Fingernails

As I was cleaning the front room this morning, I noticed that someone had opened a salon there - Complete with "OPNE" sign...

Fingernails! I think those polishes belong to our birthday girl from 2 weeks ago.

Cute. But I didn't want little boys to find these fingernail polishes, so I called and Natalie came to clean it up and move it downstairs or somewhere that is ok with spilled polish (aka an area that is NOT carpeted).

It's fun having these girls.

Thanksgiving Point

Today we went to Thanksgiving Point to go to the Dinosaur Museum, but instead we did it all! We went to the Museum of Curiosity, then we went to the farm, and then we went to the Dinosaur Museum! And then we went out for ice cream. It was fun, and I'm glad to have a helper like Abi along. I didn't do a great job this summer of doing daily activities like I had planned, so I'm gonna try to shove in a few more things before the summer is over. Today's outing was brought upon me by my trying to think of something to distract Owen with so that he would willingly let Corey leave for work.

"Owen, do you want to go to the Dinosaur Musuem?" "Oh yeah! Bye Dad!" So then Corey could leave, and then we had to leave too. First I made the kids clean up a little bit, and then we were on our way. At the Curiosity Museum they were able to pet a snake.

Natalie thought that was freaky

Then they ran around doing whatever, but Owen didn't like it, he wanted to go to the dinosaur museum.

He was happy and distracted a little bit by a video game that was projected from the ceiling...

But he still wanted to leave. That was my first time going to that museum. I guess it's geared more toward the older kids. They liked it, but the toddlers weren't happy, so we left. We decided to try and see if Owen would be happy if we went to the farm. He'd never been there before. They liked seeing the animals and petting the bunny

Little tiny baby rabbits!!! So cute. No we're not getting one as a pet.

Owen still wanted to go to the dinosaur museum. But then we went to the pony ride... Daniel got on and I walked around with him while Abi held Peter.

After seeing that, Owen said yes, he would like to ride the horsey.

And then he did! Our timid little Owen rode the pony! Good job Owen!! Then everyone went on a ride again. Natalie -

Sophi - her horse started to go to the bathroom...

And then she didn't like her horse much, haha. Oh give the poor horse a break.

Owen riding a pony again.

After riding the ponies and seeing the other captive animals, we went over to the dinosaur museum. I've taken enough pictures of that before, so no pics of that this time. As we were leaving though, I took some pictures of a Monarch butterfly display, so cool... Everything you want to know about monarchs...

"Eastern North American monarchs spend the summer months in southern Canada and the northern US but cannon survive the cold winters. Each autumn they migrate south. Westen North American monarchs journey to costal California while those from eastern North America migrate to mountains in central Mexico." I won't type any more of the display, you can find it all online I'm sure.

But I do want to see the "Flight of the Butterflies" documentary they have showing there. But I don't want to pay $6 bucks for each kid. Maybe I'll turn it into a date night.  Friday at 6:30, I'm putting it on my calendar. Then we took some Pride Rock Lion King pictures outside.

Peter is Simba, Sophi and Lily were the animals

That's a cute little lion cub! We love Peter

They finally agreed to go and accept my nice cream bribe, which I put up there early to try and wrap this outing up...

Not that I don't love spending time with my kiddos!  but 3 attractions was enough for me to be done and ready to head home.

It was a quick dish of cashew ice cream from Aubergine and then a big slice of pizza at SLAB Pizza

I went over to order the pizza while they waited for the nice cream, then I came back and helped my crew move over to the pizza place, which was a bit less crowded.

And then we were done, hooray for a successful kind of end of summer outing. Time to gear up for the school year, less than 2 weeks it's back to reality.

Little Feet

Peter is doing so good at sitting up, it's so cute. What a sweet little guy

He can push over his cube and roll it around. And I like this toy cause there are no smaller pieces to pick up. 

I love his littlefeet!

What else - Abi made a new lego palace. They are busy with legos, enjoying free time to explore and be creative before school starts on the 19th.

I also was grateful to still have kids at home while I ran an errand today - we had an inspections and emissions renewal come in the mail, but I thought it was for Corey's car. But then I saw today it was for the van. Had I noticed that yesterday, I could have taken care of that when I got the tires fixed and TPMS light turned off. But no biggie - I loaded my side kick Peter into the car and went down to Burt Brothers. It was a pleasant experience once again, I was in and out in 20 minutes, easy peasy!

Car Fixed

I just thought I'd give a shout out to myself, cause today I took the van in to the service station! It's been having some weird shaking that the steering wheel does when it's going down hills, which happens whenever we go anywhere since we live up on the ridge. Anyway, it was also starting to shake whenever I braked on level areas like the freeway, so I was getting nervous. Corey couldn't take it in, and I felt like my time to do it is limited since kids will be in school soon, so no better time than today! I was there for 3 hours, but they fixed it and it was less than $300 which I was very happy with, I had no idea what the problem was but I had mentally prepared for $600.

So I spent 3 hours at Burt Brothers listening to Dr. Phil and other stupid television and I was super happy afterwards, feeling empowered that I got the car fixed by myself (well, I didn't fix it, I just sat there, ha) and very happy that it wasn't as expensive as I thought, yay! I did it!! Go me.

And one other thing from today was tonight we played Pictionary with the teenagers. So it wasn't AP Pictionary, and I didn't get any pictures, but it was funny - Wes and Ethan were a team cause they bonded after High Adventure and wanted to be a team, they played against Hyrum and Mel. Mel and Hyrum kept rolling 1s and Eth and Wes were rolling 6s and they were totally in sinc with their drawing and were able to guess it each time, Mel and Hyrum were struggling. I came half way through and tried to help Mel and Hyrum's team, but I was no help. They totally smoked us. Eth was being a little ruthless in his gloating though. So after that game, we played again. Hyrum didn't want to, Mel and Eth didn't want to be on the same team, so I went with Ethan and Mel with Wes. This time Ethan and I kept rolling the 1s and it was funny cause Ethan was dying of frustration and kept trying to hurry and pick up the 1 to roll again, but I'd stop him "That was a 1 again!! Lol!" Noooo... I left to feed Peter and Corey finished the game with Ethan. I think we need to play games more often, these kids need to learn how to handle losing and not let it define them. It was funny.

High Adventure

Ethan and Wes got back from High Adventure on Saturday. They have had a particular bond created during their sufferings over the past few days. They hiked 40 miles round trip to Kings Peak, which can be a day hike (like 26 miles/14 hour round trip for good in condition hikers) but the leaders turned it into a 4 day 3 night back packing trip. The weather was terrible most of the time (rain, hail, lightening when they were at the peak!! Yikes!) Ethan is pretty sure he peed on all this clothes, there were tons of bugs, yeah, they felt like they had just returned from the front lines and had a lot of war stories to share, not that any of us would understand the true extent of their sufferings.

 

Ethan telling a story. Wes was about in tears. They said they felt like crying for most of the trip. "Why am I here? Why am I doing this!??!"

Ethan was pretty proud of his manly whiskers too and was looking forward to finally getting a good shave, ha

Some pictures of the trip: they reached the summit right as a summer storm was starting, and just before Ethan's camera died.

Their hair was standing up and they could feel the electricity buzzing in their ears. 

They took a few pictures and then headed right down. Their leaders (who are quite the out-doorsy people) said this was the scariest summit they've had of Kings Peak. I'm glad they didn't die! And that I didn't know how dangerous it was until after they were safely home. Ethan was playing with a face app with his pictures for a lot of today. He made these new pictures: this was how much life experience and wisdom he had gained after such an arduous climb:

 This is how hammered he felt:

 This is how much facial growth the thought he had:

Ha. Those are the only pictures Ethan loaded to my computer cause he used them for his instagram post. I'll need to find the other pictures and share some of Wesley. Wes did come to me in tears yesterday as he said "You know what the best part about high adventure was? Ethan! He was so nice, he helped me so much!!!" Wes was like choked up! Well I'd say that trip was worth is just for that comment. It warmed my heart. They all shared stories and some gospel parallels today during testimony meeting. Wesley and Ethan both got up. I had some thoughts today too - another lady shared about trials with breast cancer, and another shared how he had a goal this year to swim 22 miles in the ocean. I was thinking of trials, goals, experiences... and my take away is: all these things are helping us learn and become what we need to become to return to our Father in heaven. Hiking, cancer, endurance athlete goals, or raising 12 kids - we all have callings and things the Lord wants us to do. We are his servants, we each have different callings in his vineyard. I'd like to go backpacking, or to challenge myself physically through sports, but God has called me to be a mom, he's blessed me to be able to be a mom, and I will give my calling all I've got. 

Gross

Well, Peter is still not feeling well. I did some cleaning today and when I came back to Peter in his supersaucer, I saw this -

I laughed and cringed and shrieked "Gross Peter!" I feel like I need to take back what I said yesterday about Peter being the cutest thing ever. I texted this pic to his adoring sister and to Corey, and seeint it on there right next to the puppy filter picture made me laugh at the contrast. They both thought what I thought: Ewww! Other than that, kids here at home are doing well. I'm enjoying the clean carpets!! Oh I wish they could stay this clean. I've kept the kids upstairs playing with toys, Owen is happy with his birthday Mack toy.

Enjoying a nice quiet day at home before everyone comes back tomorrow! I've set up shoe bins in the garage with plans to institute a stricter "no shoes on the carpet" policy.

Filters

I'm mostly hanging at home this week with the little boys while Corey is up at Park City with the rest of the kids, which right now is just 4 kids (AbiLilySophiNatalie). Hyrum came home yesterday around noon and Mel came last night, so they have both been here today. They are going to go back up to Park City later tonight. I had thought that they would be here again tonight and tomorrow morning and so I could try to go do a temple session. But since they were going to leave, I asked Mel if she'd babysit again while I went to the temple again. She had already watched the kids this morning while I did a trial run of initiatories. (A trial run of leaving my baby without me for 2 hours.) He did great this morning, so Mel said yes and so I went again. Hyrum was finishing some online summer homework, so he did that, Mel watched the kids, and I did a session. I left at 3:40 and was back a little after 6. Kinda long, but Mel said Peter was great. They took picture on her phone while I was gone. This one of Peter is the cutest thing ever!!

I could die. Owen makes a cute puppy too...

And as a bunny!

This filter had both Owen and Daniel a little confused...

And Daniel liked the funny mouth one

Daniel!

But really, that puppy dog filter was made for Peter. Silly pictures, they thought it was fun. I'll have to dink around instagram some more. I've been pretty late to the Instagram game and I don't think I'll ever really get into it. I wouldn't be there at all if it weren't for my teens and that I have to go there to try and find photos they take so I can blog them.

So it was nice to finally go to the temple again. It was first time this year. Actually I take that back... I went in January when I was still pregnant, cause I remember playing the pregnancy card twice to skip in front of the long line waiting for the session. But still, I haven't been since Peter was born, so it's been over 6 months, so it was nice to go today! Melodie has been coming and going because of a flute forum this week, so she brought Hyrum down from Park City yesterday and he's been home with me, and then Mel came home last night too. I woke up Mel this morning to keep an ear on the little boys while I went. I took pictures of the pretty flowers after I was done, I love temple flowers!

And so I've been catching up a little bit on computer work and, since there aren't a lot of feet running around here, I thought it would be a good time to get the carpets cleaned! I called Jon at Aspen Cleaning yesterday and he got me in today, yay. It is the same guy as last year when we were in cleaning prep before Joseph left. I highly recommend him, he works hard and quickly and I think he is very reasonably priced too. And this is not a sponsored post, I just think he does a great job. I'm also a Rotovac believer, and I think the price is great, so there ya go, that's my recommendation.

It is soo nice to have clean carpets! I'm instituting a new no shoe policy, we'll see how long the clean carpets last. All the furniture from the front living room is in the kitchen. This morning after Hyrum got up, he sat on the couch eating an apple... "I'm not eating out of the kitchen..." ha. Mel said she likes the furniture in the kitchen too, it makes for a comfy place to eat.