Birthday Yesterday

I had a nice birthday yesterday. Best part was going on an early morning ride with Corey - it is still quite cold in the early morning hours, so we cover up with gloves, gaiters, and jackets. And it's also still snowy on the trail, so we rode up to the first bridge, where the snow stopped us, and turned around and rode up to the road, and rode the road up to the Lisa Falls parking lot! So that was pretty good - we made it up to the elevation even if it's not as fun as being on the trail. Stopping by the Temple quarry to stretch on our way back down.

Yesterday was Hawaii day at school - Sophi and Natalie showing their school spirit.  

We're gonna channel warm weather and see if that helps it feel more like spring outside. Corey and I went out to last night, as a date night/birthday date combo. But I am so bummed cause Blue Lemon is closed or out of business or something? We went to the Draper one, which was closed last week, and last week it looked like it was temporarily closed for a meeting or something, but it was still closed today! But today (thinking it was just a Sandy Blue Lemon thing) we drove all the way down town to go to the Blue Lemon at City Creek, and that one was closed too!! Noooo! It was sad. I guess we'll have to find a new favorite place to go. Sigh. We ended up eating at Vitality Bowls there at City Creek, and it was good, but I was looking forward to Blue Lemon's sweet potato fries. So sad. Corey and I walked around the Deseret Book and I laughed at this painting for sale called "Jesus and the Angry Babies" like what??? Kinda weird. I'd be interested in learning the inspiration behind that. I just thought it was funny. Whenever I see art, I think that I could do paint or draw and create something just as good as that if not better, and I hope I can someday. Having not practiced for a few years, I'm not presently at the level of Simon Dewey, Liz Lemon Swindle, or , but I could do definitely do Kate Lee or Brian Kershisnik level (no offense to them that I'm implying their art doesn't look that hard to do). I dream to someday make artwork like Jenedy Paige or Rose Datoc Dall. Dall's "The Veil is Beginning to Burst" is my favorite!!! My mom got me a calendar with Dall's artwork for Christmas, and that Veil one was the painting for January, and even though we're in April, that calendar ss still on January. Oh, or Thomas Blackshear - I love his style too. He did the artwork for the Killer's Imploding the Mirage. This one is my favorite of his work - I don't know what it's called, but I love it, it's the pic for the song Blowback. I also love James C. Christensen's stuff. I'd like to do one like The Responsible Woman for my kids, with them holding onto things that are part of their life. Ok, anyway... there's my art tangent. I bought a new art ornament for our wood thing this year, and I still am going to try and do some art this year. If we get to December and I still haven't, I should be able to whip out something like this no problem. And sell it for $450 bucks! I like Jorge Cocco's stuff and think I could do this too - I think a big part of art is finding a style that you like to do, and I his geometric stuff is fun. 

Hyrum was able to call last night and wish me a happy birthday too, so that was great. 

The kids had a fun primary activity today - they had four activities for each area of the children and youth initiative (5th pic) - Spiritual, Social, Physical & Intellectual. I'm going to try and focus on those four areas too. Daniel, Natalie, Peter (behind Owen) and Owen in the orange hat. 

This activity was at 10. Daniel was dressed for his soccer game, which was at 2pm. Owen  had a bye today. And this evening the girls had a violin spring group concert at Westminster College. We made it to the campus on time but then were lost for a bit trying to find which building it was in. We wandered around following other people that didn't know where they were going, ha, but we all finally found it. The performances were lovely. They are both starting to sway to the music, getting into it like all the pro violists do. Little video of them here (sorry Sophi that your head is usually behind Natalie's scroll) :) 

Decisions & Ties

Bike ride with Corey this morning, we made it to the first bridge again, and THEN took the road all the way to the Lisa Falls parking lot. My BeReal - Corey coming up behind me. 

Go us. For more exercising, tonight at Daniel's soccer practice I did like 20 passes on the monkey bars, it's all I have since we cancelled our Momentum membership. I miss it! I have been thinking about climbing every day. I don't want to lose my strenght, but I'm trying to relax and find other things to do. Monkey bars were pretty good - after that my hands looked like I just went climbing. We decided to cut the Momentum membership for $ reasons. Corey's been seeking revelation and as he read his scriptures this morning and pondered his career, he read in 1 Nephi about when Nephi had two problems: his broken bow, and his command to build a boat. Corey texted me "Am I building a ship or hunting for game?" He pondered on that and said "If I'm building a ship, then I stick it out and try to get this thing to float. If I'm hunting for game, then I spent my time finding a deer to shoot." I don't know the answer, but whatever conclusion he comes to, I said I give him my full support.

Wesley has been getting revelation too,  cause he's been going to the temple with friends from school every week, and the temple is a revelatory place. They go on Thursdays. He is dressed for the temple when he leaves to go to "work" with Corey, where Wes does his BYU online. Wes always has very cool knots in his ties when he leaves. He said it's fun cause one of the temple worker that is there notices his ties and knows the names of the knots, and will make comments like "The Eldredge, huh?"

I never knew that there were more than one ways to tie a knot! Here is a pic of his Rose Bud knot - 

And his other favorite is the Vidalia.

He said the Trinity is also a pretty simple one that looks really cool. So yeah, that's fun! 

Another item of decision - Sandy is redesigning their flag, too. 

We saw this video about Flags recently that I thought was so clever and funny - "DOES YOUR FLAG FAIL? Grey Grades The State Flags!" Way to eek out a win at the end, Utah! Utah got a new flag, and after watching that, I'm glad! 

Where's Waldo?

We had a crazy winter, and that caused a crazy thing to happen out at Corner Canyon. Corey shared a news video with me today of some houses that were built over there that had the ground beneath them erode so much that the houses slid over the cliff! Ann's Trail and Clark's trail are both closed indefinitely.

Lily had a lesson today, and Corey took her down to a Little Big Band open house thing. I don't miss the SoundHouse, so we'll see what Corey's thinking if he wants Lily to do that. I vote for GMS up here in SL over driving down there. They hurried and made it in time to an youth activity that was so fun... The youth in our ward all went to the mall and tried to find adults from the ward who were there dressed up in disguises. They had asked last week for volunteers to sign up and come out, and I would have loved to, but since my daughters/sitters were gone to participate in the activity, I'd be a dead give away with Katharine in my arms or the other little kids following me. But Corey signed up to go, and he looked great. 

Abi found him though - his shoes gave him away, and then Abi verified it by his phone, haha. Super fun activity. The kids all came home telling me how fun it was. Good job to our youth leaders!

End of the Rainbow

Nothing much to report for the past two days, other than we had a rainbow yesterday.

A friend, Stephani, watched Daniel, Peter and Katharine for me yesterday as a bday present (from 9:30 - 3) - so nice! I blogged the whole time and... finished January! Go me. I feel sick, sore throat. Didn't get a lot of sleep last night either. I did 9 posts yesterday. I feel sick and tired, but gotta keep pressing on with life for these kids. We had violin yesterday. Owen's soccer practice was cancelled cause of rain. Today I had carpool, Wes picked it up for me cause he was over there at Corey's parents working. I've been feeling a little sick. I was totally fine on Sunday, then I was eating chocolate, and then all of a sudden as I swallowed, my throat hurt and it's been sore since and I've had a cough. So maybe no more chocolate for me. I took quite a few naps today trying to recover. Thankfully Katharine cooperated and napped with me. The other kids were up and about and asking me if they could play and other questions, which I half-consciously answered ("You can play after you practice trumpet"). We're all still alive. The kids have been doing so good at their habit cards. Natalie and Lily were really on a roll cleaning today, it was great. I'm on top of laundry and 3 out of 4 bedrooms are clean (still waiting on Abi and Lily's room - I'll give them a pass for one more day since they had their music lessons at GMS today and have been gone) so now it's 9:30pm and we're almost heading to bed. We had a sit down dinner which Natalie helped me make. I'm giving the little boys a bath (they were busy playing soccer with neighbors today), and the kitchen is ALL clean, dishes are all done, and I even mopped, which has not been done in a long while. I'm not going to completely finish my 3 goals by my birthday, but I'm doing good and making progress still in each. I do trust that I will arrive someday, and won't just always be striving towards them. Someday I'll make it to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Once I complete them, then what will I be working on? Maybe my brain is afraid of not knowing what is next and so part of me is resistant to checking those things off. With the kids helping me, it's a lot easier. 

No Hands!

It was a nice Sunday. We've been fasting for Corey's work, and he woke up this morning with an idea that might work! He was excited about it, texted it to our brother in law Matt (who has been helping a little bit) and so yay for answered prayers. Although I'm sure we're not out of the woods yet. We went over to Corey's parents house this evening. Katharine was showing everyone her standing up skills -

and was met with cheers from everyone in the room! She cheered for herself too!

Short video of her amazing talent here. So cute! Here's Mel's BeReal from today - Katharine looked so cute. She can kinda drink from a cup too! She's learning so much and has so many talents, she's a wonder baby, haha.

And Ethan's BeReal - He's been driving down to St. George a lot and hanging out with a lovely girl named Brooke. 

They went to a demolition derby, fun!

Soccer Snapshots

I took Owen and Daniel to their soccer games this morning. I worked really hard today so that Corey could get some work done. He never feels like he's able to make progress, so he took me up on that and did feel like it was a productive day, so good for me for taking things on and helping him out today. We're fasting for him and his career, praying for him to know what to do and to be strengthened as he provides for our large family. So Owen and Daniel both played super well today! I was especially wow'd with Owen in goal! He did such a good job!

I was seriously impressed - he wasn't afraid of getting hit in the face with the ball. When the other team was coming down, he didn't even flinch - he just went straight for them and stopped the ball! Like 3 times!

Daniel did great at his game too. He scored two goals and let me know that Corey said if they score a goal, we go and get Wendys. I checked with Corey and got out of that, cause that was Dad's promise, not mine, so Corey ended up taking them out tonight. Corey sent a funny message as they were out - the kids (SNOD) were talking about how many kids they are going to have, and that they have to have as many kids as their parents did, to make sure that each of their siblings has a chance to be born (that was my thought as a new mom, that I should have 7 kids, cause my parents had 7, and if I stopped at 6, then that meant that my baby bro Grant was never born! and that would be sad... my kids have a larger number to do, so I don't know if they should try to follow that advice... anyway) So Natalie said "I gotta make sure that Katharine is born! ...but I'm not sure about these two..." she said as she looked over at her brothers, ha! Followed by "Just look at them..." as they were slurping their ice cream Frosy's like little animals. So that was funny. They kinda are little animals, but we're glad to have them, and it's great that they are passionate about soccer. It's cute. They love dressing up in their soccer clothes and going to practices or playing in the backyard. And something fun happened today while we were watching Daniel's game... This little girl was playing with the soccer ball - 

 

I turn to watch the game, then I look over and this little girl is standing up! She is standing up all by herself without holding onto anything! Katharine!!! Short video of the moment here, I loved her little chirp at the beginning.

She was showing off more tonight to everyone's delight. 

She's getting so big!! Another month and she'll be almost one year old! We can't remember life without her. We're so glad she's ours forever.

A few other snapshots of today - Peter playing with a Boba Fett lego that I got him for no good reason other than I'm a pushover. 

I need to stop though. We have too many legos!

And I know it's just a matter of time before this one gets busted up and lost in the lego matter covering the basement floor. Admit it, Peter, you know it's true. (Peter's got some pretty good eyebrow skills.)

Today Mel and Wes searched up a youtube video of Randy Scouse Git and learned the chords and Wes has been practicing it and singing it all day. It's pretty fun. Who'd have thought that my kids would like the Monkees! They were trying to learn it but couldn't hear it over Abi practicing flute, so then she came over and improvised playing it with them. Fun.

Lastly, Abi often borrows my phone to check Instagram. Today Mel was visiting, so they like it when they don't have to ask me (I try to say no as often as I can.) They were able to watch funny reels for a bit. If someone ever starts watching Instagram videos, there is soon a crowd huddled around the small screen. 

Church tomorrow, it's been a good week. Time for bed.

Holy Habits

So on Sunday, I made some little checklist cards for the kids (Wes Abi Lily Sophi and Natalie) Here's Natalie's as of Tuesday.

I'm calling it "Holy Habits" as you might be able to read from the top of her card. Wes wanted his card to be small enough to fit in his wallet, hence why they are all pocket sized. Mine is slightly bigger - I put it on a clipboard, it's 4x6 size. It's been a great few days with having this in front of me to help me stay on track! Wes has been liking it. Corey said that Wes did 9 hours of math today and loved it! He felt a little guilty for having that much fun, ha! I've done really well with cleaning and exercising, gave a solid performance in spiritual goals and reading, and there is room for improvement with violin. On Wednesday Corey took away Lily's chrome book, and said she could use our computers for homework, cause he thinks she's not using her time wisely with free access to the online world. She didn't come ask me to use my computer for homework until 9:45 at night. I told her she should have done it earlier, now was time for bed. And then this morning we found that she had spent some time yesterday sorting candy sprinkles by color, and then making a sprinkle mural. Pretty impressive, Lil. But is this really the best way for you to use your time?

We thought it was funny and we teased her a bit, all in fun. I know that start watching themselves and what they are doing and how they are spending their time, that they will start to spend it more wisely. I was reading a great book - Better Than Happy by Jody Moore, and it is really great, I loved chapter 4 on the Law of Abundance. As I was reading, Katharine came up and took my pencil. She thought it was pretty funny. 

I'd growl at her to give it back, and she'd laugh. And she took it and tried to write in the book like I had been doing. 

Funny funny adorable baby who makes my heart so happy. I love you Katharine!

So when she stops me from being productive, I go and try to pick up toys or fold laundry. Katharine is a slight handicap to me though. 

Oh but she's cute. 

Her first tooth broke through on April 3rd and she's often sticking out her tongue to feel it. This morning I gave her an apple slice, and it was so cute to watch her gnaw on that - 

She's grate of little bits of apple pulse with her tiny tooth and get drops of apple juice. 

She was feeling like, with this new tooth and skill, that she's a big kid like Daniel! 

Good job Katharine! You ARE a big kid! Growing up so fast. I can't believe she's almost 11 months, and next month she'll be turning one year old. Where does the time go? 

Wednesday Stuff

Here's a pic of Katharine at breakfast this morning. She likes to sit on the table and have Corey share his oatmeal with her.

Peter and Katharine were sitting in the pink chair watching Baby Einstein this afternoon. 

Peter sometimes kinda harasses Katharine, but he was being sweet today. 

"Hey Mom, you're blocking the screen! We can't see our show!"

After Owen got home from school today, he and his friends were busy at work in the front yard with all the scattered wood from the fallen trees. They made a barricade line, a tent/fort hut inside that line of defense, and Owen (in blue at the top) even found a sweet looking gun among the broken branches. 

It was really cute. I loved seeing their creativity. Owen stopped before I got a photo of it, but he was marching back and forth along the line in the road, patrolling it like a British Royal Guard, with his assault rifle up over his shoulder, and even doing an about face when he's reach the gutter on each side. Super cute. There was no wind today, so we just let them play outside. A guy who is the son of whoever owns the property came by yesterday and will be back to clean things up by Saturday, and he also agrees that the dead trees need to be removed. The street will look very different with them gone, and I'm sad that they died, but it will be good to have them taken down.

A few more things - Katharine was super cute today splashing in the tub. 

Looking adorable here - 

It was so fun just watching her splash. Love it. Wes, Abi, Lily, and Sophi had a Stake Youth activity at the church tonight - the Youth Olympics. Wes helped plan it and he was in charge of Gaga ball, so I'm sure that was fun. I was home with the little kids. After giving the little kids a bath, Katharine was playing in the dangerous boys' bedroom. Dangerous because of all the legos. I do my best to keep them put away, but they always quickly end up all over the floor and Katharine wants them. 

Putting on her best sad face if we ever take them away.

While the kids were gone, I was trying to clean up, and the pile of dishes was getting high... I hadn't made a lot of progress because I was limited to half of the sink, since the disposal wasn't working. It hadn't been working since Sunday. I had tried a bit to fix it on Sunday and Monday, then I figured we'd just not use that side. Today I decided to give another attempt at fixing it. I could feel a small something stuck on the side. It felt like a smooth piece of a broken dish. I tried to be careful so that it would not accidentally cut me. Then I got a flash light to see if I could see it, and I could! And it was green! Hmm, this isn't glass, it's either a lego or a bottle lid. I tried flicking it out with an Allen wrench, and a hook with a screw, then I tried grabbing it with finger nail clippers... no luck. When Wes got back from the youth activity he helped me a little. I kept praying for help and then we'd trying again. I held the flashlight as he tried to get it out with a long knife. It did move up a little, but it was still stuck. I made a 9pm trip to Home Depot to try and find some long needle nose plyers that might be able to help us - to reach into the disposal and still let us see what we were attempting to grab and get a good hold of it. At HomeDepot I found some very long plyers that I thought just might be the help we needed. Upon coming home, I said a prayer, and withing a few attempts, I was able to keep hold of it and got it out! YAY

Stupid darn lego! All the things we had used in our previous attempts.

Victory at last. I felt like a champ! AND I didn't have to spend $100 for a plumber to come service it or $200 to have the disposal replaced. YES, thank you for your mercy, Lord! 

Timber!

Today was a super great day. I was busy and productive and got a lot done and it felt great. I listened to this talk "Look Unto Him in Every Thought" by Joy D. Jones as I worked, and it was sooo good. It went along with so much that I'm thinking about (with life coaching) and how so much of it comes from our thoughts. I want to focus my thoughts, actions, and my life on Christ! As I was vacuuming in the front room this afternoon, before going to pick up carpool, I looked outside cause the wind was blowing CRAZY hard and all the leaves that always seem to be blow into our yard and gather by our basement door, were all being blown OUT of our yard and across the street! I watched thinking "Yahoo! Keep blowing wind! Thanks for doing the yard clean up for me!" and I went back to cleaning the front room when I heard a big crash. I looked outside again to see what had happened, and two big branches from two of the five dead/dying trees next to our home had fallen over! 

One fell into the road and the other fell onto our porch, but thankfully nothing was badly damaged. 

It doesn't look that bad in these pics, but it's a big trunk and made a big mess and it was kinda crazy! My neighbor across the street came out right after and we talked about what to do and made a few calls. I had to leave to pick up carpool and I got a few calls from concerned neighbors after they saw what had happened. So, crazy and pretty exciting I guess? I guess it can be exciting since nothing really bad happened. We all talked about how lucky we were that kids were all in school, cause there are usually a lot of kids playing in our yard, so we are very happy and feeling very grateful that no one was hurt, cause it could have really hurt or killed someone. This was bound to happen, so we are going hoping all the other dead trees are taken down before something like this happens again. 

Playing Catch

Happy Monday. I spent most of my Sunday yesterday working on catching up here on the blog, but I also made up some little "Holy Habit" checklist cards for the kids. It is my current "get the kids to help around the house" attempt, and I thought this was pretty good cause I combined it with the children and youth goals initiative. So we'll see how it goes and I'll give a report on that later this week. I also woke up during the night (at 2:14 am) with an idea of a book about civility and becoming ladies and gentlemen. I took some notes down and couldn't fall asleep for an hour. We'll see if that ever leads to anything, but for the record, the early hours of Apr 17 was when I woke up with that flood of inspiration. 

As for today - we had violin, Abi had piano, Daniel had a field trip to the zoo, so he went to school this morning with his siblings. He was excited about that and we can't believe this school year is almost over. Owen had soccer practice tonight, so we all went and we played on the playground while he was at practice. BeReal -

I was helping Peter and Daniel do the monkey bars, and I can do them too! I did them like 5 times! I felt pretty cool and strong that I could do them, not bad for an old woman. I also brought some baseballs and gloves and taught the kids how to play catch (Sophi and Natalie, and then we taught Owen and Daniel too)

They had never played catch before and thought it was pretty fun. We'll go do it again next Monday. 

At violin, Katharine was playing with Peter's Mandalorian lego. She has been taking advantage at any opportunity to play with the lego minifigures and take their helmets or masks on and off. Today she was able to quietly practice until Peter noticed that she was touching his stuff. 

She is so cute when she does that. We love watching her learn new things. I'm impressed with her fine motor control - not bad for a 10 month old! Before we left for violin, Daniel had put stars all over her face. He said it was for "American Symbols on Parade"

He's just trying to teach his little sister to be a little patriotic.