Rearranging

I had the kids work a lot on Saturday, and the house looked pretty good and we were able to sort through quite a bit and get things more organized so we can start the school year off right. I finally put away the snow pants and winter clothes... yeah, only took me til the end of summer. So after a good weekend of work, it only took one day of all of us home to make it look trashed again. It's all about habits, and apparently we need to make some better ones. I timed all the kids to see how long it takes them to put their shoes away vs. leaving them on the floor. Average time was 3 seconds. We just need to get in the habit of it. 

So, on Monday, since we had lots of work to do, I thought I'd give us even more by re-arranging their bedrooms, yee-haw! I re-arrange the furniture almost compulsively. Maybe I'm just always searching for the most efficient way for all of us to live, and that keeps changing with each kid and as they grow and change each year.

The boys and girls rooms are staying the same, but I'm switching the furniture around, I wanted the girls to have the white bed. A silly detail that bugged me enough that I made myself have to do a lot of work, but now it's Wednesday and we finally got it all together. Now to tackle my desk, which I'm going to give to the kids as their study/desk area, cause I'm going crazy from having them climb over me when I'm at the computer, getting into my permanent markers and using up all the paper and just making a big mess. I'm giving myself an area that's locked away in the laundry room and I'll not have a computer in there, that way they won't ask me if they can use if to play games or look up legos on and hopefully I can keep it kid free and organized. My computer died anyway, so now I'm using the computer the kids have their SmartMusic on, so we're all sharing that one. I think it will be good and will keep me focused in what I'm doing at the computer since we all have to share it. I came in to use it a few times today but kids were doing their music, so I went and kept cleaning.  

Anyway, something funny, as we moved the dresser into the girls room, Mel was excited to see that she could make the mirror faces like they do on Grandma's ipad - they get such a kick out of that app, they've made some pretty funny pictures on there. So here at home everyone wanted to get in on the fun.

Mel helped Lily make some funny faces ~

Mel's crazy kung foo guy

And Hyrum and Ethan looking a bit like Shrek ogres...

Funny kids, making faces in a mirror is one of our favorite bonding activities.  A good way to get a good laugh if you haven't laughed yet today.  :)

Dancing

Over the weekend Abi and Wesley were dancing to the "Hibbert Music Memories" cds that my lil' sis made a few Christmases ago. Some slow songs, some fast songs, then a Garth Brooks song came on they both seemed to naturally start swing dancing. I skyped Corey that we'd have to show the kids our fancy moves when he got home. And we did. And they were impressed - look at those arms flyin'! We tried to teach them how to do the one move we know, it was pretty fun.

Melodie and Ethan about have it down. They're ready to take any church dances by storm!

We all stayed up too late dancing in the living room, a great way to begin our end of summer fun.

G'night

One of my favorite things to take pictures of is of the kids sleeping. When we're on a trip and they're not in their usual assigned beds, it's funny to see the combinations of who crashes where. Last week, these two below won as my favorite sleeping snap-shot. Ethan and Lily shortly after they all fell asleep:

I don't recall where they each were in the morning time, but I'm positive that Ethan didn't last long without getting a foot in his face from Lily (she is terrible to sleep with - it's like somehow her body won't let her fully rest unless she is perpendicular to anyone else in the bed)

Hyrum lucked out somehow and had the whole hidaway bed to himself while Melodie got the other hide-a-way bed and shared it with 3 siblings~

Joseph got the coveted "turn the two chairs into a bed" spot this night that you can see in the top left. They all wanted the chairs so that was the only spot that we had to patrol and make sure people took turns.  Melodie holds pretty still I think, so I'm trusting she won't give Sophia a kick during the night. Cute kids. Seeing the kids still and quitely sleeping reminds me of this quote that I've always thought has a little bit of truth in it.  ;)

Vacation Wrap-up

Ok, so to finish up the Park City documentation.  On Wednesday Corey invited up some people from work and served up his best Brazilian BBQ for everyone for dinner.  Then they all went on the Alpine slide. I stayed in the room with my little friends, was able to distract them with some tv and an early dessert. Cookies!

Corey and his company went swimming after and had a good time.  I heard that on the Alpine Slide, Wesley got scared about jumping the track and so he went down the mountain super slow with his brake on and soon had a train of 5 people behind him. (Corey, did you take any pictures?)

On Thursday everyone went to Rockport for a day of boating. (Corey, pictures?) Me? Where was I? Well, we decided that Corey could have more fun boating if he didn't have to worry about Sophia or Lily drowning, and since I'm no good with my pretty canary, we voted to divide and conquer. So these little kids thought they scored big cause they got in my car where there was a rice krispy treat waiting for each of them, oh yeah,

We went back home in the valley for the rest of the day. Natalie folding her arms and being so reverent.

We went back up Friday night. The kids had fun boating and on Friday Corey was able to get some work done with Sophia gone and thus not clinging to him. We called to say hi ~

So we headed back up Friday night and then enjoyed breakfast with everyone on Saturday before heading home. I'm sure Corey took pictures of boating, so I'll update those later. Good times.

And on the topic of family get aways, watch these videos of this family - they've made a few lip-sinc videos of their family retreats that I thought were so funny and cute, I want to do this!
That one is from 2013, and these are their other videos below, so fun!

Good Time - 2012

Friday - 2011

Jump - 2010

Mine Time

As always, the kids enjoyed spending time in "The Mine" in Park City. These two pics below are how they spent most of their time there:

But then there was also the occasional tv/movie watching ~

Sophia would give us a break from her cligy-ness in "the Mine" which was nice. 

Abi posing for the camera on the rocking moose.

Joseph enjoyed a few games of pool, here he is playing a game with someone else but with his brother hovering near by he started to tell Ethan to "Go away" when I snapped the photo. Brotherly love ~

This year they had a new addition in the Mine, a little yellow canary named "Sunny".  He was a pretty yellow little bird, but poor fellow was all alone in the cage.  They had a sign telling his name and the history of the canary and how they had a wonderful partnership with the miners who worked in the silver mines of Park City years ago ~ "The miners took the canaries into the mines and if the canaries stopped singing, the miners knew it was not safe and they could get out". Didn't mention the canaries stopped singing cause they were dead. Sunny wasn't singing in his cage, but I'm assuming it was safe in there. I stared at him for a while, felt bad for him being stuck in a cage and not being able to use the wings God gave him to fly around outside. His little black eyes looking up and with helplessness and humility reminded me of Natalie's little face looking up at me. 

So now we're calling Natalie our "pretty canary" and then we start going off quoting Brian Regan from the first minute here.  Funny ~ "Pretty canary!"

She's been looking up at our faces with great intent these past few days, and we say "Earth to Natalie, do you read me?" I think we are going to establish contact with planet Natalie very soon.

Pretty little cross-eyed canary :)  

Dinner and the Blues Boys

Dinners at Park City were fun, we have two potluck meals and then each adult couple takes a night. We enjoy eating out on the patio and there was a dessert or treat everynight (can you hear the kids scream "oh yeah!")

With 22 people to feed, the eating arrangement was usually "come fill up your plate at the kitchen inside and then find a place to sit - but little kids, please go outside" (since they are prone to spills and such, you know)

Natalie, aren't you going to eat anything?

A little smile, love!

On Tuesday night, Corey's parents were preparing dinner and his dad was out bbq-ing some chicken by the pool.  He struck up a conversation with a guy from a band that was playing that evening. Wayne mentioned that his grandkids played the saxophone and had brought a saxophone up to Park City.  Joseph was out near the pool so Wayne called him over and the band guy invited Joseph to play with them during their performance.  So Joseph came into the room where I was and started to warm up.  (His horn sounded very loud in the room)  Soon he was out ready to jam with the guys, their little Tuesday show is called "Blues, Brews, and Brats" (The hotel was selling root beer, hotdogs and brats to be cooked over the fire pits during the performance.) Near the end of their first set of songs they invited Joseph to play~

Ethan, Corey, and Jeremy watching the performance

I think Corey and Wayne both thought that the band was a little concerned about what they were getting. But when Joseph started to play the band and the crowed all seemed pleasantly surprised at what they heard. Corey stood up close to where Joseph was for a little while to make sure he stayed on key. They invited him back to play during the second set but Joe was cooking his hot-dog, so he deferred instead to Ethan, telling the band members that Ethan was very good. Ethan's only catch was that he can only play in the key of G, so they accomodated him and when they had a song in the key of G, Ethan was invited up. Again they seemed a little concerned, but once Ethan started busting out his fast fingering of the pentatonic scale doing his waterfall or something (I don't know as I'm the only non-musical one in the family) people started hootin' and hollerin'. Anyway, Ethan did great and got a standing ovation and it seemed more applause than Joseph had received (and here comes the sibling rivarly again). One guy came up and gave Ethan a tip in the open saxophone case, pretty funny. He was even called a child prodigy. And now Joseph would like me to state for the record that Ethan would never have had a chance to shine if Joseph hadn't deferred to him. He came to the room and said "Now everyone thinks that Ethan is better than me!"

Joseph has more range in what he knows (more keys and scales and can sight read) but Ethan has more depth in the one thing he knows - C Pentatonic.  Which since he was able to perform that blew everyone away. And he's only 11 years old, wow!

So even if it may have fanned the flames of sibling rivarly, it was really fun and was a great experience and will be a great memory for the kids.

And Grandpa bought each of them one of the band's t-shirts with their logo on it, thanks Wayne!  It was fun, Corey got a real kick out of it. So nice of those guys to let the kids play with them, good times.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

Last Monday Corey thought we should go for a little afternoon walk, so those children who so desired joined us on a stroll through the plaza, and we happily found ourselves walking towards a certain chocolate shoppe.

Mmm, Rocky Mountain Chocolate.  Ok kids, say cheese for posterity. Hyrum, your hand looks like it's broken or something, and we've got to get you to stop sucking your tongue. Ok, turn around, look through the glass and choose the treat that calls out to you.

Decisions decisions...

And the winners are: 1 carmel apple, 1 chocolate covered strawberry, 4 chocolate covered pretzels and 1 rocky road marshmallow.  I got some concotions with toffe and coconut.  Mmm.

Natalie got her first ride in the wrap (those pictures at that link there are of Lily as the baby at Park City - dejavu).

Look, I've got a baby in my tummy again, only now it's a lot more fun cause I get to see her little angel face!

And speaking of chocolate, I read this quote today that made me laugh.

Ha!