Saying Sorry

Abi and I worked hard last week to get her caught up with her math. At the Parent Teacher Conferences, the teacher said they were on chapter 9, but Abi needed to hurry and do 8 if she was going to understand things. And probably chapter 7 too. So... we worked hard for a few hours over several days and we did chapter 7, 8, and 9! Yay, we're caught up! And then she comes home last Wednesday and says they had a math test and she didn't know about it (so I'm assuming that means she probably didn't do great on it...) and I'm frustrated that she doesn't know when the test are coming up. We do a little bit of chapter 10, and I ask her about her math homework and she doesn't know what the homework is either! How are you going to get a decent grade in here if you're not even paying attention in class to know when the tests are, what the assignments ever are, or what is expected?! So I'm frustrated and shaking my head at Abi, and the house is a mess so I'm also frustrated with all the kids in general, and I go to my room to use the bathroom and find Sophia and Daniel in there, using my phone watching youtube. And she needed to practice and do homework and I kinda gave her a death glare and fumed and vented my irritation and disappointment as I took my phone away. She knows I've said many times she is not allowed to take my phone. Some of our kids talk back when we chastise them, but Sophi tends to shrivel under the scorn of correction. I walked away. Later, as I was here at the computer, Sophi brought me a mug she got for Christmas from her teacher, with a note:

I didn't look at it when she gave it, she just set it on my desk and walked away. I looked at it the next day (so this was Thursday last week Feb 27th) and I rightfully feel very sorry. I wrote a note in return and put it with the mug back on her shelf, saying she didn't need to give me her mug, I knew how special it was to her, and that I would work on being more patient and that she is a good girl and a wonderful daughter. She didn't see my note right away either, and saw it yesterday, and then last night gave me this note which made me smile.

"Thanks BFF, with out you I thik I will not even igsis! I will not mene and take your stufe. I know you and I mack a complete family, well I no you do." So that was a sweet note by Sophi. She really is a sensitive little girl. I was feeling frazzled tonight again too, though. Just the usual stress caused by shoes, coats, and backpacks all over the entryway, amplified by O and D being noisy and teasing and broken spaghetti noodles spilled in the kitchen, cause the package was left out by H and found by the little boys. I'm not showing up in my life as a homemaker right now. I need to kick things in gear. I did a little sos polo to my sisters and sisters in law asking for advice. I don't get a good night sleep because of nursing Peter, should I wean him? Am I ready to not have nursing baby? Kinda, I guess. I might need to let this babyhood phase end. I can't nurse him forever, and I can't make him stop growing up. Here are a few pictures of Peter from last Friday.

He was working on his cheesy grin!

I haven't seen him do a cheesy grin before, but it was cute.

Peter, you remind me of little cheesy Lily! Cute little boy

He's cute and I love nursing, but yeah, I'm getting old and need to start getting decent old person sleep. I don't think I've slept through the night in over a year! So understandably I am tired during the day and am not doing work, not that I should be the unpaid help around here, but I'm not following up on the kids, making them help clean up the house. And I don't do a good job making dinner either so yeah, I feel like I'm failing on most levels right now. Everyone is fending for themselves, including me. Poor Corey comes home after a full day of work and does the dishes, sigh. I feel like it's just a mess right now. And I really will try to not let my frustration with the state of the house turn me into a grumpy mom. I should probably read Through His Eyes again and work on being aware the thoughts that are in my Belief Box so that I can keep my emotions in check.

Lily Cheesy Grin and Tamarindo Beach

What a cute little face!! I love those little cheeks.

Ok Joe, let's see your best impersonation of Lily's little grin...


Hmm, his eyes are a little too closed, but let's see if we can find a match...

That one is a good match, no? That was from beach day at Tamarindo that I haven't blogged about yet, from a evening visit last Friday Oct 14th. A few photos of it -


Here Abi was digging a deep hole with her hand in the sand, and Lily joined her, which upset Abi so she moved and started over digging... when all of a sudden a big wave came up and got them in their work. Abi saw it coming and jumped up and high-tailed out of there, not looking where she was going, just getting away from the approaching destructive wave... and she ran right over, rather into Lily, which said little sister got flattened and dunked in the wave, and after we saw that Abi clocked her right in the face with her knee cause Lily got a bloody nose. Poor Lil.

(I wiped it after I got a picture.)

Corey rented a surf board and he went out, then I did, then the kids each had a turn. Ethan is a natural.


Wesley dug in the dirt and made space ships of course...


Melodie made a castle for hermit crabs of course...


Tamarindo is a beach with dirty dirt. The kids were loving it - they'd go get all wet, then hurry over to the dry sand and roll around like a glob of snickerdoodle dough in cinnamon and sugar - getting coated all over. It was funny.

Wesley did it and I laughed when I saw him cause I thought he looked naked.

Lily's Candle

Watching TV in Vina Del Mar in December

Lily has had the least hair of all my children. Abi has so much hair, when people saw her the firs thing out of their mouths was "Look at all that HAIR!" I didn't quite know what to do with myself when Lily was born with what looked like a receeding hairline. We called it a non-advanced hairline. I remember when she was 4 months old I put colored hairspray on her scalp for Halloween and got a good laugh.

So after we arrived in Chile last month, when Lily was almost a year and a half old, I did my first attempt at pulling her hair into an elastic. After seeing Amy's post on Lucy's Pigtails I thought I'd mention it.

You can barely see it, but Lily's got a little flame of hair on the top of her head. Sticking straight up. She looked like a little candle.

I didn't try to do two pigtails, maybe I'll try that tomorrow for fun, but she still has such little hair and it's so thin, I don't know if it would vale la pena.

She only left it in for a little while, then pulled it out. But the hair stayed pretty much straight for another hour. Then just looked weird the rest of the day till I washed her hair to fix it.

Doing her best cheesy grin for the camera.

Yeah, it's gotten longer this last month, so maybe I'll try two! You've inspired me Amy. :)

My Lily Pillow

I love Lily. Toddlers are just cute bundles of exploration and trouble trapped in an irresistible little cheesy grin. Lily left me a present the other day on my pillow.

I had left my pen on my bed with my books and magazines so I can write and underline. Lily was watching tv while I read and nursed Sophia, then I fell asleep and awoke to find this mural on my pillowcase. My Egyptian Cotton pillowcases that I bought in Virginia that remind me of our lovely days in Centreville, I loved it there. We'll go back someday. But I love Lily more than Virginia and more than my pillowcase. Childhood comes with an expiration date. Got to enjoy these kids while they're here.

And I love these little people scribbles she draws.

When I saw the drawing I scolded her, cause we don't want to make a habit out of this, but then I just turned over the pillowcase as if to tuck her toddlerhood away safe under my blanket. I'm sure it will come out when I wash it, but I'm going to put that off for a while. I love these little drawings. And I'm glad for Magic Erasers too, that have cleaned up these little scribble people from walls and tables and window sills.

Hibberts in the Gym

Hello - a silly picture of Katharine to start of this post - doing a normal smile - 

And then trying out her best fake "force it" smile, ha!

That's a pretty good cheesy grin, Katharine! You take after Lily.

My sister Camilla and her significant other Steve, arrived safely last night. I fell asleep before they got here, but I met them this morning after I got back from climbing. Corey was visiting with them over breakfast and I joined in. I actually said hello and gave Camilla a hug before I left to take carpool. She was up, as her body is on Indiana time. It's great to see her, and Steve is very nice. Daniel performed his Lady Liberty song for Steve, and a few others. Another thing that was funny was when Steve met Wes, they shook hands, "Hi, I'm Steve." "Hi, I'm Wes." "Nice to meet you. I'm the adult man that will be using your shower..." that made Wes laugh, and was funny enough to impress a teenager. He came to me after and said "I like Steve, he's cool." They left around 11 to go to Provo, and I stayed home and was in a good cleaning mood and did a really good job, covered a lot of ground - even vacuumed my bedroom! It's always a little more enjoyable to clean when you know that it will last longer than 30 minutes! This is going to last 10 days, since we are leaving tomorrow, yay. I cleaned today - tomorrow we pack, and leave hopefully around 1. 

Camilla and Steve went to visit my parents at 11 and then headed to Provo to go to the Provo City Center Temple. I've never been to that one. Then they walked around BYU a bit, went and got Graigry, then met us at the church, which I had reserved from 5-9 tonight. So that was a fun get together. Bad news - both of Neil's dodge balls had holes, so no gaga ball today. We had a lot of fun playing chair soccer though.

Sophi had two friends come join us and we all had fun. One time I got Neil out, and then he was throwing the ball to try and hit my chair to get me out, but nailed me in the face. So if I have a half purple bruised head in our photos at DC, that's what it's from. Owen tripped once and hit his head hard on the floor. He immediately tried to put on a smile and a brave face but we could tell it hurt and he was fighting back the tears through his smile and Abi and Lily scooped him up with love and hugs. Owen is such a sweet kid. He was so good and patient at sitting when he got out, but I felt bad cause the girl that got him out, one of Sophi's friends, wasn't a hot target to get, so no one got her out for a lot time until I asked Neil to do it. Then Owen was back in. He wants me to tell you that he even got Abi and Lily out! My dad held Katharine and kept her safe from the ball while we played, although she and Peter had a few close calls. We signed up Owen and Daniel both to play spring soccer, and they are really excited!

I didn't think of getting a group pic until after my parents had already left and we were heading out - so it's a hallway shot - 

aaaand selfie mode with me, Lily, Lucy, and Graigry behind us. We love having fun with the Hibberts!

Rocky Mouth

I've been wanting to get up into the mountains for a month. Yesterday I made mental plans to go on a hike with the kids after they got home from school. Then the van battery died on us, boo! Joseph was able to start it after school yesterday but it died when he was picking up carpool at the jr. high. This morning when I took carpool, the van wouldn't start, dead again, ah! Corey gave me a jumpstart an then he took it in this afternoon and got it fixed, yay! So today is the day - I was bound and determined to get us up into that gorgeousness. The kiddos were ready and willing and so we did it! I wasn't sure where to go... Temple Quarry Trail? Brighton? Coyote Trail? I didn't know where we were going, but I turned right and we drove. We were all in awe of the colors near our home. AMAZING!!

We were almost singing "The Hills are Alive" with Julie Andrews. They were calling to us, so I decided to go to a short hike close to home - Rocky Mouth. It's steep and was a bit beyond Owen's level of expertise, but with Abi at my side we all made it up and back down. First things first though... we need a group pic!

And this is what the other side of the phone looks like - me and D! Actually I don't like how I look, so we'll crop that out - Daniel is cute though.

I had him strapped to me and we headed up the stairs -

The mountains were sooo red, it was gorgeous. A short walk through the neighborhood and then we were on the trail.

Pretty view of the valley ~

Up by the "cave". Lily was a fast hiker. Sophi did a pretty good job keeping up with Lily, Natalie did great keeping up with Sophi. And this hike could not have happened without Abi's help. She kept a close eye on Owen. Owen, however, did not want any help at all.

We'd just grab him now and then and let him wail while we tried to hurry up the trail where we could see and call to Lily. 

We finally made it to the waterfall.

I told them to try not to get their shoes wet. All but Lily complied.

Up at the waterfall I took Daniel off and Abi took a turn with him on her back. It was easier than trying to watch Owen, who was fighting hard for his independence.

Daniel was just adorable the whole time. He was dangling and kicking his feet and squealing the whole hike up, thinking it was pretty fun how he just floated up the trail - "Wee! I can fly!" I got Daniel strapped on Abi's back, which I knew would be easier for her than having him on her chest.

He's still happy and giggling! 

And they're ready to go! I had to share three pictures of these two cuties cause they were just so adorable, we love Daniel's cheesy toothy grin!

There were some "easter egg" rocks along the trail, which is something we've never seen before, but was fun for the kids. They brought them home and maybe we'll paint some to take on our hike tomorrow, cause we're getting out every day this week, so help me Mother Nature!

Another Sam's Success

Today I went to Sam's Club again. We didn't really need anything, but I wanted to try the experiment again and see if our date night was a fluke or not.  Abi came with me. The first item of business was the commute there ~ Google maps gave me 3 routes. One route took me through the city by going east - 11 minutes. Another one, the longest route distance wise, had me go up north then around via the freeway, about twice the distance but it said that way was also 11 minutes. Hmm, why is that? A third option was kinda up and at a diagonal and then down. Well, I thought I'd try my luck and go east. But when I got in the car, the gps lady told me the north and around way. I wanted to try east, so I went east anyway. Every "recalculation" told me to make a u-turn or turn north. But I kept going and we were driving around somewhere in the city kinda lost. Abi said I should probably listen to the lady. I told her I will next time. We eventually ended up getting to the freeway and then went down, so we might have kinda driven the 3rd option google gave us. It's okay, I was just experimenting anyway. On the way home, it took me the way I wanted to go there by, but it's a little tricky cause there are a few one way roads, but I think next time I got it... I just need to get over one of the bridge passes before the little river cuts off my access south.

So, anyway, we made it there and got into the store again with no problem. It wasn't busy which surprised me a little. Like really quiet. It will be interesting to go again and see if it's the same amount of not-busy. Sometime I'll go during an evening and we'll see what that is like. I don't want to go on a Saturday though. One trip to the mall on a Saturday taught me that - to avoid crowds, don't go on the weekend. Abi and I took our time seeing what there was to buy. When I was walking down the kitchen isle where knives, bowls, and other kitchen appliances were for sale, it was easy to imagine I was in the US. That was nice. I think I'll be going to Sam's a lot, cause it's nice to play pretend. My life just got 10 times easier. We bought a box of happiness, just for fun (it's chocolates from Germany). And then we loaded up on too much junk food, including some Cheetos, Pringles, cookies, sugar cereal, and more chocolates. Then I thought we should try to be a little healthy, so we headed to the produce section. Got some cherry tomatoes - not the same bulk size, but we can live with that. And we also got (drum roll...) avocados! The big ones that Brazil sells! I've been looking for them but they weren't at Walmart, so I'm excited for those to ripen up, it's gonna be good. We also found the frozen section and got some frozen broccoli, just like we always bought at Costco. Plus a big double liter thing of strawberry ice cream. We checked out without a problem, even though I'm not totally sure on over half of the things the cashier said to me. Pay with debit visa, check, and tada! We're done! Yay!!! Good job Abi!

We got home and ate Pringles and the Cheetos, the kids said they looked like "Cheesy Dibbles" that the Penguins of Madagascar like.

What else - other than the trip to Sam's, it was a normal day for us here. The kids did music and read, I did laundry and swept. Here is where my washing machine is. It's outside. Outside in the maid alley, I can see it from the kitchen sink and door.

It's a good thing it's outside, cause the sink it drains into has clogged and flooded over a few times, At home in the US, that would be a big deal, but no worries here, cause it's outside and it all just trickles to the rain drain. It gets clogged cause of lint, cause it's a washer and dryer in one machine. Do they even sell machines like that in the US? We had one like this in Chile, but someone told me to not use the dryer cause it uses too much power and it will cost too much. I couldn't figure it out when we were there anyway, but I did figure out how to wash. So I hung the clothes out to dry in Chile, but am trying the dryer this time. Works pretty well. It makes cute little musical sounds, which I think is a nice touch.

It took me a few times doing it before I figured out the right buttons to push. I don't think I rinsed the clothes on the first two loads I did. If I do the heated water, wash, rinse, spin, and dry, it's about a 5 hour process. If I take off the heated water, it takes it down to 4 hours. And I think it dries it for a bit longer than it needs to, Sometimes I'll come check it when it still has an hour and they are already dry (and scalding hot).

And this is our little Natalie going out the front (south) door to explore the yard. She likes to walk around barefoot. 

The kids try to warn her "That's not American grass!" but to no avail. She's a brave soul.

Luckily the fire ants have only gotten her once. Wesley was our toddler here in 2007 and the fire ants had it out for him. So far, Hyrum and Wesley have both gotten bit once, and Lily got bit yesterday as she was warming up on the deck by the pool. There are lots of different kinds of ants here, but the little black ones that look like normal US ants... those are the ones to look out for. On Lily's bite, you couldn't see anything but they burn like a bee sting. Lily asked me why Jesus made fire ants. I didn't have an answer. I put some lavender oil on it and it stung for a little while. And then Abi got a cut on her knee from Hyrum pushing her in the pool, and that injury had blood, so it was worse according to the kids standard (just a little scratch). Lily was able to sympathize with Abi's scratch blood more than her bite, cause it looked normal. So didn't hear any more about it. And thus we come to the end of a pretty typical day here in Campinas.