New Years Eve

New Years Eve this year consisted of our usual tradition of hanging out at a Brighton cabin with a bunch of neighborhood friends. Since New Years day falls on a Sunday, we came up to sleep over on Friday night and spent all day Saturday hanging out, sledding, watching movies and playing games. We didn't do any skiing this year. We had plans to, but Owen threw up during the night. Since he was sick, Corey took him home, and with Corey gone with his hands tied up, that made it hard to ski, since Corey is the one that makes that happen. We got all the kids measurements on Friday, and our plan for him to go down to the valley and rent skis and then come back up changed. They were disappointed, sorry kids. But there was still plenty to do and they had fun sledding. Here is a picture of Melodie playing with Daniel in the upstairs playroom, which is also the room where we slept. Cute little chair for Daniel to sit in~ oh we love him so much!

Daniel is all ready to tell us a story "When I was a little boy..."

Joseph, Ethan, and Hyrum all headed down for home around 4 to get ready for a New Years Eve concert that they had to perform in for their Soundhouse group. Call time was 6. Hyrum and Ethan's Little big Band group was first around 7, then Ethan and Joseph performed with their Voodoo band at 9:15-10. Corey came back up with Owen at 7. I thought he was going to wait for Hyrum and bring him back up. One thing about that... Hyrum got a ride home with a friend after his performance was done, he got home around 8:45. His phone was dead but he called us with his friends phone before they dropped him off. He was sure he knew where the key was. But he didn't call after getting inside the house, and the house phone didn't answer when we called. Most all the neighbors were up at the cabin with us. We were trying to make sure he got inside okay. Our friend that he got a ride with said they invited him to hang out with them at their house, but he wanted to go to bed and so said no. She said she waited and saw a light come on, so we thought he was okay. I got in touch with one neighbor and asked her to go knock. She did but no one answered, but their were lights on, so we figured he went inside and had gone to bed. So, at 10:00 at the cabin, we live streamed the ball drop in New York - great idea!

That way we were able to celebrate, but also able to head home and get to bed a little earlier. Brilliant. So here we are at 10:00 Utah time with the countdown... I spy four Wrides...

It was a big party house! At the new year, the kids can go run a lap around the cabin in the snow barefoot to become members of the Polar Bear Club. Wes joined the club this year, good job buddy! It was a lot colder than he expected. and he also didn't enjoy how his feet would break the top layer of snow and he'd sink in with each step. Yeah, that part is no fun. So, the hour before "midnight" we gathered our things and loaded them in the van. After cheering in the new year, we got our coats on and headed out. Ethan and Joseph had beat us home and they were the first ones to discover a sad little Hyrum that had been locked out in the cold for 2+ hours...

Such abandonment would have scarred other children for life, but not our humble Hyrum, He took it well. We gave him lots of hugs and apologies, told him how we called and how we had tried to make sure he made it in... sorry! Then we also gave all the kids a lecture about keeping their stinkin' phones charged, how the only reason they have phones is so that we can get a hold of them! Maybe their phones are not serving their primary purpose cause you guys waste your batteries taking advantage of all the smart phone properties it offers, but we might dumb your phones down if you can't keep them charged, this is ridiculous!

And then we all went to bed, we have church bright at early in the morning, new time schedule at 9 am!

Falcon Drone Rescue

Yesterday Hyrum got his Christmas toy stuck on the roof. He took his Air Hogs Millenium Falcon outside to see how high it could go. And then an o-so slight breeze caught it and pushed it south, a little more south... I was watching from the window. As I saw it move closer and closer to the house, I said "They're gonna get it stuck on the roof..." but Hyrum was still looking up at it with a big "isn't this fun?!" smile. Then, the smile disappeared and a look of "uh oh" came on his face as his jaw dropped and then he put his hand over his mouth. Kinda funny, kinda sad. It looked like it had been abandoned on Hoth... (photo reenactment)

We could see where it was from the window in my bedroom (I didn't get a picture of it before it's rescue, thus the photoshopped version below)

It doesn't matter how much parents try to warn their children to prevent situations like this... some things you just have to learn from personal experience.

So, today I went over and asked our neighbors across the street if we could borrow their ladder. They dug it out of their garage and then Joseph brought it over. He leaned it against the house in two different locations. He put it in the yellow spot, but I thought no, that will take longer, if we put it in the red position as seen below, we'll be able to quickly climb up and climb back down! Yeah, bad idea... the ladder was at it's highest setting and it seemed very unstable. Plus there would be no extra roof to break a fall in case of an accident, we'd just fall straight off the cliff of the roof. Joseph told me "No" before I told him I had second thoughts. I'm okay with that - that roof is high and scary!!!

So we chose location one and then I sent Joseph up on the roof through our ice dam area (stupid north facing house, very poor design right there... There hasn't been an ice dam there the past 3 years thanks to heating cables which I asked him to be careful not to disturb the cables if at all possible...) Boy this is a great idea... let's risk Joseph's life by putting him up on a snowy roof to retrieve a $70 toy. I did not take any pictures of the rescue, cause you can't take pictures when you're stressed and in a dangerous predicament. But just imagine us doing this in the snow and ice. I got up on part of it with him, but he went all the way up to get the toy. That's Joseph on the top of our house with a broom trying to get the toy, me on the roof at the top of the ladder coaching him, Mel holding the ladder for us, and 3+ other kids whining for a turn, to which my stressed out self said "Shut up!!"

Not sure why we did it really, would probably have been better to just let it be lost or go buy another one. Wesley really wanted to be the one to go up on the roof, like it was some fun game. Joseph was sober enough to attempt it though - "This is not a game, this is serious and scary and we gotta be careful." By some miracle he was able to grab it with the broom we tossed up to him. Then I very slowly got myself down (I was pretty freaked out - it was so nice to finally get a firm foothold on the ladder again!) and then coached him down. It was a high stress situation, and probably not the smartest thing to do. But we got it down, yay, Hyrum will think we're heroes (he was gone at a band rehearsal) We're just trying to help him out with his favorite toy. Though not sure if it was worth the risk.

Now we are ready to head up to our friends' cabin. I've tried to use our early departure to the cabin as a bribe/incentive to get the kids to clean the house. "Back to reality is starting soon! Please organize your things so you are ready! Let's get the house clean, life will be more calm if we do!!" But instead they're playing Klask and Otrio and I might as well just be nagging the walls to get movin'. Abi did help me finally finish clearing out the laundry room. Now it is officially a "clothes and cloth only" room - no more crafts or paper or glue for the kids to get in to! The desk is cleared off! I'm excited about that. Maybe I'll finally be able to sew and do mending! Off to the cabin, it is always nice for Corey and I to have time to visit with friends and the kids love it too. Happy New Years Eve tomorrow!

Ice Rink Builder

So Corey put Joseph to work again this winter. He had Joseph working on ice rink stuff while he was gone in Chile and Brazil. Joseph worked hard and now it's all ready for the ice. Thus the hose has been on for the past 3 days. My apologies to anyone worried about water conservation.

This year they found out that some guys in our neighborhood are really good at working a skidster and leveling ground. We asked them a little late in the season and the ground was wet, thus leaving big tire tracks. But it still looks the best it has among the ice rinks so far. They helped Joseph with the boards too and had a trailer to haul them over to the lot. They turned the garage into a messy workshop and also trashed the van (Joe, you still need to go get that vacuumed out, what a mess)

Joseph did say that having a functional ice rink would be the most memorable thing about this winter/Christmas season for him. Now all we need is cold.

Family Christmas Concert

Here are some pictures from the family Christmas concert we had with Corey's side of the family on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed a ballet performance, guitar and violin from Seth and Isaac, and our kids did their musical instruments - Wes played "Merry Christmas and All that Jazz" on the trumpet...

Melodie did a piece from her flute recital ~

The little girls did a silly version of Jingle Bells, called "911" -

Sophi with the interpretive dance in the video below, Owen joined her for a second, he was feelin' the music!

Ethan did "Forget You"

Daniel entertained us all with his mere presence. A baby in fuzzy jammies!!! I'm gonna die

Joseph - sorry buddy, I can't remember what song you did and I can't see it on the karoke screen behind you. I'll text you. I think it was Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas? Trying to remember the songs I've been hearing the past month.

Then Hyrum and Ethan sang the politically incorrect "Baby It's Cold Outside"

We all enjoyed good food and games. The biggest hit of a game was the saran wrap game that Uncle Mark brought. Seth and Isaac got the game together and had cut the saran wrap into pieces. And they wrapped it TIGHT. Wes and Hyrum got Christmas ties from the ball, Sophi and Mel won the big $5 bills in the middle of each ball, and there was candy, gloves, scarves, erasers... we were impressed with how much they fit into those balls. I think that was the most memorable part of the evening for the kids and we adults thought it was fun to watch too. That might be a new family tradition for Wride get togethers... I'm planning on making one for Park City next year. We were able to head home before the storm came in and will be back for more fun tomorrow. It's good to be with family.

Hangin' with Hibberts

We had our Christmas get together with my family yesterday evening. We all met over at Jerusha's ward building to play games and visit. My mom brought pizza for dinner and we all had lots of left over goodies that we brought to share. We did a MJ dance off that was fun, I'll have to see who got pictures of that. Jersh brought a little magnetic hockey game called Klask that everyone had fun playing. There was also lots of Speed basketball - I got second once, then I got first, then I was the first one out. Daniel was held by Amy and Jersh when I played, so that was fun to be an active participant in the sports for a change. Corey wasn't - he was on Owen duty most of the time. Although he did get in on a round of Nerf tag. The kids used the pizza boxes as shields

Also, Neil's family got a hover board that was a big hit, everyone wanted to try. The kids caught on super fast. Corey and I not as fast, but we argued that if we had a few minutes uninterrupted and without any toddler or baby interfering, we would be able to figure it out too.

Then tonight the Siblings and spouses met up at my parents house at 7:30 pm. My sister Patrice was in town from Texas, so we had to seize the opportunity to get together again. Corey stayed home with the kids hoping to get some work done. Neil brought a card game called Rage to play that I do think was fun, even though during the game as I struggled to grasp the rules, I took over my dad's role of reluctant participant "So how long does this game go?" I think I got it by the last round. And then we stayed and talked until it was almost midnight. What time is it? Oh! 11:40! We should probably wrap this up..." It was fun to forget all our responsibilities for a while and visit.

Day After

So not much going on here. The kids are playing with their toys. I'm taking down Christmas decorations. I woke up this morning and did a treadmill run, then I stretched out my hips as I squatted by the tree and started taking off ornaments. I figured since I put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, I had the right to take it down the day after Christmas.

I got all the ornaments off, stuggled with the lights for a while but finally got them off too, then it was time to take down the tree piece by piece. It's nothing personal, Mr. Tree, it's just that we already have more than our share of clutter, and you've fulfilled your purpose this year. I was really excited to see you gone, but we look forward with pleasure to seeing you next year. So I'm trying to clean and put away and hide things, the kids have been putting together lego sets and coloring. Here is the favorite received gift of each child ...well, except the first three. They didn't get any one particularly amazing gift, and the Christmas magic is a little bit gone for these older kids, so we're gonna skip Joseph Mel and Ethan, but I'm sure they liked their new headphones and socks and ACT book etc, right kids? As for the younger kids:

Hyrum - Millenium Falcon drone
Wesley - Neon Street Rollers. He would say his x-wing fighter, but it doesn't fly so well, drat.
Abi - Friends Lego Hotel ...which I ordered online and we picked up at Toys R Us today... Corey and I had a mixup and I thought he bought her gift, and he thought I got it... so she didn't get a toy on Christmas and quietly mourned in the corner that all she got for Christmas was a book and some shoes, so sad.
Lily - Elves Lego Set with the Baby Queen Dragon
Sophi - Lego Queen Dragon
Natalie - I'll just guess the Belle Lego. But yesterday she seemed most excited and pleased with all the Hi-Chew candies in her stoking.
Owen - Hit the 4 balls toy
Daniel - I'll speak for him too and say his new muslin blankets. :)

So yeah, the house is a wreck. It's nice to have a whole week to try and clean it up. :) Any chance they'll actually do any homework? I find it highly unlikely. We're all going to enjoy the break from school and responsiblity.

Christmas Day

Good morning, Christmas! I have mixed feelings about having Christmas on Sunday. I'd like it if we focused more on the Holy and sabbath part of it, (which is the real reason for the whole Christmas holiday anyway, right?) But it seemed to be like a regular day instead of a Sunday to me. We did go to church at 11 but it was just for sacrament meeting. I would have preferred to have the full block. I know, I'm weird. I'd actually love it if church were longer... in Sunday school and Relief Society, the lessons and discussion always seems to need to be cut short because of time. One reason why our Wednesday study group is so great, cause we can go as long as we want to! Anyway, back to Christmas... 

So, I think Lily was the first one up. The teenagers all slept in for the first time ever. Lily passed out stockings but got it all messed up. We hadn't put names on them, I just put them in order. Note to self, put names on or in them next time. I had put a bunch of stuff in Daniel's stocking that I wanted to divy up for the rest of them, but Lily gave that to Mel. We got it all sorted out. When Corey finally came down, the kids passed out presents that they got for each other. Those were the gifts in the front room where they all had their sleepover. Then we went into the side room for presents from Corey and I.

So, it snowed a ton last night. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to get to church on time if we opened presents before church. But the vote was to do it before, and we did, and we were late. Oh well. Hyrum, Wes and Abi did a good job getting ready for church first.

I even dressed up Daniel for church in this little outfit we got when Wes was a baby. Wesley's 2 month picture was in this little outfit (see the second photo, 5th kid), Daniel looked so cute!!

I was cracking up every time I saw him, so stinkin' cute. Put on his Sunday best for Jesus today. :) The older kids were taking advantage of sleep, so they were still in pjs. 

Abi bought Joseph some slime. I made some bacon and eggs for a semi-real food breakfast before they binge on junk all day. My offering wasn't accepted by most of the kids. 

Well, they ate the bacon, not so much the eggs, as demonstrated by Ethan above. He's also there showing off his eos chapstick that was supposed to be in Lily's stocking, Owen favorite presents were these two shape things I got at kid to kid. Especially the one where you hammer in the balls and they roll out, he loves that one. I like shopping for toddlers for Christmas, they're easy.

Older kids are getting harder. Well, Corey says they're not harder, you just have to spend more.

That there above is a picture of the calm after the Christmas storm. Kinda messy with the wrapping all off, but that's easy enough to clean up. But once they start un-boxing, that's when the real mess begins. Our house looks like it's been hit by a Christmas atomic bomb. But no time to clean up yet... Corey went out to clear the driveway and the everyone got dressed.

After church the kids went out to help our neighbor shovel his driveway and we cleared off our driveway again.

Luckily it stopped snowing the rest of the day and was still clear after we got back from Corey's parent's house. We went there for a nice Christmas dinner and more gift exchanging. Natalie with candy on her face and coloring books on her lap.

The kids got toys and clothes and body wash. Wes felt surprised and a little guilty to be at the receiving end of such generosity by his grandparents.

I think they had a good day. Not sure if there will be anything in particular that stands out in their memories this Christmas, other that the fact that they only got "one week" off of school. I'm sure we'll spend the rest of the week recovering from having so many material things. I trust I will be sorting through bins and piles in an attempt to pass on stuff they don't play with anymore. Glad we survived another Christmas! phew

Christmas Eve

Hi, It's Christmas morning. But this is what happened last night... The kids all slept by the tree in the front room. It's a kid tradition that they started 10 or so years ago. They all look forward to their sibling sleepover ~ staying up late and chatting with excitement for what the morning will bring.

So last night Corey and I didn't bother making the kids go to bed. They were still up and wired with energy, but I was putting Daniel to bed, so I got Owen and put him to bed too, and that meant I was done and could retire. It was just 10:30. Corey soon came in, we decided to set our alarm for 2 am to put stuff out. When the 2 am alarm sounded I got out of bed. The house was quiet. That's good, that means hopefully kids are snoozing, and they should be at 2 am. Corey said he'd be out in a few. He had bought presents and wrapped them and wrapped the ones I had bought too, so I wasn't totally sure what gifts were what or what the plan was for the morning. We don't really have time to talk or coordinate things lately. I snooped around in his office and found the candy he bought for stocking stuffers and slowly took care of those. I ate the mangoes and drank the eggnog the kids left out for Santa, and munched the carrots for his reindeer, wishing Corey was awake to drink the eggnog so I wouldn't have to.

It's against weight loss rules to consume calories in the wee hours of the morning, right? But I had to get rid of them, but I don't like to waste... I thought snooping in the kitchen to try to find their plastic packaging would be too noisy. So I munched those out of duty, drank a little egg nog and brought the rest upstairs and put in a cup in our bathroom for Corey, then returned the glass empty downstairs to show that Santa drank it. Then I continued to wander around trying to figure out what to do. Eventually I just put out everything. Stockings and presents under the tree all ready.

I went to bed at 3:45 and Corey told me he got up at 4 for a few minutes to make sure the gifts were out, and then he went to bed. I snuggled back in with my baby.

I guess we're as ready as we're gonna be. This Christmas wasn't as well planned as others have been. We're still trying to figure out how to juggle this many kids and all their schedules. Plus with Corey being gone for 2 weeks that made it a little harder. Thus we plan to pre-empt the unwrapping in the morning with statement to decrease expectations, disclosing again that their parents have been stretched thin lately!

Let It Go

I recently ordered some books for myself that arrived earlier this week (early Christmas presents, yay!) I kinda have Christmas all year long with all the books I gift myself. So, one of my recent arrivals I started reading yesterday and finished it tonight. Let it Go by Chris Williams~

Before Corey left for his last trip, he got a few movies with spiritual messages that we could watch on Sundays. So we watched the new Saturday's Warrior (liked it!) and The Last Descent (that one was sad but pretty good). We watched those before Corey left. Last Sunday Dec 11th, while Corey was still gone, we started the movie "Just Let Go" which tells this story. We didn't like it much at all. I really liked the Mormon Message with Chris and the movie seemed really different from that.

Maybe just cause it seemed to be trying to leave out all the spiritual stuff behind Chris' ability to forgive? Like his mom was portrayed as one ticked lady, ready to fight for justice. And his older son was kinda stupid too. "Why don't you hit me... do something!" Stupid, it was really bugging all of us, like they were adding all this drama that wasn't really there in real life, they just added it to the movie for drama's sake. We couldn't finish it, but I googled a bit and found this clip where the book was highly recommended. I decided to get the book, and if any of that drama from the movie actually was in the book, I'd take it as proof that they were just trying to be true to the story and would give it another try. What did I learn? The book is nothing like the book. I don't think we'll finish the movie unless were desperate for Sunday entertainment. The book was excellent! I loved how Chris testified of Christ on almost every page. I've been thinking a lot of how I can yoke myself to Christ. Perhaps it's easier (more like an obvious necessity) to depend on the Savior each day when you are in such an extreme trial of losing your spouse and half of your family in such a tragedy, but I hope there is a way I can have the same kind of relationship with Christ even though my trials are so small. Hopefully I don't have to get steamrolled by trials to know I am nothing and totally dependent on the Savior. I want to feel that dependence more and to feel that gratitude more this upcoming year. Great book, I want to be like Chris Williams, but especially I want to be like Christ!

We also recently saw the byutv movie "Winter Thaw" ~ it was beautiful! One of my goals for this upcoming year is to see Christ more in the people around me, and know that as I serve them, I'm serving him. Since we've kinda failed at doing all the #LightTheWorld things every day this month,
I've made a goal for us to keep Christmas with us all the year through as we try to do those things through the year.

YouCam

We're almost done with school. The younger kids had their last day as today, the older kids have one more day tomorrow and then hallelujah we get a break. What will they be doing on their break?

I'm sure there will be playing with toys they get on Christmas. I also believe they will be wasting some time on the computer. I recently stumbled upon these creations. The children usually start off doing homework when they are at the computer ~ Like "Reflex" or checking "canvas" but then they'll get distracted by YouCam~

Cause it's just so fun to make faces and look weird!

Or to strut your stuff ~ nice striking a pose, Abi. Love Natalie's little face.

Lily likes to use the computer a lot...

She takes a lot of selfies. I'm sure she'll do more once her computer knowledge increases. As for now, she is right behind computer expert Ethan

He is our most creative genius when it comes to the computer and all the possibilities it affords

He's got a good go at being a graphic artist if the music thing doesn't work out. He's going to be my go to kid in the future when I want a family video made of our family reunion parties. Pretty fun. I love that first picture with Owen destroying the city. Funny

Watching TV

Last night we enjoyed some time watching 90 minutes of Studio C - they were playing all their Christmas Episodes, it was so funny. I was rocking Owen as we watched and then Mel passed Daniel to me so she could finish her homework (even though she stayed and watched Studio C with us). She took these pictures of this rare moment of both my little boys sitting sweetly on my lap~

 I love my little boys!!

Daniel is just such a perfect little sweetheart, and Owen, you are the cutest! But you and your father need to figure out how to have a happy and healthy relationship...

Owen has a prioritized order of people who he will go to. And I am not at the top of his list. He sat on my lap until Wesley came in - back from his New Bop Christmas Concert. Off my lap Owen went, over to his #2 favorite person in the world.

That lasted until Corey came in, and then it was goodbye Wes, hello Daddy.

Owen likes to sit right in front of him in his arms like they are his little nest. Poor Corey can hardly get a thing done if Owen is around, he doesn't know how to say no to him. But Owen is still little, hopefully he'll grow out of being so clingy. Owen did great these two weeks that Corey was gone. He's also done good today - Corey left for the airport at 4 am this morning... taking a quick business trip to San Francisco, so he's gone tonight and will be back at 11:30 tomorrow night. Nice to have him home for 24 hours! So, I continue to keep the tv on to keep kids quiet and to try to distract them from making messes. I probably have it on too much. It's all good stuff though - pbs kids and BYU tv. We really like byutv. So last night during Studio C, I was in a silly mood and the kids looked at me a few times wondering why I was laughing so hard. These two were my favorites:

"He's just being dramatic... watch this!" at :55 funny! And the Gift of the Magi ~

1:45 - "Oh! thanks for sticking to our agreement, but I actually love you and I didn't eat for two weeks to buy you this hat!"

Ah, I almost forgot! Here's one more favorite, Wonderful Life! "Boo! Jimmy Stewarts wife became an old hag!"

We had a good time laughing together. Studio C is to my children what the Monkees were to me and my siblings growing up. We'd watch the Monkees all the time and all the quotes we memorized from it found their way to into our daily conversations. Thus it is with Studio C on this next generation. Good stuff.

Three Months Old

Guess who is THREE MONTHS OLD?!?!? Yes, that's right! It's YOU DANIEL!!!

Oh my goodness, isn't that just the sweetest little mug shot you've ever seen?

I could just scream. Daniel, you should feel guilty... You're sweetness isn't helping me recover from my baby addiction one bit.

So this big 3 month old angel is starting to lock his precious little elbows and bat his fists around at things. His favorite thing to hit is the yellow butterfly on his bouncy chair.

I'm trying to savor every moment of this little one. 3 to 6 months old is probably my very favorite baby time - they are still so little, but they're a little more resilient than a newborn, and he's got squishy little legs and oh his cheeks and sweet fingers, he's just joy all buttoned up in cute little foot pajamies. I love it! Here's a video of his cuteness, we love this little boy