Today the kids enjoyed some wrestling with Corey. I found it funny that Hyrum and Wes didn't join Corey in wrestling the little kids. Are they getting to old or too tired already?
It was also fun to watch Peter, who seemed to want to participate, but didn't know how far to go, so he'd just walk into the middle of the room and do circles.
Near the end he did go up and start whacking Corey, which we thought was funny.
After wrestling, we watched Fiddler on the Roof together. That is a great movie. We had a yoyo lunch and a sit down meal (8 for 8!). I tried out the angle for a future "Peter's Dinner Cam"
I think it would be a fun livestream for the family! I bet it would be too noisy for most people to find enjoyable, cause we got lots-o-loud little kids. Joseph and Ethan would like it.
Speaking of our Cali boys, they are doing well. Joseph asked us last night what was going on with the riots in SL, and we didn't know what he was talking about. Corey and Wes had gone skating at the U in the early afternoon, and I guess around that time there was a protest turned riot down in the city center. Glad they didn't get caught it in. We hadn't heard anything about George Foley until late last night when Mel clued me in. She was aware cause she was on Instagram and heard stuff. So, yeah, we're just here safe at home in our happy bubble having dinner. I guess "Stay Safe" might be taking on another meaning soon.
After dinner, we had a special Sunday dessert afterwards like we used to try and do on Sundays. Today was the old standby of cake with ice cream, whipped cream, raspberries and an Oreo topping. Yum. The kids liked it.
Then I went over to my mom's house with Peter and had a nice visit there with my little bro Neil, just the two of us with Mom and Dad. Peter slept through it all. It was a nice visit for my mom's bday. Today I also enjoyed studying Preach My Gospel this morning. Our friend Iveth told Corey last week that she's trying to help a Catholic priest from Las Vegas move up here to Salt Lake, and he's coming up today and will be here this week and we might have them over for dinner. So I read my scriptures with the thought that I was a Catholic Priest reading and discovering these new sources of truth (Book of Mormon) and new doctrines (of the Godhead and Apostasy), and what a feast it has been! I'm only in the Restoration part, but have really been loving studying it and I'm marking all the scriptures that belong to this section in blue. Plan of Salvation is going to be orange, Gospel of Jesus Christ will be green, The Commandments will be purple, and lastly Laws and Ordinances in yellow! It's been great to read with my scripture open and pen and colored pencils in hand. I'm still enjoying watching as many of the youtube videos as I can by Teaching with Power, Book of Mormon Central, Real Talk, and Don't Miss This and my sister shared this one with me that is more on the kids level - The Scripture Project. So many great resources out there!
Well, I did it! We had a sit down meal every night this week! We had our first meal together as a family at our new table on Sunday, and then I delivered every night for a whole 7 days and we'll see how long we can keep going. Last night Corey and I left for a date, so we didn't join the kids for pizza, but I made up for that by having three sit down meals today. So, children, if you are reading this in the future when you're trying to remember what foods we ate when you were kids, then the menu's of this past week represent pretty well a handful of our staple meals. This might be kinda boring, but again, this is for history's sake. Personally I would love to know what people have eaten throughout history. I will now talk about breakfast.
I had the meal ready and then we woke up the kids so we could all eat together. I think a Saturday breakfast together would be a fun tradition. Today it was: Rhodes cinnamon rolls, clementines, scrambled eggs, ham, grilled onions and grilled bell peppers, sliced oranges and clementines. Everyone say cheese!
Oh, we forgot to wait for Peter and Dad. Ok, one more photo
Peter enjoying his cinnamon roll. He likes holding his fork. Today we gave him a smaller sized fork than the one he used before and he did better with that.
LUNCH: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sliced apples, broccoli salad from Thursday night, chips, a veggie tray, clementines and juice.
These little guys have a bit of a hard time on the far side of the table.
They poke and tease and it would be nice to have a few more big kids over there to help manage toddler table manners, but none of them want to get trapped that far in. Abi usually earns a side seat because she sets the table. Hyrum claims a side seat cause he claims to be the current kid alpha dog.
DINNER - Orange chicken, rice, fresh veggie toppings and potatoes.
We let Peter sit on the bench tonight, which was cute but I don't think we'll let him sit there again, cause he made a big mess with his food.
"Who, me?"
So that was today's meals, and here is the review of our past week's meals.
Sunday - 5/24: Cordon Bleu, potatoes, ceasar salad, juice
Monday - 5/25: Tamales, taco salad, bean dip
Tuesday - 5/26: Macaroni noodles with marinara sauce, cheese sauce, or alfredo sauce, garlic bread, and Mediterranean salad (kalamata olive, cucumbers, and tomatoes) and olive garden salad.
Giving thanks to the Lord for our meal and for providing for us.
Wednesday - 5/27: Potato Bar with ham, mexican street corn, etc, veggie platter, juice.
Maybe if the kids help more, then I can start to be more creative with food. For now it's a lot of Costco salad kits and Costco Frozen meals. Speaking of Costco, I loved this Holderness parody, especially the "Love Boat"/Costco part of it! I can so relate! "...Or a 7 pound tub of Nutella.... Costco! Soon we'll be making another run!"
I also loved the Muppet Show "This is what we call the Stay At Home!" It's been really fun to stay at home and play house this week!
We celebrated the end of the school year with a puff of colored chalk today with our neighbors.
With a world in turmoil in so many different ways, I am more and more aware of how fortunate we are to live in this little corner of heaven. A neighbor invited all the neighborhood kids over for ice cream, popsicles, and chalk. After everyone got their frozen treat, the kids lined up for two cups of colored fun.
Natalie chose to go all pink!
And one... two... three... hooray!!
In the video you might notice some kids rolling around on the asphalt after the fact, trying to get more chalk on themselves. Daniel saw that and thought he'd follow suit.
He was our messiest kid. It was pure heaven for our little expressive Daniel.
He was dancing and twirling and enjoying the bliss of the moment. Group photo
Sophi and Lily stayed pretty clear of the chalk. Abi and Natalie got in the mess a little bit
The party ended, people started leaving. Most of my kids had left, except for Daniel. When I told him he had to come home now, he refused. I told him he needed to obey. He said No, I don't want to. I didn't want to throw him over my shoulder, cause he was covered in chalk and I didn't want to get my clothes messy. So I tried to pull him home by the hand. I hoped that he would be like my other kids, and would choose to reluctantly walk rather than be dragged. But nope. He went limp and I was dealing with a dead weight. And he was also screaming bloody murder. I could see Sophi ahead and told her to go get the wagon. I got a good workout as I tried to keep him lifted above the street and keep him at arms length. Then I dragged him a little on the grass. And after my muscles were burning from that I held him at arms length once again by one foot and hand as I continued to haul him home. Sophi came back with the wagon which saved me on the final stretch. That was easier. She pulled it while I held him over/in it. To the front stairs of the house, deep breath, just one last haul, here we go, umph! In the door... up the stairs, into the tub, and yay, time for a bath. I undressed him as he screamed, and soon he was reluctantly clean.
Phew! He has a scrape on his chin from falling out of a wagon over at a neighbor's house two days ago. He hit his teeth on the ground, but luckily she's a pediatric dentist and she examined him and let me know what to expect. His front tooth has been sensitive the past two days, so he's just had soft foods like pasta and french toast. Today he is doing better and it doesn't seem to be bothering him anymore. It's a good thing that kids heal quickly.
A few other pictures from today -
The kids came up stairs for a snack and joined Peter in his little built in bench in the wall.
It's like the perfect height for him! So cute.
Now that there's no more school, there's not quite the same urgency for kids to go to bed, but Corey does leave by 8, so we'll try to keep an 11:00 bedtime for him. Try. We didn't do well last night, but Corey seemed to be okay with it cause we were having a good impromptu chat with the older kids. It started with Wesley talking Corey's ear off while he brushed his teeth, and then we all kept talking as we stood around in the bathroom. Then we tried to find places to sit on the tub...
We got out our junior year yearbook to show pictures of one of my favorite teachers and then it just went everywhere from there, with us talking about different people in our grade, how they were then and what they're doing now, the different choices people make and how friends can be a big influence on your life's trajectory. And of course the kids were telling us how bad our haircuts were... We promised them we were not lying: "Bowl cuts were cool!" They couldn't wrap their heads around how that could ever have possibly been an acceptable hairstyle. It's fun to talk with the kids, and you can never predict when those moments come. But they usually come at night, when the kids are goofy. Here's Wes representing the goofiness that usually causes kids to stay up late.
We had a goofy stay up late last Saturday night that didn't involve deep discussion, just silliness. Mel started it by making this pose with Owen's Sith trooper... Looking like a strawberry shortcake smooth criminal with that hat
Hyrum with his own little lego creation.
Then their sculptures started getting more elaborate....
Wow.
Hmm, what else can we do with these two action figures....
Mel couldn't get it balanced... "Here, Mel, let me show you how it's done..."
Hyrum did it! ...just adding a cherry little dinosaur on top
Ok Batman, pretty good. What else you got?
Ooh, adding two pencils and wearing a strawberry shortcake hat. As they worked on their final act for the evening, Wesley came and joined us.
So this late night wasn't so much a late night talk, just a late night goof off session.
1 AM and we were laughing. Ok guys, we really need to go to bed now. I'm glad that we survived the school year. The kids are all glad that distance learning is over and hope that they'll be able to hang out with friends soon. A cool thing about quarantine, is that it's helped us warm up for summer. Like usually, I'm just barely getting into the groove of things by the end of summer when we have to switch gears again and go back to school. But this year, quarantine has been our warm up and now we've already found our rhythm, so I think this summer is going to be great! We will try to keep our good current habits established and hopefully will pick up a few more, like a summer reading challenge and maybe a musician challenge too.
It has been a good week. Today I am proud to say that I am 5 for 5 with having a sit down meal ready when Corey gets home!
And each meal has had a lot of food, so there is plenty for everyone and lots of healthy options. I am very proud of myself. Tonight we had vegan burgers. IP tore off little pieces of the Beyond Burger for Peter to eat. And some of the potato salad.
He was so cute as he tried to pick up the food with the wrong side of his fork...
Look at the concentration in that little double chin....
We got him a little booster chair recently so that he can sit on his own, cause it was not fun to eat having him on my lap.
Now he has his own seat and it's much better.
I think he just wants to be independent and treated like the rest of the kids!
Here he is eating potatoes and ham yesterday.
I think I could make a live feed daily vlog of him eating and people could enjoy his cuteness.
I know I'd tune in. He's such a cute little guy! Corey mentions in that first video above that Daniel hurt his teeth. Yesterday he was playing at a friends house and fell out of a wagon or toy car face first into the ground. He didn't cut his lip but did loosen his tooth and was bleeding. Luckily the mom there is a pediatric dentist and was able to assess him. She said it might turn dark but that doesn't mean the tooth is dead, it's just how it heals. But if it turns yellow after that, then that's a problem and means there is an infection, so we're going to watch him for a few days. He was able to eat spaghetti last night and had soft french toast today. We're showing him how to chew in the back and not use his front teeth. He will be okay.
Now with school officially over, we are enjoying summer by having late mornings.
No zooms to wake up for. I have a little more time to try and quietly sneak away from Peter.
Uh oh, he's awake!
Corey and I have been doing good at getting up and reading our scriptures. Then he gets in his workout as he bikes to work, and I do a 7 min workout or two. The kids are pretty quiet and busy all day working in the basement, in their happy place: Legos. They are in the summer lego zone once again. The quarantine has gotten their "I'm bored" warm up out of the way, and the lego creativity is already ready to kick in, and we're not even in July yet! All the legos that I tried to organize or atleast put away are back in the house and all over the floor. Abi is creating a beach town, Lily is once again working on making all the Elf dragons, and the boys are making spaceships and cool looking minifigures. I'm trying to sort a little. When we put up the bunk beds, we really just shoved a lot into boxes to get it out of the way, and all those boxes were put it in the basement. I am trying to do a little bit each day. Sometimes Peter won't let me. We were able to get him distracted on Tues by pulling him around in the EZ roller. I loved how he gripped onto the bar with his toes.
