Happy Free Candy Day!

Today is the sacred kid holiday of holidays as you know, and the kids were up early preparing their costumes for the parade and goofy day at school. And speaking of candy, Melodie made this tootsie roll costume for herself out of a poster. She's so creative and resourceful. Thank you Melodie.

And of course I mentioned previously that she helped Wesley make his costume...

She rolled her eyes at Joseph who spent 3 minutes on his costume this morning by going through the dress up clothes and finding sunglasses and a "cat hat" to make his costume of a "cool cat".

Which I informed him is actually a bear hat. He thought that made it even more funny.

Abi is a little Jasmine Princess/Genie lady. Ethan wanted to be the Awkward Avoidance Viking, but couldn't find all the parts to that costume that he wanted, so instead he's a guy with a mafia hat and a 3 Musketeers mustache.

He ignored my suggestion to just be a mafia guy or to be a Pancho Villa guy, and that's ok. He wears his "I don't know what I am" costume with confidence and that's all that matters.

Hyrum is the "Lobster Bisque" guy. Hope you all have fun tonight and that it's not too cold!

A Story of False Identity and Young Love

Yesterday Ethan got on the computer and pretended to be me and he had the following Skype conversation with his father:

Tiffanie Wride: Hey hottie (I never say hottie)
Corey Wride: Hi there. I haven't left quite yet
Tiffanie Wride: Okey. Ethan's been great today, helping me out, I really appreciated it. (followed by a little ninja emocion)
Corey Wride: Ethan, is that you?
Tiffanie Wride: No, hottie, it's your sweet wife
Corey Wride: did Ethan tell you to say that? Tell me something only my wife would know
Tiffanie Wride: I'm having a 10th child. and Ethan's been good today
Corey Wride: really?
Tiffanie Wride: really what
Corey Wride:  you said "I'm having a 10th child"
Tiffanie Wride: I don't know. No, i'm thinking about it. kidding. (disco dancing emocion) But take Ethan to the Halloween store today
Corey Wride: hm...I think this is Ethan
Corey Wride: my wife wouldn't use emocions, which means Ethan is using the computer without permission which means, he will be punished
Tiffanie Wride: I had permission!!!!
Corey Wride: to pretend to be your mother?
Tiffanie Wride: Actually I was kidding. No!!!!!!!!!!!
Corey Wride: you're too clever....too clever to be subtle
Tiffanie Wride: I was logging off when I saw this!!!!!!!!!!

Corey decides to speak Spanish to make it harder for Ethan to pretend he's me

Corey Wride: si tu realmente fuera tu madre, hablaria de forma diferente. pero como no te sabes comportar se que fue un chico
Tiffanie Wride: Mi amor, no intiende
Tiffanie Wride: One seconed my love, I'll go translate, I mean, hi
Tiffanie Wride: oxoxa

Ethan now tries a different approach. He re-starts impersonating me by pretending to kick himself off, and then this smart boy goes and looks up previous conversations Corey and I have had so he can use proper sayings of mine to not give himself away...

Tiffanie Wride: I kicked Ethan off, That kid's sneaky. have you left yet? xoxo
Corey Wride: just about. I bet Eth was laughing a lot
Tiffanie Wride: He is in the other room telling the kids about it

At this point Ethan accidentally clicks "call" and the video chat reveals to Corey that there is a young boy sitting at the computer and smiling mischievously. Corey snaps a screen shot to use as evidence. haha!

*** Call to Corey Wride, duration 01:07. ***
Tiffanie Wride: Ethan's a hottie. WOW that kids cool
Corey Wride: you want your mother calling you a hottie? thats sick

So that was the end of their conversation. After that, Corey called me to tell me to kick Ethan off the computer, which I did, and Corey started to plan how to get Ethan back. After he got home, he got on Ethan's school email and was trying to do some sneaky trick, but because of restrictions on the email he wasn't able to send Ethan the email he wanted. Then, lo and behold, Corey sees that Ethan's friend Mary is online. (Ethan really really "like" likes Mary, btw) He sends her an IM asking her to help him get Ethan back. Corey writes an email and sends it to Mary and she agrees to send it in a message to Ethan. The email said something like:

"I heard that you got on your mother's skype and pretended to be her. I can't believe you did that! Honesty is very important to me and I don't want anything to do with you if you act like that, goodbye" 

- something to that effect. Corey assumed Ethan would read it later that night and they could have a laugh about it and then it would be Ethan's turn to prank, but then.... Ethan fell asleep early and before checking his email or reading the message from Corey via Mary. As we went to bed, Corey told me the little game they were playing and how he got him back and to make sure Ethan checked his email in the morning. So this morning, Ethan was ready to leave for Jazz band, I say, "just sec, let me check my email" and then he says "Ooh, can I check my email?" and I say yes and give him like 5 minutes to do it. Then we get in the car. As I drive him to school, I ask "So... did you get any email from Mary?" He looks at me with a "you silly mother, you" confident smile and says "I always get email from Mary!" I didn't want to pry too much to mess up their game of one-upping each other, so Ethan didn't reveal anything to me and I just assumed he read the email joke and was playing it cool with me.

Then... later today, Ethan had to stay after school when I pick him up, he gets in the car and informs me that Dad played a joke on him (his eyes start to tear up) and that Dad got Mary to go in on it with him (crying now) and that basically his life could be over. I told him that I knew about the email and that I thought he read it in the morning and didn't he know it was just a joke and was really from dad? He said he knew that it was from Dad now, but he thought it really was from Mary and he just replied "Ok" to her after he first read it and then he left class use the bathroom but really it was so he could go cry in the bathroom stall. He had class with her after 3rd period and said he couldn't look at her, his heart was so broken. Oh, poor Eth was so sad, although c'mon buddy, the fact that she was talking about how he used his mother's skype should have been a major give away, right? Like how on earth would she possibly know that?

So we had a bit of drama this evening as Corey did some damage control via several phone calls and tried to mend poor Ethan's heart. He told Ethan lots of stories of all the stupid things he did that could have ruined our young relationship and how I always just gave him the benefit of the doubt, like when I was on my mission and Corey kissed a girl and sent me a tape telling me about it (my mission companions thought I was going to get dear Jane-d) and I just said "you're cool - we're not engaged, and I hope we get married, but you're free to date and I just love you" and that's basically when it was over for Corey, he knew he couldn't do anything to make me mad at him and I won his heart forever. Yay! So Ethan, don't blame Mary, she just did it cause Dad asked her to. Plus, if you're going to have a successful marriage with this young lady, you guys will have to be able to overcome greater trials of miss communication and misunderstandings than this, so chin up, this will give you experience and someday you and your wife will laugh about this memory of your young love.

Anyway, not sure if that story makes sense at all, but had to document it here, just incase it turns out to be the first test in Ethan's relationship with his future wife. All is well now. By the way, Mary is in Melodie's ballet school, and at Mel's spring recital Ethan came to watch it NOT to support his sister, mind you, but to see Mary. And he sat by me and begged me to try and take some pictures of her (got one at the bottom of this post) ...and no, I don't condone stalking. They are just friends, and as I told Ethan today, he has no claim on her or any girl until he proposes to her, and he's not allowed to do that for about 10 more years, so, yeah, but it's okay to be head over heels for someone. And I think she really is a lovely girl and I've told her mother that Ethan is smitten with her. Ethan's not shy about his love either... he's rather confident actually, kinda funny. (...no pressure Mary...) But who am I to tell Ethan there's no way he knows now who he is going to marry? Cause when I met a certain young man in 7th grade, I started signing my journal entries "Tiffanie Wride" every now and then, so sometimes we youngster really do know!

Busy

Another day come and gone, and nothing to show for it. Well, I probably have something to show for it... let's see if I can remember anything I did today out of the ordinary.

• The garbage can is full of pine needles cause I decided to rake them after they seemed to be raining on the back lawn with the hard wind that has been blowing today.
• I had a meeting with some of my old high school buddies as we plan our 20 year reunion. Crazy.
• I painted Sophi's finger nails - clear glitter
• We made a little Halloween treat after dinner, Chocolate pretzels with candy corn.
• I washed clothes this morning. Didn't dry them yet.
• I'd type more (with one hand) but this baby would like my full attention now. 

Lego Ninja Warrior

This week Joseph finished making Lego Ninja Warrior Stage 3, featuring Brian Arnold. See the real thing here, it was amazing, such difficult obstacles and he does such an amazing job, wow.

Here we go, "will history be made tonight?"

 "As an accomplished rock climber, this stage 3 is suited to his strengths..."

Makes a great first transition from the Roulette Cylinder to the Door Knobs -

"Next is the Floating Boards - no one tonight has made it through... Wow! He did it! The only athlete tonight to finish the floating boards"

"And now he is on hallowed ground. Last year Brent Stephensen was the first and only competitor to complete the Ultimate Cliff Hanger..."

 "What?!?! Brian Arnold flying through! As strong of a performance as we've ever seen!"

"Brian Arnold besting the Ultimate Cliff  Hanger!"

"Let's see what he can do with the Ropes..."

"And now he's on his home turf here, this is where Brent Stephensen fell last year. This is incredible - inverted rock climbing, reverse hand holds - And history has been made! You can see the crowd errupting!"

"Look at this! The crowd is going nuts! This is the Spider Flip, he can rest right now but when he gets to the other side, it's all about grip strength and he's done it! One obstacle away from Stage 4!"

"On now to the Flying Bar - it's all about being precise with his swing, it's the horizontal version of the salmon ladder with four landing platforms 12 inches wide spaced 5 feet apart - this is something that no rock climber has ever attempted before..."

"He'll have to make a total of 4 leaps to complete this obstacle... He's done the first one!"

"He can smell the victory now!"

"OH!" Then he fell on the 3rd platform, so sad.

But still the best performance ever, we are excited to see Brian there next year, and next time, this is how it's going to end, with Brian hitting the buzzer!

Bad Ultrasound

Natalie had her hip ultrasound thing yesterday after wearing her harness for the past 4 weeks. If things looked good then she'd be set free. But she didn't pass. Her left hip was still under 50% in the hip socket and whatever angle they measured was still below 60 degrees, so we didn't get any high fives from the doctor and she has to wear her harness atleast for another 4 weeks. Blast. Only difference is that for these 4 weeks she can have up to 6 hours of a break instead of just 4. But I hardly did even the 4 hours, I just left it on her all the time and would let her kick around after diaper changes & baths.

So I was speaking to her last night about her results and tried to make sure that she understood that she did not pass her test, in fact she got a very low grade, she got a D, which is less than average and she was, therefore, in big trouble. I am going to have to tell your father about this...

And Natalie, you know your father's punishments, right?

He'll probably start off with the bend you in half and squish your cheeks with your feet.

Followed by eating your little neck to bits. And a few bites of your chubby tummy.

After enduring her tickle torture session, I trust that she will work hard to see that her score improves by her next doctor visit. I really hate going to the doctor's office. I didn't see the doctor until 90 minutes after our appointment. It was not busy at all, 2 people before me and I was there on time for my appointment at 10, didn't see him until 11:30. Yes, an hour and a half late (see :55). I was getting a little flustered. This is not Valley Forge though, so we shall keep our chins up. I listened to a great devotional address today by Ramona Hopkins titled "Finding the Meaning in Adversity" that helped me gain some perspective, after listening to the first 5 minutes of that I knew that I have nothing to complain about. We are blessed and I love these beautiful children, thank you Lord.

Lego Man

While the kids were getting creative with paints over the weekend, Wesley got an idea that he wants to be a lego for Halloween. With Melodie helping him, they made a lego head out of a cardboard box, tape, hot glue, and spray paint. They made cardboard lego hands for it, too. Everyone wanted a turn trying it on. Sophi was afraid of whoever had it on. Ethan wanted to see if he could practice his saxophone with it ~

Funny Ethan. Saxophones work, yay for the boys. Not the flute, too bad for Mel.

Pretty funny. Part of me wanted/wants to get the kids some better supplies and help them make it look more realistic, but at the same time, if Wes is happy with it how it is, why make more work for myself. We can always take it up a step next year. Thus we see the reason why the younger siblings always get things that are a step up in quality from that which their older siblings enjoyed. They get the good ideas rolling and we try to perfect it for the next generation. We'll try to help so they can make a cylinder head next time. But they did great on their own, good job Wes and Mel!

Kid Art: Take 1

So, Aelita inspired me to want to let the kids create beautiful and meaningful art for our home.

So, without any real preparation, I told the kids they could make a piece of abstract art for their room together. I showed them some Jackson Pollock to let them know what I was invisioning as the type of thing they could create. How hard could it be, right? Pick your canvas color and go!

So far so good - they each chose a color and a brush to use. But Lily chose a big brush and started to just cover the whole thing. No, this isn't fill in the blank, ok, give me your brush. How 'bout you make a handprint! That would be fun and meaningful, right?

Ok, they just smeared that all together too. Hmm, I verily believe Aelita probably has some natural talent, cause apparently my kids can't do that

Mel tried to fix it by bringing in some white again to provide some contrast to their now slime green canvas. She tried a circle pattern with a cup I had provided, I took away all brushes and make Abi and Lily use a glowstick and wood stick, try to use some other objects to see if they can make anything that seems pretty.

No luck. I make Abi and Lily stop and leave, you're done, go wash your hands.

Sophia was the most conservative of all the painters. She seemed reverent about it and she and Melodie tried to redeem the girl's first attempt at a combined work of free "express yourself" art.

Basically it's just ugly. Fail. Ok, we're gaining some experience here. Maybe the girls were a little too young. Let's see how the group of boys who are older do.

Black canvas, ok, good choice good choice. They each choose a paint brush and color.

Ready, set, create!

 Atta boy, atta boy!

 Like it okay so far, pretty colors, nice contrast to the black behind.

 Joseph and Hyrum had the big brushes and the wet paint was getting all smeared together again.

It ended up looking pretty much like the girls, so age difference doesn't seem to make a difference in the final result. Maybe it was cause they all painted at the same time and we should let them go one at a time?

We're just experimenting here, trial and error. Below is the beginning of take 2. I'm hopeful we'll be able to figure out a way to make this kid art idea work, until then we'll probably have a few more weeks of rookie mistakes. :) (Another new Studio C tonight!)