Grateful for Corey

Last night Corey let us know that he wanted to take us all out to eat for his birthday today. He likes to do that on his birthday. The kids were very excited. Abi wouldn't have been able to go to dinner cause she had to babysit in the evening, so we all went out to lunch. Corey wanted to take them to the Original Pancake House.

We told the kids they were being tested to see if we could take them out to eat at a normal restaurant (aka not a buffet, like the Chuck a Rama feast of 2019). Here, at a normal restaurant, we sit.... and quietly visit.... and patiently wait for our food. The little kids started blowing bubbles in their chocolate milk and were close to not passing their test. 

When they took our order, we weren't really keeping track of who said what and we didn't notice that Sophi ordered two things, and each thing was huge and came with a side of pancakes and eggs, so it was an obscene meal, similar to the Black Bear Diner birthday feast of 2012.

Like enough to feed us for the whole day. Good news is I probably got out of making dinner (not that I do a great job at it anyway lately). Today was Ethan's p-day so he got to call, and Mel got to call again too, cause they get to call us on our birthdays!

I did a little facebook post and shared some of the scrapbook pictures I took on Mother's Day when I was looking through scrapbooks. It was fun to look at all these pictures again. Some of my favorite pictures are of Corey sleeping with our babies. Here with little Lily - 

And during one of the first few meetings with Lily when he was trying to discern her name. "You can't just pick a name like you would for a dog! She already has a name... It has to be revealed!"

If dad's taking a bath, everyone wants to take a bath - He's loving it, can't you tell?

Letting Abi beat up on his face. 

Family pictures December 2006

Corey picked up Joseph from the kindergarten bus stop once in the Darth Vader costume (just one of many of my illogical purchases)

Sledding with Hyrum at Joseph on the small Wyview hill by our student housing apartment.

Taking Melodie on a date to a BYU dance, she was thrilled and was the prettiest girl in the room.

Reading with kids - 

Spring 2005 reading the Bear Snores On - Corey played the bear part very well and little Hyrum was slightly terrified of this book if you can't tell by his concerned expression (they were almost at the part where the bear was going to wake up!) Sometimes Hyrum would hurry and shut the book when they got to the page before that moment, it was really funny. One of our fond memories of little Hyrum.

Taking the kids bowling at the Wilkinson Center.

I'm amazed with how much Corey did then with the kids when he was getting his MBA. He's pretty incredible. Teaching Ethan to ride a bike - using Mel's bike.

Showing Joseph how it is done. Ethan on the trike. 

Corey and Hyrum helping with the dishes.

Taking the kids swimming sometime during a Park City stay. 

Teaching the kids how to make rainbow crepes.

Joseph's turn - mixing the blue batter - 

Inspiring in Ethan a love of music. 

Corey is pretty amazing and I sure love him. See last years birthday post for some fun Corey stories (or this 2012 hilarious one that I mentioned yesterday, so funny). Those capture a bit of his awesomeness in action. I know how incredibly lucky I am to get to share my life with him. I’m so grateful for him and am stoked to be with him for my whole life and for ever and ever after that.

Sweet Little Bird

Today is trash day. I went out the front door to take some garbage out to our bins that were in the street, and as I walked back inside. I noticed a little baby bird on our driveway.

You cute little thing! What are you doing here? He didn't look injured, he just looked like a baby bird who doesn't have long enough feathers to fly yet. I was really glad that Corey hadn't driven over him when he left for work! I first went to hide him in the bushes right in front of our house, but then I thought about where he come from... hmm, it was really windy last night and this morning, he must have been blown from the trees between us and our neighbor, so then I took him over there. ISN'T HE SO CUTE!?

I think he looks a lot like the little red finch babies from 4 years ago. Look at the third picture here - same kind of bird, right? The neighbors behind us and right next to us, where I set this one, both have cats. I think right next door he might be an indoor cat cause I don't see them prowling around in the trees here, so I hope he'll be safe, unlike one of our babies from 2017. I took this cute little guy inside for a second and called to the kids to come see my little friend. No one answered. I hollered and called out names one by one, but nothing. I didn't want to take him inside cause I didn't want the mom to worry or lose track of him, if she was watching. But I want to show the kids. Most of them were still in bed, but Natalie and Owen were playing legos in the basement. I took him upstairs to quickly tell Lily and Sophi. "You guys! Get up and come see this little bird I found!" I showed them the bird in my hands. They came outside with me and wanted to hold him. Sophi holding him here:

Lily holding him. He peed on Lily. It's ok Lil, that just means he loves you the most! 

We put him in the talk grass close to the trees. Last time we had a little lost finch, it's mother was watching and knew his whereabouts, she just was waiting for us to get out of the way. So we all went inside trusting that she'd come take care of him. 

Natalie had a ballet rehearsal today and pictures, so we got her ready with makeup and her hair up in a bun (no easy task with her short hair).We checked on the bird again before she left. Lily and Sophi were already outside watching him and let me know the bird was still there. They picked him up. He peed on Lily again. We petted him and said how cute he was. Daniel wanted a turn.

Daniel, you are being so careful! Good job!

The bird was very calm and super sweet when we passed him around.

I was holding Peter as he slowly reached out his adorable little hand to softly pet the bird's feathers...

We put the bird back and then I took Natalie to her rehearsal. She had to be there at noon. I went to pick her up at 1. We stopped by Walgreens to get some photos for Sophi that she needed for a Father's Day gift that she was making at Activity Days at 2. Natalie asked if we could stop somewhere to buy a treat. This is her I'm-trying-not-to-beg-but-I'm-begging-inside face. She's a pretty girl.

For Natalie, driving in the car seems to mean that Wendy's and a frosty is just a moment away. I told her no treats this time. But then I did let her pick out something at Walgreens. When we arrived back home, we check on the bird and he was gone. I think, hope, and will believe and tell myself that his mom found him and he kinda jumped and flapped his way back under the trees to safety in the shade. I heard lots of birds in there, so yeah, that's what I'm going to tell myself. I'm not going to go crawling around under there looking for him, and I told the kids not to either, cause he's so camouflaged that we'd risk stepping on him. So, that was super fun though to hold the cute little bird. I hope he has a happy life in the bushes and that we see him fluttering through the tree branches someday. And here's a lovely rose from today - I love these roses.

Here's a few more pics of the other roses from today. 

What else from today - Owen and a neighbor made a mess in the backyard, but I'll talk about that in another post. I did laundry today for 90 minutes as I listened to my older sister's divorce court proceedings. I think most of my siblings and my parents watched as we were all texting afterwards. We're all glad that she has good legal counsel and we're praying for her, her ex, and her kids to all be able to move forward with hope and to find happiness. Abi is still having fun at EFY and eating a lot of food, as most of the pictures she send are of her and her friends eating. 

and that's about it. Oh, wait, one more thing, I cancelled my membership in the program with the nutrition coach that I joined (end of this post). I had already locked my card like a week ago thinking that I didn't want to keep paying for this. I joined this without telling Corey, same as when I joined the Sculpted Vegan, and that one was a bigger mistake cause they sent me to collections, but this one it didn't say anything like that, just that if payment wasn't made within two weeks I'd be kicked out, which is what I wanted, but I just thought I'd save us both a little bit of time by being upfront about it. So I sent her an email but never got a reply, and I just thought it would be best manners to be upfront, rather than have them send me a message in two weeks saying "hey, your payment didn't go through" and I'd be like "Yeah, I don't want to be part of your program anymore. That's also why, you might have noticed, why I haven't been doing the work or submitting things..." so I sent her a message and said I'm walking away from here, and she wanted us to process it, and she reminded me that one of the reasons why I joined was to help me stop dabbling in different diets and programs, but in my defense, the idea of being a dabbler was one that she dished out. "There are three kind of people: stressers, dabblers, and achievers. Which one do you think you are?" Well obviously the one you want to be is an achiever, but I wouldn't be here if that is who I was, so I'm one of the two lousy choices, so I said I was a dabbler. But I'd never called myself a dabbler before, so this was her introducing that to me, and I don't agree that you have to keep doing something if after you try it a bit, if you can tell it's not what you're looking for. And I tried doing things she suggested for three weeks but yeah, this isn't want I'm after. She asked why I didn't reach out for help or why I didn't modify it and make it my own, and so we had a bit of back and forth like that, so I feel a little bad, but it's ok. And I told Corey that I do want to join Laura Dixon's program, which has been changed so now it's not crazy expensive ($6000) price tag to have her as a personal coach, but "only" $1000 to join her program and have access to it for life, and it's a money back guarantee: "you either lose the weight or you get your money back." So Corey wants to learn more about that before he signs off on my joining, but I'm giving myself a month, and I'm going to re-listen to her podcast and try and coach myself before I do any emotional eating, but if my weight doesn't budge this next month, I'm signing up. 

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.