We've been working on the bedrooms since Tuesday night. Wednesday was a big mess, yesterday was bad too, but today we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The rooms are almost done, now I just have to sort through all the left over and unwanted clutter and then take a run to drop things off at the thrift store. Or have Mel do it, she's my only spare driver until Eth gets his license.
So, a year ago the room arrangements were: Joseph and Ethan together, Hyrum and Wes together, and all the girls in the big room together. A few months ago, Ethan and Hyrum were both on a major teenager attitude kick, and while most of us suffered from it, Wesley had the worst of it, so we moved Joseph in with Wes and put Hyrum and Ethan together. That worked until they got sick of each other and Hyrum moved out, making a little sleeping area for himself in the basement. Around that time Lily had moved herself into the basement too, and then Natalie. But it can't be a bedroom area down there - no closet or place to keep clothes, so the striving for order person in me didn't like it. But I told Lily and Hyrum they could stay until after Joseph left and we rearranged rooms. We moved Joseph back in with Ethan and were going to try moving Owen in with Wes, but Owen never went for that. Instead of having Wes have a room to himself, I moved the little girls in there so they can begin to practice being tidy without older siblings doing all the work.
Lily has the top bunk bed. She decorated that wall all by herself with all her end of school papers and posters. Natalie is on the full size bottom bunk, and Sophi wanted the toddler bed. Works for me. So, Hyrum was downstairs, little girls took over their room, Wes needed a place, so he thought he's get a move on into the soon to be boys room early, and he's been on the loft bed for a while with Mel and Abi sharing the bunk in the girls room. But now we finally moved all the girls out, Mel and Abi have their own room - Mel on top, Abi on bottom - and we're leaving the couch in there cause it was a major pain moving it in and it will be hard getting it out too, so executive vote says it's staying.
Plus Mel always did her homework on the front room couches anyway - I said it can be her new study area since she doesn't use a desk. We moved the ikea thing into Mel and Abi's room and the girl dresser in with the little girls, which will be good, cause they were a little crowded in the small closet in there. Ethan and the boys have worked hard on their room and it looks awesome.
Eth is on the loft bed with a nice desk set up beneath it, Wes on the top bunk, Hyrum on bottom, Hyrum's desk by the window, and Wes has one on the other side by the closet that you can't see from this angle. Anyway, it looks really good! My room still needs work, since that was the "move things out into here" space. I've got a filing cabinet to move downstairs and we'll probably move the piano into the study downstairs, it's been in the girls room since Abi and Mel are the only ones taking piano lessons right now. So, that's that, the rooms are done. Yay. Little by little we'll try to get on top of things here again.
We got word this morning that Joseph made it safely to Guatemala.
I think that's how you say I arrived. There were a ton of missionaries on the plane from SLC to LAX and even more from there to GUA. I'll put in pictures later. They gave me a haircut too. A kid here has an alphabetizer 3000 thing, Elder Strong. There are quite a few kids going to the South mission here. I'm excited. I'm out of time now. Chao
Corey's reply - Great to hear from you! Love you, and excited for this journey with you. Excited to hear more.
PS, It's "He llegado"
And now we just wait to hear from him week to week I guess. As for us, life the rest of these silly kids goes on. Hopefully one day they will be ready to leave and will hopefully make it out there on their own. Mel, Ethan, you're next.
So, in case you missed it in the long winded post yesterday, that first video there shares the moment when we told the kids that we're expecting. I told Joseph a few weeks earlier, so he knew, and we let him drop the hint and then verify the hint to his siblings. We just knew that we were gonna miss Joseph so much, we had to put in for a replacement. Baby #12 is due to arrive January 14th, which is appropriately 5 days after Joseph's birthday.
What else - after we came home yesterday, I kinda thought it should have been a spiritual and family bonding event. Instead, after pulling into the garage and as people were still walking in from the cars, so seriously within minutes, Ethan and Hyrum got in a fight and were punching each other and Hyrum got a bloody nose. So much for our spirituality. Should I share this stuff here? Trying to keep it real, but don't want to focus on the negative that happens, but I guess I will mention it here since I doubt I'll get around to writing in my journal. So, yesterday while we were at Chuck a Rama, Ethan was making comments to Hyrum about his food and his weight. Hyrum finished his food and then wanted me to take him home. No. So he went outside for the last half hour of our family meal, too mad at Ethan to let it go and be with us. After we dropped off Joseph at the airport and came back to get all the kids, we came home, Hyrum was inside first, when Ethan came in, I think all he said was "Hey Sparticus..." and Hyrum lost it and started swinging at him, Ethan swung back, and then when I walked I see Hyrum on the floor with a bloody nose and Ethan with a good pink cheek and rubbing his right shoulder. I just went into our room and rocked Daniel and fumed/pondered/shook my head, what are we gonna do with these boys? We never learned how to deal with this with Joseph, cause he was an ideal oldest child. Maybe he was gone so much that he didn't have time for these encounters, or he just never let his temper get there. These two (Hyrum and Ethan) have been going at each other for 7 years if the date on this blog post is correct. Another example from 2017, story right before the second photo. Gosh, come Tiff, you can do this, just 2 years for E, 4 for H, and then you can take a breathers while these boys get some life experience from somewhere else. We will try to have them prepared of course, and I think they are civil with each others at school/church and with strangers in public, but heaven help me know how to handle things here at home sometimes.
Here's another story, this one more funny than frustrating, that also shows the distance we have to go with some of these youngsters - so, several weeks ago I shared a little post of Ethan and a science experience he was doing. He saw a video on instagram (not this one, but showed a similar clip to 2:25 of how to easily plant your banana kiwi, followed by the person amazingly pulling the banana kiwi from the pot like a carrot (neither bananas nor kiwis are roots!) with some stupid fake ivy plant poking "growing" out of the banana, showing of course that it is a real plant. So dumb, but Ethan had to try it. He did, he didn't water it though, maybe that's where his plant failed, cause today it's been 3 weeks (like the video said was the amount of time needed to let it grow) and ... tada - the banana kiwi.
Ethan's pot of dirt with his triumphant creation.
Silly boy. See, I told you it wasn't real. I still remember the determination in his voice as he said "Get me a pot." Well, sometimes you just gotta learn these things on your own.
You can't believe every things you see on social media, who knew, right?
Today was the big day. Joseph is flying through the air right now, on his way to Los Angeles first and from there to Guatemala City. Here's how the day went down. He woke up at 6:30 (following a missionary schedule!) and exercised (I think), then he showered and got dressed because he and Corey were going to go to the Salt Lake temple together. Shooting for the 8:00 or 9:00 session. At 7 a.m. I went up to the Little Cottonwood Trail and got a few more little Granite rocks for him to take - he has 100 now. I called out to the rocks "Who wants to go to Guatemala! Last call for Guatemala!" A few rocks rolled onto the path to volunteer. I was impressed that with the rocks I had before that it worked out that there are 100 for him, and I kept some of the bigger rocks to give to the kids here at home. One rock of the 100 is for Joseph to keep in his pocket, to remind him of home: Home (cause we live close to the old quarry site) Granite (cause it is Granite, and that's our community), of the Temple (cause that's what the Salt Lake Temple is made of), of the Pioneers - their WORK and SACRIFICE to build the temple for their posterity, to remind us of our ANCESTORS and the LEGACY of FAITH they've left for us. So I first picked up rocks a few weeks ago, thinking it would be a fun thing for him to give to people he teaches that decided to be baptized, to remind them that baptism isn't the end, it's just the first step! Next they need to look forward to and prepare to enter the temple - a rock to remind them of the essential covenants we all need to make there. Anyway, so yeah, Joseph is taking a box of rocks down with him in his luggage! Here is his desk, it's looked this way for a while, covered with stacks of books he wants to read, and his mission booklet of the things he has to do to be ready...
You ready for this yet, Joseph? Not yet. at 7:30 Corey took Melodie to a GMS retreat down town and then Corey was going to head over to the SL Temple, Joseph wanted to stay and pack/organize some more until 8:15 and then I'd drive him down. I went downstairs and looked through old printed pictures to see if there were any good ones he might want to take. I did that until 8:20 when he called that he was ready to go.
We got in the car and great.... the gas light was on. Joseph told me we were fine to drive all the way down town. Plus we were cutting in close to get there in time for the 9:00 session. It went against all my better instincts. I don't drive with the gas light on. Joseph does. He told me that once the light was on when he left American Fork after Crescent Band, and he was able to make it from there all the way to Skyline (where a bus was about to leave for a choir performance... he got there with the "miles to empty" sign reading a big "0", and he was still able to drive it from Skyline to a gas station after that - so yeah, 35 miles to empty? I'm totally good. Ok, Mr. Missionary, I'll take your word for it....
But... if I get stuck down town, I'm gonna be ticked! Well, atleast I don't have little kids in the car, so it will be okay, I can walk to a gas station. I did make it down there fine and then I filled up downtown. Although Joseph told me I'd totally be able to make it all the way back home if I wanted. No, Joseph! That is not how we want to live! We want to have oil in our lamps! We want to stay as far away from empty as we can, Be Prepared! Be ready with extra oil/gas to spare, none of this "oh it can wait, you'll be fine, you can make it another 30 miles if you want" attitude. Although I'm glad you've had experience that gives you confidence, I never have let myself be put in this situation where it's this close, so I was nervous, but was happy when I pulled into Chevron.
On the way home I listened to the Killers "Be Still" on repeat and I cried the whole way. This line was about Joseph - "Be still, one day you'll leave, fearlessness on your sleeve." That's Joseph, and today is that one day. He's leaving and he's not nervous about it. I'm not afraid for him either, so I think my tears were mostly emotional. I'm gonna miss him (two years is a long time!) I remember after Corey left for his mission, I let myself spend a day listening to songs that we danced to, esp I remember Sting's "When We Dance" made me depressed and it was torture! I thought I was gonna die, this was no way to cope, thinking about him was gonna kill me, I needed to get something to distract myself, so I did. I got busy and that's my plan this time. I think it will be easier now than it was then, cause I've still got 10 kids here to distract me. But when I'm still, when I'm washing dishes or driving in the car and alone with my thoughts, and if I let them wander to Joseph, I'll probably cry.
So, when I got home, I got online and uploaded some of our new family pictures to Costco one hour for his photo book. They'd be ready at 12:17. I went to pick them up and bought some batteries too. Corey and Joseph weren't back yet.... I had a feeling we were going to be behind schedule. If they made the 9:00 session, they should be done around 11 and back by noon - but they didn't get home until 1:00. Ok guys, we were supposed to be going out for lunch right now... but Joseph still had to pack and arrange things.
He worked hard, had plenty of room, it was just shuffling things around. Wasn't too bad. I helped him, we can feel it, the big moment is here, you're leaving today Joseph! How are our stress levels?
His friend Talmage came over for one last goodbye. Talmage leaves in August for Ecuador.
Lots of kids in his high school class have received their calls, but Joseph is just the second to leave! That's why he had a big turn out at his "farewell" on Sunday, cause everybody is still here. Joseph zipped up the bags, we loaded them in the car.... here we go!
Say "bye house!" It was 2:25 and off we went for lunch. We went out to eat downtown at a place close to where Mel was for her music thing. Corey was thinking Olive Garden, but that would require a reservation, and we never called that in since Joseph was a little behind finishing up. So Chuck A Rama it was again, we'll work passing level 2 of Dining with Kids another time. We went the easy route with Chuck A Rama buffet. The kids loaded up on ice cream.
Joseph shared an announcement with the kids....
Hard to hear there in the video, plus I got a phone call that cut if off, here is part two -
So Joseph was starting to tell the kids this story - when Joseph was given the Melchizedek Priesthood and was ordained an Elder on May 20th, he told me two days later that he had been impressed to bless me with more children (note, PLURAL! uh-oh!) But he stopped himself cause extended family was there, and cause that wasn't his place to talk or give advice about that, etc... I wasn't thinking about it and wasn't keeping track of time, but looked at my calendar the next morning to find that my period should have started last week, not this week, so I had a pregnancy test on hand and took it was positive. I told Joseph Tuesday night, cause I had been thinking about it for the past 24 hours and felt like it was okay to tell him cause he should know in person, not over email on his mission, and that led to a conversation about his impression during the blessing on Sunday. SO, the moral of the story and lesson Joseph learned was: He was not giving the blessing, God is. He is not supposed to filter the words the Holy Ghost puts in his mouth, it's not on Joseph, it's God's blessing. You say what He tells you to say, and if anyone has questions or problems with it, they can bring it up with Him, it's not on you Joseph. We just need to stay out of God's way. So that has been our secret for the past 5 weeks. My laying around might have tipped the little people off that something was going on, cause my desire to workout has gone out the window since Newport, thus I'm already gaining weight. I hope to kick it back in gear in another two weeks and hopefully have have a fit pregnancy even better than last time cause I'm eating better (or will be once this craving for cheese and cookies goes away).
So that was the big news for the kids. We just knew that we would miss Joseph so much, we had to call in for a replacement, ha. I am due January 14th, just a few days after Joseph's birthday, which also seemed appropriate. SO - we had one last meal together at Chuck A Rama from 3 - 4, then over for 30 minutes of hugs and final goodbyes to Corey's parents and cousins and siblings -
Owen and Daniel will change the most while Joseph is gone. Daniel gave him a good hug, he's a good snuggler.
Joseph will be gone almost half of their entire lives up until now! Life is gonna change, we're all going to grow and learn alot during these next 2 years.
...and then Corey and I took Joseph to the airport. We were all weepy in the car - mostly emotional I guess. Cause we will miss him, but we're excited for him, but it is a big change for our family. As Corey said during our late lunch, the past 18 years have all been prep work for this moment, he's just starting! Joseph's life begins tonight, then everyone sang right away "It starts tonight!!" - Greatest Showman, funny. Getting bags out at the airport -
Riding the skywalk -
Riding the escalator down to Check in -
Checking in his bags -
Corey took a picture of us doing a last group selfie, I'll get that off his phone soon. We kissed him, we all cried, and then he went to security.
He seemed to be in security for a while, and then when he got out, we yelled we loved him, and then there was another Elder going to Guatemala. and we shouted that over to Joseph, and he waited there for him - kinda waiting for a companion. We just stared at him in the distance for 15-20 minutes
The other Elder finally got through security, we did a final wave, and then they walked away to their gate. We stayed at tried to see him until he was out of sight. It was 5:40. They weren't flying out until 8:15. So he had a while to wait but he's in the air now, on his way, his life begins tonight! Or early tomorrow morning. You've got a great adventure ahead of you Joseph, we love you!
Lily's Birthday was on Saturday. Today was Wesley's big day. I feel a little bad that the celebration for these two has been overshadowed by Joseph's mission departure, but hey, what can you do.
So, Wesley likes sushi. So today for his birthday, we woke him up for breakfast in bed with a big "sushi cake" aka platter of sushi.
Daniel had seemed a bit concerned moments before when we lit the candles, like they were out of place there in the hall way instead of the kitchen
Good morning! Happy Birthday Wes!
Blow out your candles -
Daniel wants some of the food -
Mel took out the candles so Wes would be ready to dine.
Daniel made it up the ladder...
(Cute happy boy)
He's ready for you to share with him!
"Some? Some?"
And they feasted together. He's finishing his first mouth full there.
It was mostly a day of helping Joseph finish getting ready. He was set apart as a missionary tonight. Family came over for the occasion and our Stake leaders arrived at 7.
They chit chatted, then we sat and talked. Some advice was given, like Pres Osborne recommended Joseph get a copy of the Guatemala temple dedication prayer, cause that will tell him about the promised blessings given to the people and country. They also had him give me a blessing again, like they did when he received the Melchizedek priesthood on May 20th.
It was a nice experience, we are excited for him. I guess this is for real! This is happening! Less than 24 hours and he'll be on his way. Here we go! (Keep it together!!) I've been able to keep it together ok so far, we'll see how tomorrow goes!
Joseph spoke in Sacrament meeting at church today. I've started a blog for him, and I posted his talk there. He is a great kid, and I know he's going to be a great missionary. It's exciting, and it will be hard, but he's ready to take it on (it helps that, like most missionaries, he doesn't know what's coming! He doesn't know what he doesn't know! But he's ready and willing and going forward with faith, knowing this is the right thing for him to be doing in his life right now.
After church, our family came over to visit with Joseph and to enjoy some lunch together. Joseph, the man of the hour, in the chair - Corey's parent's on the left, my dad on the right side.
Talking, visiting, enjoying time together.
This evening, to give our neighbors a chance to come wish him well, we volunteered to be one of the host homes for a neighborhood "walkabout" - something the neighborhood started a few years ago, where once a month, we get to walk around the neighborhood to visit with neighbors and enjoy simple refreshments at 2 or 3 host homes. Joseph and his friend Spencer were sitting outside our house ready to say hello - They look like missionaries ready to go share the gospel with people they meet!
Corey teased that it might make our neighbors who don't go to church with us, be a little wary to stop and say hello, that these two Missionary looking fellows are gonna put the pressure on them to read the Book of Mormon. But they were just back there to sit on the bench.
We moved the bench in front and it became less threatening. We had a nice turnout.
I had lots of food, and healthy options too (a veggie tray) but Corey went and stole the show by buying even more cookies than I already had (Oh great.... we're gonna be "snacking" on cookies for a week!) and he also got the ice cream filled sorbet things from Costco - you know the ones? Island Way Sorbet - with pink lemonade sorbet in the frozen half of a lemon rind, with coconut ice cream in the half of a coconut shell...
He must have bought like 8 boxes, he just kept bringing them out as the kids kept gobbling them up, with some kids (mostly ours) helping themselves several times. Yay. Well, we tried to make it a big day and a big deal. I think it was a hit. We worked Joseph hard this past week, the yard looks so nice right now, I wish our family had a work ethic system that would ensure it would stay this nice. Owen played in the dirt.
Now it's over, we have about 48 hours left with Joseph. Ready or not, here missionary life comes for all of us. We're excited to share this adventure with him.
Today is Lily's Happy Birthday! Lily is 9 years old, Happy Birthday Lily! I woke up at 6 and ran to the store for her presents. Yeah, kinda last minute, but it's been crazy and busy and we're just taking one "must be done now" priority at a time, and now it's finally time to face the birthday plans. Luckily I had helpers. Abi got the window ready, and Wesley wanted to make her breakfast in bed. When I got back, Lily was already awake, but the kids told her she had to stay in her room until they were done. Wesley wanted mangos and strawberries for her birthday breakfast, so he went to work on the finishing touches on her birthday crepes.
He started just writing "happy b-day" in the Nutella, but then he thought it didn't look good. Then he had a great idea to use thin strawberry slices to fill in the letters, brilliant!
He was working on it for a long time. Lily was getting impatient, but it was finally ready
They sang happy birthday and she enjoyed Wesley's homemade crepes.
It was worth the wait, huh Lil, fresh mangos!
After breakfast, she came down stairs to see her presents and the junk food I shouldn't have bought for the celebration. Singing Happy Birthday again, Wesley's feeling the power of the music
Opening presents from us and Corey's parents - legos, hatchimals, clothes, pringles and a few other goodies
Then the girls spent the day playing. The rest of us spent the day working and getting things ready - there was a flurry of activity going on. We had some of Corey's friends from Brazil some by and work their maid wonders for us, and also had the carpets cleaned with the rotovac cleaner, he was great! I just called him last night when we were on our date and he was available to come today, awesome! So we had all the carpets cleaned, even in the bedrooms, and the stairs and even the couches! It looks so great, I am very happy. We're having neighbors stop by tomorrow for a walkabout, plus Joseph is speaking in sacrament meeting tomorrow and family will be coming over after church to visit. It was our last chance to get our slave labor work out of Joe. He was edging and weed-whacking all week, today he mowed and finished up. He's a good worker. He's gonna be a good missionary.
My mother stopped by later with gifts and a cake. 9 years old!
So, the other story for the day.... Natalie fell asleep pretty early. We woke her up for some cake and ice cream. She ate it and layed back down on the couch. I was getting the tub ready for everyone to take a bath, and I considered to just let Natalie sleep and give her a nap in the morning. But then a small thought said No, give her a bath. And I am thankful for that still small voice and little prompting, because after washing all the girls hair and supervising putting in conditioner, as I was rinsing Natalie's hair out, I saw something in her hair. It was kinda skin color - At first I thought it was gum or Scuply clay, I don't know where gum would have come from, but Lily had gotten some from her older sisters for her b-day.... I fidgeted with it and tried to get it loose/untangled from her hair. Natalie was squirming and saying ow, I thought because it was pulling her hair - Sorry sweetie, you've got something stuck in here... Then as I tried to get it lose, before I got scissors to just cut it out, I noticed that the hair that I thought was stuck in it did seem very dark and thick... and evenly spread... and then as I studied it, it occurred to me this was not a gum or clay, but there was a bug really tangled in and burrowing in her hair. Gross. I thought it was some kinda beetle. I thought "You're coming out" and despite Natalie's flinching I just yanked it and threw it in the tub water. Her scalp started to bleed - oh my gosh that thing was biting her!! To her sisters and Daniel in the tub, I said "We're done, there's a bug in the tub, let's get out." They stood up quickly for a last rinse, towels on everyone, and off to go get dressed. I put a diaper on Daniel and then returned to the scene of the crime to drain the tub and fish out the bug from the water. I saw him floating at the bottom of the tub. The scene of the crime.
I grabbed a blue cup and scooped him out. Oh my grossness, what is this thing?
I sent a picture of it to Corey who was not at home, off some place that was quiet where he could get work done. It was 9:04 pm. I left him a whats app voice message telling him what just happened and asked if I should take her to the instacare or ER or something? Hyrum and Wesley were playing a game and heard my somewhat panicked message to Corey. They set to the computer to do some google investigation. Hyurm's quick study made him certain that it was a tick. Oh my heck, a tick!?!? Now I was worried. I called our pediatrician's wife first, they are neighbors. When she didn't pick up I called him directly. He answered, he wasn't at home but he asked me to send him a picture of the bug and Natalie's head were it was attached. Talking to him helped me calm down, no need to go to the ER, the ticks that carry Lyme disease are not in Utah, he said. He told me to clean the area really good and he'd take a look at her tomorrow at church. I wiped it with Hydrogen Peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and then put some Neosporin type ointment on it. Natalie, how are you, princess?
We all feel a bit violated by that bug! What is the deal, you gross thing, sucking on her head! That is not nice.
I let the water out of the cup the bug was in to see if it was still alive. In a matter of seconds it's little legs were moving and it was walking around. Bech, blech, blah ugh! We've had the heebie-geebies all night shaking and feeling our scalps to make sure we don't have any bumps, gross gross gross gross...
Corey got home and has been doing his own research. From our research the size of this, we're guessing it is atleast a freaking 4 day tick!! This image makes me think it's a 5 day or more... Ok, I am so grossed out at this thing - I know I washed her hair on Monday before we got family pictures taken, but maybe it was so small that I didn't notice it then. And we were trying to figure out where she would have gotten it. We do have deer going through our yard often, so it could easily been from our yard if this is a deer tick. Plus on Tuesday we were all out in the yard weeding for a few hours, something could have gotten her then. Ugh, again, so grossed out, we feel kinda violated, knowing it's been there sucking on her head for a few days. It's just the first time we've ever had or seen a tick, but we are on high alert now and will be checking heads regularly to make sure there's nothing hiding in there, gross parasites.
11 July 2018
Good news in a text from Corey to me, family, and our pediatrician: "I sent the tick that bit Natalie off to a lab in California that tested for three diseases, including lyme disease. The test were negative for all three."
