February Party

February/Love/Valentine/Anniversary party - DONE!

I'm two for two and already the kids have memories that are defining their childhood about "what we always did" when they were little. I can already hear the conversation in 20 years from now "Hey, you guys remember how we always had a big fancy family dinner party every month!" When reality is that as for the present moment in time, it's actually just been twice that we've done this. Two meals. Even if you count the whole day of anticipation, it's still just two days, and that is a comparatively small portion of their childhood years. But Corey and I talk about how most childhood memories aren't necessarily about reality, it's more about impressions that last, right? Yeah! Well these fancy dinners are leaving an imprint. It's fun.

 (nice Joseph)

We had salmon and red potatoes and red grapes and Pink Lady apples at the table, with grape and cranberry sparkling cider. Sophia in the picture below was holding the very end of her long stemmed rose that Corey gave her, and kept unintentionally whacking it around and turning it 180 degrees and landing it almost right into the flame of the candle.

Teenager Joseph was proud to show us that he was able to put 3 - 5, yes that is 35 red grapes in his mouth! A new personal best!

Yeah, pretty fancy dinner with manners like that, right? Yes indeed. A few of the details involved: first thing I did yesterday morning, like at 8:00 was set the table. Sleepy eyed Abi came downstairs and looked at me confused "Are you making dinner?" Not yet. Then I supervised the baking and spent the rest of my time hanging lights and tulle from the chandelier. Sophia's ready for the fun to begin! (Don't break the plates by hitting them with the forks please...)

We made little strawberry hearts for the table decoration this time. Most of them got eaten and not wasted, which was an improvement compared to how our little veggie snowmen got treated last month.

And I put marshmallow hearts on the kids plates too. And Mel tried to make some roses out of the strawberry remnants and leaves.

I put the finishing touches on the meal and the girls finished up the dessert buffet: 

Now for one final touch - ambiance!

Cue angelic music... Ahh! ~  and cupid's arrow struck their hearts, making little pink princesses start to sing and twirl and dance ~

Looks like little prince charmings are ready too.

Of all the foods prepared, the fruit salad made me the most happy.

And nothing says kid heaven like a big bowl of marshmallows.

That was a last minute idea since I still had most of the bag full. Meant to make pink rice krispy treats, I don't think anyone noticed a treat missing. So I just threw the marshmallows into a bowl. I sighed/shook my head when I noticed during clean up that the marshmallows were the only treat that was entirely eaten and gone. Kinda funny, there's really no need to put work into cakes unless I find joy in it cause these little people, well they are just as happy with a bag of store bought marshmallows.

Abi also asked if she could put her valentine treats from school in a bowl for the treat table. I couldn't resist her humble offering. Yes Abi, your pixie sticks and half eaten rice krispy look great there!

Melodie helped Natalie suck on the tips of hershey's kisses ~ the baby needs a lil' bit o-chocolate too, right! Mmm.

Everyone wore fancy clothes with white, pink, red, but Natalie got to wear her pink pjs cause they had a little heart on them. She is my little valentine.

Perfect evening. Then we watched a movie (Croods, my first time watching it, quite a few clever parts in there!) and I gave them their party presents~ new pillows ~ that's a "love" gift cause it's like a hug at night time! And I wrote on their pillowcases "Love you, goodnight!". And then we went to bed.

Now it's time to go clean up the mess.  :)

Happy Valentine's Day

We had our family party and it was great. Will update here with pictures tomorrow once I find where the camera ended up in the post-party mess. (...but had to hurry here to the computer to publish something before Midnight so this post will be documented on the date I want)

Ok, I'm back with both cameras in hand (Melodie took pictures too) and decided I'll first post about the kids' valentines and valentine "boxes" and then I'll do tomorrows post (even though tomorrow is now today) about our party.

So, "this morning" (Friday), we hurried and cranked out valentines for the kids with the hot glue. Abi made her valentine hearts a week ago, and we were just gluing on a treat. I thought she did such a good job. I like the kids doing most of the work for their valentines, makes it more meaningful.

I did help Wes and Hyrum with theirs - we just cut up some valentine paper with hearts on it, then they wrote their classmate's names and signed them.

The boys weren't able to put as much effort into their valentines cause they were busy working on their valentine "boxes". Hyrum "box" was his lego robot. You place the card in the bin the robot is holding, then Hyrum remote controlled it to dump the card into a bin.

Wesley made his box out of legos too - a lego volcano. With a gray shopping bag inside it to hold the valentines and to be the smoke

Melodie helped Wesley finish making his the night before, and she carried it to the bus stop with him. She told me she was reminiscing during the walk down about when she used to go to the bus stop... it was just last year, but being in jr. high now and all the changes that teenage-hood brings, it feels like a small lifetime.

I was so glad that Melodie didn't have school, our little party couldn't/wouldn't have happened without her. She is awesome. And she likes throwing parties. Maybe she can be a caterer when she's grown up. She did a great job helping make and decorate the cupcakes.

She got a little frustrated with the frosting - the can of decorator frosting doesn't work as well as the bag. But I told her not to worry about it, there's a crack in everything. This party isn't about having perfect cupcakes, it's about making memories, and it is better for them to decorate cupcakes and have fun contributing than to have perfect cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy or something. (although I'd happily take that route sometimes too...) Abi was a good helper too, she was at the "sugar & sprinkles" station. She was able to cover up most of our frosting mistakes with sugar glitter and confetti, good job Abbers

And of course Lily helped (?) too

...as did Sophia ~ eating frosting and bugging Abi to hand over some of her candy from her kindergarten party.

Our family party time is set at 5:00 ~ should be fun with all these visuals for little eyes!

Valentine Party

Our plan is to have our February party tomorrow on Valentine's Day. Should be fun. I have most everything bought and ready, but I don't know how I can make and cook everything without the older kids home to help and with the little girls underfoot. We'll see how it goes, we might push it to Saturday.

~ Oh, good news! Mel just clued me in that she and Joseph don't have school tomorrow! So it's a go! (Yeah, I should probably know that kind of stuff before the day before...)

Few other randoms:
- Corey made some Rhodes orange rolls for breakfast this morning. Lily and Sophi finished them off. But Lily informed us that she doesn't like the "bread" part. Sorry Lilers, but you should probably have some bread with your icing!

- It's fun to have little treats double as decorations ~ Have some candies in a jar by the W's new home on the bookshelf here.

- My jewelry board is nearing completion. Painted it yesterday. :)
- I need to hurry and finish the rest of the decor balls pronto, cause the children are on a seek and destroy mission. Just found another ball in pieces under the couch today, which I had to then try to fit then hot glue back together.

I guess they like making 3D soccer ball puzzles for me. Silly kids.

Graveside Service

Last week my uncle was buried. He was living in New Hampshire when he passed away, but was buried here in Salt Lake in a cemetery that is located on land that used to be owned by one of his and my pioneer ancestors. It was a tender mercy that there was a plot open for him next to his and my dad's great great grandfather David Brinton

As part of the services, my dad mentioned how Phil knew how to read and translate cuneiform tablets. Holy wow, pretty amazing! Here's a replica of what a cuneiform tablet looks like:

Think you could read that? Yeah, neither could I. Amazing amazing...

I don't have many recent memories of Uncle Phil, but do have memories as a kid. Loved Uncle Phil, and we always got so excited when he'd come to visit.

It was also really humbling to look at David and Harriet's headstone ~ it had their 12 children listed, 8 of whom died within the first two years of life, 5 of those children dying the same year they were born.

Talk about ripping a parent's heart out, I can't even imagine how they dealt with the loss of a child eight times.

It was nice to be with my siblings and parents. We Hibberts don't get together often enough. Afterwards we all went out to eat at Golden Corral in memory of my grandparents, it was their favorite restaurant back in the day.

My 2 cents: Cotton candy should not be served in a restaurant. I don't know, there just seems to be something morally wrong about it. I think all the kids ate was the junkfood. They had a big sign that said "Feel like a kid in a candy store? You are!" Yes they were. Oh well. We adults decided to visit rather than harp on the children about poor eating choices.

Joseph showing me the ski slope he made for his gummy bears. Kids... what can you do?

Pretty Little Head

Last night at dinner, Sophia was upstairs feeling sick with a fever, so Melodie brought Natalie to the table to sit in her spot.

Mel was holding her there with one hand to make sure she didn't tip back off of the bench. Natalie didn't eat any of the dinner, seeing as she's just got one tooth. Not quite ready for pasta and garlic bread. Still, just look at that sweet little head.

It made us all laugh and giggle to just look over at her and see her little eyes just looking about taking it all in.

Later upstairs, Joseph took one of the little sponge soccerballs that a kid ripped a hole in (see bottom left of picture) ...

And he discovered that that little indenture in the ball made it balance very well on Natalie's head

And especially cause she's got such good posture, she'd look around and turn her head side to side and it stayed on there quite securely.

It's kinda amazing how much joy these little ones give. She doesn't even have to say anything, all she has to do is look at us with those wide eyes that see straight into our souls. Or just give us a little smile or let us kiss her squishy cheeks, it just doesn't get much better than that.

Snowed In

We spent the weekend up at Brighton with some friends - we planned on Friday night, but then stayed Saturday night too - it was kinda spur of the moment, kinda cause we were snowed in. (Isn't Mel cute?)

Joseph's teacher had arranged a game night on Friday for the kids in his age - they had two games of Diplomacy going on, fun stuff for teenagers.

Our whole crew was invited to come hang out for the night. We don't let the kids have sleepovers. But family sleepovers? We love those - everyone has a friend to play with.

And maybe we'd find some time to get in a little skiing? And of course we know what Corey's answer is to that.

After an hour and a few runs, Corey declared it to be the best day of skiing he's ever had. He said there was so much powder, it was like skiing in a big pillow. He loved it.  

Corey came prepared for the kids to join him on the slopes, but when the moment arrived, they all opted for digging holes in the snow like little snow gophers instead. They were having so much fun digging caves and tunnels. The snow was soooo deep! It was up to the windows, the kids would laugh when they went walking in what looked like secure snow ~ only to find themselves falling straight down into it up to their armpits. Off to explore Narnia!

The kids were having so much fun that we kept delaying our departure time for another hour, then another hour... 

When our friends decided to stay another night, we accepted their invitation to join them. So much fun. Thus we didn't return to the valley until this morning. We figured if we're gonna claim to be snowed in, we might as well really go for it. Last night we probably could have gotten out fine, but this morning... now that was deep snow!

We were out for an hour digging out the cars and clearing off the stairs to the driveway. The snow on either side of the stairs/pathway to the cabin was taller than I was. Pretty cool. I didn't get a picture of that, but I will next time. So as we dug ourselves out there was hardly any place to throw the snow, which I think is why the little HOA maintenance guy there just packs it down with the snowcat rather than plow it.  We were very grateful our cars weren't towed. After gathering all the sleeping bags and snowpants and gloves and oh. everything else that 9 kids need or can think of bringing on a weekend outing, we were ready to brave the snow and wind and head to the cars. Everyone was loaded in, we said a prayer asking to be delivered from accident, and then our little non-4 wheel drive sissy vehicles slowly made it safely out of the canyon.

And what do you know, we arrived earlier for church than we do when we start the day off in our own beds!

Serenading Natalie

The kids watched "Little Rascals" during one of our recent date nights. They thought it was pretty funny. Well, first they thought it was really weird, not really getting why the boys had a hate girls club. But then the next time they watched it they thought it was kinda funny. I think they were rooting for Alfalfa's freedom to love the woman of his dreams. I've caught Wesley more than once singing "You are so beautiful" to Natalie, doing his best imitation of Alfalfa woo-ing Darla ~

Pretty cute. 

And Ethan and I were ad libbing different lyrics to a Bruno Mars song for Natalie - she was being weird and cute and making really funny slobbery sounds, and we started to sing "Her lips her lips I could kiss them all day if she'd let me, her voice her voice when she shrieks I think that it's so pretty, she's so beautiful...." and right on cue she'd make a really weird face and funny sound and we'd all bust out laughing.

And we just kept on singing "When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change cause you're amazing, just the way you are!" So now we can't hear that song without thinking of Natalie and laughing with joy at how much we are in love with her. :)

Valentine Story

So, it's February, which means it's almost Valentines day. It is also the Month O'Love for us because my sweetheart and I were married in February in 1999, just two months after getting reacquainted after THREE AND A HALF YEARS apart. Would you like to hear a little story about that? Well, okay.

Corey and I met in 7th grade. Home Ec class to be exact. We were friends in Jr. High and High school, but I think he knew that I really really liked him. I don't think he knew that I had been signing my personal Journal as "Tiffanie Wride" now and then ever since we met in 7th grade (that's a story for another day...)

So, junior high and high school pass by and we enjoy a few dates and school dances during the school year and roller hockey games during the summer. We went to college at different schools, but as fate would have it, email was introduced to our campuses that year and so our friendship continued. Corey had embraced the "find your companion" mentality of BYU and was enjoying the dating friendly environment there, and as he thought of all the fish in the sea he could date, he thought to himself "I've never dated Tiff!" Well, we had dated, but he had never really given me a chance. (Perhaps he heard about my journal signatures somehow? Yeah, I might have been a tad too eager.)

Anyway, we started to date now and then as I came up from Snow College to BYU in Provo to hang out with him for a bit before we both head home to the Salt Lake valley for the weekend. It was so fun to see that he was starting to "like" like me back. Yay! My years of prayers were heard! My dreams are going to come true!

But not yet...

This picture right here was dated September 12, 1995. This was taken at the airport on the day that my beloved flew on a plane to South America (Santiago, Chile to be exact) to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We had no promise of marriage, hadn't even talked about it. Of course, as evidenced by my journal entries and signatures, I was definitely crossing my fingers.

On this day at the airport, I asked his opinion if he thought I should serve a mission too? He said yes. "Back then" (as opposed to now) men had to be 19 to serve a mission, ladies had to be 21. So, since were were both the same age, I would be leaving at age 21 when he was returning at age 21. That equals being apart not just for his 2 year mission, but tack on to that my 18 month mission. Yes, 3 and a half years. He was thinking "When I get back, I know this eager beaver is gonna be waiting for me to propose marriage, I might not be ready for that... so, uh "Yeah Tiff, you definitely gotta serve a mission! It's awesome!" "Well okay then!" I was already planning on serving, but appreciated his encouragement from that side of the mission. (but didn't know it was cause he was a commitment scaredy cat.) Still, THREE AND A HALF years! I still can't believe we did that. It was hard. And we really just barely missed each other. When one of the sister missionaries who was in the MTC with me preparing to serve (Hermana Dial) flew to her mission in Chile, she actually saw Corey and his parents at the airport in Chile when they were there to visit his mission before he came home. I was jealous that she got a glimpse of him, so sad for me.

But good things come to those who wait. Corey came to the airport to greet me when I came home from my mission, 2 December 1998. BEST DAY EVER!!!! Oh I remember the feeling of being on the plane, knowing I was going to see him!!!  and in less than an hour! When we did see each other, it was kinda surreal being as I'd been counting down to it for over 1000 days and talked about it and thought about it for so long, now it was finally here! So it was like a dream, but it was real and it was wonderful. 3 1/2 years is a long time, but once we started talking, it was like we had never been apart. And two months later, I had him for keeps. :) Like Eternity for keeps! That my friends, is a long time. Sweet.

Now those 3 and a half years are just a happy memory, like every other hard and wonderful experience, aka business school and international travels that were trials by fire for me, like Brazil and Costa Rica - awesome experiences, but really hard on many levels ...but they're all far enough behind me now that I'd do them again in a heart beat. Especially cause now I have Corey with me! Yeah, I don't mind going anywhere if we are together. (Happy sigh.) Aren't we just so righteously cute? Two returned missionaries, falling asleep as they read the scriptures together, awww.

Yes, after 3 and a half years apart, all I wanted was to hear his voice. Even better if I could see him and talk with him. Now I can! And I get to everyday! And I remember those 3 1/2 years of missing him, and I don't take it for granted. Corey and I do not fight, we've never have and never do. We don't yell at each other. He's never done anything to intentionally hurt me. It is awesome. We have a great friendship still and an even better marriage. So happy he's mine.

Good Memories

We watched some old family videos together yesterday, it was so fun and funny.

Wesley was our little baby then and he was SOOO cute! It was so fun, we were all laughing. Corey was in business school at the time and our little family of 7 was living in an 800 sq foot apartment for married students (and we survived!) ...so I know we were busy and learning and being stretched in many ways, but life looked simple and wonderful. And it was. Then I looked around me... and what do you know, it's gotten even better. I love my family and just feel so content and grateful.

Lily seemed to be concerned that she wasn't in any of the footage, we promised that next time we'll show a video of when she was the baby. Our videos from 2000 through 2006 are on DVD now, but I need to get going on transferring the rest of them before the videos get too far ahead of me. The video highlight for me yesterday was a 5 year old Joseph and a 4 year old Melodie having a spelling contest - when I said "JET" little Joseph made all of us laugh when he said "JET! JET?! Jet is sooo hard!" and the 8th grader Joseph watching it (who got his first 4.0 this past term!) got a good laugh at himself, yeah right, life was sooo hard back then, sure! ..."Jet is SO hard Mel!" he kept telling her. ...and smartie pants Melodie whipped it out before Joseph even had the J down. She is a smartie still - she just got her report card - she got a 4.0 too! Go Mel! So if I would have known back then all the adventures and kids we would have in the next 10 years, I'm sure I would have been surprised and excited to see when and how it would all happen. I guess it's good we go through life by faith and not knowing what opportunities await us. What does your future hold, my little Natalie? I will help you along the best I can, and am excited to find out all the wonderful things you will do and who you will become.

"What a thrilling life awaits you! You may not be a John Cabot, sailing off into the blue with the king’s patent to discover new lands, nor a Captain James Cook, whose voyages of discovery carried him to “far away places with strange-sounding names.” But you can be explorers in spirit, with a mandate to make this world better by discovering improved ways of living and of doing things. The spirit of exploration, whether it be of the surface of the earth, the vastness of space, or the principles of living greatly, includes developing the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. ~ This is your world. The future is in your hands. The outcome is up to you."
- President Thomas S. Monson, Decisions Determines Destiny