Month: March 2019

St. Patrick’s Day and Running Away

Saint Patrick’s Day turned out a lot better than I ever could have made it this year. We had so many things leading up to it–two daughters’ birthdays, a new niece born, pi day, and just the normal chaos–that I didn’t even decorate the mantel until two days before. (I know!!!) So I honestly didn’t have any plans. But Josh made it a wonderful holiday for everyone this year!

He made a fun, fancy breakfast and dinner, and helped the kids and I decorate the table!

  • Breakfast never looked luckier!
  • Here is the mantel! Thanks to Lacey for the super fun light-up garland!

Also for St. Patrick’s Day I made another dress. I decided to try a refashion this time. So I found a super fun green dress at DI that I played with.

  • It started out as a very classic collared, button-up jumper. The collar is not very visible in this picture.

I looked at stores online to see what kinds of dresses are “in” right now. J-Crew had a huge section of “sheath” dresses. After a little more research I defined a sheath dress to Josh as “basically shaped like a woman.” I thought such a dress a good candidate for this refashion project.

  • The finished sheath dress. It now has no collar, is shorter, fitted, and has sleeves.

I’m glad that I chose to use this project for my exposure to a sheath dress. I think it is a fine look for a dress, but not particularly practical for a mom of young children. But now I have one if I am feeling like being super on-trend, and it only cost me $7! Plus it was very festive, and still classy for St. Patrick’s Day. 🙂

The week after St. Patrick’s Day, Josh and I ran away! It was a very planned-out running away experience and it was glorious! We’re definitely planning to do it again!

We ran away to San Diego and left the cuties with Mother and Daddy (mostly Mother). Josh and I had a blast, and based on our phone calls with the kids, and their reports afterwards, I think we all missed each other about the same amount.

I won’t go through an itinerary, but I’ll share some highlights.

  • We went on a dinner cruise! It was a fancy dinner and dance on a boat sailing around the bay. It was rather dreamy!
  • We rented a surrey bike and rode around Coronado. The neighborhoods were beautiful, and we made a delightful stop at a beach-lookout park.

  • We didn’t stay here, but we visited the famous Hotel Del Coronado. It had a fun, energetic atmosphere and cute shops and stuff. It was decidedly worth visiting, but nice to not have to pay the $600+ a night.
  • We visited the San Diego Temple. We had hoped to do a session together, but it closed for cleaning the Monday before we got there. 🙁 But it was still fun to walk around!
  • We took sailing lessons!!!!!!!! It was such a cool experience, and now we basically just want to get a sailboat or something! Our skipper was a guy who taught himself to sail on the Caspian Sea when he was 8 years old, and is now a professional sailor who has sailed a sailboat to Hawaii by himself! It was so cool to learn from him and discover that sailing is an art, a science, and a sport. I’m so glad we did it!
  • We went to Sea World. It is always so amazing to me to watch the dolphins and whales! They really are amazing animals! Here are some flamingos which are also pretty amazing and interesting animals!
  • Just for fun, here are the cuties while we were gone. Having fun with Grandmother and Grandpa!

I’m so glad we got to run away for a few days and that we got to come home to happy well-loved cuties. The best parts of this trip were probably just the super simple aspects of getting to sleep through the night every night, and getting to spend tons and tons of time with my love! I’m even more grateful than before that he is mine forever!

A Year of Loving Helen!

Our angel Helen turned one year old today! She is such a light in our lives, and I don’t know what we ever did with ourselves before her!

  • It is Muhlestein family tradition to give a baby her first ice-cream cone on her first birthday. Here is Helen with hers. She liked it quite a bit at first, but ultimately it was too cold for her hands and she needed Grandpa’s help to eat it.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit that adding Helen to our family has been hard. Something about kid #4 has pushed me past my limit! But Helen herself is SO WORTH all the frustration of trying to figure out how to not fail at life. The only thing that keeps her from being the perfect baby is that she has never been a good sleeper. And she still isn’t. But in every other way she is the sweetest little chunk of chub the world has ever seen! We love her!

  • Presents and a party hat! She LOVES that little cube she got. She did not love the hat. 🙂

One thing we love about Helen is how curious she is. She loves to explore any new setting, including, but not limited to: the dishwasher, cupboards, the bathroom sink, the aisle at church, the garbage, drawers, and outside. She does make her share of mischief, but she always has the sweetest, most innocent grin, or even better, the sweetest most guilty grin!

  • For a couple of weeks this basket was Helen’s favorite destination. If ever it was on the floor, she would hop in and just sit there, happy as a clam! She really liked it when I gave her a ride around the house in the basket! (Sorry for the blur.)

Another fun thing about Helen is that she loves to rock out to music. For multiple months I have noticed that if she is upset about being in the car I can turn on music and she will be placated. She also loves to move to the music in a seated baby-dance. It is adorable and makes everybody else want to dance with her!

One of the reasons Helen is such a good baby is that she is just content. She doesn’t demand undivided attention–which is probably because she’s smart enough to realize that the chances of really getting it are slim–but she will happily take any and all she can get. She’s content to explore the house; she’s content to sit and play with toys with someone; she’s just content. She is, truly, so good to us!

  • I don’t know which of the big sisters gets credit for this; but here is Helen Rapunzel. I thought it was all very cute, and Helen was a good sport about it.

Some other interesting info about Helen includes:
-She has 8 teeth!
-She can stand up in the middle of the room (I.e., not holding on to anything) and take 3-5 steps!
-She used to say “Dada” and something like “hi” on command, but now she mostly just babbles (though it is the cutest babbling in the whole world!)
-Mom is her favorite! (I will savor it with my whole being until the bitter end!!!)
-Her favorite foods are yogurt and fruit. She could eat them all day!

  • Yummy!

I am beyond grateful for my sweet baby girl! She has been such a fun adventure for the past year and I am super excited to see how she will change and grow in the coming year!

We love our little Chub-chubs more than a million! Happy Birthday, Sweety!

  • Helen 1 to 6 months
  • Helen 7 to 12 months

Oh, How We Love Portia!

Our sweet Portia Eve turned three years old today! She is seriously so much fun! Here’s what she’s like!

  • Opening presents this morning with lots of help

Portia has been a communicator since she was a little baby. Back then her method of communication was screeching so loud that it left our ears ringing for 15 seconds after she stopped. But now, and really ever since she was about 18 months old, she is all about words! Portia says the funniest things! For example: When asked how she enjoyed the dinner at Grandma’s house she responded sweetly “Oh! It was just a little bit yucky.” There are countless others I ought to share; but I can’t recall them right now. I need to do better at recording them when they occur.

  • This is Portia’s Santa Claus look. She has a beard; and I have no explanation for that expression. 😀

Another thing to love about Portia is that she is SO enthusiastic! On Friday I took her and the other girls to a meeting I had. I needed to go pick up Carter from preschool and asked if I could leave the girls at the house. When I told Portia that she could, indeed, stay and continue to watch her movie while I did the boring job of picking up Carter she got the hugest smile, clasped her hands together by her face, and giggled with pure elation. That sort of response is not uncommon for our girl.

  • The Birthday Girl with her Frozen cake. Josh made the ice-castle out of fondant, but the characters are just plastic toys we already had.

Right now Portia’s bread and butter is playing dress-up. Her favorite is Elsa. She puts on the Elsa dress and braid (which she absolutely insists goes over her right shoulder, not her left) and dances around singing “Let it Go” at the top of her lungs. It is even more adorable than it sounds. She also loves dressing up as basically any Disney princess.

  • For her birthday, we got her Ariel hair and shoes. Ariel is her second favorite princess and we already have her dress, but we have never had a whole princess wig before. I think she has mixed feelings about it. I wanted to get her extra excited about Ariel because I am really tired of hearing the song Let it Go.

Another of her most adored past-times is playing with dolls. Her favorite is again Elsa, but she must have somebody else to play with her and be Kristoff. She likes to play that same thing in dress-up too.

  • Yesterday, Portia came into our room wearing the whole Elsa get-up. She announced “Look! I’m Elsa!” Josh responded with “Are you going to let it go?” to which Portia replied “I already did!” It was way cuter out of Portia’s mouth than writing it down or explaining it could ever do justice to.

Portia also loves to read books. She could sit and listen to story after story–with her thumb in her mouth–forever.

  • Busy being Cinderella

And when it is warm enough outside she love Love LOVES to be pushed on swings. She just chats and giggles the whole time, and can stay there as long as anyone will keep pushing her. Other loves include: going swimming or wearing her swimming suit, jumping on trampolines by herself, choosing her own clothes and changing multiple times during the day, being pushed around the circle where we live in the pink car, and being a helper in the kitchen.

  • Such a good big sister!

One funny thing Portia does is when I request that she ask nicely for her sippy-cup of milk or whatever else she wants she shakes her head back and forth to her shoulders in an almost dance, and says in an almost song “Mommy can you please give me a sippy-cup of milk?!” I should get it on video sometime so you can witness how adorable it is.

She’s just so much fun! We are immeasurably grateful that this girl gets to be ours forever if we are good! That fact is great incentive to keep us doing what we should!

We love you, Portia! Happy Birthday!

Sometimes You Just Gotta Get Away…

So we did!

  • Portia at Pioneer Park
  • Fay called this her bathtub
  • Carter navigating The Crack
  • The reason the kids go on vacation
  • Helen rocking out on the horsey at the children’st museum
  • Carter making a car repair
  • Aren’t my two princesses spectacularly beautiful?!
  • The coolest swing in the world!

Anyway, we took a quick trip to Saint George and loved it! Our only regret was that we would have liked about one more hour to spend at the park. The weather was so nice, and the kids were all so happy to be out and doing fun things! Josh and I are included in the term “kids.”

Last night we all watched the first half of The Happiest Millionaire together. The kids liked it. But, frankly, they like anything you put on a screen in front of them. 🙂

  • Getting ready for the movie!