Happy Birthday to John (and me)!

Recently John turn 35! It was a normal school and work day, but we ate some yummy food and opened a few presents. John requested seven layer dip for his birthday dinner, which is super good, but just hard enough that it has to be a birthday type event for me to make it by myself. We finished it off with a delicious chocolate cream pie.

He got a couple of presents from us and some darling cards from the kids. Eliza wrote him card with a bunch of compliments and coupons for nice things. Miriam wrote him nice card that included a poem she composed (I edited for spelling):
I love you
You love me
We love each
other just like
it should be
Holland made a nice handprint card with Mommy's help. :)

Daddy's presents included: coconut milk, homemade chocolates from Mommy, new clothes and a pack of new mints (since his jaw has been giving him so much trouble this last year, he can't chew gum or hard things anymore).

His main present (and my birthday present this year too!) is furniture for our living room. We went couch shopping for a few weeks, bought three different rugs, a couple of trips to various Costcos to get the nice rocking/swivel chair, and a bunch of throw pillows and small rugs to match. It was actually a pretty big present to ourselves. We love it though. Now we just need to get a fan for the front room so it won't be to hot to sit in there.

This is us trying to decide between rugs. I didn't even take a picture of one because as soon as I saw it in person I knew it wasn't what I wanted. I really like the one we ended up choosing!

It was actually my birthday celebration day recently too, even though I don't have any photographic evidence. :) The last couple year I have had a celebration birthday day because my real birthday is too close to Christmas to do anything. I was spoiled by a few cute decorations, German chocolate pancakes for breakfast, Thai salads for dinner, and pudding brownies with ice cream for dessert. Yeah, it was delicious! For my sweet gifts, I received yummy coconut milk, dark chocolate almond milk, and a subscription to Hallmark movies now (I am a big Hallmark movie and tv show girl these days).

Here are a couple of photos of my cute cards:
Once again Miriam wrote a cute poem
I love you
You love me
We love each
other and I like
it that way!

Eliza included a couple of sweet coupons. :)


I am the luckiest mommy! This wasn't even for my birthday, but look at the sweet card I received recently from my sweet Miriam.

YW Lipsync

A few weeks ago, one of the YW activities was a lipsync. Erica worked her creativeness, and we did this awesome lipsync. It fabulously ridiculous. I found my cool costume at goodwill the night before and spent about $7 total for the vest and the cool bell bottoms. I always thought this song was fun to sing too, but now I can't get our moves out of my head. They're pretty amazing. :)

Preschool, update on Holland

Since the big girls started school I have been staying busy starting a little preschool group with Holland and two other 3 year old girls. Sophie and Naomi are good little friends, and I am good friends with their moms. We rotate who does preschool each week. This has been a new experience for me. I have always just done preschool by myself with each girl. I still don't know if this is actually teaching Holland anything, but I do know she really enjoys it. And gives me a little bit of time kid-free each week I am not teaching.

Holland does a lot more fun activities. I have done B and E for our weekly letters. The themes were body and exercise. My favorite activity that the kids did was Cosmic Kids Yoga. It is a storytelling yoga youtube channel. It's darling.

It is a little stressful to manage three 3 year olds, instead of one, but it is still sweet.

They are definitely at all different levels. This is especially true for Sophie and Holland in coloring/painting. Sophie is very careful and neat. Holland is a little more free with her colors. :)

Holland is letting naps go recently which is sad. She still takes and an occasional nap though. This shot of her sleeping on the recliner was after church one day. Holland is really learning a lot these days though. She is rocking her reading lesson and just starting to say the 'th' sounds in 3, 13, and 30.
She has gotten a lot better at her reading lesson, but it is still an effort in patience as she gets distracted by one thing or another. I videoed a little bit of it one day.

 Holland is learning to write her name and even how to draw a guy (like her salt guy here--she said it was her cousin Sammy). Although, in regards to her name, she is learning to write and spell Holland, she insists and corrects us by saying her name is Holly not Holland.

Holland still really loves stories and even asks to be told a story here and there (like here at dinner one night). She is definitely a threenager--meaning her emotions are wild. She is either extremely happy or extremely mad/sad. Check out this video of her crying in the car that she wants to die. We were driving home of the gym, and she started throwing a fit because she got this idea in her head. I had to pull over and film this because it was so horrifying/hilarious.


There are lots of rewards for good behavior and lots of time outs for bad behavior. No joke, it makes me so nervous about them becoming real teenagers. I know this phase will pass in a year or so.

I love her little voice. Check out this video of us just chatting a couple of months ago.



Holland still loves the prerecorded songs on the piano. She loves dancing to the jazzy tunes.

Eliza's Braces

Eliza is here to help me write about her new braces.

We have been thinking about getting me braces for a while. So I got them a few weeks ago. It was really weird when I got them. They had to a mold of my mouth. The pink stuff they put in mouth to make the mold didn't taste too good. They used a stretcher to hold my mouth open and keep my tongue out of the way. I am glad about that because although it was uncomfortable it kept me from tasting the some of the stuff they used in my mouth.

I pick blue rubber band to go around the braces. I really like them that way. I might keep the color. I hope the next appointment doesn't interfere with my fall class party because it is on the the same day. It is hard to floss because of that wire. I have to use a plastic needle to get the floss over and around. Food keeps getting stuck on them. The first few days there was a wire that kept sticking my cheek but after we put wax on it, it has stayed down. Overall, I like them and am excited I have them.

We just think she is super cute with her braces!

First Day of School 2018

Eliza is going to help me write this post about the first day of school: 

I was nervous the first day of school, but I was also really excited. My teacher's name is Mrs. Perks, and my other teacher's name is Mrs. Hartland. I have two teachers, and I switch teachers in the afternoon. Mrs. Perks teaches math and science, and Mrs. Hartland teaches ELA (English Language Arts). I am going to have to have the same two teachers next year because Mrs. Perks is the 4th grade gifted teacher, and Mrs. Hartland is the 5th grade gifted teacher. It is dual classroom, and we switch in the afternoon. Mrs. Perks and Mrs. Hartland have next door classrooms. 

I really love it. In ELA we do literary discussions, which is my favorite part. It is like an argument where you are trying to convince other kids of what you think. Currently we're in a poetry unit. Recently I wrote my very own poem about a mailbox. 

mailbox

By Eliza, inspired by Valerie Worth

a tall, silver

a tower

in a field

the flag up

a bundle

of words

inside

standing awake

guarding 

the castle

asleep, a red

cloak

hiding,

an empty 

stomach

hungry 

for

mail

I used so many metaphors with it that for the first little while I left the title off and used it as a riddle. Everyone said that the last three lines gave it away. 

Mrs. Perks does something really cool called math dates. She writes the day by in math forms, like binary numbers, factorials, and exponents. We're also doing algebra and legal moves. It is really fun. I am also practicing math facts on an app on my Kindle. 10 minutes a day. I am getting way better. 

We are doing an experiment with bread and potatoes. We tried to get them as dirty as possible and are watching disintegrate and grow mold. 

I met a new friend. Her name is Nola, and her favorite color is green. She is really nice. She is quite tall, a full head and a half taller than me. 

Miriam is going to give her thoughts about the new school year:

My teacher is Mrs. Whigham. She is super fun, and she teaches me a lot. She teaches me some strategies about subtraction and addition.
Our daily starts school morning board. Morning board is where we count how many days we have been in school, look at the calendar, and do a few math things. One day we did morning board so long that it took up an hour. Then we normally do readers' workshop. Reader's workshop is where we normally read books and write about them. It is hard to know exactly what we do for reader's workshop because she never says when we start or end it. Then it is writer's workshop. In writer's workshop we write stories. We already wrote several paragraphs. It has been informational texts and stories. I am working on a story right now. My story is about the Hunter and his Wife. It is based off of The Fisherman and His Wife. After writer's workshop we got to specials. My favorite specials are music, PE, art, library, and computer lab. I love all of them. In computer lab we're starting a slide show. Then we go to lunch. After lunch is recess which is 20 minutes. Then we line up, and Mrs. Whigham takes us into the classroom. We do math stations. After that is math workshop, which is different from math station because we all work together and Mrs. Whigham isn't out of bounds, like she is during stations. Then we do reading stations. After that is science--right now we are studying liquids. I wrote an informational text about matter a month ago. It was in writer's workshop. After that is closing when we go home or on Friday is success club and then closing. Success club is where we play with toys. I like to play with magnet toys and draw.
Last week, for my homework I did a writing project. I wrote about how I've been kind. I made sure to follow the directions and clearly only another classmate and I were the only ones to used the check sheet. Mrs. Whigham had me read mine to the class, and then Mrs. Whigham had me show it to the office helpers. One of the office helpers said we should show Mrs. Strickland, the vice-principal. She wanted a copy herself, so she copied it in the copy machine. Then the office helper gave me a sticker that said Awesome on it. I put it on the paper.
I have lots of friends. I think my whole class in nice, except when the boys talk about the girls. And when they act like they're in love with me and the other girls. It's so annoying. I like playing with Lucy Welling and Yewon Kim. I also like playing with Nina. Becky Pratt just started in my class, and I like playing with her. I also like playing with Annabelle and Ashlynn. I love school!

I love hearing about the girls' school experiences. I think they are in good places this year. I have to chuckle at this picture of them on the first day--eyes closed and fake, squinty smile. Yep, that is how we photo around here. :)

These girls are awesome! I am so proud of them!

Summer Fun

Wow the summer here just flies by, which is ironic because the temperature stays so hot for so long. It is September 9th today, and we're still looking at triple digits for the next 10 days. Yesterday the high was 108.
Even still, the Phoenix summer seems to race by. One highlight of the summer was when our realtor rented out a theater, and our family was able to see Incredibles 2 for free. We watched the first Incredibles leading up to this, which was fun. Our kids loved it! They especially loved going to the theater. Holland called it the "fancy place." It really blew her mind. It has been so funny to see how animated she gets talking about it. "Member when we saw the I get smashed at the fancy place." We didn't understand what she was talking about at first, but we realized she was talking about the Pixar intro where the lamp comes out and jumps on the I. Another favorite part all of the kids wanted to talk about for a long time was when Baby Jack Jack fights the raccoon. Never-ending humor in that. :)

We loved having our lazy summer days together. I love the slower pace of summer. Although, we do still stay busy, it isn't the constant badgering of the kids to stay on schedule.

We did another successful summer of the Summer Bucks Program. They did great this summer and earned a ton of stuff that we haven't even had time to get to all of the rewards yet. One memorable activity was a water party. Eliza bought this one. Buckets, water balloons, a hose, and water guns make for a good time. 

 One set of waterballoons kept popping in the bowl and the other wouldn't pop even when you threw it at a person or even if it landed on the concrete sometimes. We learned that the best technique was to throw it really hard at the ground right next to the person you are trying to get wet.

Another buck reward for Miriam was making something out of clay. She made and painted this flower. she did a great job!

 She wanted to revisit the water party for another one of her Buck rewards. So we found this cute donut pool on clearance and had a great relaxing little soak out there in the kiddie pool.

A couple more of Eliza's purchases was swimming at Nozomi pool, family game night, and extra free time. Here she is going off the diving board for the first time.

Another fun activity was when we went to the Mary Poppins storytime at the Library. Of course we had to dress up and make use of our Mary Poppins costume from Christmas.  It was darling. They had the Mary Poppins actress from the broadway play that was in town come read stories and sing songs with the kids. Not surprising but she had a gorgeous singing voice. 

Another fun activity was on the 4th when we went to the neighborhood party where there were blow up slides and water games. We didn't realize that there were so many water activities because we had to go back home and change into swim suits. 

The girls also did a round of indoor soccer this summer. Always a good time.

We only did one round of swim lessons this summer, but they were fun. It was kind of a trick to sit poolside with Holland for 2 hours, but fortunately she had a 1/2 hour lesson in there. They all did great.

Our girls shared a room all summer because Daniel was still staying with us on and off. They are big cuddlers, and we regularly saw them in uncomfortable looking positions.
We had another fun activity one light of taking a giant bubble bath. They are such good friends.

 Our older girls had a lot of fun playing at the gym this summer. They made a lot of creation with those lego sets. Mainly they designed a extravagant house-cars. :)

One of the main things I wanted to do with them this summer was teach them to do a few things in the kitchen. They made a lot of eggs, fruit and green salads, and a few other dishes. They did great!

We did one larger house project over Memorial Day when we redid the floor in our bathroom and laundry room. It was a lot smaller of a project that the other flooring projects that we did. And it was easier because we have more experience now. That is a great combo for house projects.

Before:

 After:

It is nice to have that threshold done and and the new baseboards done. The trickiest part was moving the washer and dryer, but renting that appliance dolly made all the difference.