April Tidbits

While we were in Iowa City, Grandma sat Ireland down to learn Heart and Soul.

The girls always want to pose by this statue outside the mall. I'm not sure why but I have to give Sydney props for trying to fit her head in that little space!

These girls sure love their Aunt Whitney. They can never get enough time with her.

 

Sydney: I like Miss Piggy. I feel like we'd be friends.

During General Conference I decided to finally tackle the photos. They were in all kinds of envelopes and then the dvds were in a separate box and it was just a mess. Oi. This took so much longer than I could have anticipated! I went through an entire roll of tape on my label maker. Now they are divided by year (turquoise folder) and then by photo shoot (interior folders). Brent helped me determine dates and then I used yellow folders for school photos, blue for dance and red for Christmas photos with Santa. This has been on my to do list for years and I'm so happy it's done! 

Ireland: I don't like it when Liesel comes out to play with us. 

Me: Why?

Ireland: Because she takes over and makes everything all teenagery.

As part of our Easter advent, the girls did charades for the parables Christ told during Holy Week. This is Liesel and Ireland acting out the Good Samaritan. I told Liesel I don't think anyone kicked the guy- they just didn't help.

She did eventually portray the Good Samaritan by helping Ireland up.

Ireland reported that while babysitting, Liesel called her the "B" word and she said the "F" word. Later, Liesel admitted to saying the "F" word but said she didn't call Ireland the "B" word- she said she was "B"-ing. If you are a fan of Cobra Kai, that's even funnier.

Add to my list of talents the ability to perfectly comb hair when a child insists on wearing fairy wings right after her bath. This little imp had just asked me if we had tv's growing up. 

Ever determined to not waste, Brent often uses the butt of bread in sandwiches even though the girls don't like it. To trick them, he turns it around so it looks like a regular, middle slice but so far he hasn't fooled anyone. Brigitta discovered her Oreo was flipped to the wrong side and immediately dubbed it a Dad Oreo.

The logo was pressed into the cream center which looked pretty cool when she pulled it apart.

Liesel said the boys at school are calling her Lysol and I couldn't help but laugh. When we named each of our children, we ran through possible mean nicknames and we missed that one so I have to tip my hat to their creativity.

Sydney made herself a fort house on her bed which was pretty darn cute.

I had a fun conversation with the 3 youngest girls on the way to school. We talked about getting a job as well as having a side hustle and minimum wage. They started calculating how much they could pull down in a year and then I had to break the news about taxes. "The government just takes your money?!? Is that even legal?!?"

Liesel is really into the hoodie look and she realized her favorite hoodie is so big she can actually put it on with her hair wrapped in a huge towel. That made her happy.

While out on a date, we drove by a Dairy queen with a lot of traffic. Brent said, "Check out that line. Go Dairy Queen!" I had to laugh and he insisted that nobody thinks of going to Dairy Queen and here was one that was super busy. 

This cracks me up. I love Gita's self-confidence. I love Sydney's eagerness to keep her humble. I love how at the end of it everyone is just feeling themselves. Oooh yeah baby, oooh yeah.

Me: Sydney, this is the third time I've asked you to pick up your d@^^# shoes.

Sydney: What d@^^# shoes?

On a trip to Culvers, Ireland showed me this hack. Instead of trying to hold a juice box and then getting the juice squirted on you, pull the tabs out and hold it by those. Brilliant!

There are, however, no hacks for getting a large hamburger in your mouth- you just have to open wiiide!

Liesel is intent on uncovering her bus driver's racism. Her friend is Latino and gets in trouble a lot so Liesel started doing things like putting her feet on the seats, stepping into the aisle, talking loudly... while I'm all for social justice, it cracks me up that she is possibly going to get herself written up in the process.

Love the shock on Liesel's face when she discovers she's not aging as gracefully as her little sister.

I was helping Sydney tidy up her closet when she busted out dancing. I hope my girls always dance like this- so much joy and so little care about what the world thinks.

Ireland was pretty thrilled to find a heart-shaped flake in her cereal one morning.

I used to detest the trees surrounding the fire pit. Over the years I've come to love the way they transform from blooms in the spring into the fiery leaves of fall. This year's blooms were particularly spectacular. This is the window over the bath:

When I lay in the water it almost feels as if I'm bathing beneath the trees and it's so peaceful and beautiful! We also get a spectacular view from our bedroom window:

Covid vaccines finally opened up to all adults in Illinois so Brent and I got our first jab. The autocorrect on my phone kept taking over as I signed up. First it changed Dairy Ln to Fairy Ln and then to Sauron Ln. I was worried I was going to lose the appointment because my stupid phone things we live somewhere in Middle Earth!

Due to my fear of needles, I wanted to get it out of the way but once I sat in front of the nurse we realized we hadn't been given the little form we needed. Brent ran back to get it while I sat there in a sea of people getting the shot. To control my anxiety, I stared at the floor and explained to the nurse how this scenario is kind of my own personal nightmare. For some reason the form was taking a while and I ended up just blabbering away about how I wasn't trying to be rude by not looking her in the eye and how I was going to just breathe and I might need to sit there for just a minute afterwards and I'm so sorry for that because they are clearly busy and she's probably pretty good at this by now but I'm not worried about the pain- it's the needle, not the pain and I'd prefer she punch me in the shoulder as hard as she can than have a needle that doesn't hurt at all sticking in my body... Brent arrived and immediately recognized the panicked look on my face. he stood right in front of me to block everyone else out and offered his arm as we walked away. In the waiting area he led me to a discreet corner and we took an extra 5 minutes just to be sure. Man oh man I hate shots.

One down, one more to go!

Self Reflection

It began on Easter. We heard tapping at the window. Initially it was just now and again, but then it became more frequent and more intense. Some investigation revealed it was a robin and after consulting bird-loving friends and the internet, we discovered that it's mating season and apparently this bird was protecting his territory. He saw his own reflection and was essentially attacking himself as a show of strength. 

At first it was bewildering, then annoying and then downright infuriating. In case you didn't know, birds wake up at the very crack of dawn, when the sky is still dark and that's when he would unleash his onslaught. I tried playing owl sounds out the window. The first time I did that, the robin stopped attacking, looked around, took a dump and then flew away. Nothing like a bigger, tougher bird to mark a territory! But then he came back. So I put a picture of a bad@$$ looking owl in the window and again, that worked for a while but he came back. I tried ringing the obnoxiously loud cowbell at him but that only agitated him more and made his attacks more vicious. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of birds and this was downright maddening. I took it on personally and began climbing right next to the window and when he flew down to the ground, I would run outside in the frigid air to chase him into the neighbor's yard. He angrily chirped at me and I yelled back at him. 

The Sunday he attacked the window by the door he was so gladiatorial he actually drew blood- and lots of it. Check out the video:

As these assaults continued, I was blown away at how much this bird would hurt himself just to defend what he perceived to be his. That tree in the above photo is stunning as it blooms in the spring and instead of enjoying it, this bird was literally shedding blood as he beat himself up. My opinion of birds fell even further as I saw this one become more and more violent, angry, and ugly. 

It occurred to me this is a bit like the world today. In trying to defend our territory we can't truly see what's in front of us. We ignore the fact that all the fighting makes us ugly. We end up beating ourselves up more than the other person as we become more belligerent, more contentious. We end up crapping all over the place in the pursuit of something that isn't really as big as it seems in the reflection. If only we could enjoy our reality- appreciate the beauty surrounding us- we would be so much happier. 

Easter Sunday

I've never done this before, but on Easter morning, I asked that the girls be fresh and clean before going down to their Easter baskets. It was a really nice way to begin the morning- all showered and hair brushed and dried. We'd cleaned up the house the day before and it just felt like there was room to breathe. Normally the girls are looking ragged and the house is messy and as they get into baskets it just creates a bigger mess and well- holidays aren't the same when you become a mom. 

In between conference sessions I styled hair and we snapped some photos.

There on the mantle you can see some of the items from our Easter advent. We have a laminated page for each day of the week beginning on palm Sunday. Ideally we hang them up day by day but this year the girls were on Spring Break so we were in Iowa City the first couple of days. We ended up doing them by chunks- a bunch before and then a bunch after we came home.

We have another Easter advent that we followed last year and don't have quite down. There's an activity for each day but some of them are really involved and take time. In a normal year, the girls have Girl Scouts, dance and church activities which sucks up the evening hours. We get up really early for scripture study and it was hard to fit those activities in on top of everything. This year we kind of tried to do half on the Sunday before Easter and the other half the day before Easter. It worked OK, but we still have some massaging to do before that one runs like a top.

Aside from candy, the girls get lots of bath bombs in their Easter baskets. This year we added some electric toothbrushes (they are always borrowing ours because they like them better) and I found name necklaces on Etsy. Clearly I am not yet over the fact that personalization was not a thing when I was growing up and I could never find my name on stuff like this. I wasn't even sure if the girls would care but they loved them and put them on immediately.

One of the advent activities we managed to squeeze in was using onion skins to dye eggs red. They turned out better this year than last and this year we actually had the little egg cups which looked so cute!

The weather was so incredibly beautiful after a long, dark winter and I had to take a walk in the gates area of our neighborhood. The homes that line the lake are just beautiful and the street is nice and quiet. We discovered the docks had been places so the youngest three kicked off their sandals and dipped their feet for a little while. My monthly Nielsen family Zoom happened to be right at that moment so I chatted as we walked.

As we rounded the corner to the beach area, we discovered the playground was open and so I sat down for a bit while the girls played. Liesel's had a growth spurt recently and found a lot of the playground equipment is now to small for her such as the monkey bars she used to enjoy. She still found ways to play and enjoy herself but it was yet another moment that reminded me we are heading into a different phase of life. That beach was beaconing and the girls asked if they could kick off their sandals again and get their feet wet. The request seemed innocuous enough so I said OK. It didn't take long for Gita to pick up fistfuls of sand and start throwing it into the water.

Whyyyy???

This girl is gonna kill me.

When I whip out my phone to take pictures, it's always interesting who is in the mood to pose for me. Usually Liesel is but every now and again it's one of the other girls. This time Ireland was in the mood for an impromptu photo shoot and I had a lot of fun taking these with her.

I'm not a professional photographer so I have to play around with settings a bit. The first photos I took of these came out blurry because I was trying the portrait mode on my iPhone and due to the angle of the sun it couldn't focus on Ireland. Eventually I got it.

It's hard to tell, but there was a bank of clouds and the sunlight was about to disappear behind them. I'm glad I got this shot.

Liesel is showing her maturity as she was unsure if she wanted to go on a walk with Mom and then unsure of playing on the playground and then unsure of getting in the sand. With all her sisters having fun, she eventually joined us but she wasn't interested in taking off her shoes and testing out the waters.

She was content to just feel the warmth of the sun of her face.

Her hair looks like spun gold in this light!

Juxtapose that with Sydney's youthful enthusiasm. She was so happy to spend a little time in the sand!

Of course she didn't just dip her toes in the water, she jumped in to see the ripple effect as far and wide as possible!

There was this little trench in the sand and I've seen this camera trick on Pinterest so I decided to try it. From my angle, I couldn't really see how the picture would turn out but after snapping one I was in love. I'd been focusing on the light and managed to ignore the beautiful sky! 

Ireland requested an individual.

We headed back to the car and when Liesel saw Ireland's individual mentioned she would have like one too. The sun wasn't completely covered, and so I asked Ireland to watch her sisters while we ran back.

I'm glad we got this last shot!

Liesel is THIRTEEN!

We have officially entered the teen years! Although if I'm being honest, Liesel's pretty mature and mentally I've felt like she's a teenager for a while now. Perhaps it's the pandemic, but I see how introspective she's becoming. She's seeing a life without Mom and Dad and I want to give her the tightest hug before I watch her fly. Watch out world, this girl is coming for you!

Usually Liesel's favorite ice cream cake is topped with Kit Kats but Brent was able to specially order it so it's topped with Lucky Charms. I think it looks so happy along with the multicolored sprinkles. 

Here you can see her edelweiss earrings we picked out together on Etsy (from Italy!).

Gita bought this for Liesel a with her very own money and when she came up short, Ireland loaned her the difference. These girls are just getting me right up in my heart of hearts as they are so thoughtful about their gifts to each other!

Liesel's big present was a couple of dressers so she could finally have all her clothes in her own room! She's had to use drawers in our closet for way too long now. We had to reconfigure her bed and desk and it was actually one of the men who delivered the dressers who suggested putting her desk at an angle. It's just perfect and with the windows completely unobstructed it's brighter and feels so much bigger! We also invested in some Phillips Hue bulbs so she can make her room any color she likes.

Liesel thought long and hard about her request for breakfast in bed. She settled on breakfast sandwiches and donut holes. I have to smile remembering how excited she was about those donut holes- haha!

Grandma and Grandpa Wuehler increased their yearly gift- perhaps as a nod to her growing budget? In any case, she was incredibly grateful.

We sure love our girl!

Maybe the teen sass hasn't completely set in yet because she laughed good naturedly when we stopped kissing her cheeks and began blowing raspberries.

Liesel often comes up to me and utters one little word- "hug"- and then wraps her arms around me and I have to say, I love it so much. We all need to hug more- especially in these times.

We love our girl so much!

 During our trip to Iowa City, my mom gave me this little sock she found behind some furniture. Liesel wore this as a little baby and when I showed it to her, she was blown away with how tiny it is! That's the tragedy and beauty of kids- how they grow up and how they leave the nest. I've heard the teen years fly by and then they are gone and out of the house. I'm determined to cherish these days as much as I possibly can. 

Happy Birthday Liesel!