Wheat bags...or how I'm not freezing 100% of the time.

Can I say how much I love wheat bags? The one I have is filled with wheat, but most of them these days are filled with rice. Or corn. (Just don't try popcorn--bad idea.)

An ode to wheat bags:

At night before I go to sleep,
I warm you up to warm my feet.
Or if I languish on the chair
because of all the cold, cold air,
shivers you'll drive away from me
and all my winter blues do flee.

I have extremely low blood pressure, so I can't keep my feet warm, even if I'm wearing socks and covered in three blankets. Without one of these babies, I would be a cold mess all winter long.

This week has been interesting--downs and ups and in between.

Mira and Cecily and I were all sick this week. Mira is still recovering from being sick the week before. Her cough was pretty horrible at the beginning of the week, though she's mostly better now. I stayed in bed for most of the day on Tuesday and have felt a little run down, but kept the awfulness Mira had at bay by taking lots of vitamins and resting for the day. When I was younger, I always pushed through colds. I would go as hard as I could until I collapsed. But I've learned in my 'old age' that it's so much better to put everything aside as soon as I feel something come on. Then I don't have to collapse and be miserable for a week or more. It's so much better!

Emilia had her 2nd grade program this week. She got to sing in a trio for the performance and I was proud of her for getting that honor. It was actually an entertaining program. The theme was the civil rights movement and I think the kids learned a lot from doing it. They had a great slide show that went along with the parts the kids were saying, so it was more entertaining for the adults, too. Plus, they got to sing fun songs like "This Little Light of Mine," and "Lean on Me." Grandma and Grandpa Watts were able to join us and we had hot chocolate and donuts afterward. A fun night.

The highest part of the week, for me, was finishing the first chapter of the new book I'm writing. I've been trying to start it for about a month now, but every time I sat down to write, I couldn't put more than a few words on the page without seizing up (mentally). But this week, I finally pushed past that writers block and got a whole chapter done!

On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest part of this week came Friday morning when my Grandma Frohlich passed away. She'd been having heart troubles and was in surgery when her heart stopped. I didn't know her very well, but I was able to stay at her house the last two times I went to North Dakota and enjoyed her company. She was a feisty woman with a good sense of humor. I was always impressed with her willingness to learn and try new things. She did crosswords to keep her mind sharp, she rode (as a passenger) on a motorcycle this last year, and she had a facebook account--that she actually used! She also had a strong belief in God which I appreciated and respected. I'm sorry I didn't know her better.

Yesterday, my parents were supposed to leave to drive back to North Dakota for the funeral, but the weather disagreed with their plans. It dumped about five inches on us down here in Springville. I don't think they got as much further north. But the kids LOVED running around in it for hours. And it left us a beautiful vista this morning. One of my favorite things about snow in Utah, is that--unlike North Dakota where the wind never stops blowing--the snow will sit on the branches of the trees here, weighing them down. It's especially beautiful on pine trees. They're my favorite in this kind of snow. :)

The girls and the cat rollicking in the snow.

Also on Friday, Emilia had a RadKids simulation. I had no idea what that meant and didn't plan on going even though Emilia reminded me about it every couple days. But at 12:15 I got a phone call from the school saying Emilia had come into the office really upset that the date on the flyer was wrong and I was going to miss it if I didn't get to the school immediately. Seeing that this was important to her, I dropped what I was doing and dragged the younger two over to the school. RadKids is a program that teaches kids all kinds of safety. Safety from predators, traffic safety, chemical safety, fire safety, etc. They had lessons and practice during gym class for a few months. For the simulation, two police officers came to the school and dressed up in foam armor. Then they pretended to be someone coming to the school to pick them up and someone trying to grab them and take them somewhere. When the officer grabbed the first of Emilia's classmates and I watched this little seven-year-old boy fight tooth and nail to get away from this "bad guy," I surprised myself by crying. It was hard to see a child in that situation. But I'm so grateful that our children were taught how to defend themselves. Most of the kids knew exactly where and how to hit the "bad guy" to hurt him enough to let them go. It's a great program. I'm glad our school did it.

This last picture is something Mira did that impressed me. I was working on my computer and she kept coming up to me and saying, "Mom! I need a puppet. How do I make a puppet?" There was no way I was going to go sew a puppet for her right that minute--and for some reason I didn't remember at the time that we have a few stuffed animals that are puppets--so I brushed her off. About ten minutes later, she came into the room again. "Mom, look! I made a puppet!" That white thing in front of her is a piece of paper she drew a picture on. Then she took a baggie and glued it to the back so she could stick her hand in it. She is so creative, it really blows me away.

My kids are super adorable

I forgot to mention last week that my Dad came down and fixed this thing for us.

Our water softener started to leak and when the company came out to fix it, they said it was a problem with our pressure regulator. I didn't even know that thing existed. But apparently every house has one, and ours was original to the house and no longer functioning at all. The pressure was way too high and was forcing water out of our softener against its will. :)

Cecily playing on the computer at the library.

I can't say how much money my dad has saved us by helping us fix/make/redo things around this house, but it's a lot. And I am amazed every time at his handiness. I don't know if there are many people these days that have that kind of skill, but he does.

Mira made this "marry room" for me.

Steve and Emilia both had Martin Luther King Day off. We didn't have any plans for the day, but it turned out to be relaxing and fulfilling. In the morning, Steve went to the temple and I hung out with the kids while they played. After lunch, Ben and Dylan came over so Steve and Ben could play LOTR card game and the girls made books together and played dolls. That meant I got to go to the grocery store ALL BY MYSELF. And I managed to save 50% on my purchases, so it was even kind of exiting. It felt like a vacation almost. :) After Cecily woke up from her nap, we ate dinner and took everybody to the Cocoa Bean for hot chocolate and treats. Then back at home, we watched the new Annie movie (which was terrible, sadly). Then the kids went to bed and I got to work on my writing for a while. Great day right there.

My girls and their cousins at the birthday party.

Tuesday, Megan came down with the girls in the afternoon. It was nice to have them visit and play. I also got to hang out with my friend Gina that night, which is always nice.

Mira made this MLP pony with playdoh hair.

We also got to go to the library this week, do some rearranging and decluttering, and yesterday I took the older two girls to cousin Meg's birthday party while Steve tried potty training Cecily. He was unsuccessful. And we haven't had any success today yet either. I'm not sure any of us are going to last much longer if we don't see more progress tonight. I'm a super impatient potty trainer I guess.

Today Steve and I were asked to give talks in church. It's nice to not be nervous or worry about speaking in public. I just had to figure out how to speak on the topic, "How is Jesus Christ important in my life." That was a tough one to narrow down to a 12-min talk, but it seemed to turn out okay.

Besides, with these smiley happy kids, how can everything not be okay?

Football is fun. So are books. And embroidery.

It was another slow week. Monday was the college football championship game and we invited our friends, the Childresses, over to watch with us. Camber and I ended up chatting the whole time while the boys watched the game. We all had fun though.

I read another book this week--Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles. It as entertaining, but I wouldn't recommend it. It was rather badly done. Cliched and heavy handed.

I also finished outlining my next writing project, which is a huge step for me. Outlining is super hard, since plotting is not my strong point. I'm much better at characters. My friend Leah (one of the members of my writing-group-no-more) is a master outliner and she skyped with me yesterday for an hour helping get all the plot points ironed out. I'm so grateful for good friends who are willing to help like that. Steve helped this week, too. I had my characters figured out, but could not figure out anything with the plot. He helped me realize that the characters weren't really compatible and I needed to put them in two different stories. As part of that, he was impersonating characters. You know your husband loves you when he'll impersonate a 16-year-old black girl from the deep south in order to help you outline your novel. :D

Emilia didn't have school on Friday, so the girls had a blast playing together for most of the day. At 4pm we were supposed to go up to Nick and Wilda's to meet our new foster-cousins Flo and Sebastian. The Coombs' came up for a funeral, so we got to meet the little ones. They were super cute. Flo, who is 3, seemed to get along well with my girls. And Emilia and Mira always love playing with Haley, too.

While we were there, I worked on my embroidery. Steve needed some new handkerchiefs, so I hand-embroidered some new ones for him. I enjoy that kind of work. And I like how they turned out.

Today we get to go up to my parents' house for dinner. We'll be celebrating Haylee's birthday and we get the treat of seeing the Staleys who are in town for the week. Hopefully, tonight I will have some time to make and write down goals for the new year. I'm a big believer in writing down goals. I'm much more likely to accomplish them. But I haven't taken the time yet this year to do that and I hope to have that time tonight. That would be nice.

Reading and writing

I have no pictures this week. That means I should keep it short, I guess.

Steve got to role play this week.

My writing group had a retreat, which was rather disastrous. The group will not be meeting any more after this, so I'll have to go a different direction. I think it's for the best, though I'll probably mourn it for a while. It was really good for me as a person and really good for me as a writer.

I got to go thrift shopping on Friday and got some new clothes and a bunch of new toys for the kids (which, being a couple weeks after Christmas, was probably not necessary at all, but it was fun). I also got a few decorations, so it was a productive trip.

I read a lot this week, too. I finished two books -- Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I also read about 300 pages of reading from my writing group. Reading the books was so relaxing! I haven't read an actual book in close to year. Most of the time, I listen to them while I exercise and while I drive without the kids (which happens rarely, but when it happens, it's usually for a long drive).

That's about it. Maybe that's why I don't have pictures. :)

TIE fighters relax with the Tooth Fairy and Snoopy

It was a good week. From Saturday night to Wednesday morning, we had cousins Jane and Meg and Kate staying with us. Steve was super worried that we would all lose our minds minds before it was over, but it turned out great.

Sunday, we took them all to church. It was interesting getting them all ready before nine o'clock, including doing their hair. (We didn't quite make it--but 20 minutes late isn't too bad, I think.) Then after church, we went to Nick and Wilda's for dinner and to give the girls a new venue to play in. They were very well behaved and even ate a pretty good dinner considering how picky the six of them are (except Cecily).

Nick kindly offered to take the girls to some activities on Monday and Tuesday and we took him up on it. Monday, we all went to the "leisure pool" at the Orem Rec Center. It has a small play structure for little kids, a large shallow area, and a big slide. To my surprise, my girls all LOVED the big slide. Everyone went down probably 25 times. Then, Tuesday, we all went to The Force Awakens and then to Chucky Cheese for lunch and to get some energy out. By the time Tuesday evening rolled around, I was feeling worn out. Not crazy--just stretched thin. I'm not used to paying attention to that many small people all the time. Tuesday night, while I was reading in the living room in an attempt to relax my brain, the girls decided they wanted to make X-wings and TIE fighters out of boxes. Luckily we had just enough large empty boxes leftover from Christmas to give everyone a box to decorate. They had a loads of fun coloring control panels and attaching canons, then "flying" around fighting each other.

Wednesday, we all relaxed. I did some Christmas returns after dropping off the girls to the next babysitter, but that's the only thing I remember doing that day. Steve did have friends over that night and I remember putting Christmas decorations away while they were here. I didn't finish though, so I have some bare shelves and a couple random decorations littering the rest. Thursday was kind of the same way.

Our New Years was boring. I didn't feel like hosting anybody with kids, and all our friends with grown kids were out of town. We ended up watching the new Mission Impossible after the kids went to bed. I actually liked it quite a bit. Except for Tom Cruise. But that's kind of a given.

We did more shopping Saturday and Steve cleaned out the Christmas tree while I did the budget. Mira and Cecily got new Build-a-Bear toys. I was surprised when Cecily chose to get Snoopy instead of a Toothless like she's been asking for for ages. She enjoyed the Peanuts movie a lot.

Oh! And how could I forget? The Toothfairy visited our house twice this week. Emilia's smile is decidedly different now. :)

Christmas and visitors

Last week we celebrated Christmas with my family on Sunday, which threw off my schedule, which made me forget to blog. Ergh. Holidays really throw everything off. But this week went smoothly, and I didn't feel like Christmas day was a chaotic mess, so I'll call it a good holiday and continue on.

The family, minus Megan's clan, in my parent's newly wall-less great room.

Emilia was half-way through this book before the night was over. It's her second time reading it.

I really enjoyed our Monday night FHE activity. Our oldest nephew, McKay, entered the Missionary Training Center (MTC) about ten weeks ago. He's preparing to serve a mission for our church in Russia and will leave in about two weeks. We get the emails he sends each week, but we hadn't written to him yet, so for FHE, we all wrote him letters, and the girls--who had each made him a Christmas ornament for a gift--wrapped their gifts to him. It was cute to see what they wanted to say to him and it was a good time to reflect for me.

I'm really liking my new haircut.

On Tuesday, we took the letters and ornaments, along with some chips and salsa and homemade goodies, put them all in a box and went it to him at the MTC. Since we live near Provo, where the MTC is, we just had to take the box to a nearby shipping store and they delivered it same day. It worked out nicely. Apparently, the food wasn't the best choice (he said in his next email that he had way too much food sent to him), but hopefully the letters and gifts from his cousins were appreciated. We enjoyed making them.

I love my goobers. This one should have been born in Old Hollywood.

Tuesday night through Thursday evening were sort of a blur. We had gifts to wrap and I embroidered a handkerchief for Steve. I ended up having to go to Walmart not once but twice. Once on Christmas Eve.

I know. I'm that person. The one who has to shop on Christmas eve. In my defense, it was for milk and bread and the items from you-know-who that Steve didn't think to shop for before Christmas Eve. Not my fault, really. Right?

Joseph and Mary

Mary pondering the baby Jesus.

The angel and the shepherd (who nearly whacked the angel in the head with that crook)

The wise man presenting the baby with myrhh.

The evening of Christmas Eve, we drove up to the Watts' and had a simple dinner and a sparse Nativity "play." There were only our three girls to play all the parts, so it was interesting. Especially when our shepherd (played by Cecily) heard the Angel (Emilia) and ran screaming from the room. Of course, she ran back again a few seconds later, because it's just fun to run while wearing a head covering and holding a cane.

It was a white Christmas.

Christmas Day, we opened presents from Santa, watched Return of the Jedi (so the kiddos would be prepared to watch The Force Awakens this week--and really, when is watching Star Wars not a good idea?), opened presents from each other, put together a new Lego set, and had frozen pizza for dinner--because not having to make dinner is an awesome Christmas present if you ask me.

Then we had Saturday to prepare ourselves for the Coming of the Cousins. Which is really just Nicole and Tristan's three girls coming to stay with us for three days while they head off to the Caribbean.

Today was interesting, getting six girls 8 and under ready for 9 o'clock church. The hair alone took me nearly 1/2 an hour. But they were all good at church and played like rock stars at Grandma and Grandpa's house the rest of the day, so I feel like we're off to a great start.

One of my Christmas gifts. Socks are always welcome for this cold-footed girl.

Cecily told Steve to sleep (on the living room floor) and then laid down by him.

Of course, Mira joined in soon after.

And then there were three. :)

Cutest elves ever

We're here at Nick and Wilda's and I'm glad to be done with another week. The month between Thanksgiving and New Years always seems to run me ragged. It seems to run most people ragged. Which makes me wonder, are we really honoring the spirit of the season by doing this to ourselves? Is there another way to celebrate that wouldn't require so much busy-ness and would allow us to focus more on the Savior? I haven't come up with an answer to those questions yet. I'd love to hear your ideas if you have more insight than me.

This last week, we had a couple Christmas-related activities. We decorated our tree for last Sunday. Steve was wise and decided to do it in the evening after we'd gotten PJs on. Then when Cecily decided to be a terror, we just stuck her in bed and went on with the decorating.  Wednesday, Steve worked from home so I could take Emilia to the Ballet West production of The Nutcracker at Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. It was an 11am mantinee for a bunch of schools. Surprisingly, the children all behaved themselves well and it was a beautiful production. Emila threw a fit at intermission that her cousins all got nutcrackers and she didn't (she brought one from home). She also was not happy to have to sit through the whole show or the drive home. But a stop at McDonald's for a Pokemon happy meal improved her spirits.

I also had writing group this week, with submissions to read. But since it's Christmas, I also made gifts for everyone. Below is a picture of a bookmark I made for them. I laminated them after this, but I forgot to get a picture of that before I gave them away.

Friday I got to hang out with a good friend, and Saturday, we did some decluttering and I got to write for a few hours. Writing was heavenly. And I'm so close to finishing this book! I'm excited to be done with a first draft so I can move on to editing.

Saturday was Nick's birthday, so for our dessert tonight, I made his favorite: carrot cake. I still have carrots in my garden because my kids won't eat them if they're not baby carrots from the store. Here's a monster one I picked. Crazy thing.

I got these flowers from a friend for my birthday. I also got a bouquet from Steve, which I didn't get a picture of. I love having beautiful flowers around the house at any time of year, but it's a special treat in the middle of winter.

Since we got all the Christmas decorations out, we of course found the "stylish yulecaps" as Steve calls them. The girls have had a lot of fun wearing them this week.

Surprisingly, I'm not freaking out about Christmas gifts this year. I have a few more to purchase. Mostly for Steve. I have an idea of what I want to give him, though, so hopefully, I can continue with the calm in that department, because I don't seem to be calm in many other areas.

Next Sunday we're having the Frohlich family Christmas celebration since Megan will be in town from Colorado. So the girls will have lots to entertain them after that. I'm looking forward to the new entertainment. The mess, not so much.