All in the last week...

- Monday we had my parents, brother, and sister over for dinner. I love my family. Although with the timing of their arrival, I ended up with an audience for my workout. For the HIIT workout, it was Mom and the girls. She was impressed. Dad and Reid came in for the upper body strength training. I prefer not having an audience but you gotta fit in the workout when you can.

- Mom and Dad came over Tuesday morning for a bit too. The girls love having them here, they help out a bit, and I get adult conversation. Wins all around! The rest of Tuesday was uneventful, I think. It kinda gets lost in the rest of the week (you'll see).

- Ella is now potty trained! Steve had the brilliant idea of putting a sticker on a fishbowl and Ella earned scoops of water each time she stayed dry and/or did her business on the potty. Once she reached the star, she got a goldfish. She reached it on Wednesday and we made a huge deal out of it. We made a family trip to Meijer for her to pick out a fish and underwear, taking lots of pictures along the way. It worked beautifully. She's only had a handful of accidents since then and has worn underwear except for bedtime. She's stayed dry during nap and even kept her pull-up dry last night. Awesome! We haven't left the house much yet, but I think she'll do okay as long as we plan for it and use the potty right before we leave. I'm so proud of her! She turns four on Friday.

- Ella learned about death. Sadly, we are no good with fish. Goldy lived with us for about 36 hours. Poor Ella was devastated. She loved that fish. We tried again. Judd made it 24 hours. Poor kid. We're thinking we'll get an actual tank with a filter and buy purified water and some of that water conditioner next time. We'll also ask which fish don't die easily.

- Nora started purring. She keeps learning new noises. They're great. She also does this awesome bobbing dance. When she gets excited, she wrings her hands and moves her feet in circles, although that's not new. She's awesome. As I type this, she's "talking" to Steve. She giggles at her sisters all the time. OH, and she smacks her lips. She does it most often when I have my evening snack. Hilarious.

- I tried a pomegranate. Silly me, I didn't look up how to get the seeds out of one before I sliced it open and tried to pry them out with a spoon. Half the kitchen was speckled with the purplish-red juice. It was a sticky mess. Apparently it works best to score the sides, split it open, and pop the seeds out underwater. The rind part floats while the seeds sink. I still haven't decided if I like it even to buy one again. It was a pain to de-seed. Later that night, I prepared a bowl of veggies with teriyaki sauce. Yes, I'm a little weird and love my veggies. Unfortunately, I tried to set the bowl down on the shelf next to the recliner. There wasn't enough room and it tipped. Teriyaki sauce everywhere. The arm and side of the recliner. Down the wall. On the carpet. On the heating vent. Some of the veggies fell down the vent. Steve came home a few minutes later and asked what I'd been cooking. Nothing really, he smelled the teriyaki veggies that fell in the vent right before the heat kicked on. That was Wednesday.

- Wednesday night (yeah, that was a big day here) Mia complained her stomach hurt. I figured she was hungry because she didn't eat much of her dinner. Nope. She threw up all over her bed. That was about 9:30. She felt better after that and slept pretty well the rest of the night, except for around 1:30 when her crying woke up Nora. I ended up feeding Nora before going back to bed. Around 2:30, I heard Ella coughing and got up to check on her. Again, vomit all over the bed. Steve got up and we changed her bedding and clothes and started our second load of vomit-covered sheets that night. Luckily both just threw up once and were done. Steve felt pretty horrible all day at work but never got sick. I didn't feel great but not too bad either. Friday was worse for me, although I never threw up either. Thankfully Steve was able to work from home. That's how he got the unlucky job of explaining death to our almost-four year old.

- Saturday morning we got bunk beds from my brother's house and a dresser from my grandma's house. The girls are now sleeping in the bunk beds that Reid and I had when we were little. Full circle, huh? And I'm excited about the dresser. I'm pretty sure it came from my great-grandma, who we unwittingly named Nora after (her name was Nora Alice and she went by Alice). My cousin Brian and his fiance Rebecca brought them to us, so we had them, Reid, and Leslie stay for lunch. After they left, Steve picked up Isaac so he could help rake leaves. Our yard isn't that big and we didn't think there were that many trees, but we get a ridiculous amount of leaves and pine needles in our yard. Poor Isaac had been at a lock-in the night before and had barely slept. By the end of the day, Steve and Isaac were beat. We had a quiet evening at home.

- Today we didn't do much. After the crazy week we had, that was fine with us. I did have a freaky dream early this morning. In it, we were at Steve's high school reunion and he kissed an old friend's head in front of me. The girl and her other friends were mean and snooty. They were prettier than me, thinner than me, and obviously had more primping time than me. And they ignored me. When I pulled him aside and asked about it, he rolled his eyes. We got into a big fight. I woke up then and couldn't get back to sleep. That picture of him nuzzling another girl's head was SO vivid. But the man I married is nothing like the man in my dream. He held me and reassured me he was not a jerk, would never do that, and he loves me and only me. I know that but I really needed to hear it with that picture in my head. Life is good when the man in reality is better than the one in your dreams.