorate one cookie, which they immediately eat, and then decorate 40 more all by myself.

friends and sugar cookes

Saturday night, we had our friends the Childresses over again and we all watched the BYU football game. Our quarterback is out for the year with a broken foot, but our freshman second string did an excellent job, considering.  We won the game on a hail Mary toss in the last 24 seconds, so there was a lot of shouting at the end. :)

I set a goal with my writing last month and this month to average 500 words a day. I was able to stick to that last month, and I'm on track this month, but we have another vacation at the end of September that I'm worried will put me behind. So I'm gonna go work on that.  Happy Sunday!

Homemade Fresh Tomato Soup

I made this soup last night with fresh tomatoes from the garden and it was delicious with cheese sandwiches. I told my mom I would post it so she could try it out.

Ingredients

1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
5 large fresh tomatoes, chopped
2 cups water
1 can tomato paste
2 tablespoons sugar
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Directions
Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook until juices are released. Add the tomato paste, water, sugar, bouillon cubes, basil (if using dried--if you're using fresh, add it with the cream), parsley, and salt and pepper. Stir to combine, then heat almost to a boil. Turn off the heat and stir in the cream. Serve warm.

2015 Family (Stay at Home) Vacation

We've been planning for over a year to go on vacation to the beach. But then Steve's car broke, again. So we downgraded to a stay-at-home variety, but to keep with the theme, we did a "Ladybug Girl at the Beach" staycation.

Steve took Thursday off work, but we didn't want to take Emilia out of school for two days during her first full week of school. So Thursday morning, Steve looked for cars. Then, after Emilia got out of school, and Cecily woke up from her nap, we planned on going to a place called "Sandy Beach" right here in Springville. But Cecily got a late start to her nap, and I had a bunch of running around to do that afternoon, and Steve had a backache from driving all over the place. So we postponed the beach part until Saturday and instead, we went out for burgers & fries, then went to Nickel City and all the girls got to pick out treasures (prizes), then went to Farr's Fresh Ice Cream and gorged ourselves on sugary milky goodness.

Friday, Steve let me sleep in, and when I got up we watched Home. Have any of you watched it? It was awesome! Witty, and touching, and laugh out loud. Emilia and I cried at the end. Then after Cecily's nap, we went to 7 Peaks (a local water park with a wave pool, tons of water slides, two kids areas, and a lazy river) for 4 hours and had a blast wearing ourselves out in the water. We played in the waves of the wave pool and Emilia even tried one of the big waterslides, so she faced a fear, just like Lulu. I didn't take any pictures of these festivities because I wanted my phone to still work at the end of the day.

Saturday, Steve was going to buy a car in the morning, but once he had a mechanic look at it, we changed our minds. While he was gone, I got the kitchen floor mopped, and Emilia had a soccer game. Once again, after Cecily's nap, we headed to "Sandy Beach," which is a beach off Utah Lake that is very sandy, but the best part is that the water is warm, and it's only about a foot or two deep for a good hundred yards out into the lake. After Cecily's mad dash after the duck last week, it was good to know she wouldn't sink into a drop off when we turned our heads. We built a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, searched for seashells--Emilia found another live clam, but didn't want to take it home this time--and made footprints in the sand.

Best vacation we've ever had as a family, hands down. No stress, no packing, no trying to sleep five of us in the same room. Except for the lack of tide pools and real seashells, I'd say this vacation was better than any California beach vacation we could have taken. Wahoo!

Oh, and did I mention that the sunset was amazing? It was. And I took lots of pictures.

The Monday before our vacation, Mira was feeling sad that Emilia has started school and she hadn't. So I took her and Cecily to the Bean Museum. They wanted pictures with all of the statues outside.

One more random pic for you. Mira told me she had ear plugs in. They were really just puffballs. Goofball.