Holland is darling and terrifying. She is the sweetest and the spiciest all in the same day. Although really it tends to go from week to week. She is has a happy week, then an angry week. Then, hopefully back to a happy week. I love this girl with my whole heart though, thank goodness, because there are some times I am about to send her back.
Like today, she has been as sweet as can be. John asked her if she would rather have more or Erica as a mommy (that answer really could have gone either way) and she said, "No way! I love my mommy!!" Awww.
But then there are times when she totally burns us without a second thought.
She is definitely in her "why fours." She asks why about everything. John has started responding "because it is real." She actually accepts that answer.
I had to laugh at the day she asked me, "Do you love cats or are you allergic?" I answered, "I am allergic." Then of course she asked,"Why?"
I also had to laugh/be scared at when she said to me one day "I am going to be a good superhero when I grow up, but now I am a bad superhero because I am small." She does love that cape. It is her favorite dress up.
I like it when she pairs it with her bike. Oh and the crown. :)
Holland is weirdly fixated on boyfriends. She keeps saying that one boy she barely knows is her boyfriend. But then this week on our way home from the gym she told me, "Mommy, Carter wiped his boogers on me (on her face!), so I am not going to marry him." I thought it was so funny. First that she thought she was going to marry him. Second that she realized that booger wiping was a deal breaker for marriage. Smart girl.
Although at church today right after the speaker said that everyone goes through all different kinds of adversity, Holland said really loudly, but also in a wistful, pitiful tone, "I wish I had a boyfriend." What?? Where did she get this from??
I also had to laugh today when she said, "Naked with panties on is naked. Literally!"
Yesterday it was less funny when she refused to help clean by wiping off the door handles and light switches because, "It hurts [her] back!"
Earlier this week Holland asked me to film her.
The other day Holland told me her plan for bad guys in the house. "Then whack them."
If there is one word that describes her these days it would be: dramatic. We constantly try to get her to talk in a less whiny tone. It doesn't really work though. Even still, we love her so much. We love this stage and wouldn't trade her for the world.
This last week we had visitors! MaryElla and her boys + Luke came to visit. They came down to Phoenix to go to a Paul McCartney concert and stayed with us for two nights. She is such a fun person to chat with and those boys are so sweet and patient with little girls. We had a great time having them. My girls especially thought that their phone games were interesting.
They brought a present for the girls: bracelets and pony tails bands with plumeria flowers with them. My girls love them!
While they were here I recommended they try Bahama Bucks for some shaved ice if they wanted a cool treat. They went and loved it. Ironically that same day I recommeded that same place to a new family in the ward, and they went that evening. So two families tried out Bahama Bucks on the same day because of my recommendation. Pretty unusual for me, especially because we don't eat out hardly ever. But everyone loved it, and it got me really craving some. So last night Eliza and I had to go get some for a mommy-daughter date. The shaved ice is yummy, but the frozen hot chocolate is amazing. So so good.
I love this girl. We played heads up in the van while we ate our frozen treats because the store was freezing cold! She is so fun to be with, talk to, and play games with. Luckiest momma ever!!!
Happy father's day to our favorite guy! We made him a fun poster. All the girls helped color it. He also got some yummy food and a few presents: some shirts, grill mats, a treat, and cards. He is just the best father that my girls could hope for.
My girls helped submit interview questions for a church present to the dads. Here are there responses.
I also loved their cards that they made for him for father's day. Miriam's idea was all her own, little cutie. She traced the dolphin.
We especially appreciated him because he had to leave to go to a conference the next day. He was in Minneapolis for 5 days. He had an okay time but got to see Jeff Jacobson one night which was fun. The girls and I did okay. We love sending videos back and forth via Marco Polo. I even took the kids swimming one night solo.
I love you so much John! You are everything I have ever hoped for in a husband and a father to our children!
This is how John and I roll: save money, save money, save money, SPEND ALL THE MONEY, save money, save money, save money....
Well, in one week we spent all the money. (Not all, just a lot of our bank account) Mostly it was on this new minivan. We had been looking for a while and we decided to go with one that was only a year old, a few more miles, and a lower trim model, all to make it at the right price point for us. We really like it. It is a big step up for a lot of reasons: space to carpool, space to through bikes in the back, automatic doors, and different air conditioning zones are among my favorites. Also, it was time to get rid of John's old car that we got right before Eliza was born. It was starting to require too many repairs. We got this car with about 38,000 miles on it for about $22,000, but out the door price was about $26,500, which seems like quite the difference.
That same week we got our kitchen lighting redone. I have to say, I wish we had done this sooner. It wasn't that much money ($400) and it makes a huge difference in the kitchen.
Then, we got new kitchen appliances on a Memorial day sale. They are the next step on our kitchen remodel project. I seriously love the new refrigerator. It seems so much bigger. It has the door within a door and all the extra condiment space makes things feel a lot more organized. I love it. The convention oven is kind of cool although the stove top seems little funky. The microwave seems fine. The dishwasher was the appliance that needed replacing the most. We researched and supposedly got one of the best dishwashers, which seems debatable to me after having it for a few weeks. First the good: no stinky smell while running, door closes and latches appropriately, seems to clean dishes fine. The cons are that it requires rinse aid to work. Seriously it is the first thing in the instruction manual and is repeated throughout the manual. Next, it has a silverware drawer instead of basket, and I don't think they get cleaned as well. Last (and most annoying), it is smaller and doesn't fit as many dishes in it. Not only that but the racks are weird and bumpy and I just can't figure out how to load the dishes efficiently. This is manageable right now, but my kids school lunch dishes are huge and I don't know how we are going to do just one load of dishes a day when school starts again. That being said, I do love the look of the black stainless appliances, and I am excited to modernize our kitchen. Also, we got a new light fixture for over the kitchen table.
After we spent all that money, we could at least sell our old stuff for a little bit of money. We sold both through Craigslist and had kind of opposite experiences. We posted the Elantra for $1250 because it is 15 years old, about 179,000 miles on it, cosmetically wasn't great, and mechanically was questionable. We immediately got a ton of responses on it. Maybe we got a couple dozen people interested, which was kind of a problem because we were immediately leaving to go see Aladdin with the kids, getting home late, and the next day was Sunday when we didn't want to do business. It was a mad house fending off all of the calls and texts. John just kept his phone on silent. We ended up selling it to the first guy that came by on Monday morning at 7 am, which was nice. It ended up being a little bit of a hassle because it was Memorial day and we had to get the bill of sale (or maybe title) notarized, which it is hard to do on a federal holiday. It all ended up working out though.
Goodbye Elantra.
Next we wanted to sell thee appliances, which had a completely different result. We posted it, and could almost hear the crickets chirping with the lack or response. We took the price down a couple of times and that did the trick. It is kind of crazy thought that the people that we ended up selling them to live in Pennsylvania and are trucking them across the country(!). I guess things are cheaper here in AZ?? They needed to replace their basement kitchen appliances which are now from 1970. Perfect option for our appliances. I just never would have guessed that we would have sold them to someone in Pennsylvania. I just feel lucky we sold them as a set, so we got rid of them all at once.
Also, that same weekend we took on some more trip expenses by buying CityPASSes for the whole family. It was about $800. All of these expenses were in the same week. Yeah, that was not great for our bank account. Thankfully though, John received news that he got a promotion and a fantastic raise with it. John's boss told him that he hasn't ever seen such a big raise before. We feel very blessed.
Summer time has been so great with my girls at home. This year I wanted to try an idea I had heard about where you let them set their own goals for what they want to work on and make a visual board of what goals they have achieved. It has worked great. Here is our board so far.
Eliza has been working extremely hard on her typing practice goals this summer. She has gotten faster with more difficult sentences at a higher level of accuracy. Seriously she has practiced for 30 to an hour almost everyday. She has also had a drawing goal of practicing drawing the same thing different ways everyday and then hanging the one she likes the best. In addition to those goals, she has been working on piano, scripture everyday, and a couple of math problems everyday. The math problems has been fun and challenging for me and John too, with some of the problems having up to five variables. Other problems we draw out diagrams and figure it out visually. This book says 5th grade +, but we have found that it is quite a big harder than a lot of the 5th grade math that Eliza was used to working on.
But it is has been fun, and we have enjoyed figuring these out together. John has had to remind me of quite of few math rules that I had forgotten.
Miriam has had a couple of gymnastics goals: handstands, cartwheels, and now bridges. She has also had some drawing goals. In addition to that she has done piano, scriptures, xtra math, workbook pages. These pages are more on grade level, and she whips them out no problem.
Holland has "two works" as she calls it: preschool pages and reading lesson. She does pretty well with them depending on the week. I also try to read a least one book to her a day, but I am not very diligent at that. She has had a hard time since starting summer break. I think the pretty big change in routine really through her for a loop. (Holland is actually shouting right now in the other room, "I don't want to do reading lesson ANY MORE. I got some candy from the bishop. MIRIAM AND ELLIE. I live here!!!")
In addition to those things, we try to make it to the gym every day. And they have had swimming lessons. I haven't really taken too many (or any!) pictures of this. They have a table set up at the gym for older kids where they do activities in a tic tac toe (i.e. color a picture, play checkers, play ping pong, etc.) and then they get a prize. They have gotten a lot of prizes. That is definitely their kind of jam.
On Fridays, Eliza has had a standing playdate with a friend at the Y. I guess she is old enough now to swim solo after passing a swim test every time. So she swims with Nola, rinses off, changes clothes, and plays in other parts of the gym (the spin room, teen room, gymnasium), until I am done with my class and showering (typically 9 - 11am). It is has been fun for her, although she keeps getting sunburned on her face.
Eliza has also had a summer of play dates. She has been invited over a bunch of times, has this standing playdate, and she even earned inviting a friend over here. There is a new girl in her church class, and we have been getting to know that family well the last few weeks.
We have also done swimming lessons with mixed results. I feel like Miriam and Eliza are really excelling. They are doing great. They're in the most advanced class and working on their strokes. Holland on the other hand is in the most beginner class and is, if anything, regressing. This isn't because she is scared of the water, no it is because she is scared of people and won't follow directions. So yeah, it is a little frustrating. She was in the most beginner class for the first session, but because she didn't like the kids in the second session class (in that same level) she wouldn't cooperate and went to the special teacher where it was essentially just playing in water. I don't know when she is going to learn to swim. Maybe just when she is old enough to be a little more reasonable??
Overall though, I love the time I have with my girls in summer. It is definitely exhausting, but I love it. Doing activities, work time, and then (if we have extra time) the 'want to' list makes for a jam packed day, but these girls are amazing. I really do feel like the luckiest momma in the whole world.
So this has been the nicest Spring and Summer that we have had since we have moved to Phoenix. It has stayed cool for so much longer than normal. Normally we are hitting triple digits in May, this year it was put off an entire month until June. And June! Normally we are at 110 or above through June, with spikes of heat into 115 or higher. This year we have had one whole day at 110 or above, and just this weekend we are getting back up there again. There is a big difference between 100 and 115. People have told that this is the once in a century kind of Spring or Summer. We have definitely been trying to savor it.
Our plants have definitely been loving it. So many blossoms on that desert rose. We also got blooms on our barrel cactus, twisted myrtle, hibiscus, and so many on that pomegranite tree. There are probably 40 pomegranates on that tree. It is really overachieving this year. And much to our delight one of our orange trees actually hung onto some baby oranges. The blood orange tree has 7 oranges on it! Our banana tree has definitely loved the cooler weather. We still try to keep water on it a lot and it has gotten a lot bigger since we planted it. Miriam made this little craft. That is my favorite flower picture. :)
Miriam is here to help me talk about the end of school.
For the end of the year class party, we had a lot of stations that we went to. There was a beading station. That is what I am doing here with Yewon and Jesse. Mommy was doing face painting, and I got a butterfly. Some other girls got butterflies too. My finished necklace had lots of pretty beads. I got two beads with M's on them so I put them around the charm. The charm was a big pink bead I found.
There was also a caterpillar making station. I made Sky and Leaf there. There is my teacher Mrs. Whigham. As a gift for her retirement, we made a video where we were all interviewed about Mrs. Whigham. She is very nice. We also helped make a gift basket for her, and there were lots of goodies in there like shirts and gift cards.
In Mrs. Whigham's class we had a schedule with math workshop, math stations, reading workshop, reading stations, and writer's workshop. And then we had specials, lunch, and success club on Fridays. Mrs. Whigham is really fun, and we did lot of crafts. We had a lot of fun homework like making slideshows about weather and the human body. I know that if you were in Mrs. Whigham's class you would really like it. She was also really fun with the activities, we could do a craft with the slideshows. We also did a craft where we chose lots of words and made a design with those words. I drew a heart and wrote words along the edge. I am going to miss Mrs. Whigham next year. She is a wonderful teacher and a fun one too. I learned a lot in her class.
Thanks Miriam! Unfortunately I wasn't there to get pictures of Eliza's end of year party. (I had made arrangements to attend a temple session at that exact time.) Fortunately, Eliza is here to talk about her party and her 4th grade experience.
4th grade was an excellent year! My teachers, Mrs. Perks and Ms. Hartland are really nice. I really liked learning a ton of math and writing this past year. One of the big things we learned in math was algebra. It's been really fun. We also learned a lot about PEMDAS, fractions, and the operations in general. In Ms. Hartland's class we did a lot on American history. We did the American Revolution and Woman's Rights. We also did animal defense mechanisms, which was my favorite thing we did.For animal defense mechanisms, we had to write a Choose Your Own Adventure. That was so fun! I did one on the monarch butterfly. Anyway, my end of year party was super fun. We signed each other's class pictures, and then we just had cake and ice cream.
The end of the school year also marked the end of soccer, which was nice and sad. It is nice to eliminate something on the schedule. It is sad because the girls get good exercise doing it and we have made some good friends at soccer. It has been fun to chat during practice and games. Our girls are still not the most aggressive players, but they do well on defense. One funny moment was when Miriam told us that she had been praying/hoping not to win so that they could work on their sportsmanship.
Here are two boys from the family we became friends with. They have played together for a couple of years now, but they are moving on to the AYSO league. Maybe we will too? The Bertlings: Garrett and Holden. Not pictured is Carter who is slightly older than Holland, who also is the person Holland claims is her best friend, and she loves him. (Even though they have only played a couple of times...)
The girls had a very informal soccer banquet with pizza and a medal. I am proud of them for working hard to learn this skill and being active.
Holland is here to help me talk about preschool.
Doing rainbow hair. Serving others. We did rainbow hair at Maddy's house. Carly did it. I loved it. Ivy got rainbow. Maddy has a sister named Ivy. It didn't hurt. I accidentally washed out all of the rainbow hair. I didn't mean to. I like lots of rainbow hair. I like blue right now. I don't like pink anymore or yellow. You need to glue this. We need to. We all have the funnest houses. I love preschool. I learn lots of things I do. Oliver isn't big enough for preschool.
Naomi is Elsa girl. But she doesn't have the Elsa dress on. She doesn't.
My bugs are really red, red, red, red. They are red. They are red. They are all red. I love them. I do like them. They were mad at me. They were itchy and hurting. I had to wear band aids and a band on my bug bites. I had to. My bug bites had medicine white ones and coconut oil (mixed with tea tree oil).
Thanks Holland for helping me write this post. I felt so bad about her bug bites. I was helping with a move and she was kept busy by watching a movie on the kindle. Little did I know that she was also being eaten. I put a pad on it that first day with some anti itch stuff. She looked like a little burn victim. The other days she just wore long sleeves. She was worn out with all the excitement of ending preschool and had to take a nap during an orthodontist appointment. She was so mad when she woke up and found out she had slept through it. She normally gets to watch a show on the kindle. (That girl really likes her screen time, and generally I try to keep it to a minimum. That's why she was so mad.) Since the girls have been out of school Holland has had a little bit of a hard time. I think that change is hard, even if it is a happy change like having her sisters home during the day.
