summer schedule

The week after Memorial Day was our first week of summer break at home. The week didn't really start for us until Thursday since we didn't get home from St. George until late Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday morning is when we made our schedule, and so far it has worked well for us. We haven't been able to keep within the schedule on any of the days really, but it's made it so that we're expecting what comes next and we're able fit the important things into each day. We shift things around when the need arises and it's actually kind of freeing to not have to decide each day what we're going to do. Decisions take a lot of mental energy, so having a lot of them already made is so nice.

Last Sunday, the Watts parents came and hung out with us. We had tasty ribs for dinner and played games with the kids and had ice cream for dessert. The kids really miss being able to go to Grandma and Grandpas for dinner on Sunday so it was a treat to have them here.

Grandma and Grandpa had a free day on Monday, so they offered to take us to paint pottery. It was, as always, really fun. Mira and Cecily had never done it before, and Emilia hadn't done it in like 7 years. They decided we HAVE TO go back again soon. If only it was a less expensive activity! We haven't gotten our pieces back yet, but when we do I'll take some pictures and include them next time.

Monday night, we had our monthly Frohlich birthday dinner since Megan and Ariana were in town for just 3 days. Cecily had an epic meltdown over her birthday gift, which is becoming a habit for her lately (the meltdowns, not necessarily about birthday gifts). On the way home, the sunset was just too pretty to not take pictures of it. So I pulled off the side of the road and took some.

Tuesday has been designated as play date day and all three of the girls had friends over to play that day. They also had dentist appointments. Nobody has cavities and I'm super grateful for good teeth genes. Tuesday is currently our gymnastics day, too, and right after, we went to see another house. It was a gorgeous house with way too much landscaping (and a west-facing backyard, Nick). We decided that despite it being a gorgeous house, it wasn't the one for us. We're trying hard to figure out where we can best serve the Lord in this move, but haven't felt any direction yet. Hopefully we'll figure it out about the time we get done with the work we want to do on this house and we can have a fairly smooth transition. Also, hopefully, it won't take us 9 months to get the work done on this house. That may be sort of a pipe dream though.

Wednesday is visit Nana day. The girls built legos with Nana and watched some TV while I looked at new home construction to see what that market looks like here. We scheduled a makeup gymnastics that night and since Steve was playing D&D, I got pizza for the girls on the way home. The Little Ceasars around here are currently giving away an extra pizza, a 2-liter, AND crazy bread with every online purchase. Even if you only buy a $5 pizza. That was a score. :)

Thursday is shopping day, so we went to Walmart and Party City. For essentials. Lol. Party City was for stuff for the birthday party I was supposed to throw for Cecily before we went to St. George and still hasn't happened. *sigh* At least I'm not mad at myself for being behind schedule. And she doesn't seem upset about it as long as she gets one eventually.

Thursday night I got a text from Haylee asking if I was going to the Independent Study teachers' conference that I'm supposed to attend each year. Apparently it was the very next morning. I didn't even know it was happening! I got locked out of my BYU email when I switched computers and I was too lazy to figure out how to get back in since I get notifications on my phone when I got emails and nothing important seemed to come up. Guess I was wrong on that. :D So Friday morning, I left the girls with Steve and headed to the conference. I wasn't more than a mile from my house when someone cut me off, forcing me to swerve into a curb to avoid be smashed by them. It totally popped my tire. :( There wasn't a spare in the trunk, even if i'd felt strong enough to undo lug nuts and put the car up on a jack. Fortunately, I was able to get ahold of Steve eventually, and a tow truck, and the whole endeavor only lost me an hour and about $150.

Yesterday, we were finally able to work on the bathroom again. In just under 3 hours, we got the undermount sink and new granite countertop installed. And that was with feeding kids lunch, taking care of the baby and having to borrow a drill when ours died. I was impressed with us. We're not super great at efficient home improvement. :)

Jules seems to be getting over her terrible sleep period. We've been sleep training her (not the hard-core cry-it-out method) and she's been doing really well with it. She's been only waking up once at night and it's really great to feel more rested again.

I've also been continuing to work on my website and book covers for people. I might have a paying job if I can get a photo to the right specifications for a very particular lady wanting a horror-esque real estate non-fiction book. . . . Yes, you read that right. Because those topics obviously go together and should be a cinch to incorporate into well-designed book cover, right? *le sigh* :D

I'm looking forward to seeing what this next week brings.

trip to St. George for Memorial Day

We went to St. George for a week over Memorial Day. The baby got an ear infection. I averaged about 5 hours of sleep per night. Steve and I both got fevers and a sore throat and fatigue at one point. It was supposed to be warm swimming weather and it averaged 65 degrees most days, with a LOT of rain.

But the kids loved seeing their cousins. And I actually got a lot of computer work done. I made five more book covers. I wrote a picture book. I got the content written for my new website. The kids ignored the weather and swam 5 out of the 7 days we were there. Steve got to play games almost every day. Plus, the views with all the clouds were amazing!

I think it was an overall win. :)

In the ongoing process of getting our house ready to sell, we weeded the yard yesterday and put down 10 bags of new mulch. With all the rain, the yard is looking amazing, so that's a net positive for sure. On the other hand, the undermount sink kit we ordered off Amazon got lost in the mail and we had to request a refund and order a new one. So our bathroom update got delayed a week for us being gone and another week for the part getting lost. *rolls eyes* You win some you loose some.

In better news, the baby is now on antibiotics for her ear infection and feeling much better. She's been super smiley today. Also, we made a schedule for the summer that everyone agreed to live by and it includes a 1/2 hour a day for chores. This might be the cleanest our house has been in years! Emilia was so excited to have a schedule that she volunteered to make it a picture schedule for Cecily. She did a great job.

We started Jules on solids and one day I tried giving her green beans. She didnt love them. She likes fruit and rice cereal though. I was hoping the solids would help her sleep better but no dice. She's doing worse now than she was at 3 months. *so tired*

And here's some Mira happiness to end my post.

School is wrapping up, we're looking for a new house

Steve and I decided that we need a bigger house. So we've been trying to get our house ready to sell and we've been searching real estate listings and going to see houses. The problem is, we are not very good at making quick decisions. So we may never move. Haha.

Last Saturday, we started updating our master bathroom. We did the kids' bathroom a couple years ago and then I lost steam on updating the house, so our master has been ugly the entire time we've lived here. We knew it at least needed paint. Because it was this atrocious lemon yellow color. And I'd torn down the beadboard that was in there when I tore it out of our bedroom, so that wall was full of holes and a different color on the bottom. And if we were going to paint, we thought we should take down the ugly shelf that was in there. And the towel rack and shower curtain bar. And once all that was done, I couldn't help myself. We took down the light fixture and the mirror and bought a granite countertop to replace the ugly wood and formica one we had. Last Saturday, Steve took everything down and filled holes and patched where the drywall had been ripped up. I put some orange peel texture on during the week. Then yesterday, we took off the old countertop, picked up the new one, took all the doors and drawer faces off and sanded the entire vanity. Hopefully this week I'll actually have the motivation and time to paint the cabinet and the walls.

I also planted stuff in my front planters. We still desperately need to weed out front. And our entire house should be painted. But we'll see if that happens.

Mira and Cecily had their yearly checkups a few weeks ago. They are perfectly normal and healthy. In the same percentiles they've been their entire lives. Mira around 50% and Cecily around 85%.

A few weeks ago, Cecily also got an award at school for being a good student/friend/whatever the teachers sees them doing well at. She was so so proud of herself. It was really good for her. On the way home, she kept saying, "I bet Emilia and Mira were SO proud of me." I love her.

Two Mondays ago, we had Ben's family over for dessert and family home evening. We wanted Ben to look at the house to see what he would fix up and what he would leave in order to make the house the most appealing when we want to sell. For FHE, we talked about the story of the 10 Lepers from the New Testament and made a thankful jar that we were supposed to add to every night at dinner (we didn't).

Two Tuesdays ago, Steve had an appointment with an ENT to see if sleep apnea is the cause of his horrible snoring. The doctor said it was more likely because he has a really big tongue, but gave us an order to have an at-home sleep apnea test done. Steve did that this past week and we haven't gotten the results yet.

That evening, Steve and I went on a date to the Tolkein movie. Steve has always LOVED the Lord of the Rings, so I had to get us tickets. My parents were kind enough to babysit all 4 kids and we really enjoyed the time away as well as the movie. It was really well done.

I had friends in town for Storymakers last weekend. I didn't attend this year because of Jules, but I went and had dinner with my long-distance writing group. Then I stayed up late chatting with them and listening to all the things they'd learned that day.

Last Monday, Cecily's kindergarten class had the moms come for a Mother's Day picnic. While it was fun to have lunch with Cecily on the lawn at school, if they really wanted to give us something for Mother's Day, I would have preferred not having to make an extra lunch, pack it up, haul the baby to the school along with her diaper bag, my purse, the lunch, and a blanket to eat it on, only to have all the kids go play on the playground after making a half-hearted attempt to eat their sandwiches.

We were in the car for three hours that night driving around to see three houses we were interested in. The kids were really done by the end, but I'm glad they came. It's good to see their perspective on the houses, and I think it's getting them more excited about moving.

Wednesday, we had to take the van in to the dealership to fix a recall on the airbag. We looked at another house that day.

Thursday was Cecily's Kindergarten graduation. Steve and my mom went while I was at a counseling appt that I hadn't realized would conflict when I set it up.

Friday, I went to help Camber between dropping Cecily off and picking the kids up from school. She just moved into a new, smaller apartment and needed help getting things put together. I also spent three hours that afternoon looking through all the MLS listings and figuring out which ones we wanted to go see yesterday. We ended up looking at three of them in the afternoon, only one of which was appealing in any sense. We may have put in an offer on it if not for the neighborhood. It backed up to a really trashy trailer park with no fence or bushes to conceal it and it was the nicest house on the street. Maybe it's judgemental of me to not want to live next to a trailer park, but I guess that's where I'm at in my life.

I've been doing more book covers and designing a logo for a website for said book covers. That's almost ready and I'm hoping I can give you a link to look at next week.

So, life is busy. Not surprisingly, I'm getting a cold. And loosing hair like their jumping ship cause my scalp is on fire and sinking in shark infested waters. <------added :d="" attention.="" br="" if="" just="" paying="" see="" still="" to="" were="" you=""> This is a photo of Jules that Emilia put together on an app on my mom's tablet. lol

Some selfies of Emilia

Well that's it, folks! Have a great week!

One week later

Monday of this week, I had activity days. I gotta say, I got moved to working with the 7-turning-8 year olds and I'm loving it. They're so much more excited about activities. They don't look at me like, "Are you serious with this?" or "Do I really have to talk?" Plus, I got a partner and that makes it so much easier!! She has great ideas and does half the prep work. We've only done two activities so far, but they've both been really fun. We made a resurrection eggs kit the Monday before Easter for the girls to share with their families, and last Monday, we did a get-to-know-you activity.

Tuesday, Emilia had her Tween Author Boot Camp. It was put on at the Provo Library, and it was basically a 4-hour conference for tweens who want to learn about writing. She says, "It was a whole lot of everything writer related." They learned about story structure, dialog, and writing appropriately descriptive prose. She also got dinner, a backpack, and listened to a keynote by J. Scott Savage.

That night the most beautiful double rainbow hung out over our house for a good twenty minutes.

The view was amazing, too.

Wednesday, all the fifth grades in the school district had a track meet and Emilia chose not to participate, so she cheered on her classmates for a couple hours and then I brought her and her friend Lizzy home. The other girls had gymnastics that evening.

Thursday and Friday had nothing special going on. I did some grocery shopping. I broke my phone. Like, did a really great job of destroying the screen. We had Lizzy over again and I helped them make Mt. St. Helens out of foam for their report/float on the state of Washington. We had our friend Cassie stay over night Friday night so she could hang out while her family moved on Saturday.

Saturday, I had a stake RS Activity and a baby shower to attend. Cecily had a birthday party to go to. Steve and my dad moved our treadmill out of the basement because we never use it anymore. Then Steve and I tried a new game called Photosynthesis after the kids were in bed. I got it the other day when Amazon had a board game sale. We enjoyed it. It's different enough from the other games we have that it's still interesting, but it's still got enough strategy that it shouldn't get boring anytime soon.

That pretty much covers our week. Oh! Except, I decided to try to start designing book covers to make some extra money. I've been working on some this week for friends as practice.

Here's my mockups for them:

Teacher Appreciation Week is next week and since I'm on the committee, I am helping out. Mostly, they just wanted me to design a print to give as a gift to the teachers. The theme for the week is "UP." Not the movie--like "giddy up," "batter up," "dress up," etc. I'm proud of how the finished print turned out, too, though I can't take credit for the layout. I copied it from here: https://www.raisinglemons.com/creator/holidays/teacher-appreciation-week-2/

And lastly, your weekly dose of Jules. She's started sleeping with her arms above her head and it's adorable. I love this stage.

Also, those eyes!

And that belly! Those toes! Every inch of her is the cutest, in my totally unbiased opinion. :)

Mira's birthday, spring break, a baptism, and Easter

Spring has definitely sprung around here. Flowers and budding fruit trees and rain. Lots of rain. ;)

The kids had spring break the first week of April. We didn't plan well, so we only went out of town Thursday afternoon through Sunday.

But we did enjoy our time at home. Playing with friends, watching TV, and visiting Nana.

Thursday afternoon, we took the girls to the Provo Rec Center. We decided to brave taking Jules and it went pretty well. We definitely ended up leaving earlier than we would have before she was born, but she was really good, considering.

Friday through Sunday we went to St. George. We hiked in the Red Cliffs recreation area first.

The water was mountain run off and freezing. But the kids all got in -- in their only clothes.

The weather was in the 70s and perfect the whole weekend.

It was General Conference weekend, so we watched that with family.

It was a good relaxing weekend.

Cecily drew these one day. I am so super impressed with her artistic skill lately.

I arranged these flowers for my friend who's going through a hard time lately and dropped them off one day.

I also made this bib before we went down to St. George. She's been so super drooly lately.

I didn't do a party on Mira's birthday. We were in the midst of Marie Kondoing and spring break and all sorts of goings on, so we finally had her birthday party on the 15th. It was a tea party and it was so much fun to put together.

Mira was baptized on the 14th. There were 4 other girls that all got baptized that day. AND Dylan was baptized that day.

After everyone left, I started going through my fabric and craft supplies. It took all afternoon just to go through the fabric. It's not that choosing what to keep or give away that was so hard. It was deciding how to organize it after.

I love the faces Jules makes. She cracks me up all the time.

I also designed Alison's wedding invitation this last week. Did I tell you I took her invitation photos, too. I think they turned out really good.

Friday, Cecily had a field trip to the zoo and Steve was able to go with her. He took a 1/2 day off at work and the two of them had a lot of fun. I was feeling bored and stuck in the house, though, so Friday night, we got takeout and took it to a park. Then we went to the used book store and let the kids pick out some books. Mira read a bunch of books to Cecily so she would know what she wanted to buy. It was so sweet.

I did Easter baskets on Saturday so I could keep the Easter Bunny separate from the celebration of Christ's resurrection.

Then Saturday night, I took Emilia out on a mother-daughter date to Fiiz drinks. We got "dirty" drinks, macarons, and a red velvet cookie. Emilia loved the massive amounts of sugar, obviously.

Such pretty girls on Easter morning.

And now we're at my parents house, eating ham, potatoes, jello, cheesecake, and Easter egg candy. It's been a good day. *sigh*