Super Blue Blood Moon

I was so excited to see the Lunar Eclipse this morning, but darn clouds - the whole SL valley was covered! So I guess i might as well continue with my usual morning routine: I watched it on YouTube while I walked on the treadmill. But atleast I was able to get a photo of it this way! Behold the screenshot from my phone -

Kind of a bummer, but I did have a fun time exploring the topic of why it was a called a "Super Blue Blood Moon" - and google lead me to this fun stuff!

BBC meteorologist Simon King explained the phenomenon and revealed the best place to see the event.

Simon King said: “So, we’ve got something really cool happening tonight, and it’s a Moon trilogy. It’s called a super blue blood moon. So let’s break that down, start off with the ‘super’ part. 

“Now, of course, the moon orbits the earth, in an ellipse, so sometimes the moon is close to the earth than other times and we call that the Perigee, and that’s going to happen through Wednesday night.

“So the Moon might appear a bit bigger and brighter than usual. The ‘blue’ part of that saying is that every month we have a full moon, but on some occasions, because of the lunar cycle we have two full Moons. So we call that second one a blue moon, here the phrase, ‘once in a blue moon’ because it’s quite a rare occurrence. 

“And then the third thing is the ‘blood moon’. And that is because also on Wednesday night there is a total lunar eclipse, and that is going to make the Moon turn a little bit red.” - source

We saw the blood moon in September 2015. That memory and computer images will have to get us by until we get to try and see one again in person next year - the next one for Utah is January 20, 2018.

The 8th First Lost Tooth

Sophi got home from kindergarten this afternoon and I gave her some lunch. She wanted a sliced banana. She has this little song she sings that they learned at school (that drives her teenage brothers' nuts cause it's "so annoying"...) where she sings "Bananas UNITE! Peel banana, peel peel banana... Slice banana, slice slice banana... Eat banana, eat eat banana" etc etc. So she asked for toast and when I asked what fruit she wanted with her lunch, she said "sliced banana" and proceeded to sing the little song. I left her eating and was upstairs cleaning when I heard her having a sudden panic attack. She was calling for me and telling Natalie to find me - "Mom!! MOM!!" Sophi and Natalie were both calling and looking for me downstairs, and couldn't hear me calling to them as I came down from upstairs. I'm right here! What is wrong?

"There's blood!" she said as she walked toward me holding up her hand that had a bandaid on it - she had cut her finger last night when she was helping her dad "cut bananas, cut cut bananas" for some fruit salad. I looked at her finger, then realized she wasn't holding up her finger, but she was holding up a little bead or something between her fingers. I thought she was just crying with her mouth gaped open, which happens often, but then I noticed she was trying to show me the blood in her mouth. "Oh!" I cheered "You lost a tooth!" Sophi's first tooth! When she realized it was a good and normal thing she calmed right down and I told her to just spit out the blood. "That must have been really loose! It's not often kids loose a tooth when eating a banana! Usually it's an apple or something hard."

So, fun for you Sophi, you're growing up. That's the eighth first tooth of our kids, and first for Sophi, her first tooth lost. Let's hope you're molars are lost before they get cavities again. December got the best of me and I have slacked again on checking her flossing. I"m almost back on top of things and I checked her this week and I think she might have another cavity started (cavity 1, cavity 2, and cavity 3 from last year). I hope I caught it in time, doh, we'll see.

And yes, as you can see from that photo, our little Sophi is wearing eye patches again. The eye doctor had her start wearing patches in 2016, and after a few months she got the okay to stop. Then this past fall, I got a note from the school saying that she did very poorly on her eye exam and that was with her glasses on. They gave me a paper that I had to get signed and returned. I feel like a school kid again, having my parents sign permission slips. So I had to take to her eye doctor for him to sign saying I had her checked, so I did as I was told like a good little girl and we went in to the eye doctor. It was about time for her yearly check up anyway. And yes, he said her left eye wasn't very strong. Bummer thing is that I had just gotten her two new pairs of glasses in August. So, too bad for me. She got a new prescription and I needed to get new glasses. That was in October, is it bad that I just barely got around to ordering those? Doh! But he also said to have her start wearing eye patches again, and I was quick to order those right away. So since I was obeying one of the two things he told me to do, I gts to wear the eye patch every day for 2 hours. That started in October and will continue through May. She doesn't like it and is really happy when a day slips by with me missing my alarm to put it on her. It's just to help you out sweetie, and I know it's annoying. You're a good girl for sticking with it.

And on a final note - don't forget to pause tomorrow morning to behold the amazing Total Lunar Eclipse! For SLC total eclipse begins at 5:51, maximum eclipse at 6:29 a.m. It's amazing! Our solar system and the universe, it's all amazing - we are a vulnerable little blue marble in the desert, I'm grateful to know God watches over us and keeps us alive and floating out here in the nothingness!

See You In the EJC

Well, I'm looking forward to becoming unstoppable again. December did me in and I stopped being amazing. I tried to give myself a pass, and I told Corey he can't judge my ability to run a household by the way it or our life looks after the holidays. But here we are after a month of recovery and I can't use that as an excuse anymore. I've finally caught my breath, so it's time to kick it in gear. I got an email from Holly about a Design Your Year Best Year Yet workshop, and I signed up on Friday, the 26th of Jan. I'm ready to tackle life. Cause my new year is coming up! It starts on Thursday, haha, so time to prep!

Something new this time is a daily conference video call, which I enjoyed this morning. I'm excited to do the work and be accountable again.

A few fun pictures from this weekend - on Friday night Corey and I went to Chuck a Rama for dinner, and I really loved the salad bar. It inspired me to try to create our own, which I did with lots of chopping vegetable help from the kids - wasn't it pretty!?!?

It was a feast for the eyes and the taste buds, I was in salad heaven. My parent's came and joined us, and we also had two friends from Brazil over. Later that night, Corey was watching Forks Over Knives on the laptop in our bedroom. The last time he watched it was last summer. It's a pretty compelling documentary, Corey's agreed to give a plant based life another chance.

While we watched the film, Abi got creative with her little sisters. Abi, I think your feet shrunk.

Sophi! Your feet as so big!!! What is going on, the kids are looking strange...

I wondered if all those new vegetables had some weird effect on them? Superfood! It looks like they made Sophi and Lily grow super fast!

Silly kids.

Sunday Snoozer

Just thought I'd post a few pictures from church, mostly cause this one needed to shared - check out this little guy sleeping through sacrament meeting.

It would have been fun to have a better picture, but I bet Corey was trying to be subtle with his phone. I love the binky just barely hanging on to Owen's lips. Cute little guy, we probably spoil him (but it's just cause all his older siblings wore us out!) We let him bring his binky, blankets, and stuffed Lion to church. He loves Louie, and it makes me happy.

The older kids practiced a song that they are going to sing next month. I love that granite wall behind them, taken from the same quarry where the granite for the Salt Lake Temple came from. We live in a special area.

It's a beautiful medley of Sisters in Zion and We'll Bring the World His Truth. This is actually composed by one of our friends from high school, Michael Hicks, good guy. Corey took a picture of the girls getting a drink, not sure why. But they're cute.

I have some more that I'll post tomorrow. 

Sledding and Skiing

Today was a fun day of sledding and skiing. The day started with me heading up the canyon with all the little kids to go sledding at our friends' cabin. They were having a sledding activity for all the Primary aged children in our ward. And again, I took all the little kids - Abi and under, even though I knew Owen and Daniel wouldn't be sledding, and I also knew that having them with me meant that I wouldn't be much good helping my kids sled. But, it would allow Corey to get work done, therefore, up I went with a van full of little kids. The canyon was busy. At the top of the canyon it was at a stand still cause the Brighton parking lot was full. When we got to the parking lot entrance, the Brighton workers let us go by because I said we weren't going skiing, we were going to a cabin, implying that I would not need a parking space in the lot. The road to the cabin, however, is a one way road that is steep in a few places and not good for cars that do not have 4-wheel drive, such as the minivan I was driving. Corey says the van can make it if you just go fast enough. He had been lucky and got the van up the road there on the most recent New Years Eve party, but only after all the men and teenage boys came down the road and helped push it up the last bit after it got stuck. I was glad I wasn't driving it that time. And that happened at night when the snow on the road was hard and kinda stuck. Today it was warm, thus also slushy and slippery. I was thinking to myself "This is scary! Too risky!!" but it was either that or turn around back down the canyon and park and walk a mile in the snow with 6 kids, which wasn't a doable option, so the doable option would be to just can it and head back home. So, feeling I had no choice, I started on the road with a prayer in my heart ready to just gun it and beg for mercy. As I started to try to pick up speed, but before I got to the first hill, I was able to see a car that was stuck in the bank. It was our neighbors kid who was attempting to do in his little sedan what I was about to attempt to do. I was grateful that he was there and thus prevented me from suffering a similar fate. I put the car in reverse and backed up. His dad was right behind us in his truck and went to pull him out after we moved out of the way. So, down to the parking lot we went. I didn't mean to lie to the parking lot attendants, but I decided I'd try to find a place in the lot to park. Luckily I found a place that was as close to the cabin road as possible. We got out, Abi helped with Daniel, the other kids helped carry food, I grabbed Owen, and off we went to walk the snowy road to the cabin. In an act of great mercy, another neighbor, who was coming up to the cabin for her first time, didn't know the road to turn off on, and thus was coming into the parking lot right when we were walking out. She stopped and called to me and asked me where the road was. I told her. Then she asked if we wanted a ride up there. YES! It was an unexpected miracle! She was passing by at the perfect moment, we hadn't even begun our trek! I was so grateful to her and to Heavenly Father for saving me and the kids from cold and exhaustion that would have followed had I had to walk over to the road and then up the hill carrying children. And it also very likely saved me from stress and frustration. Thank you Lord!

So we stayed and had a great afternoon, the kids ate pizza for lunch and of course there were plenty of treats. Veggie tray and hummus provided by yours truly. Later that night all the older kids went up to the cabin with Corey for a Young Men and Young Women activity of night skiing. They had a great time too. I didn't get any pictures of sledding, cause like I said, I was worthless with two little boys to take care of. These are the only picture Corey got of the evening.Mel and Wesley renting their ski boots.

Mel ready to go!

And Hyrum almost ready to head out too.

I'll update with more pictures later if some of our neighbors have some of the sledding or others of the youth skiing. The first time I ever went skiing as a kid was when I went night skiing at Brighton with the youth in my ward. Good memory.

Woody-Buzz

We recently introduced Owen and Daniel to the Toy Story movies. And they are pretty much hooked.  

Well, Owen is a bit more fixated than Daniel

Owen wants to watch "Woody Buzz" all the time. And he can put up such a stink when we say no, that I'm afraid to stay that he's been getting his way and having more than a toddlers' allowed hours of screen time. Here we are during our very reverent family scripture study last night - 

All the kids laying around on the floor while I read a few verses... Owen does relent and allow us to pause the Toy Story movie for 10 minutes of family spirituality (you can see Mr. Potato head on the screen). Toy Story movie - 4 times a day = 6+ hours vs. scripture reading - 10 min. (Good to see we're giving the Lord equal time?) So, after Natalie got a Jessie doll this week, Lily asked what happened to her doll (see picture 2) Lily, you broke off Jessie's head. I tried to fix it, but it didn't stick. With both hot glue and super glue, it kept falling off. So it was bye bye Jessie. We just got a few toy story toys at Kid to Kid - I looked and looked with Abi tried on pants, then she came back and saw a bag of toys that I had somehow missed, so we have a small Woody, Jessie, and Rex. No hats for them though... the all important hat is missing. I've been looking at ebay, cause Lily and Sophi both want their own Jessie Dolls. The kids asked me "What happened to our toy story toys?" Well, we all remember the first Toy Story toy - when Joseph got Woody and Buzz when he was 2 - 

Woody lasted through 8 kids, but then child #9, aka Natalie, did Woody in and he was beyond fixing, so... "Byyyye Wooooodyyyyy". We had a real Buzz Lightyear that I bought for Hyrum probably 7 years ago that was luckily still in working order, and it took less than 1 hour for Natalie to cut the wires to his wings, less than 2 days for them to break off his hand, and 2 weeks after that, we caught Owen banging the bottom half of Buzz on a chair. Yes, he's been Darth Maul-ed. I might try to fix him again, but Buzz might need to be for "display only" next time I fix him. So, we're counting down until next summer when Toy Story 4 comes out - I'll keep an eye on ebay for any good deals, but we're excited that we'll be able to buy Toy Story toys at the store again! Anyway, kinda fun to keep reliving the past. Joseph in 2002, now January 2018, this year is when the next Wride generation of Woody-Buzz began. 

Shout Out to Hyrum

It's January, time for new year's resolutions. I think I'll pretend I'm still doing the Vegan Vednesday thing. So, I'm still working on my goals for this upcoming year. But while we're here, just in case anyone out there is looking for some inspiration to your own health goals - I thought I'd give a shout out to my little H. Last year we all started learning about nutrition and Hyrum started to really focus on his diet, and then he began a new year resolution (academic year that is) by being a 100% committed vegan - absolutely no animal products at all. He won't eat bread if it has milk listed as an ingredient. He's a purist! I'm starting to let things slide a bit - I'll eat desserts now and then (prob too often, doh.) but not Hyrum. And look at the difference an improved diet has done for this kid in his AFTER and BEFORE photos (not "before and after", we're putting the "after" first) So, here's after he got his braces off this past October 2017 - 14 years old

And a year before - August 2016 - 13 years old:

Another before shot - June 2016. Hyrum hates this one (sorry buddy. I know, I've been there)

Isn't that impressive? Now some might say that this is just Hyrum finally getting his growth spurt, or now he's enjoying the hollow leg that comes to many teenage boys, but do not be fooled. Hyrum's been working really hard and eating very carefully over the past year. He has not had ANY chocolate this Halloween!! He doesn't eat pizza with cheese anymore for crying out loud! A teenage boy! He's found a good substitute for the pizza, vegan pizza with nutritional yeast. It's his favorite. Yes, this didn't happen by chance, Hyrum has made it happen. I recognize your hard work Hyrum! Keep it up!

Winter Walk

The kids came with me on a walk around the neighborhood today as I went visiting teaching. At Kay's house, Natalie played puzzles and a Jessie Doll. We've recently introduced the little kids to Toy Story, and when it was time to go Natalie was so sad to leave Jessie. "I wish I could have Jessie..." Kay, the lovely grandma that she is, asked me if it was okay to let her have it. Of course, so thoughtful and kind of her. So I told Natalie that Kay gave it to her, and Natalie took it with us as we walked to the next house.

The snow was melting fast and we about fell and killed ourselves at Michelle's house next, kinda funny. Her front porch was worse than ours! Although Owen thought he was gonna slip and die coming in to our home. It was a fun walk around the neighborhood and it was fun to watch Daniel discover the cold snow.
Lots of snow but the sun was shining and it was a fairly warm and pleasant day for winter. After Sophi got home from kindergarten, Natalie let her have a turn playing with Jessie, but not long enough for Sophi, and the little girls have been kinda fighting over Jessie since then. We're gonna hope that Toy Story 4 comes out asap and we can get more toys then, though I am keeping an eye out at the second hand store too.

So most of this snow came from a big storm over the weekend, but there was a small layer of snowdust today. On our way over to the first visit, I noticed some strange animal tracks in the snow -

Four little paws, and some of the tracks appeared to have a tail...

They seemed too big to me to be a mouse... and too far apart. So maybe a big rat?

 They led to/from our home and next door and across the street to some of our neighbor's homes.

Several weeks ago, Abi and I and a few of the kids at different times all saw some wild rodent in out by the garbage can and in the garage (a wild rodent as opposed to our domestic pet guinea pigs). We can't have wild animals in the garage or the house, so I put out some traps. We didn't catch it but the food did get taken a few times. But then one night as I emptied the trash, I heard an owl hooting in the neighbor's tree and we didn't see the black rodent again. So I figured the owl got him. But now I'm not so sure... We shall begin again to keep a watchful eye.

Puzzles vs. To Do List

Hey there. I feel like I almost get caught up here and then the time flies past again and I'm a month behind again. It's been 11 days since I last had a chance to sit at the computer and gather my thoughts.  So I was about to get caught up but then we did a spur of the moment week trip to Park City over Martin Luther King holiday, which is yet to be blogged. I try not to be the party pooper when it comes to family vacations, but I confess I was bummed to not have a weekend with all my little chicks at home to try and catch up or, heaven forbid, actually get ahead on things. But instead we went swimming for 4 days and watched tv. We did do a 500 piece puzzle while we were up there. That was one thing I brought and wanted to do, since my love language is quality time. And cause I tried up at Wolfcreek but no body got into it and we didn't get far at all. That was a 500 piece puzzle of frosted sugar cookies. But then they accidentally opened it up in the car on the drive and pieces fell all over and got stepped on and so I didn't bother with trying to find all the pieces and that one went into the trash. At Park City it was a colorful puzzle with house and street shops. It was my second attempt at family bonding and it worked better. Lily helped me most, then Hyrum got into it a little, and Abi. It was on a small table so only 2 of us could work on it at a time, 3 tops. But I got my fill. It was fun just sitting together at a table spending time together an cheering each other on when we find a where piece goes. And since we're back at home now and I can now get all those things done that I want to... I've decided it's a good opportunity to continue to waste time by keeping up our new hobby of doing puzzles. Poor Natalie has had to take over doing dishes this afternoon cause I was too busy wasting time.

She was just chit chatting away with me in her sweet little 4 year old voice, she's so cute.

She really wanted to do the dishes. "Dishes is an important job to do!" She tried to load the dishwasher. I let her play dishes for a few then I went and helped. But anyway, back to puzzles! Check out this one that we finished tonight! I bought this one on Saturday at the dollar store - 500 pieces and get this - it is just a puzzle of who knows how many one dollar bills and one penny on it.

This is how most of it looked this morning. I had pieces organized by their size and tried to categorize them by what I could see on them - be it a number, or the green series of numbers, or by the part of the word on it - United States of America or One Dollar...

We started it on Saturday. We did the border and the green circles. Hyrum worked on George Washington faces, but those were harder to figure out. Easy to spot, but hard to put together. The black circles with upper case letters were our next "easy" part. Everything else was hard. The 1's in the corners were the last pieces put in - Ethan and Wesley (who are two other people who both also have more important things to be doing) finished it tonight - 3 days later and we're done! We found pieces on the ground and in different rooms a few times, thus we were amazed that there weren't any lost or missing. I spent too much time on it today but it's kinda fun (and addicting). I have this other one I'm working on downstairs that is really fun - 500 piece bouncy ball puzzle. This is one that I would take apart and do again, it's fun to do and to look at.

So we did the dollar bill puzzle at the kitchen table, but when Ethan and Wesley finished it they wanted to bring it up to show me and they put it on a cookie cooling rack and it kinda broke, so they were fixing it on the carpet.

It comes apart so easily, ugh, the pieces lock together very loosly. Don't mess it up. We all said that if it got busted before we finished, it would be game over and we'd just throw it in the trash. Too hard, not worth it!

I was glad that I didn't have to finish it, thanks team. I'm sure they felt a great sense of accomplishment. I didn't put the last piece in, but I feel proud too. I helped them move it onto a more secure board - a pink art case.

This was a hard puzzle and we never want to do it again. So we might frame it and put it in Corey's office, to channel financial prosperity to his business efforts. All I'll say about that is that it is hard and Corey said it's the hardest thing he's ever had to do, and he's in the thick of it still, trying to figure out a way forward. Take one day and one piece at a time. I guess that's the only way we can go forward and figure things out.

Roof Restaurant & First Big Snow Storm

Tonight we took Joseph out for his belated birthday dinner. This is a tradition we started last year. Last year we took Ethan to the Roof for his date, and it was there that we set up the policy that each kid would be able to go to the Roof Restaurant one time during their life at home with us and on our dime. Joseph didn't go to the Roof Restaurant for this birthday dinner date last year, and since this is Joseph's last birthday with us, this was his last chance to go.

We enjoyed a lovely meal and Corey and I shared about how proud we are of Joseph and everything he's done. There's not much left for us to teach him, so we know that means it's about time for him to fly the nest and launch into his bright future. We're excited for ya Joseph! Here was my view during our dinner, I love these two.

Their view of me, I had the better view with the windows outside, they just had the pictures on the wall.

Time for the traditional photo with the temple behind us.

That beautiful temple is where Joseph's story began, cause that's where Corey and I got married. Here we are almost 19 year later (Yes, he was born before our first anniversary... and life haven't slowed down since!) Seems like just yesterday. Same with memories of our little Joseph. Can't believe he's 18!

Well, that dinner tonight was definitely the highlight of the day. The other kinda big news is that we finally got snow. This morning I was able to look out over our little balcony to see how much snow there was, always a nice feature.

This balcony railing measurement lets me know if I need to get up and shovel before Mel goes to GMS or not. She wanted to take the car today, but we said not if it snows. But this snow means that I still need to get out of bed and clear the driveway so I can take her to the bus. Since I was up and awake, I decided to test the roads and try to go to the temple. I went to the Draper temple, which is up on a hill with some steep roads, or they seemed pretty steep in the snow. It hadn't been plowed, I almost thought I wouldn't make it, but I did. Not many other people did though, it was pretty quiet. I just did initiatories and had the booth and the workers to myself. I was grateful to see the roads had been plowed by the time I was done. That made it much better to drive in. The kids had fun sledding. Finally they can go sledding in the tree farm! Abi wore a hat, but her hair wasn't tucked in her coat, so she had nice balls of snow stuck in it. She came in to tell us she was back, and we both laughed and I told her to turn around.

Her shirt was totally drenched too.

I am not a skier, or atleast don't have/make the time to be a skier yet (I will someday) so I don't mind these snow sparce winters and clear roads, I think it's been nice. But I'm glad for these kids that they finally have some snow to work in.

They had a lot of wet fun outside. It was a good Saturday.

Googly Eyes

So, just another Friday night... with my kids being funny weirdos. Melodie, as usual, was the creative mind behind this one. She somehow got a hold of the googly eyes that Sophi had given to Lily for Christmas. While most people would look at a package of googly eyes and think "craft", Melodie looks a things with a different perspective. She called her sister over to take a picture for her

Melodie apparenly is more of a Calvin creative type... Lol, that strip is a classis.

Perhaps she can keep a pair of eyes in her pocket to use at school so she can take a nap during class and not get caught! She was laughing pretty hard. "Abi! Come here! This is so funny!" And Abi joined in. They laughed and laughed

They thought they looked like the train faces from Thomas and friends - ha!

The kids all come running when they hear fun happening. Here's Lily's googly eye face

And Wes was up next - he struggled to get them to stay on.

Mel and Abi's eyeglasses held on the googly eyes on the face better for them, so they were able to look more rested. Wes's face was a bit strained as he tried to hold it with his eye lids

Still pretty funny. I like hearing the kids laugh and be goofy together.

Another funny face that Mel was responsible for recently - this was actually in November - she thought she'd try to give her little sisters nightmares by making these creepy faces - one on a closet sock drawer, the other on the bed post in the girls' room. In the closet... "Hello little girl..."

Mel! Your sisters can't get dressed in here with this face looking at them!!

"Hi, I'm a freaky closet face watching you change your clothes?" Yeah, he's gotta go.

Then there was this scary guy on the bed -

We all agree these guys are freaky.

Mel, you're a weird one. Creative, but weird. Did you know that WEIRD and WRIDE have the same letters, just rearranged? Perhaps the weird part comes with our name.