July- Part One

If I had to choose just one word to describe the entire month of July, it would be: CHAOS.

The month started with James' baptism on the 1st. 

Aunt Rosi and Grandma & Grandpa flew in the days before. We ate a horrible meal at Applebee's (HOW are they even in business?), showed everyone new the house, and had the missionaries over for dinner. We visited Monterey and took everyone on the very scenic 17 Mile Drive. The MEN put all the windows down and we were freezing and angry for half the ride. Punks.

Grandma chatting up strangers

Amelia was terrified of the "creatures" in the tide pools. "I don't want to touch the creatures!"

And we started packing/moving into our new house. Poor Aunt Rosi has a terrible time babysitting while we took a few loads over. Amelia was very unhappy when we dropped everyone off at the airport.

 The entire process took about 10 days with us moving on our own for 3 days, movers bringing the furniture on the 6th, and then unpacking the new house and cleaning the old apartment. We tried to reward the kids for being such troopers with swimming and slurpies lots of playing in the sprinklers. It was a LOT of work, and they were really very well behaved.

we do miss the hot tub! 

free slurpie day at 7/11

 We handed in our keys on the 12th. The kids were pretty sad to leave the apartment. I think that's normal. It's the only home Amelia really remembered. And of course, the pool. We all miss the pool.

And then I flew out to Utah with the kids on the 13th for a trip that we had planned far before we knew that we were moving.

Amelia was VERY excited about flying.

Stay tuned...

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).