Birthdays and St. George and a pool party escapade.

I haven't posted for a couple weeks. We've had some exciting weekends, even though the weeks in between were pretty mundane.

Three weekends ago was Easter. That was the last time I posted. The day after Easter was Mira's birthday. She had her birthday party that day. She wanted a Star Wars themed party, which was really nice, because I'm a Star Wars geek and had all the decorations in my basement already. For activities, I stuck vehicle Micro Machines in a bowl of baking soda and had them use vinegar to 'sink' them like Finn and Poe's ship sinks in Force Awakens. We had them each choose a pool noodle light saber (that I made the night before) and played Yoda Says and had them practice redirecting blaster fire back at Storm Trooper Steve. Some of the girls had some talent there. :) We played musical chairs with Star Wars music, and of course had cake and ice cream before opening presents. Mira loved it.

Party favors: Force Awakens cup, coloring packs, and bubble wands. Easy Peasy.

Ships prior to being sunk.

The super easy, I-have-a-1/2-hour cake.

Yoda says.

Sinking ships in progress.

The sunken ships. Two of the kids made swamps. :)

The red ballons were the blaster fire.

The day after the party, cousins were still here, so I took them all to the dinosaur museum. Cecily's been asking to go back ever since.

Digging for bones and getting SUPER dirty.

Dinosaur ROAR.

Mira wanted a picture. :)

Cousin Kate.

Two weekends ago was General Conference (for our church). I look forward to getting the Ensign (church magazine) for May so I can read the talks, since having three small kids does not lend itself to being able to concentrate for four two-hour sessions in one weekend.

Sunday night, my family came over so we could celebrate birthdays and eat good food. Megan was in town, so it was nice to see her and her family and have everybody together.

Last weekend, we went to St. George to visit Steve's sister, Cindy and her family. Since St. George is so close to Zions National Park, we thought it might be fun to do a hike there, but then it rained all weekend. Fortunately, Snow Canyon is about 45 minutes closer than Zions, so we decided to hike there (with all six kids) during a break in the rain. The break ended up being MUCH shorter than the weather man told us it would be, and we got drenched. We got about 1/3 of a mile into the hike and the sky opened up on us. Fortunately, Steve brought our big umbrella and eight of us huddled underneath it to keep somewhat dry. Joe and Sebastian toughed it out with their hat and sun shade. It was a mini adventure in a non-threatening flash flood. Kind of cool. :)

We also went to the discovery museum there, rode on the carousel, and braved the splash pad, where we got rained on and Emilia slashed her leg open on a giant metal frog.

On the way home, we saw rainbow after rainbow after rainbow. They were GORGEOUS. I wish the photos I took could do it justice. It was a beautiful way to end the weekend.

Yesterday I took Emilia and Mira to cousin Jane's birthday party at the Layton wave pool. As Nicole astutely put it, it's like the beach, but better. No sand, no salt, but lots of fun waves (and it was under one of those white bubble things, so indoors for the cold weather). We swam for nearly three hours (we only took a break to eat a cupcake and sing happy birthday - not in that order). During that time, I only nearly drowned Mira once and I was more freaked out about it than her. I had remembered everything that it would take to drive three of us an hour and 10 minutes to a swimming pool, change, shower, attend a birthday party, and play afterwards except flotation devices for my two children who do not know how to swim. Sigh. I even bought two brand new Puddle-Jumpers, which are, in my opinion, the best swimming invention since arm floaties and plastic diaper covers (you new mothers, you should check them out for sure). http://www.amazon.com/Stearns-Puddle-Jumper-Basic-Jacket/dp/B003648O7I (They usually sell them at Costco in the spring for cheaper than that.) And then I left them at home.

But since the pool had innertubes you could rent, I got one of those and kept an eye on them and gave them a stern reminder about how to be safe. Well, I should have listened to my own advice. At one point, Mira and I were bored, so I decided since Mira was safely aboard an appropriate-sized tube (and couldn't slip through the middle) that we were safe to swim out to the wave wall and back. She really wanted to go to the deep end, so I thought this was a good compromise. All was well until we reached the wall and Mira decides she wants to touch it with her toes. Before I can stop her, she's reached her toes forward enough to unbalance the innertube, flipping it over and dumping her in the water. Ahhhh! I somehow managed to keep both of us afloat, flip the innertube back over and swim us to the side of the pool where I maneuvered Mira up the ladder. Like I said, she was fine, but my heart raced for a good ten minutes after that. Needless to say, we didn't go back to the deep end even after she got a borrowed Puddle-Jumper.

I feel so lucky to be so close to family and to have the opportunities to do so many wonderful things. I'm very blessed.

Other random pictures from the last two weeks:

Can you spot the deer? There were about 8 of them back there.

It's fresh flower time again. Most of these were from my yard.

Easter shenanigans

These are the bunnies that my mom made with the girls last week. Aren't they cute?

I enjoyed this week a lot.Monday for family home evening, we tried to continue with the Easter theme and had a little mishap.  I made (the real meaning of) Easter eggs a couple of years ago. There are a dozen eggs and each one has a little physical prompt and a scrap with a scripture on them. The scriptures show the story of Easter. So, the first one has a little fake palm leaf and you read the scripture about Christ entering Jerusalem. When I made them, the kids were bored almost immediately. But this year, Emilia was excited to look at them again, so we got them out for FHE. All was well until we got to #3--the Feast of Unleavened Bread, where I apparently left the unleaved bread in there for two years. Somehow, there were still live bugs eating it when she opened it and everything fell onto her lap. She screamed and flipped out and we had to get the vacuum out to vacuum everything twice and they still did not want to walk in the living room. I was afraid she and Mira would have nightmares, but they both said prayers before bed that they would be able to forget about the whole thing and it seems that their prayers were answered.

Monday and Tuesday were rainy and cold. Not fun to be outside in, but my hyacinths bloomed beautifully.

I made spaghetti Monday night. I almost never make spaghetti. It's just so boring. But I wanted leftover spaghetti noodles to try this recipe. And I'm glad I did. It was delicious. Leftover spaghetti noodles, two eggs, sage, salt & pepper, and some gruyère, fried in butter and topped with green onions.

We worked on the bathroom a lot this week. One night we taped everything. One day I wiped down all the walls. It took me two days to put four coats of polyurethane on the cabinet. Friday night I started painting. After doing all the corners and the ceiling, I realized I did not like the color at all. So Saturday I ran to Home Depot and got paint samples. After much discussion, we figured out a new color to try, but didn't have time to get more, so I'll have to do that this week. Our undermount sink hardware came this week, too, so as soon as I get the room painted, we'll be able to put everything together. Wahoo!

Friday night, a local store that Cecily adores was having a chili cookoff/ice carving/log chopping contest. I decided we should all go and check it out. It was cold and the chili samples were like 2 bites big, so it wasn't that fun for me. But the kids always enjoy the rocketship slide, so at least there was that.

Saturday, we went as a family to get summer clothes for the girls. I think I've said before how much less stressful it is for me if I bring Steve along so he can make decisions about what to get and what to leave. It wasn't that hard this time. Apparently March is too early to go shopping for summer clothes. There wasn't much to choose from. We got it done, though! Including new Easter dresses for the girls. I can check that one off my list. Yessss!

We also had an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Grandma Watts was generous enough to provide tons of eggs and goodies for the kids to find. Plus, their cousins, the Nelson girls, are staying at Grandma and Grandpa's for the week, so the girls got to play with cousins, too. They were in heaven.

Then this morning, the girls had Easter baskets to find. My parents always hid our Easter baskets on Sunday morning and it was one of my favorite traditions. My parents were good at hiding them so it was a challenge to find them. I underestimated Mira. She found all three baskets in less than a minute. So I re-hid Emilia's before she got out of bed. It took her a little longer then. Cecily, for some reason, LOVES eggs. Eggs of all kinds. So Easter baskets and egg hunts were rather a dream come true for her. She needed me to take a picture of her this morning with her basket after she'd opened all of her eggs. :)

The girls in their Easter dresses.

A blur

This week was one of those weeks that everything seems like a blur because there was just so much of it. I volunteered at the school book fair twice this week, got my hair dyed again, went to parent-teacher conference, planned a birthday party for Mira, grocery shopped, exercised a few times, went to my mom's house so she could see the grandkids for a few hours, got my car fixed, brought a leprechaun to life, critiqued a sub from a writing friend, took Mira to a doctor appointment, attended a temple dedication, went to a birthday party for Steve's best friend, fitted the undermount sink in the girls' bathroom, watched the new Peanuts movie, wrote a couple thousand words in my book and two blog posts, and helped Emilia in her quest to learn to ride her bike.

If you want to read the blog posts, they are available here: http://scribblesanddabbles.blogspot.com/

I took exactly one picture and it was not related to any of this. It does illustrate how awesome my kids are, though. :)

Genius talker, developing singer, soon-to-be reader, a new job, and 'home' work.

I was sick again this week. I made it all winter being completely healthy and then February hit and I've been sick ever since. So silly. I'm glad I made it through winter, though. I'll take it.

Besides being sick on Wednesday and Thursday, I worked on our bathroom remodel. We want to update both upstairs bathrooms, but we decided to start with the girls' bathroom because it's also the one people who come over use, and because I already had all the decorations for it (that's probably not true--but I have a lot).

So I painted the cabinet this week and we removed the old countertop. I was able to find a used granite countertop on our local Craig's-List-type ads (KSL) that was the exact right size for our current vanity. It was cheaper than refinishing the countertop with one of those kits from Home Depot, plus it came with the sink and the faucet! I was super excited to find it. We'll have to do some work to get the new countertop on, but I think it will look great when we're done. I will definitely post before and after pictures.

I also had a breakthrough with my writing this week, remembered to take Mira to preschool on both Monday and Wednesday (miracle!), and was offered a job 'teaching' an after-school creative writing club at a local high school. One which I can bring my kids to and get paid well. I'm excited to start doing that in the next couple weeks.

Steve got to play LOTR card game, too, with my brother and another friend. He was sick one day, but apparently his was food poisoning, poor guy. He interviewed for a new position at work last week, but didn't hear back about it, so he's thinking he didn't get it. I don't think he was invested in this position, so I don't think he's too disappointed, but I think he'll keep looking. He's pretty bored at his current job and he's so smart, he definitely needs his work to be challenging in order to not hate it. That and he likes to feel like he's contributing to the big picture. In a company of over 100,000 employees, it's hard to see your contributions making a difference.

The kids are doing great, too. Cecily is becoming quite the singer. I'd post a video, but they don't work in the emails and nobody seems to be able to figure out how to get into the blog to look at them. :)

Cecily napping with Snoopy.

Mira is loving preschool. She's excited to tell me what she did every time I pick her up. I look forward to her learning to read next year. I've tried to teach her, but she doesn't have the patience to work with me every day, nor does she think I know what I'm talking about. So kindergarten it is. She will be a great reader and her highly active imagination will love it.

Mira picked out this outfit herself. Including the blue hairspray on her pigtails. She should be interesting as a teen.

Emilia has been in the 'special education' program at school since preschool when she tested as having a lot of Aspergers tendencies. Most of the things they/I worried about were social, but she has to have an academic subject she sees the special ed teachers for in order to stay in the program, so they choose to give her help in math since that was the subject she was least good at. This last week, though, the special ed teacher called me to tell me that Emilia is doing so well that she didn't think she needed services anymore. I had a couple meetings with them, they did a bunch of testing, and the school psychologist observed her. I had to fill out a behavioral questionnaire and so did the psychologist. And at the last meeting we went over everything. It seems at home, I see her having hyperactivity and anxiety issues, but she's handling them well at school, so they gave me some ideas to help her cope at home. The IQ testing they did knocked the socks off the school psychologist, though. In the language portion, Emilia scored a 146, which is genius-level (less than one percent of test takers score that high). Her overall IQ score was 126 which is still in the 'above average' range. So we were able to discuss how to keep her challenged in the coming years, so she doesn't get bored, or become afraid to face challenging things. Hopefully I'll be able to advocate for her and add to the education at home. The school staff seemed very willing to work with us, too. All of them seemed rather taken with her (I can see why). :)

Emilia got that die out of a vending machine yesterday, so she still thinks it's the best toy evah!