Sparking Joy

{author's note -- this is NOT a birthday recap.  i started this post last week and just hadn't published it yet.  the birthday recap will be forthcoming.  and then i'll let YOU decide just how much joy the big day sparked...  ;) }

"Joy" has been a topic on my mind quite a bit over the last few weeks as I've been trying my hand at the "konmari" method of tidying up.  ;)  While setting one's house in order, this method advocates keeping whatever "sparks joy," and discarding the rest.  It sounds quite simple, and it actually kind of is!  But, for as simple as it seems, as I've thought about the concept of sparking joy, it has struck me as deeply profound as well.  Any seminary grad should be able to quote the scripture mastery verse in 2 Nephi 2:25 -- "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy."  Since starting the Book of Mormon over again this year, I've re-read that verse with a different perspective.  Or rather, I've looked at the concept of "sparking joy" with a deeper perspective.  By acknowledging the idea that we are MEANT to have joy in our lives, asking ourselves if the things around us SPARK joy is no longer such a trivial question.  If we want to experience joy, what better way do we have to do it than by surrounding ourselves with the things, people, or situations that spark the most joy??  I tell ya -- it's made tidying up our house and setting it an order a rather introspective experience for me.  :)

Unfortunately, my tidying up efforts have been halted in their tracks thanks to sickness and sleeplessness.  After making it through all of our clothes that first weekend, I moved on to tackle books and papers next.  I managed to get through all of these before falling victim to mastitis, which totally incapacitated my cleaning efforts for the next few days.  Once I recovered, it was hard to get the momentum rolling again.  And since the baby has been a bit of a stinker the last week or so with sleeping, I've been too tired to start on the next wave of weeding out the things that no longer spark joy in my life.  ;)  Thankfully, there are still plenty of things (and people) that bring me joy in the midst of my chaos.  Here are a few in no particular order... 

• Jane's fashion sense -- 

Most days, Jane looks like Punky Brewster.

On this particular day, those fashion glasses were winning.  Duh.  Hahahaha.

• And Grace's --

Remember that shopping trip we went on a few weeks ago?  Here is Grace begrudgingly allowing me to snap a picture of some of those new clothes.  I kid you not, I don't even REMEMBER the last pair of jeans Grace has owned.  Much less worn.  My baby girl (and her tactile issues with clothing) is growing up!

• Alex's facial expressions --

That kid!  Hahaha.  His school pictures are ALWAYS classic.

• And Jane's --

But Jane will always be the unrivaled contender for "best facial expressions in the family."

 

It's really true.

• Setting the house in order --

THESE are the books that no longer spark joy in our home.  

The ones in the canvas bag were donated to a book drive that the Stake was doing as part of a big Activity Days event.  The rest were given to Goodwill.

• And finding treasures while setting the house in order --

As I was clearing out papers, I came across this picture from Jane from last year {I think in conjunction with St. Patrick's Day}. "Who is worth more to you than gold? Jane 2015 Jesus is worth more than gold!"

• Thoughtful birthday gifts (3 weeks early) --

The ONLY child to make a concerted effort with my birthday this year was Ethan, who has been reading his Book of Mormon and writing in a scripture journal every day as a surprise for me.  But since we're terrible at surprises in this family, he ended up showing it to me a few weeks ago on  SOPHIE'S birthday when I pulled out the scripture journals that I had gotten for all the kids for this year.  Hahahaha.  {This was the BEST gift ever, by the way.}

• Smoochy little babies --

Enough said, right?

• Sleeping children --

Fun fact, Scott sleeps the EXACT same way.  Hahahahaha.

• School projects --

This project combined two things that spark joy for Ethan -- Apple and Gateway (his engineering class elective).  They made this clipboard at school and he was pretty stoked about it. ;)

• Blurry selfies with the baby --

{Featuring matching blemishes on our chins.  Hahahaha.}

• Planning our epic road trip for this summer --

 

These pushpins aren't even marking ALL of our little pit stops along the way, just the major cities we'll be cutting through.  We like to go big or go home.  Hahaha.

• And finally, being the absolute center of this one's world --

Even WITH his baby acne, he's just about the cutest thing ever.  ;)

The Five Days of Valentine

 {NOM}

Well howdy do, folks?  Long time no post!  Hahaha.  I tell ya -- having a baby and adjusting to life with 6 kids leaves VERY little spare time for blogging.  Which shouldn't be all that surprising, but it still makes me sad to think that our family record is not quite as recorded as it has been in times past.  But don't worry, I'm not giving up ENTIRELY on this whole blogging venture.  :)

This last week we celebrated our annual "Five Days of Valentine."  And yes, we have completely made up an extension to this traditional holiday of love.  And no, the kids did NOT fully realize until this year that not everyone celebrates for 5 days as well.  Hahahaha.  We didn't do anything super extravagant or exciting, but it was kind of fun this year to purposefully celebrate each of the five days.  I tried to have a token gift or activity for each of the days, and the kids ate it up!  

Before we got our family festivities on, we had to get school valentines ready to go.  And this year, I finally got around to procuring all the necessary supplies for some melted crayon hearts that I had found on Pinterest a couple of years ago.  While at Meijer a few weeks ago, I saw the PERFECT conversation heart silicone molds that I knew the kids would LOVE.  I had originally planned on Alex and Jane creating these Valentines for school, but Sophie liked them so much that she insisted {at bedtime, the night before they were due} on making them, too.  For the record, peeling crayons takes a LOT longer than you would think, and it definitely helps to have a couple extra hands.  And a sharp knife to cut the paper first.  They were pretty cool and the girls had fun making them, but I would have had more fun if we weren't so crunched for time in making them. 

 Jane and Sophie really enjoyed picking out the color combinations for each heart.

 "Color your heart out Valentine!"

 Using hot glue to attach the crayons was a little trickier than I was expecting.  The first couple of tries just melted the back of the crayon without sticking.  I eventually got the hang of it, and they worked out fine.

A quick recap of our 5 Days are as follows:

Day 1 (Wednesday, February 10th) -- Everyone got a box of conversation hearts.

Day 2 (Thursday, February 11th) -- We had a Family Movie Night complete with movie candy.  Since the kids had no school the next day, I thought it would be a fun surprise to pick up a Redbox movie and a variety of movie candy for the night.  We watched "Goosebumps" and sampled Hot Tamales, Mike & Ikes, Milk Duds, Rainbow Nerds, Whoppers, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, regular Twizzlers, and Pull n' Peel Twizzlers.  It was a hit!  Hahaha.

Day 3 (Friday, February 12th) -- Sugar Cookie Decorating!  Such a labor of love.  Hahaha.  For the record, a delicious sugar cookie is probably my very favorite cookie of all time.  But they are SUCH a pain to make.  Seriously.  Hours worth of labor, and then they're eaten in a mere fraction of the time.  Since the kids didn't have school, though, I figured it would give us something "fun" to do for the day.  In reality, it was stressful and time-consuming as I made two separate batches of cookies (regular ones using the recipe from Our Best Bites and vegan ones for Sophie) while trying to feed the baby and rock him to sleep, and referee the fights and freakouts amongst the older kids.  At the end of the day, however, it all worked out and the kids had fun decorating half the cookies with buttercream frosting and Valentine themed sprinkles while I slapped some glace icing on the other half.  Both versions were delicious.  I literally can't decide which ones I like better.

 So shiny!  So pretty!

Day 4 (Saturday, February 13th) -- I picked up some Gummy Life Savers in a plastic heart container for each kid.  :)

Day 5 (Valentine's Day, Sunday, February 14th) -- Scott picked up a bunch of treats to shower the kids with once we got home from church.

All in all, it was a smashing success!  :)  The fun was continued on into Monday, with a President's Day holiday from work and school.  Scott took the kids sledding in the morning with some friends from church, and then Mario Kart took over the rest of the day.  And my life.  Hahaha.  Seriously, though.  That game is the BANE of my existence right now.  It stirs up more contention and strife than anything else in the house and it's driving me nuts.  Not to mention, Alex is a raging addict.  I'm working on detoxing him this week.

Nevertheless, and in conclusion, life is still good.  I may be more tired than usual, and the house might be even messier and more chaotic than usual, but we're still alive and kicking.  And dreaming big for the future.  An epic, Great-American-style-Road-Trip out west, may or may not be in the works for this summer...

One last parting shot of Captain Adorable being adored by his big sisters.  :)

Shimmer and Shine

More like smoke and mirrors.  Hahaha.  The following pictures depict the sparkling, happy highlights of Sophie's birthday weekend.  NOT pictured are the freak outs, temper tantrums, and general meltdowns from an over-tired and emotionally overwrought 9 year old.  It was a weekend of HIGHS and lows to say the least.  Hahaha.

A high -- Sophie was excited to get this present in the mail from grandma.

This year was not a friend-party-year, so we kept things low key and did a family celebration as per usual.  Her actual birthday was on Sunday, but we decided to have her cake and presents on Saturday in order to capitalize on everyone being home without anything else to do.  Unfortunately, the morning started out rocky, with lots of shrieking and screeching, and it took several hours before bedrooms were clean and a mandatory shower was taken by Sophie.  At that point, we'd run out of time in the day to make it to the "free skate" period at the local ice skating rink, which was the main thing that she wanted to do, and Sophie was none too happy about that.  Thankfully, she was appeased with a trip to the store with Scott, where they picked up some fixings for her party along with a few extra treats on the side.  While Sophie finished getting ready, I worked on her "cake." 

An "Oreo Treat" cake

This year I branched out and tried a new option for her birthday cake.  Her food allergies always force me to get creative when it comes time to make something that everyone else will also want to eat, too, and I'm always searching for something to fit the bill.  So, when I saw a "recipe" on Pinterest a while back for Oreo treats, I filed it away for future use as a potential birthday cake option for Sophie, since Rice Krispie treat cakes have worked for her in the past.  Using a heart shaped bundt pan as the mold, I mixed melted marshmallows, a little bit of oil (instead of butter), and a bunch of crushed Oreos together to form the cake.  Once it was set, I popped it out and melted the cream filling from about half of the cookies to pour across the top.  Looks-wise, I think it came out great! Everyone was excited about the way the icing dripped down the sides.  Hahaha.  :)  Taste-wise, I personally thought it was gross.  Hahaha.  Way, way, WAY too sweet.  I'll take the Oreos plain, thank you very much.  The kids seemed to like it, though, so it wasn't a total bust.

Sophie had already picked out all her presents the weekend before while we were at the outlets.  Since she wasn't really getting anything else, I wrapped all the clothes separately to make it look like she got more.  Hahaha.

Once it was time to get the party started, Sophie was nothing but shimmer and shine.  :)  The storm clouds had parted and a bright sky sparkled in its wake. She was SUPER happy with her cake and VERY excited to open all her presents.  And she almost didn't mind that there was nothing else planned for the day.

Once we finally managed to tear Alex away from Mario Kart, we gathered the troops, snapped some pictures, then commenced with the Birthday singing and present opening.

Blowing out the sparkler candles proved a little tricky.  :)

It took more than a few tries to get them all out.

Of course, I thought it would have been super lame not to have ANY surprises for her gifts, so I ended up grabbing one other outfit that was on clearance at Target last week, and a gift from my sister Emily arrived just in time on Saturday as well.  I was worried that she would find the whole birthday lame, since she basically only got clothes and I didn't take the other kids shopping to pick out different stuff, but she seemed super satisfied with everything she got.  Especially the brand new dress that she just HAD to have from the J. Crew outlet.  She's such a budding fashionista.  :)

New lip gloss from Auntie Em.

New running gear!

And the dress!  

{You can see how excited she is, even though she already knew she was getting it.  Hahaha.}

And that was that!  Sunday morning -- her actual birthday -- started out much nicer than the day before, and everyone enjoyed the powdered donuts that Scott had let her pick up at the store on Saturday afternoon.  In a completely surprising turn of events, the morning passed by semi-peacefully with the kids really getting into making the "scripture journals" that I found on Pinterest, and getting ready for church without too much fuss.  I ended up staying home with Isaac -- who was still sick, the poor little lamb -- and Alex who claimed he was sick as well.  

 Proudly showing off her scripture journal.  :)

 All ready for church in her birthday dress.

We finished off the day with her requested birthday meal of spaghetti, and at bedtime, I had everyone go around the room and name something they loved about Sophie.  I think she really liked that.  :)  As for me, what I love most about Sophie is her sensitive spirit.  She is always one of the first to comfort me when I'm upset and she has a genuine desire to do what's right.  She is a unique and special little soul.  And -- when she's happy -- she just plain sparkles.  Happy Birthday to my 9 year old!!!  :)