Mountains Are Calling

Yesterday the kids didn't have school and I wanted to do something fun. But instead they helped Corey move out of his office. And that was a good things for them to do. It took half of the day moving things out and then the rest of the day to try to organize the overload of things here. We're not done and probably won't be for a while. I need to sell off or give away some of our couches and chairs... as of now we do not have room to receive all the furniture we have.

So, today was General Conference (loved it!!!) I knew that conference would take up most of the day for us, so if we were going to do a hike it would have to be early. I asked the kids if they wanted to go and they were game. But then when I woke up, and it was dark and cloudy outside.... I just couldn't get my mojo going. So I got back in the warm bed and went back to sleep. The mountains are so pretty right now though, it's killing me not to go. I wish I could fly. Sigh. I'm hoping I'll make it up and it won't be another year of "there's always next year..." which was my wish/hope last year after my post partum self didn't make it out to see the autumn leaves. Here are some pictures from years past - 2008 to be exact. Little Cottonwood Canyon is gorgeous!

It's been cold and rainy here in the valley which means there is snow up in the mountains now, just like in these pics.

(I'm glad my friends were able to take the butterfly to St. George, she never would have made it!)

 Lovely lovely lovely

Perhaps looking at these pictures online will have to be my solace once again.

These are pictures that my awesome neighbor took in fall 2008 - more of them here. Ahh, it's just heavenly~ I love fall!

I gotta get on top of my life so I can make the time in my day to go on hikes and stuff. It's just going by too fast, life is just happening to me, I want to try to be in control. I googled a bit today about schedules and routines. I liked this list, go Benjamin Franklin! He had a good goal for his schedule. I wrote that down in my planner. I also liked the quote by Leo Babauta - "The reason I like having a morning routine is that not only does it instill a sense of purpose, peace and ritual to my day, but it ensures that I’m getting certain things done every morning … namely, my goals." Yes, it starts with the morning routine! Now with kids in school, my mornings are kinda spoken for, but I could get up earlier... if I get to bed earlier... I'm gonna do it. Tonight, on a whim, I also signed up for a "Courage Challenge" with Holly of FYM. I followed her years ago after Abi was born, I think I'll give it another go. I mostly think it would help me to be accountable to someone, like I was during the spring and summer "healthy habits" challenges. Here's hoping it works and will help me get up into the gorgeous mountains!

Office Move

Hi there. The kids don't have school today because of "teacher work day". It's always nice to have a day off. What to do with our free time?? Joseph had plans to do a sunrise hike up Mount Olympus with friends, I wanted to get up into the mountains too or go to the temple, or I would have been find to just have everyone be my slaves and help clean up the house. But we had another duty we needed to do today. Corey's closing his SL office and his company is making the homebase for the business in Brazil. He told the landlords he would be out today, so that's what the kids got to do. Corey had work and phone calls to take but figured he could work from there and have his minions do the moving work. So last night Joseph agreed to miss out on the morning hike and helped his father. Mel, Hyrum, Wes, and Abi all went to help too. Ethan didn't though. He slept past 2:45 pm today. That is a new record. Sometimes he'll get up for an hour and then go back to bed, but this was a full 14+ hours of slumber. Please note the evidence below, complete with the time displayed on the clock.

And Ethan, my son, that also means there is a pretty good chance there will not be any night friend activities for you for a while since it appears that the fruit of your socializing fun is that we get a kid that is pretty much worthless here at home. He said he also felt sick, and I try to not be heartless when the are sick and need sleep. And he also said that his legs were so sore, cause they played fugitive last night so he was pretty much sprinting for 4 hours straight. Sigh, ok. But I'm just saying, don't ask to hang out with friends next weekend or the weekend after that. So Ethan slept in, Joseph took two loads of stuff home here and they dumped it all in the side room. Now we have a big mess in the house to sort through.

Moving the current office arrangement out, moving in a new desk and lots of tall skinny shelves for the plethora of DVD movies. Side room = mess.

He brought home two big chairs that don't fit anywhere. So it's just parked in the foyer and blocking the closet and front door for now. Natalie drawing in the fun new chair. She's been making really cute little people drawings, it's fun. Did I tell you she gave herself another little trim? Just a few layers, but just on one side, so I had to even it up again. Looking short and cute Natalie! You can keep it cute but lets not make it any shorter, k?

Since we were all helping Corey with work stuff today, Owen thought he'd demonstrate how Corey works. First, he will put on head phones for his calls or to listen to music or podcasts - and when you put on head phones remember to squish out your chubby cheeks!

Ok, headphones ready. Binky ready (pacificers not mandatory for working fathers but Owen still highly recommends them)

And then when you've got your tunes, start typing at the lap top. If you don't have a lap top, an alarm clock will with a small shelf with buttons will do.

Owen made me laugh so hard doing this - he was moving his cute little fingers at the alarm clock, typing away, working hard just like his dad. Owen you crack me up.

So, lots of work to get the house back in order. Corey really likes his office now, it feels like a legit office. He's hoping to be much more productive now that he's at a desk and surrounded by manly office style stuff. And the kids are super excited to have all of Movie M0uth's movies here at home!!! There are like tens of thousands of hours of viewing pleasure right at their finger tips!! yay. We sure have a lot of flicks for two parents who claim to be against the time wasted via screen time!

Oh, something else about today. Corey and I tried to go out on a date, but were going to run by the office first to do a final check that they got everything out. Before we got to the office, we had received 6 phone calls from the kids (they are not supposed to call us on date night except for emergencies. We were being too nice since we weren't on our way to the restaurant yet) One of those calls was Ethan asking if he could (cough cough) go to the temple... "and then hang out with friends." Nice try buddy. (refer to beginning of this post to see why we felt ok rejecting his request outright). "Well, can we play the Wii then?" We mistakenly said yes, then got 4 more phone calls of kids tattling this or that and then there was a kid fight emergency over the Wii so we just came back and have threatened to just cancel date nights if we can't trust our teenagers to be left at home unsupervised. #reallife #datenightfail #itsokaycauseihadalreadyeatentoomuchtodayanyway

Butterfly Delivery

We've had parent teacher conferences at all the schools this week. Corey took care of Wes at the Jr. High on Tues, then did part 1 of the high school kids yesterday... He's finishing up high school today and I attended the conferences for Abi Lily and Sophi at the elementary. That's the boring news for the day. The exciting new for today is that our last butterfly came out. This little lady was really behind the migration. We found her a month ago at my nephews birthday party up in Layton. They have a huge back yard with a lot of milkweed and I couldn't help myself but to go look for eggs. I found this egg black and ready to hatch and it did hatch that night after we got home. At that time, what I thought were our last butterflies were just finishing up their cycle. So, this little girl really was the very last and I was worried with how far behind she was from the others. It's been really cold and rainy outside as she was in her chrysalis and I've been checking the weather as I've pondered the chances for her survival.

I didn't see her emerge. She was in her chrysalis one moment, then I went upstairs and did laundry or whatever, and when I came back down she was out with wings fully expanded.

So before she came out this morning, I posted on facebook asking if anyone in the SL valley was headed south this weekend. After two hours there hadn't been any takers, so I put her outside and wished her luck. Then this afternoon my mom came over (with a plumber to finally fix our toilet, yay! Gosh it's almost been a year with that toilet issue. I don't know why I never thought of asking my mom for a plumber recommendation, seeing as she's in property management and such, duh! Thankfully my lil' bro Grant was a clear headed thinker for me and called her after I sent a Marco Polo video of our incident on Tuesday... Anyway...) So mom was over here, the butterfly hadn't flown away yet, so I brought her back in. Then I saw that a friend had replied! Hooray, the amazing Jen was heading down tomorrow with her family, yay!! I think we just increased her chances for survival! Sophi playing with our lovely butterfly, so cute.

So then I went to work on google learning something about Monarch raising that is a new area for us: transportation. This site said they need to be in their "carseats", but that kinda scared me to think of putting her in an envelope! So I read some more and decided she would be okay, since she's not being shipped by a mail carrier. So we just used a rice milk box and put some big yarn across it for her to hold on to - Abi helping me

and then made a mesh cover with the netting part of a potato sack. I know Jen and her girls will be careful enough with the box, so I wasn't worried about her being loose inside. I took our pretty Monarch lady over to their house at 7:30, and they are leaving tomorrow morning. I think she's gonna be okay! It was fun to have her for the day, she was so sweet, she stayed on my shirt as I made the box to transport her in.

I love monarchs! So that's what I did today: watch a butterfly, got the toilet fixed, and other than that, I've been feeling a little sick the past few days. Another bout of something that feels much like my stomach aches and sickness from last Sunday - which I thought then was caused by the Burmese diet we had eaten the day before. I was up at 3 a.m. in pain last night/this morning, haven't been able to exercise today. I feel kinda cramped up. Abi, my ever attentive daughter, gave me a back rub, she's so nice.

Update: Jen texted me this picture Friday afternoon - Monarch lady made it to a warmer climate in southern Utah! Yay! Fly free pretty butterfly!! We love you!

Cuddlers

Owen as a stinker at study group this morning. I left early and am feeling a little frustrated right now with that, it's getting a little hard to do... Maybe I shouldn't bother with it right now? Natalie didn't want to go either, so I had to bribe her. I can't fight 3 of them. Started off rough when Owen took another kid's ritz crackers and I had to take them away from him to give back. I had some MnMs in my bag that helped sooth that over. But then he wanted another boy's little red car and was crying "car! Car!" for quite a while until I gave up and we left. So I was frustrated there and we came back and I turned on the tv. I used to listen to the 11:00 devotionals every day on kbyu. Maybe I should start doing that again. After the devotional I turned it back to pbs kids and Daniel and Owen fell asleep watching that... They sure are cute. The frustration melts away when I see them sleeping, but little guys. So here are six pictures of pretty much the exact same thing.

(I probably shouldn't have the tv on so much?)

Sometimes I know they are tired but they don't want to lay down in their beds, so I put them in the chair with Super Why on and 5 minutes later - voilà

They sure are cute.  

Daniel and Owen, my wish for you is that you will always be best friends.

That even if you don't snuggle up in a chair together and cuddle up to sleep, that you will just love each other and be each others best friends. If you slip up and can't be BFFs in your teenage years, that's ok, I understand. I'm excited for you two to be on missions at the same time and to grow to be awesome friends and brothers when you're grown ups. I love these little men.

Hanging On

I sent an SOS yesterday on facebook to some of my cousins - to the kids of one family in particular ... my cousins in who grew up in a family of 15 kids. My messages to them have basically been asking then how their mom did it cause I need serious help figuring out how can I do this?!?! I'm falling apart. Our life is hanging on my a string, ugh. No no, Tiff, there are lots of good things going well in your life, think positive! For example, you are eating healthy! Behold my lovely breakfast this morning looked so pretty - I call it Southwest Breakfast, hold the eggs. Tomatoes, peppers, scallions, avocado, black beans, salsa...

I'm doing good with exercising too. Our family relationships with each other are pretty good, so that's another thing to be grateful for! ...aside from the majority of the people in our home struggling to navigate life with their not fully developed brains (aka teenagers). Ok, I guess all the other kids have underdeveloped brains too, so that can't be the main thing - it must be those teenage boy hormones. Like Hyrum is becoming a teenager, I can tell he just feels aggressive and want to punch something. So, if I compare their behavior with their urges, they're probably doing pretty good. I have a fully developed brain, so what's my excuse for loosing my cool? Well, today Hyrum had an orthodontist appointment. I thought he was getting his braces off, but not yet, next visit. Almost there. another 4 weeks. As we were on our way home, Wes called to let me know there was water dripping into the side room from the ceiling. Agh! Panic. I made a polo video of it for my family, if any future historian is interested in more details about this toilet mess - yes, our stupid toilet from upstairs over flowed AGAIN, stupid toilet... stupid me that I still haven't gotten it fixed, stupid family situation that I don't have money to get this fixed!! (My train of though usually does bring me to blame Corey's business for most of our problems: for him always working, for the lack of $, the devil on my shoulder tells me "well if he just had a regular job!!!") Stupid toilet and stupid valve that doesn't shut off the water. Although it's been atleast 9 months, cause I know it overflowed once in January for this same stupid reason. I should have gotten it fixed by now. Doh. So it's my fault, but I wish the kids could just make sure it flushes all the way down. Since I wasn't at home Joseph went to the rescue and got the plunger out and all the tp down, and then I got home and got to take care of the damage and wash all the towels in the laundry. Fun fun.

Stay positive Tiff, you enjoyed some delicious veggie soup with barley for lunch and dinner. Focus on the good, hopefully we'll get the toilet fixed this time and someday maybe we'll find that we have triumphantly survived turning these little people into decent human beings and making Corey's business a success.

A Monday

Hello. How are you? We are doing fine. Let's see, what is going on here... Last night I woke up during the night and noticed a light outside our door was still on, so I went downstairs to turn it off, where I saw Joseph working (nice clean study area here...) This was at 2 a.m.

This morning I asked him when he went to bed, and he said he went "to bed" at 5:30 this morning. 5:30 is usually his wake up time. Hooray for late start day. He slept a lot yesterday (typical for our teenagers) then he was up around 7 pm, and he was well rested and attempted to keep the sabbath day holy by not doing homework until Sunday was over. So he started at midnight, crashes at 5:30 am, I woke him up for late start day at 7, so he's gotta survive the day on 90 minutes. I'm impressed/concerned with how Joseph has been pushing through during high school. He's a busy kid, I'm sure his mission is going to be welcome rest, physically speaking... to be obedient you've got to go to bed at 10:30! He's gonna love it. As I was getting the kids out of bed this morning, my little brother shared a Marco Polo video where he was playing this blast from our past that I'd completely forgotten about for the past 20 years - Haul Your Hiney Outta bed. Forgotten for years, but once it started I could sing along with all the lyrics by heart. I recorded that song on a cassette tape when I was a teen and we played it often. Fun memory.

Corey was kinda stressed last night, about not being able to get any church calling work done. I'm not doing great today - I was super sick with something yesterday... I fear it may have been the Burmese birthday food? I took a picture of some of the leftovers we have here.... what even is this?

Those purple things had an appearance of red lettuce but a texture of shirataki noodles/sea food/rubber bands, just really weird...

And the little pollups on whatever that is reminded me of when I ate menudo on my mission.

If anyone has any experience with Burmese food feel free to fill me in. I'm feeling better today... I think it took 24 hours to get into my system and it seems to have passed now.  but seriously I was so sick yesterday afternoon and evening which really surprised the kids and Corey cause I don't get sick. Today I'm feeling fine physically but a little stressed/frazzled, so not in a great mental/emotional state... No word from Renato yet. They last spoke on Friday night and Renato said he'd get back with Corey in 2-3 days, but he probably meant business days. Ok, I better just plan for longer, so we'll give him until Friday. I had to take Daniel in for his one year dr. appointment (I don't like doctor appointments...) Natalie and Owen were fighting over coloring papers and freaked out when they ripped each others accidentally in their attempt to grab the ones they wanted. Ugh. So that was a long wait but we survived. Then we went to the grocery store and things were better as I pushed them around int he cart "car". I like shopping there with kids. But if I have kids and the store I want to go to doesn't have a car cart, I won't go. I'll just wait until later or for another day when I can go without kids. Natalie and Owen kept their teasing at each other through out the day, and I had about had it by 3pm. I was waiting for my older kids to come home and rescue me, and did a marco polo vid to my family saying that I just DO NOT KNOW HOW to manage this large family! Our house is such a mess, their rooms are a mess, the kitchen is a mess... I can't even get my older kids who are able to speak English well and fluently to fold their clothes, let alone get anything done by myself all day home with these little toddlers fighting. I don't know how to do this! Help! Oh, and when I went to the store I bought 5 bunches of bananas, then Corey went grocery shopping too on his way home. My sweetheart rarely coordinates with me when he does this, he's just trying to be helpful... which kinda makes me crazy cause it throws off my plan. And sure, often times I don't actually have a plan in place YET, but still, like the kids are gonna eat my rice and beans when they've got sugary yogurt as an option. And I could try to put my foot down but that just means more fights over food, so I just say oh well and continue to not manage things... So Corey came home and bought groceries "to supplement dinner" is how he says it. And he bought 4 bunches of bananas, so now we have like 50 bananas that need to be eaten, so why do I even try to make dinner? Which might be why I often don't. I need to get a handle on life, ugh. I guess I'll probably freeze most of the bananas, not a big deal, right? I'm getting irritated by little things, helps a little to vent it here, but I probably just need to relax.

Cute Jacket and a Sad Haircut

As always, church was wonderful today. I always look forward to fast and testimony meeting and today was another meeting that didn't disappoint. I am always glad when Corey shares his testimony like he did today. He's such a good story teller, he's pretty much amazing, though I admit to being biased. Daniel was looking awesome today in this little jacket - this amazing piece of stylish retro is straight out of the 70s~

It's a jacket that Corey's mother gave me recently, one of her favorites, that Corey wore when he was a wee toddler.

Dressed up on top - but didn't worry about the bottom! Yeah, I need to get Daniel some shoes probably. He was able to pull it off though.

Daniel and Owen used up all my patience and we all got worn out during the 3rd hour. I knew he was tired and he fell asleep on the 2 minute drive home. About a half hour after being in the house, Natalie was sitting at the table ready for lunch when Abi noticed something different about her. "Natalie! Did you cut your hair?" I turned around from washing dishes at the kitchen sink. Uh boy, that is noticeable. I inspect it further. This one is gonna need me to clean it up. She totally hacked of her hair on the left side. Why did you cut your hair?! "I didn't cut my hair!" She denied it, and now tonight we still haven't found the pile of it, but Natalie started to point fingers. "Lily did it!" Lily, did you cut Natalie's hair? NO! I've been in the front room playing with Sophi the whole time! Ok, you have a witness, you're innocent. Natalie... "It was Ethan!" Nice try, Ethan is not home. Why did you cut your hair?! We loved your hair! She's always had such pretty curls (scroll down at that link after Ethan's goofy pictures)! She still had that pretty natural curl and when I try to style it at all it just messes up her part and looks weird. So I don't do it, I comb it in the tub and then we rinse it off and let her part go where it wasn't to be and she's perfect. But now, what are we going to do?!? Oh Natalie, why did you cut your hair? Her final attempt to free herself from guilt - "I think it was Sister Harding..." Yeah, nice try! Silly girl. Natalie wanted to just take a bath and wash it, perhaps thinking that would wash away the problem. She was getting sad with how remorseful we were about this tragedy. I insisted we had to cut all of it now. "No!!" I tried to see if it would work if I pulled up both if the sides for the next year... no, that won't work. Natalie, I'm sorry! We have to even this out, just don't cut you hair next time.

She didn't like it at first, Abi took a video as I worked with the scissors.

Then we curled it under. "I don't like it..."

We all gave her hugs and she calmed down as she played the "cupcake" game with Mel on the computer (aka Mel's favorite math game from her youth - Papa's Cupcakeria). Thankfully it's not as bad as Sophi's kid cut was (that was really was Lily's fault!) or as short as Lily's self hair cut. Within an hour of the tragedy, Natalie's emotions had subsided and she was dancing in the front room, twirling in circles and quickly flinging her head around, feeling her hair whip across her face. And happy to say she's smiling again. It's fun to have a change and I think she'll enjoy the freedom that short hair brings.

Burmese Birthday

Corey returned today from his trip to San Francisco. Good news: the meetings went great! And Renato is interested! Bad news: Corey still doesn't have a check in his hand or money in the bank. So we still are unsure of how we will survive. So... we'll do the only thing we can: keep praying and hope it works out. I was fasting and praying all day yesterday and went to the temple by myself for "date night" AND went again this morning... really trying to wrestle some blessings out of heaven. Last nights session as awesome and the best I've had for a while as for me being alert and listening for guidance. This morning's session was like most mornings... I was struggling to stay awake. We're always struggling with something ;) This life is all about wrestling and growing. I've been reading a good book "Worth The Wrestle" by Sheri Dew, good stuff. Anyway, today, to distract ourselves from our trials and worries, we went and did some "service" and went to a birthday party for our Burmese friends. They live out by the airport, so even though Corey landed at 11, he stayed at worked on his laptop for 2+ hours and then we picked him up with time to spare before the birthday party. We were not sure what to expect...

We kinda assumed it wouldn't start on time (from our year of experience with Latinos) but let it be know that atleast in this area, Burmese are not like Latinos. We didn't want to get there before it started since we're such a big group, so we killed time driving on Redwood Road in search of a gas station. While we were there, 10 min before it started, Ler called to see where we were. He said they were all waiting for us. Ok! I guess we'll go. And it was already a full house ...er... apartment.

Balloons on the wall, which Daniel liked. ...and proceeded to grab and pull off...

Before Daniel there were balloons on either side of this birthday banner. Sorry Lerdoh.

We did not know what was going on. It appeared their whole church branch came out. It also appeared that we were the only ones who had brought children... We all sat on the floor, except for the branch presidency who was seated on the couch, presiding I guess? It was like a mini sacrament meeting. Speaker after speaker, talk and talk all in a foreign tongue. I believe the expression on my face was much like that of the other american lady here (minute :24) ... you know, that look where you're trying to have a pleasant expression and show you're interested, while at the same time you know your eyes are glossing over cause you're out of your comfort zone. Yeah, that was me during the speeches.

So after enduring a mini hour long meeting in the Kareni language, it was over and we feasted - Not as awkward when people are eating. Food does bring us all together, huh. They brought out big dishes of interesting looking food to the center of the floor!

Here's Lily's narration of a few minutes of the socializing.

The kids liked all of the food. But they didn't try the spicy stuff, thankfully they were warned. I however tried it unawares and woo, I do not do spicy well.

About burned my tongue off. They gave us some to take home. We're going to share it with the older kids. (it was just Abi and younger that came, rest of the kids were doing homework)

They had soda. Let it be know I do not buy soda (and rarely will I buy juice) because I have children...

...and I know it will be spilled by them and will make the floor all sticky. And that is exactly what happened in our friend's apartment. ...several times. Doh! I hate soda/sprite/juice, ugh, just say no! I apologized and again vowed to never buy that stuff. It was fun and the party was still going when we excused ourselves. Time to get back home. Daniel fell asleep on the drive. Cute little face. 

Praying for MM

This morning I drove Corey down to the Provo airport. He found a good price on a one way flight to San Francisco. He's flying back in to the SL airport on Saturday. That's the kind of shell game we are playing with $ and skymiles and stuff like that. Things are tight for the business and for us. So Corey is on his way to San Francisco to meet with an investor from Brazil that I am praying saves him/us and his company.

We need to be saved cause the way we and the business are coping week by week is not sustainable. Something's gotta give, something's gotta come through (I hope!) or we're gonna die. So, we're asking everyone we know to pray (and some of the kids and I are fasting) for us and MM and a Brazilian investor named Renato (can I give out his name, sweetheart?) We'll see what happens. So I'm on my own for two nights, easy peasy, which means I can slack off on dinner (not that I put up an impressive meal as it is...) and kinda take it easy for two nights. I'll make two choices for dinner - a little something that will keep healthy eaters like Hyrum and myself happy and another dish to keep the little kids happy. As for my picky eaters, it's Yoyo for dinner - You're On Your Own!

As I was checking on kids after school, I came across this sweetness - Sophi and Natalie were playing a game this afternoon (I think) cause I came in their room at 4:30 pm and they were both asleep... melted my heart

Sophi's got one of her unicorns there (you can see it's yellow hooves) and awww, Natalie is holding her baby!!

I'm loving this moment and remembering my when my little girls really were "little" girls in 2015 - such a long time ago! Two years fly by for teenagers, but two years, that's half of Natalie's life! No wonder she's grown and changed so much. I'm glad they still play with their stuffed animals. Love