My house

I have finally taken pictures of my house and gotten them off my camera!

To start, I got Ben (since he's a certified Realtor now) to find me the picture of our house from when it was listed before we bought it. (All my Utah friends, if you need to buy or sell, let me know and I'll give you his info.)

Here is the before picture:

And here is the after:

You can see most of the rock terraces we put in here.

A closer look.

My front door.

A look at my garden.

To the right of the front door (when you are facing the house).

Another view of the front of the house.

The side of the house.

I love how it turned out! I feel like it's mine now and that I've beautified it to the best of my ability. It's a good feeling.

Happy 4th!

We had a busy and good 4th of July. I was sad that I didn't get to go home to ND for the holiday like my mom and dad and Megan's family did. But I did feel a little bit better when I found out they'd canceled the parade, which is my favorite part besides the fireworks. Me and Mira and Emilia went to a pancake breakfast put on by our ward at 7:30am and then grabbed our stuff and headed for the Provo Freedom Festival parade which started at 9am.

It only took me about 40 minutes to be bored of the parade. They didn't allow anybody to hand things out! I'm surprised the kids lasted as long as they did.  Here they are covering their ears as the emergency vehicles went by with their sirens on.  They are not fans of loud noises of any kind. (Getting them to use public restrooms that flush automatically is an interesting endeavor.)

There is a highschool and a free-to-the-public bagpipe group in the area.  They marched in the parade together.

The girls thought this knight in full armor was pretty cool.  Also (not pictured) the costume company that had people wearing Elsa and Anna costumes were a big hit.

After the parade, we made a pasta salad and then headed up to Nick and Wilda's.  Steve's sisters Nicole and Cindy and their families got there a couple of hours later and we had quite the feast (including what everyone told me was a super spectacular pasta salad). :D Grandpa had games planned for while we were waiting to start fireworks.  He also gave the girls chalk to decorate the driveway in patriotic pictures.  They had tons of fun.  Of course, the evening ended with lots of fireworks, and at least one of my girls running in terror from the noise.

Yesterday, we let the girls play with their cousins until dinner time when we went over to Ben and Haylee's house.  Alison came down and a couple of our friends joined us, too. We barbequed and played games outside after it cooled down a little bit. The girls were exhausted after going to bed after 11pm on the 4th and Mira not napping, so we took them home and put them to bed rather earlier than we would have liked.

Sometime earlier this week, I needed to go shopping and didn't want to take all the girls with me.  In fact I was mostly done with mothering for the day by the time Steve got home from work. But he was mostly done with putting energy into anything, too.  So we compromised.  I left Mira and Cecily with him, and took Emilia with me.  It ended up being fun.  Emilia is getting to the age now that we can talk while we shop and I don't have to worry about her wandering off.

She was so good on our trip that I decided to take her for ice cream before we headed home.  She was a happy camper.

Cecily has started climbing things. Here she is climbing up in the bathroom and stealing her sisters' toothbrushes.  She climbed up onto a plastic chair this week, too, and fell off onto a bench.  She has a lovely mustache-like bruise on her face to show for it.

Not only does she have a ugly bruise on her face, but last night she broke out in this nasty rash. We have no idea what caused it. And it hasn't gone away yet.  I hope it's not contagious (like it's from an allergy or something) or else I infected a whole lot of small children with viral rash this weekend. The poor girl has this all over her tummy, back, feet, hands, neck, scalp, and face. It's so sad!

Ballet is over!

Boy am I glad ballet is over! The girls are so cute dancing in their leotards, but man is it hard to entertain a 12 month old for an hour and 15 minutes with only what I can pack in a diaper bag.  Plus there isn't enough time in a week to do everything when you have two 1/2 days scheduled out.  That seems ridiculous, but for some reason it's true.

On the last day of class, which was this last Thursday, the teacher let family come and watch, so Grandma Watts, Nana Frohlich, and Aunt Haylee, Dylan and Lincoln all came.  Emilia looks so graceful in her pictures and worked really hard learning her performance dance.  Mira is just plain adorable with her little attitude and grin.

Here is a video of Mira's ballet performance: CLICK HERE

And here is a video of Emilia's: CLICK HERE

And a few pictures for good measure.

Mira trying to do a high 2nd position.

She has a great toe point. This is called a "tendu."

All of the attendees.

Emilia in 4th? position. Doesn't she look elegant?

Thursday night I got to go see Maleficent with my mom and sisters and another one of my girlfriends.  It was SO so so so so awesome! Loved every minute of it. The storytelling and the special effects and Angelina Jolie were all incredible. Elle Fanning not so great, but I'll overlook that since the rest was far above my expectations.

Tuesday Steve called me in the afternoon and said he forgot his work was sponsoring an Orem Owlz night. We got free hotdogs and hamburgers and watched the game for about an hour before restless girls forced us homeward.  The girls had no idea what was going on (Emilia asked "How does the soccer game work?"), but we all enjoyed being out at a ballgame anyway. :)

The whole crew.

Our view of the Owlz stadium. Quite the crowd, eh?

 Friday I had no plans, so I decided to bake some cinnamon bread that I found on Pinterest.  It took 4 hours to rise, but it ended up HUGE and fluffy.  And tasty. (I ate like 4 pieces Friday night. Shhhhhh.)

Friday night we also needed a few groceries, so Steve took the girls to the park next to Costco while I ran in for the food.  When I came out, they were rolling down the hill and finding shapes in the clouds.  Not a bad way to end a week, I reckon.

I cleaned my car Saturday. Trust me, this was an accomplishment. Steve also helped some people in our ward move and we had some of our good friends over for pizza and good conversation.  They have 4 girls, so our kids were in heaven, too. :)

I took some pictures of the front of our house finished, and I was absolutely sure I uploaded them to my computer, but now I can't find them anywhere.  And my camera is all the way downstairs. Maybe I'll find some motivation this week to try and upload them again.  Maybe. :D

All kinds of celebrating and other stuff...

The last few Sunday nights we have had some friends over to play games and since it's summer break, they could stay late.  We were up until 11pm playing games, so I didn't have time to blog.  And me blogging during the week is a near impossibility.

So you get another long blog post.  Lucky you!

First off, here is a short video from Emilia's Kindergarten graduation.  There is like 30 more minutes of this, but I won't make you watch it all. :)

Next, Cecily had a birthday on May 23rd.  But we didn't celebrate until the next week.  She got a frosted brownie because that's what we wanted to eat.  Also, Mira was afraid that Cecily would burn herself on the candle, so my video of singing Happy Birthday to Cecily is overshadowed by Mira screaming that Daddy should not allow the be-candled brownie anywhere near her baby sister.

She seemed to enjoy the brownie well enough though.

The first week of June Springville had Art City Days.  The library had a "Teddy Bear Tea" that we went to.  They told us to bring stuffed animals, but then they didn't have tea or have them do anything with their stuffed animals. It was a little silly to bring them so we could carry them around to a whole bunch of activities that had nothing to do with them.  But the girls had fun anyway.  They drew monsters on coffee filters that then got sprayed with water to make them scarier.  They made hats and had a ring toss and some snacks, too.

That week, Mira an Emilia started ballet.  The city holds a ballet class twice a week for a month and it only costs $40.  Since its the only way we can afford it right now, we signed up both girls.  Unfortunately, they're not in the same class, so poor Cecily has to hang around the city building for an hour and fifteen minutes twice a week.  The girls are pretty darn cute in their leotards, though.

Mira is in the dark pink skirt

Mira's class was learning first position and Mira couldn't quite figure out turning her toes out.  Her feet were so unruly that she had to bend over and move them into the right place every time.

Mira moving her feet into the right position.

Emilia is in the colorful skirt on the left side.

Cecily being her happy self outside ballet class.

Cecily gets moved by the music. She bounces to the beat every time she hears music.

The city also put on a cake decorating contest which Megan and Ariana both decided to enter.  Here are them with their cakes.

Ariana and her best friend with their desert island cake.

Emilia and Mira looking at one of the other kids' entries.

Megan with her cake.

details on Megan's cake

cute little garden detail

That Friday, they had a children's art festival at the Springville Museum of Art.  The kids get to do a whole bunch of art projects and they let you into the museum for free.  We went with some friends from our neighborhood.

Last Saturday we went to my parents' house to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday.  Mira fell asleep on the way there.

The girls swam in the pool with Grandpa for a good hour even though it wasn't very warm outside.  They love it in the water.  It's a good thing Nana and Grandpa like the water, because this Mama isn't a big fan.

We had chicken Alfredo for dinner and Dad got cake for dessert.  Mom managed to get 60 candles on there and he blew them out in one breath! He's still a windbag at 60. (Love you dad! Wink wink.)

I was a slacker for Father's Day.  I didn't do much for my hubby.  I pledge to do better next year.  Mira's nursery leaders had her fill this out for him.  We thought it was pretty funny.

Here is Cecily playing with one of her birthday presents from Nana.

Emilia and I went to the library together the other night and the sunset on the way home was pretty amazing.

The week I was sick, Emilia and I took some time to paint some rocks for markers in our garden.

I love that Emilia will read books to Mira now.  They are so cute together.

Was that long enough for you? I'll try to keep it down in the future. ;)

24 hour bug times 5 and Facebook Funnies

Last Sunday I was laid out sick in bed. I didn't feel like being alive let alone blogging. I had a stomach bug that was so awful that I didn't know how I was going to make it another minute.  It started around 4pm Saturday night and lasted until Thursday morning.  Monday, I went to the doctor and he gave me a prescription for anti-nausea medication which allowed me to eat bread and other such highly innocuous foods without wanting to die. But I couldn't eat normal foods until lunchtime on Thursday.  I hope I don't get that bug again. Ever.

Last week Emilia graduated from Kindergarten, but the pictures were on my old phone and for some reason, they didn't get transferred to my new phone. Hopefully I can fix that this week and put up some pictures of it for you next Sunday. On the up side, I got a new phone! Yay!

Cecily is getting to be a pro at walking.  She was already a pro at getting into things, but she can do it faster now.

My dad came down yesterday and helped me put up the shutters I made months ago.  He's so handy! Thank you, Dadda! As Steve said before you left, there was no way he was going to go anywhere near them. :)

Steve hasn't gotten any of the jobs he's been interviewed for so far (3 of them).  He put in four more applications last week.  I hope one of them pans out.  He is very unhappy at work right now and I want him to be happy again. Nothing's worse than a man who is unhappy with his daily grind.

To end this rather random blog post, I'll give you some facebook funnies:

5/16/14
Mira was out by me in the living room and Steve was back in the bedroom getting ready for work. He made some noise, bumping into something or dropping something.
Mira: What's that noise, Mom?
Me: What noise?
Mira: *That* noise. (She thinks for a second.) Maybe a dinosaur came alive, Mom. Maybe a dinosaur came alive.

5/11/14
On the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's house Emilia made up a song for me for mother's day. Part of it went something like this: It's Mother's Day. You're my mom. Sometimes you have bad days. But that's okay because your children still love you.

5/2/14
We were stopped for a lo-o-ong time at a light tonight and when it finally turned green, I (rather calmly) urged the cars ahead of me to get through the light.
Me: Okay guys. Let's go go go!
Mira: Good job, Momma.
Me: Are you congratulating me on speaking nicely, Mira?
Mira: Yeah, to the cars.
I guess I need to keep the road rage down a bit in the future.

5/1/14
I love how Mira tells me she's hungry:
Mommy, my tummy is groggling.

4/27/14
I hope nobody minds another poop story, because I'm gonna tell you anyway. Mira still needs help using the potty. I hear her call me in there this morning, so I go in.
Me: You pooped!
Mira: Yeah. I pee, too.
Me: You did both; you peed and pooped?
Mira: Yeah, they friends.