Mom moment

Yesterday, I was trying to help Mira practice her dance that she's been learning at her hip-hop class. She cried before the last class because she said the dance was too hard. So I went with her and recorded the dance so I could help her practice. But as I was practicing with her yesterday, she kept laying down on the floor and making grumbling noises until I was like, "What, Mira? Why are you acting like this?" She told me, "Because I'm hot and this is a lot of work." She was wearing a sweatshirt, so I was like, "Fine. If you're hot, take your shirt off." And I pulled her sweatshirt off over her head. But then she looked up at me like, "Mom. Seriously? I don't have a shirt on." So I took my shirt off, too. That made her giggle. So we did the dance topless a few times and we both got what we wanted. Mommy success story right there.

More costumes

I worked A LOT more on costumes this week. I am ridiculous. I probably spent 30 hours working on costumes. They turned out amazing, if I do say so myself. But that's a lot of time to spend working on something my kids may only use a handful of times.

Mira had her kindergarten performance on Friday, so I had to have her costume ready for that. I finished a couple hours ahead. That's it. But when she put it on and I sprayed her hair, so looked up at me and said, "I really feel like Glitter Lucky." It made all the work worth it. (You know, besides the fact that I did enjoy the process of making the costumes.)

We also had our ward Trunk or Treat that night. And Emilia had horseback riding lessons. And I was supposed to bring chili to share. And I needed some items to finish my costumes. Well, one item. I needed yellow hair spray. And of course, the first store I went to didn't have any. Walmart. I broke down and went to that cursed store just for the hair spray and they didn't have any. I ended up going to Party City, which is where I should have gone in the first place. It's like ten minutes closer.

Other fun pictures from this week:

Steve being sung to over his german chocolate cake last Sunday.

Emilia sleeping in a fun position.

Cecily contemplatively eating her lunch.

Mira dressed Cecily up as a princess for her wedding. She dubbed herself Princess Cherry. I loved the hairdo. There's clips on the dress, too.

trip to Colorado

This week, we went to Colorado to visit Megan. It was such a fun visit! We played games almost nonstop, the girls played hard with their cousins, and we had two safe, fairly enjoyable, 8-hour drives. Fortunately, the Strattons that also live in Colorado were able to meet us to play one of the days, too. We wanted to see our Richau family as well, but unfortunately, we couldn't work it out for the short amount of time we were there. Hopefully next time!

It was great to laugh, relax, eat good food, and be with family.

Today is Steve's birthday. He turns 41. Happy Birthday Steve! (He was annoyed that I wanted a picture of him, so considering that, I think it turned out pretty good.)

Beautiful views from the drive to Colorado Tuesday evening:

Emilia playing the game Watch Ya' Mouth (one of the things I laughed at until I cried):

At the pumpkin patch with the Strattons:

Mira's monster mouth:

At the school carnival cake walk on Friday night:

Costumes started and book signing

This week was mostly filled with shopping for and sewing Halloween costumes. I'm not done yet, but I've got the parts done that required the most sewing. All three girls wanted to be glitter force girls for Halloween. If you haven't seen Glitter Force, here is a picture of the girls after they power up with the glitter force:

My girls are being Glitter Breeze (blue), Glitter Lucky (pink), and Glitter Peace (yellow).  Here is what Mira's base costume looks like. They will wear a white shirt under it and I still need to add the bows and the lace on the sleeves.

On Thursday, I also took Emilia to the library to meet Shannon Hale. She's the author who wrote The Princess in Black series and the Princess Academy series and the Ever After High series. We got our books signed and got some pictures. Emilia also won a copy of Black Widow: Red Vengence from another author who was there, Margaret Stohl.

Going to these sorts of things are always interesting for me, since I want to be a recognized author some day. What would it be like if I was up there talking about the process? What would it be like to have people want my signature or a picture with me? It would be kinda weird. But it could be good, too, I guess. I mostly want to influence people for good. And if they want my signature, at least some of them probably were touched by my words, right? Here's hoping. :)

A blur

This week was kind of a blur. I remember doing things. I know I wasn't sitting around playing Candy Crush all day. But if there weren't pictures, I may not be able to tell you more than a few things that stick out to me. Maybe that's better sometimes. :)

The things that stick out:

1--I went back to the wholistic medicine office that I went to a few weeks ago (about my hair falling out) and got the results of my blood tests. Basically I'm falling apart. My intestines aren't doing their job because I have a gluten sensitivity and a candida problem. My hormones are super out-of-whack, and my iron stores are so low, I would probably have become anemic any minute. Plus my thyroid is doing its job, but my body isn't using the results very well, so I have a thyroid problem, too.

It's nice to know that all these weird symptoms I've been having *do* have a cause. Fixing all these things at once has me feeling a little dizzy and a little sorry for myself though. The doctor wants me to go gluten-free and sugar-free for 2 months. Both Halloween and Thanksgiving are within the next two months. **extreme sad face**

2--we cleaned out our garage yesterday. Like pulled everything out, took an entire car-load to DI, and scrubbed the whole thing down, cleaned. I found three black widows in there in the last month, so it had to be done.

3--I had to teach the lesson in Relief Society today. It was about our committment to God. I felt completely unprepared despite reading the lesson four times and praying over it every day this week. But people seemed to like it, so I guess the Spirit spoke to them even if I didn't feel up to the task. It was also good for me to be reminded of the blessings that come from committing ourselves to God.

Things I wouldn't have remembered without pictures:

1--On Thursday was the Monster Mash Dash at the school. Mira and Emilia both ran and Mira was way better at it. Emilia really does hate running. As she ran by on her second of three laps, she told me, "I'm even more tired than I was when I played soccer!" Mira happily jogged all three laps, chatting with different boys from her class. (That's Mira in white.)

2--On Friday night, Steve took Emilia to her soccer team party, which was a pizza party before being the ball girls for UVU's soccer game. Emilia said when she got home that the best part was being able to play soccer with her teammates during half-time and having everybody watching them. The being watched by the crowd was the best part. Oh my. That night I watched a movie and made these letters. I need to tie them together and hang them up somewhere. That's probably as far as my decorating is going to go this year.

Other random pictures of my cute kids:

phone problems, canning, conference, crepes

I didn't blog last week because my phone was in a plastic bag full of rice. It had a run-in with the toilet. But I'm so so so grateful that it survived and I still have a phone that works just fine. This is pretty impressive considering there is a crack in the screen.

It's probably good I didn't do a blog post last week anyway. I was feeling sorry for myself most of the week. I think it was probably depression because I actually had a lot of things to be happy about.

I entered an online writing contest called Pitch Slam and found out on that Wednesday that I was a finalist. All of the finalists had their work displayed online and agents who'd agreed to participate went and looked at the submissions and were able to request pages of the manuscript. I got three agent requests! Unfortunately two of them were from agents I'm not interested in working with (based on the research I did afterward), but there was one that looked promising, so I sent my book to her Friday night. Now I just have to wait to see if she contacts me back.

Writing was most of what I did over the last two weeks. At least things of significance. The girls are continuing their activities that they started over the summer. We went to Nana's last week because the girls had a half day off of school.

We played some games. I love that this shows how Emilia concentrates on everything she does.

I found Cecily like this as I was going to bed one night. Her little toes were cold.

Mira drew this picture for me. Do you like my curly hair? I also have a smile and 10 fingers, so I think I'm doing well. I love this picture.

Emilia had her last soccer game on Wednesday. Cecily liked twirling next to the white lines.

On Friday, I had a friend in our ward come over. She'd offered to help me make pickles. There is a greenhouse in our area that grows cucumbers and sells a bushel for $18. They even do all the picking for you. So I bought the cukes and we canned pickles. 21 quarts for $18 is a steal. Hopefully they turn out good.

Cecily's sense of style makes my heart happy. I will have one child that likes the clothes I pick out for her. Wahoo! This was heading out to Grandma Watts' house on Friday night. Steve wanted to go to the BYU football game and she'd agreed to watch them. It ended up that Steve went to the game without me and I had a quiet (early) night to myself. I was tuckered out from canning!

Plus, Saturday, we'd decided to can salsa. My parents had extra tomatoes and we needed some salsa. Plus, I have like 40 giant peppers in my garden and lots of onions. So we invited our neighbors to come help and take home half the spoils. That was the best idea I had all week. It was fun to spend the time with them and it went SO much faster!

Then, Saturday night, Steve went to the priesthood session of General Conference and I invited a different set of friends to come over and have crepes while our men were out. They were delicious!

I learned something: an essay & I won something, too.

When I told my mom about my week, she said, "I'm too old to do that. I'm tired just listening to you." I don't think that's true. She is as busy as me most weeks.

I forgot to mention last week that our relief society was in charge of doing a meal for a funeral. This week we sponsored a fireside (or a motivational speech) given by Abby Stephens. She told the story of how she got found joy while learning to walk again after a spinal chord injury that left her a quadriplegic.

I learned something from those experiences, but maybe not what you would think. I wrote a little essay about it, so I'll share it here.

As the secretary in the Relief Society presidency in my ward, I got the opportunity one month to help organize a meal for a funeral and refreshments for a stake-wide fireside. For me, these tasks were not stressful or difficult, perhaps because others in the presidency did a great job of stressing over each event. We had several planning meetings, preparations and food to make, and the events themselves to attend. As a result, I spent hours away from home, leaving my house and often my children in a state of chaos.

I remember grumbling a little as I baked cookies for the funeral. I was almost out of butter and would need to go to the grocery store to get more. If I didn’t need to attend the funeral, I could go that day and get both the butter and other essential items we were out of, like bread and milk. Also, I thought, “Why should I go help at the funeral? I am the only one in the presidency that has small children. The others that have volunteered to help are older, too.” None of them would have to find babysitters like I would. And the funeral was at just the right time that I would have to find both a person to pick up my five-year-old from kindergarten in the middle of the day and another person to pick up my eight-year-old at the end of the school day. Plus my three-year-old would need a babysitter for the entire time. It was complicated and I wondered if it would be worth the effort. I didn’t even know the man whose funeral it was.

As I had these thoughts, scriptures admonishing us to mourn with those who mourn, and comfort those who stand in need of comfort came to mind. I knew I needed to make the effort. So I finished my cookies and found the necessary babysitters and went to the funeral.

As we served that day, a family member came in to thank us for all of our hard work. There were many family members who'd stopped believing in God, they said, and they felt that seeing our service might influence those family members for good.

And after the funeral, there was cleaning to do, of course, but in the end there was mostly just a lot of leftover food. And, just to help me learn a lesson, Heavenly Father made sure I came home with most of the leftover butter. More than I had used to make the cookies. Along with treats for my children, and a happier attitude. I also came home with cookies after the fireside. Better ones than the ones I had brought! Along with a quart jar of homemade grape juice from one of the sisters in my ward who had more than her family could use.

Heavenly Father wants us to help each other. He can’t be here physically to lift boxes, cook food, or give a hug, so he’s commissioned us to do those kinds of things for him. The Holy Ghost can prompt us, but only we can listen and do them. The lesson I learned, though, was that when we do those things, Heavenly Father also gives us people to bless our lives when we need it. He prompts people to give us hugs when we’re down. Or butter when we’re running low. It will all equal out in the end because God is good and just and knows all our needs.

So Monday we had a planning meeting for that fireside and I baked six dozen cookies. Mira also started hip hop again and we were invited to have dinner with the Frohlichs.

Cecily started tumbling on Tuesday, I had the fireside and Steve was brave and took all the girls to the "Watch D.O.G.S" pizza night at the school.

Wednesday I went to a funeral. A friend of mine lost her husband to complications from MS. Also, Emilia had another soccer game (and another on Saturday, which--guess what--it was our turn to bring treats and Emilia asked me to make . . . cookies! Another three dozen. I baked a lot of cookies in the last two weeks).

Steve played LOTR again Thursday. I went to a 1/2 hour of a 2-hour-long workshop on outlining a book. I managed to win a book while I was there (which I feel a little guilty about).

We had a family movie night on Friday and Steve got sick on Saturday and we had to cancel our date. ;(

Oh! But I got an email late Friday night that made my entire week! I told you a while ago that Emilia and I entered an illustration contest. I didn't hear anything back about it, so I figured we didn't place, and just moved on. But the email I got said, "Congratulations!! You won first place in the illustration contest! Your picture will be published in the anthology! ALSO: Emilia took first in her category as well!! We have prizes for the two of you, and want to deliver them." How exciting is that? Emilia won a box of crayons and a map of the United States with major landmarks on it to color. She started immediately after receiving it. I won a leather sketchbook and a tin of sketching pencils. Now if only I could make room in my purse for those, I would be set. :)

I also find it a little ironic that my first published work is not words, it's pictures. It makes me think maybe I should pursue that a little more regularly.

Today Cecily has a cold so she couldn't go to nursery at church, so I'm home with her. We played some Super Mario 3 and now she's watching Finding Nemo. Here is a picture she took of her new "boots" which she adores. I kinda love that she adores them. She's so cool.