More Cleaning

Daniel was still a cleaning machine today. He practiced and read, then asked me what we should deep clean. I thought the fridge or pantry. He said the lights. So we did the lights - the chandelier over the kitchen table. 

There were a fair share of deceased elm seed bugs in the lights. Our home isn't totally infested, like it was in 2020 when they we often found them hanging out in groups on the ceiling, but I still find a couple every day or two, stupid bugs. So now it the kitchen, like the kids' bathroom, looks clean and bright! So Daniel got me going cleaning. We took off the glass lights, changed a few light bulbs, wiped the glass down, and dusted and wiped the fixture. Then Daniel was done, but I kept going. He went to see if friends could play, but then was back home and commanded me to not clean without him. I said he had inspired me again and I couldn't stop! He helped me a bit more, and we cleaned under and above the microwave now. That looks really nice now!

Oh, and yes Daniel is wearing the same clothes from yesterday. He slept in them. That's another area of improvement that we need to work on. I'll take advantage of his desire to clean while he's got it over this "fall break". Daniel's cleaning and Owen's reading a lot. He is in a group at school called "Book Blitz" and there are like 10 titles that he has to read before the end of the year. The first two need to be done by Nov 1st, so I encouraged him to get as much done as he can this weekend while he has the time. He read quite a bit of Lions and Liars. Did some reading outside...

and some inside on the couch with a little bit of help from x1.35 speed on Audible. He did great, read for 2 hours, then went to Cornbelly's with his friend Liam around 4. 

That was very nice of them to treat him to some festive fall fun. 

Corey and I went to Aubergine tonight for out date, then went to the Sandy Momentum. We usually don't go to that one, so we thought we'd try it. When we got there, we found that they were having a Halloween party. People were in costumes, there were glowsticks, flashing lights, headlamps, and a dj (music was a bit loud... I could have done without that). 

It was a new experience to climb with headlamps. A little trickier, but we got the hang of it. It was fun.

Lily Sophi and Natalie are watching a movie at Jane's house, Abi is with friends, they have Monster Mash tomorrow. 

Deep Cleaning

It is fall break for the elementary boys, so they've been doing a good job and getting their chores and practicing done right away so they can go play with friends. Daniel, in particular, has done an over the top job. Yesterday I asked him to clean the bathroom. We cleared off the counter, wiped the sinks, then we noticed the beyond dusty lights. They were covered in dust. The bathroom was "clean" but we were going to do some "deep cleaning" now, which is cleaning things that don't need to be done daily, and that you sometimes don't notice, but over time they get dirty. We took them apart and washed them off. They were going to need new lightbulbs too, but I only had soft white, and we wanted daylight bulbs in here, so we'd run to get those at the store after we were done. 

Daniel really enjoyed seeing the difference. "I LOVE deep cleaning!" He said he wants to do deep cleaning for his household job everyday. That sounds great to me. This kid felt so much joy and satisfaction in this chore, that he even declared that he wants to be a maid when he grows up. That made me laugh, and I told him to probably have a different career, but that his wife, I'm sure, would love him to deep clean around the house. He said he would be my deep cleaning helper from now. Daniel has a pass to get one free ice cream cone at Maceys every week for a year (something he won at an ice cream eating contest during the macey's mascot's birthday party a few weeks ago) so we went for ice cream after we finished chores. Owen was off with friends, so it was me and DPK. 

Ice cream at Macey's - check. But they didn't have light bulbs. So we went to Home Depot next door.

The lightbulbs there seemed crazy expensive... yikes. $18 bucks? For a couple of lightbulbs? Is this thanks to Trump's tariffs? or just cause Home Depot is overpriced? I decided we'd go to Walmart. I did find some there - the walmart generic brand were 9 bulbs for $13. That was better. Back at home, Owen came back to babysit at 2 (we put on a movie for them) while Corey and I went on a ride to the ruins. The girls were on their way home, but we had to go earlier to be back in time before I had to take Owen to trumpet at 4:30. We pushed hard, and I had a goal to make it to the ruins before an hour, and we crushed it! We were at the top in 56:29. That's a killer new record! Previous time was 1:00:30, and the time before that I think was an hour and 2 min. Go team.   

At Owen's lesson, he looked a little pale and said yes, he was feeling weird. I could tell he was light headed so we had him to sit down and get his strength back. He started feeling queasy, I learned on the drive home, a couple of hours earlier after we showed him the video about John O'Leary, after Owen told us he and his friend Liam had been playing with fire at Liam's house - burning leaves in his garage. That made me think of O'Leary, who we learned about two years ago. He was burned when he was a young fun curious boy like Owen. Seeing the photograph at the :45 second mark stuck with Owen, so that's why he felt like fainting. Good to know that blood or gory stuff might make him faint. Fainting at blood runs on the Hibbert side, so yeah, it's good to find out who it affects. This is our first time knowing Owen has a tendency to faint. 

Playing with K

After the kids headed to school, Katharine asked Corey "Do you want to play with me?" Who could resist an invitation like that! So they played "Princesses" with Belle and the Beast Little People figures.

Corey did a good job being the Beast. 

Probably discussing how the plot is going to go down.

I need to figure out a play space for Kathrine. The music room is her toy home at the moment, but I don't think they can stay in there. Or maybe we'll move the music stuff somewhere else. 

Corey's bike has been in the shop, but it was finished with repairs today. I took a ride without him yesterday up to the ruins, started around 2:45. There is still a little bit of yellow.

I was pushing hard and got to the top in 1 hour and 29 seconds! I didn't take any breaks to pause the clock, that was just me working hard. I did miss the Lisa rocks so I walked that for a minute. I bet if I got that and pushed just a smidgen harder, I could do it under an hour, #goals. I layed on the ground to recover and ground for a few as I listened to the creek.

Fall sky ~ The cool autumn weather felt good after a hard workout.

Fall with perks is mostly over (perks being warm sunny days and bright colors), and now it's real fall. It's brown, gray, cold and dark mornings. One thing I like about real fall is that I can hunker down and read. This morning I went bouldering. Yesterday I didn't go to my early morning temple trip (Jordan River is still closed, but it opens this weekend!) so I started the day with reading a book and sipping some warm tumeric and ginger as I read Simple Abundance. Making my way through October and I'm caught up with that (I skipped the summer entries though).

What else. I found another huge bowl of grapes on Monday. Apparently I picked more than I remembered! I thought I had finished plucking and freezing them all, so I worked on that last bowl yesterday and finished it today. I ate my last fresh concord grapes. Now they are all in the freezer waiting to be eaten over the winter, probably just by me. The kids don't like the seeds. Having Concord grapes everyday has done something to me. I think it kinda calms my appetite. I haven't been munchy or craving things for the past while.

Pumpkin Popcorn Balls

We had a fun FHE activity tonight. I know FHE is supposed to be more than a game and treat, and we'll get there to having more spiritual stuff, but for today, I went to the store to figure out what the sugar fix would be. I was walking around Smiths trying to think what would be good. Root beer? That would be simple... I like sushi, but no, cause then I'd be sad to not eat any, and I had already brushed my teeth and was done eating for the day. I hadn't planned ahead enough to do candy corn jello. Do we do a repeat of one of the previous years and decorate donuts or make oreo spiders? We'll be carving pumpkins next  week, and I googled on my pone and saw - popcorn balls! I remember making carmel popcorn as a kid, so I can create that moment for my kids. This would be fun! I have a popcorn popper so we're half way there. I got popcorn kernels, and looked up a recipe. I thought these looked cute, but I couldn't bring myself to buy corn syrup. I also didn't want to buy tootsie rolls, but I didn't want licorice. This recipe looked easier with marshmallows, fewer ingredients, ok yeah that works. So I got marshmallows and candy corn, I couldn't find peanuts, so I bought pretzels to add to the mix. Then I saw big pretzels, yay, we did that instead of the tootsie rolls. Got home, got out the big bowls, lets do this! We popped the corn, and that was fun and magical to watch. We did 2 cups of kernels, which made like 6 cups of popcorn. We threw in candy corn, pretzel bits, and then melted some butter, marshmallows, and food coloring. 

They put some oil on their hands and started to form their pumpkin balls. 

We went to the table and played a few rounds of Yahtzee while kids ate their popcorn balls. Peter made a good pumpkin. Daniel loaded his up with extra marshmallows.

They are both saving their balls to take to school tomorrow for their snacks. Natalie and Owen with their balls. Natalie was generous with the green frosting vines.

Lily Katharine and Sophi, and my pumpkin there too! (An orange bell pepper).

I'll eat mine tomorrow. Abi ate hers tonight. 

Other things from today - the kids set up the trampoline that Wayne gave us. Now there are two, and it's a hit with boys and their friends. 

The girls are home for their last day of fall break, so Corey and I were able to go do toprope during the day. 10:44 am at Ft Union, then I also took a hike up the canyon at 1:30. I explored a new spot with a lot of rocks, and that was fun. I'd like to take the boys up there, I bet they'd love climbing all over it. 

There are still some bright fall colors. 

It was a good day.

BYU vs Utah

It is 7pm on Saturday night. Corey took all the kids with him over to his dad's house to watch the BYU vs. Utah football game tonight, which is starting about now. Oh wait, it must have started at 6, cause it's the 2nd quarter right now (BYU winning 7-0). Go cougs, I hope they win. The kids all got dressed up for it. 

Katharine did not want to put on her Elsa dress, so she'll be reppin' the U of U tonight, just so we can save face if BYU loses.

I'm here going to try to blog for the next 3 hours and see how far I can get caught up. 

Well, now it's 11pm. We're back at home, and... BYU won! 24 to 21! I saw the last bit of the game cause I ended up going over there to help drive people home. Wayne wanted to give us his trampoline, so Natalie loaded that up in the van, so there wasn't enough room for the kids now. So I got 4 posts done, yay, and I'm glad I was glad to go and see the end of the game, especially cause BYU won! We were also glad the U got another touchdown there at the end. Abi was confused at what was happening when BYU wasn't throwing the ball and was just taking a knee to run down the clock. But when it was over and we won, she was ok with that. 

Ethan enjoying the game down in Provo from their apartment. 

We love you ALVIE!!!! 

Let's see, real quick... what else did we do today - Owen and Peter had their last soccer games. They were both at 10:15. Corey and I went climbing at 8. We feel a little silly that we climb so much but are still getting rental shoes instead of having our own. Corey said "We should probably get our own shoes..." I asked "Should we get harnesses too? and ropes? belay devices?" Then he said "We should get our own mountain..." ha, I thought that was funny. We were done in time to take the boys to their games. We got home in Corey's car and I turned right around and took Owen to his game, and Corey took Peter in the van (nice of him to let me use his car). Sophi went to watch Peter's game. Abi went to do work for my mom. Natalie and Lily watched kids at home. Mel and Christian came to watch Owen's game, which was very nice of them. Mel and Christian came and hung out with us at home. Christian played Little People princesses with Katharine. He's a great guy. This one time he was here, and I had my hands full, and I asked him to put Katharine's shoes on her. She was sitting on the bottom step and had him putting her shoes on her like prince charming, and she had such a pleased smile, it was cute. I didn't see her face as they played tonight, but I'm sure it was the same. He makes all of Mel's younger siblings feel special (and he brings them candy!)

Fall Break for Teens

I called my sister Patrice today, and we had a nice chat. She had a surgery this past Monday, so I was getting the low down on how her recovery is going. And I was able to do some body doubling and I was quite productive. I moved shelves around in the basement and so help me, I'm going to get this place organized this winter.

Sophi and Lily started helping me and they got really excited. Lily hanging on the pull up bar there on the left. 

Natalie wants me to buy sheetrock. I told her we're not there yet. But we can move things around and pretend that we have walls, and maybe someday we will. Then Natalie went upstairs and starting baking. She's become quite a little chef.

Katharine waiting patiently to try the treats. Today was a better "fall break" day for the girls than yesterday was cause they got to sleep in and be lazy. Yesterday they got up at 6:30 am to go work at the soap factory with Corey, end of this post. It was nice to have them around, Corey and I were able to leave for a ride at 4:30 pm. Well, we were going to go, but then he wasn't behind me. I called him from the church, he was still in the driveway, his bike broke. He took it to Salt Cycles, so I just did the fish tail. 6.26 miles, 35 minutes, then we got ready for date night and went to Aubergine. We'll try to go tomorrow in the afternoon - after soccer games but before the BYU Utah game if his bike is back.

Grandbabies

Well, I should probably share a few photos of my adorable grandchildren. Joseph sent this one to the family chat today and we all just squealed when we saw it - 

MARY!!!! So so so so so cute! Aww, that little GRIN!!!! Oh she's so cute. And a pic they sent yesterday, awww. 

She's a little person with a little personality! Let's take a look at Alvie ~ awww! He's a little person too! 

He's a big boy - his cheeks are a bit heavier to lift, but he's got a charming grin as well!

Oh they are so cute. So fun. Eliza and Bella are so lucky to be mothers! Babies really are God's gifts to the moms. It's fun being a grandma, but they don't need me. They need the mom, and the mom gets to be the one that spends all day with them. I'm guessing that I'll get to babysit the grandkids now and then over the years, but I don't get them all day. I'll treasure these last years with Katharine where we are best friends and spend all day together! Except when I escape for a bike ride or something. I did escape briefly yesterday. 

Fall colors are falling down and becoming more brown and dead, but it's still pretty and I love it. 

Corey and I also escaped to go climbing last night. It was late, we took ODPK over to Wayne's house while we climbed in Millcreek. We took our nephew Seth with us, who was over there visiting Wayne. 

So that was fun! He did three climbs and a few boulders. I bouldered a little bit when Corey was belaying Seth.

Tonight I went for a walk and did some stretching. The older girls have today and tomorrow off, and Monday, for fall break. I like it when Natalie is home, cause she is so good at playing with Katharine. They both dressed up as ballerinas today. 

I'm impressed that Natalie can still fit in her ballet costume from FOUR years ago! Wow. She was teaching Katharine a few moves. 

Cute. Natalie and Peter are both really good at playing with Katharine. And Natalie is good at playing with Peter too. 

She was using my phone today (without permission) and doing some fun editing stuff with Peter. 

I'm not sure how she knows how to do that, but good job. I'm always impressed with the kids editing skills. I'm glad they have skills. I hope the skills they are acquiring will be of benefit to them and help them get into college and live a good life. A lot of the stuff (reels and memes) seems like a waste and pointless though. Corey took Lily Sophi and Natalie with him this morning to do some service at a church soap factory. It was supposed to be a 4 hour thing, starting at 7am, so they got up to go at 6:30 this morning. I helped them get out the door, telling them it was a 30 min drive so just bring your blankets in the car and you can sleep on the way there. Corey said they were too young to be out on the floor (he didn't know that would be the case) so they just did a few random jobs around the facility...

with great attitudes to boot!

(haha not really on the great attitudes part...)

But they ended up only being there for an hour, and then he took them out to breakfast, and got some genuine smiles from them there. 

I'm glad Corey uses opportunities like this (a soap assignment) to give the kids opportunities to be stretched. It's good for them. And when they look back, and see that it wasn't so bad, hopefully they'll be willing to do it again. Like Daniel and Peter hiking the Y on Tuesday, they both did so good, I was so proud of them, and I think it's cause they were glad that they did it. As time passes, the sucky parts fade and you are just left with the good things and cool parts, like meeting Cosmo, or having donuts. So we'll keep trying to do hard things and finish them off with a good thing. It's good that Corey took them out for breakfast. Ooh, babies are the best example of that. 9 months of pregnancy and some labor to boot, and then you get an angel baby for the rest of eternity! Such a great plan of our Heavenly Father. And no blessings will be withheld from those who desire those blessings yet do not receive them here in mortality through no fault of their own. Such a gracious plan! Good to make sure that we really are not at fault though, where we can help it. I'm going to go have the kids practice some piano and music before we head to bed.