Cancelled, Changed, and Rearranged

This last week was so strange.  I had a million plans, 90% of which got cancelled, changed, or rearranged. I was supposed to have a photo shoot with a local photography group Wednesday night that got changed to next week because of weather. I had a girl contact me Friday to do a quick last-minute photo shoot--that day--and then she totally stood me up for after I had rearranged my schedule to fit her in. I was supposed to go get some compost Saturday, but then it was raining, but then it stopped and we were going to get it anyway and then the people we were getting it from changed their plans and now we're getting it this Saturday. I was going to move some sprinklers in the bed I want to use for a garden Monday night, which then changed to Friday night because Ben was going to help (and bring his family for a visit) but Lincoln was sick Monday. But then my Wednesday night plans changed, so they came then.  It only took us about an hour and 15 minutes to move the sprinklers.  It was awesome! Thanks, Ben!

My meeting Tuesday night didn't change.  Saturday, we FINALLY painted our bedroom (since we weren't getting dirt).  Though the baseboards aren't back up yet and all the rest of the trim still desperately needs a coat of paint.

Friday I looked at the budget and noticed there was less than a week left in the month and we still had money in our restaurant budget, our babysitting budget, and our family fun budget.  So we had a FUN night! We went out for dinner at Cubby's, then went to Nickel City.  Emilia was unsure it would be fun, but she's asked every day since then if we can go back.  We had 900 tickets by the end of the night.  Not because we're cool or anything--although we did win 110/200 and 70/100 tickets playing Deal or No Deal--but because we stayed long enough to be one of the few people with small children there and all the college kids didn't want the prizes.  We probably got 300-400 tickets from other people being generous.  It was fun, because we could actually let the girls pick out pretty good prizes and they were super excited.

Thursday and today the girls got to play with their cousins Jane, Meg, and Kate who are now living in Utah again.  It's a joyous reunion for all of them.

That's about it for the week.  Here are some more pics for you of my adorable children.
This girl cracks me up. She makes this face with a sucking-in-air shriek when she's excited. Ain't nobody gonna misinterpret that. :)

She is just so adorable! And nearly always this happy. Easy to love, this one.

This one's pretty darn cute, too. When she's happy anyway. So, 40% of the time?

This is how Cecily often insists on drinking her bottle.

These girls love their daddy.  He's a good jungle gym, too.

Lilacs are my favorite flower.  Yea for spring!

Easter with family

It seems like my life never slows down.  I can't decide if life was simpler if I would be happier or just bored. I'm pretty sure I have some ADD problems, so maybe both. :)

Steve has been looking for a new job for a while now, and he's been interviewing with a company for almost three weeks.  First they had him do a video interview.  There were no other people involved; he just went to a website, they gave him a question, and then he had to record a video of himself answering the question. Then they had him do a written interview/exam that took 2 hours.  Then they did a phone interview.  Then they had him come in Tuesday for a face-to-face interview.  This took another hour and fifteen minutes.  The crazy people finally got back to him on Friday to tell him they went with someone else. Steve took it pretty well.  I'm honestly glad he didn't get it. It seemed a little disrespectful of their candidates lives that they expected them to take SO much time out of their work day to interview for this position. Maybe that's just me.

Mira reading to herself at the library.  I'm so glad my kids have inherited my love of books!

Also on Tuesday, we took our 2007 Chrysler to the mechanic because the engine light was on.  It was a transmission problem.  We picked it up on Friday, one rebuilt transmission richer and $2200 poorer. That hurts.

Tuesday night, we had a Relief Society activity.  I'm on the committee, and I was assigned to bring a couple of trifles for dessert.  We did a progressive-type dinner, where we switched tables between each course so we could get to know everyone a little bit better. It was a little chaotic, but fun.

Thursday, I babysat my three nieces along with my three kids.  For having 6 kids under the age of 7 on my watch for 6 hours, it was actually really easy.  They were all girls and two of them napped for at least 2 hours each.  The other four hadn't seen each other since Thanksgiving and played like happy little princesses.  Thursday also happened to be Jane's birthday--one of the cousins I was babysitting.  It was so cute how the other girls did everything they could to make her feel special.  Emilia decided she needed a surprise party.  She and Meg set up bunch of activities in the basement, made confetti, and surprised Jane with a party.  They colored her pictures and made her birthday cards.  Also, when they decided to watch some television, Meg and Emilia made Jane a throne by piling colorful pillows on her chair.  They called her "The Queen of Utah" the whole afternoon.  We also made rainbow cookies together. It was a fun day.

I've been doing an "I'd love to!" jar with my girls.  This means that if I ask them to do something (like pick up their toys) and they say, "I'd love to!" they get to put a puffball in a jar.  When the jar was full, I told them we could go for ice cream.  Well, the girls filled the jar on Monday, so Wednesday night, we got some Coldstone.  Immediately after finishing her ice cream, Emilia whined that she didn't get a cake pop or a chocolate (which they were also selling). So ungrateful! I'm not sure how to teach her to be satisfied with what she has.

Saturday was an Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Watts'. The girls didn't really get the concept of finding their own eggs.  They just found an egg and stood there and yelled at the person's whose it was until they came and got it and then moved on to the next egg and repeated the process. They loved it though!  I had a lovely day of reading and helping the girls dye eggs. It was frustrating though, that we didn't do anything related to the actual reason we celebrate Easter.  I was much better about incorporating Christ into our celebration last year. I feel like the Easter Bunny snuck up on me this year.  I'll have to try hard next year.

Today, we went to my parents' house and had a traditional Easter dinner after we got out of church at 4pm.  We had to be at church early this morning because our Bishop wanted to meet with me and Steve.  I got called to be the secretary in the Relief Society presidency.  I hope I can pull it off.  I'm a terribly unorganized person (as far as time and remembering things, etc.). But I'll do my best and I'm sure it will all work out.  Maybe the Lord can help me learn to be more organized through this calling and my life will work much more smoothly in the future.  That would be nice.

Sick kids are hard and facebook funnies

This was a crazy week for me.  It was spring break for Emilia and all three of my kids got sick: Emilia got a stomach bug, Cecily had a bad cough and a double ear infection, Mira had a runny nose, fever and a probable ear infection. On top of that, I somehow managed to plan a girls night with my friend, Gina, on Tuesday night, a girls night with my mom and sisters on Wednesday night, my book critique group (that I just joined this month) on Thursday night, and a visit to my mom's on Friday.  Thank goodness for going to my mom's on Friday--she saved me from a nasty cold that I had been trying to avoid all week.  I was able to take 3 naps on Friday and since I was not at home, I could not clean my house, I didn't have to cook, and I didn't feel compelled to anything work-like. Thanks, Mom!

My girls decided they were ballerinas for two days this week.
Here is them in their ballerina clothes at the "barre."

Since I was up there, I decided to take a picture of the painting I did for my parents for Christmas.
I did pretty good.

I love how Mira is using Grandpa as a recliner.  My mom is fixing Mira's blankie for the 2nd time.

It's hard to catch Cecily not moving.

Cecily looks so toddler-ish in this picture. She's not really a baby anymore. :(

This is the fairy house/villiage that Emilia has concocted on our back patio.
She was quite upset when I told her she couldn't keep it there forever.

Mira looking cute in a vintage dress from Aunt Jean.

I put a slip under it after she had an accident on the bloomers.

Of course, I couldn't take a picture of Mira and not one of Emilia. This is them singing "Let it Go."

From Facebook:
4/12/14
Steve was talking about the home projects we want to work on today and was saying how the whole house needs painting. Mira pipes up and says, "Yeah, we need to paint the walls and the railings...EVERYTHING needs painting! Except the sky."
Me: The sky doesn't need to be painted?
Mira (looking out the window): The sky no need painting.  It painted already.
Emilia: Yeah, it's already colored.
Mira: The sky is painted blue!
Emilia: That would take a lot of paint!

4/7/14
Somehow, before I became a mom, I never would have believed that it would be necessary to say things like, "Don't stand on your food." Or "Don't rub your cracker on the shopping cart and then eat it." Or "Don't turn your cereal bowl upside down (with the milk and cereal still in it)."

4/5/14
I made some pasta to have with dinner tonight that was a mix of shells, rotini, and bowtie pasta. As soon as Emilia sat down, she said, "Look! We're having butterfly pasta! And here's the chrysalis (shells), and this is the caterpillar (rotini)." I love that kids can look at the world a little differently!

4/2/14
My girls have been outside for an hour now, playing in the snow. I just looked out and Mira is lying face-first in the snow eating it, and Emilia is building a snow fort. How apropos.

3/29/14
At 10:30 last night I went to check on our girls and Emilia was still not asleep.
Me: Why aren't you asleep yet?
Emilia: Mom, sometimes my eyes just aren't available for closing!

straightening, Star Wars, sickies

On Monday, we were invited to Ben and Haylee's house, so the girls could wear their new Frozen dresses and watch Dylan's new copy of Frozen that she got for her birthday.  Monday is always my laundry day and we usually have to straighten the house, but it was really bad Monday.  I got all three girls bathed and dressed and when I was done, Cecily went down for a nap.  I had a moment to walk around the house and drink in the amazing phenomenon that is a child's ability to mess up an entire house in under 30 minutes.  I documented for solidarity purposes.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates the treadmill that is housework with multiple children.

 

I had most of it picked up before dinner that night, but only because Cecily wasn't feeling well and took a long nap.

Tuesday was April Fools Day.  We didn't have any practical jokes at our house.  My mother may disown me.

Wednesday, Cecily was worse, so I took her to the doctor.  She had bad double ear infections. Another round of antibiotics.  Thankfully, I only have to give this kind once a day.  Twice a day is killer.  Tuesday night it snowed.  Only about an inch.  But when the girls got up, they begged to go out and play in it.  I got them all dressed in their snowsuits and they played outside for a solid hour.  It was great! And it was a good thing they went out at 8am, because by 10:30, it was sunny and by noon, you couldn't tell it had snowed.  Everything had melted.  This picture is a little blurry because our window is dirty, but that's the girls kneeling in the snow.

Friday was a momentous night for our family.  Bubby watched Star Wars for the first time.  I think she really liked it.  She sat through the whole movie.  Emilia, on the other hand, was bored before the near-squishing in the trash compactor. She has little patience for shows that aren't cartoons.  I'm okay with that, though.  Cartoons are generally so much more innocent.  I'm glad I don't have to worry about what she watches yet.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference for our church.  I always love listening to the leaders of our church.  I feel strengthened and buoyed up by their messages of hope and faith.  And there is always something that strikes me that I need to work to improve in my life, which is important, too. I think as disciples of Christ, we constantly have to be improving ourselves if we hope to follow the counsel in Matthew, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

Saturday I also worked on spackling the walls in our master bedroom.  Got about 1/2 way done with the chair rail awfulness only to realize that the floorboards might be unsalvageable because of the caulking used to finish the beadboard.  I may try to take the electric sander to it before I rip it out and start over.  We'll see how motivated I'm feeling.

Mostly a birthday and Frozen is ridiculous

I'm wracking my brain trying to think what we did this last week. I felt like I was busy, but apparently not with important or interesting things. Except Mira's birthday. She turned 3 on Friday! We didn't have a party for her or anything, since we already celebrated with family and she doesn't really have friends.  It was pretty cute Friday morning, though.  She woke up and Steve got her some breakfast while I tried to sleep a little bit longer.  Neither of them remembered it was her birthday.  Then Emilia woke up right before Steve left for work.  I didn't hear her, but she must have told Mira, "It's your birthday, Mira! You're three today!"  Because then Mira came running out of her room and I hear her yell, "I'm phree, Daddy! I'm phree, I'm phree!" To which Steve responds, "You're free? That's great, sweetie." And he goes back to packing his lunch.  She tries to correct him, but she's not getting anywhere, so I finally go out and say, "Steve, she's not 'free,' she's 'three.'"  "Oh!" he says. "That's right! It's your birthday Mira.  Happy Birthday!"

I asked Mira what she wanted to do for her birthday, and out of all the choices, she wanted to go to ToysRUs to see if we could find an Elsa doll.  If you don't have little girls, you may not know what a freakish phenomenon this show is, but EVERY little girl in America stinking LOVES Elsa from Disney's Frozen.  It's ridiculous. Silly even.  Every adult I talk to is like, "Why Elsa?  She's not even the nice one." I happen to think both girls are a little messed up and I blame terrible parenting via Disney's writing team, but that's another story altogether.

Apparently Disney had no idea the movie (or character) was going to be popular because they have grossly under-supplied the demand.  You cannot find an Elsa doll ANYWHERE. I have been looking for at least a month for anything Elsa and have been completely unsuccessful. I found them on Amazon, but everything on there is around three times the retail price.  I don't care how much my kid wants a toy, I am not paying three times retail.

The lady at ToysRUs told me that they get shipments on Fridays, so they occasionally will have Frozen toys before noon on Fridays.  Mira's birthday was on Friday, so we headed over around 10:30.  They had one Elsa item.  It was a wig.  Woot.

We went back out to the car and I called 6 different stores to see if they had anything Elsa and they all told me no.  One went so far to tell me that they had a shipping problem and wouldn't have more until the end of May.  I then called my mom to see if she could find anything online and I could drive to pick it up. I ended up driving over to Grandma and Grandpa Watts' house to look on the computer, too.  When I did, Amazon actually had an Elsa Barbie-size doll for only $16.99.  When I put it in my cart, there were 12 left.  At the same time, my mom found ONE Walmart in all of the Walmarts in Salt Lake and Utah county that had a single Elsa item in stock. It was a 6-pack of all the characters in the Polly-Pocket size for $25. I took maybe 5 minutes to decide which to get and by that time, ALL 12 of the dolls on Amazon were gone. I couldn't purchase the 6-pack from Walmart either, it told me they were sold out.  Luckily my mom had put it in her cart and was still able to purchase them or Mira would have been without a present for her birthday.  It is craziness!

Below is a picture of the girls with their new Frozen toys.  I have no idea why Bubby is making that face.

Daddy playing Frozen with the girls.

Earlier in the week, I took the girls to the park because it was beautiful! Like 62 degrees.  In March!

Mira is getting really brave, going down slides by herself.

These spin-y things are SO much fun! Like a roller coaster ride that doesn't move from that spot.

Emilia is getting brave, too.  She was climbing all over.

Bubs didn't have a nap the day we went to the park.  Steve needed to mow the lawn and I ran to grab some dinner.  When I got back, I couldn't find Mira.  She wasn't playing outside with Emilia and when I called for her inside, there was no answer.  We finally found her on the floor of our bedroom like this:

For her birthday, Nana Frohlich made Mira a frozen dress that turned out so cute (it has a see-through cape and everything).  Of course, Mira can't have an Elsa dress and not Emilia, so Nana was nice enough to make Emilia one, too.  Such a loving Nana they have.

Saturday, we tried to put up shutters.  It was so unsuccessful! One shutter now has three different sets of drill holes in it and will probably need a 4th before we get these stupid things hung.  So frustrating! Guess we'll try again next week.

Action-packed weekend

Steve took Thursday and Friday off this week to use up the last of his vacation days that he would otherwise lose on the 31st.  It's been so nice having him home so much this last month!

First off, some pictures from last week I missed:

Nails for the girls for St. Patrick's Day: rainbow and a pot of gold.

Emilia reading The Cat in the Hat to Mira.
(She is wearing a leprechaun hat she made at school.)
Cecily felt she must be a part of the fun, too.

Our St. Patty's Day meal. Orange and green? Yes. Irish? No.

I can't remember anything happening Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday, Steve had Ben and our friend Jason over for LOTR card game. Then Thursday he let me write for a while in the afternoon and he had his regularly scheduled game night.  Friday, Emilia didn't have school, so we had planned a trip to the Dinosaur Museum with Megan, Cari, Febe, and Nana.  This is like our 7th time going, so it's no longer new, but I enjoy each trip. Dinosaur bones are so fascinating and thinking about what it would be like if they were still alive like in Jurassic Park or Primeval (the movie and TV show respectively).  I also ponder each time I'm there the idea that these animals were supposedly alive on Earth billions of years ago--and we have evidence of them through their bones and eggs and footprints and fossilized imprints--but at the same time I believe in what the Bible says--that God created this earth and Adam and Eve were our first parents who probably lived about 6 thousand years ago.  I imagine there is a good explanation about how those can both be correct and I look forward to asking God about it when I have the chance. :)

I love Emilia's face in this picture.  They were in a "cave" looking at fossils.

Cousins making things fly in an air tunnel.

Friday evening, Grandma and Grandpa Watts took the two older girls for a sleepover and Steve and I took Cecily to Barnes & Noble for a date night.  We didn't buy any books, but I always love wandering through the stacks.  I've always had a great love of books and that hasn't changed as I've aged. Maybe someday I'll have a book to add to the collection!

Saturday I went to a writing conference from 8am-4pm.  I didn't feel too awful about it because G&G Watts had the older girls until after lunch, so Steve only had to watch Cecily for most of the time. I enjoy going to writing conferences, but I always come away just a little discouraged. Getting a book published the traditional way is a daunting task.  After I got home, Steve and I discussed the conference for a while and then fed the girls dinner.  I really enjoy being able to discuss literature and other media with my husband.  It's one of my favorite things about our relationship.  We learn from each other (or at least, I learn from him) and we understand each other better as we talk intelligently about deep things.

After dinner, I got in my head that I needed to complete something this weekend that Steve was home, so I painted our garage.  I was glad it only took me about 80 minutes because that was about all the time I had before my light ran out.  And it turned out so good! I'm excited to show you once we get the shutters up.  Maybe we'll finally get around to it next weekend. Cross your fingers for me.

I also had to get our house cleaned Saturday night because we were hosting the birthday dinner for Mira, Dylan and my mom today.  Then this morning before church, I busted out some pizza sauce,  baked sugar and double chocolate chunk cookies, and frosted the sugar cookies, including a large one with a picture of Elsa from Disney's Frozen on it. I'm a little crazy, I know.

Not a culinary masterpiece, but pretty good for me!

Dylan and Mira looking slightly less enthusiastic than me. :)

Nana Frohlich made these Anna and Elsa dresses for the girls. 
They LOVED them. Mira walked around like she was the bees knees
for the rest of the night.

 We had a good time hanging out with the family.  The kids play so well now that they are a little older.  It was fun to watch Mira and Dylan hug each other and follow each other around as they played Frozen.  After the family left, we had our neighbors over to play a round of 7 Wonders (a board/card game) and a short game of Oh Heck (or Big Bertha). It was a great way to end the week.

Some pictures of Cecily I took the other night after the other two were in bed:

She's pulling up to standing like a pro and starting to try to walk along furniture.  Often she'll think she has a handhold when she doesn't and she will face plant.  She has so many bruises on her forehead! It's kind of sad.

This is what pictures of her usually look like.  Such a little busy body!

Emilia took some pictures with my phone.  She can be quite artistic sometimes.  My favorite is this one with the upside-down cars.

She told me her blankie was making a smiley face.