Making Their Mark

Owen and Daniel wrote in my scriptures recently. It's nothing too horrible yet. No pages have been ripped out so that's good. 

Owen just circled 22 a few times in 1 Nephi and Alma, which was pretty adorable.

Daniel practiced his ABCs in the margins of Micah and Nahum

I really shouldn't leave my scriptures laying around. I need to remember to put them up and away every time I get interrupted, even if I think I'm going to be right back. 

They've also vandalized every month of my academic planner. Not a big deal, cause I'll be getting a new one next July. I can deal with their scribbles until then. But the scriptures, I am going to do my best to keep this one all in one piece and maybe it will out last my babies. Peter has been doing really well sleeping in his room. He wakes up and plays with his trains or looks at a book, aw!

He does great until he sees me. Then he starts nagging for "nana" = "night night" = nurse me and snuggle with me. Here he is asking nicely for nana...

I'll try to just snuggle and kiss him, but then he gets mean cause I'm not giving him nana.

Sorry buddy, I'm trying to cut back. So hard being a baby. I often tell Peter, "You know, when Joseph was your age, he was the man of the house and had a 6 month old baby sister and he wasn't getting nana... you've been a bit spoiled" Joseph and Mel are 11 months apart. Owen got booted out of his "baby" seat too - he and Daniel are just 14 months apart. Peter Peter, what a baby. He really likes cars and if he catches me or anyone at the computer or on our phones, he'll come up and say "car" and we have to show him pictures of cars. Today he and I watched a video of the top 10 crazy conceptions of cars and that was pretty fun. I can see why he likes cars. Some of those are just not practical though, and I would never get them while living in this fallen mortal world. I'll get one in the next life, trusting that it can't get stained or ruined. I'm sure angels and celestial beings move faster without cars

I did a Costco run to SL today, cause that is the only place with ricemilk. I stocked up on that and a lot of other things - I think we're set until we leave for Hawaii, if that ends up really happening!

I was sneaking out and Owen saw me, and he didn't have coat or shoes, but lucky for him there was a jacket in the garage and Natalie left her boots in the car, so yay let's go. We're set until Hawaii and for a few meals after we get back, and I'll probably make one more run right before we got to get things there, or maybe I'll run to Costco in Las Vegas? I don't know. I hope we are actually able to go. We'll see how crazy things get next week with any election fall out.

Owen 22

At the elementary school, in most all of the classes, each child is assigned a number. This is true for Owen in his kindergarten class. (O waiting for the bus on 9/23, they like to stand on the rock when they get to the bus stop. It's part of the waiting for the bus tradition.)

Owen's class number is 22. And he is very proud of his number. Two weeks ago (9/24), I was studying in my General Conference notebook, and thankfully that was a book that was ok for kids to mess up, because when Owen found page 22....

...he wrote his name to officially claim it as his territory. 

He will pick up any book and if he finds a "22" he is so excited! Or if we are reading a chapter 22 or verse 22 during scriptures, he comes up and points at it up on the screen "Mom! It's my 22!" Yep! You're Owen 22! 

I've been getting a real kick out of finding little drawings all over the house with his name and number on them. Owen 22...

Another "Owen 22" name and self portrait.

In case anyone doesn't know, Owen's number is 22. It is more important to him than his last name. It is super fun and cute. 

I think this one was one of his first self portraits.

Here is another one of his first papers - from September 1st. 

He has really been learning so much so fast! They have a little ABC stencil that I bought years ago - from a set of 6 stencils that I bought at a Tupperware party in like 2003 (I know I bought them when we were at the pink house, where we lived from 2000 - 2004) They little boys all work on their ABCs with it - 

And then I got a kick out of Owen doing his ABCs freestyle. That's a big improvement in one month, huh! It's so fun to watch them learn and grow.

Daniel's been drawing a lot too - he found Joseph's spiral school notebook and started drawing in it. Here is another picture he drew in there with Joseph's fire pen of these little cars "having a race". 

I think Peter helped him with the other scribbles on that page, judging by his work here. 

Those were the three papers from Joseph's book that they drew on. I left them in Joseph's book, so he could smile when he finds them, and thus why they are documented here. I love your drawing, Daniel and Peter! So, the kids are busy with drawing and writing lots of stuff. I've been cleaning up a lot of paper. and as I was cleaning up, I also found this treasure! 

 

"Dear Owen perits your son Owen is haveing a hard time cochichrating" ha!! So cute! So funny "Dear Owen's parents. Your son Owen is having a hard time concentrating." haha, I thought that was so funny. This one is a scrapbook keeper. I asked Natalie about it, if that was a note from her to Corey and I? Like maybe she thought Owen was being noisy during scriptures and so she decided to write us a note. But she said it was actually from when she and Owen were playing school, and she wrote it as his pretend teacher to his pretend parent. I got a real kick out of it, so funny!

One other note (for those that actually read my posts and don't just look at the pictures) - so, in August I was like a week overdue for my period, and I was sure I was pregnant, and then I started. I don't know why I was a week late, but I thought that was annoying. I took a few dollar store preg tests in Aug, and they all said neg, but then I still didn't start my period, and I read online that the dollar store ones aren't able to detect small levels of hcg, so they kinda won't work until after a week, but I was sure we were pregnant, the baby was going to be due in April, and then my period started while we were at Bear Lake and I wasn't prepared and I had to go buy stuff. This time, I was supposed to start on Saturday, and on Monday morning, I decided I didn't want to have a week of wondering. So I walked down to Smiths before school to buy an first response pregnancy test. And they were locked up in the pharmacy, which didn't open until 9. Annoying, And Walgreens across the street was closed until 8am. It was 7:30, annoying. Ok fine, so I walked home. When I got home, the elementary girls decided they didn't feel well, so I said ok and they stayed home, which meant I didn't have to stay to get them out the door, so then I drove down to Walgreens (cause it was past 8am now) and I bought a test. Stupid expensive, but atleast I would know. There were two tests, one regular test and one digital. I took the regular one, there was kinda a line, but maybe not, ugh, stupid. After I took the test, I read the instructions and realized I might not have done it right. Not that it's complicated, but the test instructions made it seem like if you don't do it for EXACTLY 5 seconds, you'll mess up the results. So, I took the second one this morning, and followed the rules and times exactly and very carefully and...

So I was like wow! I guess I can give up relax about these last 20 pounds that refuse to budge. I googled a pregnancy calendar and found out the baby would be due June 11, 2021. If I plan for 9 months of pregnancy then a year of nursing... maybe I'll get my body back in June 2022. I decided to tell Corey about it this morning. Are you ready for another joyful burden, my love? I think we both handled the idea of even more responsibility very well. I marked each week in my academic calendar, we decided we'd tell the kids at Christmas, and mulled over other ideas like that, and then after dinner... my period started. 😶 So... apparently that pregnancy test was incorrect. I was a little confused, but ok... I know I have nothing to be sad about - its' not like I haven't already been blessed with twelve babies. Some of my sisters have struggled with infertility, and one is still yearning to be blessed with a child. I pray for them everyday (love you Beka). I have nothing to complain about. Also, it was just a few hours of expectation. I can hardly imagine the heartbreak a mother would have to deliver a still born baby. My Grandma (dad's' mom) had two still births. Mary Williamson's first baby Amy Ann (last pic) died after 3 days, so so sad. So much work and hope and dreams for the child and yourself enjoying a lifetime watching them, and then to lose them so soon after they're life had just begun, I would cry and cry and cry. 

I am crazy old, but I still feel young I guess. It would definitely be high risk with my two conditions of AMA and GMP ("grand multiparity", aka I've given birth more than 5 times), but I still feel like we might have more children for three reasons: 

Reason #1 - Joseph had felt prompted to say children, not "child" when he gave me a blessing. (Start reading after the second video in this blogpost). That blessing was given after Daniel, and before Peter was born. So Peter would be one child born to us after that blessing, but since Joseph had felt prompted to say "children" then there is probably more than just one/Peter? (or two?) 

Reason #2 is because of the answer I got once when I was pondering "how many kids" we were to have. We were watching the movie 17 Miracles, and at the end when they were telling what happened to some of the characters, and they wrote about the girl who died but came back alive, they said that she grew, married, and became a mother to 14 children, and on that part I felt a slight impression that "14" was my answer. I thought that would be a bit crazy, but ok, I'll think about that. I think that happened sometime between Natalie and Owen or right after Owen was born. 10 kids, really Lord? FOUR more?!?! But then along came 

Reason #3, and I searched all over here on the blog and I can't find a time when I share this, but I thought I had... I know I've shared it with several friends, I just assumed I had put it here. Anyway, once on a date night, I remember we went to Nuan's Thai Kitchen... that might have been the Thai food from this date in 2013? Hmm, maybe I need to go look at the photos on the cloud drive, cause I remember I took a photo of the post it... I wonder if I can find that photo... Actually let me go look in my 2013 planner, cause I know I took the post it paper and saved it in my planner.... just a minute... Yeah! Just found it! This was not 2013. this happened on our date night on Friday, January 6, 2017. At this time (Jan 2017) I was a mother to a 3 month old Daniel and a very young Owen, just a year and a half old (they were very close). I was probably feeling a bit stretched and wondering "Ok, are we good, Lord? Is this it for us? Or would you like us to have more?" Wilst I pondered this, we were on date night at Nuan's Thai Kitchen (I didn't need the help of the planner to remember that detail). I hadn't told Corey what I was seeking, but we sat and visited. We ordered food. We sat and talked. Our plates were delivered. We started to eat, and I noticed on the bottom of Corey's plate, on the edge that was close to me as I sat across from him, there was a little post it note sticking out. He didn't seem to notice it. I thought it was out of place, so I took it to remove it. "You've got a paper on your plate..." I said, and I took it, and looked at it, and.... IT SAID "14"!!!! I looked at it, my eyes went wide with surprise, and I was like "oh my gosh!" as I held it up to Corey with a "LOOK!" expression. Then I had to explain to him what I had been wondering all day, and IT SAID 14! 

I don't think I would have thought anything of it, HAD IT NOT BEEN the SAME CRAZY ANSWER/NUMBER that I had received before in the experience of Reason #2. So I thought that was nuts, but it was also second answer/witness that the first crazy answer that I didn't believe might actually be right. Whenever I mention 14 kids to Corey, he teases "Look... just cause "14" is your lucky number...." ...and that is true, because 14 was my soccer jersey number all throughout my AYSO and high school soccer days, and any other time I had to choose a jersey number. BUT, this isn't a lucky number thing, this is just a matter of fact/answer to prayer thing, I think, unless y'all make me doubt myself. But this has been my answer twice, so I don't know, I kinda can't dismiss it now. Some people also counter with "maybe it was just the number of people in your family?" in which case we're good now! Cause Corey + me + 12 kids = 14. BUT I wasn't asking or pondering "how many people should be in our family?" when I prayed. It was "How many kids should we have?" And as my sister said in a fb comment that made me laugh - I had shared a family photo and joked "#toomanykids", and Trice replied with "#nevertoomanyuntillucky14" So, that's that long story about kids and babies and numbers. Owen's number is 22, mine is 14. (I hope Owen's wife is prepared, haha, or that she has her own lucky number!)

Park City Recap

Hey! We got back last night from a fun week in Park City, and it was great. I ended up staying up there the whole week, as did Corey. I think I vowed to myself in 2017 that I wouldn't make myself stay up there if I had babies and/or toddlers (That first picture at that 2017 link gives a clue as to what/who were wearing me out.) I decided that it was better for my sanity to drive up and down several times, rather than trying to spend the night up there with a baby and toddlers. I don't think I've stayed the whole week since 2016.  That year I was in my last trimester with Daniel but I think I stayed the whole time. 2017, I couldn't do it. 2018 I was struggling and tired. Last year 2019 I couldn't hack it and we suggested maybe this could be my annual "me" time to prep for the school year and get the carpets cleaned. Corey is usually coming and going quite a bit, too, as are the kids, like last year when E and W left midweek to hike King's Peak. This year was different though for several reasons -

1) I haven't found any monarch eggs, so I didn't have any caterpillars to tend at home.
2) Corey isn't consulting, so he was able to take the whole week off with vacation time
3) The kids didn't have anything pulling them away, as Corona cancelled most all summer plans
4) Social distancing at the Marriott made it so that this wasn't the typical "kids week" where they are all just running every which way wild and free. The Marriott had "social distancing" things in force, so we had to schedule time at the pool and they couldn't just come and go whenever they wanted. Also the "Mine" was closed and the movie theater. So we did a bit more swimming together, playing card games, and we even went mountain biking this year!

Those were all reasons that I kinda liked it better. It was a bit more structured and family/group oriented and less total "kid" focused. Natalie said at the beginning of the week "This isn't fun like it usually is..." I perked up and said "I like it better!" and Corey teased Natalie "Your mother is only happy if you kids are sad..."

So yea, the stars aligned and we all stayed up there the whole week and it was great. Peter only got his toenail bent back by a door opening on him once. Daniel and Owen escaped quite a bit, but I wasn't as worried about them getting lost since it wasn't as busy with people as it is other years. I even stayed on top of meals, dishes, and laundry! And I didn't feel stressed out. That might also be because I've tried out Gut Connect 365 and it might have stabilized my mood? So ANYWAY, it was a great week, even with sick kids for 4 of the 7 days (4 kids threw up a total of 8 times, and one of Sophi's was a doooosy!)

Here's the recap, and then I'm going to go back in time and post each day under the date it happened on with more pictures.

SUNDAY 7/26 - nice drive up via Guardsman's Pass, we saw lots of moose, dinner at the hotel, sacrament together as a family.

MONDAY 7/27- Owen's Birthday! Swimming, even I got in the pool with the kids.

Joseph flew in from California, arrived at 9pm, I picked up Joseph in Provo then headed back up.
TUESDAY 7/28 - all together again - kid picture!

Lots of swimming, Corey, Mel and W went biking, then I went to get Mel cause she crashed a few minutes into it (her bike was too big)

WEDNESDAY 7/29 - Spongebob, Corey took JMW and Seth biking. H and N sick, both threw up in the AM. Swimming. We made dinner tonight and did an activity - getting everyone's handprints, Kids played 5000 with Grandma.

THURSDAY 7/30 - Abi sick, spent the morning hunched over in pain until she threw up a few times, then she felt better. We watched Spongebob, made a mess with beads, Corey went biking at night with J and W, it's his new favorite sport.

FRIDAY 7/31 - Sophi sick this morning, threw up a little. Group family picture, Corey took MHWA biking on Jenni's trail, then Corey, Mel and I went up the lift to do Jenni's trail again

SATURDAY 8/1 - W and E went biking (It was Ethan's "p-day") Owen was sick this morning, and Sophi threw up twice last night. Lily came to inform me of the amazing mess in their bathroom (S threw up on the closed toilet lid, lasagna and watermelon, it was such a big mess). O threw up, then felt better, ate, then threw up again, repeat. He threw up a total of 4 times. Corey took the bikes home then ran errands in the valley while we went swimming in PC, we left for home around 9pm.

Owen is 5!

Today is Owen's Happy Birthday! Finally! It was a long time waiting for this one, but at last Owen is 5 years old! And he is so excited to be old enough to go to school! He opened one present this morning - an Iron Man action figure.

And Corey's parents gave him some presents of toys and clothes. Then the kids did crafts with grandma and then we made a reservation to go swimming. Their first attempt at social distancing in the pool. I guess we did ok at it? 

Peter and I went swimming today too.

Then I went to the store to buy a cake mix and ice cream. I got Owen some Red Button Animal Cookie ice cream, and he wanted a "red guy" cake. He likes the "red guy" from Star Wars (see the last pictures at that link), that was his favorite toy from Christmas. So a few weeks ago I found some generic non-Lego brand First Order Red Sith Jet Trooper guys on ebay, and I got 20 of these babies and a Darth Vader for $20 bucks, baby!! Oh yeah! And they just came last week! And with that, I was ready to make his dreams come true with a "red guy" cake!

Did your mom deliver? Or did Your Mom DELIVER!

Yeah, he was happy with it.

He was impressed. We invited everyone over to sing to him. Singing Happy Birthday to Owen.

It took him seven tries to get all the candles blown out, funny!

We didn't worry about corona this time, cause we're up here in Summit County, so we're kinda asking for it. Elder Wride came over from his MTC class for some cake and ice cream.

Peter front and center on the table. It was pretty fun for Owen to be able to share his birthday party up at Park City with all his cousins.

Then I practiced violin and brought ODP home with me to grab a few things (we forgot rice milk) and some other things for a little bit and we're waiting here before we to pick up Joseph in Provo. Joseph is arriving at 9:20. We'll leave in a bit to go get him. I brought ODP so that Corey and the kids could do "big kid" stuff without these little guys slowing them down. I was able to bribe them with fries and a frosty

Cute kids. They are simple little people.

It was a good day up there, and I didn't go crazy, I'm packed for and hoping to make it through the whole week.

Early Date Night

We had a very nice feast tonight for date night. Sorry I cut off your face sweetheart.

We love India House. The past few months we've been getting three dishes instead of just two, and today we upped the dining experience again with two orders of Peswhari Naan cause we were hungry and we had the wiggle room in the budget. We had leftovers for breakfast tomorrow if we can keep the teenage boys away from it. We went on a very early date at 5 and we were the first customers of the evening. I guess that makes it a date "evening", not a date night. They hadn't even started the Carnatic ambiance music when we got there. I think we'll go that early again. We also went out "early" as in Thursday instead of Friday, because tomorrow Corey is taking some of the kids backpacking or something like that up in the Uintahs. Should be fun for them. Someday I'll camp, once the baby roommates are all gone, but for now I'm happy to stay at home with them. Speaking of baby roommates, this Jim Gaffigan "Babies are magic" is so great. Skunk smell.... "I miss my baby!" We listened to Gaffigan on drive to the restaurant. I had sent Corey his Ketchup sketch for us to listen to, we also laughed at this one on Kale. I sometimes send him videos for us to listen to together, but usually he's in the mood for something light and humorous. So no Jody Moore today, but I did listen to that one last week on my drive topick him up. He and I need to listen to Jody Moore Successful Parenting together, that was good. Also on the way to eat, we saw a billboard that said "It's time to talk about Alzheimers" so I said repeated that to him outloud, and I started a Neal Barnard Ted talk about Alzheimers (listen to that one too, it's important!) but we only got in a few minutes and then it was back to Gaffigan. This one had us almost crying with laughter - "My dad, always making time for me, squeezing me into his errands, what a guy!" Very funny.

It's been a pretty chill pandemic week for us here at home. I did kinda fix our back deck screen on Wednesday. Tada! It looks better.

I don't think Corey's noticed yet. It's been broken for a long while but we never use that little deck so there was no rush to put it back together. I finally decided to do something about it today cause it was a bit windy last night and it blew it apart more than usual.

I also ran errands today, which felt like my first time for a while cause Corey likes to go. I was gone for a few hours doing that and then we left for our dinner date shortly after I got home. We were out of ricemilk so I went to the Costco downtown and now we're stocked up and should be good for abut 6 weeks maybe! I do like that with rice milk you don't need space in the refrigerator to stock up. Our current meals are: protein shake with raspberries and spinach for breakfast (HWAP all like my shakes) and everyone's enjoying rice and sugar again cause they are all sick of my steel cut oatmeal, so rice it is. We haven't had rice and sugar frequently since Brazil in 2015, so it's bringing back some fond memories for them, funny. Chao

Third Toe Operation

While Ethan was out selling pest control in California, his ingrown toe nail returned. ...for the third time! We naively thought his toe trials were over in Apr 2018, but it came back in Aug 2019 (last pic). So for him to have it come back again is just sad for him. He thinks his toe has a death wish... "Just amputate me!" He was pretty sad to have his toenail look so thin after that second surgery, so it's even thinner now and won't quite match his other foot, but hopefully his future wife will not have high standards regarding toenail shape. Ethan took a video of the surgery, in case any of our future family historians want to go look for that in Ethan's files. He drove himself there to his appointment and back, and was fine most of the day. He started to feel the pain tonight. "Why me?!"

We've all got our trials, Eth. This is just your toe's cross to bear. And here's hoping that it won't come back during the two years of his mission! That might be pushing our luck since he's had it ingrown 3x in the past two years, but hopefully the next two years will be more kind than the past two.

Here's our daily documentary of Peter. The babies get the most documentation here. This morning he was grumpy, as usual. I did get a recording of his sound though! When we all talk to him, this is usually his answer to any of our questions, demonstrated here: "Mn Hm". I wasn't sure if that typing of it would make it clear for future posterity or historians what this sound was, so yay for this recording of our little Peter and his trademark sound. Now we can always remember it.

He get's less grumpy as the morning passes. Here he is playing with his toys, little smile.

Then he made this new facial expression that I hadn't seen him make before -

Peter! What is that face? Are you surprised?

Or perhaps he just had a stroke of genius? That must be what Lily took it for, cause she made this on my phone:

Cute. In other news, Corey's had an interesting day. He came home from work early so he could take Father David up to Park City. Corey booked it for him and offered it so he'd have a place to stay for the week besides the 2 bedroom basement apartment with a Latino family of 5. Corey thought he was giving him a ride up and that they'd have a chance to visit about religion, but when he went to pick him up, Father D said "So I'll follow you?" Turns out he has a car. We didn't know that, I guess we don't know a lot about Catholic priests. But since Iveth and Diego have given him a ride up to SL when he's come, we thought he didn't have one. so anyway, that was kinda a waste of time for Corey, but he was glad he had invited Mel, so they had a nice visit. Corey dropped Mel so she could change the sheets and clean up the room (cause Corey and kids had stayed up there Sunday night). Corey was going to give Father David a little tour of Park City, but like 15 minutes into the drive Father D kinda cut it short by saying he had to hurry back, he still had a lot of prayers to get through tonight. So they went back to the Westgate, luckily Mel finished just in time (the sheets in the dryer hadn't been started, but the hotel brought up a new set for her to put on) Corey and Father D were able to talk a little on that drive around Park City and Corey learned that our neighborhood friend Brian, who likes to take out people's trash and ask for free buttom up shirts (to put on his bike trailer, he likes how they blow in the wind) probably took Father D's coat when Father D was doing laps around the LDS church as he recited some of his prayers. Brian stopped by on his bike ride was taking a bathroom stop by the pavilion and saw the coat and most likely took it. Corey tried to find out if Brian did, but he and his dad say he didn't and that Brian always gets accused of taking things. Father D is absolutely positive it was him and seemed upset. So, that was too bad. And then Corey and Mel started to drive back from Park City after going to eat and laugh at how the evenign didn't go as planned. Then after they got home, Corey checked in with Father D is the room was ok, and Father D was back with Iveth and Diego. He couldn't stay in the Westgate room cause of mold. So, that was a lot of work for nothing. But Corey and the kids can go up there again now, I guess? Kinda funny. It's our version of sitcom television drama.

Another cute moment from tonight - Natalie helping Daniel take a solemn oath, and Daniel played along not knowing what was going on... "I Daniel..." "I Daniel..." "Will not play with Lily's lego dragons" "Will not play with lego dragons" "or Natalie's barbies...." "Or Natalie's barbies" Yeah, he definitely didn't know what he was committing to or else he would not have agreed, since I know he's gonna break that oath pronto, so it was funny.

They administered several oaths to him, He also tried to take the oath as he held his hand at his head in a salute, cute kids. Goodnight.