To Help My Kids Listen to Conference

My mom called this week and shared this idea for helping to get the kids to pay attention during General Conference. We're going to have a picture of the First Presidency and the 12 Apostles and each one has a food that goes with them. For example -


President Monson = 7up cause of the counsel he gave to Elder Cook to "look up" in this talk
President Eyring = O'Henry bar since his first name is Henry
President Uchtdorf = Soup - Wikipedia says his grandmother joined the church because of her meeting a member of the church in a soup line in Germany during WWII

And so it continues like this:


President Packer - Milk - from a story in Teach Ye Diligently (retold here)where his son was trying to force feed a kitten milk, you can't force people to learn, you just got to teach diligently. (got chocolate milk)
Elder Perry - Pears
Elder Nelson - Chinese Noodles or something chinese, from when he learned Mandarin Chinese because of President Kimball's advice. (at the very end of this article)
Elder Oaks - Pineapple - he was chairman of the Board of Directors over the Polynesian Culture Center in Hawaii - (got pineapple juice)
Elder Ballard - Lemonade - cause he was a car dealer and tried to sell the Ford Edsel, but it was a lemon :) (got lemonheads instead)
Elder Scott - Grapes from this talk (got grape juice)
Elder Hales - He's from New York, so gonna try to find New York cheesecake - (got New York Cheesecake Icecream, that works. I think we'll also make a subway sandwich.)
Elder Holland - Twinkies from this talk
Elder Bednar - Pickles from this talk (doh! I forgot the pickles!! blast! maybe I have some peach jam...)
Elder Cook - Cookies, cause his last name is Cook
Elder Christofferson - Homemade Bread from this talk
Elder Anderson - Black Licorice for Sid Going from the New Zealand All Blacks in this talk (got black jelly beans)

Spring Break

Wes is all ready for winter to be over and for fun and imagination playing games in the backyard.

Wednesdays are my big busy days - if I can survive past Wednesday, then I get to coast into the weekend, AND since this weekend is the beginning of spring break, I get to keep on coasting until Corey comes home on the Monday after Spring Break, so this is all good.

Spring Break plans:

This weekend of course is General Conference, which I LOVE more than I can say. General Conference comes twice a year, every spring and fall, usually the first weekend in April and October. Last conference, this talk about TIME was what I most needed to hear, loved it. But all of it was all good and wonderful. Joseph is especially excited that he gets to go to Priesthood Session for his very first time ever. His uncle is picking him up since Corey's gone and they're heading down to the Conference Center and then dinner a the Lion House afterwards... It's a Hibbert tradition.

After Conference on Saturday and Sunday, going over to my sisters for a little Hibbert post-Conference get together. That will be fun!

And then next week, I plan on sleeping in every morning (I think I'm getting a cold), exercising after I do get up, holding my children captive until they help me clean the house a little, then there will be a lot of this by the little kids....

Below is a pic of cookies that Abi and her friends made in the backyard (older picture, my camera is still missing, gonna go nuts if I don't find it pronto, I feel like I'm loosing my mind)

And the older kids will be playing basketball I'm sure, and I also plan on getting them to help me paint the kitchen table. My very first DIY project! ...and I can't even take a picture to memorialize the occasion. Tragic.

Eragon Legos

Ethan just finished reading the book Eragon last night. As he's been reading the book the past few weeks, he takes a break to go play Eragon Legos with Hyrum. I took these pics a few weeks ago, my camera is still missing, I'm going a little crazy like when I couldn't find my blender... Anyway, Ethan and Hyrum have made all the dragons from the books:

Here's Eragon on his dragon Saphira above,

Ethan doesn't know this one above, says it doesn't come in until the 3rd book...

The red dragon is Thorn, he doesn't know the rider, says they're just making up stuff. Ok, Eth, you're no help. I'll get Joe back here to tell me these if he remembers from when he read the books.

Green dragon is... "um... I don't know" says Ethan again. Oh well. So we don't know their names, but the legos were pretty creative I thought! Good job, boys.

A Heart Like His

This is copied from my spirit/book blog, but thought I'd share it here too ~


This book is so wonderful, I can't recommend it enough. If you are seeking help in becoming more Christ-like, you must read this book, it is full of amazing, beautiful, and simple examples. I felt like I was reading so many of my own thoughts and feelings that I hadn't know how or had time to put into words.

Like on page 34 ~

"I am blessed, personally, beyond measure, and yet oddly enough, I, too, struggle to feel His love for me every day. When I stack my obstacles against others' they seem too frivolous to be authentic. And yet, this mortal existence is designed by a genius, so that we will all, no matter our circumstances or parentage or gifts, have to exercise our agency to come to Him. And so though my problems may seem small to an outsider, they are big enough for me to desperately need Him."

Oooh I loooved that!!!! Like think of the children of Israel at the edge of the Red Sea loosing hope and doubting, but that's where they had to get to before they decided it was out of their control and they should trust in God. And even then they forgot that lesson and wandered 40 years in the wilderness. Do we have to hit rock bottom before we turn to the Lord? Or are our small problems enough for us that they let us know how desperately we need Him? I hope I can continue to learn from my small problems, but if he gives me big problems, I shall remember my Savior and his suffering and it will help me to be submissive to God's will. I can also look to my heros and heavenly examples of Shannon and Stephanie to encourage me to endure it well. I know God loves me, so it must be a blessing, to help me learn and help me BECOME who he wants me to become. Yay!!

Another wonderful quote from page 38 - Virginia Pearce shares how her husband is a butterfly collector...

"We have museum drawers full of outrageously unnecessary beauty. It is beauty that causes you to wonder how your vocabulary could be so small and woefully inadequate. ... When I want to fill my heart with His love, I open my eyes to the creations of His hand, especially the ones that seem outrageously and uselessly beautiful--sunsets, sunrises, ice crystals, the way a baby laughs before she can do useful things such as talking and walking..."

I feel like the home we are renting right now is so beautiful, right on the end of a quiet street with big beautiful pine tress in our back yard, a vacant lot next to us full of trees that give cool shade and sound like the ocean waves when the wind blows, it's over the top how beautiful it all looks and sounds and smells and feels. Our ward, our neighbors (I'm always in awe that my family and I are so lucky to know and rub shoulders with an apostle of the Lord!!!) the wonderful friends here that are so kind to us, it is simply heaven on earth. I feel like it is kind of not fair and unnecessary for God to have blessed me so much with so many things, some are things that I desired but so many others are like presents and surprises, things that I didn't even know I wanted but I just love and enjoy, it's seriously over-the-top blessings and I wonder "Why me?"

(Like awesome siblings and an amazingly wonderful husband)

I also agree with Virginia that besides the things that make me feel most in awe of God's goodness are when I am still ... when I pause, and forget my busy to do list and projects in progress and just sit and behold the world around me - which world for me right now mostly involves my little ones, Sophia, Lily, Abi, any adn all of my kids...


...when I am still and see them and behold them for who they are - when I try to see the world through their eyes, it just fills my heart ~ I hope it will continue to help my heart become more like His - full of joy and fullness, I love it. I love my kids. They are what God gave me time for. It's all about family, people, relationships, that is what earth life is all about.

Ultimate G

I don't care too much for the name "Kirby", so I am hereby going to refer to my vacuum as "The Ultimate G", or maybe "Di" since it is the "Diamond Edition". I have been vacuuming all morning, and my stairs look great! So let me just say that ~

"it - is - AAAWESOOOOOME!" (5:23-5:28)

Cleaning Tip - Get one. Or schedule a day to borrow mine, you will love it and your carpets will thank you!!!

The Ultimate G

It's midnight here, but thought I'd check in. I might not be back tomorrow cause I am going to vacuum vacuum vacuum ALL DAY!! I'm soooo excited! If I wasn't officially a mother yet I am now cause I get excited about vacuums. Going to see if this Kirby really is the miracle worker I think it will be.


Here's a pic I found online of my new toy - a Kirby Ultimate G. Woot! Sorry I can't take before and after pics of my carpet for ya, cause, you may have heard, my camera is MIA. Maybe the St. Patty's Day leprechauns came and visited our house again and took it...

Random Thoughts

Corey's off to Chile again. He'll be gone two weeks, I think this is his 5th trip down since we all came back from Chile last May. We shall try to keep busy so that the time passes quickly, shouldn't be too hard cause it's always busy here. I know Corey will be busy down there, they are doing another pilot at Santo Tomas, good luck sweetie!

Still can't find my camera. I'm a little perplexed. Two possibilities that I see - Lily found it and has put it somewhere. Or maybe the Abi's friends that were here for preschool last week found it? The last picture uploaded to my computer was from last Monday the 19th. Hmmm, where could it be?!?! It's bugging me.

Tonight I'm going up to Layton to look at a refurbished Kirby Vacuum. I've been a supporter of Dyson for the past few years, but our Dyson is over 10 years old and we need a new one. I almost bought myself a new one for Christmas but decided to hold off. Then came the Kirby salesman to our door in January. Our carpets need to be washed, and the Kirby Sentria he was showing off comes with a shampoo attachment! It looked really good, but no way we're paying $2000 bucks, sorry. I did some googling to see if it really was better than the Dyson and looks like it is, hands down. And what do you know, Ksl classifieds has lots of Kirbys - new ones, old ones, yay!

So I'm going to look at a Kirby in Layton tonight, and since I'm going up that way, I'm going to go visit my little bro and his lovely wife and cute kids. Neil is such a trooper, he rides the bus to work, so we're going to go pick him up and have a nice chat on the drive there. They even offered dinner, thanks Amy. I plan on trying to learn a little more again from Amy on how to be a good homemaker. It was Corey's departing wish, that there can always be food around to keep the "wolves at bay". Gonna figure it out before he gets back (knock on wood).

And I'm going to paint our kitchen table and benches and chairs black. :) I consider this my official and first furniture DIY!

Beautiful Smells of Home

My neighbor Amy has the most lovely smelling home. I went over there in January when she was headed to the hospital to have her baby. I basked in the smell of her home for a few hours until her mother in law came. Later when I went over to see her new precious bundle, I asked her what her secret was. I thought I had found it by her kitchen sink but couldn't find Arugula when I googled it - then she told me to look at the online store: Archipelago. ...and there in is her first secret which I now share with you:

Secret #1
Archipelago Arugula

I ordered this in January, but then I went over to her house last week and said "AH! I'm still missing something!! What else are you using?!?! Talk!" and then she said "Oh! Yes, I also use this... Is this what you are smelling?" And it was ~ mmmm! Fresh Balsam!! She gave me a little candle of it that I keep her by my computer. The amazing combination of these two amazing scents shall soon be filling my home -

Secret #2
Fresh Balsam by Slatkin & Co
I just ordered these wallflowers today, so we'll see when they come if I've finally got the smell of home I've been searching for! It is lovely!!!!

Happy Birthday Eth

It's Ethan's birthday and I didn't get a picture cause I can't find my camera. That's what I get for trying to organize. You know how when you're clearing stuff out it always looks worse before it looks better? I'm at the "worse" part right now, and my camera is lost somewhere in the mess. Oh well.

(A pic I took of Eth doing math on my computer at my messy desk when it was bad and before it got worse and before the camera went missing...)

But I did make him an amazing triple layer cookie/oreo/brownie cake, it was a hit, (thanks Jillian). Ethan is a big Oreo fan, I think he gets that from his Grandpa Wayne.

Ethan has started to homeschool - he begged and pleaded and proved himself worthy to his father, and he is going to finish out the 4th grade at home. I really like Khan Academy for math, and he's ripping up the soprano sax, and reads up a storm all day, so it's good. And since he is home I took him to Chuck A Rama today for a b-day lunch. He liked it. He's a good kid. Love you Eth, Happy 10th!

Busy Toes

She's not a little sleepy baby anymore, not too snugly or cuddly, cause she's a little busy body wiggle worm that is trying to figure out how to work every last muscle and digit of her body, as her toes will attest:




Fidgety-fidgety, wiggle-wiggle! She just can't hold still.

Saturday - Yard Work

I've wanted to do this for a long time, and finally did it on Saturday - we all went out and worked in the yard!!! Kids - it's time to go rake Pine needles!

Pros of having lots of pine trees in your back yard:
Shade, beauty, privacy

Con of having pine trees in your back yard:
Pine needles

The kids only complained for the first 30 minutes, then they started to do a lot better when they'd look up from their work and say "Wow, this looks so much better! I like to work!" We all voted and decided to try to work on the yard every Saturday for 3 hours. If we all work together and work quickly, we are hoping we can stay on top of it.

Staion 1: Sweeping off the Patio
Two people at Station 2: Raking up the pine needles
(Lily wasn't very effective at this station, but working is about getting the job done AND teaching the kids to participate, so Lily gets to participate even if she scatters the piles and puts pine needles back on the grass)

Station 3: Collecting Piles and taking them to the Pine Needles Pile (happy that we found another way to use snow shovels during the spring and summertime!)

Station 4: Pine Needle Pile Shoveler - Station 2 raked the needles onto the dirt, and Station 4 Hyrum pulled the piles over to the master pile. I was so happy, cause I thought "This is GREAT!! I don't need a farm to teach my kids work by shoveling hay cause we've got pine needles galore that they can shovel!" So with a pitch fork we had station 4 assigned to Hyrum.

Station 5: Pinecone picker upper girl Abi

Station 6: Cheerleader Sophia

Sophi's 'stache

Here's some more goofing around we did Sunday night ~


No... Eth, you hold the glasses, Joe you hold her hands, Mel hold the mustache... I'll take the picture... nope, try again...

Hold still Sophi!

and in this picture above she's thinkin' "Will you people just leave me alone? sheesh!"

Yay! Lol! That one is cute!!! Do it again! (snap, snap, taking pictures of the baby x 100)

Just Another Night

A frequent occurrence at our house - Sunday night it once again took us over an hour to finally read scriptures. It started when I asked Melodie to clean up Abi's Barbie toys off the floor in the girl's room so the boys could have a toy free place to sit. She almost finished, but she is a creative creature, and thus got distracted and soon we were all laughing at her latest creation, a hand puppet named Sally -

Sally's hair is made from one of the little barbie girl dolls which Melodie shoved up her sleeve - very funny.

Then, of course, you gotta make her a boyfriend - meet Sam

He's a surfer.

So one day Sally was at the beach, laying out and working on her tan. Sam came along as was immediately attracted to this beach bathing beauty and said "Hey..." (Melodie said that a deep voice as she had her finger strut walk Sam over to Sally, I was laughing so hard, the way fingers walk was pretty feminine, so it was really funny to see her macho man walking)

And they got married and had kids - Hyrum's hand puppet was their daughter (didn't catch her name)

Joseph made a bully (he had some cuts on his hand, so it seemed appropriate...)


Lily doesn't know what we're doing but follows along anyway:
THEN, who would have know, but Sally and Sam and all the hand people were actually aliens posing as humans!! They were all really octopus looking things (a-la Galaxy Quest aliens)


Took a long time to get everyone semi-focused again for scripture, but it eventually happened, and I said goodnight and went to put Sophia to bed. I came out a half hour later to try and get the boys to bed cause I could hear them being loud and laughing pretty hard and noisily - here is what I saw:


Apparently Lily was invading Wesley's bunk bed as Nacho Libre and was talking tough, it made me laugh too. These silly kids! It is fun (when I have the Spirit with me and thus patience. If I'm not in a good place then I tend to freak out and/or pull my hair out.)

Lily, now dressed as Nacho Vader, looking down at Joseph and speaking very scarily to him in her little toddler voice "Joooo-sef! JoOOo SEFFFF!" - and poor Ethan on the bottom bunk trying to sleep.

Wax Museum

The 3rd grade at our elementary is really fun for the kids. They all look forward to the 3rd grade play and the wax museum. Last Friday was the Wax Museum for Hyrum. He was Abraham Lincoln. He started off this exciting day with a healthy breakfast - cold cereal.

"Hi, I'm Abraham Lincoln, and I'd like to say Honey Bunches is part of my nutritious breakfast."

The Wax Museum was at 9:30. I went to the school cafeteria to the museum.
They had the statues organized by year, so Abe was near the front. I came to Hyrum and accidentally said "hi!" to him. He did not reply, but stared at me blankly like this:


Oh, that's right, you're a statue. So, since we were both there staring at each other, I thought I'd take a few more pictures.

Then, lo and behold, an announcer says "if you could all remain where you are in line, we'd like to give our statues a quick break to stretch..." and a huge sigh of relief goes up from the kids, along with pained expressions from having to hold still for so long:

"Ooh! My achin' back!"

He talked to me for a second, which was nice, and then it was time to freeze again and let a glazed expression gloss over his face...


It was cute. On Sunday, he wanted to wear his Lincoln paper bow tie to church. When I saw him come in, I told him he couldn't wear a paper tie, it looks like play dress up, and we don't wear play clothes to church, we gotta wear real clothes. He was quite upset, but then I offered he could wear Corey's bow tie. This is the bow tie that Corey wore on our first date when we were Sophomores in High School - Hyrum was a little skeptical of wearing a fancy looking red paisley fabric print tie, but gained some confidence after Corey and I were a little giddy at how stinkin' cute he looked:


I thought he looked so dapper!

Doesn't he look like a professor or something? Hyrum was 1 year old when he got his glasses, and his nickname at that time became "The Professor." Yesterday we were reminded of his nickname and called him "Professor" all day. Hyrum felt pretty cool when Corey said "That's what you look like - Indiana Jones when he's dressed up as a professor!" Hyrum is now sold on paisley bow-ties. I better go find some for him so this sentimental heirloom one doesn't get destroyed by kids. For they do or eventually will destroy 97% of the things they come in contact with.