Lego Summer

6 weeks into summer and the kids are fully in the "Lego Creativity Zone" once again.  Here are a few of their creations from this past week:

Ethan's "Sword Camp", which as far as I can tell is a combination of the Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings and Percy Jackson.  And Atlantis fits into the game somehow too... it's so hard for me to keep track of the rules or whatever when they try to explain it to me.  My brain is already full I guess.

I was most impressed with Melodie's creation of the Garden Tomb.  You can see the folded linen in the tomb, butterflies and flowers in the sacred garden.

Go Mel!  Really impressed cause it wasn't even Sunday!  Such a sober child

A True Hero

Arturo Martinez-Sanchez is an inspiration.  I aspire to be like him in the challenges I will face through my life, which I'm sure will all be so small in comparison to his.  Two article about him here and here and a video here.

Kid Date Night

Corey and I came home from a date, and with Hyrum practicing his Saxophone music of Kenny G, the romantic feeling in the air inspired the kids to play "date" too.

First get dressed up fancy!  Then out to eat - Wesley and Abi dined at the family kitchen restaurant.  Then they went out dancing and Lily took her date Melodie to the same kitchen restaurant.

Everyone was having a lovely evening.

 Of course the older brothers can't allow any innocent PDA to go un-mocked, so they began to dance with Lily - since she and Mel were done with their dinner date.  

 

Mel took a turn dancing with Lily too, while the brothers played rock n roll music that was starting to ruin the mood for Wes...

 

With a huff in his step, he shuts the door on their piano music and says "Stop!  You're messing up our game!"  (You can see Joe laughing in there...)

 They continue dancing...

 

Lily is tired of dancing with Mel cause she doesn't have on a dress shirt and tie.  She wants a real man, and tries to cut in on Abi's date...

...which doesn't go over well with Abi...

Poor Wesley finds himself caught in a love triangle - his first taste of the drama that comes with women.  "Abi, I can dance with both of you..." but that is unacceptable.  Abi wants all of his heart or she'll just have to go find another date.

(I love watching them play!)

:)

Oil Cleansing

I read this blog post today about "oil cleansing" and am excited to try out this new routine at night:

Her instructions for the routine are:

1. Let your faucet run, so the water gets pretty hot.
2. Gently rub a quarter size amount on your face for about a minute. Make sure to massage it in and not scrub it.
3. Run a washcloth under the faucet. (You want the water to be hot enough, but not too hot where you’ll burn yourself. I usually get it really hot and slowly test it on my face. If it’s to hot I just air it out for a second. This part is important, because it has to be hot enough to cause a steaming effect that helps to remove the dirt form your pores.) Leave the washcloth over your face until it’s cooled down, about a minute.
4. Wash your hands
5. Gently wipe off the oil using the washcloth.
6. Your skin will probably look nice an supple and will probably be a little red from the steam.

Go read her blog post for her experience, this oil cleansing helped her acne clear up.  I don't have a real problem with that, but I do have lots of dark spots and a slight pregnancy mask still that I'm hoping it will help with, and I think it will also help with my dry skin and wrinkles. Another skin issue I'm looking for help with is dry scalp - I've heard it just comes with the territory here in Utah, but I'd like to challenge that idea.  Any recommendations? 

Outing to the Park

Well I'm so impressed with myself - I left the house today!!! AND with all the children.  Had to compel some of them to come, they wanted to play legos, but I tried out their strategy of nagging and it worked.   It is such a pretty day, I'm glad we got outside to see the world instead of thinking that the four walls that usually surround us are what is natural.

Joe wasn't feeling that great but came anyway and even played on the slide for a while.

I told Mel she could bring two guinea pigs, so Oreo and Eve tagged along and didn't try to run away even once, they are such good piggies.

Ethan played some catch football with Ethan Jensen - 

Hyrum didn't want to come, so I tried to get a picture of him pouting during the first 3 minutes but he wouldn't let me, then he started having fun after I was done snapping pictures.  So Hyurm is not documented.

Wesley was in character as a cowboy riding his bronco horse with his lasoo rope, he's such a cute kid.
Abi rode her scooter round and round

Lily played here and there and everywhere and I thought this was a cute picture of her and Eve.

And Sophia and I did what we usually do as I sat nursing her while the chaos swirled around us.

It was a beautiful morning.

"FUN" is My Middle Name!

Well, it's in the middle of my name, so I say that's close enough! 

Abi left this love letter on our dresser for Corey and I, as you can see that it is addressed to "TFFUNENDAD", Tiffanie N Dad.  I love the FUN in it, makes me thing this should be my theme song.  :) 

(two different links there to two versions of the fun "F.U.N. Song")

Abi calls me "Mom", but I guess it's a formal letter, hence the proper first name.  She also writes letters to her favorite primary teacher Brook and spells it BRC.  So cute, I love seeing the kids learn and figure things out on their own, even when it's wrong it's still wonderful. 

Clean Boring House vs. Messy Happy Kids

I know how to clean a house.  I know how to clean my house and I can find or make a place for everything.  But I don't think it's possible to keep it that way while kids are still growing.  You know the saying ~

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing”. - Phyllis Diller

I was able to organize the lego room last month and it was clean!  It looked good, but I wasn't ever working (playing) in there, so maybe it really wasn't good for their work/play, cause the kids just can't get their stuff done in there and keep it organized.  They were busy at work all day yesterday and this is how the room now looks:

Isn't that lovely?  All my hard work down the toilet, all three big bins on the floor empty with the legos dumped all over.  Sigh.

I remember when we lived in a townhouse once... we only had 5 kids at that time and there were legos EVERYWHERE and I was kinda going crazy.  I cleaned up the whole house and was very content and the order I created.  Then to my surprise my little children were very sad, bored, and uncreative.  I had the thought/impression that I could choose to have a clean house and uncreative kids or I could have a messy house and happy creative kids but we'd have lots of cleaning to do.  Well, it gets a little old sometimes, but I'd definitely rather have kids that are happy and learning and growing, and we'll make them stop and clean up too.  Eventually these simple playful years will be gone and the clean house will come. And I'll probably miss the mess and noise?  Hmm, maybe a little.  :)  For everything there is a season - right now we're busy and learning and getting dirty, the clean house and harvesting into the storehouse will come later in the fall of our life.  I know the kids are learning a little bit and will eventually be able to clean up after themselves. 

“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.  I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”     - Marjorie Pay Hinckley

It's good to work hard.  So for now, we'll just try to keep it all contained in the lego room and if it's in there, they can choose how it's done, cause that's their workspace, not mine.  My workspace is the house and I will continue on in my responsibility and mission to turn them into independent and responsible adults.  It's an uphill battle, but I will till this ground! 

Click that link and listen to that song, I love it, I love that whole cd - Brandon Flowers Flamingo.  And last month I was clued to the fact that there's a deluxe version with 4 more songs, so I got that for Corey for his b-day.  I got a pen and put little black dresses on the flamingo dancers - got to keep things modest for all of us here in our bubble.

The kids love "The Clock Was Tickin'" and I love "Right Behind You" - all the songs are just awesome. - ok, back to my messy house... gonna go clean. I am forever sweeping.  La la la

Gringo Rodizio

Corey had a Brazilian BBQ in the works for a few days - he even drove to three different Latino Markets to find chicken hearts to grill up for everyone.  Steaks from Costco with some Rocksalt, it was sooo good.  In Brazil in 2007 we had a bbq on my birthday with some friends, the meat was sooo tasty, we kept saying "WOW!!  What did you put on this?!?!"   The answer "Sal."  Well... that's great!  ...Cause I bet I can do that!!  I can do salt!  And we can and we do and Corey did, his little BBQ was great.

The grilled pineapple got a little burned, and most everyone else was afraid of the chicken hearts so Wesley ate most of them, but still, it was a grand success.

Great job sweetie. Cook us up another BBQ soon!

Scofield

Our friends invited us to join them for a fun day of boating at Scofield Reservoir on Friday. 

It was a lot of fun!  I took like 200 pictures, so we'll see if I can find the best ones to share, or I'll just slowly post them all over the next month.  :)

Sophia looked so cute in her life jacket - left her pretty much immobile

Ethan got a smile out of her - funny baby

She didn't fuss about it at all, was just silently resigned to her fate

That's a lot o kids.  We all set a new record for their boat's capacity

Wes lost his other front tooth, so now he and Tess are twins!

Brox and Ethan getting some air

Vine Man

So, when we were at Scofield on Friday, as kids were waiting for the adults to be ready to go out, they were walking around in the muck on the beach.

As Ethan was playing with the seaweed (Reservoir-weed?) he did what comes naturally for any 10 year old boy to do.... Hey, I know!  I'm going to put this on my head!
 

 

Made me think of this Deep Thought by Jack Handy (This was on a birthday card that Corey gave to me many years ago...)

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down in some seaweed and roll around until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm Vine Man."

(I'm not sayin' your a stupid man Eth, but I do think you make the cutest vine man I've ever seen)