Forts and Blankets

So, it was a good day for cleaning yesterday, but then the kids had such a big clean palate to work with that they created this.

Yay, a fort! And they had to leave it up cause they wanted to sleep in it! Yay, the longing for order mother in me is slightly irritated that I'll be looking at this all day. And they want to sleep it in again tonight. Last night, Lily slept in the fort and woke up totally disoriented and came crashing into our room at 2 am - pounded on the light and ran back and forth across our room crying, just like the old days (explained in the paragraph after the third picture at this July 2016 post) Corey and I, both in a heart attack panic, jump out of bed to see what the emergency was, I hurry and turn off our light so Owen and Daniel don't wake up, I direct Lily to the bathroom and we try to prepare ourselves for sleep. Gosh, I'm glad those nightly interruptions are over.

One super cute picture - Corey didn't leave the house for some reason today and was getting stressed out with the noise and interruptions from the kids, so to save him, I left the house. With all the kids. Ugh. We went to the fish park, a new park that most of the kids hadn't been too. But it was around noon and crazy hot. We didn't last very long. I told the kids we could go buy ice cream, so they loaded up and we went to the store. We got to Fresh Market where they always have car carts available. Those are mandatory for me when running a grocery errand with kids. So, Owen sees the car on the cart, and throws Louie, his binky, and his blanket all on the floor in complete abandonmnet as he excitedly gets in the car. Gross! Don't throw your stuff on the floor! Is that anyway to treat these personal items that seem to be so essential to you?!?! Ugh, I pick them up and put them in the cart next to Daniel and we go in. I didn't notice Daniel move or do anything, but next I looked at him I totally laughed!

He doesn't use a binky or blanket, though he does have a stuffed teddy bear that he likes to sleep with. So seeing him with these just looks so out of place and so cute. He's got a hold of Louie too, you're such a good surrogate!

He seemed to have taken temporary custody of them in a fatherly matter-of-fact way, like it was his baby duty. Just holding on to them and keeping them warm until Owen called for them again. Like it was his turn to sit on the egg or something. It was so funny.

He is such a cute little guy. Corey and I also went out to eat tonight - some friends invited us to listen to jazz in the Rabbit Hole. Their son's guitar teacher is really good and was performing, Corey Christiansen? (Corey, my husband, correct me if that is wrong.)

It was fun, and a new experience! I don't know anything about music, so in my ignorance I'll just say that it was good. The food was really good too, I wouldn't mind going back it was fun. 

Banana Kiwi

Tonight Ethan shared with us something that he saw on Instagram that blew his mind! Mind you, he said he saw this at 1 a.m, I'm not sure who's phone he was using at 1 a.m, which might be why we've started taking phones away at night - they get turned in during scriptures. Anyway, he saw a little DIY life hack video a little similar to this one and was amazed. He knew it was real. I told him it was fake. He was determined to try it for himself. "Go get me a pot..." I laughed. Melodie aided him.

He put it in a yogurt container, but he set it in the window! Ethan, the instructions clearly state to put it in a sunny area! It won't get enough sun by the sink, let's put it outside so nature can work it's miracle properly.

We'll see what happens in 2-3 weeks. In the mean time, I'll make sure Ethan doesn't see the Snopes fact checker on the miraculous banana kiwi hybrid.

Canyon Date Night

I've been enjoying going on morning walks in the canyon this spring. Last night Corey went on a walk with me for date night. He picked up some India House to go and up we went. It was lovely. We sat by the river as we ate our food, then enjoyed walking around a bit so I could show him the paradise I've discovered in our own backyard.

We talked about life as we looked at the trees - some of them were not in the best of circumstances, but still seemed to be trying their best to live and grow. This tree was at a total 90 degrees, and what should be it's branches have turned into several "trees" - growing out right over a dried part of the creek.

Can you see what I'm talking about?

It kinda seemed like a good metaphor for life. Sure, that tree would probably prefer to be in an ideal forest with dirt underneath, but it was his lot to be born by the creek and among the river rocks, where water tipped him over years ago. But he's still trying his best to make due with what he's got. A good example to follow.

First Day of Summer Vacation!

Everyone is finally done with school. so it's official - Summer is here and we are ready to kick it in gear! On Wednesday I finally looked at the family economy blog that Nicole told me about a few weeks ago - a new system that she is using. I called Nicole when I was driving Wesley to band practice on Wednesday and we talked about it again and then I pulled over to look up the link which she had already sent me a few times that I still hadn't looked at! I told her I needed to do it now before I got distracted again. I pulled over in the shade and read about it on my phone while Owen and Daniel napped in the car for a few minutes. Then I drove by a bank and got a few (is 12 a few?) blank check registers for our family to use. When I got home, I put the book "The Entitlement Trap" on hold at the library, and started to figure out our family's economy. Yesterday I had the first draft ready to go!

I was going to use 4 cleaning/chore "zones" like she talked about on that Raise The Good website, but after fiddling with that and assigning two kids to an area and kinda dividing the area anyway, I figured it would be easier for us to have an area for each child, just to be clear and so they each know the specific area they are in charge of. Yesterday I worked out the kinks, finished up this paper above, printed out a few copies, and we are all ready to go on Monday! I'm excited. This is actually pretty similar to the clipboard system we used in the fall when I was on top of it and feeling unstoppable and getting the kids involved. There is a link at that link of my chore chart for the kids in November. If you open it, you'll see the similarities to the one above. That one worked really well, but it got too much for me to follow through to keep them accountable. The parental follow up I think is really the key ingredient to any family chore system. So I do believe this new way will help them be more motivated and responsible (via bigger payments) plus it's easier for me to follow up on. I have an alarm set at 9 to check who is not awake, an alarm for 10 to check rooms, and then the other things don't have any more deadlines during the day until 9pm when we gather for scriptures. and I really think this system wilthink this will be better because it's more simple and will be easier for the kids to follow through with and for me to check up on to hold us all accountable. So day 1 is Monday, the teenagers are kinda shrugging their shoulders though cause the boys are leaving for high adventure on Tuesday and Mel is leaving for girls camp on Wednesday, but we gotta start, so we'll see how it work with the younger kids next week and I hope this works! Fingers crossed. As long as I show up each day and follow through, I think the kids will too.

Last Day of School

The older kids were done with school on March 25, but the elementary kids, who are in a different school district, still had two more weeks. But then we went on a week long vacation. Kindergarten finished while we were gone cause they end a week earlier than the rest of the school, so Sophi totally sluffed her last week. She had an evaluation on Tuesday and got to say goodbye to her teacher. And today was the last day for Abi and Lily, and thus was the official last day for all our family. Here's a picture of Abi and Lily at the bus stop with all their friends - Smile!

And now, be silly!

Over at the school, they ended the year as they usually do, with a dance festival. Abi's grade did a dance to "Footloose". I was in my usual "I am here out of parental duty" and thus the song felt a little long...

Abi, good work on your dance! 

Lily's grade did "September" - Do you remember, the 21st night of September?

They both did a good job. And it wasn't too hot for the adults. Poor kids were out in the sun as they waited their turns.

This year the fire truck came yesterday for field day instead of today, which I think was good, cause they are always so hot on field day, plus they're also already usually wet from the dunk tank. And having it spray the kids after the dance festival just throws the whole group into chaos. Wesley wanted to come see the performance. He made them french toast to eat. Brought and served with a little side of apricot jelly and maple syrup.

What a nice brother, and yay Abi and Lil', you're finally done! Off to summer break for us, hooray!

Invisalign

Orthodontist visit for me at 10
Today was a big day for me ~ I went to the orthodontist! I got braces on!

I chose the Invisalign option, mostly cause it's the easiest one to floss with. I floss everytime I brush, Abi just at night time with her braces cause it's such a process, and I didn't think I could handle that.

Although they don't look super bad in these pics, I am a little sad about how noticeable the buttons on my teeth are and I'm still figuring out how to get them off. I need to keep them on for 22 hours a day, so I have 2 hours to eat, which should help with me cutting down on snacking I bet. I'm having a bit of regret tonight, but hopefully I'll get used to them soon, and hopefully the weeks will go by quickly. I think I'll have them on for 18 months, but I change them week to week. We'll see, another thing for me to count down - Joseph's mission, pregnancy, and now my braces.

Car Carts

Back from vacation, back to reality, gotta get some food in the house to feed this crew. I went to the store today. The elementary girls are still in school, but the older kids are done. They asked to come with me. They aren't that bad to shop with - they don't ask for too much junk food and stuff, but I still hesitated before saying yes, cause I knew it meant I'd be bringing all the toddlers too. And they did want to come. So I had 5 kids get in the car to go with me. When we were at the store though, it wasn't bad with the big kids and the little kids, in fact I was glad I brought them along, cause the big kids pushed around the little kids! I was actually like "Hey, I like this!"

They pushed the carts and I was able to stay focused on the grocery list and putting items in the cart.

I like going to Fresh Market over other stores, cause they always have plenty of these car carts that are available and functioning. Walmart doesn't have cars, and the kiddie seats they have always have broken seat belts. Costco doesn't have cars. And neither does the Smith's near us, so Fresh Market it usually is, especially if littles ones are tagging along.

When a kid escaped, I was able to send Hyrum or Wes to go after them.

I did end up having to buy some junk food. I'm doing better at remembering to only let them choose one thing, this is not a junk food free for all shopping spree. Today it was cheetos. Natalie kept them safe as we finished shopping. Owen brought Louie into the store and dropped him somewhere as we went up and down the isles. We were lucky that he was found and brought up to the front where we saw him as we checked out. That would have been so sad to lose Louie! And I'm sure I would have had no idea what happened to him or where he went, so that was lucky.

Family Vacay Highlights

Well hello. I didn't give the heads up here, but if you couldn't tell, we've been gone. We spent the past week in California on a little family trip. Our "last" family vacation before our first bird flies from the nest (in 3 weeks!) We got back yesterday and I have a ton of unpacking and laundry to do. Plus, I have a lot of catching up here to do, as always. Before I get into catching up with the fun and details of each day, I thought I'd cover a few of the highlights. We left Monday morning around 6 and stopped in Mesquite for lunch at McDonalds, then finished our drive down with a couple of hours added to the trip because of bad traffic. We arrived Monday night. Tuesday we went swimming at the hotel and went to the beach at Crystal Cove. 

It was fun but quite chilly. Wednesday... we drove up to LA to try to visit La La Land sites. That was a fail. We can back in the evening for more swimming and fun at the resort -

And Joseph and I went to the Newport Temple while Corey took the kids to Laguna Beach.

When we came back Corey gave a lesson about God's creations - (we need a long couch like this!)

How God has created "world's without number" (Moses 1:33) - which is what it's like trying to count one tiny pinch of sand from the beach. Thursday we went to Disney's California Adventure. Corey and I took turns watching the little boys. One amazing thing was just happening to run into MY SISTER from Texas at Bug's Life land! How crazy is that?!?!

She showed me how to use the Disney app and I took the first half of the day watching the little boys and ordered fast passes for later. When Corey tagged me in, I took the kids and we went on some rides. Riding the Radiator Spring Racer cars with Natalie and Sophi was one of my highlights. We met up with Mel and Wes on that - they jumped into the fastpass lane with us, we saved them a good hour! Then we went over to use our Guardians of the Galaxy fast pass where Ethan and Joseph found us, and after giving sad eyes to the Disney cast member letting me into the fast pass lane, she said "oh, you guys can go!" so we all went on that together! The teenage boys were happy

Then over to Soaring - we got a whole row for us

Then to Grizzly Rapids together

Then I tagged Corey back in and they went to Radiator Racers for Corey to use a fast pass with the kids while I took another turn with the toddlers - Daniel pet McQueen like he was a soft kitten.

Walking out of the park, it was fun to see Corey and Joseph walking with little kids on their shoulders. I joined in, then Ethan, and soon we were all carrying someone! Mel was the odd man out and took the picture for us. It was a good way to get to the bus faster and not loose little kids!

Friday we checked out and headed to Las Vegas. More swimming - Owen learned how to swim with floaties!

 Joseph and I went to the Las Vegas Temple on Saturday morning.

And I got lots of pictures of awesome flowers, like these desert flowers at the temple. So pretty.

So there's some high lights and pictures, I'll give more details of the fun each day soon.

Family Vacation - Day 5: Las Vegas

I guess it's not our "California Vacation" now that the California part is done. So, new title for today's posts from those from this past week - today it's just "Family Vacation". Joseph and I got up early and went to the Las Vegas Temple. That's 3 new temples in less than a week for this kid!

Pretty good, Joseph! You keep up that pace from here on out and you'll get all the temples in the world in just over one year! Oh, but that mission might get in the way of that goal. Well, why don't you see how you do this month and then we'll pick it up in June 2020 after you get back.

Around noon, Joseph's friends from school were going to pick him up and he was going back down to Newport for his "Senior Trip". Two weeks in California, we're glad he spent some of the time with us. He'll be having a different experience with his friends though. So, we thought we had plenty of time to go to the temple before he met his friends, cause we thought they weren't picking him up until after 12, so we took our time in the celestial room, then we ate at the cafeteria, then we took some pics outside -

Temple Selfie!

Pretty desert flowers!

Looked like fire (and it was hot, it felt like fire too!)

Then we get in the burning hot car, he turns on his phone, they are already at the meeting spot, doh! They've been there for over 10 min, and we're 30 min away. He calls and texts them, they decide to come to our hotel since Joseph has to go back there to get his stuff, and they wait for him there while we hurry back. Then off he went for a week. After he gets home he has high adventure for about a week, and then it's just two weeks and he's gone! It's going by fast, he's outta here.

Back at the hotel, I ran to the grocery store for food and made lunch. Then Corey took kids to see what there was to see. Not much in the kid arena...

and the kids decided they aren't impressed with what Vegas has to offer the adults either.

Ethan had the strongest opinions of "it's all of the devil!" Well, good, that's probably the take away we'd like our children to have of Vegas so that you never get interested in it. Back to the hotel to swim - Daniel playing with my glasses

And check out the milestone this toddler made! OWEN is swimming INDEPENDETLY!!! He's got the floaties on and he's floating! His feet were kicking so fast, like a tadpoles' tale, it was so cute!

Way to go Owen! You did it! Hooray! Took a day to warm up to it, but good job! 3 years old and he's finally having fun in a pool, yay! This was a good trip to take for this milestone alone.

They enjoyed swimming until late, we're packing up and heading out tomorrow after church, (...hoping we have make it to church, atleast for sacrament meeting, might be hard to get us out of here... we'll see)

California Vacation - Day 4: Drive to Las Vegas

Today we packed up and headed out of the hotel in Newport. Owen riding the luggage cart - everyone wants a free ride... 

Before we left California, we took a detour to LA for a pit stop in Burbank to say hi to some friends at InventTV. We've been in touch with over the past year, but nothing to report yet about if it will lead to anything, but they are really nice. Tiffany has such a friendly smile and makes you feel really special. Natalie is showing Tiffany her Jessie Doll.

All 13 of us did a quick invade of their conference room, where they fed us pretzels and drinks -

Tiffany had to go somewhere at noon, and we were running late so that was what time we got there. But she stayed and we visited for 30 min, just a quick stop by to say hi in person and for them to meet Joseph in person before he leaves for 2 years next month. Then she had to go so we headed out too - give them back their quiet office. We made sure everyone went to the bathroom and then back into the car - we're not stopping again until Vegas! It was just a 5 hour drive, which made Daniel very "Happy!" He kept saying that over and over again "Happy! Happy!! (quiet pause, then...) HAPPY!!!" It was super cute and funny. Once we arrived in Vegas at our hotel, I got our my phone to record - 

But wouldn't you know, as soon as the camera goes on, the performance stops. He still said some stuff, but we were trying to force it out of him and it didn't work as well. "Daniel, how do you feel?" and we wanted him to say "happy!" like he had been for the past hour, but he said "Feel!" No, no, that's not your line! Are you HAPPY?!?! and then he'd say it "Happy!" Cute kid. 

We took stuff up to our room on the 3rd floor. The elevator was totally on the opposite side of our room and from where we parked, so we took it from the car, up the stairs, to our room. Took forever and it was crazy hot - welcome to fabulous Las Vegas!

They had real sand in the swimming pool! It was refreshing, the kids were glad to get out of the car. It's nice to break the drive up for us parents too. We have another full day to kill here tomorrow, and then we head back on Sunday. I'm sure we'll do more swimming before we leave.