I called it

In my last post I said I was going to need a new laptop really soon.  Well, I called it.  Here I am typing this on my brand-spanking-new laptop.  (What does that saying mean, anyway?) I didn't post last week because Steve was running a disk check on my old laptop, which told him I had 25 gigs of bad sectors.  Plus the case was cracked, the left click key and space bar were sticking so bad I had to hit them three or four times before they would work, and it randomly locked up at least once a week. So now I have a pretty, new Asus 15 inch.  Nice.

I can honestly only think of one thing we did this week worth mentioning.  (Having Emilia in Kindergarten from 12:05 to 2:45 makes leaving the house an interesting timing issue.)  Last night we went up Hobble Creek Canyon as a family. It's the canyon here in Springville.  We tried going up there last month and it was a dismal failure, but last night went really well.

Last month, we got up there and realized Bubs had filled her diaper and we forgot the diaper bag.  That wasn't enough to turn us around though.  Oh no.  We had to go check out the river, which Steve decided it would be fun to cross with the two older girls, then step into the water without watching Mira.  She proceeded to follow him.  And then fall over.  Into the mountain run-off water.  At dusk.  In a poopy diaper.  I'm on the other side of the "river" (stream really), holding Cecily, so I can't go help. We have to get her sopping self, Emilia, who is now freaking out about falling into the river, and Steve across, and then all five of us up the 6 foot, steep embankment.  Oy.

But last night, we went to a different area where they had an AMAZING Pooh sticks bridge.  We love us some Pooh sticks in this family.  We also explored and swung on the swings for a minute.  I found the coolest looking leaf I've ever seen--it was irridescent! And the moon was out.  And the girls were in a good mood.  It was a great family nature outing.  Success!

Also mentionable for the week:  I went garage saling Saturday morning with my mom at the Eagle Mountian city-wide garage sale.  Most of the sales were rather disappointing (having grown up in ND where they really know how to do garage sales), but I got a few good deals, so I was happy. Monday for family night we played Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star Game.  I love that Emilia is excited to play Star Wars games with us.

I've been working on an art project that I'll post about when I have it done.

News for last week: Steve got his tablet back! Someone turned it in. The store called us on Labor Day and said it showed up on their customer service counter. We went and got it on the way to my parents' house. Hooray!

The girls had dentist appointments.  I never had a problem with dentists growing up, but I think Mira might.  She was terrified by them putting stuff in her mouth.  She looked really cute, though.

 She is wearing sunglasses because I take them to a pediatric dentist's office and they have TVs on the ceiling so the kids can watch a movie while their teeth are being worked on.  Why do kids get all the cool stuff? ;)

That's it for updates.  But her are a few more pictures.  Emilia has this amazing sense of fashion sometimes.  She came out wearing wearing this outfit the other day.  I was jealous I would never think to put that together, but she looked like she could be in a high fashion magazine. :)

There were fires west of Salt Lake a few weeks ago.  When we went to visit my mom one day, I clicked a few pictures of the cool clouds the smoke was making.  In the second one, you can see the red dot that was the sun. 

 I better get to bed. I stay up too late.

Our week

Sheesh. Last Monday seems like a long time ago. It wasn't a very exciting week, except for Thursday when Emilia started Kindergarten.

Tuesday night I did my visiting teaching (an LDS thing) and Wednesday night Steve had a meeting for his calling.  Thursday Emilia started school and Steve had game night (he plays role-playing games with a group of friends every other Thursday at our house). Friday we had a play date at the park before I took Emilia to school.  

Steve was excited because BYU had it's first football game Saturday.  His parents are camping, so we invited some friends to watch the game on their HD TV--only to find out that they didn't get the the channel it was on.  He and his buddy consoled themselves by watching the George/Clemson game which turned out to be a really good game.

Unfortunately, Steve lost his tablet at the grocery store while getting food for the get together.  He is looking at replacements as I write this.  It wouldn't be so bad, but his desktop needs upgrading and my laptop needs replacing (very soon), so it's one more thing to sink some money into.  He doesn't have a smart phone, so I feel like he deserves his tablet. :)

Sunday nights we usually go to the Watts' for dinner, but since they were out of town, I thought we would be having leftovers.  Luckily for us, our neighbors decided to fire up their brick oven and cook pizzas.  They invited three of us neighbors and I brought some watermelon, and brownies that Emilia and I cooked on a whim. We ended up with a very tasty evening meal and good company.  Steve even convinced one of the neighbors without small children to come over and play Dominion after the girls were in bed.  What a great way to spend a Sunday evening!

One cute anecdote for the week.  When I picked up Emilia from school on Friday, I asked what she had learned about.  She says, "Let me start with recess."  Haha!  I thought it was humorous, but then she proceeded to tell me that she and her new friend Alexia were playing and they got into an argument over what their "names" were going to be.  Alexia said she was never going to play with Emilia again.  Emilia started crying and went and stood by the teacher.  But later when they were doing small group stuff, she says they said sorry and made up.

I was impressed that they were able to do that.  I asked her what she learned and she says, "Alexia learned not to say she will never play with someone again."  I told her that was a good thing to learn, but it didn't tell me what she learned.  She had to think for a while on that one, but then said something to the effect that she shouldn't try to force people to have a certain name when they are playing.

Only two days at Kindergarten and already she has learned some life lessons.  My baby is growing up!

And some random pictures of my cuties. :)

Kindergarten!

Emilia's first day of kindergarten was yesterday. She was very excited to start school again. And although I'm not sure how I feel about her being in school already (and having homework every day), I think her being out of the house for a couple hours every day will be good for everybody.  She and Mira will get along better for being separated for a while, she and I will get along better because she has someone besides Mira and me to interact with, and she will be challenged mentally, so she won't be so bored with life.

Steve only works about 10 minutes from our house, so he decided to come to the school to drop her off on her first day.  I think that made them both happy.

Here's a picture of them walking to the front doors together.

 This one is a little blurry, but it was the only one I got outside the door.

 Finding her place to put her backpack.

 My sweet girl and me (with baby Cecily).

 Finding her name tag.

 She immediately made friends with the girl sitting next to her at the table because her name was Alexia. Emilia loves Barbie and the Diamond Castle and the main character's name is Alexa. How could they not be friends?

 Mira's reaction to having to leave Emilia in the classroom. I bribed her out of the school with an ice cream cone.

We also did a photo shoot before school started (since she's in afternoon kindergarten).  Here are some photos from that.

Sunday nights

I thought I might try to blog each week on Sunday nights.  We'll see how I do...

This last week was rather trying with the girlies.  The two older ones at least.  Mira is SO good at finding and pushing people's buttons.  And Emilia's buttons are easily pushed. And then screaming ensues.

I actually had Emilia yelling "Mom! She's touching me! Stop touching me!" this week.  Ugh.

But! Cecily slept from 10:00pm until 7:00am twice this last week! Oh my goodness, I lucked out with this child.  She is amazing.

Friday night, Wilda was nice enough to babysit the kids so Steve and I could celebrate our 7 year anniversary with a date.  (Our actual anniversary is today.) We played tennis for the first time in like 6 years and then had some tasty brick-oven pizza from a local place called Malawis.  Then we got some dessert and picked up the girls.  It wasn't epic or over-the-top, but it was really mellow and fun.  I'm looking forward to another year with him.

Saturday we tried to do something fun with the kids.  We ended up going to the splash pad in Spanish Fork, which we stuck our hands in for about 5 minutes and then played on the playground.  It was overcast and windy, so it was too cold for getting wet.  I invited Ben and Haylee and they came and we enjoyed their company, too.  We all went back to our house and chatted and let the girls play and watch My Little Ponies.  It was a relaxing type evening.  Very enjoyable.

Did you know they came out with a MLP movie where the ponies travel to earth and become "human?" There are toys in the store right now that make me hope my girls NEVER see the movie so I don't have to own those creepy dolls.  What were they thinking?

Also, since Steve had Friday off (he had to pick a day off in January so he picked the Friday before our anniversary--sweet huh?), we decided to paint one of the bathrooms.  The girls'/guest bathroom was the lucky winner.  It's now a calming gray instead of a jolting lemon yellow.  Hooray! One more thing I can cross off my list.  When I get more decor in there I'll post some before and after pictures.

Today was Stake Conference, so church was only two hours instead of three and it was at 10 instead of 11.  So we were able to go to Grandma and Grandpa Watts' house early.  The girls love their grandparents so much!  And I'm glad now that Grandma Great (Watts) is there that she gets so much joy out of holding and seeing Cecily grow.  I know one day I will have to tell her she was loved very much by a woman she will probably not know very well.  I can say that about my Grandpa Richau, and it makes me feel good every time I think of it.

Poop face

Part of the reason why Cecily has been such an easy baby is because she is so easy to read.  It is easy to tell when she's hungry, or tired, or uncomfortable.  But the easiest one of all is how to tell when she is pooping.  She makes the funniest face!

Ballerina

We signed Emilia up for a summer ballet class through the city.  They learned first and second position, passe, jette, arabesque, and follow the leader, among other things.  Emilia absolutely LOVED it.  She had a grin on her face through the whole 1/2 hour class, every time.  It was just two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, for 5 weeks.  Mira really wished she could join in, but the youngest they allowed was 3.  Maybe next year! :)

On the last day of class, they had a "recital." Parents and grandparents, etc. were invited to attend.  Since it was on a Tuesday at 10:30am, Steve was the only other person to make it.  I recorded the whole thing, except when the dance was about 1/4 of the way through, my phone ran out of memory. Darned electronic devices!  I'll add the 1/4 that I did get, though, cuz it's pretty cute. :)

If you looked up cute in the dictionary...

...I'm pretty sure you would find a picture of Mira. (Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you would also find her picture under "strong-willed" and "stubborn.")

Mira eating cheerios for breakfast:

When her spoon stops working, she just sticks her fingers into the hole and picks them up that way.

Poor sick baby.

She loves reading with her grandparents.  I attribute her love of reading to a patient grandpa.