Nursery Play

The kids have their primary program on Sunday. Today at 4 they had a final practice at the church. Katharine played in the nursery while I read. She is sooo adorable.

Cutting up her wooden fruit with a plastic spoon. 

She tried to eat a wood sandwich too. Very honest effort too - put her mouth all over it. I was a bit grossed out thinking of what's been on that wood bread. 

Time to clean up the dishes.

So I was distracted by how cute she was, but I did get a little bit of reading in - one of the books I'm working on right now is "On Fire" - which I picked up at the library a few weeks ago and loved the first chapter so I ordered a copy. Really great book. I started reading it out loud to Lily, Sophi, and Natalie last week and a few pages in and they were hooked. Lily said "Can I read that after you're done?" It's going to be good. I'm already inspired by John O'Leary's example. 

Peter drew his name today - so good! If you zoom in you can see it and a little self portrait done by our little left handed kiddo - 

We took Wesley's mission application photos! This is getting real!

And the kids had the fun run over at school. Everyone was given a t-shirt, a gift from the school sponsors. 

Owen is hard to see in that photo, but you can get half of his head behind a girl - follow the line of the "d" in 3rd and it points to his half face. I didn't go support anything, and I didn't donate, but I plan to be a contributing member of the school community someday. 

One Lego Set

With all the kids in school, it's mostly just Peter and Katharine at home with me (sometimes Wes stays home with us). In preparation for back to school for us at home, I got Peter some coloring books and pens. Now we are a month into the school year, and the coloring pages have been drawn on or ripped, and his colored pens misplaced. What else for a toddler to do? We've gone into the basement to play toys, and that's working out pretty good. He makes little lego ships and minifigures and I try to minimize and organize. But Peter recently came up to me and told me mournfully "I don't have any lego sets..." While I know it's not true, it might as well be, cause poor Peter just can't keep track of his legos. He'll play with a set and take it everywhere with him, and bit by bit pieces get knocked off in the car or upstairs or in the kitchen or downstairs, and then it's scattered and lost, never to be reunited. Something funny Hyrum said recently, as one of the many truths that he learned on his mission was: Lego sets don't naturally fall apart, scatter, and get lost. Who knew!?!? He made a lego set that I sent him for his birthday, and he was kinda amazed that it stayed there all put together on his shelf for a whole year! It is true. It's not the lego sets themselves that fall apart, it is the children who destroy.

Well, the last week of summer, Natalie decided it was time to organize the legos by color. That project kept her and her brothers busy for that last week, but now they are in school and the sorting stopped, until now. I have taken over the task and we are going to get this done once and for all, and it's going to get organized and STAY ORGANIZED (and not because we are gone!). I worked for hours yesterday looking for lego pieces for Peter's Green Lloyd Ninjago robot. Like I literally looked through 9 of the 11 huge bins of legos for the final green bent piece for the robot arm, but to no avail. I gave up and Peter was content to use a red piece for the arm. I was a little surprised at my focus and determination to find that piece. And THEN, tonight, Wesley was taking apart a lego for Peter, and it popped off and rolled under the couch, and Peter reached under to find it, and wouldn't you you know,  he found the green arm piece! Wesley put the arm on and the set was restored and complete. Peter, you have a lego set!!!

One down, many more to go. Today Wes helped me organized today while he listened to Frankenstein for his English class. That was a pretty good use of time! We worked for two hours but even with both of us working pretty effectively, we didn't finish a bin. I wonder how long a bin will take? We don't have a lot of lego instructions that have survived over the years, but Lily says we can find them online. If the kids remember the sets they've received in the past, and if they want to make them, it will be possible once the legos are organized by color. That will be much easier than what I did yesterday whiel I was looking for the green arm, which was to try and find one lego in 10 bins of lego chaos. We can do this! So we will keep sorting legos over the next while, I bet we could maybe do one bin a week if we work on it every day, so 10 weeks? I've also decided that it will be a family project that we can do next weekend as we listen to General Conference! That will keep everyone awake! We'll have to have conference nice and loud though, to be able to hear it over the lego searching white noise (like this but x1000). It will be good to get organized and put our legos back to good use.

Daniel is 7!

Happy Happy Birthday Daniel! He is 7 years old today! And wouldn't you know, I'm here blogging and I did not get a picture of Daniel today. How did that happen, doh! This morning I took carpool and then went by Smiths to get him some treats to share with his class, and another something sweet for a special cold lunch. He opened his present while I was gone (Mandalorian and baby yoda lego starship) and then he headed off to school. He asked Wesley to make it while he was gone, which Wesley did. After school he was busy playing with friends. Corey's dad came by with a gift. My mom has a lot going on at work so she said she'd come by later. I shall have to update later with that pic after she does! I know she'll bring cake, so I just got cookies and cream ice cream for the kids today. Daniel had some friends come over and and I let them all go to town. So just ice cream today. (Update - Pic below from Sat 9/23 with his cake from my mom - just cake on that day! Ice cream on Tues and cake on Sat - that evens things out and makes the birthday last longer) 

This morning we had four butterflies emerge. After Katharine's happy experience with the monarchs on Saturday, she knows that these are about now and she really likes the butterflies and is a little possessive of them. This one wasn't ready to fly, but the wings were expanded and pretty dry, so I let her have it for a little bit. 

She was pleased. 

She is pretty adorable with the butterflies. We went outside, she still wanted it on her hand.

I eventually had to put them up in the tree though, for their own safety. 

Cute little girl just wants to be one with nature.

I got her distracted on the trampoline long enough to get them safely away. Here's a short video of that - four safely in a tree with a baby bouncing with a red ball behind them. Below, in that video, you can see my milkweed, where their journey began. Lovely monarchs! I took one over to the hibiscus flowers for a prettier photo.

So that's fun, we have 7 more chrysalides. 

Tonight, sweet Peter coloring (Katharine out for the count on the ottoman next to him, ha). 

He is left handed. I love Peter's drawings! They're so cute. 

He does a good job drawing and coloring his books! I'm trying to pause and notice moments like these with Katharine and Peter, hopefully I'll start to notice them with the other kids too and will take pictures, and will get Daniel on his birthday next time! I've started writing down 5 things every night that I'm thankful for. As part of my "Simple Abundance" work with Nicole. Well, as I reviewed things last night, I realized that Owen's life might have been spared yesterday. The kids were crossing the street home on their bikes, right about when I took this photo... Owen went into the street without making sure traffic had stopped...

And I was in the car turning right, on our way to violin, but a lady coming up the street toward the canyon was zipping along and must not have noticed Owen - she had to brake hard and came to a pretty fast halt. It is a bit scary having the kids cross the busy road, which is why I asked Abi to go ride home with them, but we'll go over the rules again to make sure Owen knows to not go into the street unless there are no cars and/or cars have stopped for them. I am very grateful that Owen was safe. 

Becoming New Creatures

My lesson at church yesterday was on 2 Corinthians 1-7 about being reconciled unto God. If you go to that lesson link and scroll down, you'll see that they used an image of a (drumroll....) butterfly to illustrate the lesson topic of becoming new creatures. Well, it just so happens that I am a butterfly enthusiast. So I didn't need to bring that stock image photo from the manual (plus everyone had already looked at it this week as they studied...) but I did want to talk about becoming new creatures, and I do agree that a butterfly's metamorphosis is a great illustration of the change of heart that we need to go through to become new creatures in Christ. ANYWAY, I had four monarch chrysalides on hand that were going to eclose, so I brought them to class, and they came out during my lesson! It was a pretty incredible visual aid if I do say so myself. After class, some people came up to see the butterflies up close. I was happy to send three of them home with a few interested neighbors, and they were able to watch them as they dried and then release them. 

And then we brought one home to enjoy. The older kids were watching Saturdays Warrior on the big screen there.

Pretty fun. I really have enjoyed teaching the adult Sunday school class. I say "enjoyed" because Corey is moving me to a youth class that needs another teacher. Corey is the Sunday School president, so he gets to decide these things, and I seemed like an easy choice. Plus he teased "You can't top that..." referring to my lesson yesterday. Where could I go from there? It's only downhill, so time to move on. I'm going to be teaching Sophi's class now with another mom. It will still be fun. It'll probably be a little less stressful to prepare for, but still allow good focus and motivation during the week to study. It'll be good, but I will miss the adult class. I'm assuming the kids won't be as excited about reading the scriptures or discussing the material, but maybe we can get them excited about it. We still brought home one, plus we've had to many that most of my kids don't worry about holding them, they know there is another one coming out tomorrow. Corey took this pic of me in my butterfly lab "doing science" a few weeks ago. I don't have the best set up, but it's been fine.

Katharine is a bit high maintenance these days. She likes to be held, but we get tired, so we either sit and feed her, or Corey and Abi have been taking her on walks quite a bit. From a recent walk - Katharine playing in a neighbor's dirt! oops.

Oops for making their sidewalk messy, not oops for her getting her pants dirty. That happens everyday anyway, no biggie. Another cute picture by Peter - 

We had violin today. The boys have started riding their bikes to school in the mornings with some neighbor kids. I was headed to violin with Sophi and Natalie today after school when the boys were crossing the busy road to come home. 

I had Abi go meet them to help them cross. 

And even with Abi there, and the blinking lights of the cross walk, there was a car that had to totally slam on it's brakes to not hit Owen. It was scary!! People are always driving so fast on this road, we try to go with them to cross to make sure the cars stop before the kids start to walk out. That's the goal atleast, but didn't happen today. But we're glad Owen wasn't hurt.

Six Monarchs

We had six monarch butterflies come out today! Here I am with four of them - so fun...

In that pic above, the butterfly with it's wings open is a male. The males are identified by their thinner veins and by the little spots on the veins on those two bottom wings. That means it's a male. The females have thick black veins and no spots. I've given away a lot of butterflies this year, so here at our house we haven't had many eclose (emerge) on the same day, so this was a special treat. Corey took the boys to their soccer game today, and so I was home with the rest of the kids and we had fun in the backyard playing with these wonders of creation. Melodie and Wes went camping out at the salt flats last night with Ethan. Her BeReal - 

Mel decided to stay here when they came to drop off Wes, so it was fun to have her here and to share the butterflies with her. She was holding Katharine when K held a butterfly for the first time! 

Her little facial expressions in that video are so sweet! She looked like she was really in awe!

In this video, one of the butterflies flew right onto Katharine's face, but she held so still and did not freak out. I was so proud of her! (longer version of the video above here). It was so cute and the butterfly was ok too.

The kids were able to enjoy the butterflies for about an hour. Katharine protested a bit when her butterfly flew away... (longer video of that moment here. And below is a 7 min video of our fun. 

Natalie wanted earrings, but one of the butterflies wanted to be a bow, so decided it would start walking up to her head.

Playing with the butterflies was the highlight of my day. I hope our kids look back on their childhood and feel that it was a pretty magical time, cause it has been. Thank you, Lord, for the beauty of this world, for our lovely children, and for these magical moments of life that we get to share together with them!

One Eye Squint

I got the CUTEST picture of Peter and Katharine playing on the trampoline yesterday! Just look at these two!

They both are doing a one eyed squint that is just adorable. And Katharine's taking a lesson from her older sisters with that little bent over pose. I love it. 

Heart is full today feeling like I'm the luckiest mom in the world. P&K Looking at each other - 

"Yeah, we ARE pretty cute, huh!"

Katharine still being cute and smiley after a bath. I made her look like a little Russian babuskha with this silk handkerchief my mom gave me. 

So as I mentioned earlier this week, Katharine has been reading and drawing a lot, it's really fun. She was back at it again this morning, being cute AND smart!

Carefully capturing her thoughts - 

Then excitedly sharing her insights with us!

Peter has been writing a lot too! I caught him writing his name yesterday. Little PETE! So cute. And I think I've pointed out before that Peter appears to be left handed!

I also loved this drawing he did of some of his siblings. The only one I recognized was Sophi. 

And loved these little people drawings too!

Coloring with markers. 

Writing is important, especially cause that comes in handy when finding work. Hyrum sent this meme that made us laugh, ha. 

He is thinking of how to make money. He got a job at Chick Fil A up there at BYU on campus, so that's good that it is close to his apartment and he can walk to it. He just needs me to mail him his birth certificate, so that's on it's way to him. I've been doing work preparing for my Sunday lesson on being reconciled to God. I got a book a week ago called "In Awe" by John Leary, which stood out to me because the word "awe" has personal meaning from my patriarchal blessing. Anyway, In Awe is his second book - I went back to the library to check out his first book, On Fire, it's really good! I'm going to use some of it in my lesson on Sunday. I did some lesson prep today while the girls were at group violin class. I got interrupted, but I'm sure the lesson will be ok. Someday I'll have quiet interruption free days. In my lesson on Sunday I'm hoping we will talk about being committed to God even (especially!) in our trials! No excuses! "It's my life and I'm responsible for it!" 

A few other things I was listening to in preparation for Sunday. So first - what we think is so important for how we live, and along that line I listened to this TED Talk by Amy Cuddy which also shared how yes, our thoughts influence our bodies, but our bodies can influence our minds too (start around minute 10)! It would be great to do the Wonder Woman Pose for a few minutes everyday!Katharine putting her hands up, cheering for herself! An expression that even blind people do when they are feeling victorious, even though they've never seen it done. It's a natural expression of triumph. 

Really cool stuff in that talk. Be reconciled unto God! 

Chrysalide Drama

So things have been going very very well with our butterflies so far this year. We have had a few get stuck molting between the instar sizes, which is common. Thankfully we haven't had any have trouble changing into chrysalis like last year, 2019, and in 2018. I used to hold out hope that they'd still make it, but now I know they are gonners if they don't do that transformation correctly. And there have been no issues with them having any problems eclosing, like with Jerry and Maria. Caterpillar drama is about the same as usual, with some sick and oozing, dying, and/or disappearing. I haven't been keeping good count of the egg and caterpillar numbers, I'm trying to just count successful butterflies. I didn't even know some caterpillars were missing inside until I found their chrysalis under the cupboards (2 were under there!) or one made it's silk pad up high on a storage lid on top of the cupboards. It was several days before we even noticed that hanging there in plain sight. I only found the ones under the cupboards after I found their skins as I was sweeping the floor after they changed into the chrysalis. There's also been some who are just barely hanging onto their silk, one missed it's silk pad and fell, but luckily I had some tissue wrap under it so it didn't get hurt. I was able to get it stuck on a sweat shirt's fuzz and it hardened there, and then I made it more secure after that. I also three other problems with four other chrysalides, and I froze three of these - one of them had it's wing drop down and fill with fluid! It was dripping green, and I figured it was doomed. 

That one had trouble molting each time, and left his skin with a line down it and half green half yellow looking. You can barely see the line in the pic above. I named him two face. It was too bad he didn't make it. And then there were these two - one that I found after noticing lots of black drops below it. Ugh, it looked like a zombie chrysalis! 

and this one only had a few drops of black, but looked sunken like a raisin. I "euthanized" those three (froze them).

And then the most sad one for me was this chrysalis. I was moving all the chrysalides to a branch after they were hard. I clipped off the milkweek to move this one - Looked good, right?

But then I turned it over and saw that it had been in the path of a hungry caterpillar...

Doh!! Eaten alive, darn it. That has never happened before. A lot of chrysalis drama that is a first this year. 12 years doing this and new things still happen. But when a butterfly makes it and flies free, it's worth it. 

I sent a polo to Mel sharing some of the exciting and tragic butterfly events, and I had to get a screen shot of this cute smile that K made at the end of the video - ha! 

Katharine is liking the butterflies, and she loves the shirt that I got in June at Kid to Kid. I love that she loves it!!!

She's gently tap the butterfly with her pointer finger and say butterfly "Bah-fie!" She is so cute.