Little Girl Drawings

The little girls have been busy drawing pictures. Sophi got a new set of markers from her teacher. Nothing gets used like a new set of markers.

They've also been using Mel's colored pencils.

Some of my favorite pictures - Sophi did this one of a ballerina.

Sophi also did this little mermaid.

Lily did Dash from the Incredibles. The little boys have discovered that movie and have been watching it alot. They call the movie "Power".

Here is one by Natalie. She's learned how to do the eyes from watching Sophi draw... This is someone from the Lego Elves movie, Emily Jones I think?

And this is a portait by Natalie of me. My hair up in a high bun. (I think I need to see an ophthalmologist...)

And no art session by Natalie would be complete without her drawing a rainbow. Cute girls.

I'm at home with a more quiet house right now. All the little girls and Wesley went with Corey on a little camping trip with Corey's brother up in Uintahs. I'm home with Owen and Daniel and am pleased to report that we will be going to bed at a descent time.

Panorama Test

So, a little more details about the ultrasound on Tuesday. It was a thorough exam, took over an hour. One nurse did all the screening, then a doctor came in and looked at it all again and explained some of what they saw. She said there were a few markers for genetic defects. It happens with age, and I'm at risk cause I'm so old. The markers were: too much amniotic fluid, fists clenched for more than an hour, and some measurement on the brain was measuring 2 weeks behind development. These are all markers for a possible "trisomy" (that was the new word for the day). Trisomy means there are 3 chromosomes instead of the usual pair of chromosomes. The most common is Trisomy 21, which is Down Syndrome. The smaller the chromosomes, the less threatening/dangerous the complications. So 21 is a small m and babies with three chromosome 21/Down Syndrome can life long lives. Two others - Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18, are more life threatening and can cause more problems since they are larger chromosomes. Most of those children die before age 1 according to that website. Trisomy 13 is called Patau Syndrome, Trisomy 18 is Edwards Syndrome. So, yay, I kinda wish we didn't have to go back in for more ultrasounds or tests, but it's the curse/blessing of living in this technological society. We had ultrasound worries with Mel I remember, and with Owen. I think I got all of the worry and drama of the unknown out of myself that time, so I'm doing fine with this potentially worrisome news. I can't remember if there were any concerns with ultrasounds of the other kids. It appears Daniel's ultrasound was uneventful. No scare with him, atleast not any that I recorded, so if there was a worry I had at the time, it has been forgotten since I didn't write anything down (which is what will happen to my whole life if I don't type things up here, hence why I keep a blog) So whatever happens to the baby, we will love him and he will be a blessing. They want me to come in for a follow up ultrasound to check anatomy and growth in 3 weeks. My doctor called yesterday to go over the ultrasound with me, and I scheduled a Panorma test for today at Corey's request, "cost of living with modern medicine." I loaded up the kids and we went in. I had to go pick up the lab kit and sign for it at my dr. office, then took it down to the lab. Daniel kept trying to escape.

PBS kids app to the rescue. Owen held it while I went in to get my shot.

They stayed put, glued to the phone, while I got my blood drawn. Yay. That was all we needed to do, let's go back home.

Oh, and in case you didn't watch the video from Tuesday's post, we're having a boy. Some of the kids seemed unhappy about it - "It's a boy!?!?" said Lily with a frown and disappointment in her voice, "No! Now it's uneven!!!" said Ethan (he was joking) I know it's not really a big deal to any of them, they'll all love him to pieces just fine, but yeah, it's a boy. So these little toddler guys will be taking over. I told Lily it's okay, we'll just have two more kids and make sure they are both girls (cause we have total control over things like that!) then it will be 7-7.  I said that as a joke, Corey was in the room and walked by with this expression when he heard my comment -

Ha. So that's all the ultrasound info I've got at the moment, we should get the Panorama test results within a week. Although with Owen, they didn't get enough blood or something to do the test so I had to go back in and get my blood drawn again. We'll see if that happens this time. Other than that, today was just a normal life day. After coming back from the blood draw, we had vegan pizza for lunch. A neighbor called and gifted us a bag of freshly picked peaches. Natalie headed to the bus. Corey checked Sophi out of school early for her first violin lesson. She'll check out every Thursday at 2:00 and miss art to go take lessons from a friend of Corey's from high school who is a great violinist. So Corey said he'll own that job. Wesley has his audition for Little Big Band at the Soundhouse, Ethan drove him down cause Eth has his sax lesson with Ray down there in Utah county. Eth enjoys driving and Corey passed him off on the clutch, so he's happy and enjoying feeling independent. Our two caterpillars are big now and I hope they do okay with the next step in their metamorphosis, unlike our caterpillar #1 from this year. I've been trying to catch up on going over family finances and cleaning a little. The house is in a state of clutter though. I just need to get rid of all the boxes of junk. Lots to do.

Playground Helper and Food Pics

Corey took the little kids to the park this evening. We're lucky that in Abi we have a little kid that is such a big helper. For example, she's still excited to go play at the park and to do the little things like ride on the teeter totter (here she is as a blur on the ride up...)

But she's also willing to give up her spot her little brothers when she sees that they're frustrated with their inability to use the equipment properly. She lets them come take her spot -

Abi to the rescue!!

She is such a good big sister. She's like the oldest sibling of the second group of our kids.

We are so lucky to have her!

A few other pictures of food... usually we hear from Joseph on Wednesdays, but it was Monday this past week. He has been gone for 2 months. He's doing well and he had his first baptism of someone that he had taught. Last week we honored Joseph by sharing a little fruit that he had told us about that I finally got at the store. A little hairy fruit... I didn't know what it was called, so I googled "spikey fruit" and looked for it's image. Found out it's called "Rambutan" - which is from a Malaysian word "rambant" which means "hair".

It took me a few weeks to get to it, but my sister told me that she saw at Harmons in Draper the fruits that Joseph talked about.  He shared a pic of these little fruits, said they taste like a grape. The kids tried it out this past weekend - they are the hairy little things in the bowl up front.

Everyone smile, we'll send Joseph this picture of us eating the same food as him -

Mel tried it first. 

They kinda taste like grapes, but are in a tougher peel/shell. And they have a bigger pit/seed inside.

The kids all tried it, they didn't all finish it.

They were a little skeptical

Still, it was a fun experiment to try food that Joseph is eating, and provided a bit of mission preparation for the younger kids too. When I bought the rambutan, I thought I'd try out the other weird looking fruits they had there too - this kiwano. That one looked too weird for anyone to trust, so I ate all of it, and Daniel helped me a bit too.

He's such a healthy kid.

Ok, last pics - a few from last week - here's Daniel showing the proper way to eat a piece of bread - center first.

And then you rub your pb hands in your hair.

Be sure to look cute at your mom while you do it, she'll love it.

Red or Blue?

Well, today was the big day. I went in for the ultrasound. It was on the calendar on the fridge, and the kids were aware that we'd be finding out if it was a boy or a girl this week, but that was a whole week ago, and now their minds must be pressed with other matters cause it's 9:20 pm and no one has asked me about if the baby is a boy or a girl. Other possibilities are that the kids don't pay attention to the calendar or they forgot what ultrasound means.

So, after the kids got home from school, I went to the store alone to seek inspiration. Early on I was thinking of doing something with a dozen donuts, cause that is one of the first things that come to mind when you mention "a dozen". And this little person is going to make it a dozen kids for us. So, I walked around the store... Hmm, pink and blue cookies? They didn't have any blue. I could buy different blue treats - blue berry muffins, blue gatorade... I walked down the drink isle. No, I don't want soda in the house. Treat isle. Hm, I could have the kids search for treats, and have a pink/red treat for the girls, blue for the boys, and they'll figure it out after they gather all the treats? But that would be too quick - I want to draw it out a little more, increase the wonder and drama of the moment. How can I milk the anticipation? Sixlet candies to the rescue. I looked them over - each one has 20 pieces, that should give me enough to work with - I grabbed 15 long Sixlet candies. Time to check out. Red and blue stars on the store floor, how appropriate.

I had bought a few extra treats, more than I needed. When I got home, I decided which ones to use for each person in our family, and then the Sixlets for the baby. I spent 30 minutes looking through the clear Sixlet wrappers and counting all the red and blue circles, adding them up, then recounting them, to make sure that the proper color came out in the lead. I used 14 of the 15 that I bought, it's gonna be close down to the last chocolate candy! The final Sixlet color score is 60 - 59. (I sure hope I counted it right!) Then I hid all the treats in the front room. Kids have been practicing music, and it keeps pushing back our family scripture reading/prayer time, but Corey said 9:30 was okay, so at 9:29 I started to gather up the kiddos for this little activity... After we finished Alma 56 and said a prayer, I told the kids that I'd hidden 14 treats in the front room, one for each member of our family, including the baby. Mark, set, go find them. They found most of them pretty quickly - we had to go through the family list of names a few times to see if anyone was missing.... JoeMelEthanHyrumWesleyAbiLilySophiNatalieOwen...Daniel

Still missing a blue for Daniel and one more for the baby... Luckily I remembered the places I'd hidden them, I got a blue treat from the closet. And now things were going according to plan. I knew the last one was under the couch and told them where it was. They reached under and found a lot of Sixlets.

Ethan said they messed up the red/blue system they had going. Yes, that's cause you gotta count up the red and blue sixlet candies to figure out if that one is red or blue. I suggested they get a bowl and collect the red and blue - Hyrum counted the wrappers to make sure they'd gotten all 14 of the Sixlets treats under the couch.

And they began to divide and count.

They moved the counting into the kitchen. First official count was tied 59-59. One of you miscounted or lost a sixlet, try again!

I have a 12 min unedited video of the hunt that I had trouble uploading, that's okay, prob boring anyway, so no part 1, but that there is part 2. Pretty fun!

Natalie's First Day

It's a Monday, but after a good weekend activity, I woke up feeling ambitious and ready for the day. It was Natalie's first day of kindergarten, but I thought I'd take these little kids on an outing before she caught the bus after lunch. When I was looking over activities on Saturday, the Farm at Gardner Village sounded like a nice one to do with these little kids. I was thinking it would be a smaller version of a farm like the one at Thanksgiving Point. I was, however, mistaken. This place was quite a bit messier and sinkier. The abundance of flies present seemed to confirm this fact. I was a little taken aback by the flies everywhere. So was Natalie. The flies made my little Natalie NOT have a good impression of this farm experience.

"First time at the farm?" the lady asked as we redeemed our passes. Yes, first time for them. But I thought "not first time for me though... I know I'm a city slicker, but this place is nasty!" I think the animals were packed in too closely together, cause I felt like we were though a small hallway with closets of animals around us. The hay on the ground that we were walking on looked wet with animal urine. And again, the flies seemed to agree with that educated guess.

They were small flies, and they didn't seem to land on or harass us at all. I tried to tell Natalie to just walk through them and they'll fly away, but she seemed quite afraid to move. Owen was doing remarkably well. But I have pretty low expectations for him having a cooperative behavior during new experiences. So that was a pleasant surprise.

Owen looking at the goats ahead of us, as Natalie continues to cower in fear.

"I want to go! I don't want to be here! Can we please gooooo!"

The bunny cages were the least fly infested. They both seemed to like the bunny area.

Ok, we saw all the animals, good job. Yes, we can go now. We walked out of the "farm" to the parking lot, where Owen was happy to ride the slide again.

They liked the fake animals more than the real ones. Ye-haw! Yeah, these "Bullseye"s are more like it.

(Daniel calls horses "Bullseye" cause of Toy Story)

Then we laughed at the rooster with the funny hairdo and then we left.

Well, that outing was shorter than I had planned. Since we still had time before the bus came, I thought this would be a good chance to check out another Get Out Pass place that I was interested in seeing - Bricks and Minifigs out on 106th. So we went. "Unlimited LEGO Freeplay" available daily!

That part didn't impress me much. First off the legos were at a high table. That ain't gonna fly. So we moved the bin to the floor. But they lost interest quickly and we wandered around looking at all the legos for sale. Of course they wanted all of them. I told Natalie if she does her jobs, she can earn money to buy the toys she wants. She was upset to have to put the Lego Elves boxes back on the shelf, but we're not buying anything today sweetie. So, that was okay. I'm sure my older elementary kids would love to see all the legos and minifigures there, it would really get their creative juices flowing. But I know they'd want to buy everything, so note to self to be prepared for that if I do decide to bring the older kids here sometime. We headed to the car and I caved on the way home and bought them each a frosty and a large fry to share.

Natalie ate her unhealthy lunch and didn't want a banana or orange or anything, so I guess you're ready, time to go! I walked her to the bus stop. First day of Kindergarten for my Natalie baby, I can't believe it ~

We waited for a bit, the bus never came, so we walked/ran back home, I put the kids in the car, and we rushed over to the school. No one waiting outside, so I run her in. Another mom was there, apparently I missed the memo that on the first day they are starting 10 min late. So... we prob haven't missed the bus, so we head back home and see  the bus as we pull into the neighborhood. I pull up behind it and she ran out to ride the bus to school. I didn't get a pic of her getting on the bus, so we'll have to do one of those pics another time. Happy first day of school, Natalie!

Next day update - Tuesday - 2nd day of school -
We missed the bus today cause we were coming back from getting an ultrasound for our new addition. So I drove Natalie to school and got another picture of her there. She's a cutie pie and she is loving kindergarten!

Rush Funplex

I made an attempt today to bribe the kids to do their chores. It worked. It took them until 7pm to get their rooms clean, but still, it worked, yay. While they had been dragging their feet all day, I checked out some of the entertainment options that are included in our Get Out Pass. I looked at hours and driving distances. The Rush Funplex was in Syracuse. I've never been to the Rush Funplex before, never heard of it, but let's see, it's toddler friendly, it's almost an hour away, and it was for a 2 hour pass. That would get little kids out of the house for probably atleast 4 hours. Corey might appreciate that so he can catch up on consulting hours, seeing as he spent a lot of time this week looking for a replacement for the van. So, with the rooms cleaned, we headed out to the great unknown in Davis County. I don't think I've ever been to Syracuse.

The kids were thrilled to take their first semi long drive in the new van. Time to watch a movie! Cause we never get to watch movies, right?! "We love this van!" So they watched and I listened to Megamind on the drive up. That one is a good one, very funny and clever. I like it when movies have lots of clever things that the grownups can appreciate. Really funny flick. So, we arrived at 8, redeemed our pass, and then tried to figure out where to go inside. I thought I'd take the boys to the bounce houses, but Owen saw the bumper cars on the way in and insisted Wesley take him there. Wes did. Owen tried to drive the car. He kept crashing into a wall. The Funplex attendant tried to help him. Owen didn't like that, and that was the end of their fun at the cars. I was over with Daniel, who liked the balls in the inflatable "connect four" game.

So he sat in the balls and played with the balls. Sure, Daniel, that can be a ball pit for you, whatever makes you happy. Luckily this was one of the least interesting attractions, so other funplex passerbys didn't mind this game being monopolized by my one year old.

Soon Natalie came and found us, and with her leading the way, Daniel followed her into a bounce house.

They could use better lighting here. The sun was barely setting so they hadn't turned on the night time party lights. I had to concentrate to not loose the kids. This was about when Wes brought Owen back from the bumper cars. Poor Owen was a little sad. He didn't want to do anything. He had tried to be confident and brave and try something new, and it failed. He wouldn't go in the bounce house. He just stayed close by my leg. It was 8:30 and he seemed ready to leave but I was going to try and stay the whole 2 hours. Hey, there are some fun lights over at the rollerstaking rink! Daniel ran over there, he thought it was a dance floor.

I was slightly concerned he'd get run over, but luckily it wasn't very crowded, so I just let him run around. Daniel led the way that time and Natalie joined him.

Ok, we're done with that, what else? Another bounce house, this one was a farm theme. They turned on the lights. They were red lights above this bounce house.

Then Daniel led us back to the connect four area. Three kids in a boat of big balls.

They had fun pushing the balls up the floating and having them roll back.

We went to check in on the other kids. Natalie climbed a ladder. I looked for the kids - they had been waiting in line for trapeze swing that lands in the foam pit.

Daniel and Owen looking at the fun the big kids are having. Yeah, you guys probably can't go in there, you'd sink in and get lost!

I told Natalie she could keep climbing the ladder rope thingy, Daniel was leaving for the dance floor again. I'll be right back... Owen went with him! Yay Owen!

Then back to the foam pit. We found Sophi, Lily, and Abi. They had a look of "uh oh" and "this is not good" on their faces. And Sophi didn't have her glasses on her face. I asked Sophi if her glasses were with her shoes. No. Then I could surmised what had happened. Yes, she lost her glasses in the foam pit. Someone coming off the trapeze swing hit her in the head and knocked them off. Oh drat. That was at 8:50.

Owen and Daniel were done with the bounce area and we were going to go buy a pizza or something to kill time while I waited for the second hour to finish up. I told them to try and find the glasses and I'd be back. The little boys got distracted by the arcade on our way to get pizza.

Lots of flashing lights and pretend cars and motorbikes to ride! A little boys dream land.

"Vroom vroom!"

After 20 minutes of pretend driving in the arcade, never putting in a coin mind you, we finally made it to the pizza parlor. I ordered a large cheese pizza. The kids came and said they couldn't find Sophi's glasses. Oh well. Then they said "The pizza's still not ready?!?!" Sorry, I just ordered it... the boys got side tracked by the arcade. Soon the piping hot pizza was done. The kids ate it up while I went to report Sophi's lost glasses to the lost and found. They clean out the foam pit in December, but kids find lost objects all the time, so I gave them my name and a description of Sophi's glasses and we'll see if they turn up. If they do get found I think there's a good chance they'll be bent or broken, esp since they got knocked off near where the trapeze rope riders land. After eating pizza, Natalie and Sophi pretended to play games in the arcade with the little boys.

There was a mom with her kids at the skee ball area and Daniel wanted their balls. I kept him away so they could finish. Then she swiped her card to play again. The balls didn't come, so I guess she thought it didn't work and her kids were off to another game anyway, so she left, then after a minute, all of a sudden, here came the balls! Sweet! What a tender mercy!

This could keep these little guys entertained for hours!

Yay, looks like I'm gonna make it unscathed until 10. I wasn't sure where the older kids had gone, but I had the little kids covered, so I trust we'll all find each other again. It was so fun to watch them. They weren't strong enough to roll the balls up the ramp, and they didn't know that that was what you're supposed to do anyway, so they just rolled the balls up the ball return the whole time, it was super funny. Here's what it looked like from Daniel's angle -

Isn't that funny? So cute. And then you can see Owen behind him, bending down and peeking up the hole -

Owen only had one ball, but it kept him quite entertained.

Natalie and Sophi playing a game. This one it looked like they were actually doing it, so I don't know how that worked since they didn't have any game tokens or credits.

Owen taking a break from his skee ball game to go pick up the Player 2 gun and join some guy who was shooting virtual buck deer.

The guy didn't give me a "Hey, get your kid away" look, he didn't look at me at all or seem to mind, so I didn't stop Owen from pretending he was participating. This game had a zombie option - you could shoot zombie deer and bears. Woway to go zombie culture, you guys are everywhere!

I made it past 10pm, and as I feared, the Rush employees didn't really check the wrist bands to see what time my kids were supposed to be done. I feared we might be there until 11, but at 10:20 the 3 older kids came back from the go karts. 

They didn't do the miniature golf, laser tag, or bowling, so I'm glad they were able to make it off without the little kids following for a little bit so they could enjoy some of the more advanced activities.

Ok - 10:30 pm and we headed home. This was a good activity. And it was a good deal with the Get out Pass - we redeemed seven 2 hour passes, normally $17 each, so that would have been $119, so with this one activity alone we've already gotten our money's worth for the month, yay, go team. (Well... not counting the $80+ it's going to cost to replace Sophi's lost glasses...) I guess we'll need to do a few more activities this month to break even. Still, I like the Get Out Pass, it's like a timeshare for family fun - we're already paying for it, so it makes me want to use it. I'd like to do a Saturday activity like this every weekend this year. That might be a little ambitious of me, but we'll see, maybe I can do it.