Funtopia FHE

Tonight we ALL went out together for a Family Activity! That has not happened for a while. Usually it's just Corey and some kids, or just me and some kids. But tonight we all went, even the busy teenagers! And it was so fun. We went to Funtopia in Lehi. I didn't climb, I just held and nursed Peter. But I loved seeing the kids all help each other! Hooray for family activities! Here's Abi helping Sophi, Wes helping Owen...

Some bonding and helping each other, and some teasing and playing - the especially like making all the hand and footholds disappear on this one wall, as demonstrated in the video below. Big brothers teasing their sisters.

Here's Wes about to do the jump - will he be able to hold on?

I can't remember if he stuck the hold or not. Below is Sophi, proud of herself for reaching the top.

Hyrum helping Owen.

Owen climbing the rope ladder. The harness threw off the normal sense of his weight with gravity, so he kinda couldn't figure it out at the beginning.

He and Daniel preferred to run up and down the warped wall with their harnesses on.

Daniel's was sliding down off his hips, tripped him up a few times. He did really good climbing though. At the end I helped him climb up a wall that had letters spelling "Fun Wall" and he got all the way past the "a"!

It was a really fun activity together, hooray for the Get Out Pass. Peter was a perfect baby at the activity. He's been so snuggly since he was sick two weeks ago.

Wes talked to Peter in the car. "Peter! Blink if you love me!" and then Peter blinked twice! He really loves you Wes.  Here he is snuggling Wes.

We all feel so special when Peter lays his head on our shoulders. His "head hugs" are heaven!

Butterfly Biosphere

Today our last butterfly emerged, as predicted. The weather today was mid 60s for a high, mid 40s for a low, but the forecast for next week is highs in the 50s, lows in the 30s! So I didn't want to release the butterfly outside. I asked on facebook if anyone in SLC was headed to southern Utah, but didn't get any takers. So plan B - the Butterfly Biosphere at Thanksgiving Point. I hadn't been to the conservatory before today, so it was a fun new experience. I didn't call ahead to ask if they took butterflies, we just went hoping for the best, and if they wouldn't, I figured I'd hold my kids captive for a ride south and we'd spend the day in the car. I told them that was the plan. Lucky for them, the biosphere took our little lady no problem. Other than she flew away for a minute from us in the lobby. A person at the desk caught her and took her in, we followed. Then Lily held it again as we waited for it to fly away into it's new controlled temperature greenhouse home.

It didn't want to leave, so it hung onto Lily for a while. Then Lily tried to let Natalie have a turn, I thought this was a precious photo - reminded me of the one of Mel and the little girls at the beach (pic 2)

In the pic above and the beach pic, I love seeing all their attention focused in on some little amazing creature and being present with the little wonders of this world. Abi got a big white butterfly to land on her - 

She's like a Disney Princess - at one with the animal kingdom...

 

Lily had a few of those moments too. She was in awe an dfelt she had entered into a magical place! She was happy when she got one of the big blue butterflies. They were really big!

So I kinda feel bad that I've chosen for this butterfly a life of captivity, but I also think that there should be butterflies in the biosphere - it's important for children to have a place where they can be up close with these little wonders. We were all amazed by the wall of chrysalis's, wow!!! So many different kinds!! And most of the chrysalis were pretty ugly and gross looking. No offense butterflies, but monarchs are my favorite. We were excited when we saw monarchs in the biosphere. Is that our girl? Did she find a male companion?

Well that's good that she has some monarch company. So yeah, she's not really wild and free now that she's living in the biosphere, but hey, it's better than freezing to death. And it seems to be a very lovely place to live and to have everything a butterfly could want, from what I could tell from my non butterfly perspective. It kinda reminds me of the Garden of Eden. Perfect, but not ideal, maybe cause it's too easy... we need to go out in the world and experience the storms of life in order for us to truly understand joy. So, there's the gospel parallel for ya. Owen might say that the bugs were a bit to close for comfort... Here I tried to take a picture of the kids and there is a little butterfly flying by in front of Sophi's shirt - and Owen did not like that.

Ok, take 2 - and Abi remembered Peter should be included.

Natalie was sad cause none of the butterflies were landing on her. But I needed to get Owen and Daniel out of there, so we left and I told the girls I'd be waiting for them in the discovery zone.
But then we went to the "Costa Rica Climber" playplace instead. Owen and Daniel went down the slide while I fed Peter. They also had a wind thing showing how the butterflies get blown up high by the wind - Owen letting go a yellow fabric in the wind chute.

Soon the girls found us. 

Soph helped Daniel build a castle for his caterpillar, which he proudly showed me - 

Lily turned Peter into a Lady bug. .

Peter, do you like being a ladybug?!?

What a cute little guy. Up the stairs on the way to the slide, there was a treehouse area where the kids could learn more about insects and imagine their own "entomology field research". 

They did some research on a orchid bee.  

It actually looked more to me like they had abducted some alien and were doing research on him.

But they looked cute in their little white trench coats. Then I was about done, so we attempted to leave, but got side tracked in the Discovery Zone. Climbing on a caterpillar...

Lily is in a chrysalis!

And soon she turned into a butterfly, layed her egg on a milkweed plant leaf, and started the cycle over again. 

"Take a picture of us!"

 One final pics - some bugs in a jar., haha cute. 

And then after that we finally did walk over to the dinosaur museum, cause Owen insisted we go (despite my trying to buy him out with ice cream). We were able to get through it quickly enough. I fed Peter while they played at the water table, luckily we've seen it all. But checked it off for Owen, then we headed home. It was a great outing, 4 hours with 7 kids, go me.

No School Butterfly

The kids have missed seeing the monarchs emerge this year. We've only had late season butterflies and so the kids have been in school. Luckily it was parent teacher conferences this week, so that means today is a teacher work day, so the kiddos are out of school today, and today one of the monarchs emerged! And we're gonna be lucky again tomorrow, which is when the other one will emerge (judging by the timing of when they turned into chrysalis') So, hooray! They were able to see the butterfly today! So pretty.

It made a nice addition the vase of flowers on the kitchen table.

Sophi, who had been the most tearful to have not held the caterpillars, was the first to hold the butterfly.

And then we put it on the kitchen table for kids to watch.

Eventually we took it outside. This pretty butterfly is a boy!!

(Can you see the dark spots on the two bottom wings?) We put it out on the tree in the backyard before noon, and it was there through out the afternoon when we checked on it. I let a few neighbor kids hold it as I was out checking on it and they were passing through the yard. And as we switched it fingers between kids on our front porch, it flew away and into the tree farm. I didn't have shoes on so I didn't follow it, and so it was soon out of sight and probably impossible to find. So with that we bid this young fellow adieu. I did just check the weather, and today it was fine, but the forecast tomorrow and into the next week don't look good for butterflies...

I have just been doing more butterfly research and google tells me via butterfly fun facts that they can't fly if it's below 60 - and the high temperatures next week are lower than that. And if they are wet in freezing temperatures they will die. We're getting down to freezing on Monday... I hope that little guy makes it! I might put out a request on facebook tomorrow (like I did in 2017) to see if anyone can take our last butterfly down to south to warmer weather.

Tonight Corey and I went on a date to the Church Museum. It was raining, so Corey parked the car. While I waited, I looked around the gift shop where I saw some beautiful cards, which I have since learned are called Quilling Cards. Holy amazing, wow-wow-wow-wow. They were just on white paper - but then there was small paper scrolls shaped into beautiful pictures and images - I loved the colors, love the detail, love love love them! I started to pick out ones I wanted - they had a monarch butterfly ~

Gotta have that one, and I wanted the violin too, and the other violin... cause I couldn't decide which one I liked more. And they had a pretty piano card too, and an Eagle (for Skyline, so that's part of our family history, or could be for the USA). As I've looked online they have more that they didn't have at the store - a saxophone and trumpet, cool! Looks like we got most of our musical instruments covered. Sorry Mel, no flute. Anyway, at the museum I soon had a pile of 10. I put most of them back, but did get a few that I hope to put on the walls soon! I still hardly have anything decorating the walls here. it was nice to be there and to get a little more inspired and to see a little more of the art from the International Art Competition. This time I was most impressed by the piece "What is a Seed but Sunlight Sent into the Future" Looking at that one up close, I still could not tell that they were photographs of seeds, but I loved the idea, the title, and the work that went into recreating the Palmyra night sky in March 1820. I have a goal to someday make something to enter, I hope it's something with symbolism and meaning behind it. After Corey and I looked around we sat in a pioneer exhibit to see info about how people traveled to Utah/Zion. Our yoga baby used the opportunity at the museum to get in more downward dog practice.

Peek a boo Peter!!! You are the cutest!

It was a nice date, I think I'd like for us to go there more often and bring the kids too.

Thursday

Yay, today is Friday!! No, it's Thursday, but we'll call it Friday because it's the last day of school this week! I'm glad to have a 3 day weekend, cause that means a little more personal time in the a.m. tomorrow. And tonight Corey gets back from California, so I've survived the week. As for today, I did good and went on a walk this morning. There was a beautiful crescent moon rising, and I love watching the sky light up.

I'm going to use this mountain skyline someday for a painting. Something like this, but without the lady. After my walk, the morning routine continued - woke up kids, dished up oatmeal, and started "Twinkle Rhythms". I decided to jump in and play, doing violin practice as the girls got ready for school. I started Perpetual Motion!! I'm pretty excited cause I can almost do it. And Owen practiced his trumpet, good job little guy!

He is doing great! The raising of our older kids is half way done or almost finished, but we're still starting fresh with these younger kids. If they can learn/think that they want to practice, well that's probably one of the biggest hurdles in getting kids to play. So Owen, you keep practicing and this will be a lot easier! I hope Sophi and Natalie are inspired by how much they see me practicing. Peter, what instrument are you going to play? Oh he's so cute.

He was doing his sideways head look as he ate raisin bread. We'll see if he cooperates and lets me get stuff done today. We gotta clean the house since Corey's coming home, so I'm gonna go get crackin'.

Elementary PTCs

Today's Parent Teacher Conferences weren't as good as yesterday's. I'm basing this opinion mostly on the fact that yesterday I was finished and still had a smile on my face and energy to face the evening. And after today's conferences, I was in a foul disposition. I think the main reason for that was these two little boys...

Yes, my two Buzz Lightyear boys. I asked Lily to take a picture. That smile wasn't a happy smile, It was a "suck it up!" smile. I carried them into the school because they didn't have shoes. They didn't have shoes on cause I wasn't planning on taking them. I had been on a video call with Joseph, therefore I was almost running late cause I wasn't focused on the task at hand. I silently motioned to Hyrum and told him to watch O&D as I snuck out the door and attempted to leave with the girls. But these boys and their supersonic hearing alerted them that the car was starting and they were not in it. So they ran to the garage in a panic both screaming for me "WAIT!!!!" Darn it, caught. So I just took them. Ugh. They did pretty good inside the school...

Playing with toys during Natalie's conference, the first one. Here is Natalie's self portrait:

I love first grader spelling: kacpac = cupcakes, frens = friends, plang = playing

 As usual, I scheduled the conferences one right after another - Natalie at 5, Sophi 5:15, Lily 5:30. 15 minutes really isn't enough time to get into a game. They played for a minute then - time to go! Play for 10 minutes then - time to go! On the last room, Lily's conference, Daniel was interrupting and fussing, he wanted a candy from the teacher's jar. I tried to just hush him until we were done, then when it was over I scooped him up and hustled him out. THEN the girls wanted to go to the book fair. Go ahead. But we're not buying anything today. Go ahead and go in, write down what you want, and maybe we can get it for Christmas. I'll be waiting in the car with the little boys. I carried Peter out on one hip and Daniel (who was still freaking out) on the other. Poor Owen had to walk barefoot across the asphalt. Into the car, I sit in the back to nurse Peter, and I sent a quick voice message to Corey, vowing to never take the toddlers with me to a conference again. Plus Abi wanted to come too, to see her old teacher... sigh. Really? Seven of us are going to Parent teacher conferences? Ugh. But I did it, go me, I'm alive, kids are all alive, and Corey is coming home tomorrow night. I've survived, now we just need to get the house clean and organized before he arrives.

High School PTC

Corey is in San Francisco for the week. And this week is Parent Teacher Conferences. So that means I get to do ALL of them. Yippie skippie. Usually Corey takes care of the high school and jr. high crew, and I take care of elementary kids with toddlers in tow. So I really have to have my act together.  I left at 3:30 with Wes to drop him off at Clayton Productions (he joined their performing group "Celebrate" last month, every Tuesday 4-7) So I dropped him off, ran by Des 1st to write a check to pay off the Hyundai, yay, to Walmart for a quick return, then to Skyline. I got the midterm report cards... I underlined the teachers I needed to see, which was any class which wasn't an A/A-/B+. There were 11 of those between my 3 kids. Priority was Hyrum's D-, luckily that was just a teacher's fault with "I didn't update it before the midterms were printed" and Hyrum has a solid A in that class (Computer programming). Gave me hope for the rest of the low grades I saw (C-, two Fs!) I took Peter with me and he kept me smitten and entertained doing his baby yoga on the gym floor -

He got lots of loving glances from adoring adults. He's so cute. And as for the conferences, it's all good - luckily there is nothing that can't be turned around. Even the 2 F's (<>) were from missing assignments that there are, thankfully, no late penalties on. So he can turn those in and get full credit and thus will be working on catching up with all that Spanish and AP Human Geography stuff over this 3 day weekend. Peter was excellent, I didn't even stop to nurse him at all, but kept the cheerios coming. And he was about tired of it when it was time to be done, so that worked out perfectly. Back to the car to go pick up Wesley, that worked out pretty good. Yay Peter, we're going home!

Oh he's beautiful. I took a picture of Corey and I in the "Class of '94" group photos in the band hallway - I'm kinda easy to spot...

Corey is a little harder when you're looking at the whole group photo, but I made it easy for you with him centered here.

I didn't make it to Abi's today, and I don't think I'll make the effort to go out tomorrow, not worth the drive and time for me as a single mom this week. I told her that since 6th grade doesn't count on her high school transcript, I was going to put her conferences as my last priority. "Just learn how to learn, you've got three years to figure out how to play the game and get 4.0s. It's totally doable!" I've got Elementary girls tomorrow, so yeah, I probably won't get to Abi's and that's ok. I'm focused on survival this week via simple meals, cleaning the house, and making sure homework gets done and music gets practiced.