Hobbling Hyrum

Last night the kids were playing Cop in the Dark or something like that - where one person is the police and they have a flashlight, and they all go hide in the dark (all lights have to be off, sounds safe huh!) and the police guy tries to find them and if he does he puts them in jail. Something like that. So Hyrum is chasing Ethan or something and rams his toe into a bookshelf. Yes, this is the same Hyrum who fractured his wrist two weeks ago - now he's running around in the dark playing tag. So he hurt his foot bad, but kept playing for some stupid reason and then rammed it into the bookshelf again, and then he couldn't walk. Go to bed, we'll see how it feels in the morning.

So this morning he was limping around like he broke it. I'm not taking you to the ER again. It's his toe, not his ankle or whole foot, but I found an old boot that Ethan used in his Urgent Care trip years ago when he fell off a playground thing at recess. I helped Hyrum put on the boot and gave him the crutches. "Stay off your foot for 2 weeks" was my Dr. Mom advice. I've got carpool with Corey gone, so I take them, he went into school looking ridiculous and we all laughed about it. His siblings helped carry his big ol' saxophone case. And our school week begins. Then he calls me at 9:00 and says he feels sick and would like to come home. No, you're not sick, we've just had a little stomach flu bug going around our house, take a bathroom break when you need one, you'll be fine. Go to class, toughen it out. He called again in a half hour. He hadn't gone to class. I told him to go to class, call in an hour, if he still felt sick in an hour I'll have Joseph come pick him up during his lunch break and take him to Grandmas and you can rest there until school is out. Then the counselor, knowing Hyrum wasn't having luck with me, asked to talk to me. She said she had kept him there in the office cause when he called me last time he did look pretty pale. "So you think he looks sick?" "We'll, I'm not a nurse, but you can see in his eyes that he doesn't feel good..." Well, Hyrum is pretty good at making pathetic looking eyes. Okay, fine, I'll come get him. I'm there at 10:15 and he hobbles out. He does look pretty pathetic. I was thinking he mostly just didn't want to be hobbling around the school with a arm splint and crutches.

"Yes, I was in a horrible car accident..."

He took a nap, watched a library dvd with his little sisters, I think he could have toughened it out but whatever. After getting home he did decide that the crutches are a big pain so he ditched them and has just been using the boot. We'll see if we make it through the rest of the week unscathed.

Museum Outing

Today the elementary kids didn't have school. I didn't take them on an outing like we had tried to plan, cause Owen had been a stinker and I was a bit exhausted. But after the older kids got home, I had been able to recover slightly, and then when Owen fell asleep we had our chance to escape. I left him home with Mel and Ethan and took the rest of the crew to Thanksgiving Point. What do you think of the dinosaur museum, Natalie?

She wasn't sure what was going on. The apron I put on her was a wee bit wet, which wasn't to her liking. I thought the water table would be where they'd like to spend their time so we went straight there, but the museum appears to be running low on sand and plastic dinosaurs and it wasn't that fun for them. Okay, fine, so we quickly moved on.

Their favorite part was the cute baby dinosaur. Awww, everyone cuddle up to the adorable baby!

Natalie, don't climb on the displays.

We planned for only a quick hour there, cause I wanted to be back before the jazz boys had to leave for the Peaks Festival. We ended up staying an extra 30 minutes but it was okay. They had fun. I'm going to try to use our membership more often. We only have to go two times to get our money's worth out of the membership, but it really is a cool place. I'm hoping to go to the garden once a week (very optimistic) once it warms up. Definitely for the tulip festival, and hopefully on other lovely days too, to enjoy the lovely gardens.

Vai Para O Brasil

Yesterday morning I got a text from Corey. "I need to go to Brazil." And this morning I got home from the morning carpool just in time to kiss him off. So kinda a last minute thing. He'll be gone until next Saturday. When Corey's gone, dinners are a bit more relaxed. We don't set the table and I don't dish the meal it into nice plates. We'll just dish it from the pot off the stove and eat at the counter. I usually end up relaxing a bit more, even though in my heart of hearts I wish I could actually stay up all night and get all the things done that I wish I could get done during the day. Cause with him gone there is even less of a chance of me getting things done during the day or evening. So, we'll see if I accomplish any of those things. I should make a to do list. I am enjoying reading a really good book though!...

There are many theories as to where people of the Book of Mormon lived. Heartland Theory, Mesoamerica theory (a few different version of that one), Baja California theory, Malay Theory... I, personally, have been of the Peru theory ever since I read George Potter's book "Nephi in the Promised Land" 4 years ago. This now, with this book by Del DowDell I'm even more convinced - it gives just a ton  of incredibly detailed and researched and footnoted information, it is awesome. I've been reading it every chance I get, so interesting. He has 3 other volumes that I wasn't interested in at first cause I thought it would be just about disproving other theories to people that lean in that direction, which I'm not anxious to do. But now that I'm about 1/4th into this one, and I'm interested in knowing how the people of ancient Mesoamerica tie into the picture and am pretty sure what that is what Volume 2 adressess. So, yeah, Volume 2 should be in the mail soon.

Two fun things: Did you know that there is evidence that the Amazon basin was underwater until very recently (recently for earth time) and there are references to lots of studies that propose that when the Andes were pushed up, the Amazon basin was pushed up to. Even now, after it's initial drop from the Andes, the Amazon river just travels 300 vertical feet over it's almost 7000 mile course, compared to the Mississippi which travels 1475 feet down in elevation during it's 2320 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. And so, before the Andes were pushed up, the Andean Plateau was an island:

And that fits very nicely with the Book of Mormon teachings where they say a couple of times that they are upon an island and an isle of the sea. DowDell has a blog that I've followed for years (here's a post of him explaining some of the Brazil underwater evidence, plus highlands in Guiana and Brazil), and I recently read this about what cureloms and cumoms mentioned in Ether 9:19 might be - part 1, part 2, and part 3. I thought that was cool stuff too, so interesting, I'm excited for the next life, when we will have all the truth available for us to know and understand any question we have. Until then, we'll keep studying and searching for more information and doing the best we can, it's fun

Sleepy Heads

After Ethan got home from school yesterday, he went right upstairs and got the baby, who was napping, out of his crib and they took a nap in my bed.

Pretty cute. Those little crossed ankles ❤

And here are Lily and Sophi this morning. Lily, Sophi is sitting on your head!

Crafty Mel

Today Melodie brought home a little penguin dish that she made in pottery at school. I thought it was really cute. 

She is such a crafty girl. She asked for Sculpy clay for her birthday, and luckily Costco had a really great deal on a big set of it, so that's what she got. She's been so creative with that too - here are some earrings she made recently~

She has other earrings that she's made that Abi was wearing today - each earring was a leaf with a little lady bug. I think she's got a future Etsy store in the making. Cute, creative, crafty Mel.

Hide and Seek

At 9:50 last night, the kids asked if they could please pretty please do just one more game of hide and seek. I had interrupted their fun for family prayer and scriptures. Now that that was finally out of the way, they could get back to what is really important. So, fine, yes, it's late, but you've got 10 minutes for ONE more game. Well, when they play hide and seek, the poor person that's it ends up having to count to like 300 cause everytime they call out "whoever's not ready holler ay!" and we've got 2 or 3 people ay-ing. Sigh, they're never gonna finish! I finally intervened and said "Wes is coming, if you're not ready, too bad!" and the hunt was on. He found several kids very quickly. but Hyrum and Mel had him searching a long time. He eventually found Hyrum, and now just Mel. But, oh - Mel! She's a sneaky one. We've spent many a hide and seek game looking and looking and looking for her. Around 10:15 (so much for 10 minutes!) I helped and we went through the house room by room and turned off the lights when we knew she was not in there. We cleared the main floor and I slowly corralled them up to their rooms. Not in Hyrum and Wesley's room, not in the master bathroom, bedroom, or closet... Not in the laundry room, not in the girls room. They had looked in Joseph and Ethan's room several times, but wouldn't you know, the last room that I help verify and there we find her, under Ethan's bed.

It is a tight tight fit under there. Not for the claustrophobic (I wouldn't have made it). She slowly wriggled her way out.

So this was frustrating to Wesley, cause he had checked under Ethan's bed earlier in the game and found Ethan under there. Little did he know they had conspired against him. Ethan was hiding Mel!

Sneaky siblings! Watch out, Wes will be ready for your tricks next time. 

17 Years of Us

Happy Anniversary to us! 17 Years of marriage and we're still young and in love :) Looking forward to many more years of a happy life together, and even more excited to be with him for-e-ver! (Sorry, couldn't help myself, I just think of that clip every time I think or talk of for-e-ver. Maybe I should stick with "for eternity")

“Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and … the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

“The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.” 

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Snapshots

Here are a few snapshots from the day. Snapshot 1: Ethan.

Ethan, I realize I haven't put any of your selfies on the blog yet, so I will now post these two selfies for posterity's sake, but I really am tired of having to delete all of these off of my camera everytime I find it.

50+ photos of Ethan's head everytime I leave my camera out by the computer. You know I don't like you using my camera, especially without permission, tsk tsk. I know you don't take me seriously, and maybe I'm not, cause I know I will find it several times next week and will have to delete more selfies of you again. YOU stay focused on your homework. I'll try not to leave my camera out to tempt you.

Snapshot 2: Abi holding Owen. He was tired and I had put him to bed, then I was busy, he woke up and started fussing, Abi came to his rescue and got him out of the crib. But he really was tired...

She walked around with him for one minute and he was bobbing his head trying to fight sleep. Silly baby.

Snapshot 3: Natalie "coloring". As I mentioned in the last post, her coloring usually just consists of a #2 pencil. Today she was coloring up such a storm that she turned the side of her hand gray...

She found it a bit concerning...

I assured her she did not have a big bruise or owie, and then she continued her coloring. 

I'm making a dollar store run tomorrow to get more coloring scribbling books for my girls, and then I'm going to go throw away all the scraps of papers and shredded books lying around and we'll start fresh for another month and a half.

Coloring Books

These little girls are serious about their coloring. At Christmas time, after taking my 3rd group of kids to Dollar Tree to buy presents for each other, I decided to stock up myself on the Strawberry Shortcake coloring books that they had there. They've been super busy coloring this past week, so I only have one more and might need to make another trip, but I love seeing them color. Here they are right before bedtime~ (Natelie is always attentively aware of what kind of work and which characters her sisters are working on...)

Sophi stopped to go to sleep, but not Natalie, so we left the light on in our bathroom and let her keep coloring in the dim light on the floor in our room. She was being sweetly quiet as she worked, so we fell asleep to the sound of little pencil strokes.

And then as soon as Natalie woke up, her eyes barely open and barely able to form words, she requested her pencil and coloring book as was back at it at the kitchen bar as she waited her breakfast..

Super cute. Abi and Lily are getting quite good at detail, as you can kind of see in Lily's coloring book. Lily also gathered the whole case of coloring pencils to have at her disposal. Sophi goes through most of the pages using just a single color. She's using a marker there above, but lately Natalie prefers using a standard led pencil or one single colored pencil for her artistic expression.

I walked over to the church today for a scripture study group and pushed the girls in the stroller ~ Natalie was in the front seat of the long double stroller, with coloring book and pencil in hand, coloring away. It made me laugh, I should have gotten a picture of it. Maybe we can recreate the moment next week. I love these kids.

Sledding Injury

Yesterday, our friends invited us up to go sledding again at their cabin. It was the perfect motivation to make my kids clean most of the morning and I'm happy to say after another blessed day off of school, the house looks great. That makes for a great way to start a school week. So they cleaned all morning and around 1:30 we headed out for the day. I stayed in the cabin with the little kids most of the time. I brought along my Kirby vacuum to help clean their carpets. They're in need of a new vacuum, and I wanted to show her that the Kirby is the one she needs. Not cause I'm a Kirby salesman, but because I'm a believer. I also brought along my ecloths and cleaned and polished windows. We had been cleaning all morning, I was just trying to stay in the groove hoping it will carry through to the rest of the week (laundry room still needs help). Natalie played with Owen, I thought it was cute that he could barely squeeze into this little push cart.

Joseph brought along homework to do, Hyrum did some of his in the car on the drive up. The others were going to wait until we got back home. We had to leave sooner than usual cause it's a school night. As the kids were finishing up their last sledding rides before the sun went down, Hyrum hurt himself as he jumped onto his sled in a race. He came in after and said how badly it hurt. Luckily there was a doctor in the house. He recommended we get it x-rayed after we were back in the valley. So we got home, kids did homework, others got ready for bed, and then we decided to take Hyrum to the ER rather than wait until the urgent care opened in the morning. So off Hyrum and Corey went at 11:00. They returned home with the diagnosis of a fractured radius, a type of fracture typically caused by falling on to the outstretched hand. He was treated with a splint and ace bandage that he has to wear for 3 weeks. 

He's going to have to learn how to do lots of things single handed. I had to help him unbutton his pants and put on his shirt last night, but he was able to do it this morning. Always an adventure!

Valentine's Day Dinner

We had our Valentine's/Love/Anniversary dinner today after church.

Salmon, strawberry salad, red grapes, mashed potatoes, shrimp and cocktail sauce, and sparkling grape juice.

I fed Owen some yogurt, and then we hoped he'd be happy with his plastic dinner that Hyrum made for him. Owen started to eat his plate (literally, he went straight for the plate), and then seemed to be able to tell that he was missing out on something.

Everyone stayed dressed in their Sunday best for the dinner. Natalie, looking adorable as always

We went around the table and took turns saying what we love about each person. After dinner, the kids shoved grapes in their mouths and they made their grape faces, like they have at past February family dinners (one of only times of year that I buy grapes apparently)

Then we took a kid picture (for a future blog book cover or back cover photo) 

Then after cleaning up we had Red Velvet cake (from Costco) and ice cream. It was a Lovely feast. The kids really like it when we have a "fancy dinner," I enjoy it too!

Sledding

We had an activity for the primary children in our ward today ~ sledding up at Brighton. Tess and Wes

The road that our friend's cabin is right next to the ski slopes, so they are at the top of the road and as the road goes down it makes for a great sledding hill.

A friend from Abi's school class was able to join us, Abi and Addy, they are a cute pair.

The kids had a great time ~ they were sledding for hours! All those pictures above were taken at the end of the day as the sun was starting to go down. That's when I remembered I better hurry out and take some pictures of the fun. I'm assuming the morning sledding runs looked about the same, just with more sunshine. It was actually a pretty warm day up there, in the 50s.

The fun started at 10. Around noon they came in to take a break, time for some lunch - pizza!

I was so grateful to get out of the inversion in the valley and see the sun, ah! And blue sky! Wonderful, I felt like I could breathe again. We spent the day up there and had a great time, so grateful for wonderful friends for us and the kids. we are so blessed!

Norman Rockwell Exhibit

Corey and I had planned for us all to go see the Normal Rockwell exhibit on Jan 10th, but then bad weather cancelled our plans. I tried to reschedule it but the tickets were all sold out except for a few times during the day. My parent had planned to go too and time was slipping away from us, it closes this week! So my mom got tickets and we went down together. It was really wonderful. I especially loved seeing all the studies and different models he used and practiced the composition with before he made his final painting, such as Art Critic. Anyway, just great to see the whole exhibit. Very inspiring. I haven't figured out how to make time for it now, but I plan on painting a lot in the next life.

And we enjoyed a few Rockwellian moments of our own.

 Love my kids and my parents. 

Valentine's Boxes

Tomorrow is the designated Valentine's Party day at the elementary school, since there is no school Friday or Monday. The kids worked on their Valentine cards tonight - we really were simple... I just bought the boxes of candy hearts for Abi and Lily that they only had to write names on. Wesley got a box of cards with airhead candy's with them. I ran to buy the candy at 6, the kids were done writing their Valenine's at 7. Easy peasy, I think I'll so that next year. As for the boxes, Wesley did put a lot of effort into that.

He made a maze that you had to twist 90 degrees when you were half way through, and his idea was for everyone to put their valentine in the box and slide it through the maze as fast as they could into the box container at the end (that X-9 box at the top). He brought a timer and prizes for the three students with the fastest time. I was glad that Abi just used the Elephant Box Wes made last year (with Mel'd help) Thank you Abi for making my life easier, and sorry I never got around to helping you make that Lego box you wanted to do.

Acceptance Speech

Thank you...Thank you so much...
1. I'd like to thank Owen waking me up at midnight this morning AND for being fussy after he ate AND loud after he played with toys in the closet, so much so that I took him downstairs at 1 a.m. (where I've begun to let him finish out his bedtime sleep lately) allowing my cute fuzzy socks to catch the cold water covering the floor.
2. I'd like to thank my amazing self for walking around the left side of the couch, enabling me to notice the wet overflow in the dark room
3. I'd like to thank my amazing motherly feet for still being able to function when they know they are standing in toilet water, a feat that would totally paralyze all my children (except probably Mel)
4. I'd like to thank my amazing motherly ears for being able to deal with Owen wailing as I left him unattended as I cleaned it up the mess.
5. I'd like to thank all my children for many the clogged toilets over the years, giving me the opportunity to practice my plunging skills.
6. I'd like to thank my floor towels for all the hard work they always do around here (floor spills, mopping, throw up duty...)
7. I'd like to thank the United States of America for great toilets and indoor plumbing, blessing me that I really don't have to plunge that often (as compared to our plumbing in Brazil, although I'd like to encourage American home builders to be smart and start putting floor drains in bathrooms like they do in Brazil, shouldn't drains in bathrooms be obvious?)
8. I'd like to thank the heavy duty plunger for always working so quickly AND for having a big open plunger and hollow handle that it's able to scoop out toilet water like a ladle, helping ease the spillage of water onto the floor once the plunging began
9. I'd like to thank the unfinished basement for allowing me a quick clean up and the peace of mind to not worry about ruining the carpet or ceiling down there as the water overflowed and spilled down the floor cracks
10. I'd like to thank Corey who will be staying home from work for a few hours tomorrow morning to watch the girls while I recover from lack of sleep.

AND last of all

I'd like to punch the throat of whoever left this toilet plugged before they went to bed last night (and I'm glad we stayed up until 11 and this was only 2 hours of overflow...) - This is the second time I've had to deal with this night time spillage. NOTE TO CHILDREN: IF THE TOILET ON THE MAIN FLOOR IS CLOGGED, IT WILL SPILL OVER BECAUSE I HAVEN'T CALLED THE REPAIR MAN TO FIX THE FILL VALVE YET. (Note to self: call the repair man). EASE UP ON THE TP!!! The dear children are going to be getting a brief fyi lecture in the morning. I can't tell whose handwriting that is on that note there, but they're gonna get the lecture first. And yes, child, I realize that it might have been someone else who clogged it and you were just the one who discovered it and wrote this note. NO MORE NOTES. COME AND WAKE ME UP. Clogged main floor toilet = emergency. You have my blessing to knock on my bedroom door until I answer. I might seem irritated at first but will bless your name afterwards.

Ok, now that I've vented I might have calmed down enough that I might be able to fall back asleep.

(This post inspired by the facebook post from Jan 9th by Ethan's Tour group chaperone, she is really funny.)

Sunday Snapshots

I keep meaning to take a group picture of the kids in their Sunday clothes, but another Sunday has come and gone and I missed it. They just change their clothes too fast. Today I remembered to get out the camera cause I wanted to get a picture of Sophi and Natalie in their shoe attire. Natalie was in a little yellow spring dress, cause it's just so warm lately - almost above freezing at night, ha. So she's wearing a little spring dress and would not put on the shoes I wanted her to wear, no... she wore her Belle dress up shoes to church. Cause they're yellow, so they accessorize nicely. I didn't want to have a fight, so I let her wear the play dress up shoes. Atleast they matched each other. 

She wouldn't come for a picture, so I had to chase her down and tickle her on the couch. No princess shoes in the pic, but they were on those little feet for church. Funny.

Sophi was a character yesterday too. She insisted on wearing her black rainboots. A pretty red velvet with gold sparkle dress, with... rainboots. Whatever makes you happy. You've got both right and left foot? Good enough, let's go. So we went to church and I was laughing at them, but they're they youngest, they get away with a lot of stuff the older kids didn't get away with when they were toddlers. Everyone else looked dapper for church. Wesley, always looking like a gentleman. Thanks to Corey's mother who fixed Wesley's and Hyrum's jackets while we were gone in Hawaii. Owen... we'll start dressing you up in another 6 months. For now, he still gets away with casual attire and a bib and a binkie. I have put socks and shoes on him the past 3 weeks, so that's a step in the right direction.

Joseph, you're a fine looking young man. He's a good leader of the pack. And taking off his shoes before going upstairs, the kids are finally getting trained on carpet etiquette.

Melodie home from church working on her Personal Progress or something, good job Mel.

Everyone else hand changed out of their clothes. Our church schedule changed ~ last year church began at 9:00, now we get a whole two more hours and start at 11:00. It makes Sunday morning a lot more calm. We almost get up at the same time, only now I have time to do the hair of all the girls (except Natalie who won't let me touch her hair). And last week and this week we left at 10:40 and were very on time, good job crew. Next week we'll try to get a group shot before church of everyone looking so cute and pretty before we go.