What a crazy time of life! Darcy is changing so much, so quickly so she gets her own post every month, but these other kids keep us hopping as well. Here is was the rest of the family has been up to during the end of summer and beginning of fall.
First the reason for the title of the post. Notes from Holland. She discovered writing notes and has gone the distance! The are hilarious, cute, and darling all wrapped in one. We love her phonetic spelling, interesting word placement, and childlike burns she liberally administered.
This one has got to be my favorite. First, it was her first attempt at bubble letters. Well done Holland! Second, there is some much child drama in these words. She was mad because John was making her do chores on Saturday. Apparently she had so much rage that she composed this note. "I have enough of you!"
Third, the spelling of 'eanuf.'
Fourth, that illustration is everything.
But then just to add to the cutness of the whole thing. After she had calmed down and we had had a heart to heart about doing chores, she came back to her note and added this post script on the back. "I understand and I love you." Are you kidding me?? Heart melted.
Then there were many addressed to me. "Dear Mommy I am sory for not doing what I am sposh to be doing" Sometimes it is hard to follow the word placement, but the spelling of the word 'supposed' as 'sposh' makes this one so fun. She actually says it like that so it is so darling she sounded it out that way.
Holland has turned in to such a little reader. She reads all day every day. Her favorite books right now are the short chapter Dragon Masters books. She loves all things dragons and magic because of them. This was after we moved Darcy to our closet and Holland was able to have her room back. She just wanted to play and read there for a while.
Actually getting Holland her room back was one of the main reasons that we moved Darcy to our closet. We needed to have a place to put Holland in time out and Darcy was often in that room napping. With Holland doing online Kindergarten she was getting asked to do things all day long. This was very different from what she was used to. So by the time school was over or often during school if she was asked to do something even something very small or easy, she would loose her mind over it. This situation wasn't really okay. She needed to have a place to calm down and restart her system so to speak. Holland has always responded very well to time outs. Just having some alone time to play and read really recharges her to her sweet, happy self. She needed to get her room back so she could do that. And it has helped a lot with those behavior issues we were having.
Oh these notes--"Dear M + D I wont to eat cookese but I cant cus I have work to do but I will sprisse you by H" I think one reason this note writing habit has really stuck is because Miriam and Eliza are still writing us a nightly note that we respond to. We are in the zone of writing notes to each other at our house. :)
She loves playing in her room! She wanted to take a picture of Rosetta, of course.
John and I did a fun at home date night that was Germany themed. As part of that the whole family had delicious roasted bratwurst. We were all thrilled. Those peppers and onions were delish!
We also had rootbeer floats. The girls were happy we picked this date.
Dear D, I love you but it is not nise to giv me a tim awte (timeout) will you repon to me. H (sad face labeled 'sad'). We're thoroughly amused.
We caught a Wayfair sale and ordered some furniture. Two vanities for the upstairs bathrooms and a bunk bed for the girls. We were unprepared for how large the vanities would be. Normally the furniture we buy is cheap and we have to put it together ourselves. These are really nice solid wood vanities that are big and heavy and already assembled. It was a project to get them up the stairs. We had to rent an appliance dolly, take of light fixtures and handrails, cut away part of the box halfway up the stairs, and repaint where the paint got dinged up (still pending). But they are a big improvement on the old vanities and I hope we'll one day be glad that we have them.
General conference weekend. Once again it was just a broadcast. It was a wonderful conference though. I love hearing from these inspired leaders. And I love nursing our sweet baby, especially pain free (that still feels like a miracle!).
It stayed warm for a long time. The last time John and I went swimming was on October 13th. We think the kids even went swimming once after that. Thank goodness for wetsuits (although I can't fit in mine yet.
Oh, another yummy dinner. This was so favorite the the kids wanted to take a photo of it. It is another recipe from Mel's kitchen cafe called sweet potato burrito bowls.
"Lisin to genrall cofrins."
Dear D I love you buchis and buchis Love H by. She had written some pretty harsh notes to Daddy so it was nice to get a sweet one.
Remarkaball Dad, your fred Holly
Eliza playing with selfies while listening to audiobooks.
Holland staying in Miriam's room while Darcy was sleep training.
Hi M + D, I dote (don't) no wut to do bsept (except) help D + M + E by H. (The bsept kills me!)Then just a sweet heart drawing.
This was a fun night. The girls picked to watch a home improvement episode of Fixer Upper instead of a kid show for movie night. We're all into it. Entertainment the whole family can get behind. :)
Wut to do in the morning. Get drst (dressed) eat becfist (breakfast) go too Miss Ducker (her kindergarten teacher).
This next photo was such a surprise. When I was a kid I really loved bananas. My mom really loved trees. So combining those two things my mom gave me a banana plant when I was a kid. Bananas don't grow in Utah (it's not tropical there), but she cared for it year after year, bringing it inside for the winter and putting in her window sill, and taking it outside in the spring to get sun and water from the sprinklers. This happened for years! When we bought our house, my mom sent the banana plant down in my dad's trailer to plant in our yard. This was a couple of years ago and we planted it, not really expecting it to do well (Phoenix is hot!). But it has grown a lot, both up and out. But still not really that big of a plant, maybe 3 ft by 3 ft. One day this fall though I walked by and glanced down to see a banana blossom with baby bananas on it. I couldn't believe it! It never even entered my mind that it could produce bananas! That tree is 25 years old and just randomly it produces. Thoroughly surprised me. I really hope that the bananas ripen properly (it is supposed to take up to 9 months), and I hope they are edible (some varieties aren't and my mom and I have no idea what type this banana plant is).
In the beginning of October the kids had fall break from school. This felt a little different because they were already home doing online school, but it was nice to do some more nonschool activities. We made some crafts from kits that came with books from the library: puppets, pumpkins, and chalk galaxies.
One of the items of furniture we got on that Wayfair sale was a bunk bed for the girls. With Darcy needing a place to cry it out and Holland needing a place for time out, it was apparent that we needed to do something about bedrooms. The big kink in this whole idea of having Miriam and Eliza share a bed was that they are doing online school. They each need their own space for that. However, we decided that a bunkbed was definitely in our future, so when we saw one on sale we grabbed it. It's big. So big in fact that I kinda hated it at first. It feels like it takes up the whole room. But the kids love it. They call the bottom bunk the "nook" and the top the "nest." They were just thrilled.
I liked it better too, once we got Miriam's old bed out. I think it was a good move, but maybe a little premature considering the kids need their own rooms for school until at least the end of the school year. But when we bought it we hadn't figured out Darcy's cradle being able to fit into our closet yet.
Actually the bunk bed was a big problem at first because Holland's eye got hit by the ceiling fan.
She's here to help tell what happened: Good thing the ceiling fan didn't exactly hit my eye. Me and my sisters were on the top bunk. And we were doing cuddle time. And when I standed up the ceiling fan hit by my eye. Stinkin Daddy turned on the ceiling fan (Daddy doesn't remember doing this). It hurted. My sisters rushed downstairs with me. When Daddy was cutting the lettuce for dinner, my sisters told him that ceiling fan hit my eye. And then Daddy said that we have to wait until Mommy gets home to decide if I needed to go to the doctor or the urgent care. And when Mommy got home (I was at Lowes getting a couple of plants), Daddy told Mommy that my eye got hit by the ceiling fan. Then Mommy decided I needed to go to the urgent care. Daddy took me to the urgent care. The urgent care doctor put some medicine on my eye and then he put glue on it to glue it shut. And it hurt! Then the urgent care doctor put a bandaid on it. And then Daddy took me home.
Mommy again. So Holland got her eye cut glued shut. We were told to keep it covered with the bandaid for a week. Unfortunately Holland had some kind of reaction to the bandaid. Her face started have a rash on it--red, blotchy, and swollen. We took her to the doctor because her eye was swelling so bad. Her pediatrician was more concerned about the reaction to the bandaid than she was about the cut right by her eye. She thought Holland either was having an allergy to the glue or the latex of the bandaids. Her eye glue started coming off, and apparently they can't reglue it. The picture below was after the rash and swelling started to get a lot better. I wish I had taken a picture of it when it was at it's worst so you could see.
She pullled some of the glue off and pulled it open even more. I guess that is one reason she was supposed to wear the bandaids.
Thankfully a while later, it looks like it is just going to be a small scar. We have been putting Mederma and sunscreen on it everyday in hopes that the scar will be subtle. I can't tell you how many times I have shuddered at the thought of how close Holland came to a serious injury. Her pediatrician said that too, "Wow, she is very very lucky." The thought of my sweet little girl losing her eye, makes me sick to my stomach. We were so blessed that day.
Holland having lots of good ideas and trying to bribe Miriam with a penny to come wake her up at 2 am.
Holland misses her friends "aspeshley" Sophie. :)
"Dear M (Mommy) can me and M (Miriam) play togethr, we rilly wot (want) to Love H"
"Don't cone in peleass cus Darsy is sleeping"
Ellie had a bad mole on her tummy that started to look weird at the beginning of the year. The doctor recommended that we have the dermatologist look at it, but then covid hit and since her doctor thought it was just a callus on a mole we didn't make it priority amidst the pandemic to go the dermatologist. In August though, the little white dot turned a little alarming. At first it was just like a zit, but then it started to get more an more infected looking. We made an appointment to go see the dermatologist and they removed it. When we went back for a follow up they froze off two more spots on her back. Apparently it was a skin virus called a moleskum which is super contagious and not cool at all. We have been trying to be very careful to spread it to anyone else (not sharing towels, clothes, or beds). I thought we were in the clear for this, but just last night (two days after Christmas) we found another spot on her arm. :(
She also got a mole removed from her neck that tended to get snagged when having her hair done or brushed.
"Dear M (Miriam) Whiy ar yoy so gurpey (grumpy)? by love H"
Fall break shaving cream fun. They bought this activity with their summer bucks.
Impromptu nap.
Holland loves to color at the peninsula. This is only a problem because we have nice countertops now. They a pretty durable we are not supposed to spray them with bleach and sometimes they can be stained. We had our first casualty the other day when we let some washable water colors stand too long on the counter. I even ended up trying the bleach but wasn't able to get it all off. There is a slight green hue in a couple of spots.
As a project for kindergarten Holland planted some seeds in four cups with a combo of sunlight, water, or neither one. Turns out they grow best with both sun and water.
Since we have indulged in Amazon Prime this year, we were able to snag a deal on a instant pot on Prime day. The kids were pretty thrilled with the steam being released. It has been a fun new little appliance, but it is not really a necessity. We have especially liked cooking steel cut oats, and frying things with the air fryer lid.
One thing I really wanted to do this year was get a cute picture of Darcy in a pumpkin. I had a hard time finding a nice big pumpkin, but we found one that she could fit even if it looked a little small.
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| I am uncomfortable guys. |
The older girls sure loved their pumpkins though. Holland wanted to make hers into an alien. We helped with it too.
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| Surprise! Miriam and Ellie had to sign their initial in to the back of their pumpkins. |
We intended to do a redo on the Darcy in a pumpkin photo, but I got a sad phone call about my grandma. She fell and broke her back, and we left town to try say goodbye before we passed away. Unfortunately she died in the middle of the night when we had actually made it to Ogden, but I was planning on going out in the morning. Too late.
