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?

3•19•2017

Last week was insanely busy. I feel like I need a break from the whole week!.

Of course the week started out with the time change and was full of crying, behavior problems and general grumpiness. I didn't know if we were going to survive it. We forgot to switch the clocks and ended up getting to church an hour late.

Monday was brought to us by tangerine flavored Red Bull. It was a blur of crying children, painful workouts, baseball practice, and going to bed early to try and make up for the lost hour.

I took Amelia to the library on Tuesday for story time. This week there was a new story teller there and it was actually really good! Amelia was so happy to pick up a book that James had on hold that she insisted on taking it to school when we picked him up so that she could give it to him personally.

It was also Pi Day, 3.14. Our church had a potluck pie event and Amelia helped me make Strawberry Chiffon pie with a chocolate crust, and a Lime Chiffon pie with a graham cracker crust. They brought out some kid-sized basketball hoops and a bunch of balls for the kids to play with in the cultural hall.  Amelia spent her time shadowing the missionaries. I'm pretty sure they had no idea that she was just a few steps behind them all night. She was just so excited to see them. She would run back to me and tell me that she "found them again" before running back and following them around.

James had his first baseball game on Wednesday, which I missed due to a pretty horrible low blood sugar episode. I've been restricting calories a bit too much it seems. I spent the rest of the week focusing on being healthy and making good choices rather than trying to stick to a 1,000 calorie diet. It was pretty much the most horrendous experience ever complete with dizzying vision problems, inability to stand, and followed up with crying and bewilderment. Paul picked James up from school before taking James to the game. They played the Red Sox, and the Red Sox won.

James also had a lock-down drill at school on Wednesday. He accidentally walked into a pile of tables that had been tipped over to create a barricade and got a black eye!

The missionaries came to teach James the 4th discussion on Thursday. He was kind of off for this discussion, but given his sleep deprivation, I guess I can't blame him. This week the missionaries challenged him to think of ways to keep the Sabbath Day holy. We printed off a Sabbath bucket list for him to use on Sundays.

Friday was St. Patrick's Day and the leprechauns disappointed everyone by not showing up. But it wasn't a total loss. James had an exciting field trip at Vasona Park where they studied geology. He loved it, but decided that perhaps geology will not be his chosen field of study in college. The boys went to baseball practice while Amelia and I prepared our yearly Irish feast of corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, and lime pie. Paul is primarily of Irish and Scottish descent, so we have a lot of fun with St. Patrick's Day.

On Saturday we all slept in (a true rarity) and then got ready for James' baseball game. His team (the Royals) played against the Reds, and even though they lost, Amelia cheered for her brother every step of the way. It was cold and I found myself wishing I'd brought a blanket. Next time I will be prepared... Amelia's nursery teacher is the team mom for the Reds and begged me constantly to go and see her. I told her that she needed to wait until after the game, so as soon as it was over she ran over and gave her the longest hug ever. I'm so grateful for her nursery leader. Amelia has such a special bond with her. She had a very hard time in nursery until Sister Nehori was called and since that very first day that she started serving in her calling, Amelia never had a problem again.

 We ended up taking much-needed naps before heading out for our weekly errands. I don't think we're quite used to the time change just yet.

This Week's Conversation Highlights:

The ground is covered in blossom petals right now and Amelia is convinced that they are sprinkles. Every time she sees them she giggles with delight and exclaims "there's sprinkles everywhere! They are so beautiful!"

Overheard Amelia in the bathroom "I'm never eating dat again. Never, ever, ever!"

3•12•2017

This week could be summed up with two words: baseball and sunshine. No complaints here.

Monday brought sunshine, a new workout routine for me, and baseball practice for James. Amelia is pretty much the best workout buddy you could ask for. She sits in her stroller and cheers me on while eating a snack. I spent the entire week sore, but made it through my week and met my goals! James also brought home some school awards. He was extremely happy about the In-N-Out certificate. He keeps reminding me that he needs to use it before it expires on December 31st. He makes me laugh.

And of course, the week wouldn't be complete without a picture of James hiding out and reading somewhere:

On Thursday we invited the missionaries over for dinner and James had the 3rd discussion. Meanwhile, Amelia tried to distract them to get them to play with her. Elder Smoot and Elder Banks are her favorite missionaries ever. She LOVES them and is always so excited to see them. After the missionaries left, we headed over to some church friends' apartment for dessert. They live in the building next to us. Our windows face each other so we "see" them a lot. Ha ha.  It was fun to socialize with them and the kids enjoyed rough housing in someone else's place.

Friday brought more baseball, and we bought Moana for our weekly movie night. We started movie night years ago when we couldn't afford to go out, but now it's just tradition .Friday nights are movie nights at the Phalen's.

On Saturday we decided to take a trip out to Santa Cruz for the day since all of our Saturdays from here to May will be spent on a baseball field. It was an absolutely beautiful day at the beach. You know how sometimes you go to the beach on a sunny day, but when you get to the actual beach it's all cloudy and cold? It wasn't like that. We had lunch at Betty's Burgers and drove around looking at all the beautiful neighborhoods (one of our favorite things to do) while the kids were sleeping in the car. It was perfect and warm and everyone came back feeling energized and looking a little pink.

 

This week's conversation highlights:

I re-arranged the kids' closet so that Amelia can more easily access all of her clothes. I was going over where everything goes and the rules (only picking out one outfit at a time, not taking everything out etc.) and Amelia said "Okay lady. Whatever you say."

James: Mom, you know what? I got sperm.

Me: WHAT?!

James: Yeah, I'm in the sperm whale group at school. Every group has a different whale to study, and I got sperm.

Crisis averted. This time. Until next week...

3•5•2017

We weren't late to church on Sunday. I can't remember the last time that happened. The missionaries spoke in sacrament meeting and so my kids actually paid attention! The missionaries have been quite the fixture in our home lately since James started taking the discussions. Amelia LOVES Elder Banks. Loves him. She kept whispering in my ear "mommy, I know dat guy, he comes to MY house!"  Amelia has been doing so well in church. When we first moved to this ward, Amelia was going through some pretty severe separation anxiety. It wasn't anything new. She'd been connected to me since she was born and struggled being away from me for any reason, ever. I couldn't go to the gym, or even leave her with Paul without her crying the entire time I was gone. It took us several months of taking turns sitting in nursery with her before she was finally ready. That's the thing about Amelia, you can't push her. She will eventually get there, and when she does she doesn't look back, but it has to be on her terms. After she was finally okay with being left alone in nursery she came to love it. It was all she would talk about all week. She knew all the songs and could tell us what she learned about, but her teachers said that she never said one word. For nine months. Very recently she has become much more comfortable there and is finally on speaking terms with everyone. She knows which kids she doesn't like, and which ones are her friends. She has grown so much socially and I am so happy and pleased with her progress.

On Monday it was back to school as usual. I went for a run and my allergies nearly did me in. It is spring here. Everything is blooming, and while it is beautiful, I have spent every day in misery since the pollen emerged.

I headed to the gym on Tuesday to avoid running in the pollen infested air. My arm injury has really been holding me back and I finally decided to just pick a program and follow it as best as I can with my limitations. Then Amelia and I got ready for story time at the library. It was lackluster at best. They have been really struggling to find a good story teller for story time since losing the really great girl last year. It's been such a bummer! But we go anyway and pick out lots of books. This week we studied the letter M so we got books about monkeys and mice. James had baseball practice after school, and after dinner we headed to the store to pick out a birthday card for Grandpa Willardson.

James' very loose top front tooth made it's exit on Wednesday. He has 4 or 5 loose teeth and this was the 4th to fall out. He says he looks like his Grandpa Willardson now. He totally does. James had baseball practice after school. On practice days he has to rush to get his homework done and get dressed for practice quickly before Paul comes and picks him up.  While he was waiting for Paul to pick him up I caught him reading to Amelia. He loves reading so much.

Thursday was Dr. Seuss's birthday and we celebrated with new books and some games.

We woke up early on Saturday to get over to the Little League opening day at the school across the street from the church. There was a parade of teams followed by food, bouncy houses, and team pictures. James' team wears white pants so we were trying to keep all the kids from getting dirty until after their pictures were taken. After that we headed down to Gilroy for our weekly Costco trip and followed that up with a bunch of food prep.

Until next week...