Abi is 18!!

We have another adult in the house! Happy Birthday Abi!!

I bought cake and ice cream this morning, but I forgot candles, so we tried to fashion and "1" and "8" out of them, which didn't work, but I bet you wouldn't have even noticed had I not just pointed it out. The kids had friends over, who joined us for cake and ice cream (Peter with his arm around his friend Lucy, Owen's friend Liam didn't stand in for the pic). We had more than enough to share. For her birthday, Abi skipped Lyceum, and she didn't have to do any top rope for FHE on Monday. Corey really wanted her too, we were teasing her that in a year when she's gone she'll miss us, like Hyrum when we made him go skiing with us at Jackson Hole in Feb 2021: Hyrum "I hate this so much... I hate skiing. My ankles hurt so bad! I'm so excited to go on a mission and that Dad won't be able to make me go skiing next year..." So on Mon when I took Abi over to climb, and she begged and begged not to do it - she didn't have socks, she didn't want to climb without socks, but she didn't want to wear mine, she didn't want to "can I please not climb? For my birthday???" Well, if it gets us out of a gift... haha. So I really did want to climb, so I let her belay me and I was glad to do it. I did two overhang climbs, both 5.10c's and they were really good and challenging and I liked them, going to have Corey do those sometime. So that was one of her presents, but not really. I actually didn't give her a gift this year. For these older kids, we've changed to giving them cash, but now that Abi's an "adult" she gets what the college kids get, which is a lunch out with Mom and/or Dad. We didn't do that tonight cause she had YW (they went to the temple) so we'll do that on Friday. We maybe could have given her $50 as a farewell to childhood, but today she cashed in on her $1000 deal, so we didn't really feel inclined to give her another $50 bucks. Here's a pic of when Abi made her deal on Jan 10, 2018.  

 

Abi had Corey pay up right away and so tonight she worked on ordering a $600 iphone with her loot. There were a few glitches on amazon, and it kept cancelling the order right after she placed it, so instead of trying a third time, we're going to wait until tomorrow and see if any charges when through, and we'll try again then.  

I woke up early for a morning hike to Bell canyon to gather some creeping Oregon grapes that Corey and I discovered this past Monday.

It was fun, and also a bit harder to gather than I thought, which caused me to question if it would be a good activity for FHE or not. I think they'll be freaked out by bugs and spider webs and poky leaves. So we might change that, we'll see. I'll get Hyrum's input on what he wants to do. It's our one FHE with him before he goes up to BYU Idaho. He will be here Saturday yay. So today Corey took jr high carpool, and we planned for us to not do workouts and instead he could bring home the high school kids at 2:30, and then he and I would go climb after they got home, which we did. The red 5.11b that I can do was gone, being changed with new routes. Corey said "Good! I'm tired of doing that one!" I'm glad I finally sent it last week. 

Well, as one last tribute to the end of Abi's childhood, here is a link to pics of baby Abi in 2007. She was the first baby we had after I started this blog, so she's been almost documented her whole life, although I was not too diligent the first three years. It was during our trip to Costa Rica that I started to write 5x a week. Let's see, I'm going to find 18 posts to celebrate 18 years of Abi - let's see what comes up when I search her name on the blog... 

1. 2007 Oct - 4 Generation picture
2. Nov 2007 - "Look at all that hair!"
3. 2009 Feb - Whether clean or messy, she's always cute
4. 2009 Feb - Cheesy grin at Disneyland
5. 2010 Sept - Abi getting her cast off
6. 2010 Sept - Abi playing at the beach
7. 2010 Nov - Bump on her head after falling down a ladder in Costa Rica
8. 2014 Sept - I remember that crooked smile!
9. 2015 Jan - Orthodontic consultation before she got a palate expander
10. 2015 Sept - Abi's baptism
11. 2018 Jan - Braces on
12. 2018 Nov - Chef Abi
13. 2019 Sept - Braces off!
14. 2020 Mar - Abi to Texas to babysit (right before Covid hit!)
15. 2021 Oct - Corey Abi Lily and I visit New York
16. 2022 Aug - Abi to Nauvoo for FSY
17. 2023 Jan - Extravagant Abi (last pic) or video here
18. 2023 Aug - Mel and Abi back from Vienna (you'll have to check their instagram for actual pics of their trip)

Ok! Well yeah, there's a good but not an exhaustive list of a few moments of Abi's wonderful 18 years of life! We love you Abi! 

And Owen's been working on his lego ship more. From last night - He cut out paper sails to make it look more like an empirical ship. 

And then he's always tinkering on it and doing some fine tuning. Looks good Owen! You are a master lego ship builder.

Peter's Friend Party

Peter has been waiting patiently for January to get here so it could be his birthday. Then a week ago, he told me that he had never had a birthday party and he wanted one. Natalie helped him plan it and wrote out friends to invite, and Natalie planned activities like a pinata, a water balloon fight, etc, and I nixed most of her ideas. I still don't love doing stuff like this. I reminded Peter that he gets two friend parties, so here was party #1. I took over planning for it from Natalie earlier this week. I didn't sent out invites, but just texted some neighborhood friends earlier this week to see if this Saturday worked for them. We were going to do today or his birthday next Tuesday. I thought Saturday would be better/less stressful for me, so that's what we went with. I ran to the Dollar Store this morning and pick up some toys for a "pass the parcel" game, and prizes for a few carnival things, and Peter's request for mint chocolate chip ice cream. We had a fishing game, a "pin the tail on the donkey" game (put the spiderman on the building), and a basketball game. I also got red, black, and white frosting so I could make him a Spiderman cake. I got a chocolate Costco cake and then used this image as my inspiration, and have to say I nailed it.

Friends came at 1, and we had coloring pages for them to do while we waited for everyone to arrive. Natalie did a good job being the hostess.

Katharine was excited for a party! I think she thought it was for her. 

Pretty girl, cheesy grin.

Abi, Lily, and Sophi all came and helped out too. After everyone was here, Peter wanted to do cake. So that's what we did. 

Happy Birthday to you!

Cake and ice cream for everyone. My children enjoyed this part, since I've sworn off buying desserts during 2025, with birthdays being the exception. So they lived it up. Then Peter wanted to open presents. Into the front room we went. I gave Peter a few things I got thrifting - some dinosaur pjs, a spiderman jacket, and a remote control Lightening McQueen car. 

Then it was time for pass the parcel. 

We were about an hour in at this point, so I excused myself and the girls took over from here. Party went until 3, it was good, I survived, and then O&D had their soccer friend's come over for a playdate. After that, the day was over, the birthday battle was won, and so I rewarded myself with Climbing with Corey tonight from 8:10 - 9:35 at the new Ft. Union Momentum. I did 9 top rope. We both attempted a red 5.11a, woo! and did mostly 5.10s - two a, one b, and three c's. At the very end we did an orange 5.9 and it felt really hard, hopefully just cause we were both spent. My palms were done. Glad it's time to call it a weekend and head to bed. 

Oh, I guess I'll report on yesterday real quickly... I did a good job cleaning. Katharine entertained herself with a bucket of barley while I worked. It was cute. I wonder if seemed like a bucket of sand to her? She was quite mesmerized. 

I got the chore board modified, as we were struggling with it. I figured we don't need to track a whole week right now. We'll just take it one day at a time. 

Then at 2:20 I went on a ride to the ruins. It took me a while, over 2 hours, cause the trail was pretty narrow and if you move off of it at all, the bike tire slides into the snow. 

Thus I did a bit of hiking, and I'm thinking it might be time to get a fat bike if I think I'm going to keep this up, but I made it, yay, and it was beautiful.

We went to India House for date night last night, and even though we still don't have Corey's car back, life is good. (Corey's car has been at Tanner's Transmission for SIX WEEKS today! I think they might be incompetent.) 

Katharine is 2!

Happy Birthday to Katharine! My favorite photo of her from the day was as she was blowing out her candles. 

Oh she's so pretty! It's been a perfect toddler b-day. I love that two year olds have no expectations. She came downstairs this morning all dolled up and ready for her special day (thanks to Natalie for dressing her up).

Natalie gave her fresh pigtails. They were a little droopy, but K didn't seem to mind. She'll just be a little lop rabbit.  

She also looks like Shirley Temple wearing this short dress. It's short on her because it's for a 6 month old, and K is two, so makes sense. Grandpa Wride came by and brought her cupcakes and some presents! Hey, this is fun!

She got a fun lady bug from Wayne that she loves. Owen teaching her to open gifts and eat treats - yeah! This is what we do on birthdays!

Today is my mom's birthday too, so Corey and I took my mom and out to Aubergine for lunch and that was also our date night.

The kids thought my mom was coming with cake so they frowned when we left with them to go out for lunch. After we were done, my mom and dad went back home to wrap things for K. We had a visit from Eliza's parents and her little brother Thomas right when we got home. It was so nice to meet them! We talked a little bit about wedding stuff. They are down here for the Utah Valley Marathon tomorrow so it was nice of them stop by. We were super impressed by them, they are so great. It made us feel even better about Joseph and Eliza! Then my mom go the ok to come back over. The kids had been itching for sugar for a few hours by now so I dished up ice cream I had bought while we waited for the birthday lady's arrival. K had done a pretty good job keeping her dress mostly clean, until the ice cream... little chocolate face about to drip on her dress... 

 I had spruced up her pigtails by then. Cute little cheesy grin.

Soon my mom came by and K knew the routine by then. She was happy to receive new play food, lots of cute clothes, an Elsa doll and a Bingo stuffed toy. 

Katharine was very tender with the Elsa and rubbed her back as we clipped her out of the packaging. Katharine will be having fun soon feeding all her dolls at the table in her room. The kids did great this past week doing their chores and stuff - Lily reading to Daniel earlier this morning~

So I had to go on a date tonight, but Corey and I had already gone to eat, and he had to get work done, so Hyrum went out with me and we went climbing. Tonight I did this hard/stupid green boulder route. Hyrum attempting it - 

Then I tried it repeating what he had done hooking his heel and I was able to bit by bit get it for my first time! This has been the only V2 I haven't been able to do, so I was really proud to get that checked off. I also did this hot pink V3 and didn't mind showing my young and strong college boy how it was done. He said he's not ashamed to be beat by his mom, haha!

Good stuff. It was a good day, felt like a Saturday, but I'm glad we have a Saturday tomorrow. Corey and I are going to go on a ride in the morning. We're already enjoying the first weekend of summer. 

Park City - Memorial Day

We had a nice Memorial Day up in Park City. I've never visited graves on Memorial Day. Corey's sister and dad went by JeNeal's grave and drank V8s and ate Kit Kats. Corey said that he has lots of memories with JeNeal up here at Park City, so he felt this was an appropriate way to remember her. If I had thought of it, I would have brought Lorna Doone cookies for today. Those shortbread cookies remind me of JeNeal, she always had them around (and I was happy to munch on them). I don't have any recollection of going by cemetery's with my parents when I was growing up, or any Memorial Day activities. We should probably start doing better at that though, cause that is the purpose of Memorial Day, right? Not just a day off from school or a time to have bbq's. But, since we did have a day off from school, Corey and I took advantage of it by going on a morning ride. Two moose were at the gate of the path Corey wanted to take. 

Can you see them? We only had to wait for a minute and then they moved down the hill. Corey had eyed this trail on our way back to the hotel after our ride on Saturday - Mother Urban. It was a new trail for us and it was really nice! Had a few snow patches to drag our bikes through and a few fallen avalanche trees to climb over, but it was really good! I'm excited to do it again in July. Took us a little over an hour and a half, 7.82 miles, and then we were back at the room. The kids were all swimming (thanks Abi and Hyrum!) I joined them, Corey went to the lobby to work, and then at noon they had a free Memorial day cookout! Yay, the whole hotel came out for hot dogs, chips, lemonade and a cookie. Yay, processed food. I had three apples, and gave my hot dog to Katharine. She liked that - doing her cheesy grin real hard in this picture, silly girl.

We decided to come eat in the lobby rather than in the sun outside or on the pool deck. 

Then we played some Shuffle board. Katharine wanted a turn. She's cute.

Ethan and Bella came up today. They were ready to chill at the hotel, but we'd done a lot of chilling already, so we gave them a heads up that we actually all wanted to go on a ride after they got here - to leverage their arrival by forcing a group outing. We loaded the bikes and drove over to Deer Valley and just did a few loops on the paved path there around Deer Pond. 

Good job us, we got the kids out of the hotel - ✓ . I rode around with K riding shotgun on my bike. She likes bike riding, it was cute. We bribed the kids with smores if there was no complaining on the outing, and they all did good, so Ethan went and picked up that on the way back to the hotel affter the forced outing. Then we said they could be lazy in the pool for the rest of the day if they wanted. We all went out - even Corey and I.

And even LILY, who has been working on writing an epic story or something. 

When she become a famous published author, I hope she'll forgive us for any grief we gave her. We're just trying to make sure her passion is bridled and balanced with some sunshine and physical activity! She has been using my orange lobster neck thing cause she's been developing a bit of a tech neck from all her drawing and writing. I feel like I hunch over too - we all could improve our posture. I just sat up straighter as I type this. Maybe I'll get a posture corrector, hmm. After hot tubbing, the kids roasted smore, then back to the room for one more family bonding activity. We looked through trailers for a while. We wanted something new, but shows kept getting vetoed. Finally we settled on a recommendation from Bella and we all watched "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"

Well, they are still watching it. Corey and I are tapping out - it's 11pm. We had to ditch the fun cause we are going to go on one more ride in the morning before we check out. Corey asked for a late check out, so we have until 11. That's plenty of time for a ride! Yay. 

Hibberts in the Gym

Hello - a silly picture of Katharine to start of this post - doing a normal smile - 

And then trying out her best fake "force it" smile, ha!

That's a pretty good cheesy grin, Katharine! You take after Lily.

My sister Camilla and her significant other Steve, arrived safely last night. I fell asleep before they got here, but I met them this morning after I got back from climbing. Corey was visiting with them over breakfast and I joined in. I actually said hello and gave Camilla a hug before I left to take carpool. She was up, as her body is on Indiana time. It's great to see her, and Steve is very nice. Daniel performed his Lady Liberty song for Steve, and a few others. Another thing that was funny was when Steve met Wes, they shook hands, "Hi, I'm Steve." "Hi, I'm Wes." "Nice to meet you. I'm the adult man that will be using your shower..." that made Wes laugh, and was funny enough to impress a teenager. He came to me after and said "I like Steve, he's cool." They left around 11 to go to Provo, and I stayed home and was in a good cleaning mood and did a really good job, covered a lot of ground - even vacuumed my bedroom! It's always a little more enjoyable to clean when you know that it will last longer than 30 minutes! This is going to last 10 days, since we are leaving tomorrow, yay. I cleaned today - tomorrow we pack, and leave hopefully around 1. 

Camilla and Steve went to visit my parents at 11 and then headed to Provo to go to the Provo City Center Temple. I've never been to that one. Then they walked around BYU a bit, went and got Graigry, then met us at the church, which I had reserved from 5-9 tonight. So that was a fun get together. Bad news - both of Neil's dodge balls had holes, so no gaga ball today. We had a lot of fun playing chair soccer though.

Sophi had two friends come join us and we all had fun. One time I got Neil out, and then he was throwing the ball to try and hit my chair to get me out, but nailed me in the face. So if I have a half purple bruised head in our photos at DC, that's what it's from. Owen tripped once and hit his head hard on the floor. He immediately tried to put on a smile and a brave face but we could tell it hurt and he was fighting back the tears through his smile and Abi and Lily scooped him up with love and hugs. Owen is such a sweet kid. He was so good and patient at sitting when he got out, but I felt bad cause the girl that got him out, one of Sophi's friends, wasn't a hot target to get, so no one got her out for a lot time until I asked Neil to do it. Then Owen was back in. He wants me to tell you that he even got Abi and Lily out! My dad held Katharine and kept her safe from the ball while we played, although she and Peter had a few close calls. We signed up Owen and Daniel both to play spring soccer, and they are really excited!

I didn't think of getting a group pic until after my parents had already left and we were heading out - so it's a hallway shot - 

aaaand selfie mode with me, Lily, Lucy, and Graigry behind us. We love having fun with the Hibberts!

As You Are Family Pics

Joseph and Hyrum are leaving tomorrow for Philadelphia, so it's time for a group picture. It was a "come as you are" family photo session, and that means t-shirts was the attire for most of the kids, with jackets and sweatshirts on the teenagers, shin-guards on the toddler, and pajamas on the baby. I might put in the work for formal family picture before Hyrum leaves for his mission in the fall, but for now it was just this quick no-prep at all setting. We did some individual shots, then a group picture, and a few more individuals. 

Corey got all the kids to look at the camera by pretending to hit me on the head with a stick. This also made them smile too hard, but that's ok. I should have had Lily and Sophi be on opposite ends to balance the photo more. Daniel didn't want to be by Wes so we had to swap Abi and Wes, but then Peter looked to small on the front, but P didn't want Abi to hold him... oh the issues!

But again, this was just to get it done before J and H left, kinda like our family picture in Costa Rica before Corey left - it captures us in our raw and natural state. It was important to do while I had these 10 kids all at home for 24 more hours, and to mark this "comings and goings" moment.

I didn't get individual shots of Joseph and Hyrum. Joseph told me to use his pictures that he got taken by a friend recently down at BYU - 

...and Hyrum said he didn't want an individual picture because he already was going to have to have that for his mission photo. He doesn't love photos, mostly cause he thinks he can't smile, and he usually can't when he is trying.... I tell him to just be natural, but when the camera comes out, he doesn't remember how to be natural. After a dozen or so pictures, he settled on this one to submit with his papers. 

So Hyrum's mission papers and done and ready to turn in! Now he just has his interview with our Stake President, and they can do that over zoom, so Hyrum will get that done out in Philly. Pretty exciting! We've got another one ready and willing to go serve in the Lord's vineyard.

Here are the pics of the rest of the kids, from oldest to youngest. Wesley, nice young man - 

Abigail, a lovely young lady - 

Lilian - still petite enough to sport her 3rd grade School House Rock t-shirt from years ago.

Sophia - 

Natalie - 

Owen doesn't really know how to smile naturally either.

Daniel's cheesy grin -

And the hands down winner of the "I am photogenic and know how to smile naturally" winner is the amazingly perfect PETER WRIDE!

Making his eyes slightly more squinty and adorable

Oh Peter, how do you do it?!?! Can you teach your brothers? Hyrum, Owen, and Daniel would all like a lesson. The three brothers. Daniel's messy hair from sleeping with it wet after swimming last night. Yes, I took him to church like that. 

And Yes, Peter wore his pajamas to church under his Sunday pants and has been wearing them all day! This is our natural state! Aren't you just so impressed with us and "how I do it"? Ha! A few more shots of today -

Owen wearing the Mandalorian paper mache helmet that Wes made, with Peter following him around the house - 

Look, it's the Mandalorian and cute Baby Yoda!!!

Joseph drove his motorcycle up yesterday. We'll be storing that while Joseph is gone. 

Joseph offered to give his siblings a ride on it today, and he spent a while out there giving them each a turn, and then they each wanted another turn. Corey has Joseph's permission to use it while he is gone. And Corey had promised a ride on it every day to each kid who practices. We'll see if that works. Owen was following Joseph's example by giving Peter a ride on his own little bike. Peter didn't really appreciate it.

Abi's turn, and kids waiting for their turn.

Sitting around after family scriptures and prayer, talking about what we will miss about Hyrum.

We'll miss you two Joseph, but you already left before, so we've already done this with you. 

Tomorrow is the beginning of another new chapter for them and our family, good luck boys!