4•23•2017

Easter Sunday was beautiful. The kids got a lot from church (I'm sure our week of lessons helped). All our after-church meetings were cancelled, which was nice. We had a dinner of ham, au graten potatoes, asparagus, rolls, easter fruit fluff, and lemon meringue pie.

 It was Spring Break this week, so we stayed up late and slept in all week. Monday and Tuesday were rainy, so we had lazy tv days. It was nice to just be lazy for once. Dark, rainy weather never inspires me to be productive.

By Wednesday I was ready to not be lazy anymore though. The sun came out and we walked to lunch at Five Guys, picked up some things at Target and Marshall's, then went home and cleaned up the house as fast as we could so that we could spend the afternoon watching movies and eating popcorn. Paul had his weekly EQ meeting and didn't get home until well after 10. Re-assigning home teaching assignments always takes forever.

The walk home brought us by all these weeds. No wonder my allergies are going crazy right now!

On Thursday we went to Starbucks for breakfast. They have the best breakfast sandwiches. After breakfast we went to Orchard Supply and the kids picked out some plants. We cleaned the balcony and planted tomatoes, forget-me-nots, basil, mint, and strawberries. We will see if we can keep any of them alive. But the kids did have a great time planting. James lost his 6th tooth when he bit into a stale piece of pizza. The tooth fairy only had a $5 bill, so James scored big. We told him that next time the tooth fairy is bringing some pennies. James' team beat the Giants by 1 point (their 3rd win of the season).

James picked out this tomato plant and carried it home.

Friday was our last day of Spring Break. It went by so fast. I am really looking forward to summer break now! The weather was wonderful so we walked to lunch and then went to the library and got some new books. In the evening we went to the church building to do a service project for CDA Cares. We helped make 1,400 peanut butter sandwiches. The kids did great and it was a lot of fun. We watched SING for movie night. I can't say that I liked it. At all.

Reading books on the patio.

 

James was nervous about making sandwiches because he didn't think he was very good at it. But he did great.

Paul had to umpire early Saturday morning before heading to coach James' game against the Red Sox. James took a ball to the head and got to walk and was happy that his team won. Amelia amused herself with flash cards for the first half of the game, and then with dirt for the second half. After the game we headed to the BSA store where we got expensively outfitted. Then I got to spend three hours trying to figure out how to sew patches on evenly. Many seams were ripped. Much frustration ensued. Not my favorite Saturday night ever. I broke out in hives, which led to waking up with sealed eyelids, but that's a story for next week.

This Week's Conversation Highlights:

Easter according to Amelia: Jesus got himself dead and then he went to a spooky cave and the soldiers rolled the stone to lock him. And then he was alive again! And he saw Mary and those soldiers went back and rolled the stone back and they were mad

Amelia holds up a strip of paper that has her name on it and says "it says, 'dear Mia, make James disappear'"

Amelia is currently obsessed with Moana. In the movie a character tries to fatten up a chicken so that he can eat it. I was sitting on the sofa and Amelia brought her bowl of popcorn over to me and started sprinkling it all over me and said "I'm going to fatten you up, drumstick!"

Amelia was running around with a bottle cleaner and I told her "Amelia, go put that in the sink. It's for cleaning water bottle straws, it's not a toy" and she said "wow, that interesting. Tell me more" in the most sarcastic tone I've ever heard come from a three year old.

Paul made a ton of chicken for dinners this week and Amelia asked "is that for you? and he would say yes. Then she pointed to the next one, "is that for you?" and after he said yes to each piece of chicken she decided to change it up with, "is that for me?" and "is that for James?" and finally, "is that for mom?" Finally Paul gets fed up with the 5,000 and questions and says, "it's for all of us!" to which she replies, "oh, that's interesting. Tell me more..."

4•16•2017

We miraculously made it to church on Sunday. I'm still unsure how I got thrown up on, in my face, and didn't catch whatever virus the kids had. Neither did Paul. Miracles to happen. I started teaching my kids about the last week of Christ's mortal ministry this week. It's one of my very favorite times of year. We made palm leaves and talked about Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

I finally started working out again on Monday. All the sickness and Spring Cleaning sort of got me off schedule.  Amelia apparently was sick of me slacking with preschool so she found some workbook pages and took matters into her own hands.

 

She also drew this picture of me all by herself. I can't help but be impressed with her work. For her age she managed to get a lot of details in there. Hair, eyes, nose, teeth, legs, arms, feet, hands. I was impressed. I think it resembles my dad a bit more than me, though.

 

She also told me to take a picture of her climbing a tree. And then she climbed it. I had to drag her down from it. She would've loved to stay there all day. Reminds me of when I was a kid and practically lived in the trees.

On Tuesday we had the missionaries over for dinner and James received his 5th and final discussion. This was Elder Banks' last time with us as he was transferred to Los Gatos. Amelia will miss him dearly.

Left to Right: Elder Banks, James, Elder Smoot

After the missionaries left, James lost his 5th tooth (on the same day he got the 5th discussion!). The tooth fairy brought him $1.67 to help him with his money counting skills. I think he was annoyed, but we got a good laugh out of it.

 

Friday was our lesson on the last supper, the sacrament, and the atonement. James and I went grocery shopping in the evening and brought home dinner before we watched Avengers.

Saturday was insanely busy. The boys woke up early and cleaned the church building while Amelia and I made fruit salad for the ward brunch. Then we all headed back to the church for brunch, and an egg hunt. The kids had a blast. Amelia tracked down the missionaries and shadowed them. They gave the kids pictures of Jesus to hand out to everyone and Amelia sat next to her nursery teacher while she ate.

Amelia was convinced that these bushes were seats.

Then we headed to James' game. Amelia tried feeding a baby some gum and was so embarrassed when we stopped her that she covered her face and didn't uncover it for the rest of the game. She fell asleep in my arms with her hands covering her face. Poor thing. I remember getting embarrassed like that when I was young. I hope I can help her deal with a little better than I did.  Then we went home, made dinner, and I cleaned up the house in preparation for Easter. It was a busy week, and we were happy to have survived it!

This Week's Conversation Highlights: 

Missionaries come over and ask James about school. We ask this constantly and get zero response. Today he tells the missionaries how he saw two girls kissing and told on them and how his friends aren't getting along and it's been going on for weeks so they decided to have a rap battle, which was actually a pushing battle. 

Backstory: I've been binge-watching Vampire Diaries. I assume at this age that Amelia has no idea what's going on, but apparently I've been wrong because this week She threw a toy at James. James complained that he was hurt and so she ran over to him, pretended to bite her wrist and held it up to his mouth and tells him He's going to be okay (it's a Vampire Diaries thing). 

 

4•9•2017

Sunday was more General conference. It was such a wonderful day full of positive messages and relaxation. Everyone napped at one point or another.

When I woke up on Monday, James had already thrown up 3 times, and Paul had started a load of laundry and sprayed off another two loads worth of bedding. There was a call made to school, and a thorough cleaning of walls, pillows, bedding, towels, shower curtains, and bath mats. You can guess why. It was a truly frustrating, and nauseating day. Paul brought home more bleach and dinner that I barely touched.

By Tuesday James was feeling much better and so back to school he went. He has missed so much school this month! I finally finished all the laundry from the day before. The weather was rainy again and practice was cancelled.

Everyone was feeling okay on Wednesday until about 8pm, when Amelia crawled up into my bed, told me that her tummy hurt, and proceeded to vomit on every surface in sight, including my face, hair, and....you get the picture. Paul stripped our bed while I showered and cleaned Amelia up. I ended up sleeping in her room with her while the boys took over my mattress with random throw blankets and pillows. I got 3 hours of very nauseating sleep.

Amelia slept all day Thursday while I worked on cleaning up the mess of the last 24 hours. At this point, I was pretty convinced that my week couldn't get better. And it didn't. My cold was still raging and I slept horribly from a self-inflicted, paranoia-induced stomach ache.

By Friday the kids were back to themselves, fighting, making messes, and making noises that my nerves didn't handle well. James and I went grocery shopping on Friday night. Have I mentioned how much I hate Costco here? Not enough parking+poorly designed parking lot+so many people you can barely push your cart through the crowds=worst nightmare. We watched Cool Runnings for movie night. I love exposing James to these movies that I grew up on. Also, they look so much better streamed off of Netflix then they did coming in from our massive satellite dish and transferred onto VHS tape in Aguanga when I was a kid. I stayed up and cleaned, as always. This week was hard on me. I'm glad it's over.

On Saturday one of James' church friends got baptized. Paul took James to the baptism and they spent some "man time" together.  Amelia and I stayed home and worked on food prep. She is such a good helper. We were able to spend the rest of the day relaxing together. Remarkably, I didn't throw up this week. I'm still baffled that I evaded whatever virus they had.

4•2•2017

Paul had to work on Sunday, and since I was down with a cold, we stayed home from church. James is reading the book of mormon in preparation for his baptism in July so Amelia and I listened to him read for awhile. Naps were also taken.

On Monday I was pretty miserable. These days are hard on me. I did not get any Spring Cleaning done. Amelia and I stayed in my bed and watched Doc McStuffins for most of the day. I didn't take any pictures at all this week.

Tuesday was a sick day. James' asthma was acting up and since I was also sick, I kept him home and had him work on schoolwork online.  We got a new couch this day. When we first moved here we didn't think that we'd have enough space so we stuck our rickety rocking chair in a corner and called it good, thinking that when we moved into a house we'd get another couch. Well, since we decided to stay in our apartment, we decided that we should do so in comfort. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to have enough seating for all of us!

Wednesday and Thursday it was back to Spring Cleaning. A woman in our community lost her husband a couple months ago in a car accident and she was having a garage sale to
 raise funds to care for her 2 kids. I decided to take all of my donate/sell pile to her. I'd been having a hard time selling James' old bike. It didn't make sense because it was a really great bike. Not cheap, but I was selling it for cheap. When I got to the woman's house, her 5 year old little boy lit up when he saw the bike. I suddenly realized that it was meant for him all along. I gave it to him and he was so happy. I hugged my babies a little tighter when I got home.

James didn't have school on Friday so Paul took the day off and we took the kids to see Beauty and the Beast. We took a nice afternoon nap and had pizza and watched Gremlins for movie night. I remember that movie being terrifying as a kid. So much more amusing as an adult in 2017.

Paul had to work on Saturday. He took a three hour break from the 12 hour project he was working on (electrical shutdown at one of the hospitals he works at) to take James to a baseball game. I was still sick. Amelia and I stayed home and watched General Conference together. Also, I finally finished Spring Cleaning (I know you've been waiting to see how long it took me)!

This Week's Conversation Highlights:  

Amelia: look at ours legs mom. Mine are brown and yours are white. White, white, white!

James and Paul were watching some documentary. James comes into my room and has tears in his eyes and tells me that he has some very bad news and goes on to explain that there are some very bad chemicals in the food at McDonald's. He starts crying and his lip pops out and he walks away.

Amelia brought out James's multiplication flash cards. She flipped through a few and the violently threw them to the ground, exclaiming, "I'm Never going to win!" And walks away

3•27•2017

This week felt really busy, but in retrospect was pretty uneventful thanks to cold, rainy weather.

Sunday
Monday was rainy. I had checked my weather app before leaving to pick James up from school and the radar predicted that the rain would arrive later in the evening. Instead, the heavens parted as soon as I got to the school. Guess who didn't bring an umbrella? So I grabbed James' hand and we ran the full mile home. We were totally drenched, but James said he liked it. We also started our very intensive Spring Cleaning. For a while we had planned on moving into a house this summer, but after discussing it and going over our finances, we decided to stay in the apartment for another year. I'd been putting off deep cleaning and de-cluttering until we moved, so this year's Spring Cleaning has been intense. Lest you think that our place is just filthy, we are talking, pull everything out of storage, go through it, chuck 90% of it, reorganize the stuff that stays, wash the walls, vacuum under the beds, deep clean the appliances type of cleaning here, folks.

Tuesday brought rain and high winds and a lightening storm warning that was fear enough to keep James home from school. No way was I risking lightening during a 2 mile walk with zero shelter. So of course the storm went south instead. Of course. Instead James did his schoolwork online all day. Also, Spring Cleaning. Amelia is the best Spring Cleaning helper I could ever ask for.

On Wednesday, Amelia and I decorated for Easter. And we cleaned some more.

Thursday there was a Relief Society activity. I made Lion House bread and brown bread. I'd never made brown bread before, but was quite pleased with how it turned out. Amelia and I hitched a ride with a friend to the church while the boys were at baseball practice. And we spring cleaned.

It rained all day long on Friday, prompting baseball practice to be cancelled. I began the week-long task of Spring Cleaning.  I've worked on it all week and only have my room and the living room completely organized and deep cleaned. So much work to do this week. We pushed the piles of garbage/recyclables/donate items aside, ordered Olive Garden to-go and rented a movie and had family snuggle time. I love my little family.

This Week's Conversation Highlights: So I'm cleaning off the table with some lemon cleaner and Amelia takes a big whiff and says "Mom, it smells just like your butt!" and I'm like, "what?! what are you talking about?" and she says "you took a shower with yours lemon soap and this table smells like lemons! like your butt! Ha hahahahaha. Just kidding!"

Have I mentioned that 3 years old is my favorite?