New Desk

Since Corey came home last night, I had a van this morning, so I hurried over to my sisters house to get the desk and toy kitchen. We barely were able to get it in the van. We tied the back hood down with a rope and I drove slowly on the way home.

On my way back, Iveth texted to see if I could help her - she wanted to attend a Latino summit today. She resigned herself last night to not being able to attend - it was too long for her to get a sitter. But then she woke up this morning with a "there is a way" attitude. I had mentioned last night that Lily had babysat for a neighbor so she asked if Lily could watch them from 2pm - 10pm. I said yes, and said she could watch them at our house. Lily is 10 but she seems about as big as Iveth's oldest, so I couldn't really see her being in charge of them over there. So they were going to come here, but when I mentioned it to Lily, Lily reminded me that she was going to an art festival with her friend from 3-9. So yeah, scratch that, I would just watch them. So I was with a houseful of even more little kids again today!

One exciting thing - before Iveth's kids came, I went outside and could smell MAJOR SKUNK. Turns out our next door neighbor had a mother skunk in her front window well, and a baby in her back window well!! She had a friend (who she said was a bit crazy and was willing to risk getting sprayed) come and get them out. Here's the momma skunk.

And the mother did spray him. I wonder how many babies she started out with. I was sorry we were the ones responsible for one of her babies being permanently gone. I hope that she only had the two and only one died, rather than having like 5 and maybe 4 of them have died so far! Animals have it kinda rough. Our baby birds a year ago had a 50% mortality. I saw a dead baby deer on the side of the road close to our house, sad. I've since told the deer in my heart that it's okay if they eat my roses, cause I'm lucky to not be dealing with the loss of my child.

And that's about it. Kids are here until 10, and when Diego comes to pick them up I'm going to ask him real quick if he can help me bring the desk inside - Corey needed the van again so we had to get it out, but he was in a hurry working and to leave, and the desk was so heavy, I said we could work on it getting it inside later. So it's still outside but I think with Diego's help we'll be able to atleast get it inside. Then I'm going to move it into Melodie's room and I'll take their small table/desk for my room!

Not Forgotten

Remembering and thinking of Shannon today. She was awesome, miss her, she passed away 4 years ago.

Today was a good day. Hyrum was playing really cute with Natalie this evening. He got her to play with her "baby"! I was very excited, I guess her baby has a hold on my heart too, cause it reminds me of her. But with our real baby Owen, and with all the toys here at home, this little leopard has been kinda forgotten since we got back from Brazil. So I was really happy to see her playing with it -

Hyrum got her to play a game with all her leopard family and their babies. The toy shopping cart was their family car.

And she doesn't like us to call the blue leopard "baby" anymore - the blue one is the daddy, the pink the mommy, I don't know about the grey one - I think Hyrum's called it the big sister, and then 3 babies.

Riding in Hello Kitty's van - I love cross play!

Hyrum also brought up a toy house that is now for the Beanie Boos. He is such a good brother to all his little sisters and Owen too. He's great. If you want a good babysitter, you got one in Hyrum.  

Birthday Love

Today is my happy birthday. 🎂 The first thing I did for my birthday was have Wes babysit while I went to lift weights for an hour at the Cottonwood Heights Rec Center. There were beautiful flowers in bloom by the north entrance to the Rec Center. Those were one of the thousand of gifts that God gave me (along with breath, another day of life, etc)

Lovely! I'll limit my pics here to two, but to see one more of this and many other glorious flowers, go to my nature blog.

I enjoy this annual opportunity to impose upon my kids as I play the "birthday card". So it was nice to have a guilt free hour to myself to exercise (except that he wasn't getting homework done, so it was almost guilt free) and then I took Corey up on us going out to lunch too (Wes was my sitter for that one, too, thanks Wes!). We went to Blue Lemon and I got the Mediterranean salad and the something with pecan salad, they were both good. On my way back after lunch, this mama duck and her babies were crossing a busy 5 lane road close to Corey's work. I'm glad that they were safe! Although I did still feel sad remembering the mama duck and ducklings crossing the freeway years ago. A car in front of me slowed down and had their lights on and then we all stopped behind them as we waited for the ducks to cross. Then I turned around to go get a picture of them. So cute.

She didn't like it when I came up to the wall that she was by, so then she left across the grass to get away and keep her babies safe from me. Cute little ducklings. 

Something super fun that I'll count as a birthday present, is that Joseph and Hyrum were able to see both Ethan and Melodie today on their drive across the country. It was a several hour detour for them, but they went to Litchfield, Illinois and had a late breakfast with Ethan...

My little boys all grown up!

Then up to Michigan to see Melodie!

So fun!!! That was a treat for me to observe from a distance - my kids all growing up and being friends and enjoying each other's company (which civility obviously wasn't always the case). Ethan continued his missionary p-day, Joseph and Hyrum continued their drive, and we talked over video messenger.  

(Peter is cute). My mom brought by a cake and some cookies and we sang happy birthday to me - 

Making a wish - 

Kids enjoying cake - 

I didn't get any ice cream, cause I don't want ice cream in the house. 

They did clean the house a little bit today. It was not as much as I got last year, when I had everyone here at my mercy in covid quarantine lockdown, but that's ok.

My siblings had a nice birthday treat for me that I think we are going to turn into a tradition... (Can you tell which one is me?)

We are so cute: Camilla, Tiff, & Neil. On Marco Polo they all shared some of their favorite Tiff memories and it was really fun. Then I looked through old scrapbooks and shared some stuff with them too. Neil, Jersh with the curly hair, and baby Patrice.

Melodie sent me a letter for my birthday, with lovely floral artwork on the outside, and a nice letter, a fall leaf, and a cute little painting inside of Corey and I on our wedding day. I put the painting on my window shelf of love and marriage memorabilia - 

And her Indiana leaf if the big one there in front of Jesus. 

Mel and I both love all things red and in nature! So it was a nice day and a good birthday. 

Pigs on the Farm

Yesterday when we took Shirley home, there were lots of little pigs running around. Ethan wanted to see them, but they are too quick and ran away. But over in the covered garage was a pen of 5 brand spanking new little squealers. Ethan petted them, and wanted to go back today. He told the other kids about it too, so this morning we had one over the seat belt capacity level in the car and Mel, Ethan, Hyrum, and Lily came with me to pick up Shirley. There were 7 more pigs in the litter, total of 12 piglets. Ethan and Mel each held the pigs.

Hyrum didn't want to, that's okay. He was calm. Photographed with the piglets from a distance.

I think the big pig and her grunting sounds freaked him out the most, it freaked me out too...

Lily was making her own new sounds as she talked to the piglets, it made us all laugh. Lily petting a pig.



Twelve baby pigs - that's a big litter. They also have chickens, cows, a horse and foal, a dog with 3 puppies (I thought they looked super skinny, :( poor little things)


Wes and Abi did very well waiting for their turn to see the pigs when we took Shirley home at 2:00. Here they are:




Joe didn't want to hold one, but consented to pet one so I could have a complete set of kid Pig pictures.


I'm glad I'm not a big pig. She was huge, big fat head and chin with little itty bitty eyes. Not attractive at all, just like a big living hot dog. Seems like they were created to provide meat. The babies were cute, but not cuddly at all. Mostly I thought they were funny to look at, silly little things.



So these babies are all born yesterday, but there are a bunch of other little squealing litters running around their farm, (some hiding under a truck) and another pig twice as big as this mother that is going to deliver soon. They grow them and sell some for money and keep some for meat. "Son tontos" Shirley said as we drove down her street and they just kept walking right toward us, not worried to get out of the way of the car. Silly piggies. She said her daughter Michelle doesn't have toys or time to play with toys cause there is so much to do with the animals. All my kids wish they lived there. Would you ever like to live on a farm? Part of it seem charming to me, I'm sure reality would teach me there's a lot more to it than charm, if we ever did live on a farm.

Natalie's Baby

This little Beanie Boo Leopard became Natalie's "baby" during our time in Brazil.

I think that forever after, whenever I see it, it will remind me of when my baby Natalie was a sweet little toddler in Brazil.

She always had it close by. Or if she didn't, all we'd have to do it look at her with an "oh no!" expression on our face and say "Where's baby!??" And she'd make an oh no expression too and say "Baby!" and we'd hurry and go find it. Then she'd laugh and grab it and give it a hug and a kiss. She often had us give it a kiss after getting her out of bed in the mornings. She kept her baby close by during our trip home and didn't misplace it once. As we walked through the Campinas airport~

...both times as we boarded the planes~ she was ever the dutiful mother.

Her baby was in desperate need of a bath in Brazil, but I thought I'd hold off until after the trip home, since I was sure she would get plenty dirty on the way.

 Giving her baby a hug as we go through customs in Florida ~

Now we're home, and on our recovery day last Thursday, I snuck baby away and she took a bath. Luckily we've got a clothes dryer now and thus I was able to wash and dry her without her being missed too much by Natalie. Now Natalie has lots of babies to keep her busy. Here she is with Lily's new Beanie Boo dog - Whiskers -

And on Friday last week the kids seriously went through all the bins of their long lost toys (it was like Christmas morning!) and they got out the big Disney Princess dolls- those are "babies" for Natalie now too. She'll hold them and hug them (and carry them by the hair) and give them kisses as she says "So cute!"

I love this little girl. I've had little girls for so long, I'm wondering if I'll remember what to do with a boy baby. When he comes in a few weeks, I'm sure Natalie will be a good mother to him too.

Quick Swim

We're doing a little bit of running back and forth from Park City this week. We came home yesterday morning at 8:20 to get ready for church and to say happy birthday to Joseph. We didn't go back up to PC last night cause we had the usual carpool and school routine this morning, but Corey and Wesley headed up there after lunch cause it makes a nice quiet place to work. At home I tried to do a little bit of lesson preparation, but I had a little monkey on my back. 

Well, mostly on the back of my chair but he was climbing on me a little bit. 

He's a cute character. I took these pics to share with our missionaries of what scripture study looks like at home. 

Corey let me know the lines out the window were very short. Sigh - wish we were out there!

At 3:00 I called the pediatrics office and they told us that Daniel's covid test results were negative, so that is good and a surprise too. My sister Jersh here in Sandy has tested positive after her husband and some of her kids. My bro Neil in Layton has a son who tested positive too, neighbors are positive, it's kinda crazy lots of people have it. It's super hard to get test appointments, some people are waiting 4 hours. People are isolating and lots of the kids classmates are absent at school. Seems like a good time to just take a break and isolate up here (and go skiing!). After the kids got home from school, we did a virtual lesson for violin cause their teacher has covid. And lucky me, I had a swim night at Park City as my bribe with Lily and Abi to get them to practice right away, and they did so willingly. I had them do a few other things and we were on our way to Park City at 6:50. At school Abi got a robot baby that she has to take care of for 24 hours. The proud mother~

It made it hard for her to go swimming, cause no one could babysit her doll and help her out. She had to wear this bracelet for verification so the baby wouldn't turn off it's crying unless SHE was there helping it. It was kinda funny. Funny at first, but then she was annoyed. It's probably going to wake her up tonight for her to "feed" it. I let her know that real babies are so much better, and she knows that by experience too. We didn't keep the baby in it's carseat the whole time during the drive up, cause it started crying and needed her to change it's diaper. She changed it in the front passenger seat! That's not safe for taking care of babies! So there are a few glitches to the monitoring/programming in the doll that would allow that at 70 mph. Soon we were up and swimming at Park City - the kids had fun in the cold pool.

It's too cold for me but they loved it and practically had the pool to themselves. 

The smart people were in the hot tubs. 

So after swimming was done, we read scriptures then helped kids get ready to head home. Corey took them home and I am staying up here with Daniel and Peter! I've still got my alarms set and I'll be calling them to wake them up. Wes is going to take Lily to jazz band and Corey will take carpool for me and get the rest of the kids off to school. Abi fixing her baby's diaper before they drive home. 

Her siblings were interested in the baby and seemed to think it was a fun game. We'll probably go back to SL tomorrow around 3 to help out as kids get back home from school. I'm going to get these two little boys to bed now, ciao.