2 Hour Painting

This morning Katharine asked Corey to take her to Uptown Jungle, and he said ok. Yay, I have some personal time to get something done! I thought I'd try to catch up on the blog... I'm done though this month, and it might be cool to finish April before April is over... but instead I thought I'd try out my new art area. I got an old canvas that the kids had drawn on previously (since I'm just going to be warming up my art muscles for a while) and then I whipped out this!

Done with acrylic paints at my little art desk.

I used this photo from last week (April 21) as my subject.

It would be super fun to go out on the trial and paint on the trail! I'm going to do that this summer. Yay for my first painting in a few years. I sent it to the kids, Corey said it must be AI cause he hasn't been gone long enough with Katharine for me to do that, haha. I was going fast though - for a quick "Impressionist" style piece. I am pleased, that was fun. This art area b-day gift will be a gift that keeps on giving. Now I'll blog. :) It's 2:10 right now. I haven't exercised yet. Oh wait yes I did, I went on a walk this morning. My left hip hurts from sitting though while I painted that (sat half of the time, stood for half) so maybe I'll go walk around for a bit to help it out. 

Hibberts are coming over tonight cause Camilla is in town with her family. They came to attend her son's graduation from the UofU today. I'll update with pics of that later. 

Basement - Phase 1 Complete!

Today I worked muy mucho hard and I am pleased to announce that the unfinished side of the basement is now picked up and cleaned and organized! 

Well, I think I might want to find a different place for the costume bins - under the table is a bit too accessible. But the kids love it. They lego area is behind Owen there. Katharine made an ABC factory by putting the letters on the ground (I'm gonna pick those up too). Natalie got dressed up as a cowgirl - 

Riding her trusty stallion in the reading area. Reading area is right next to Katharine's kitchen. 

And some more work stations. 

And for the final reveal and the part I am most excited for - my art desk area!

This was Wesley's gift to me, and it is a gift that will keep on giving. I'm excited to work here! My art books were scattered in various places throughout the house, but now they're all here, and I can tape up pics of things I like for inspiration, plus I have all the supplies I've been gathering over the years here - canvases, paints, brushes, sketch pads, pencils, etc etc. Those were scattered in several places as well.  This desk is nice and big and can hold everything. It is also nicely blocking off the unfinished wall. I am gathering the frames (also in several different places here in the basement) and will keep the large ones to the right there on the floor. The other black table and desk are close to this art desk, and they will be work stations for whatever I want and kid art areas (they are not to use my desk, we'll see how well I'm able to enforce that!) And to continue the art inspiration, today I went to visit a lady in our ward, and this lady too had beautiful art on her living room walls. Turns out her grandpa was a painter - Melvin M. Fillerup.

Just more and more inspiration coming, making me feel like this really is something I can start finding and making time for. 

I didn't go on a ride or exercise at all today - my legs are very sore, prob from the weighted walking lunges I did yesterday! But I did a lot of housework and active rest today. It felt great. Basement - phase 1 is complete. Phase 2 will be to do deeper organizations of the Christmas stuff and holiday stuff and organize each bin we have and get the storage shelves better organized/functional. 

Celebrating the Big 5-0

Happy birthday to me, the big 5-0! I got up nice and early this morning (4:11am) to go to the temple, per my usual Tuesday routine. BUT I didn't take a nap at all this morning or afternoon! I purposely kept moving cause I didn't want to waste my birthday sleeping! Today is the day I get to cash in!

So let's see - what are all the ways we celebrated today? Abi asked me what my favorite kind of cake was, and I said German chocolate. It was a B day for Abi, so after seminary, she went by the store and picked up ingredients for that. AND that didn't mean the pre made german filling! This girl made a german chocolate cake from scratch! I didn't even know people did that. 

Wow. It was delicious! So I ate too much of that and have some saved for myself for tomorrow and the day after. Mel and Christian came by and brought some homemade chili, which was also super delish. Melodie asked what I wanted for my b-day and she came up and helped me clean in the basement. Wes  and I worked late last night cleaning the finished/carpeted side of the basement, and he really liked it - the only thing missing for this to serve as a guest room was a closet - SO I helped start this and Wes finished it last night: We turned an extra bookshelf that we weren't using anywhere else into a little closet!!! 

Wes and I were both very proud of our frugality and creativity. Our new basement/guest area/visiting married kids sleeping area is complete! 

What else... while Mel was here cleaning and with Katharine, I went to the gym for 2 1/2 hours. On my way home I went by the store for ice cream and also picked up some sushi. I shared it with Abi, Peter and Katharine, who were the only ones home. We scarfed it down and hid the evidence before anyone else got back from friends' houses.

O&D were gone at friend's houses, S&N were at Janes, Lily was taking a nap, so too bad for them - ya snooze you lose! Natalie being weird tonight - 

Dressed up in some strange fashion and playing with Katharine, making herself laugh so hard she couldn't stand up. Daniel got distracted from his saxophone practice by Natalie. 

Wes went to work with Corey today, helping him on his demo video. And they took my bike, which was mostly fine cause I wasn't planning to bike today, but they keep going biking without me. They were at work for a while, then when I thought they were done and would be heading home to celebrate with us, life360 showed them heading to Draper... they went biking in corner canyon, which I was a little annoyed by, cause I thought Corey and I would go out to do something... prob not to eat cause I had already eaten enough, but something... I was a little bummed by that. I hardly saw Corey today. Abi gave me some spa in our bedroom though. Soaked my feet and gave me a pedicure, a scalp massage, face mask, a hair mask, the works. Then I took a bath to clean myself up and came down for cake and ice cream. 

Happy birthday. Corey said he wanted to get me a new bike but he doesn't have money. Ok, I'll accept that well intentioned thought. "I've almost had some pretty awesome stuff!" - Nate Bargatze I would like to do a biking trip for Corey and I or some friends like I went to in February. Maybe Corey and I will do a biking trip for his birthday and I'll have that count towards my party today. Or we'll do something big and milestone-ish for the big 5-1 next year. 

Update: Mel sent these to me on Wednesday but I'll put them here. She asked her siblings to text her things they love about me, aww. Here's Ethan's quoting himself on drugs, haha!

We'll follow Ethan's with Bella's <3  

• She’s patient with herself and other
• She’s a baby lover
• She has her own style and personality
• She doesn’t care what others think about her
• She’s athletic
• She’s always righteously following the path
• Amazing disciple of Christ

Hyrum: 

• She has a strong commitment to the Lord and has pointed all of us to Him
• She raised and loves me and all my siblings
• Gave birth to 13 kids so she's tough and built different. She is not like other moms at all
• Strong and athletic. Inspires me to work on fitness as she currently can out-climb and out-bike me
• I love connecting and talking with her over little things like reels, legos, reels, girls, sourdough, etc. 
• She uplifts

Joe: Things I love about Mom:

• She is strong in the gospel
• She is a hard worker
• She loves the scriptures and the temple
• She follows the prophet
• She likes kids
• She isn’t afraid to try new things
• She has a great laugh
• She sacrifices for what is most important

Abi: 

• she lets me stay home even when i’m fake being sick
• she gives really good back massages 
• she listens to my stories about my life & seems interested 
• she is nice about sharing the car with me 
• she is very generous
• she inspires me to be a good mom

Lily - 

• I love her laugh
• How she clicks quotes and puts them on the bathroom
• Talking about body
• How she loves setting
• Her sense of humor (reels)
• How corporative she is
• How patient she is and always willing to help

sophis:

1. how she checks on me when I'm sad
2. how she's funny
3. invites me to do lots of fun stuff
4. her laugh and how it's contagious 
5. her smile
6. how she's nice

natalies

1. I love it when she laughs  it makes me happy
2. I love it when we  are talking about things and have good conversations
3. I love the sourdough  she makes
4. I love it when she talks about her testimony  it strengthens mine
5. I love how she's so passionate and loves all her children even the super annoying ones

Doctor and Donuts

Katharine slept with Abi last night, and around midnight Abi sent a voice message and said K was crying about her ear hurting. I could hear K whimpering in the message). So first thing I did at 8am was call the pediatrician to get her in for a sick visit. I was able to get an appointment at 11, so I went to my parents house for a bit to give them our air mattress and help clean before company came (Camilla and fam arrived this afternoon for Graigy's graduation from the U of U on Thursday.) and to drop off Nerf guns for my brother Neil to borrow. Cleaned 9-10, home at 10:15 to pick up K and took her to see Dr. Schmidt. Taking her pulse~

This morning she was fine and said it wasn't hurting, but that's what's been going on for probably the past two week - it bothers her a little at night and then she's fine all day. Last night was the first time it bothered her a lot. Doctor said her ear didn't look bad, it was subtle... it wasn't shiny like a healthy ear drum is supposed to be. 

So they called in some of the pink amoxicillin and we picked it up on the way home. She's taking it through Friday. She took it at noon like a champ and will take it again tonight, twice a day for 5 days. We also went by the library to pick up MoonWalk which I had put on hold. I liked this painting at the library. Looks like the boardwalk around Silver Lake.

Back at home, K watched a little bit of Bluey and fell asleep with Wes. Cute to see siblings taking a nap together...

I went and took a nap too, and then, more basement work! Basement day 3 as part of my lifelong birthday wish. We made great progress. Pic of Wes taking a little break to play legos with Peter after Peter got home from school. I sorted out some of duplo legos to donate. 

Tonight we cleaned the finished side and moved everything around. We moved a bookshelf and the desk over to the unfinished/un carpeted side. Corey came to help with the des, it was heavy. This is going to be my new art area! 

The kids have already gotten paint on the desk, so it's ok if I do too as I work on art through out the next half century. We stayed up a bit late as we kept trying to do "one more thing..." vacuum, move stuff out of this side. Make this nicer. Wesley is going to set up a bed for himself here, and that will also be where the blow up mattress will go when any of the married kids come by. 

We moved one shelf over to the unfinished side, that will be for books and scrapbooks, and this one that we left here (on the left of that pic) is going to be for games. Games have been in the upstairs locked closet and also in the hutch on the main floor. Now they have ONE designated spot, yayyy. So lots of good work done today, then it was time for FHE. Wesley thought it would be fun to have a donut eating contest. 

Rules were - on your back, don't use your hands. 

Natalie helping Katharine - 

After the boys and K were done, then it was the older kids' turn. I cried of laughter seeing the girls do it. Natalie was going ALL IN. She was gonna eat that sugary donut, come what may. Look at Sophi's eyes as Natalie came after her with her open mouth! So funny 

So we got a dozen donuts. Boys and K = 4 donuts. WASN = 4 donuts. Corey Lily and I declined to eat them, so there were 4 left. We turned it into a blindfolded free for all. 

Corey got a video of that. Natalie and Peter were the last donut left, and were got very close to open mouth kissing. This girl was committed - sugar all over her face! It was pretty funny.

Happy Birthday to Mary!

Happy birthday to little Mary Joyce! She is one year old today! So fun fact, Corey and I became grandparents on April 25, but our first grandchild was born on April 26, haha so that's a fun riddle for ya. Answer at the bottom of this post. Last night Natalie stayed up preparing treats and she made a huge ikea bowl full of homemade ice cream for Mary, which we served up before church - 

We wanted to make time for this party before we went to church, because Joseph and Eliza were going to leave after sacrament meeting, thus we couldn't do it after church. Church was at 10. There were two missionaries speaking today, so I knew it would be crowded (Tess came home from her mission, Abby S leaving) but I just accepted that we would be sitting in the back, and we were. I woke people up and told them to get read quickly so we'd have time to sing to Mary. Abi came down still in her pjs and tried to spend a few more moments with Mary, because this will be Abi's last time seeing her until she comes home from her mission in Dec 2027/Jan 2028. That is crazy to think about!

These next few months are gonna fly by - Abi, you're basically gone! Crazy crazy. So kids finished getting ready and I dished up the ice cream. We put a candle in Mary's dish and sang to her. 

Eliza giving Mary a little taste of this highly sugar concentrated concoction. 

Natlaie ALSO made AMAZING macaroons last night. She made these for Sophi to take to church as a treat after her lesson in Young Womens. Don't they look legit?? Taste and texture were also spot on. Good job Natalie. 

After church I took a nap, came in to blog a bit, Wayne came over for dinner, and I left at 5:15 to go to my parents house for a father's blessing before my birthday week. Part of my birthday ritual (see Simple Abundance Dec 18th entry) is to visit my dad for a blessing, and read my patriarchal blessing. That's all I've got so far. Then I stayed and visited with them a little bit. Mom gave me a massive Michelangelo "complete works" book. She gave me a similar Davinci one in 2020. She said "the brothers need to be together". They are books that dad gave to her years ago, so I'm going to put those with all the other art books and stuff I have together in one place. 

(Answer to the riddle: Mary was born at 1am in Ohio, but it was 11pm here in Utah when we got the news.)

Painting the Basement

Corey worked a lot today, kinda all day. He was a little frustrated/sad yesterday cause he wasn't able to do the tests he wanted (lab open available 10 - 1 on Friday, I think it's also open on Tuesdays). He had gotten too many interruptions on Thursday and wasn't able to finish the stuff to have it ready in time. So we didn't go out last night - he had been trying to hurry and get stuff ready to go test, and then when his window of opportunity was past, he kept working away and put in a late night. I had a good evening with Wes though. We continued our work in the basement that we started yesterday. Today I followed through on our morning plan and I went to Home depot for a few items. Item #1: paint. We are going painting the cement basement walls white. I got two cans of a semi gloss and we went to work. Wes  did a great job protecting the windows and stuff (he found a old poster of Hyrum's). Oh we also used item #2 for that: paint tape. 

Item #3 was brushes. I got two, so I was able to help for a little bit in between errands of taking Owen to a birthday party and soccer games. Also, before I went to Home Depot, I looked up some videos about how to fix the dishwasher. One guy said to get a dishwasher installation kit and showed how to secure the dishwasher that way. When I got there, I asked a Home Depot employee where I could find one. He looked at me confused and said they don't sell those. "Is there anything I can buy to secure a dishwasher? Ours tips forward every time we open the door." He said I just need to screw up the legs until it's being held flat against the counter top. "What about the black thing in front of the legs?" "Take it off." Ok, fair enough. While Wes was painting, I tried that AND IT WORKED! ...for the most part! Well, definitely improved. I've been letting that bother me and make me sad for 11 months, and in a manner of minutes, it is fixed.

Not perfect, but much better. Part of the counter is loose as well as the side wood on the left. We'll try not to break it. This whole house needs to be redone. Someday. I also got Item #4 - Tiny Halogen lightbulb for the master bathroom. That's been out for atleast a month. I just brought in a lamp instead of going to the store for the lightbulb, but since I was here, I got it. I had to call Wes to take a picture of the kind I need. But, I shall now put it here, so I can look it up on the blog next time (if I remember). We used previously, and are using again this time, a FEIT electric Halogen 75 watt 120V mini candelabra bright white light bulb E11 base. Brighteness 1050, and since I'm just typing up everything on this packaging, I'll include the estimated energy costs  of $9.03 per year. They say not to touch the lightbulb with bare hands during installation cause "skin oils can reduce bulb life". I tried to not touch it with my skin, but it was too slippery through my shirt, so after 2 minutes I was frustrated and touched it. I hope it doesn't burn out too quickly. but I bought an extra in case it does.

For soccer games today, they were all in the afternoon. I took Daniel for his game at 12:45. Owen's was right after at 2. Wes took Peter to his 2pm game. I watched Daniel for a little bit, then went to pick up Owen after a birthday party and bring him back for his game. K saw me at home and she got in the car with us. Daniel stayed for Owen's game. We had a sweet surprise today. Owen's game was at a different location, so I wasn't parked close to it cause I was close to the regular field. He was over by the pavilion, so before the game started I decided to move the car. As I walked through the pavilion to the game, a lady stopped me and invited me to have some cake. "Cakes for kids" was sharing free cake and cookies and brownies in celebration of selling their 100-thousand'th cake. 

Wow thanks! I walked past and another lady told me I couldn't leave without cake. Oh don't worry, we'll take some! I'm just going to get my kids. I bought Katharine and Scarlett to get some cake. 

And we let everyone else know too. The brownies were delicious as was the peach cake, oh and the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. It was all very sugary tasty (so much for my resolve to be done eating for the day...) 

We got a bit more on our way out and took it home to share. K blowing weeds all over the lawn. 

Owen won his game, I was a bit distracted with cake and watching K so I didn't catch most of it. A few passes on the monkey bars and then we headed home. I put in a white chili for dinner, the house smelled amazing when I got home. The kids all loved it. This was a recipe my sister Patrice sent me, AND she sent me all the ingredients via a Sam's Instacart drop off. The kids used most of the cream cheese she sent with sourdough, but thankfully I had enough to still make this and double it. I haven't posted a recipe in forever, so here's this keeper - WHITE CHICKEN CHILI:

Ingredients:

• 2 BONELESS CHICKEN /SKINLESS BREASTS (can be frozen)
• 1 (11 OR 15 oz) CAN CORNED, DRAINED
• 1 (15oz) CAN BLACK BEANS, DRAINED AND RINSED
• 1 (10oz) CAN DICED TOMATOES AND GREEN CHILI, UNDRAINED (I use Rotel brand)
• 2 CUPS CHICKEN BROTH
• 1/2 - 1 CUP COOKED, CHOPPED BACON
• 1 (1oz) PACKET OF HIDDEN VALLEY RANCH ORIGINAL SEASONING MIX
• 1 tsp CUMIN
• 1 TBSP CHILI POWDER
• 1 tsp ONION POWDER
• 1 (8oz) PACKAGE OF CREAM CHEESE
• 1 CUP OF SHREDDED CHEDDAR CHEESE

Instructions:

1. Place chicken at bottom of slow cooker
2. Add corn, black beans, diced tomatoes w/chilis, chicken broth, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, ranch packet, & bacon.
3. Stir together, then place cream cheese on top. 
4. Cover with lid and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or high for 4 hours. 
5. Remove chicken and shred with fork, return to cooker, stir cheese into chili.
6. Serve with your favorite chili toppings.

Corey and I didn't go out last night and neither of us had exercised yet today, so we left at 6:30 for Corner Canyon, started a long ride to do the loop and we were racing the sunset. Still on the other side of the mountain when the sun went down on Timp...

It was dark on the way down, we were doing Rush 20-30 mintues after sunset, but we were barely able to see. Sad thing is that we took the wrong road in the neighborhood so it didn't count as doing the loop, boooo! Next time you turn into the neighborhood, turn left, then don't turn again, just go straight and follow that road around until you get to the Peakview turn off. Next time we'll do that and try to get an emoji cup.

Mary's birthday is tomorrow. Joseph and Eliza are coming by to spend the night, and we'll have a little celebration tomorrow before they head to Idaho. We're glad Eliza's cousin timed their wedding right so we could see Mary on her birthday! And today Alive turned 11 months old! Bella has done a great job capturing him each month. 

Alvie is such a cutie!!!! They'll be having a little party on his birthday next month, which will be on a day off (Memorial day) so that works out perfectly. We feel so lucky to have the cutest grandkids!

Surprise Party

The adult kids planned a surprise birthday party for me in Pleasant Grove tonight. 

I almost didn't make it down. Sophi and Natalie said they had a ballroom thing and I told Mel I had to take them to that and then stay to pick them up afterwards, but that Wes, Abi and the other kids would come down. Then Mel called Sophi and talked them out of it I guess, but I still had to go out to Skyline to pick up Lily who had to stay after for whatever. So WASNODPK headed to Pleasant Grove and Corey worked and I went and got Lily. It took forever cause there is stupid construction on Wasatch Blvd by the exit. I was on the off ramp for 15 minutes. Coming home was better. We got home, finished cooking sourdough for one of Lily's customers which took an hour, then Corey Lily and I headed down for the sibling gathering. Well, I thought it was just a sibling gathering that Mel pushed to do while Joseph and Eliza were in town. When Corey, Lily and I eventually got there (like over an hour late?) we saw that they had ice cream, a cake, a birthday banner and such as a birthday party for me. 

Christian brought his pizza oven and was serving up hot slices. Mel mad a 5 - 0, 5 out of olives, 0 out of cherry tomatoes.

The kids made a list of 50 things they love about me, awww

The wind was blowing like crazy, so we had to put that away quick. 

It was funny, the kids pointed out all the unfortunate events that had occurred: the cake got dropped, ice cream was melted, napkins and cups were being blown everywhere, we laughed and Bella said "This is kinda like life!" You make some plans, people have other commitments, people are late, there is wind, ice cream melts, cake is a mess, and that is ok cause that is life. But it is good to have the people you love around you. I got a pick with Alvie and Mary - 

I pushed Katharine on the zip line bar swing over and over again. She LOVED it.

Corey, Joseph and Ethan were all talking about their struggles as working men and providers for their wives and children. Eliza and Bella swung their bundles of joy on the swings.

And then I asked Corey Joseph and Ethan to go visit by Katharine so they could push her on the zip line, and then I went over and joined everyone else in an epic game of tag. We had a big group. It is a really fun playground! Eliza's mom Amanda came to pick them up so they could head back to the airbnb before the wedding tomorrow. She took a group pic of us, and then we told all the kids to come for a tag group pic. Here are most of the people from our game of tag. We had like 3 people as "it" - It was fun. 

Then it was getting dark, so we got kids in the car. Alvie was honking the horn in their car, haha.

Ethan said I haven't been representing Alvie much on the blog. They've shared a google album with me, but I don't see all the stuff in there - I'm playing the "old person" card on my ignorance there. But if they sent me pics over whatsapp, then it goes into my camera roll, so I told them to do that with their favorite pics, and I'll try to learn how to view shared albums. We love you Alvie!! 

So that was the highlight of the day - having fun with all the kids together except Hyrum. Ethan wasn't in the group pic cause he was fighting for his life in the bathroom for 20 minutes and we had to take the pic so Joseph and Eliza could head out. It was a good time.

The other good thing today was that Wesley and I cleaned a lot in the basement. Wesley has decided that he is going to make the basement a clean and organized space before he leaves next month. I think he's around until May 19th. Here's part of the before, after he picked up the legos off the floor.

13 bins of legos - that's taller than Wesley!

That's what 24 years of gifts of legos for Christmas and birthdays every year for 13 kids looks like. Today we vacuumed the lego area and moved shelves over there, and made a little play house area for Katahrine.

Wesley and I both worked hard and are proud of the progress we made! 

We're excited to get after it more tomorrow. We are going to paint the cement walls too! I'm going to go pick up paint tomorrow morning. This is Wesley's birthday gift to me. It will be really great to have this space reclaimed! It will be a gift that keeps on giving.