Belated Birthday

Daniel had a belated birthday today. My mom has been pretty busy - with an audit at work, traveling to Indiana for a mission farewell, to Texas for a baby blessing, etc etc, so she wasn't able to bring over gifts for Daniel or Sophi's birthday's until recently. She came by this past Friday to take Sophi out to do some shopping at Uptown Cheapskate so that was fun for her. And today, while kids were at school, she brought over an ice cream cake and some gifts for Daniel. We knew she wasn't going to be able to come on Daniel's b-day (that was the day of the audit) so we had made a cake for Daniel but Sophi needed one still (she only got ice cream, cause we didn't know what was going on with my mom's plans yet, and then found out two days later that she had forgotten about S's bday, it wasn't on her calendar (2nd paragraph)), but since D got gifts today, we let him have the cake too, so Daniel's had two cakes, and that's ok, cause he's a little kid. So here's another b-day cake pic for Daniel!

Katharine was excited to have some cake!

But then she was sad when Daniel blew out the candles. She was upset with him, so we lit them up again and let K blow them out.

Opening gifts. Katharine was trying to intervene here too - she didn't want him to open them, cause they were for her!

I told her that no, these actually are for Daniel! Everyone was ok once I served up the ice cream cake. 

Another few pics for today - this morning at 8:15, Daniel remembered his math homework. I told him to do it, and he'd probably miss the bus, but I could drive him over. Peter waited for him, and they were cute walking into school together holding hands.

Warmed my heart.

Little brothers walking together, they'll be walking together through life. I've been listening to some stuff about walking, and remembering after Daniel was born and I went walking a lot with two neighbor friends, Kathy and Lisa. At the time, I liked walking with them but also felt like it was too slow and that I needed a faster workout to get the weight off, but now I'm thinking it is really the right thing! So Corey's also been working from home, and I think I need to get away from him during the day (sorry sweetie... but he admits it's better for him to not be home either, so the feeling is mutual) so I went on a walk at 10 am with K in the stroller. I didn't want to go to the park, so I strategically went down the streets where she wouldn't see the park, and she didn't, but she also had the sun on her face, so I was worried for her scar on her lip... I tried to stand in front of her to give her shade, or hold a paper up to shade her while we were heading south, but then she was in the shade when we turned around headed north back towards home. With less than a mile left, she said "I wanna go home..." and I said ok, and that we were, but she was sad and started to cry. I didn't mean to bring her to tears by taking her on a 4 mile walk, but that was what I did. She was sad, and I carried her down the street. She was relieved to come home. I didn't mean for her to be scared that we were lost or anything! We had a relaxing rest of the afternoon until we went to get Sophi and Natalie for violin. Then we didn't do FHE tonight, cause we're going to do it tomorrow - going to go hike the Y! yay. So Corey worked late, and I've been handling things here. Corey and I were going to go on a ride as soon as I was home, so I was giving him the play by play until I got back, but as I was driving down the street, he was on his way out and said he had to go get work done... he's been working on our taxes (got an extension, so has another week to get them done) and said "I have more problems that I thought" or "Our problems are bigger than I realized..." something along those lines. Yay? So I could have still gone on a ride, but after listening to General Conference yesterday, and wanting to be a better disciple of Christ and to do what HE wants me to do, I asked Him what he wanted me to do right now, and so I didn't go on a ride, stayed home with kids, read to Peter, played toys with Katharine, and cleaned. And blogged a little bit. I felt good to catch up on things. I'm happy that I asked God for instruction and that I got it! I'll be praying for Corey, as he didn't tell me what the "bigger than we thought" problems are, but I have an idea, so yeah, praying for him and for us. Sometimes I'm tired of our financial situation, feels like we've been here forever (2008 anniversary, 2017) but if it wasn't that, it would be something else - death of a child, cancer... choose your trial. I'll take this one over either of those. I've also had the thought recently that we are not here on this earth to lay up treasures here.... We are laying up treasure in heaven! and I think we are doing really good at that. God has helped us by giving us these 13 kids. We're grateful to be able to give our lives to them and to God.