Christkindlmarkt & More

Corey took the girls to Christkindlmarkt tonight. 

Abi really wanted to go, and tonight was her only chance. It started yesterday, but they had YW. Tomorrow they have GMS, so tonight was their only chance. Corey was nice to take them. I was happy to stay home with the toddlers and let them brave the cold on their own. 

They ran into my brother Neil and his family while they were there, yay! They took a picture of the cousins. Fun!

 

So that was fun for the older kids. Just a regular day for me here at home with the little ones. I loved watching Katharine eat her oatmeal today. She had some for breakfast - 

She made a mess of her clothes. No problem. I cleaned her up, and she ate more oatmeal and berries a while later for lunch. 

She was holding her spoon so cute! 

And hugging her monkey. 

Kids are so cute. I love seeing her learn and do new things. Yesterday, I was looking through old scrapbooks today to collect photos of Christmas through the years, for a little Hallmark scrapbook book I have. Starting with when Corey and I "officially" got engages on Christmas eve 1998.

Kids doing a nativity at my parent's house - 2005 I think

And the sleeping under the Christmas tree tradition started in 2007 at the Crosswood house.

As I looked through those pictures, I also came across old papers from when the college kids were our little ones. Melodie made this sign and put it on Joseph's back. 

"Joseph Sale! for cheap! Comes with Harry Potter books! $2! If he's crazy put him in a cage and give him a book. If he's a bad boy, pinch him"

Joseph got back at her shortly after that with this note to Corey from the President of the United States: 

"Dear Mr. Wride. I am sorry to learn tha tyou will not be able to keep your oldest dauter. Send her to an orphanage on Nov 28th. We will get her at 10 am. sincerely, Obama" Pretty good cursive. Looks legit! And one more from Hyrum - rules for the Boy's room: 1) No stealing. 2) No breaking. 3) No coloring on walls. 4) No fire.

So funny. They were all so little once. and now they're all grown up and helping lead out by example with the rest of our kids. I'm grateful to be a mom. It's fun.

Sax and Contract

Corey went by Churchill today to borrow a baritone saxophone for a musical number that he is putting together for the ward Christmas party this weekend. They are playing "Crusin' for a Blusin'". He had Lily try it out in case he has her play it. 

It takes a lot of air to make a sound on it! Lily said it was hard but kinda fun. 

The Wrides will be playing a few numbers to entertain the crowd that night. Corey, Joseph, Ethan, and Lily are going to do that number as a fun insert to "We wish you a merry Christmas". Mel and Abi are doing "Black Folks" together, here is one of their practice sessions over the weekend ~

Then Lily will join Mel and Abi for Sugarplum Fairy. Ethan is doing one other song, I can't remember which one. I think Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas? Should be fun. 

Little bit about Lily - she is a creative girl. She is a very talented artist and is also good at writing stories. She has started sharing them with her friends, but she wrote up this contract that they had to sign if they wanted to know about. She's protecting her ideas. I took a pic of it - This contract is her copyright. Sophi signed one but I don't think Abi takes Lily seriously enough to sign it. Her loss!

Here's a funny picture from last night. Owen showed up at scriptures, after having just taken a shower, with his hair was plastered back on his left side, and combed down on the right. It was an interesting look... 

He used A LOT of hairspray. He has become hair aware at an earlier age than most of our boys. I think he might need some guidance though as he treads this path of self grooming! It was cute. Funny kid.

Sabbath Service

Owen and Daniel were the reverence examples at church today.

This was an idea that started after a Relief Society discussion on Elder Holland's talk about reverence before we take the sacrament (April 2019). I was reading Atomic Habits at the time, and that book talks about having visual reminders to help us when we're trying to make new habits. I think it was me that suggested having children being reverent up on the stand. It got back to the primary, and we started having reverence examples shortly thereafter. 

Abi has a nervous/mindless habit of picking her split ends. Sophi caught her on camera. Guilty!

Abi doesn't deny that she does it. I do find it to be a habit that is distracting to people around her. Whenever I see her doing it I tell her to stop. SO! Exciting news from today - we found TINY!!!

He wasn't left at Park City! He had been packed in Peter's backpack, but not packed up when we were leaving, it had been packed up a few days before, which is why we hadn't seen it up at Park City and were sure it had been misplaced somewhere up there. Mystery solved, yay!

We're glad Tiny is back. Sophi and Natalie had a service concert this afternoon at a elderly care home that is close to Corey's parent's house. 

It was good for them to go there and perform for those sweet people. That is a good thing to do on the Sabbath day.

And after that, we played "Bank" - a game Jerusha introduced us to last week on thanksgiving. It was fun! And you just need two dice and your phone. I like it when the kids play games. I have a lot of games. I think I buy them to re-create the memories I had playing games as a kid. And now we have a lot of game we don't use, which means clutter. We don't play games very much, but I'm glad we did today.

I hope we play games more often. If we don't I'm going to need to start clearing them out. Lucky is doing good. He joined me in my scripture study today. Sucking honey water off of my finger. Cute little guy. 

Enjoying some sunshine. 

I feed him atleast twice a day. 

He's a sweet little butterfly.

Lucky and Music

Lucky the butterfly is one month old today. He eclosed on Oct 25, so good job Lucky! We didn't make a cake or anything, but if he makes is to Dec 25th, we'll throw a big party then. We came back from Park City yesterday morning. We let Lucky ride on the dash board. He liked that. Ethan said "He IS a lucky butterfly! How many butterflies get to see snow and live to tell it?" To which Wesley replied "Except he won't be able to tell anyone, cause he's all alone..." Well, maybe up in heaven, when all the butterflies are sharing their mortal experiences, most of them will be cookie cutter experiences "Yeah I migrated, mated, ate nectar on flowers... you?" And everyone will be the same, but NOT Lucky! 

"I lived with a human family! I was held by a child! They fed me and took care of me, they took me on vacation to Park City, I saw snow, I rode in a car, I listened to some sweet jams, it was good life." 

Katharine is not as careful with Lucky as she was with ones with bigger wings, so I gotta watch her. I am sad that he wasn't able to fly or migrate, but given his handicap, that wasn't a possibility. He seems to be doing great, still eats everyday, I hope he lives a long butterfly life. I guess it wasn't a "birth" day, that was in the caterpillar stage, and I didn't keep track of when that happened, but "Happy Ecloseday" Lucky! Back at home, looking out his window at the snow.

SO, we are back from Park City, and after that trip I have sad news. We lost Peter's toy Tiny. We could not find it anywhere when we checked out. I left yesterday around 9:30 to take Ethan to go meet Bella's dad somewhere, but I gave Melodie instructions to find Tiny, and Mel and the girls looked all over the rooms, checked the Mine and the lost and found, nothing. They filled out a "lost item" report and we're hoping he turns up! Ahh! Poor Tiny! I have NO IDEA how we lost such a big toy?!? I made Peter leave legos at home, cause obviously those would have gotten lost, but a big plus dinosaur?!? HOW did we misplace that?? The last I saw him was in our room, I was nursing K and used him to prop up my back. Ugh, I'm sad! Peter seems to be taking it well. Wes and I are probably more sad about it than Peter. He slept fine last night without Tiny, so that is good. I've been looking and looking online for what brand he might be. I bought him at Walgreens March 2022. He has been a faithful companion to our little Peter. Sigh, we might have to settle for a replacement. 

I've found a few that are cute (Little Jurassics Brontosaurus or this Allosaurus on ebay, Wesley likes this Bearington one) but I'm still sad. Putting those links here for myself in case I have to come back and buy one. We'll let Peter choose I guess. 

So, since we've got home yesterday, people have been napping, resting, not catching up on homework, and practicing music. They have been practicing for the Christmas dinner party at our church next Saturday. Should be fun. Abi and Melodie practicing Claude Bolling's "Black Folks"

Video here - 

Corey and Ethan playing Cruisin' For A Bluesin' - 

And one of their run throughs - 

They've invited older kids who are off at college now to come back and play music for the entertainment. It's been fun listening to them play. But yeah, we've mostly been sitting around chillin'. Corey and I went on a date last night to Aubergine (I got the wild fish and Corey got the teriyaki bowl, and brownie layers of course) and when we got back, the kids had cleaned up the whole house, yay. I told them we can put up Christmas decorations after the house is clean. I thought they'd want to do it today, but they are waiting until tomorrow. So Christmas is almost in the air around here. We are thankful for a nice Thanksgiving break. Three weeks of school and then everyone will be chillin' here again for Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you. We enjoyed two feasts with family today. First feast was up at Park City with the Wrides, and then later we drove down to Sandy for a banquet with Hibberts and Smarts, hosted by my sister Jersh and her husband for their extended family. Up at Park City, we let the kids go swim to keep them busy, since we were all skipping breakfast. I made stuffing and a salad, which were our small contributions. We ate around noon. Wayne welcoming everyone to the meal. Corey's cousin Karen joined us this year as well!

Nancy taking a selfie of the non-adults waiting in line. 

Feasting - 

There were some seats around the table, where Corey, Wayne, Karen, Chalane and I sat, then the folded tables which Mark put up. Most of our kids took that area. The rest of the group were on couches and other chairs around the room. 

After most of us had finished our plate, we went around the room and everyone shared something that they are grateful to have learned from JeNeal. I said that I have a "Things I want to do when I'm a grandma" list, and most of those things on it are from things she did. I hope to follow her example, and then Corey interjected for our kids to keep their expectations low, cause she set the bar pretty high! We watched the video that Ethan made put together from the pictures that Jordyn gathered for the funeral video, put to music. We all teared up.

Then we cleaned up and the kids all wanted to go swimming, even though we had to leave in an hour if we were going to arrive on time. Katharine took a nap, and I took a quick nap too. Hyrum came in and said "Are we going?" Thanks for being responsible, H. He went and got people from the pool, so we left in a mess and were a little bit late. That meant that we did not go by home for nerf guns and hockey sticks. But better to almost be on time than to be prepared with the post-meal equipment. Jared and Jersh did an amazing job

Katharine at her own seat! She did fall through the back of the folding chair once later when we were playing games, but I kept my arm around her during the dinner. 

She is cute. 

She has started to insist on holding her own spoon and feeding herself this past month. 

That means messier shirts and stuff to clean up off the floor, but it's good that she wants some independence. After dinner Natalie took K to the nursery, where she lost a little stuffed dalmatian dog. Oh well. She liked pushing this baby in it's stroller. Saying "Oh no!" to something Natalie said...

Daniel helping himself to the frog eyed salad that we brough (there was a biiig bowl mostly leftover from the Wride meal. 

AND when Neil and his family arrived, we played gaga ball.

So gaga ball, is a game that is like opposite of soccer. You can only touch it with your hands, it cannot touch your legs, if it touches your legs you are out. If you hit it out, you are out. If it bounces off of you, you are out, and you need to try to hit the ball with your hands to hit other peoples legs. It's fun. 

Mel and I went home and got hockey stuff and the nerf guns. When I left, it was starting to rain, and snow was in the forecast. After we got back, Corey and Ethan quickly began a nerf battle. Corey had the gun with the small rubber bullets, so they both put on glasses. Ethan got Corey a few times in the face.  It was funny, tonight after we were back in Park City going swimming, Ethan came in to show Corey a little welt right in the middle of his chest. "I was wondering why it hurt!" Corey was pleased "Thanks for showing me that, Eth. I'm glad I got you once. I was feeling like a loser most of that battle, but now I feel a little better." No one used the hockey stuff, but the nerf guns were a hit. Corey left around 7:30 with HALSNOP in the van (which needs new tires) so he could get up to Park City before much snow accumulated. I stayed for a bit longer with JMEWDK. We didn't want to take two trips home to drop off the hockey stuff, so we were a bit crowded on the drive home, but then were set up good for the drive to Park City. We listened to Nate Bargatze's Hello World on the drive up. He is funny. We cleaned up and left an hour later, got up to PC around 9:30. Hyrum wanted everyone to go swimming. I kinda just wanted to go to bed, I think Corey did too, but he got in his swimsuit, so then I got myself and Katharine ready too. Out to the hot tub. Hyrum wants a picture of everyone. Mel and Alix were coming in, but I told them we were all going, even Dad, so they came back out with us. It was snowing, so that made it hard to get a picture cause I was worried about snow accumulation on my phone, but I tried to shield it with my body. Peter with the flash -

And without a flash. The colors here are more accurate.

I had my hair up, but it all got wet in the snow. Trying to get a group photo in the dark and with snow coming down was tricky. This was as good as we could get.

Hope that fulfills your expectations, Hyrum. Just a bunch of random heads. I took a short video but they all wanted a pic. I think the video might be better since you can actually see people's faces. After that photo, I was ready to be done, but then, since we were all there, they wanted to do some jump shots. Kids, listen to me, I know that that was fun in Costa Rica, but that was day time, in the sunlight at, in warm temperatures. THIS is night, dark, and freezing. Can we be done? Ugh, ok fine... We can do one big jump shot, but I promise it's not going to look the same. I started taking a video, as we were all standing there freezing getting snowed on. Almost 3 minutes later, we were done, yay, good memories. 

They all went back to the hot tub, I went inside with Katharine and Peter and drew up a bath in there. We warmed up in the tub until Corey came back to help me get K out and dressed. Then I got dressed, then time to get Peter dressed. He fell asleep waiting. Cute kid. I guess that's the sign that it was a good day.