Zoë is three!

Zoë's birthday heralded Heiss Family Birthday Season. Be prepared for so many pictures because although 2018 was technically a party-free year* we decided to have a "small family gathering" anyway. The problem with that (or benefit of that, depending on how you look at it) is that our family is ginormous and we ended up with our family of seven plus "just a few" sixteen others:

The sweetest prayers

Lately Zoë and Benjamin have been praying about the wackiest (and sweetest) things.

On her birthday, Zoë was giving the blessing on the food and she said, "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the day. Thank you that it can be my birthday. Thank you for the food. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! Please bless the food. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

And we just about died.

Benjamin said this evening's dinner prayer and had been caught in a couple of lies earlier in the day, so he said, "Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day. Thank you for the food. Please bless the food. Please bless that Daddy can not get me into trouble anymore and we're thankful that we can still watch Black Panther tonight. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Again, we just about died.

And it's a good thing we still let the kids watch Black Panther because telling the truth was one of the themes of the movie so I can bring it up at FHE on Monday when we have a lesson about honesty.

"...the truth I chose to omit..." and "...we had to maintain the lie..." are quotes that come to mind.

Anyway, Benjamin always includes random things about his day in his prayers—things like being grateful he could jump on a trampoline or that he could roll down a hill or that he as able to draw a really cool picture—and it reminds me that prayers should be like that. Prayers should include the little things we're happy about and grateful for in the minute-to-minute details of our life.

Sometimes I get so caught up with the frustrations of life that I forget to sit back and enjoy the small daily victories and blessings.

Hands down the sweetest Benjamin prayer of late, though, was when he said, "and we're grateful that we can make Alexander smile just by kissing his cheeks!"

Llama Llama Cake-o-rama

For her birthday, Zoë wanted a strawberry Llama Llama cake so a strawberry Llama Llama cake is what she got!

She helped me make the cake on Monday. We used an easy strawberry cake recipe that I found online (because we didn't have a strawberry cake mix on hand and I'm not at a point in my life where I can bake a cake from scratch and also decorate it (shoot—it takes me three days to get a birthday cake together at all)):

1 box white cake mix 

1 small package strawberry jello

1/2 cup milk 

3/4 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

1 cup fresh strawberry, finely chopped

It turned out rather delicious and it was hardly more complicated than the regular instructions on the box (thank goodness).

On Tuesday I whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting and a batch of marshmallow fondant. I dyed the fondant all sorts of colours and then I let all four kids (excluding Alexander because he isn't a kid yet, obviously) go wild. They each made their own pattern, which we rolled flat, and then cut into "quilt squares" for Llama Llama's bed.

My perfectionism, patience, and tolerance for mess-making were pushed nearly to the breaking point, but the kids enjoyed themselves.

Whenever I have ideas like this I think, "I can totally handle four kids playing with fondant and powdered sugar. This will be fun!"

And then about in the middle of the execution of the idea my mind starts screaming, "Why did I think I could handle this?!? Everyone I love and everything I own is covered in powdered sugar and I think my left eye is twitching!! There is no recovering from this!"

But then we get to the finished product and I see how proud the kids are of their work and it makes all the chaos and clean up worth it (at least, that's what I keep telling myself). 

The quilt isn't quite what I envisioned, but it's our quilt. 

Grumpy gal

Zoë is among the grumpiest of babies/toddlers/preschoolers to have ever graced the planet (and one day she'll just have to own that fact).

Though cute as a button, she was born scowling at the world. We had a short honeymoon period and then—BAM—colic hit, hard. According to Wikipedia, colic is defined as "episodes of crying for more than three hours a day, for more than three days a week, for three weeks in an otherwise healthy child," and is most likely to resolve by six months of age. "Rarely" will it last up to one year (I'm fairly convinced Zoë falls into this category; in all honesty, it's possible she's still colicky).

While we were away (in Durham for Andrew's graduation, which is still on my list of things to write about) and Andrew's parents were holding down the fort for us, Grandpa noticed that Zoë screams in her sleep.

"Does she have nightmares?" he asked.

"Probably," I shrugged, "But she doesn't ever really seem frightened by them. I imagine her nightmares are along the lines of: she asked someone if she could do or have something and they said no."

Cue endless screaming.

It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

She's a whole lot better now than she used to be. And I've had screamers before (I'm looking at you, Rachel). We'll get through this.

Just know that this is the face I wake up to every morning (even on her birthday):

Happy birthday to this sweet thang

In which Alexander shows off his teeth

Hey, everybody! Want to see my teeth?

Splash Pad, take one

Since the older girls both had "water day" at school yesterday (part of that last-week-of-school rigour) I took the little kids to the splash pad for their own day of water fun yesterday. It was a still a little chilly (I was surprised it was even open before Memorial Day) and it rained on us a little bit (which is slightly irrelevant considering we were there to get wet), but we still had fun!

Here is Benjamin and Zoë hanging out on the terrace by the splash pad:

The highway is just behind them, but I think the view is otherwise quite beautiful.

Behold! The gender neutral bathroom!

Given the story making headlines in our local news currently, it's high time I posted a picture of this—a gender-neutral bathroom:

It's located in my old high school (my niece Piper's current high school), but it didn't used to be there. Instead there was a restroom for females and a restroom for males. And all was well in the world.

Except for, you know: (1) restroom bullying, (2) restroom vandalism, (3) the stupid partition-style bathroom stalls where you can peek under/over/through the cracks.

Then gender equality happened and *BOOM* these gender neutral bathrooms were installed. And the world ended.

Except (just kidding) it didn't!

In the beginning...

Before spending time in Alberta we first had to get there! We checked the girls out from school halfway through the day on Thursday (May 3) so we could get a decent number of driving hours under our belt without feeling too exhausted. We drove from Spanish Fork to Raymond without any significant hiccups. Our gas station stops aligned perfectly with Alexander's eating schedule and he was content to play and sleep in his carseat while we were driving. 

Here he is feeling happy:

Idaho to home (May 7)

I was going to say that this post would wrap up my Canada trip, but then I realized that I began posting about this trip achronologically because I completely skipped the beginning! But I'll get there, I'll get there. 

So this is the end of our trip. 

Because Patrick had his own vehicle to drive back down to Utah, Josie rode with him to give him some company. My kids and I rode with my mom. We caravanned down to Ucon, Idaho, where our vehicle stopped to spend the night (Patrick and Josie drove the rest of the way home). The drive was fairly uneventful, aside from a pretty spectacular rainstorm through Monida Pass (I think that's where it was, anyway). 

It was fun to get to see Burt and Kathi's new home and to visit with them for a bit. Kathi made us pancakes in the morning, which the girls really enjoyed. Burt's father is my grandfather's cousin, which makes Burt and my mother second cousins, which makes me second cousins once removed with Burt, which makes my children second cousins twice removed to Burt (I'm pretty sure).

As my mom's cousin Lavon (who is my children's first cousin twice removed) said, "It doesn't matter how we're related. We're family!"

I agree that it doesn't matter how we're related (though it sure is interesting to figure it out) because often how closely you feel related has to do more with time invested in a relationship than it does in bloodlines. 

My grandpa and Burt's father were very close cousin/friends, so their children grew up feeling more like cousins (rather than more distant second cousins) so, you see, it doesn't matter how we're related; we're family.

Here we are together:

In the loop

This whole school year I have felt blindsided by so many projects and activities. Field trips, class parties, and most recently, business day. Miriam came home from school one day last week, nearly in tears, because at dismissal her teacher had said, "Remember to bring your business project for tomorrow!" 

Miriam, who was also feeling a little blindsided, pressed for more details and her teacher, sending off vibes of impatience, told her that she was supposed to have come up with a business idea, including having a good/service to "sell" and a poster to advertise and so forth. She sat down to write what she'd learned in a letter to me presented it to me at home, nearly in tears.

"I wish I would have known about this sooner! Or that we had more instructions! Or anything!" I vented and then I hopped on Facebook to ask the neighbourhood moms what they knew about business day. They were all rather well informed. 

I asked Miriam if she'd forgotten to give me a paper about it. I asked the Facebook moms if I'd missed a paper about it. Apparently there was no paper about it. 

So Miriam and I (and the internet) brainstormed for quick and easy business ideas. 

And then we rummaged through our craft supplies and churned out about 100 of these little guys: