Forty Four Stories

Happy Birthday to my #1.

Last night, I couldn't sleep (no more pandemic news after 9 pm!) and as I lay there trying to relax my brain, I decided to focus on what I could do for Corey's birthday. I started thinking of fun Corey stories, of many of the times he's made us laugh, and I thought I could share FORTY FOUR posts here (...since he's 44 today!) And I am not sure if that is too high of a number, and thought maybe I should just do FOUR and FOUR, but we're gonna try the 44 and see how it goes. And with over 3000 blog posts, I should have enough material to draw from, so we'll see how this birthday tribute goes... (I think it will help me if I break them into different Corey categories...)

COREY IS FUNNY
1) The first one I thought of last night this Family Classic from 2010 of Corey and Hyrum spitting in each others' faces. (Fill in Blank) vs. Hyrum
2) Disney On Ice - also very funny, it's a favorite of mine that still makes me laugh out loud!
3) Saving Us from the heat of Death Valley with his Swamp Cooler skills

COREY IS COMPETITIVE
4) Sauerkraut Battle
5) Birthday Water Fight
6) Another Waterfight!

COREY IS ADVENTUROUS
7) Rio in 2007
8) Waterfall in Costa Rica "A drive in the car and a bathroom break and we're already maxed out..."
9) Maresais Beach
10) Solo in St. George with the Kids
11) Midway when I was at the hospital with Peter

COREY IS PATIENT
12) Swimming with 7 kids choking him
13) Planning a Ski trip for a family of 8
14) Family Classic - 3 year old Abi in "The Hold" (and says she hates Corey)
15) Part 1 - Detained by the Chilean PDI and Part 2 - Jumping Through Hoops to get back to the US
16) The Hold with Lily
17) The Hold with Natalie
18) Teaching A Toddler to Ski
19) Owen in the Hold = cute naptime
20) Skiing with Kids in Park City

COREY IS A GREAT DAD
21) Boating at Jordanelle
22) Homemade Ice Rink
23) Ultimate House Tag in Brazil 2015
24) Classic Fun Center
25) Escape Room
26) Funtopia
27) Camping and Hiking

Picture of us from 2012

COREY IS ROMANTIC
28) Picture of our First date
29) Three and a Half Years Apart
30) And Together Again!
31) Begin Date Night Tradition
32) Early Anniversary Trip to Hawaii "Will this do?"

COREY'S FRIENDS
33) 20 Year High School Reunion
34) Telling Porter Rockwell stories to all the neighborhood kids
35) Us Visiting Angela
36) Angela Visiting Us - he worked harder  ...but I won the "highlight of their trip" award!
37) Jeff and Casey
38) Rafael and Natalia
39) Kiran from India
40) Diego and Iveth
41) Burmese Friends
42) With Brian in Peru
43) Junior
44) Victor

Phew! With all the usual interruptions that only took a couple of hours, not too bad. And Corey has more friends than that, those are just the ones that made the blog, my apologies to anyone if they feel bad that they didn't make the list. I do my best. I do think we'd probably have better stories if Corey blogged life from his point of view, but he's got his hands full trying to provide for our small army. Of course I could have included more, cause he's spiritual, he surfs, he BBQ's, he's got musical talent, soccer moves, and more! But we'll finish there with those 44 and call it good enough! It was a kinda normal work day for him and busy family day here, I'll talk about it tomorrow, but we hope it was still a Happy Birthday for our favorite guy!

Mom Moments

Well, yesterday the inevitable happened.  Owen's blanket broke. It is now in two pieces, the main piece, and the strip with the all important tags. Owen brought it to me last night and said to fix it, but this blanket has had more than it's fair share of mending, so much that I haven't even dared wash it for months (I know, nasty...) so I told Owen "I can't, it's broken" and lo and behold... (is this the moment we've been waiting for?)... Owen was able to go to bed without it! Am I happy? Or am I sad? Another baby is growing up and another phase of his childhood might be past and gone forever. That makes me feel kinda sad, but I guess I have two more behind him. Last night Owen didn't take Louie to bed with him either. Today he fell asleep for his nap in my room without his binky, blankie, or Louie. I kinda felt sorry for Louie though...

Tonight when we were going to bed, I gave Owen his blanket strip, which he rejected, and so I tried to just give him his binky and Louie, and he threw Louie across the room! (Well, as far as a 3 year old can throw a toy). I picked up this dear stuffed animal and told him sorry and hugged him. I can't find if I ever blogged it, but some time ago, I think before Peter was born, Owen woke up during the night and I layed down with him, and then I had this random thought that if Owen were to die, what would I do with Louie? Would I keep him with me, to remember my little Owen, or would I bury him with Owen to keep Owen safe? I don't know what I would have done, but the thought of it made me cry, so I was laying next to Owen at 4 in the morning crying about Owen being gone and what I would do with Louie. But now I might not have to worry about that. All this time, Louie has been a faithful companion, and just like that, it's over. Doesn't seem right. We'll see if Owen takes him at all this upcoming week. If not, I will be taking Louie and putting him on my shelf where I keep my babies' faithful but forgotten toddler toys like Natalie's leopard.

So been feeling a bit sentimental today. Remembering my little ones, I can't stop time and tuck away their childhood (Lily's pillow) but I will try to savor the moments. The good, the bad, the irritating and the messy. Today it was mostly the irritating and messy. The kids haven't messed up the floor from it's mop and shine yesterday, yay. But there's always the mess that comes from a family of 14 - they all contribute to the mess. Abi was trying on different jackets for school before she left... I began to tidy up after, and I had already picked up 3 of her jackets in the side room, I then came into the front room to find two more...

She is my best kitchen cleaner, but clothes are her weakness. She leave a big mess of clothes in her bedroom, she just drops them. This morning, after looking at her room again, I told her we gotta break that habit. Took the jacket pick so I can remember to revisit the topic with her again. Another annoying thing - downstairs in the basement, about a week ago I found an empty box of my ABC markers which I had tried to hide from them... I looked around and couldn't find the markers. I have two sets, one old, one new, I wasn't sure if this was the old or new set. But today I found the markers in a box hidden somewhere by kids. Most of the lids were off, and it was my new set. I threw them hard into the trash can. They destroy and break things quickly and often. Sigh. Breathe...

I found those as I was cleaning up the room for a friend from Chile who is coming to stay with us for a bit (Angela's husband). I had Imagine Dragons on the bluetooth - "I Don't Know Why". Yes, why!??! Why can't they stop getting into my things? I just need to lock them all in our room. I looked at the markers, tried to breath. Not a big deal, like $7 bucks maybe? Am I going to miss the mess? Or will it still visit us in grandchild form? The music played, and I felt like it was my destructor children saying it "Tell me that you love me, tell me that you love me, tell me that you love me..." I don't know why they seek and destroy, but I will try to remember what is important. They are more important than markers. I am trying to practice being calm. I had a few voxer chats with Holly about that too - give myself an opportunity to breathe. Oh, and Peter threw up on me this morning too - right after he ate, he started coughing and made himself gag...

Luckily I was holding him towards me, so I was able to cup it all in my chest between Peter and I

Yay, it didn't get on the carpet. All the mess and struggle is giving me experience and teaching me to be patient and calm and to control what I can control. I can control myself, they need me to be that steady rock for them, a rock of calm and security. It will all become good memories eventually anyway, I will try to be calm and enjoy the now before these baby and toddler and childhood moments all slip away forever.

Tickle Peter

Well, Peter is pretty adorable and it's so fun to watch him grow. He is starting to laugh! Mel got a few good smiles and chuckles out of him today.

Isn't he so pretty?!?

Here's the video of his delightfulness

So, we're all still obsessing over this little man, and that's about it.

 

There are less than 3 weeks of school left for the older kids. Our friend Junior is going to stay with other neighbors for a few weeks, which is very helpful, cause we've got another Latin American guest coming tomorrow, Gabriel from Chile, Angela's husband. Corey knew Angela on his mission and they became good friends and have kept in touch. They helped us have a place to sleep when we couldn't get out of their country back in 2011 when we lived in Chile for a few months. And we have since been able to have them visit us here a few times and make some great memories. I love them, but I do think all the hosting we're doing is taking a slight toll on me. My morning routine is off and haven't been exercising as well. I brought up my weights from the basement but haven't been using them in my room. So I feel a little off balance. But I am still eating or drinking Kale everyday, so that's a win. With it being May with all of the crazy end of the year make a dash for the finish line chaos it brings, I'm not going to beat myself up, just going to try and keep going slow and steady. It's been nice having Iveth come help. 

My Area

Well, our house guests left on Saturday morning. I had plans for the kids to help me reclaim my basement office area on Saturday evening, but it didn't happen. Today I did it myself. This morning I made a pathway and brought my treadmill back in, yay! The kids needed to leave for school and Daniel was awake, so after sending them off, my baby played sweetly with a toy on the floor as I did a 20 minute jog with a few walks and a few sprints in between. I put the treadmill in a different corner that I think works much better than where it was before. My cd player is also nicely within reach so I can skip songs as needed. I also have my yoga stuff set up. I took apart the beds, moved the black table back in and made a vase of flowers for it that I think is cute and pretty, I'm in the process of bringing my weights back downstairs. I moved them up into my bedroom closet when they came in February, thinking I could do a little resistance exercises in there... never happened. I also raked up the pile of leaves out the basement door that were wet with rain and stuck on the cement. Hopefully it will dry up a little and then I can sweep it off. Anyway, so far I'm really happy with how it looks!

I even have my laptop here at my desk again! And I'm typing here rather than in my closet on the floor. Well here is Wes sitting at it as I took a picture of it.

I still have to go through all my little piles on the desk shelves and on my bookshelves on the opposite wall behind me. When Angela and her girls first came, this office area was a total mess, and I was stressed out as you might recall. This is the only carpeted area in the basement, but it was a mess, so I cleaned up the lego area instead and put their beds up there. It wasn't the best, as it has cement walls, but was all I could do at the time. When they got here though they cleaned up this area and wanted to move their beds over here where it would be warmer. I felt kinda like a bad host for setting up the beds in a bad area... We've been watching the Kindness Diaries on byutv. It's a little documentary of a guy traveling around the world relying only on the kindness of strangers to give him gas for his motorbike, food, and a place to stay each night. Like two weeks ago we saw him stay with a family in India where they said "Guest is God" and a guy and his pregnant wife slept on the floor so his kids and Leon could sleep in the bed (I think it was the guy in the blue shirt at :10 here). That would have been the more charitable thing for us to do for our guests, but maybe not for 2 months? I was impressed with them though - As I sit here in comfort and luxury I hope that someday I can learn to be as charitable to others as poor people in India.

Anyway, so my closet has been my homebase for a while and the house is pretty desordenado, but not much more than usual I guess. I'm glad to be able to put it back together. The kids and I have been talking about clearing out most of the junk in the unfinished area and turning it into a roller skating area, ha! I think it would be fun, we'll see if we can actually get rid of all the clutter, cause that would be fun. I still remember playing at my friends house as a kid, her name was Krissy Vargeson (Not sure of the spelling there... I can't find her on facebook...) - we set up a whole street area in her garage, with chalk roads, yield signs, stop signs, and we'd ride around her garage on our bikes, it was so fun. It would be fun to set up something like that here - and Owen and Natalie can ride their scoot bikes and trikes around it while the older kids use roller blades, skates, or ripsticks. Fun fun! I'm going to go clean some more and see if we can do it.

Sunday General Conference Story

One of the reason that our guests from Chile came to visit us in Utah was so they could attend General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They were able to get tickets to attend two sessions in the Conference Center - on Saturday morning and Sunday morning. So, on Saturday morning Corey took them all the way downtown and they spent the day there. But we missed clearing plans with each other last night and thus we didn't know what they needed on Sunday morning. Luckily Abi is an early riser and she came in my room at 8:00 and told me that they needed a ride to Trax. Corey had been in his office working late and then up until 2 talking with Ethan and Joseph. So he was beat. So I got up. They were ready and I just wore my pjs (which is my daily lounge wear as well) and got in the car to take them.

As we drove down the street, we noticed the garage was open on the house of one of our wonderful neighbors known around the world as Elder Christofferson. The car looked ready to go, I joked to Angela "Hey! We know where they are going! You should get a ride with them!" as we drove past. I turned the corner and was ready to turn toward the street that heads to Trax, when I found myself pausing, and turning the opposite direction. Angela pointed the way I didn't go, asking "Isn't Trax this way?" "Yeah... but..." oh boy what am I doing?!?! I turned on the next street to drive back into our neighborhood... "Um, let's go see if they are still there... Vamos a ver si tengo el coraje a preguntarles.... (We'll see if I am brave enough to ask them...)" Angela and her girls were quiet as we drove up. Their car was still there, we noticed a light in the garage from a fridge door being open, so they weren't both in the car yet.... I turned the car around and put it in park and got out. Then the car started to back out of the garage and walked over to Sister Christofferson's side of the car that was closest to me, waving and signaling that I wanted to talk to them. She put down the window. I think I ended up saying something like this: "Hey! So I was just taking my friends to Trax and wanted to know if you could give them a ride?" She looked at me a bit concerned and said "...We can't..." Maybe in my brain I was saying the right things but I obviously wan't clear cause as we exchanged words, they thought I wanted them to give my friends a ride to Trax station, Doh! "Oh hey neighbor! I noticed you were leaving your house today so thought I'd see if I could save myself a trip by having you take my friends somewhere..." When I realized what I had asked, I said "Oh no no, they are going to the Conference Center!" "Oh! They have tickets? Well yeah! Have 'em jump in!" Phew!! So I waved for them to come out of the car and come hitch a ride with my friend the apostle! I told Kathy "They are from Santiago Chile..." I don't think they knew who my "friends" were when I asked but I knew Elder Christofferson spoke Spanish cause he served a mission in Argentina. I wish I had a picture of them as they came to the car, it was super cute. Elder Christofferson opened the car doors for them and to move his briefcase. They had big nervous smiles and shook his hand as he asked them their names. They had some major "WOW!" expressions on their faces, It was a great moment. They got in the car, I went to the back as Elder Christofferson put his case in the trunk and closed it "Thank you so much Elder Christofferson, this will be a real treat for them!" And that was it, I got in my car and got out of the street so they could leave and off they went. Fun!

I came home and bounded up to our room where Corey was still in bed. I jumped on the bed and propped myself up on my side, looking at him. He opened his eyes to see my big grin and I said "Guess WHAT!" 

He smiled as I told what happened, then I apologized "I'm sorry for all the work you had to do with going to Vegas and everything just to have me steal the highlight of their trip to the US away from you in 5 minutes!" He was happy I was crazy brave enough to go back and ask. As we listened to conference, I felt like Elder Rasband's story about putting his foot in the door was a little what had happened to me. I'm glad for them that they had such an experience. I'm sure it will be something they always remember. They got back during the second session. We were up in my room listening to more speakers. (And this here photo below is what happens if you're a boy and your sister catches you sleeping through conference.)

Mel played the "lets see how many things we can put on Ethan without waking him up" game. Tape on his head, saxophone mouthpiece cover thing on his nose... stuffed animal, ball, toys.... So that is what we were doing when they got back home after their trip down town with Elder Christofferson. Angela told me that he and his wife were "Muy simpatico" and also said that they took them underneath main street where they park their cars and then they rode a little golf cart with them to the conference center. They also ran into President Nelson there. :) So fun for them. It will definitely be a highlight of the trip. But they have said that the thing they will miss the most when they go home is Daniel <3 p="">

Angela and her daughters were super cute as they were admiring him after scriptures one night. It looked like a nativity scene. They are spending this week up in Idaho and will be back next Monday. I took Corey to the airport after the morning session yesterday, he is in Brazil this week and will be back next Monday too. Here is a picture "las ninas" drew with the kids outside of our family. Corey and I were happy with how young we looked, ha.

Classic Skating

Two weeks ago on the 18th of March (perhaps as a warm up before his Las Vegas adventure...) Corey took lots o kids and our 3 Chilean friends to Classic Skating for some fun. They had a ball. The highlight of the afternoon was when Natalie met Ariel and Rapunzel.

Corey said their costumes looked really legit and wondered if the Disney corporation/trademark was okay with people out there posing as their copyrighted characters. It was really fun.

Corey had a lot of work to do as always, but soon was in full fun father mode and they had a great time skating, timing each other in an obstacle course, and stuff like that. Cata got the most tickets of anybody

Angela said she had only gone skating two other times in her life, and broke her leg both times. She made it out injury free this time with the help of the skater (the walker for skating).

That isn't the best pic but that's the one Corey sent me, I shall update later. Also Corey has a few videos that he hasn't uploaded yet but I'll update with the links here later.

Las Vegas

Corey and the kids and our 3 Chilean friends headed down south yesterday for a few days of fun in the sun. They left after church to go to St. George, where they spent last night, and then today they are going the last little bit to arrive in Las Vegas. They will be there for two night and are coming home on Wednesday.

On Saturday I felt a bit exhausted. The "this is insane" point hit me when I went to get a fork for a kids to eat with and once again saw that EVERY spoon and fork and knife were gone from the silverware drawer! I had a clean load of dishes that needed to be put away, as well as a completely full sink of dishes waiting for their turn in the dishwasher and I was just like "I just can't keep up!! It NEVER STOPS!!" So my already frazzled mood was topped off by not being able to leave the house for the Women's Broadcast. At 6:00, I gave myself permission to be excused and I went into my room where I gave kids a bath and had other interruptions as I tried to watch the broadcast on byutv. The first talk shared was about how we need to "Trust in the Lord, and Lean not..." She continued: "In English the word lean has a connotation of physically listing or moving to one side. When we physically lean toward one side or another, we move off center, we are out of balance, and we tip. When we spiritually lean to our own understanding, we lean away from our Savior. If we lean, we are not centered; we are not balanced; we are not focused on Christ."

I thought how I definitely am feeling off balance. I'm gonna topple over from being so dizzy. I need to slow down and take a breather. I've been running on all cylinders since Corey's February trip to Brazil at the beginning of February, followed by him being on business for two more weeks in Seattle followed up with several weeks with our house guests that are still here, on top of the whole 11 kids we have with all that they require and such... Just trying to keep this family afloat.... But I was not looking forward to a "break" by going on a trip. Maybe I could stay home? Oooh, that sounds nice. Yes, I did experience some relief when I thought of staying home and not going with them. Would that be okay? Corey would have all the older kids to help, plus Angela and her girls. If I ever did want to take a break, this is my chance. Corey was in his office working when I went in and asked if I could toy with the idea of staying home. "Of course" was his reply. I still felt a bit guilty, mostly for feeling like I was abandoning him. I called several friends to ask their thoughts and to help me be brave enough to let them go or tough enough to accompany them. But none of my 911 girls were answering their phones! I finally got through to Rachael, who thought I was very wise to recognize my limits and gave me permission to listen to and follow those feelings. Sigh, that feels good! Then I called Susan, who shared some thoughts and said they'd be fine, stay home and take a break! Then I finally talked to my twin sister (haha) Nicole yesterday morning (yes, it was Sunday morning and I hadn't packed but I was still not fully committed one way or the other...) and she said that if Corey was honest in saying he wanted me to do whatever would fill my cup, then I should stay home.

So, Sunday morning... we went to church (and I dressed Daniel in a new little onesie Sunday shirt I got! Isn't he so cute!!??) No Sunday shoes yet, so he's not totally ready for work yet.

Of course he can't be totally respectable in his slacks and tie when he's got a pacifier clipped to his collar anyway!

The kids stayed for the whole block with me. Corey came and got some things ready. When church was over we came home, I helped them pack up, I didn't pack for myself or Daniel, and soon they were ready and I let them leave without me. I still felt kinda guilty. So I snuggled with Daniel and we took a nap and woke up at 5:30 and called to see where they were at... I figured they were probably half way, and Corey told me they were just checking in at the hotel in St. George. Wow! Well, if it's that quick, I could still come down! I called my mom to see if I was crazy to think I should still go (I did have two cars at my use...) but if I did go down I'd need to find someone to take care of the guinea pigs. But my mother talked me out of that silly idea and I finally accepted that I was going to miss out on the fun but I was also going to have a quite clean house to myself for the next 72 hours. I've never done this!

So here I am, in a quiet and fairly clean house. Some of the things that are awesome: I haven't taken the garbage out at all today! I did the dishes today and will not do them again until everyone comes back! And I haven't had to pick up any shoes or coats or socks on the floor! I shampooed the carpets with the Kirby vacuum, and it looks nice. I didn't have to put out towels on the wet carpet cause no little feet are running around on it.

I gave the tub in the kids' bathroom a good shinning too, and realized as I scrubbed that I haven't done that since our last visitor Kiran was here last spring. I should probably clean it more than once a year, but I don't see it much so it doesn't bother me. Plus if I wait till it's nice and gray then even the teenagers notice and appreciate how nice it looks.

One drawback is that the house is so quiet that Daniel is a bit concerned and has become a bit high maintenance... if he is awake and I'm not giving him my full attention (or vacuuming) he's quite upset. Thus he's looked like this for a good part of the day.

Isn't that the cutest little "I'm freaking out" face you've ever seen? Silly boy. Please let it be known that this fit did not produce any tears, just a red face. He just wanted to scream at me cause he missed out on swimming. Sorry buddy, I can't promise that I'll make it up to you by doing anything fun here this week but don't you worry, I'm sure you'll see Vegas someday.

School House Rock

Yesterday was a crazy busy day. First I had a Visting Teaching meeting here 10 - 11:30, then we had to end that cause Hyrum had an Orthodontist appt at 11:45. Those are usually fairly quick but we didn't leave until 1:30 cause they accidentally broke a bracket off as they put in the new wire. And... since we had to wait longer for them to fix that, and since they weren't busy, I decided to get myself a consultation. I never had braces but do have a little area of my teeth that bugs me and a few other small things I wouldn't mind having fixed. So now I know what that would require if we ever have the money to do that (I'd like Invisalign, which is pricier, so we gotta wait a bit for that, we're still recovering from paying for the Fiesta to get fixed...) SO, after that was done we rushed home cause Abi had her School House Rock play at 2, and cause I had to take Mel to the bus at 2 for her flute lesson downtown by the U. I went home, grabbed Angela and her girls to go with Hyrum, dropped them off at the school, came back for Mel, and was just going to drop her off and then head to the performance, but she missed the bus and was now going to be late if she waited for the next bus, so I took her to the U. I decided I could go to her play today (which I did). As I came back from taking Mel, Hyrum called that the play was done, so straight to the school to pick them up, then home to shove some food in my mouth, wait for Ethan to come back from his party, take him to his lesson with Ray, home from that at 7, take Wes to a concert at Brighton, home for a bite of food, then off to pick up Wes at Brighton and pick up Mel to Special Needs Mutual and yay, I was finally home at 9 pm and felt like I'd run myself ragged. I was spent!

So this morning I was able to go do my parent duty and watch Abi's school performance of School House Rock. I usually struggle a bit in my attitude when it comes to school plays and performances, (sorry children). (But your Dad does too.... he just couldn't bring himself to sit through the whole Halloween concert at Churchill this year. Sometimes you can only watch the exact same show for 3 years in a row before ya start going insane,) But we hadn't been to School House Rock since 2013, so we were ready to do it again. Luckily the older kids were already out of school for spring break, so it was nice that I didn't have to bring all my toddlers with me. I took Daniel, Corey came and joined us and saw Abi's debut singing "Three is a Magic Number" and then he had to leave. But I got a video of the other songs she was in (on top of the box for Conjunction Junction here holding a gree train car with the word AND on it)

Abi did a good job. I'd upload the videos but I can't get on youtube anymore. Another thing Corey messed up in his tampering with the router. I'll request he try to fix that so I can upload and embed videos again. I'm also hoping Corey has some better pictures on his phone that I can post - will update later!

Playing and Cleaning with Guests

Our guest from Chile have been with other US friends for the past two weeks, but on Tuesday night (after many days of the little girls asking "When is Angela coming back?!?!") they have returned. The kids were excited and they played out in the back yard too late, so late that we got a text from our sweet neighbor saying they were having a hard time falling asleep with the noise from all their fun. Doh! Kids, back inside! I know it's warm outside, but it's not summer yet!

So, it feels like they cleaned the whole house again. It's so nice to have help, wow. Angela helps with the daily stuff - picking up toys, sweeping, vacuuming. Her daughters picked up the girls' room. The boys' rooms didn't get helped this time (they might be beyond help....) Yesterday I spent most of the day doing a big day project that I hadn't planned on: it was time to clean out the fridge again. We got a refurbished fridge delivered on the day Abi was baptized over a year ago. 3 months after that was when it first began to make the noise, our 90 day warranty covered it being repaired that first time, but a few months later it did it again. Warranty now gone, so I've tried to do my best to fix it. It comes from ice building up around the fan and then the fan hitting the ice. So it still makes the noise every couple of months. When it does I usually just go hit the power switch off and leave it off overnight. I use the breaker box cause I don't want to roll it out and unplug it, cause that's a pain. So defrosting it that way helps and it usually works after one night off. So, it started making it again last night but I didn't turn it off cause it wasn't that bad, but this morning it was full on LOUD, so off the power goes, time to defrost the fan! It's some kind of design flaw since there are lots of people out there experiencing the same irritating noise. Ironically, I had just noticed and eve mentioned to Melodie how nice it was that the the noise hasn't been here for a while. I googled it more this time and did find these troubleshooting instructions here on their customer support page.  I have now properly leveled the fridge, and I know the ice was all gone off the fridge cause I left it off all day (moved all the food to the garage fridges and freezers - I guess it's good I haven't sold our 2nd extra on the classifieds yet), so we'll see how it works. It's a pain, but a good way to make me clean out the fridge every few months.

Tonight they've been dancing to 80s music and some Chilean hits in the front room. It's fun, they are all laughing and having fun and making memories.

The kids have shoved pillows up their shirts and are body slamming each other. Hyrum is "The Red Apple" Wesley is "Purple Plum", Lily was "Cotton Candy"... then Gabriella brought down Owen with a blanket shoved in his pajamas, we named him "Blue Berry Boy".

Sophi, not to miss out on the fun, ran upstairs to plump up her clothes, Her name is "Cherry" - just to keep with the whole food theme.

Body slammin' in the front room to entertain their Chilean audience.

We're going to try to do something short and fun this weekend with them and have plans to take them to Las Vegas for a quick trip spring break in 10 days. :)

Too Much

I read this article today about Simplifying Childhood. The book that that article is commenting on is titled Simplicity Parenting which "encourages parents to keep fewer toys so children can engage more deeply with the ones they have. Payne describes the four pillars of excess as having too much stuff, too many choices, too much information and too much speed. When children are overwhelmed they lose the precious down time they need to explore, play and release tension. Too many choices erodes happiness, robbing kids of the gift of boredom which encourages creativity and self-directed learning. And most importantly “too much” steals precious time." (All the time I spend cleaning! Or more like the time I spend dreading cleaning)

Melodie just mentioned a film she watched that talked about how of two stores that sold ice cream, the one with less choices was more successful. People feel overwhelmed/stressed by too many choices! Again, the four pillars of excess:

1. Too much stuff
2. Too many choices
3. Too much information
4. Too much speed

This article is right in line with what I need to hear right now (again). I haven't done much more to clean out the basement since Angela and her girls have arrived, but I haven't needed to go down there to that mess to still be drowning in too much stuff on the main floors and up in the bedrooms. The clothes problem here at our house is my current kryptonite. I get it all washed, but it does not get folded. I put the clean clothes in laundry baskets in the kids rooms and my room and there it remains. Well, the boys toss everything out all over the floor as they look for the item they want so the rooms are just a mess of clothing on the floor. I get most of ours folded, but then hit a roadblock or get interrupted before I finish sorting through the kids clothes and socks that make it into our hamper. Maybe we need to have just one winter jumper too.

Too much is totally true. I was thinking back on our simple life in Brazil in 2007. We packed light, and the kids each brought a cape, a stuffed animal, and then we also brought some Knex toys and a mega blocks train. The toys fit in a small bin. The kids went deep with those toys, they "engaged deeply", and now I love those toys cause my kids loved those. The stuffed animals are currently are on a shelf in my bedroom closet cause they capture that simple time and those memories.

When we had to simplify again when we went to Costa Rica and Chile for 9 months, the kids went deep again with their one stuffed animal, even making furnished apartments for their toys out of paper. Joseph didn't take one that time, but the rest of them each had a Webkinz toy they liked. We went through stuffed animals and threw out quite a few two weeks ago. We kept more than I thought we should, so we might need to try again with this new article fresh in mind. We have a lot of Webkinz, but the kids remember their Costa Rica ones and their names: Mel had Kacey the bunny, Ethan had Lucas the Lion, Hyrum had the Gecko Ben, Wesley's dog's name was Matthew, and Abi's cat was Scarlet. Lily's bear was one she stole from the church nursery room in Chile there.

Our visitors, Angela and her girls, have been angels in how much they've been cleaning  this house, which gives me a grateful/guilty feeling... grateful for the help, Lord knows I need it, but guilty/embarrassed that we Wrides can't keep on top of it and I'm going to feel like a loser tomorrow when they clean it all again. Our current goal is not to live like pigs. So yeah, going to try to thin out the thick of all our toys and clothes and stuff around here again.

Solo Conferences

Ah, parent teacher conferences. Usually we divvy up the conferences and Corey does the older kids and I do the elementary and middle school. But Corey is gone, as we are all well aware, so guess where I got to go? Back to High School! Oh boy, I had to gear myself up to leave the house again... I've like had to leave the house every day the past week,which I'm not used to doing. So last night Joseph and Ethan were gone at Voodoo in Corey's car, and Angela had borrowed the van, so I wanted to bail out and say I couldn't go in the busted car, but fortunately (though unfortunately for me and my desire to get out of PTCs at this moment) it's still driveable. So off I went. I left Mel and Hyrum in charge and headed over in car with the busted bumper. Daniel fell asleep on the way, woke him up and strapped him on. Got a full bottle, here we go

Walking past the seal from the great class of '94!

I saw some teachers that I took classes from 22 years ago (AP Art history teacher Woods, Health teacher Hymas) and a friend of mine from the class of' '94 was there for conferences for her kids too and we said hi (Allison Hampshire - she hadn't aged a bit, the only difference was she had shorter hair) So it went well at conferences. Mel is quiet, they both have a few grades they need to try to get up. I felt like I totally had to go to Conferences cause we skipped them in September cause we were busy with Daniel being born, and we didn't catch that Mel was struggling and that term didn't go so great for her. So, even with Corey gone, I did it, go me. Positive mindset: I can do this! I went to Churchill after but the empty parking lot clued me in that there weren't conferences going on tonight. Doh, that meant that today was gonna be busy, and it was. I couldn't do conferences tomorrow cause I'm going to be in San Diego with Corey. Blah this is a lot to manage... my brain is kinda used to managing it but not doing all of it. Here we go

I already had conferences with Abi and Lily scheduled for tonight, so first this evening was heading over to the elementary for them at 4:45 and 5. Then to the book fair cause I promised them we'd do it today since I missed books and bagels yesterday morning (that whole "can't do it cause I'm flying solo" thing again...) so after the book fair we headed home to check the status of Owen and Daniel, who I'd left with Mel (Hyrum, Eth, and Joseph gone at band). Owen was ready for a change of scenery so I took him with me for the rest of the evening. Stoller in the back. First to Albion. Wesley wanted me to see like 5 of his teachers. Wasn't too bad, lines were okay, was there for like 45 minutes. Then over to Churchill to finish off the evening. Stroller out of the van, kid out of the van, hoof it up the hill from the parking lot. It was 6:40. There weren't a lot of people there. I walked around, long line for a teacher to see for Ethan, which was the first name I recognized, so I went to say hi to Mr. Arnell since there was no line. I didn't have any concerns with Hyrum in his class, but wanted to introduce myself and tell him that my kids absolutely love having him as a teacher. Mr. Arnell is the teacher I heard all the kids say really positive things about. He also comes from a family of 10 kids so we talked about that for a bit and visited. I like Mr. Arnell and am grateful there are great teachers like that. He was one of the deciding factors to Wes deciding to go to Churchill. Hyrum and Ethan and Mel were all like "You have to go to Churchill or you'll never have Arnell!" Then after that the line for Eth's teacher was down to one so I jumped over. That was also the time that I realized almost all the teachers were leaving. Oh, this ends at 7? Doh. That was a quick visit, then over to Ethan's one request: Peterson. Someone was still there talking his ear off so I waited for a few minutes then talked to him. We were the last ones in the room. Then we were done. I guess that will have to do, I did my best. Now it's time to get home and pack and get ready for tomorrow. Hope I don't lose these notes and papers in my absence before I can go over them with the kids. 

Valentines

Today was Valentine's Day. My #1 Valentine is far away in Brazil, but I shall see him shortly. He did call to wish us all a happy love day. Keeping me company while Corey is gone is my funny Valentine Daniel. He was super cute sucking his thumb two days ago ~

My next Valentine Natalie is a sweet little roommate too. Still sleeping on our floor most every night.

The past few nights she's been sleeping with an old toy that Abi got when we were in Chile 5 years ago. I had it on display on my shelf to remind me of little Abi, now it will remind me of Natalie too. I made Valentine's for the older kids. Some Candy grams - I was inspired by the "Super8" candy bars that Angela gifted us. And this was also an effort to get rid of the chocolate before I ate it all.

Joseph likes Mr. Goodbars. Mel likes KitKats, but they aren't good for candy grams...

Neither are Reeses. So I tried to get creative, but it mostly got lame.

Then I got lazy with Wes and Lily. They didn't seem to mind. I didn't keep track of how many treats each kid got, but since I hid the Valentines on their beds they weren't able to compare to each other.

Abi was excited by the surprise, she loves stuff like this. She used some of her treats from school to make a Valentine for me, cause she is also a major note writer. I've got a whole stack of love notes from my sweet Abi, and now have this one to add to the collection.

Llegaron

Angela and her girls are here!

And we found each other at the airport through our husbands communicating between Brazil and Chile, funny. And what a pleasure to have them, but not just because they've spent the whole day cleaning up my wreck of a home. We cleaned and then we rearranged things and they are settled in now and I got a space heater for the basement and this will be fun! Owen even seems to have lost some of his shyness and has smiled at them and looked them in the eyes a few times. I'm running around a bit and things are busy, so I'll try to catch up here when I can. Parent Teacher Conferences this week and then on Thursday I fly to San Diego and meet up with Corey there on his way back from Brazil. We're going to be there through Sunday. Fun times, and busy, I feel like I'm kinda running around like a chicken with it's head cut off

Cleaning for Company

Today I was in such a funk. (So much for the Devotional talk I was so excited about yesterday!) I was preaching to myself with that anyways. But maybe I'm not a lost cause... maybe being aware is the first step. I was very aware that I was not thinking positively, so that's good. Bad thing was that I didn't want to think positively - the natural man in me somehow enjoyed my bad mood and I thus wanted to continue the miserable wallow in my grumpy attitude. I'll blame the cloudy gray weather. I could feel myself continuing the downward spiral and figured I just best help myself hurry and hit bottom so I could start to come back up again. A few calls to vent friends and family and then I was able to turn around and function again. Yay.

So I think my funk was mostly caused by the basement. And that had become something I had to reconcile with because we have 3 house guests coming for a few weeks (through April) and we had to make a space for them, and that was the only place for it. Our friend Angela is coming to visit. Corey and Angela know each other from his mission days when he was a missionary working in the Santiago West Mission office, where she worked too. Angela saved us when the PDI in Chile wouldn't let me come back to America after our 5 months there. She came to the blessed US of A in October 2012 for a visit and now is returning and this time she's bringing two of her daughters. Here is a picture of all of us from 6 years ago.

All those little kids are bigger now. Her oldest daughter is on a mission for the LDS church in Lima Peru, awesome, so it's just Cata and Gabriella that are coming. they are Ethan and Joseph's ages (I think?)

So, I got out of the funk when I stopped thinking how much I wish the basement was finished and how we don't have a good space to put them, and stopped telling myself we can't host people very well. My overwhelmed bad mood that had persisted all day turned a corner when I told myself I had two choices:

1. Just shove all the stuff out of the way into a big pile of junk and call it good.  OR ~
2. Just get rid of all of it. 

If it's just a pile of unwanted or unused junk anyway, then really, why don't we just be gone with it? Sure, there are a few things in the boxes here and there that are truly misplaced treasures, but most of it's just there to sap my energy! So, a year ago I organized the basement, and all the winter and summer clothes were put into lettuce boxes that took me several Costco trips to acquire. Well, I've moved all clothing into the laundry room, thus now most of those boxes are empty. It's gonna take me a few months to throw them out in the recycling on trash day, but hey! (lightbulb above my head) if I fill them with all this junk, then I can drop them off with the load of donations at the DI! Brilliant, that could be a win win!

So I didn't do my plan A of going to the temple for date night. Instead we cleared out junk and the kids were around to cast their donate or keep vote for different items. Didn't get the van totally full, but did get a lot of unused stuff in there and I'm already feeling lighter.

Toys just don't last long at our house, as you can see from this old post. I even gave away some vintage "My Friend" dolls - like 3 mikeys that I bought for the kids for Christmas in 2006. Poor 6 year old Joseph,.. his mom bought him a doll for Christmas! But I did have my seamstress sister in law make some cute Jedi clothes for it. I wanted Mel and Joseph and Ethan to play together. I don't think it ever happened. I have held on to them for 11 years anyway, but we said goodbye this week, 2 Becky, 2 Jenny. Someone out there who wants to put in the effort might feel like they scored a pretty sweet find at the thrift store - you could get $15 bucks each for those, good luck. As for me, I'm just happy to pass them along and have them gone. Time again to try and help let things that don't matter to me fall out of our life.

Campinas to Florida to Utah

On Wednesday night, our friend Zeb's flight left first around 8, so Corey took him to the airport around 5 and took our luggage with hopes that he'd be able to check it in early. They wouldn't let him, so a friend stayed there and watched it while he came back to pick all of us up. We left around 8. First task - return the cars.

We loaded the kids into the van while Corey talked to the rental people, doing whatever they needed to do for 30 minutes. (Things just take longer here!)

The kids kept getting drinks of water and eating their complimentary candies, and finally they were done and we got in the shuttle to head to the airport. Natalie fell asleep on the drive to the airport, so we carefully placed her in her carseat into the shuttle, then onto the smartcart - she was able to keep sleeping until we had to check her carseat.

We said goodbye to our friends, they all helped us out so much, Thank you! We will miss you!

And now the moment is here, we're on the plane headed home! How does it feel, kids? I think they're excited.

The stewardess' brought around some i-pad type things and the kids watched movies and played games. We enjoyed a nice dinner at 1 a.m, except Abi and Lily were already asleep. Then we told the other kids it's would be good for them to try to go to sleep too. Are you comfortable Wes?

I think all the kids slept pretty well, although Ethan told me later how terrible it was cause he asked for a drink of Guarana but they gave him CocaCola, and then he fell asleep and it spilled all over his shorts and soaked his socks, so he had a miserable night cause he felt sticky and wet. I think he had it better than Corey or I though. I knew it would be bad, so I wasn't surprised, but boy, my ankles got so swollen. I think they're gonna need a few days of elevation to recover. And as for Corey, he saved my life, cause Natalie had a little bit of Coke for dinner when we were at Angela and Felipe's house... and that might not have been a good idea, cause she was seriously awake and full of energy until 3 a.m. Maybe it was the little power nap she had in the drive to the airport, I don't know, but she was on one. There was like no leg room and I would have died if I had to hold her still during the whole night with my pregnant self. Corey saved my life by taking both her and Sophia for our un-restful night's sleep on the plane. Sophi slept on the floor when Natalie was on her high energy kick climbing all over the chair. She finally gave in, but we were going to be getting up early - we landed at 7:30 Florida time / 8:30 Brazil time. That's just five and a half hours of sleep for Natalie - and that's not good.

After we landed, we went though customs and that wasn't bad at all. Although it always makes me laugh to see Corey hand over a 10 pile stack of passports. "School trip?" he was asked. Nope, just our family. After going through there, Corey and the older kids went to check in our luggage for our next flight... but that wasn't until 5:30... yes, this is going to be a long layover. How will we cope? Corey was able to check in the luggage (thanks Delta!) while I stayed with little kids who made a big mess with crackers and drawing papers. And when he returned, he said "Grab your stuff, I got us a room!" What? A hotel room? Wow, brilliant! Yes, there is a Hyatt hotel right there in the Orlando airport.

The view from our room - I love seeing that flag!!

Corey got two pizzas for the kids and they watched tv and Corey and I, well we got to go lay down and sleep!! This was the best idea ever! Natalie didn't eat any pizza, she was too cranky and tired. I went and got her from the kids room and she fell asleep right away.

The kids were thirsty - and were happy when I reminded them that we were in the US now, and you can drink water from the tap here! Drink up!!

After a good nap, we got ready to go catch our final flight.

Unfortunately it said it was delayed for 2 hours. Doh. Wish we hadn't checked out of the hotel yet, but we're not going through security again. So time to sit and wait kiddos.

They did pretty good (with the help of some hamburgers, fries, and chocolate milk). Nice crown Hyrum. Zeb forgot his hat at our friends house, so Wes was in charge of keeping that for him.

Ethan really liked the eye masks from the Azul airline.

The delay turned out to be just 50 minutes, not 2 hours, so that was good. We were on the plane at 6 and soon in the air. Natalie was once again full of high energy. It was a long 4 1/2 hours...

She was just constantly moving - She kicked me out of my chair (wanted equal treatment) so luckily Sophi was willing to sit on Corey's lap and I scooted over by him. Natalie wanted the window seat (open - close - open - close...)

Playing peek-a-boo with Abi in the chair in front of her.

I didn't know if the plane would be landing from the south or coming from the north. But figured it out when I saw the Y on the mountain!

 Kids! There's BYU! We're almost home! 

There is our home! Little Cottonwood Canyon! Although Abi was disappointed she couldn't see her school or our house.

On the planes' decent - that was when Natalie decided to fall asleep. She crashed hard, face down in the seat. Sleep child, sleep.

My parents and Corey's parents and his sister were all there ready to help us load our baggage and transport the kids home. My little sister had decorated our driveway - so nice for America to welcome us back!

We walked in the door and after ooh-ing and aah-ing about the house and how it felt the same as before (it is the same!) they went straight for the Lego room. This chalk writing on the driveway spoke truth - "Home is where the Legos are!"

As they played, we reminded them that it was late, not just for Utah time - but it's like 2 am in Brazil... Aren't you guys tired? Let's go to bed! I'm glad we have a day to recover tomorrow before the 4th of July festivities.