Science Project Research

 A few random things going on here - many of us have been participating in Sophi's science project. She and her friend Kelsy are seeing how long a person can hold their hand in ice cold water. Here's Daniel as one of the test subjects.

They are testing if it helps or hinders our endurance whether we are looking at a photo of a warm beach sunset, or an icy artic scene. So we had to do each hand and looked at a warm photo with one hand, and a cold pic with the other. Now, I myself could have held my hand in there for a very long time, but I stopped at 3 minutes with each hand. They caught me at a time when I just happen be working up my cold endurance. When Wes and I went climbing on Saturday, he told me about and showed me a video with a guy named Wim Hof, and Wes also mentioned how one of his YMAD leaders takes cold showers and said it's made his stuffy nose go away. So I'm like "Sounds fun! I'll try that!" and so Monday I took a cold shower, yesterday I laid down in the snow for 5 minutes in shorts and a sports top, and I laid in the snow again today for 6 minutes, and now I feel so young! Well, not really, but it does make you feel alive. Unfortunately, as I type this, I still haven't regained total feeling in my thumbs. The tips are still numb, so.... I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't do any permanent nerve damage there?

We are going to St. George tomorrow, just for two nights. Corey's brother invited us down to go jeeping, and we're going to try and bike a little bit. I went climbing tonight for a few minutes while Lily and Sophi were at Churchill on Parade. I brought K with me, she had fallen asleep so I was slightly hopeful that I'd be able to climb while I waited for the kids to be done at Churchill, but she woke up shortly after I started. 

She's cute though. Tonight Wesley was making henna creations for his little brothers. Peter requested a Ninjago character - 

And Daniel wanted a dragon. This looks really good, huh!

Wes, you could have a future career in Henna art. It was pretty cute seeing Peter laying down flat and so still, and he actually did fall asleep in the process. I'm sure I would too - so relaxing!

Today I was cleaning up. I cleaned Corey's office a little bit and took his broken fridge to a recycling yard, and I got - $2 bucks for it! Badda bing! Rolling in the big money here. In my tidying up, I also found folded papers from years ago, stamped with the date and time, of Wesley telling me the cruel things Hyrum or Ethan would do to him. It got to a point where I was just like "I can't handle all this strife.. just write it down and I'll figure out how to deal with it later." so there are all these papers with notes of who did what and when...

I showed the notes to Wesley, he thought it was kinda funny. "Yeah! I remember that... oh those simple sibling squabbles of yesteryear..."

We asked Hyrum about it today, and he said "Well, there's the date and the time written on it, so I guess I don't have an excuse. I'm sure it happened, I'm guilty." They both felt bad for poor little Wesley from 5 years ago. 

ME - RE - 23

My little theme for my goals for this year is "ME - RE - 23". "Me" because it's about ME! RE because I'm trying to REset, REevaluate and REdirect my focus and attention and my life. 23 because that's this year of focus. 

So last month, as I was starting to think of what goals I wanted for the new year, a youtube ad caught my attention where Brooke Castillo talked about a power sentence (don't know where the ad is, but she's got a whole podcast episode about it that I just found! I'll have to go listen to it...) and shortly after that I read the talk by Elder Ballard and he said:

Experts on goal setting tell us that the simpler and more straightforward a goal is, the more power it will have. When we can reduce a goal to one clear image or one or two powerful and symbolic words, that goal can then become part of us and guide virtually everything we think and do. I believe that there are two words that, in this context, symbolize God’s goals for us and our most important goals for ourselves. The words are return and receive.

So getting a goal down to one or two words. "Return and Receive" and I was like "Hey! That's better than a power sentence - those are power words!" Well I'll take that a step further and I have found myself some POWER Syllables ha! Well, not really, I'm actually simplifying it to RE because I couldn't decide on a power word. So I've got a whole list of them. The one I'm going to focus on this month is REDUCE. That goes along with "Subtraction" which I've had on my mind for a few months and I'm trying to apply to my daily life. ANYWAY... it really is just about training our brains. Teaching our brains, our mind, to be in charge of our body and the actions the body takes. We are here on this earth to prove that we can get our spirits in charge of our brains. Don't let my brain control my body. And don't let the body do dumb and stupid things.  Well, (this was a part of scriptures tonight, I'm typing it up cause not all the kids were paying attention but I'm preaching to myself... I've got a bit of Wim Hof on the brain after I learned about him on Saturday (Wes told me about him and how Wesley's started to take cold showers, anyway...) 

So, I went to youtube to watch a Wim Hof video, but I GOT DISTRACTED of course, by Shark Cookie (I love their shorts - so beautiful and inspiring!) 

which had my brain tell me "let's keep watching these" and then I wasted time until I was watching totally dumb shorts and I was like "Why does this have so many views?" and I'm curious about who these youtubers are and I watch that and DON'T watch the video I came to watch. Well, a bit later, it happened again, and soon I was watching more dumb videos, and I was like "I NEED TO TAKE BACK MY BRAIN!!!" Why do I do that?!?! I don't like how I feel after watching dumb things. I wouldn't like to make videos like that. I went back to trying to clean up my desk, and I found a little quote that I have now written up and have in two places in my bedroom for me to see to remind me to REDUCE time on youtube! 

"When your greatest desire is to let God prevail, to be part of Israel, so many decisions become easier. So many issues become non-issues! ... You know what to watch and read, where to spend your time, and with whom to associate. You know what you want to accomplish. You know the kind of person you really want to become." - President Russell M. Nelson - Let God Prevail

And I probably shouldn't have provided links to all of my time wasters today, so ignore those (please don't waste your time, to my children, when you read this.) But DO go read or listen tot he talk by President Nelson. So after that, I was thinking later as I loaded the dishwasher about what does GOD want ME to do. It's definitely NOT watch youtube. If I want to become like the Savior, I need to be about my Father's Work. I loved Choosing Glory's podcast today - It really is a miracle that we have been invited to become joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What a miracle! BUT that is not going to just happen. I need to BECOME like Him if I want to become like Him! He can help me, he has, he's shown me the way to do it, I need to be about my FATHER's business. I need to always REpent and REdirect my focus to that over and over again (those are two of my "RE"s)

For scriptures tonight, we read from the lesson in the manual for this week - 

John 1:11–13

Jesus Christ gives us “power to become” the sons and daughters of God.

Although we are all spirit daughters and sons of God the Father, when we sin we become estranged, or separated, from Him. Jesus Christ offers us a way back through His atoning sacrifice. Ponder what John 1:11–13 teaches about becoming daughters and sons of God. Consider also what these scriptures teach about how we receive this gift: Romans 8:14–18; Mosiah 5:7–9; Doctrine and Covenants 25:1. What does it mean to you to have “power to become” a daughter or son of God?

The scripture from John got me started with this thought that I'm trying to share here: 

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 

NOT THE WILL OF THE FLESH! The verses from Romans are amazing too: 

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

So no offense to those youtubers, but I did not feel edified after watching your content. I don't think I'd feel edified if I made those videos either. If that is what they feel led by God to do, then more power to them, and I'm glad that's not my path. I'm sure there are people who would say the same about raising a large family "Good for you, you go, and I'm glad it's not me!" But I love this more than anything and I know it's what God wants me to do. I want to make my life better, and as I do, I'll help make our life better and our kids lives better. That is where I need to spend my time. I want to bless and inspire and make a lasting difference in my children's lives, and if anyone out there reads this and it blesses your life too, well I'm happy to take that bonus point. 

Nighttime Interruptions

I sent Corey a text at 1:45 am Sunday morning to let him know that I was going to need to take a nap later - Saturday night Ethan called at 11:28 to have me come unlock the front door. I couldn't fall back asleep after that, then I brought Peter into our room sometime after midnight after I heard him thrashing around in the boys room, and then Peter and Katharine played tag team waking me up every 15 minutes for a while after that. At 1:45 I gave up and Katharine and I went into our closet for her to play and for me to try and prepare for my Sunday School lesson which I was leading that morning. I made an attempt to go to bed at 2:30, but it was a rough night Sat night-Sunday morning. I did get some rest on Sunday, but these two little kiddos are killing me. But aww, look at this pic - 

 

She's so sweet. Ok Katharine, if you and your brother want to wake me up forever, you can, it's fine. You are worth it. But guess what, good news - Peter didn't wake up AT ALL last night. I'm feeling like a new person today! With the good night of sleep, I went climbing with Wes and Lily today. There was no school because of MLK Jr. day, so it was nice to have a day off. It was fun. Wes sent his first V4. 

And Lily on the green V2! This one is a little high and scary and I just did it for the first time on Saturday, with Wesley coaching me. So yeah, good job Lil!

The three of us have really enjoyed climbing. Hooray for a day off from school. We had more birthday festivities for Peter this afternoon. It's good to celebrate this sweet boy a bit more. There was no school routine or violin so everyone was here when my mom came by with cake and ice cream for Peter. 

Peter blowing out four candles! He's the big 4. My BeReal - Peter is staring to do the squinty eye thing whenever he smiles. 

Opening gifts from my mom while Abi continues to dish out ice cream.

My mom brought by treats and gifts and then took Abi to her house to do some work. Wes got an extension for his 11th grade English class, so he's got one more month to finish that. (Actually it gives him three months but we're not telling him that, cause he needs to hurry and get this done so he can move onto the next class! He still has so much to do to be able to graduate, sigh.

Peter is 4!

Happy Birthday to Peter! We are so happy that you were born! 

The best gift we've ever gotten on January 14th is YOU!

But we love sweet little Pete. He is really precious. What can I tell you about our little 4 year old Peter. He is super cute. He's been adorable from the start. He loves Wesley... he has scary dreams most nights. He loves Spiderman, cars, dinosaurs and now Ninjas. Owen got Ninjago Legos for Christmas and has been kind enough to share them with his little brothers, they've pretty much been playing with them constantly. So for Peter's birthday, I got him a Ninjago lego set. He wanted the green ninja. I gave it to him early, cause Owen was tired of sharing his legos. So these pics are from Wednesday... 

Peter loved the green car and green ninja! And then today, as my punishment for not being able to wait, I gave him another Ninjago lego I bought - so that he'd have something on his birthday. This was a red ninja on a red dragon. 

Dragons are pretty close to dinosaurs, so Peter accepted that. 

Tonight though, Peter told Wes that it actually WASN'T his birthday, cause "look! there's no cake!" It's true. I didn't decorate the table and I didn't get cake. My mom usually comes by and brings cake, and I didn't want to have two, so I didn't get one ready, but then she said it'd be better for her to come Monday, so we'll do the cake photo on Monday. No friends came other either, but I'm going to see if we can squash that tradition, cause I don't do well with friend parties. 

So today consisted of kids playing with legos, me trying not very successfully to prepare for leading a discussion in Sunday School tomorrow, and me also trying without much success, to get the kids to clean up the house. Corey and I went out on a date tonight to Braza Grill. We didn't make it out last night cause we just got home from Snowbasin and were a bit tired and not ready to leave for a date. We are still in a bit of Christmas recovery mode, from vacationing and skiing so much. Mel came up for a visit and she took Peter over to Corey's parent's house where Peter got this dope Iron Man costume. 

It think we can tell that he felt pretty amazing.

Back at home, I was nagging kids to clean their rooms, especially ABI AND LILY who always blame the mess in their room on each other, but there are just clothes clothes everywhere. A jacket that I let Abi wear this morning to GMS was left on the floor just outside her room. When she blamed the mess on Lily, I pointed out my jacket that I know she wore, as I gave it to her this morning. "I left that on the floor out there..." UGH, are you serious! These kids. Well they finally started cleaning, and then I notice Lily enter my room dressed as a pioneer... She walked out, I followed her. As they were going through clothing on the floor, Abi asked Lily if she wanted that dress. Lily tried it on. It felt a bit old fashioned, so she went downstairs to find the pioneer bonnet that I made for Mel (Trek 2016) and yep, it matched perfectly! It is definitely a pioneer dress. Then Abi came in my room and asked to borrow a fancy black dress of mine. I went to see what they were doing. Apparently Abi found her fancy black gloves and that inspired her to get dressed as well. So now we have Abi as a Great Gatsby socialite, and Lily as a pioneer. Abi got to hold a champagne glass, and she made Lily hold a salt shaker like a poor man.

Lily wanted a redo, so she could try and not laugh. You gotta look stoic in 1800 pioneer photos. 

Well, they are fun and silly, and that's why we never get anything done around here. 

Snowbasin

We had a really fun day skiing today up at Snowbasin. Here are the kids lined up in a row on our last run of the day - Daniel Owen Natalie Sophi Lily Abi Wes

Earlier that morning I took my BeReal for yesterday. The kids are always happy when we have cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal.

After getting dressed, packing up, and loading the cars, we headed to Snowbasin. Sunblock on the kids - Natalie used my phone to see if her sunblock was rubbed in. 

After rubbing it a little more, she looked like a fair Twilight vampire.

And in her hot pink outfit, she was easy to spot on the hill! I might need to get an all one color ski outfit too.

They kids were on the mountain all day, older kids being in charge of the younger kids. I spent most of my time on the kiddie hill or in the lodge, so their last run was my first run from the top of Becker, but that's ok. I had done a few runs on the kiddie hill "Littlecat" with Daniel and Natalie, and we also did Wildcat once. Daniel and I did the Wildcat handle tow (I thought it was a magic carpet) and I was pulling Daniel up between my legs and I almost died my hands were burning so bad, that was hard!

But it was good. So Corey and I traded being on kid duty on the mountain or in the lodge. When it was my turn it looked like this: Me sitting in the lodge with Katharine asleep. 

Corey on duty looked like this: K in the backpack and Peter toddling beside him. Katharine is so cute. 

My BeReal went off when I was in the lodge. 

Peter and Katharine are so cute - just cute cute always cute. 

Another pic of them just being their adorable selves. They are sweet little humans. 

It was too bad to miss out on skiing, but I knew I would be, so I wasn't frustrated, cause I had no expectations! Daniel came with me on my one ride to the top of Becker. 

Abi called and said they were on the lift, and the day was almost over, so we stayed at the top and waited for them.

And I had Daniel be my realmoji reply to people - 

It was good to wait for them, cause that meant we could get a group pic (at the top of this post). Corey was getting the little ones in the car - so we all did our last run, and then we headed home to SL.

Snowbasin is a really great resort, I like it! This was my first time, I am looking forward to coming back again. Corey had an issue with his ticket so it didn't scan and so he decided to just not use it anymore and so he still has one day here, and I have another day (I didn't come on Dec 26 with everyone) so we're thinking maybe we'll come back here on our own for our anniversary. It was a good day.

Henna Hands

We are up at Wolfcreek near Eden, Utah. We left home in two groups and pretty close to plan. It's a bit of a chore packing up skiing stuff for everyone: coats, snowpants, gloves, hats, skis, boots, Bula neck thing. I left after the kids got home - I took ALODPK with me, and WSN stayed with Corey. Abi had a GMS music history lesson on my phone as we drove up. Wes had a saxophone to drop off for Joseph, who was coming to pick it up on Frontrunner (cause that is free for BYU students, and that way he could also do homework on the "drive" up. But then J missed the bus, and W wasn't answering his phone on his way back from the temple, so we aborted the mission to help Joseph and he got to figure it out himself. (He needed the sax for a ward talent show). I arrived at Wolfcreek a little after 6. Corey arrived around 8. The kids went swimming. Corey left Abi watching Peter, who did not have a floatie, and luckily Corey was still watching as he walked away, cause he could see his head bobbing under the water, as he tried to hop up on his tippy toes but the water was too high, and Corey yelled to point it out and we did not like that close call with death, esp with kids right there watching the little ones. Sometimes we're a bit to relaxed with the little ones. Peter came out coughing a little bit, he wasn't crying, but Corey did not like that. 

After kids were back from swimming, which closed at 9, we didn't let them watch tv - we just got ready for bed. And Wes painted Henna on people. Wesley is quite good. I was most impressed with these two Yin-yang fish he did on Lily's hand - 

Wes did a nice design on his hand and wrote names of people on his finger (last names of girls he likes?) and did a dollar bill and coins on one of Daniel's hands - and a design and "I AM DANIEL" on his finger of the other hand.  Daniel, and on Peter did a spiderman face (of course)

He also did a dinosaur brachiosaurus with a volcano on his right hand. What else. For Owen, Wes wrote "NINJAGO" on his arm. 

So here are a few boring stats, but also things I wish I knew about people in the past: our food for this little weekend trip. Tonight we had a shepherd's pie from Costco, breakfast tomorrow is cereal, and we'll prepare lunch for skiing which will be sandwiches, dried fruit and nuts, and chips. Then we'll head home after skiing and have pizza at home. I led the discussion in our New Testament study group today, and I'm also teaching this Sunday at church, so I'm trying to use any spare time I have over this weekend to prepare for that. I'm excited for skiing tomorrow. I've never been to Snowbasin, should be fun.

The Usual

Life's just been the usual the past two days. School for everyone, Daniel to kindergarten. Peter and Katharine came with me when I walked him down to the bus yesterday. Two cute kids in a wagon. 

We had a P-day phone call with Hyrum yesterday, too. It's fun when all the older kids are able to join. They often are making me and each other laugh. Hyrum noticed what he was doing in the video of himself, and commented how small his eyes were... so then the other tried it. 

It is really fun having these kids grow into fun adults and to see them becoming good friends. Yesterday Natalie had activity days yesterday and Abi had her flute lesson. Declutterd a little bit - put some books in the donate pile. And Corey wants us to go skiing this weekend so he booked a night at Wolfcreek for Thursday and we're going to to ski at Snowbasin on Friday. Should be fun.

Today Lily had clarinet and I picked up carpool. I did a lot of stretching. I ordered the Hyperbolic stretching thing and my 60 day money back guarantee is about up, so I figured I better see if I like it. And it's good, I was surprised that there were a lot of arm stretches and I like those so much, so I think I'll let him keep my $29, I got my money's worth from that. Today after Abi was home I took her to my moms to do some work. Wes, Abi, Lily, AND Sophi (I keep forgetting that Sophi is in YW now...) had a game night at the church, and Wes taught the youth in our ward how to play gaga ball. Wes says it was a hit! Here's Natalie in her "usual" pose, ha!

Actually this was a first for me to see. I just walk by at 7:15 tonight and she's treating herself to a spa facial on the couch, so funny. 

I kinda wasted time on my phone today, will do better tomorrow. I sent a few hairdo's to Mel over Instagram, including one quick tutorial of a Korean Messy Bun and I like it. Sorry I don't know how to share those here. Let's see if it's on youtube... oh I found it! This is the exact one. Here's how it looked on me. 

I'm really shaking things up with doing a different version of a messy bun. 

I'm feeling like a new person, ha. Cause this isn't just the same old top bun that I've been doing for the past 3 years. (It kinda is... but Abi admitted it looked different! So yeah, I tried a "new" hairstyle.

Back to College

Happy Birthday Joseph!! Yesterday we wished Joseph a happy 23rd birthday and then we said farewell to our college kids. Ethan's BeReal - we were watching the Chosen (Wes had to catch up). Bye Ethan! Bye Joe!

Bye Melodie! Katharine will miss you!

 

Do you see Owen in that pic? He's a big camouflaged. He's a funny kid. We had a nice dinner before their official send off. Before that Natalie made a picnic lunch for her siblings after church yesterday, which turned into a fancy kid lunch date. 

Maybe they thought they'd practice good manners before our company came. 

We didn't get to Joseph's birthday ice cream, but since we had cake and ice cream yesterday, we'll count that. It was a good Sunday. The little boys have been lost in a Ninjago game for the past two week with this lego set that Owen got for Christmas. I admit it's pretty cool.

Wesley put it together for them, and said that he loved the Avatar vibes he got from it. We had some friends from Chile over to dinner yesterday, and today Corey took them skiing for a bit, just on the Snowpine lift, to try it out. I had a regular day of school with kids, Daniel going to afternoon kindergarten - we took the wagon to walk him down. Cute kids.

Also had violin. Back at home, Natalie thought it might be good to teach Katharine an instrument. Natalie is thinking cello for now, since we don't have a violin small enough for K.

I hope your taking all that in, Katharine. 

I also went by Target to get a lego set for Peter's birthday on Saturday. Katharine was beautiful and smiley at the store. 

She's so cute.