Mother's Day weekend

 What a fabulous weekend I had! Saturday started with a FiA workout where we invited our 2.0s (kids) along, and had a super fun workout with treats at the end. Then we headed to Chloe's soccer game, which is always adorable.

My brother has a limo business and we worked out an elaborate plan that turned out fabulous. He chauffeured his wife, me, and my sister from his house in Pleasant Grove down to Payson and Spanish Fork to pick up my mom and grandma. We brought them flowers and then headed up to the Riverwoods to Color Me Mine, where we painted pottery for almost two hours. We all made some super cute pieces. I did a pitcher. My brother and sister-in-law did square bowls. My mom did a little candy/nut dish. My grandma did a vase. My sister did a couple mugs. It was relaxing and super fun to just chat with the adults. While my brother was chauffeuring us around, Bill and my brother-in-law took care of the six kids, and then we had a babysitter come and they came down to meet us and we went out to eat at La Jolla Groves, which I'd never heard of, but was really, really good. We went to this cool rare books museum/store also in the Riverwoods afterwards that was fascinating. Got to hear a presentation and see a bunch of really old Bibles. I would go back there to keep exploring. It was basically a small museum with so much cool stuff in it. 

Sunday we were treated to a brunch at church second hour and then Bill and Suzanne and I teamed up and made a roast, buttery pull apart bread, a boule, chicken salad, fruit salad with lime, asparagus, and finished it off with strawberry shortcake. Doug made it home from taking care of his dad for a few days in the evening and it was lovely to finish off the evening just chatting. Oh, I got to go on a walk with my FiA ladies too, like I usually do Sunday afternoons as well. And the kids were fabulous all day. We got a family picture. It was perfect. 

It continues to make me happy how many great things we get to do by being here in Salt Lake. So fun to live near family and be able to hang out and do just really enjoyable things together. Last time we lived here all of our lives were much more in flux and we just didn't have as much flexibility. It's really wonderful to have college behind us, past the super tiny baby stage, etc. Family get togethers even with kids are a lot less chaotic. Loud, but not chaotic like when they were all tiny. I really love this new life phase. 

Soccer, running injury, table runners, haircuts

Kind of a strange week. I injured my hamstring somehow last Saturday and it still hurts a lot. I need a physical therapist on tap to just talk to every time I do something like this instead of having to go get a referral and find one and make a whole to do about it. I just need like five exercises to do a bunch to make the huge painful knot feeling go away. No luck so far. I don't know if I'm making it worse by still exercising or not. It's not my favorite thing at the moment. 

Aaron and I did get haircuts this week and I really love them. Love Aaron's curls that show up here a bit. And I had them shave up the back of mine this go around to deal with some annoying hair length disparities I get because of the way my curls work, and that means that even though it's shorter, I can still put it in a ponytail. I love that! 

I finished these two runner tops. Still need to quilt them. 

Spencer got this RC car this week, with help from us parents, and he is in heaven. He's having so much fun playing with it everywhere we go and showing it off. Oh, and great news for Spencer, after losing all six of their soccer games so far this season as they developed skills and figured out how to work together after a year and a half off from soccer, Spencer's team won 8-0 on Saturday! It was so awesome for him to finally see the work pay off! 

Hard to see, but our kayak had 12 inches of water in it from the tarp sliding off during the winter. 

And just a batch of banana muffins to round out the weekend. I also made a cinnamon roll cake that is entirely too decadent and oh so tasty. I don't bake too much right now since all of my kitchen stuff is in storage and I have a fairly piecemeal set of kitchen tools in my current kitchen and a tiny amount of counter space to work in, but it's nice to make tasty things when I can. 

This and that

It's been a pretty chill week. We had soccer practice and games this week. My mom came over to help out with a crazy games schedule where we had three games at different parks at the same time, and then she stayed the rest of the afternoon. It was delightful to hang out with her. I truly love that opportunity we have of living here in Salt Lake. 

I bought a console table and it arrived this week. It's blue gray and will go in our front entry. I'd like to buy all the things we will be getting for our house, but don't have anyplace to put much furniture currently. so this table is under the window in my room right now, definitely out of place. We're in that stage where the house is being built but it'll be a while but we're super excited stage. 

Genevieve's class is doing an ABC countdown to the end of school. Today was letter D for Disney and she dressed up as Merida and got me to curl her hair. It's a little startling how much older she looks when she's dolled up like this. I haven't curled her hair in a while, so that was really fun. She has a lot of hair, but it's fine, so it lays fairly flat most of the time. She has natural curl but it isn't to the phase where she knows how to make it show, so it just gets brushed out. But when I curled it, it was like I'd never get through all the thickness. I love how it turned out.

 

Two weeks post surgery

I'm two weeks post surgery and feeling SO much better! The splints came out last Tuesday and it was the best feeling in the world. My nose is still sore and there are still scabs and what not healing so my nose feels dry, but I can breathe so much better and both of those things are improving daily. I've had a whole lot fewer headaches of late too, which was a hoped for but not for certain benefit of this surgery. So I'm very hopeful that is going to happen as well. Huzzah! I've been working for a solid three years to figure out some of the crazy health issues that hit me about a year after Chloe was born, and this feels like I finally took a big step forward on fixing one of them. I'll take it!

Chloe is the cutest soccer player ever. She is hilarious. Her team missed their practice last week because of bad weather, and their coach had to be gone for their game, so they had a substitute coach. It was like they had never played before. She ran around the field looking at everyone's faces, never the ball, and didn't seem to remember the point was to kick the ball into the goal. It was pretty funny. She loves it anyway, so it's all in good fun. 

We had a family celebration for my sister-in-law who finished her bachelor's degree. So fun! And Chloe really enjoyed her root beer. 

My grandma asked me to reupholster her seat cushions like a month ago. It took me probably a few hours to take the old ones off and redo them, but at least three weeks sitting in my house. Whoops! It's been a busy month for me. But these three are done and I'll do the other three this week. 

 And Chloe and Aaron finished this puzzle last night all by themselves and were quite proud. We've had this thing for so many years, and every kid has loved it. 

Longest Week

 Wooh, this week was long! I'm one day away from getting the nose splints removed, and can't even wait I'm so excited. As I expected, this surgery recovery has been rough. SO rough. I have taken a two-hour nap nearly daily this week just because I'm completely exhausted and can't function at all. The splints chafe like crazy and they're literally stitched to the inside of my nose right at the tip, so that's quite aggravating if ever I move my face around enough to make that part move. Yuck all around! All that being said, I don't regret even slightly getting the surgery. The improvement is going to be amazing, I can already tell. 

Before the surgery

On the way home

Day one at home

Puffy nose

My poor, chafed nose

Solution to the constant dripping when I'm not allowed to blow my nose, lol. 

My sister was on spring break this week and she was so kind to help out. She took Chloe with her a couple different times. This time they went to IKEA among other adventures. 

Another day my mom and sister and kids came up and we went together to the park. Notice I can't actually smile for really really because it doesn't feel good to lift my upper lip. So I gave this lovely number, lol.

Chloe was really hamming it up one day and I took a couple cute pictures. She turns five in a couple months! That blows my mind. The time has gone so fast. 

Here she is at her soccer game. They won this week! She got a sweet breakaway run. She missed the goal by like two inches, but man, she looked good. Half the time she doesn't really have a clue what is happening on the field, but then suddenly she's all there and it's fun. I love watching my kids play soccer. 

This and that from the week

Grandpa gave Aaron his old military flashlight. Aaron is thrilled. 

Genevieve got here hair trimmed a bit. I love her hair. It's just such a beautiful color and so silky and beautiful. It's actually somewhat wavy, but it's fine enough that it brushes out pretty easily. But I forecast when she gets older it's going to get a lot curlier. 

I had a delightful day to myself on Saturday when Bill and Grandpa took the kids on a rather ill fated adventure. Their day didn't go as planned because of some unexpected intense weather, but I had a wonderful day to myself at home. I ended up making these two table runners. I'm kind of on a kick. I'll probably make a couple holiday-themed ones so that I'll have them for decorations in our new house. 

Spencer also got a haircut and cut his mop off. He looks good with it short again. I did like it long too, but he decided to cut it short for summer. 

Chloe also decided to cut her hair. Namely her bangs. They're quite brief now. Haha! She didn't do the worst job. She said she didn't like them, they were in her face. She's taken years to get even the bangs she had to grow, so hopefully they'll grow back soon and keep growing. She's taken the longest to grow hair of any of my kids. It's still pretty thin and short. Mine was much the same as a child and it's as thick as can be now, so I also bet hers will eventually come in much more, but for now it's light and barely there and now a little less there after her efforts. 

Spring Break is coming next week and we're super excited about that. We're going to go down to southern Utah and go to Moab and Canyonlands and Goblin Valley and wherever else we feel like for the week. As long as we can find a campsite in the first come first serve sites that are all that is available, it's going to be awesome. So fingers crossed for that. 

Zoo Trip

We dropped a chunk of change last week on a Salt Lake Connect Pass, which is tickets to like 16 different attractions around the valley at discounted prices to be used over the next year. First stop was the Hogle Zoo this weekend. It wasn't actually warm at all, but we promised the kids we would take them, so we did!  And we had a great time despite it sleeting and snowing a bit while we were there. Our outings are set for the summer now. Huzzah! 

Hogle Zoo is a cute little zoo, but I keep telling my kids I'll take them back to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs someday, because that one is big and awesome. Or the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which makes every other zoo look tiny. But I'm always good for one trip to any zoo, so it was a fun day. I've actually never been to Hogle Zoo even though I've lived in Utah for 13 years now. Always a first for everything! I've also never been to Lagoon, and that needs to be remedied. I think we'll start taking our kids up there for their birthdays, or half birthday in Spencer's case, sometime in the next few years. That would be really fun. 

Look at this cute picture of Grandma reading to the kids. She climbed up on the top bunk to do it. Yay for awesome grandmas!

 

Progress

We have our breaking ground meeting for our house this week. Huzzah! Building finally starting! We signed back in January, so this process is long and I'm so incredibly excited to get it started. 

Genevieve had a Dr. Seuss week and day one was crazy character hair day or some such. Grandma did magic on Genevieve's hair for the day. 😀

 

Chill Week

It was a pretty chill week. I made a few table runners. They're a quick, fun design and sew with a fast result. My mother in law gave me a stack of fat quarters for my birthday, so I used most of them plus some of my other fabric to make them.  

Chloe made like a Chicago stuffed pizza style thickness of a pretend pizza. 

And she made a card for her grandma with a Valentine's card kid I had but never used. It's fun to see her get creative. Her drawing and crafting is a very recent development and I love seeing her new interest in creating things. They create a lot of art projects at one of her preschools and I think that has gotten her interested. 

Low key week

 I finished a couple quilts earlier this week and said I was done with all the projects, but I actually decided to make some runners to go on my table and maybe some console tables in my new house once we move. This is the first one. I just found some pictures on Pinterest that I liked and am making my own in whatever colors I choose from the pictures. 

Chloe wearing Grandma's vest. 

Pumpkin chocolate chip streusel cake? Don't mind if I do!