Katharine is 4!

Today is Katharine's birthday!! 

She has been looking forward to this for a long time! She's been patiently waiting and asking for weeks "How come birthdays take sooo long?!?!" It's finally here! Abi was gone in Brazil last year on Katharine's birthday, so she wanted to make this one extra special. Abi stayed up last night making cupcakes and decorating the hotel room. We had to get up early to make it down to church on time, so we woke Katharine up by singing to her (little video here). 

She came out of her room and saw the pink streamers that Abi had set up - 

And gifts on the table. I brought up the gift bags and tissue paper. I got her a few dresses ~

Corey took this pic of her opening gifts while we looked on.

It was mostly dresses from us and one Little People toy of Moana and Maui

Abi got her a princess crown and jewelry and a Rapunzel doll. 

Time to choose the dress of the day - So many choices!

And Elsa is the winner!

Happy birthday Princess Katharine! Yes, I let her wear the crown to church. We sang to her again - 

And the kids all ate pink cupcakes for breakfast. 

Katharine played for a minute while the rest of us got ready to head home.

Everyone else's Sunday clothes were back at home. We went home (oh, I broke Corey's drivers side rear view mirror as I pulled out his car from the parking garage. I didn't see the cement pole and it bent the mirror the wrong way and it shattered, doh! Corey said his car is begging for repairs - new AC, cracked windshield, broken window wipers, now this...)

I'm kicking myself that I wasn't paying attention and didn't check my left side. I might have been distracted making sure I didn't touch the car on my right, but it was a dumb mistake. We left at 8, got home by 9, and everyone got dressed for church. At church her friends in the Primary sang to her again. After church, my mom and dad came over to bring Katharine some presents. 

Happy Birthday to Grandma Hibbert too!

Back up at Park City - we went for a family stroll. It's fun being at the Summit Watch and having the city walkways and the Poison creek 50 feet from our hotel door.

Corey and I went on a walk and I loved looking in the Mountain Trails art gallery - love love loved it. Melodie and Christian and Ethan Bella and Alvie came up for the night to celebrate Katharine's birthday with us. 

Natalie made some brownies so we had brownies and ice cream for dessert tonight. Lots of sugary treats for this SWEET little girl!! 

Katharine we love you so much! 

We've had four wonderful years with this angel. A few Katharine memories: 

• Her birth day
• Blowing raspberries
• Starting to walk 2023
• Learning to ski 2024
• She likes roller coasters

She's just adorable. Love her so much, happy birthday to our beautiful princess Katharine!

Little Twins

After the boys left for school, Scarlett came over to play - look at these cute little twins!

They played so sweetly and I got lots of stuff done. 

I have stayed up muy late to make a kinder bueno necklace for Abi for graduation tomorrow. I just gave it to her. She's still awake, curling her hair. She's taking carpool for me in the morning for one last time and then she heads up to the Huntsman center for graduation. I don't think that I'll see her until after she walks, so yeah I decided to give it to her now. This is the first time I've done something thoughtful for any of my graduates. (Sorry Joseph Mel Ethan Hyrum and Wesley!) Without JeNeal here, I have to be the thoughtful one! I'm trying to do better, thus this attempt. Eventhough it's so late, I want to do a quick outline of today - 

Today is day 3 of my first annual summer reset water fast. I enjoy not taking time to eat cause I am very productive in other areas. Today I worked hard in the basement and garage. I moved the skis from the basement to the garage, moved art/photo frames, donated stuff Kid 2 Kid and the DI, and ran to Walmart to get stuff for Katharine‘s birthday and Abi‘s graduation. Katharine came with me. On the way home I stopped by Macey's to get ice cream and I didn't ask for a bite this time. She ate it while I was at Home Depot, looking at rosebushes. They had some that I liked, like Canyon Rose, but not the pink and yellow ones I love, which I think are called the Peace Rose (and National Peace Rose Day is April 29, the day after my birthday! Yep, these are my roses. I shall keep looking at nurseries or I'll order some online. I'm going to plant lots of these roses on the east side of our house, yay. 

So Day 3 of a water fast is done and I'm feeling really good and in the zone. For exercise I just went on a walk this morning. Had a meeting at 7pm tonight at my parent's house. We Utah siblings are going to go out to breakfast on Saturday morning with my folks for Mom's birthday (on Sunday, but we'll be in Park City). I'm going to let Katharine come too. 

Wes and Owen came back from Idaho today. I picked them up from the frontrunner train. Owen had fun. At scriptures tonight they shared with us more photos of their big event last night ~

They assured us that it was sick (aka super cool). The teenage girls aren't so sure they know what cool is, haha. The "event" was the unveiling and final piece placement ceremony of the Lego Venator Class Republic Attack Cruiser. 

They were handing out this invitations to everyone and anyone, like even the person at the copy place that printed the invites for them. They said they had 40 people there. 

I joined by zoom, along with Abi and her friends, we couldn't hear well and didn't really get what was going on...

Tonight Wes shared the time lapse video with us that they showed last night. And then they had Owen place the final piece to a round of applause. Now it is proudly displayed in the front room of Apartment 109. 

Ok, goodnight, graduation at 10am tomorrow and last day of school for the boys. 

Ready for Bulk Clean Up

The bulk clean up was supposed to come today, but it didn't, so we worked this evening bagging more needles and getting up as much as we could. 

Sadly I did not have Wes here to help. Corey, Sophi and Natalie came through for me. We got a lot put out there! Tonight we worked more. 

The little boys weren't much help - they kept getting distracted by the sports balls and/or the snails and rollie pollies

(Daniel's was BLUE!)

So I was chopping down Chinese elms this evening with my new axe that I got yesterday yay... 

Corey snapped that pic of me in my new happy place as he took the kids swimming. It's a lot of work! (They said the pool was very crowded.) I got a few cleared out from the playground area in the back yard and started to haul them into the front yard. I started grabbing other loose branches from here and there, and that is when I discovered my "would have been blooming so beautifully so soon" rose bushes that Wesley cut out on May 12th, exactly two weeks ago. 

All dried up, dead, their beautiful potential - gone. Such strong branches but there's no life in them. I was mourning them all over again as I drug them out one by one to the street. SOO SAD and pointless!!! Ahhh, I wish I could go back in time. 

When Katharine woke up this morning she straight away asked me if she could go to Bella's house, cause last night at Alvie's party she asked if she could, and I said something to the effect of "not today, but later you can" and this morning was "later" so she wanted to go to Bella's. I said I didn't have a car. She was sad and started to whine that she really wants to go to Bella's! I send her a text asking if we could do a facetime today and that appeased Katharine to do a call. Then I thought I'd text the same thing to Eliza. She and Joseph were on our mind because today Joseph took his big deal Step 1 test. I was at the temple in the celestial room praying for him when he was just beginning it (5:30 am Utah time, 7:30 Ohio). Yesterday we chatted with Joseph, he said his test started at 7 and was like a 7 hour test, woo! So today it was time for us to really try and consecrate our prayers. So I texted Eliza to see if Mary was available, and she had just woken up from a nap, yay so Katharine was able to talk to Mary. "Awww! Mary is so cute!" 

I haven't been very happy with my sourdough lately - it's been too flat. I "researched" on youtube for a bit. This one lady said to get like 2 Tbsp of starter and then do a 1:5:5 ratio of flour and water, wait for that to activate, and then make your bread from that. Lily and I usually feed our starter after we make bread, so this would be a new approach. Hmmm, I think I'll try it. I'm still figuring it out.

I did have a ok loaf that I gave to a lady that Kathy and I went to visit for Relief Society today. We stayed there for 2 hours yaking it up! It was fun. We talked about everything under the sun, including fasting. The lady we visited, Kim, gave me some LMNT Electrolytes and said she takes them when she fasts, and that a 7 day fast every year will guarantee you don't die from cancer (according to one guy she listens to). I hadn't eaten yet that day, and so with the electrolytes she gave me in hand, I decided I'd start now. So I did a water fast all day today and it's been a good day!

Owen is playing legos up in Idaho and having fun

They are building a big lego set and watching star wars and playing star wars battlefront.

Last sad news: Natalie's phone is broken again. She got it repaired on May 8th after months of not having it, and it lived for a little over 2 weeks. Somehow she needs to learn to be more careful with it. It had cracks all over the screen again. We paid half last time, I don't know if we're giving her that deal again. 

Alvie is One!!

Little Alvie is one year old! 

Bella threw the cutest party this evening for Alvin! I'm sure Ethan helped with some stuff for it, but we think it was mostly Bella, and it was adorable. She sent out invitations saying "Our Fungi is turning 1!" and had a little gnome mushroom theme. So cute. It was at Rock Canyon Park - 

She made adorable little mushroom cupcakes with strawberries for the top and marshmallows for the stem.

Natalie: "How come I've never had a cute party like this?!?!" You have my blessing to make it happen for yourself! And I am willing to make a small contribution financially towards your event. There was a little wind at the beginning of the evening - 

but it soon passed and the weather and temp were perfect. They had pizza, I brought some sourdough, there were cookies, pasta salad, the cupcakes and other treats. Katharine is excited to have some goodies.

After dinner, Alvie had his celebratory birthday cake! He carefully ate the raspberries on top...

He cautiously let himself get more sticky and messy. Yum, creamy frosting.

There was a good turnout - Alvie has a lot of friends!

People were playing spike ball and frisbee down on the grass. Alvie opened gifts. 

The spiderman car that Peter gave him seemed to be his favorite! Good job Peter, you win the best gift!

We took some pics with the birthday boy and Wayne - 

His little aunt and uncles played with him.

Wayne drove to our house and then got a ride down with us. It was great to be there. We love you Alvin! And know you are so blessed to have the wonderful mother and father that you have. 

At home before the party, we did a bit of chopping with a new axe that I got. 

We're gonna start clearing out these rogue plants and create some order in the yard. Owen had fun with the college boys today. They went to Yellowstone. Seth, Wes, Hyrum and Owen. 

And some friends that came with them. 

The shadows on Owen's face did something weird in this picture haha

Hyrum practicing posing for an outdoor magazine.

It was really sweet of Hyrum and Wes to invite Owen up and treat him to a good time. Owen is missing the last few days of 5th grade and of elementary school, but this might be more memorable for him. Owen wasn't sure he wanted to go when Wes told him about it, but Hyrum called and was able to talk him into it. So far it sounds like Owen is glad with the decision he made.