The Neighbors Yard

Hello and Happy Friday. First off, for your viewing pleasure, may I recommend you go watch Day 4 of the Take Back Your Morning challenge right here. I think this one is one of the most important lessons! I'm going to figure out a way to make my kids all listen to it, or maybe I'll just write it all down and give them my own version o fit. Such good stuff! 

It's been a nice spring day. Corey recently told me that if I'm ever outside with Owen and can't find him, to go look in our neighbors yard. Corey learned this after he had been watching Owen in the front yard and Owen took off without looking back to go play on their playset and trampoline. This morning I was outside watching my little boys and sure enough, off went Owen. Daniel saw him leaving and called out for him, not sure if Daniel was telling Owen to wait for him or to come back. Owen kept walking. So I picked up Daniel and we followed after him. Owen was jumping on the trampoline - their backyard is right on the ridge, so there's a great view! 

Owen and Daniel, it looks almost like you're jumping on a trampoline high in the sky!

They are so cute. Daniel's doing a good job at holding his balance and staying on his own two feet while his big brother bounces around.

It was almost time for Sophi to come home from school. I heard the bus and ran down the street to call to her and let her know where I was. She got Natalie and the two of them joined us.

It was fun to push them on the swing, they were giggling and cheering at themselves, it was pure joy. The same kind of joy I felt building the snowman on Tuesday with Natalie.

I love these little people.

After the older kids got home from school, they enjoyed some springtime fun too - Wesley and Abi and some of their friends were playing some basketball speed games.

For a lot of the game, the little boys were riding their bikes right underneath the hoop.

Automatic point lost if you bonk one of the boys in the head!

Owen took off to the neighbor's yard again, this time stopping half way there at the new house being built. Owen helped himself into a little skid-steer. Wes went after him and then called to me "Mom! Can you come help me! Owen won't get out of the car!"

 Vroom, Vroom! He made car sounds, he loves cars. I thought he looked pretty cute.

Owen's moved past Toy Story. Now he likes to watch Pixar's Cars movie. He calls it "McQueen" or "Kachow!" Fun little kids. It's been a good Friday. Have a nice weekend.

On the Floor

There's a great song by Brandon Flowers called "On the Floor". I like to sing it when I'm cleaning up messes off of the floor. Usually liquid messes (spilled juice or an overflowing toilet, "beggin' please!") I thought of it tonight when I saw Lily playing legos. Here on this floor you can see what 18 years and 11 kids of legos look like~

This is 18 years of Legos for Christmas' and Birthdays. (Ok, maybe just 14 years, Joseph probably didn't get his first lego set til he was 4?) The thing is that I CLEANED UP the legos down here a week ago! Seriously! But kids just can't create if legos are contained in bins. They have to be free, like the atomic matter in a star nebula - free to float around and be free and unrestrained. The only catch is that here on planet earth the lego matter particles have to deal with gravity. Hence, they're all "on the floor". Lily has been working hard trying to find all the pieces to the 6 elves lego sets we have, so that she can build the dragons again. 2 down, 4 to go.

Right now she's working on the white dragon "Maria". But I ask, wouldn't it be easier to find the pieces you're looking for if the legos were organized?

Lily replied "Yeah Mom! You should organize them!" "I did!! 3 years ago! ...but you guys keep messin' it up!" (Do not walk down here without something to protect your feet, ouch!)

I pushed legos out of the way to clear a path for myself as I helped Lily look for pieces for 10 minutes. What else happened here today. The 10 day "Take Back Your Morning" challenge is going on now, you're not too late! Go listen to the video for day 2 of the Take Back Your Morning Challenge here. That challenge is going awesome, my third time doing it kinda, but also my first time being committed to do each day on the day. So that's going good, my mood and energy have been good the past couple of days. A few pictures of today - Corey took the kids to classic skating for a few hours for the elementary school's sponsored activity. The kids had a small snowball fight with what was left from my snowman. Corey took the kids Wes through Owen, Mel and Hyrum played with Daniel while the other kids were gone, Daniel finally gave up and fell asleep.

Last night I got woken up a few times by the kids - first Owen at 2 (he wanted to come in our bed, but I layed on the floor with him instead), Daniel at 4 (brought him in our bed), then the older kids' alarms at 5:30. I finally did rise and shine at 5:45 and thanks to my morning routine had a great morning, but I did crash this afternoon and miraculously got in a 2 hour nap, yay. I'm going to try to establish an earlier bedtime for myself, I'm going to follow Daniel's lead and head to bed now too.

Build A Snowman

We woke up to a winter wonderland this morning! My mom sent a message to me and my siblings wishing us a Merry Christmas, ha, and then texted me personally saying "It's great snowman snow, really sticky. Make a snowman and send us a picture. Dad said we should make one to send to you kids, but he has meetings, so do it for us before everything melts" I thought that was a great idea, and I started to sing to Natalie "Do you want to build a snowman?" She took me up on it. I got her little brothers dressed and ready and we headed outside to get to work. It really was great snowman building snow! Just a few rolls along the grass and we had a huge ball.

Owen and Daniel were totally chowing down on the snow. Owen was going down the curb, grabbing an handful, eating it, then scooting himself to the right and doing it again, as if there was a buffet in front of him with a great variety of treats to sample.

Maybe that was what he saw in his imagination.

We were still early on in the building process when Sophi came home from kindergarten. 

Natalie headed inside with Sophi, Daniel and Owen stayed outside for a bit more, until they walked in the deep gutter water and soaked their boots. I pulled him out - 

He didn't like the new cold feeling on his feet.

I thought Sophi and Natalie would want to go back outside , but instead they wanted to stay inside after lunch. I put Daniel and Owen down for naps, and then was able to get Natalie to come out and help me finish. I got clippers and cut some awesome snowman arms. Natalie put in the carrot nose

Natalie!! That looks so great! That is the snowman, er.. snowkid, representing Natalie.

This is me as a snowmom, the soccer ball is the clue to let you know it's me. I showed Natalie how to take a picture of me - Not bad photo for a 4 year old.

I started to work on one more snowkid - Daniel. Soon, all three snowmen were finished. Just in time for the sun to come out and start melting everything!

The sun hid behind the clouds and Natalie came out again, she decided she wanted to put a few finishing touches on Daniel's face.

All done. 

An hour later I was heading out and noticed Natalie's snowman is starting to tip over! Just like the primary song - in the sun it melted, melted melted...

Me and my tired eyes after a long day! An accurate portrayal.

I was out taking Sophi to the dentist. Her 5th cavity in the past 12 months.

Good thing she's tough. Owen woke up from his nap right as I was leaving and cried to come with me. So he doesn't have shoes and I wasn't prepared with things to keep him busy for the next hour, hence the phone entertainment - selfies!

Say cheese!

Show your tongue!

Switching the camera mode to see Sophi getting drilled on.

Ethan and Hyrum destroyed the snowmen when they got home, their excuse "We thought Wesley and Lily made them!" Corey and the kids had a snowball fight.

Corey tried out the snowball sling shot we got the kids for Christmas.

Abi and Lily took cover on the porch while Corey and Wes tried to hit them.

"Nah-nah! You can't get me!"

Wes was like "Forget this, I'm going to come up for a closer shot!"

He hit her smack in the back of the head

It's been a fun snow day.

Happy Morning

Last Monday, a little "Take Back Your Morning" challenge started in the EJC. I did really good last week but haven't done so great this week. Luckily, in the next week or so, Holly will be doing a facebook challenge of the same thing, so I'm going to try again then. As for now, even with my mornings a little off with it being spring break and all, the mornings are still nice. I've been on a walk outside a few times, yay, come on spring! It's also easy to have a good morning when I have this little face greeting me.

Everytime I go in there to wake him up, I tell myself to get it on video next time, cause he's just so cute. Today I remembered, and he did everything just about perfectly. Looking sleepy, rubbing his eyes, I sneak in, then he sees me, and smiles! "HI!"

And we exchange a few pleasantries back and forth. Today his smiles ended very quickly and her turned serious and began to cry "HELP!" for me to get him out. Here's the video from this morning 

Other days he'll hold up his bottle and call "BA!" (Daniel-speak for bottle) which is his way of requesting a prompt ricemilk refill.

So other than that sweet morning moment, I've spent most of the day in a funk. I think I'm recovering from a spring break that didn't have a plan of action and from all the extended family fun. Our house is usually pretty crazy, but 13 people crazy. It got stretched a bit further than that over the past 6 days (last Wed - Mon) I enjoyed having family here, especially cause it's usually a year or more between visits, but it did throw things even more outta whack. But things will be back to normal for a few more weeks until summer - spring break ended for the older kids and today it was back to reality. Joseph is almost a week post op from his wisdom teeth extraction, and the swelling has gone down enough that people might not even know he was under the knife. Unless, they notice that discolored skin on his neck.

Joseph noticed this slight yellow color as he shaved. Slight? Well, maybe not so slight, that looks pretty yellow buddy, and it goes up on both sides. That might be a give away.

He agreed, and thus I let him borrow some of my cover-up to try and make it a little less noticeable. Most of his friends already know, but still, a tad of ivory colored base could help make that yellow/green not be a distraction to people that you chit chat with today. I'm gonna go try to be productive now.

Jordan River Temple Open House

I am so so excited that the Jordan River Temple's renovation is done and that it will be open again soon! We went to the open house today. I felt a little stuck with my lack of productivity, so I needed something to reboot - I decided to go at 1:30, reserved it online, and we were there at 2:30. Walking in the line....

The older kids wore nicer clothes, I didn't bother making Owen or Daniel dress up. We took turns swinging Daniel so we could 1) keep him entertained and 2) keep our hands on him so he wouldn't run away.

Mel holding him for a moment while we wait in the corridor to go in. I took 4 pictures of this - Natalie was a blur in all but one of them, jumping up and down with excitement.

She kept saying "I'm so so excited to see Jesus!"

A selfie of me and my little D

He's such a happy boy!

Group selfie! 

At the doors of the temple, we got to put on footseis on over our shoes and sandals. Even Owen and Daniel.

Owen was a little confused as to what we were doing, so he looked at us with those big beautiful eyes and to verify everything was okay, we nodded approvingly, and he rolled with it.

I didn't know if they had them Daniel's size, but sure enough - these booties really are a one size fits all!

Daniel thought it was really fun! Look at you, Daniel! You're wearing big person shoes!

The tour was very nice, and temple is beautiful. A life goal of mine is to paint something that will be in a temple. A hallway, wherever, just some nature painting as a small offering to the Lord to tell him thanks for this lovely world He created for us and thank you for giving me my family - Corey and our wonderful children. The highlight of this open house for me was being in the celestial room with my kids. Since this is a re-dedication, I already know and love this temple. I've already had sweet spiritual feelings here. So to see Abi, Lily and Sophi sitting on chairs and looking up to the chandelier, as I have done many times, was just wonderful. I was holding Daniel in my arms. I loved seeing sweet little Owen walking through, holding his binky and blanket, with his big quiet eyes looking up and around at at me. Joseph, Melodie and Weslely picked up Owen and held their younger sisters hands. I thought "We won't all be here together again until they are all grown... my little kids won't be little anymore." And I had a vision of us together there again, all of us as adults!! Who will my kids be when they are grown? Gosh I'm getting teary again as I write this... I wished that Corey, Ethan, and Hyrum had come with us for us to ALL be there, so now we have to go again as an entire family, and that is my birthday wish, ha! I'm gonna make it happen, the open house ends on my birthday, so I think I'll go reserve tickets right now. We'll be back! At the end of the tour, we took a picture with a Christus statue. Natalie in this picture is a little sad - she was disappointed that she didn't see Jesus.

Someday, Natalie! He's coming back soon, keep up that childlike faith, we'll see Him soon.