So, in 2014 I made a goal to have a family party each month. And I did it every month. The kids loved it and I would like to do it again some year, but I haven't been able to do it since. But we have kept up with the February party, since February is our anniversay and so I say it's like our family's birthday, and that deserves some special attention. So we did our family birthday party today. It was not quite as amazing that first year 2014, nor like our fancy February meal in 2015, or 2016, (....and I don't think I did one in 2017 cause Corey was gone in Brazil on Vday and then we were in San Diego for our anniversary.). Today was better than 2018's where we just had a dessert, (also cause we got snowed in.) and about the same as last year in 2019, when we had a nice dinner. So the nice fancy dinner is the only part of our family party tradition that is hanging on to real life. Today we did a fancy breakfast meal. I thought of it yesterday during my grocery run to Costco. I texted Wes to ask if he would help me and I mentioned it to Abi last night. So Wes and Abi cheerfully obliged to get up early on their day off from school to help me get it ready. Such good kids
Abi made some fruit kabobs, and Wes did crepes. I worked on pancakes, hashbrowns, and a pepper onion and veggie sausage stir fry.
When the food was almost all ready, we went to wake people up
No one had to dress fancy, they mostly came in their pjs. We were going to do lights, but it's morning time so we didn't bother. After a nice meal, I went to practice violin (I'm practicing vibrato, and Ethan was being quite tortured by my sounds. He took a video of me, so if that shows up on his channel or instagram, please know that I'm fully aware how bad it sounded. That's why I practice! To hopefully eventually sound better. We cleaned up a little then I went to nurse Peter. He took a short nap but then woke up when I left, and here he is in his usual waking up with his usual morning face
Seriously, he's sooo grumpy every morning and after every nap!!! (Why can't you be more like Owen, PETER!?!? He was always calm and happy when HE woke up!) But he's grumpy until you tell him a joke, and then he's fine.
I guess I can deal with him being sad if it's just in those first few minutes of waking up, cause he's pretty pleasant the rest of the day. Peter, you look like a little Tarzan monkey baby or something with your legs like that on my bed...
A monkey or some kinda tree crawling animal. I call him my koala baby because of how he clings on to me sometimes. So, what else.... BYU announced who had been admitted today - and Ethan is in!
He might be too busy for an official #BYUbound photo like Joseph and Mel did, so maybe that one above will be it. That was right after he read the email and shared it with Corey. I told him I wanted a picture - then I paused and asked if he wanted to change his shirt, he said "Meh don't care" (that's become his new personal motto after going to JEN with Crescent and having some other band members make fun of bowling and E's faith...) So I'm glad he's becoming more resilient and able to shrug off problems - that will help him on his mission!
Last thing for today - Corey wanted to take kids skiing, none of the girls cared to go though, so it was just him and Owen and Daniel. I asked Abi if she has skis, and she does.... "Do you think they'll fit me?" Probably. And with that, I asked Corey if I could come with him, and he said yes. The kids agreed to keep and eye on Peter for me, and with that, we were off! Getting skis out of the car...
Corey and Owen on their first run -
I went with Owen on run 2, and then after that Corey and Owen skied together and I was with Daniel, cause he wanted to be with me. Corey and Owen on the rope tow.
Corey took pictures of us. I'll update with those when I get them off his phone. Daniel was being very cute and affectionate, introducing me to strangers in line... "This is my mom..." and we had a good time. We mostly stuck together - taking rides up the lift together or using the rope tow.
It's a short hill, but it was perfect for these toddlers.
Owen was so cute skiing with Corey.
Waiting in line again.
Daniel and I did good on the hill, but we fell over on the rope tow quite a few times. The worst was when his left ski got stuck perpendicular under mine and we were both doing the splits so wide that we could get our feet together or pull ourselves back up or get our boots off.... Luckily Corey was close by and he came and rescued us. But it was a good lesson in opposition and trials. You fall down, and you get up. It's okay to fall. Falling is not failing - we never fail - as the quote on my wall says: "I never fail - either I win, or I learn!" We did wipe out on our last run, and I thought that was our worst one and that he would be crying, but I turn to look at him behind me and he was laughing! Hold that pose! I want to remember this moment - *click*
The memory is captured. Yeah! This is why we love skiing. We rode the lift up one last time and then hiked up a way steep hill to the car. That got my heart rate up, as I held mine and Daniel's skiis and tried to hold his hand and pull him up. Woo!
Maybe I'll put up some lights and we'll do another fancy meal tomorrow.
The older kids don't have school today cause it's a teacher work day after parent teacher conferences. So I slept in and then went on a walk. It was cold but beautiful clear skies. I enjoyed finding and cracking ice bubbles in the frozen street puddles. I took my time, knowing that I wasn't home helping the elementary girls get up and going. I told myself I'd just drive them today, it was okay, I needed a walk. When I did get home at 8:20, they were up but not ready to leave in 10 minutes. And Lily looked very sad. "My Valentine box sucks..." She had stayed up past midnight working on her valentines and her box. I asked to see it, and I understood her feelings... it did look pretty sad. It was a toilet made out of a plastic ice cream bucket with a cardboard water tank and a paper toilet seat. I wondered why she hadn't used a cardboard seat, like I had seen her working with last night when I went to bed. I found that box and saw that she had tried to cut a seat from that, but it was too thick for her to cut well, so it didn't look like a seat. Hmm, what can I do to help this situation... we only had 10 minutes... "I bet I can fix it..." I told her. I grabbed a cardboard box that the air mattresses came in, and part of it was white shiny cardboard, just like a white porcelain toilet! I was able to hurry and cut a seat and a lid and with that small effort on my part, I became the champion. I recognize that if I was a real hero, I probably would have been helping her in the days or night before and wouldn't have waited until this last minute moment, but still, I came through! I told Abi to go get a stuffed animal to sit on the toilet. Then the neighbors knocked to pick up the kids. They saw Lily's box and I could tell she was happy as they said "Wow - that is so cool! What a fun idea!" It was a good idea Lil, good job. She rushed out the door to the bus, so I didn't get a picture of it then. Since I had been working on that, I was now running late to take Ethan to a dr appointment at 9. Owen and Daniel could tell I was leaving and wanted to come, so that slowed us too, but we headed out. Lily and Sophi were waiting at the corner, they had missed the bus. Sophi is lucky we found her valentine's that she left on the counter and we were able to bring those for her before she even noticed she had forgotten them. So hurry to the school, then hurry to the doctor. I took Owen and Daniel and left Peter home with Abi.
I've been on a waiting list to see the pediatrician. He's booked until May, but Ethan needed this visit for his mission papers. They had a cancellation and we got moved up to March 5th, but we were still hoping for earlier. Yesterday they called that they had an opening for today, and that worked out great since the high school kids are home, so poor Ethan had to get up early on a day off! He looked tired and like a disheveled teenager. Ethan was cracking me up. He had to fill out a mental health paper and he said "Ugh... this is not a good time to have Senior-itis.... If I had to fill this out during English yesterday - yikes!" It would have been all bad mental health news. He had to circle how many days the past two weeks he has had things like: little energy, trouble concentrating on things like school work, been sleeping too much, etc. haha! I helped him fill it in and he had two "3" answers, which means nearly every day. Hang in there Eth, you're almost through your last year of school (for now)! There was also a "Pediatric traumatic Stress Screening Tool" that said "Sometimes scary or upsetting things happen. This could be something that happened to you or something you saw." and they go on to describe real trauma, and then ask "Has something like this happened recently?" and "If 'Yes' what happened?". Ethan put Yes, and then he proceeded to talk about bowling! I laughed and told him "Eth, this is serious!" He replied with earnestness "SO AM I!!!" as he continued to fill in his answer:
"I watched my friend bowl a 60. Then I bowled a 58."
"Has something like this happened in the past?"
"I used to average 180. I don't know what happened. The lanes were really oily."
Yes, he feels deeply about bowling. I'm guessing it's a tad because of "the smaller the world, the bigger the drama"? Since Eth doesn't have a ton of life experience yet, his bowling experiences rank a little higher in importance than they should. He was brave for his blood test.
Dr. Schmidt said that Ethan's hemoglobin was really high at 17. "You could be an endurance athlete!" with all that hemoglobin getting oxygen to his muscles. He also laughed at Ethan's bowling trauma. He jokes too and got Ethan's seriousness/humor. It asked about bad dreams. "I have nice dreams. ...of me being Spiderman...."
Then a flu shot and tuberculosis test. I was able to get my laughs for the day at that appointment, he was being really funny. Ethan did good, then there was just one more thing before we can leave. But he had to drink up for that.
He asked for Wendy's on the way home since he had been so brave. I always say no, and I said no this time, followed with "I will take you out once before your mission...." "So generous! I only have FIVE MONTHS still..." I was getting the same pleasure out of this as I did from Christmas. He decided to cash in his one eating out time today and take his chances that there might be another.
And then back to bed with Peter, who had missed Eth.
After that, I cleaned and made lunch, then went to the temple, loved it, then to Costco, it felt like I was gone a lot today. I enjoyed having the older kids at home, it is a big help. Wesley kept the little boys entertained -
They had their bikes in the kitchen and Wes put on rollerblades, and around and around they went doing laps around the kitchen and side room:
Peter practiced walking some more for Natalie and me.
The kids played at friends houses' tonight. When Lily got back from her friends house we took this picture of her "box" - One valentine toilet.
They had a class party today and Lily also won that panda bear, which was the "biggest" prize, so that was a big deal too!
So Lily had a good day - her box was fun and she got a big prize. The other girls had fun too. I was gone at the Temple then Costco when they got home, but here was a wake of valentine candy wrappers everywhere. So that was the kids valentine's day. We are going to have more fun tomorrow morning with a fancy Valentine's brunch.
As usual, I didn't help the elementary kids with their valentines. But they were ready for my hands-off-ness and were ready to own it. They did great on their own working on them tonight. Abi enjoyed making personalized and hideous personalized portrait drawings in hopes of making her friends laugh - I think they will. You'll have to click and zoom in on this picture to see one example of her art. Funny.
The girls worked at the table.
Lily - using Baby Yoda, awww. "Yo-da best!"
Natalie going with a classic white heart, nice.
And Sophi checking her class list.
And in other exciting news, Peter is getting the hang of walking. He walked from couch to couch today. It's so fun to see him learning and growing.
I had to do my best on my own to have him walk across the room. We had a bouncy ball we were playing with, so I'd either pick him up and set him across the room so he'd walk back to me, or I would throw the ball over onto the couch, and then he'd crawl over, stand up to get the ball off the couch, and then walk back to me. It's fun being a mom, I love simple moments like these.
Natalie got some hair chalk for Christmas, and yesterday was the first time we tried it out. Natalie thought it was really fun, although it didn't show up that great in her dark hair.
We could see it more in Abi's blonde hair.
We tried this out last night before going to bed, we'll see how much of it rubs off on the pillow or if it sticks in the hair. Just a little pink to get ready for Valentine's day!
Another thing we do each night is read scriptures and have a family prayer. Before we do that, we often have a little teaser or life lesson message. So Corey is a software developer. And as he does his programming stuff, he sometimes likes to listen to things to keep his mind awake and alert. His adventures into the far corners of youtube have turned into good life lesson messages for our kids - things such as Nanny 911, Unreported World, and lots of Dr. Phil. Corey has been code binging on a new reality show lately called 90 Day Fiancé. We know that we live in a pretty idyllic neighborhood, and our kids might not know of the struggles that are ahead for them, since all they see us in our happy and pretty functional family (our house is currently a mess, so that's why I'm saying we're just "pretty" functional), and most of our neighbors in their happy families as well. So, to inoculate them a little bit, so that they aren't shocked by the realities of life when they leave our happy bubble of a home, Corey has decided that showing them some of 90 Day Fiancé is required relationship prep homework.
For example, we watched this episode together with the kids. And this is the one that got me interested - meet Corey from the US and Evelin from Ecuador.
I screamed when I saw that bug worm thingy... sooo gross. I like my monarch caterpillars, but I would not touch that thing ever, let along eat it, ughghgh! We watched a few more of them, and had the kids show by a raise of hands if they thought they were a good couple and if they were going to be able to have a successful marriage. We called it right for most of them. So some of our lesson take-aways have been (not in order of importance or anything):
1) Marry someone who understands and respects your culture. That was working against Corey and Evelin in our opinion. Poor guy, his girlfriend as sister in law being so embarrased by him not wanting to eat that worm and calling him dramatic and ridiculous. Where all of us totally understood and agreed with him. And sure, it's an edited reality tv show so they probably spun it that way on purpose, but still, date someone who understands and respects where you're coming from.
2) Keep the law of chastity. Many of these people probably don't know about the law of chastity as taught by the Church of Jesus Christ. But we'd say that following it would probably have helped these couples avoid a big chunk of the problems they were facing. So just a quick plug there for chastity - go find the Missionaries - they'll teach you about it!
3) It helps to date/marry someone who shares your religious beliefs. Alan (California) and Kirlyam (Brazil) are one of the couples that we showed the kids that didn't have much drama and appear to have a happy marriage, so yay! Spouses from different cultures can work.
4) Marry someone who has similar interests as you. We'd say that not having that in common was the biggest factor that made us vote against Nicole (Florida) and Azan (Morocco) being able to create a successful relationship. "I'm attracted to her but just like 55%"
5) Before you propose marriage to someone, go on lots of dates with them and give yourself the chance to see them in a large variety of circumstances and so you can understand them, what they life, what their expectations in life are. Following this relationship rule would have helped Colt (Las Vegas) and Larissa (Brazil) - (She wants flowers!) (Also, Colt, not a good idea to propose to someone 5 days after meeting them on a vacation trip to Cancun. Of course it would be easy to fall in love there vs. in the heat of Las Vegas. That was not a real life setting to know what the person is like. You want to know them and see them in various circumstances of life to really get to know them.
6) Get the honest opinion of your family. They usually want what's best for you and so having their opinion can help you from making a mistake. They can probably see things you cannot. Getting that advice early on and listening could have helped Jenny (California) and Sumit (India).
7) You probably both want to speak the same language. There was one couple we saw who had to use Google translate audio for each sentence they said to each other. This could probably also have helped Rebecca (Georgia) and Zied (Tunisia) (the boys likes Zied) - Her make him so angry, "so much angry" but I think for Rebecca and Zied the main problem for them was probably more #5 than just language.
So yeah, it's been interesting and funny and sad. We're telling the kids that these are probably going to be like a lot of the people they will teach on their missions. It's good to be aware that there are lots of different ways to live and lots of struggles out there! But living the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a great way to avoid most of the big problems.
Daniel at church today - he was sad at me cause I took away a toy.
What a look!
Actually I can't remember why he was sad. It was either cause of a toy or cause I told him to be quiet. Either way, I'm pretty sure it was because I was trying to enforce reverence. And he was being reverent even with his pouty lip.
I'm glad Abi was there to comfort him. He's a sensitive little kid.
I gave him my phone so he could take a few selfies.
It made him feel better. Natalie before church, doing some Sabbath appropriate playing with the keva blocks. Yes, we love Jesus!
Here's the status of Owen's nose - swelling has gone down, black and blue coloring is still there.
You really clocked yourself hard, didn't you Owen?
And one last note - I bought these cookies at Costco yesterday, and I ate the whole bag. Vegan, and dangerous. They were very yummy treats. Sorry to my family that I didn't share them.
Well, I gave Mel a few at the Mozart Concert last night. I can't buy these again cause I want to lose weight. A few other things from today - we went to Corey's parents' house for a potato bar. It's always nice to be with family. We came home and watched a little bit of 90 day fiance for our cultural and future family relationships lesson. Tonight as we read scriptures, Ethan was translating into Ferb-Latin everything I said, pretending to be translating it for Wesley who doesn't speak English apparently? It was funny. Ethan really has become quite the family and class clown. Some of the stories he tells us of things he does at school are quite hilarious. I'll need to get him to type them up sometime.
The highlight of today for me was going down to Provo with Corey for date night. Melodie and her cute roommate Noelle met us there, and we were on the 2nd row for a wonderful concert with.... the Mozart Group!
Selfie before the show began -
We even got to meet them afterwards and get a signed DVD - they gave it to Mel and Noelle for free since they are students, so nice!
Corey and I walked back to the car to get more cash and came back to get another DVD for Corey's parents (to say thanks for his dad for substituting for Corey as a chaperone at the high school sweethearts dance that Corey volunteered for before I got these tickets) and the crowd was mostly gone (just some locals that speak Polish were still there yappin' it up), so I waited for a photo with them.
I needed a picture cause I'm an aspiring violinist and I need some #goals visualization for my future studio wall. Someday I'll be touring with my "Mozart Moms/Grandmas" Group and I'll be able to trace my moment of inspiration back to when I watched the MozART group in concert in Provo way back in 2020. A lot of the show was the numbers that are on their youtube channel, but it was just soooo fun. Corey asked me afterwards if my cheeks hurt, cause every time he looked over I had such a big smile. But it was so fun. I love them! I would go back again in a heartbeat. I love the Killers, but one concert there was enough for me to get my fill, but I'd go see the Mozart Group again, and I'd be sure to tell everyone I know to come too. It was just great. One performance that they did that I hadn't seen yet was Titanic -
Seriously, I was laughing so hard.... doing the seagulls and ocean wave sounds!!?!? They are so creative and talented!!! And imitating the rocking of the boat! SO FUNNY! Gosh I love them. It was so fun to be there. Ok, I'll move on now.
No, I'm gonna rave for just a minute more, cause seriously, we were so lucky to go to this.... I only learned about these guys a few weeks ago (Jan 22nd to be exact) ... and I heard about them by chance thanks to some youtube algorithim that knows I'm into violin stuff. So it came up as a suggested video, but I saw it in time for us to hear about them, love them, and then learn that they were coming to Provo! And yay, there were still plenty of tickets available! There shouldn't have been any left, this should have been sold out months ago. And they only had 3 stops in this US tour! I had googled to find out if they were touring and couldn't find anything except Europe stuff, but luckily Mel lives in Provo she sees a billboard saying that they are coming to the Covey Center in Provo! She told me that on Jan 31st and we promptly bought 4 tickets. The are always performing in France, Poland, and Germany, but their US tour included: Provo, Scottsdale Arizona, and Palm Desert California. And that's it. So yeah, this was just perfect timing and it was so fun, a memory I'll treasure (and I hope they come again!)
Some of the other fun things we did today were: Corey took Sophi, Natalie, Owen and Daniel skiing.
It was super cold - Corey shared his face mask with Daniel. Owen already had one.
Sophi and Natalie toughed it out.
But it was cooooold. They just did the kiddie hill for a few runs, enough to turn Natalie's nose and cheeks pink pink.
They were just gone skiing like 2 hours total time, including the drive up. While they were gone skiing, Wes and Abi had gone to the church to play in the gym. Corey took the kids over there to join them after they came back, to let them run around and warm up.
Owen's face has gotten more black and blue but less swollen.
He's doing good and has really liked the attention from everyone. He must have really hit it hard. Today I cleaned out the kitchen pantry and put the spices in a better spot, it looks amazing. And Lily didn't go skiing cause she had a birthday party. I told her she had to practice in order to go, and she did a great job. She's sounding great, even if Peter seems to not think so.
Lily told me that she thinks she was pinching his leg on accident as she held him and played. Sorry Peter! We'll be sure she doesn't do that again.
Just a few cute pictures of my cute kids. I am prone to take pictures of them when they are dressed up and when they are asleep. And thus it is with these photos. So here's Daniel on Wednesday night.
I don't know why the girls dressed him up, but he looked super duper cute.
You're such a cute little man, Daniel! And we need to find what happened to the clarinet that belongs in that case you're holding there.... but I'm glad that you were able to play with it.
And here's a cute picture of Abi and Peter today.
I went to the temple to do initiatories, as I try to do every Friday, and when I got back home I was happy to see that Peter had been so well attended to and loved.
Awww.
And I also take pictures of the kids when they get hurt. Owen got hurt on Wednesday night - fell face forward into the corner of the train table downstairs when he slipped on a sheet protector or piece of paper on the floor... something like that (I need to clean up down there). It's a bit swollen above his nose between his nose and eye, but he's on the mend.
Here's a Marco Polo video of him I shared with my family.
