10•15•2017

This week was filled with illness. Amelia was sick. James was sick. Paul was sick. I think they caught what I had last week. It wasn't fun. But there was a silver lining! I finally got to take a week off from my extremely busy life. We cancelled all appointments, classes, play dates, etc. and got to rest and relax and focus on getting better. As an introvert, the hectic schedule of life is extremely draining. For months I have had something going on every single day. It was nice to take a week off and just bake and clean and let Amelia watch Octonauts all day long.

For family night we Booed some neighbors (secretly leaving treats on doorsteps). We decided to just walk around the neighborhood and find homes that didn't already have "We've been Booed" signs on the doors. We got a lot of steps in that night. Apparently there was an earthquake while we were out walking around, but we didn't notice.

Amelia packing lunches in her underwear. 

James' school picture came home. That was...interesting. We are doing retakes this year, I think.

Amelia continues to thrive with preschool at home this year. She is breezing through learning all of her letters. She is so proud of the fact that she can write her name by herself. I'm pretty proud of her, too. 

The fires in Northern California really impacted our air quality this week. The school asked parents to drive kids to school and recess was indoors all week.

A campfire program had been planned for Thursday night pack meeting, but due to poor air quality we had to move it inside at the last minute. It went pretty well considering we had been scrambling to find a building with gym availability on Wednesday night. The boys had to race to put tents together and all the wolves received the Paws of Skill belt loop. We've officially split the dens and I'm in charge of Wolves now. Pray for me.

On Saturday we took a drive out to Watsonville's Gizdich Ranch where we got Apple-Ollalieberry Pie, Apple Cider Slushes (AMAZING) and let the kids play on farm equipment, climb hay bails and pick pumpkins from a pumpkin patch.

I also forced them into taking Fall pictures. I've been working on my photography skills lately. It's the one thing that I really want to be better at. I need to get a new tripod though so that we can get a good family picture with all of us (Amelia decided that the last one was a chair and it exploded). Then we rushed back to San Jose so that Paul could attend a memorial for a friend who passed away last week.

This Week's Conversation Highlights:

Amelia was upset with me coaxing her to nap and shower with the promise of feeling better. "you said naps would make me feel better and I'm not better. You said a shower would make me feel better and I'm not better! I'm still sick!"

While we were in Utah my dad told James that he has a very important job: annoying his mom. So James tries to annoy me near-constantly (I'm pretty sure this is also and 8 year old boy trait). Every now and then I shoot him the "mom glare" and he grins the biggest grin and says, "what? I'm just doing my job that Pee-Pa gave me."

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Today is Grandma Willardson's birthday. Lately I've really been missing this woman. I see so much of her in my own daughter that I am reminded of her every single day. The need for everything to be clean and just so, her obsession with puzzles and an undeniable spunk is just so Dorothy Jean.

I never really told this story before, but I was thinking of it recently and decided I should write it down. Paul and I were married on the same day that my grandparents were married. We didn't realize this when we picked the date, but it was a tender mercy at the time because Grandma had always obsessed over my future wedding and it was painful not having her there. And then James was born on Grandpa Willardson's birthday. So when Amelia was due in January I should have been thinking of important dates, but didn't realize it until we were almost upon Grandma's death date of January 9th. I went to the doctor on the 7th and had my membranes stripped, which sort of triggered very early labor. The doctor gave me the option of being induced on January 8th, or naturally having the baby estimated on the 9th. I got to choose to replace January 9th- a date that was filled with so much grief and sadness- with joy. And in that moment I could hear my Grandma in my head plain as day "noooo."  So I was induced. And Amelia doesn't have to share her birthday with Grandma's death date. I'm convinced she wanted it this way, and that alone brought me comfort. Ever since Amelia was born, my January 8th is so happy that it's hard to be sad on January 9th.

Several years ago I took a trip with my family out to Promontory Point, Utah where Grandma grew up. It was such an eye-opening experience and I understood so much more about her. Her tales of walking to school on the fence posts in the winter. Seeing the foundation of the school and the foundation of her home. Realizing just how deep the snow was. Seeing the floors of her Grandparent's house that she used to clean with milk. The trough in her Grandfather's yard where she was baptized. She was a strong woman. She never complained. I wish I had gotten that from her. I mean, she would go get a root canal, be obviously miserable and say she was just fine. Even when her body was shutting down and she was on hospice, she occupied conversations with things other than her pain. I wasn't really emotionally prepared for her death and I avoided her in the last few weeks of her life because of the pain of it. I regret it so much. I just hope she knows how much I love her and how grateful I am for the experiences that she gave me. Happy Birthday, Grandma.

10•8•2017

Conference weekend was amazing. I love being able to relax and listen to the talks and focus on my little family. We made orange rolls for the Sunday morning session. I love that my kids recognize the traditions that we've created for them and look forward to them. Orange rolls during conference are one of those traditions.

Amelia continues to LOVE dance class. She is so dedicated to it and practices all week long. I love that she's found something that she loves so completely. Makes me happy.

 I'd been feeling pretty under the weather and promised Amelia that I'd we'd have a special tea party after dance class on Wednesday to make up for mom being in bed for days on end. She loved it and it was so cute! I will really miss this stage of her life. You really learn to enjoy even the sort of crappy moments with your last kid because as crazy as the tantrums can be, the sweetness and hilarity of the third year of life is so precious and fleeting.

James made student of the month at his new school! We are so proud of him. His teacher said that when he first came to class he was extremely chatty, but he set a goal of getting the most behavior reward points and buckled down and did it. Way to go, James!

Both the kids had birthday parties to attend this week so we went to B&N to pick out books for presents. While we were there they found books that they wanted for themselves and asked me to take pictures so they could add them to their Christmas lists. I love that they love books so much! I remember when I was a kid that my Christmas lists were pretty much entirely books and nothing else. 

In between birthday parties we headed over to Martial Cottle Park's Fall festival. It was actually pretty hot, but it was fun. The kids played games, got prizes, "milked" fake cows, read all about "ancient" tractors and played at the farm-themed park. I think they loved the 4H virtual reality display the most. They are still talking about the stuff they saw in the ocean. 

The weekend ended with James losing a tooth and writing a note asking the tooth fairy to bring pokemon cards. He wasn't exactly pleased with the random handful of change that the tooth fairy brought. Life is full of disappointment.

This Week's Conversation Highlights:

A: knock knock

Mom: who's there?

A: baby

Mom: baby who?

A: baby mama

Mom: um, Baby mama?

A: feed to baby, mama! I'm hungry!

A: knock, knock

Mom: who's there?

A: it's me, your grandpa (in a deep grandpa voice)

Mom: grandpa who?

A: what?! you don't your grandpa? This is crazy. You don't love me anymore (in deep grandpa voice)

A: knock knock

Mom: who's there?

A: watermelon

Mom: watermelon who?

A: oh, you have got to be kidding me! Why don't you know what a watermelon is? Don't you remember we ate lots of them?

Amelia after blessing the food on Sunday night: I didn't say nothing bout conference. Those prayers are so long. I didn't like conference prayers. That why I didn't say anything 'bout conference."

9•17•2017 - 9•30•2017

The last two weeks in September were busy. We had something going on every single day. Between play dates, baseball, dance, scouts, school events, story time, and church commitments we were pretty busy.



Amelia continues to do really well in dance class. She looks forward to it and has surprisingly had zero issues with being left alone.

I'm so glad that I get to be her mom. She brings infinite amounts of happiness to my life. She has been pushing me to teach her how to spell the rest of her name lately. "You need to teach me 'E' because my name is A-M-E-L-I-A!" Guess I better get on that...

She's got 'A' and 'M' down!

James finished his democracy unit and school and they celebrated with a trip to City Hall. He had a pretty good time and enjoyed exploring the building and learning "secrets" of City Hall. On Friday his class treated the parents to a gallery walk review of their learning about democracy. James was a good little docent.

Paul was in Utah for Layton's early employee retreat (code for lots of boring classes/certification in a nice resort).

Obviously he was super bored because he sent me a bunch of weird things like this.

...and this. He was convinced this was Paul Wesley from Vampire Diaries. I don't think so...

 I don't sleep well when he's not here to protect us from potential serial killers. I fell asleep within 5 minutes of his return. I put my efforts into decorating for Fall while he was gone.

James' school had a fundraiser at our favorite burger joint, so we hit that up while Paul was gone.

It was school picture day this week as well so I took backup pictures (because you just never know how bad they are going to turn out).

We had some nice weather and the kids enjoyed helping their dad clean the car and riding their bikes/scooters around the yard. It's so nice to be out of the apartment.

For some reason I thought it would be a good time to wash my white rug out while the weather was still warm. I think I will just never buy a white rug again. It was a lot of work and the detergent I used turned some of the fibers a brownish color so even though it's clean, it still looks dirty. *sigh*