Cousins movie and Lego Movie birthday party

I've been having a rough time of it the last few months, but I don't want to dump my negativity on others, so I haven't been blogging if I haven't been up to saying something positive about life. :) Today I'm feeling positive, so you get a blog post.

Not this past week, but the week before, Megan and her family were staying with my parents. We went up to see them on Friday because my kids didn't have school for SEPs. After dinner, us girls decided to go to Beauty and the Beast. So Nana, Me, Megan, Ariana, Cari, Febe, Emilia, Mira, and Cecily went to the new Regal Cinemas on Redwood Road. There were reclining seats! And TV trays. Alex's work kindly paid for most of the tickets and the popcorn and drinks for everybody, so it was a really inexpensive and fun cousins outing. (Tell Alex thank you again, Megan.) Everybody is welcome to their opinion, but I am just not a fan of the live-action remakes of cartoons. Having it be live action doesn't add anything to the story, and in this one especially, the CGI they have to use to create the same effect was distracting. I enjoyed going and the movie was good, just not something I'm gonna rave about. Give me unique storytelling over nostalgia any time.

You get this picture of Megan an Me as kids courtesy my desire to change my hair and my inability to make a decision. I wanted to send my hairdresser friend a picture proving I was blonde as a child and ended up realizing that Megan was a lot more blond than me. I've always been a sort of dark blond, I guess.

Friday afternoon Steve came home early so I could go to the temple. I love going, so I appreciated him letting me do that. When I got home, I told him, "Let's go do something fun." We decided to try out the new Hawaiian place near us, Ohana Grill, and then head up to the BYU MOA for the opening of their new "Playgrounds" exhibit.

The Hawaiian food was Uh. Maze. Ing. SO so so good. I could eat that Kahlua pork every night for the rest of my life. We also had teriyaki chicken and povi masima. All three were amazingly moist and flavorful. Steve's favorite was the chicken though. We also had a Mango otai that was delicious. Not only was the food delicious, we only paid $14 for the three meat plate, we both shared it, and both of us were full. We'll definitely be going back.

Saturday, we had Mira's party. Besides one rather enormous hiccup, the party went well. (The hiccup was actually before the party.)

It was Lego Movie themed. First we played pin the pants on the Lego dude. In the movie there's a TV show called "Honey--Where Are My Pants?" and literally the guy just can never find his pants. So we decorated and cut out pants and then pinned them on the guy from the show. Then we had them drop minifigures into a jar that held the "Piece of Resistance" to see who would be the new "Special." Last, we built Lego cars and raced them to see who could beat Bad Cop the best. The kids got to take their cars home with them as party favors. (I bought the pieces we needed on BrickLink and that was the hiccup part.)

The poster:

The pants they decorated (it's sideways, sorry).

The kids in line to play drop the minifigures. You can see the decorations the best in this one.

If you look really close, you can see I caught Dylan's minifigure on the way down.

Mira didn't want a cake, so we had M&M chocolate chip cookies and Lego brownies. Notice the tray we built to hold the brownies. :)

Emilia also built the fork holder.

We've had this birthday cake Duplo set for a few years now. It seemed like the perfect centerpiece.

Another decoration we made. It might be hard to tell from the picture, but it says MIRA.

A side picture of the "Lego wall."

Other things we've done in the last two weeks: The girls had SEPs (Parent/teacher conferences) and I helped at the bookfair two nights. Both girls were praised highly by their teachers for how well they behave and how smart they are. I'm proud of the girls we're raising. My friend Camber and her daughter Cassie came over last Saturday to play and hang out. We introduced them to Little Alchemy. Bwahaha!! And I recruited Steve's help and we finally finished Cecily's baby book. Wahoo! It's amazing what a good sale will do for motivation. :)

I'm tired. But I blogged anyway. :D

The girls had an early out day on Monday and I was excited to spend the time with them. But they ended up being little stinkers all day, so we did nothing but clean and watch some TV.

Wednesday our library had someone from the local extension office come and talk about backyard beekeeping. I've always been fascinated by bees and I don't want them to die like the media is telling me they are, so I went to the class. It was fun and informative. I don't think I'll do it for a few years, until the kids are older and less afraid of bees. But I may a try it!

The Nelsons came down yesterday because Wilda wanted us to help her sing a musical number in her ward and we all needed to practice together. The girls had a blast playing at the house all day and I worked on my writing for a while. It wasn't huge or planned, but it was a really good day.

Today we sang in their ward, then went home and then went to our ward. Then went back to Nick and Wilda's for dinner.

My kids pulled this out of the bottom of a basket and I thought it was funny that my parents bought a button with my face on it.

I took Mira and Cecily to the mall one day to play. The escalators hold at least as much appeal as the play area.

Cecily with a stick. If you look closely, you can see that she's wearing a polkadot shirt, polkadot pants, and polkadot socks. She's taking after her cousin (once removed) Dot. :)

I got to go to the temple one day this week, too. Friday morning I got up early and went before anybody else woke up. I felt so much of God's love for me there and for the rest of the day as the sun shone and warmed the earth and my heart. I'm so grateful for the gospel of Christ in my life! I'm so grateful to know that God lives and he and his son love me and know me as an individual. I am a daughter of God! I love Him so much. I aspire to be like Him. Especially in my parenting.

Happy Sunday!

Not too busy to play a silly game

Has it really only been a week?

I feel like my life has gone from, "I can't possibly get everything done, I'm gonna die from the crushing weight of my to-do list," to "I have nothing to do, I'm so bored, I am a drain on society." It's very weird.

I think it has to do with not being in drafting mode with my writing. But it has to be more than that, because even with the writing, it felt like I had a hundred other things to do to. A mystery if there ever was one. :)

This week, I became addicted to to this game Emilia found at school called Little Alchemy. It's online at littlealchemy.com and I dare you to try it and not get engrossed immediately. The game starts  you out with four elements: air, fire, water, and earth. All you do is drag one element on top of the other and see what they make. For example, earth plus water equals mud. Earth plus fire equals lava. Etc. But then you can add the new elements to the old ones to create even more fun and surprising ends. For example, you can make Darth Vader after you add energy to a sword which makes a lightsaber, add that to a human to make a Jedi, and add the Jedi to lava to make the Star Wars baddie.

I wanted to do something fun with the girls on Thursday afternoon because it had been such a bland week so far, but we ended up not having time because the girls took so long to get their chores done. Plus, Mira and Cecily wanted to go to the mall and Emilia really did not. So Friday, I took the younger two to the mall after Mira got done with school.

We ate a "picnic" lunch at one of the tables there, we caught some Pokemon, we went to Charming Charlie and I got a new necklace and Mira broke a hand mirror, and we went to the play area for a little while.

While I was looking for a necklace to purchase with the last of my Christmas gift card, the girls had fun trying on a thing or two. :)

Mira is on the road to becoming a famous fashion model.

Mira wanted a picture in front of the fountain with Cecily. She really loves people.

Saturday, Steve did our taxes. Yay for tax returns! I also encouraged him to take Cecily on a Daddy-daughter date and he did. She asked me if she could watch TV and I said that I didn't think so because Daddy was going to take her on a date. "Would you like that?" I asked. Her eyes got round and lit up. "I would love that," she said. She asked me to do her hair pretty for it.

Steve took her to the mall again because that's where she asked to go, then got her a donut.

Today, we were finally all well enough to go to church. We were invited to go to dinner at a friend's house in the ward, but they ended up getting a stomach bug this morning, so we ended up staying home and inviting a newly single guy from the ward over for dinner. We enjoyed getting to know him better.

This last picture is how I did Emilia's hair this morning. I was proud of how pretty it turned out. Thank you Pinterest.

So much snow!

I feel like we've been so boring the last few weeks! It's snowed a boatload, everyone's been sick, and it's the doldrums of February. I took a few more pictures this week, even though I was super sick Tuesday and Wednesday. I swear this is the worst cold I've had in YEARS. I took multiple naps every day because it just wiped me out so bad. But I finally started feeling somewhat normal again on Friday and it's been getting better and better. That cough still lingers, but it's not painful anymore, just annoying. :)

On Tuesday it was the worst. My lymph nodes were all swollen, my throat hurt so bad I couldn't even open my mouth without severe pain, and when I looked at it with a flashlight, I had those little white sores all over. So I went to the doctor thinking it was strep, but of course it wasn't. Because I like paying doctors for no reason, apparently. Or at least that's what you would think for how often I do it.

Cecily and Mira brought Barbies along and were good sports while we were waiting for the rapid culture.

On Wednesday, I think, Mira had a mini program reciting a nursery rhyme in front of the class and the parents. She choose to do Queen of Hearts, which goes like this:

The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
      All on a summer’s day;
The knave of Hearts, he stole the tarts,
      And took them clean away.

  The King of Hearts
  Called for the tarts,
  And beat the Knave full sore;
  The Knave of Hearts
  Brought back the tarts,
  And vowed he’d steal no more.

She did a really great job. Hers was the longest one in the class, and the only one with choreographed movements, which she did flawlessly. I was a proud mama.

This is a terrible picture of the class before the program, and then I thought I captured a video of the performance and messed that up, and I forgot to take a picture of her in the costume I threw together before she dumped pizza all over it. Big mom fail there. But I don't think it will matter in the long run, so I'm not beating myself up over it. I just wish you could have been proud along with me.

The cutest part of the whole thing was practicing the night before. Steve made up actions and we all sat in front of him as the audience and watched him demonstrate them to Mira. Mira then practiced it, and then Emilia wanted a try. After that, Mira said it was my turn, so I got up. And then, of course, Cecily wanted to try. Her version was definitely the best. (Also relevant: we've been reading The Secret Garden for bedtime stories and we had pancakes for dinner that night.)
Cecily, exuberantly: The thought made some pancakes and ran over here. Their name was Colin. The person . . . brought them back and then there're no more farts!

On Tuesday, it was 65 degrees outside. Beautiful. Sunny. I picked up Emilia from school and we drove home with the windows down because everybody was too hot. That night, it snowed. And it snowed and snowed and snowed. This was the view from my front window Wednesday night.

Since it was so warm, it rained first, and then it froze on all the trees and then the snow stuck to it like glue. It was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. And it wasn't just at night or right away in the morning. It lasted all day. I decided Thursday morning to take the younger two to the temple grounds with me so i could take some pictures of the temple with the trees all covered in snow. But by the time we got there, it had actually warmed up a bit and the snow wasn't sticking to the trees the way it was in Springville (the temple is in Provo, about 7 miles north). I was disappointed. But I still got a couple good shots. We were freezing when we were done, though.

I took some more shots on Friday afternoon. I just can't get over the beauty of the trees holding onto the snow. It's so different than what I grew up with in North Dakota.

I found it humorous that my U.S. Mail box ended up looking like it was wearing one of those Russian hats. I looked it up and they are called Ushenkas. Bet you didn't know that before.

This morning, Steve and I were still lazing in bed and Cecily came in to hang out with us. After a minute, she said, "Daddy, you go to sleep. And I kiss you." Steve dutifully laid down and closed his eyes, pretending to snore. She leans over and kisses his chin and he startled awake. She giggled charmingly and then told him to do it again. They played it this way about ten times before she said. "Okay, now I go to sleep." And she closed her eyes and waited for Daddy to kiss her awake. Steve was a bit more dramatic in his pre-kiss warm up. ;)

My pretty girls at church. (They asked me to take a picture.)

Cecily being cute one morning.

This is a picture Mira drew for me. I love that she's learning to write (and that she writes "I like you" instead of "I love you" because she doesn't know how to spell "love.") I also love how she draws my hair curly.

You know. Just me.

We went to the library on Friday because I needed to pay my overdue fines before I could renew a couple of the books (like Secret Garden which we haven't finished). I swear the library stays in business because I can't manage to get my books back by their due date. Ever.

There was a fun Native American story time where the kids got to make a pouch necklace that they could wear around their necks. They had to listen to the speaker talk about Native American customs and listen to her read a book about one of their deities before the the craft project though and Cecily was having none of it. Especially since Mira got the purple bean bag to sit on and Cecily only got a red one.

She disappeared at one point and I found her on the other side of the library coloring in the adult coloring books like this, with six colored pencils in her hand a time. Oy, that child.

And the last little humorous story. I got this book in the mail this week:

This doesn't look like a book I would normally read. I didn't remember buying the book. It did seem like the kind of thing I would have read about in another book or online and would have looked at on Amazon. But I really didn't think I would have bought it. I thought maybe I accidentally put it in my cart and I paid for another item (I've bought a few in the last few weeks) without paying as much attention as I should about everything that was in my cart. But it came in the mail with my name on it, so I put it on my night stand to figure out when I had more time.

A few nights later, I rolled over to turn off my lamp and saw the sticker on the side of the book. Enlarge the picture and look at the words.

I laughed out loud. I had ordered the book Goodnight Gorilla like three weeks previous because Cecily loves that book, but so had Emilia and Mira and it had lost both of it's covers and gotten thrown away. She had asked me for it, so I got on Amazon and ordered it from a used book store. And I ended up with Woman Code. Do you think maybe they thought the book would help women put the gorilla inside them to sleep?

Luckily, the seller was easy to work with and I got a refund and a note saying to keep the book I got in error. What do you think? Should I read it?

Sick again

Valentine's Day was this week. And I didn't do much for it. I wrote notes to all of my kids and to Steve, but I haven't been feeling well all week, either physically or mentally. I also got to go to writing group on Wednesday. Steve went to a movie with Ben on Thursday and Friday we had to cancel our date so both of us could take a nap and take it easy. Saturday, Joe and Cindy were here with Sebastian and Flo and Haley and we met them at the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Natural Curiosity. It was a little bit of a rough day because I still wasn't feeling well, but I didn't want to send Steve to the museum without me again. From the museum, we drove directly to my parents house for a birthday dinner for Ben. I got a full nine hours of sleep last night and then got up and showered and got breakfast for the girls, then fell asleep again for two hours before going to church. I was still dragging by 6pm. I don't know what I've got, but it's wiping me out. Bleh. Send good vibes my way. Hopefully I'll be better by next Sunday!