Two Temple Trips

Melodie and I just got back from working on the grounds at the Draper Temple. I left Abi in charge, Corey asked for a kid status as I left: TM temple 4:30-6, AS coming to temple at 6:40 for baptisms with TM (I was thinking I might go bike while they were in baptisms, but I didn't get my biking stuff in the car and also figured I should do temple first, since I already exercised today (top rope with Corey this morning), L babysitting 5-9:30, NK at activity days 4-5, ODP at friends' houses, H leaving to hang out with friends at 6:30. It was helpful that Natalie took K to activity days. They were supposed to bring one of their favorite things, and Natalie wanted to take Katharine! They have a special bond like Wes and Peter. So N took K to Activity days, Abi and Sophi were home to be in charge, and Mel and I left to go plant flowers! We were there with other people from our Stake, young and old. The temple groundskeeper had everything set out where it was supposed to go, and so we all grabbed hand shovels and went to work. It was good to be out in the sun and with my hands in the dirt.

I'm trying to stretch everyday, and today I'm counting some of the one leg squats I did while the other stretched out and balanced me in between the plots. It was good and some of the older than me people mentioned how they were impressed with my youth and flexibility, one guy asked if I do yoga. I am trying to stay mobile and nimble as long as I can. We got a ride out there with my friend Lisa, whose husband passed away last March. It was nice to have time to visit in the car with her, she shared some things about raising kid and how her kids were not allowed to fight. I asked for more details, like how do you do that, cause kids fight, right? Well, hers didn't, cause they were not allowed. She shared two stories - one of her mom, who when she was younger was reading, a younger sibling wanted to play and pestered her for like an hour, and finally frustrated, she gave her younger sibling a punch on the arm, and THAT was when her mom walked by and SHE (Lisa's mom) got in trouble. So she decided then that she would never take sides when her kids quarreled - both would be held responsible. Parents often don't know who is telling the truth in a situation, and it's no fun to play policeman anyway, so both kids get a chore. I like it. And Lisa also shared that when she was growing up, she did something that made her brother get in trouble and she knew it was her fault and she felt bad, and went and helped him do his chore. So Lisa's rule has been: No fighting, if there is any, both kids get a chore. She did say that sometimes her mom would call out a warning if she heard any squabbling starting: "There are socks to fold!" So I'm hopeful about trying to apply this. OH! And that went for tattling too! If one kid came and told on another kid, both would be given a chore. Lisa said "You learn real quick to resolve your differences without getting mom involved!" So wow, I'm liking this. She also mentioned how a neighbor commented on seeing Eric stand for her when he was in the bishopric upon the stand, so he'd already be there at church and when she walked in with the kids he would stand. Eric was doing that before President Nelson ever made a comment on it! I mentioned that to Corey tonight, teasing, and he said as he looked up sheepishly "...seems a bit much??" Ha, I hardly let him open the car door for me, and I am doing better at that, but I don't expect to see Corey stand for me. Eric was great though, really a true gentleman, and he taught his sons how to be gentlemen, and their daughters learned how to be ladies from Lisa. I think her kids should compile a book called "Ladies and Gentlemen" of all the ways that their parents taught them civility. So that's been on my mind, want to figure some things out for how to apply those ideas in our home. 

Mel and I got a ride back home with Lisa, and after we walked in the door, Mel and Corey, Abi and Sophi turned around to go back to the temple to do baptisms. The plan originally was for Abi and Sophi to drive out there for the 7pm appointment, and Mel and I brought our Sunday clothes to change into, but we ended up getting our hands more than a little dirty...

Should have brought gloves! We were working from 5-6:30, but we finished a little early, so we left at 6:25 and were able to get home to wash up, and then I decided for Corey to go with them instead of me, so that he could perform the baptisms. They enjoyed going together, and I was glad to stay home. It  been a busy day, always is, so I was grateful for some home time. 

One of the tasks we did today was mail a package to Wesley. Peter was very excited about this. He's been wanting to mail Wes a "lego set" for over a week. I've been putting him off, but today we got it ready. Peter had his lego set - it's two figures: Wesley and Peter. 

Wes is holding the Book of Mormon. I had a little white box set aside to mail his package in, but Peter ended up writing all over it and it was cute, I thought Wes would like it...

so I cut up a white folder to make a box for the box. Peter and I went to the post office to mail it, and I sent this picture to Wes to let him know a package from Peter was on the way. It also had some drawings Peter did in it, and I wrote down on each picture what it was - like a picture of Wes and Peter eating dinner, a picture of our house, a drawing of the temple and our house, etc. I think Wes will like it, but I told him to not get too excited cause "it's about what you'd expect from a 5 year old..." 

So that was cute. While Peter was waiting for me to make the box, he was riding his bike around the kitchen. Mel was in the kitchen cleaning and mopping (she's an angel). The kitchen needed a good mopping because last night, after I made toast for Peter, and I didn't put the garlic salt away, and K got on the table and found it and emptied out almost the whole thing, and this was a big Costco container of garlic salt, so yay. I wasn't as heartbroken over this as I was about the maple syrup on Saturday. But apparently Katharine is taking it up a level. So Mel was mopping the floor and Peter was doing laps on his bike, and on one of his laps, he paused to tell Mel: "We are working together! I made it dirty, and you clean it up!" He said it so proudly and also like he had just discovered a great hidden treasure of knowledge, and it was also SO TRUE - it made me laugh so hard. I had him pause so I could take a photo to capture the moment. 

And Mel helped me share the moment on facebook - my SECOND story ever! Wow go me, I'm so millenial.

Different pics of K sleeping this morning. Sometime during the night she rolled off her bed onto the floor (not a scary thing to roll from the bottom of a triple bunk bed). Picture of her when I went in to wake up Abi - I told Abi to be careful not to step on her. - 6:21 in the bug pose:

She must have stirred a little as Abi put on makeup and stuff, Abi gave her a stuffed animal so that was cute to see her snuggle with that in her sleep - 7:14 am.

And after climbing at 9:36 am, she's still asleep and back in the bed now, ha, cute. It is a rare treat but it was nice to have her sleep in - made for a little bit more of a slow morning, even with how busy the rest of the afternoon went.

FHE - Spoons

We had another successful game night tonight. Three weeks in a row - go us! First was 5000, last week was Pictionary, and tonight we played Spoons. 

We were going to go climbing (the kids only have a few more days to go, we're freezing their accounts because none of them are using it) but then decided going out there would make us too late getting to bed, so we decided on Spoons. (Then we let them finish watching Walter Mitty from last week, so now they we're late to bed cause of that!) Spoons was easy enough to understand and the kids liked it. I'm not sure if we got the rules right, but good enough for our first go around, we'll fine tune it next time. Peter tried his best to be brave even though his eyes were brimming with tears a few times when he didn't get a spoon, but he held it together! But on the following round, I pushed a spoon to him before I grabbed one for myself, and I got an S. The older kids joined me in sacrificing our spoons if he looked sad. He's a cute kid. Melodie has been such an angel to have home. She took the girls to violin today and so I had some free time I wasn't planning on and I cleaned in the basement! The basement is my nemesis. I've been avoiding it the past few months, so winter coats and ski stuff were still all around but I took a bite out of the mess today. Hyrum, who has set up his bed and area downstairs, noticed my work and was appreciative, so that was nice. Corey will be glad next time we go down to get our bikes that we don't have to walk over legos or steer them around toys. I made a path for us to the basement door. We've been keeping both of our bikes in the basement since Corey's got stolen out of our garage last spring. We took a ride up the canyon this morning - the snow was all gone, yay, and the trees that were blocking the trail were all sawed and moved out of the path. We were able to make it all the way to the ruins. Thank you to whoever does that and cleared the path for us!

Mother's Day 2024

So here I am in December 2024. I'm putting together the highlights of the year, and I was just confused when I was going through May highlights and saw I had two posts with the some of the same photos. Come to find out I made two Mother's Day posts. And that is one of the dangers of getting behind on the blog. I think this one was "current" (by evidence of the details given about the Sunday program) but I must not have written it in my calendar, so I thought I still needed to do a Mother's Day one, then did it on Nov 16 (I keep the dates written of when I actually do publish posts) Anyway, so that's kinda funny. Some repeats of stuff here. Ugh, looks like I also did double posts and pictures on the Saturday before Mother's Day too. So sorry if you were just confused by reading all that. I'm not going to go through and try and delete stuff right now, so there are just repeats until/unless I go back and fix it, but I'll prob just leave it. Let it be known that I am often behind on the blog! Same photos, same memories, told in two different ways. I shall let it be.

Saturday night I posted my first "story" ever to facebook. 

That was an appropriate mother's day picture, I thought. They are the blessings that make me a happy mother. It's a lot of work, but it's the best. Today was a lovely sabbath day. I had a lazy morning. Corey made french toast with french break for breakfast for everyone. The lesson at church was on President Holland's talk "Motions of a Hidden Fire" - talked about how it was like the Aurora Borealis that was in Utah Friday night. I didn't see it, Mel was sad she didn't know about it. But what a beautiful analogy - this fire in the sky that is there even though sometimes we can't see it - that's like prayer. The power of God all around us, if we can just get away from the distractions of life to tune into it. Pretty amazing. Mel was pretty sad she didn't know about it, and they thought it might still be going on last night - she wanted to go see it last night, but stayed up late pressing flowers (I think from Ethan's friend Truman's wedding yesterday?) 

The kids sang a sweet song "Their Mothers Knew" and O and D had enough of a scuffle on the walk from the stand to the pew that Daniel punched Owen as they were still standing and scooting to their seats.

It's cause Owen took his red fish water toy that they got at Oliver's bday party yesterday, which K had just been holding and lost interest in as Owen was walking by. Daniel got mad "That's mine!" Daniel doesn't believe us when we say that they will be friends someday. Owen does tend to pick on him, and D does a great job at reacting just how Owen is trying to get him to react. My siblings and I never fought like that! haha just kidding. We're friends now though. Little brother Neil and sister Beka with her husband Matt came over to Hibbert Headquarters and we gave Mom a new Frameo gift, then sat around talking about parenthood and kids and all the fun cynical stuff. 

Mel came with Corey and I and she thought it was fun to listen to us talk. We visited there for a bit - Joseph called to let us know that he got a flat tire. A wedge thing that people use to keep their trailers still on a sloped driveway fell off of a truck and he ran over it and it gave him a flat and totally dented his tire rim. Could have been so much worse! Joseph was one hour into his 5 hour drive. He changed the tire in his white shirt and tie.

Joseph decided it was best to just keep going. He drove the the rest of the way at 50 mph on his spare tire! We checked in on him via life 360 thoughout the evening. Corey said this picture tells a story.

I shared that photo with Neil and, knowing the context, he commented that "That Life 360 'Protect this drive' sounds like a prayer to heaven!" Love conquers all! 

Joseph would have gone up there with her this past week, but he stayed to pick up her ring which was done on Friday. Picked that up and he was itching to get up there, but he stuck around for mother's day and gave me a nice gift by doing a ton of yard work on Saturday. He's a good kid. 

So after visiting with my parents, and while Joseph was on his adventure, we went over to Nancy's house for dinner with the Wrides. Nancy has a new puppy that is the tiniest cutest little thing - the kids were dying.

That is Doug. We had a nice time out on their new deck. Lily taking a selfie (Mel captured that)

K eating cake leftover from Nancy's birthday. 

The rest of the kids playing games - 

Like that "make an animal sound and guess who did it" game. 

It was fun, then home and now I'm jotting this all down. It's been a good day. I could have gone for a little more time at home, but that's ok. Life is good. I'm so grateful to be a mother and that I've been given 13 babies! And I love the wonderful adults they are growing up to be. It's so wonderful to see and be a part of. 

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to me and to you and all mother's. We had a surprise visit from Mel who came up last night and hung out with us today, yay! She's a second mother to all her younger siblings. 

Katharine obviously VERY happy to see her! With lovely mother's day flowers they gifted me. The kids eating dinner last night.

The kids gifted me cards they made at school and church. Here's Daniel's from school. )I like the portrait!)

All About My Mom 
By Daniel Wride, Age 7
My mom's name is tiffanie (got the spelling correct!)
She is 53 years old (not yet)
Her favorite color is red. (correct)
She likes to eat vechebles and drink water. She is very good at soccer.
My mom always says "if you are doing the right thing you're following Christ" (I don't think I've ever said that exactly, but if that is what Daniel has heard, then I guess that's good!)
I like to go to Park City with my mom.
I wish I could buy my mom anything she could dream of.
My mom is the best because she is the nicest mom ever. 

And from the kids in Primary - in sharing time they did a "Mother's Day Quiz"

My name is Natalie and I am 10 years old. 

My mom's name is Tiffanie and she is 48 years old. 

My mom is idk feet and idk inches tall.

For fun, my mom likes to go on bike rides.

My mom grew up in America

My mom's favorite color is red & pink

My mom hates it when I do bad stuff

When I'm in trouble my mom calls me Natalie

My favorite activity to do with my mom is do stuff

I love my mom because she's beautiful on the inside & out.

Good job Natalie. You scored 11/13 on your quiz. 

Next is Owen. 

My name is Owen and I am 9 years old. 

My mom's name is Tiffine and she is 53 years old. 

My mom is 16 feet and 6 inches tall.

For fun, my mom likes to play

My mom grew up in Utah 

My mom's favorite color is red 

My mom hates it when I have Dieariue

When I'm in trouble my mom calls me tolet paper

My favorite activity to do with my mom is play

I love my mom because she is the Best

Good job Owen. A few corrections, you are still 8 years old, but yes you are almost 9. I'll let that and the rest slide, but I want it to be known that I have never called you toilet paper. I think he might have thought about a time when he is in trouble and calls for me is when he needs toilet paper. 6/13

My name is Daniel and I am 7/8 years old. 

My mom's name is Tiffanie and she is 38 years old. 

My mom is 5 feet and 3 inches tall.

For fun, my mom likes to play games

My mom grew up in Uta 

My mom's favorite color is red 

My mom hates it when I ware (swear?)

When I'm in trouble my mom calls me a brat

My favorite activity to do with my mom is lauf with her

I love my mom because she is so nice.

Daniel, I'm impressed that you did your age like that and that you got so close with my height! I'm going to give that to you. I don't know that I've ever called you a brat. Still, very good job, 11/13.

And Peter's ~

My name is PETER and I am 5 years old. 

My mom's name is Tiffany and she is    years old. 

For fun, my mom likes to play with me

My mom grew up in home 

My mom's favorite color is pink

My mom hates it when I fight

When I'm in trouble my mom calls me mean

My favorite activity to do with my mom is watch TV

I love my mom because she always feeds me

Excellent work. 10/10! Peter also made this for me in his Primary class - 

(Hmm, that's two comments about tv... I probably need to have the television on less.) 

A cute handprint and the temple! So that was fun. Wes called and it was good to talk with him. 

We went and visited my mom with my brother, and that was fun. 

And from there we went over to Wayne's. But actually to Nancy's, who lives across the street from Wayne. We had cake on their new deck. 

Katharine had a few pieces of cake, in a few different spots.

Visiting with cousins and grandpa.

Nancy bought a cute little dog recently, he's so cute and little! His name is Doug.

Tiny tiny little puppy, so cute. After cake and visiting, Nancy and her girls were inside and we hung around playing games. Mel and Hyrum worked their FSY magic and led the kids in a game where one person is in the middle holding a pencil, they turn around, the people surrounding them in a circle try to quietly shuffle, then the person in the middle stops and if their pencil is pointing to you, you hold it, then make an animal sound, and they have to guess who it is. 

Most of the time the person in the middle guessed right, even the little kids!

So that was fun, we did that with Wayne until sunset.

and then we headed home. 

Joseph left after church to go up to see Eliza in Idaho. There was a car in front of him, and something fell off into the road and Joseph hit it and it gave him a flat tire. He called when we were at my parent's house and we were telling him to turn back to the closest city where he could get it repaired, but not Joseph! He was determined to see his fiancée!! He had an important gift to deliver to her!

So he didn't listen to most of our counsel and he kept pressing on, going 55 mph, which made the ETA from his trip suddenly much longer. But he'd still make it by dark, rather than wait to get it repaired tomorrow. We kept checking in on him on life 360. Corey said the "protect this drive" at the top seemed like a plea to heaven, haha

That picture tells a good story - what a man will do to be with his woman. And he did make it safely, yay! Official engagement ring was delivered and he probably got a smooch reward for his bravery.

We are thrilled for Joseph and Eliza! Getting married at the end of June. There's a lot to do, Eliza's mom is great and she's doing so much. It feels a little less stressful this time around, (we're probably lucky that we're the parents of the groom again!)

Messes, Games, and Concerts

Katharine's really been stepping it up with making messes. This photo of her playing with a marble works toy kinda is an artistic representation of it - marker on her face, exploring things in ways that they were not necessarily designed for...

Sticking her tongue in where the marble goes of a 'round the world part. So she woke up early (5am) so I made oatmeal, then we went back to bed. I was glad she fell back asleep. Then I slept in past my normal Saturday alarms, so I didn't wake up Abi and Lily in time to make it to the bus. Corey ended up taking them to GMS and I got Owen and Daniel ready for their soccer games. Right as I was heading out to the car (ODP were already in the car) K had the biggest mess of a diaper I've seen in quite a while. I thought it would be a quick change but after I picked her up and it got all over me, I called to J and H to wake up and asked if they could possibly take O&D to their games? I hurried upstairs, put her in the tub (she was freaking out cause her socks were getting wet in the bath water, and I laughed cause that was the least of her wetness problems at the moment) I changed my clothes, and I rinsed off all her clothes and my clothes and the blanket that I picked her up in. I had just picked it up cause I thought "Oh, while I'm going upstairs already I'll return this blanket to her bed" but the blanket turned out to be a shield that protected me from most of her mess. So I rinsed that off too, left all the wet stuff in a bucket, left K in the tub with still a mess around her, Natalie came up and she finished rinsing her and then took over the bath duty, and I ran out the door with ODP. Me doing all that was faster than J or H waking up and getting ready. Daniel's game was first today. He did well. I half watched it, half watched Peter at the playground. Then over to Owen's game where it was the same. Peter was bored by then but I told him we weren't leaving until Owen was done. I helped P on the monkey bars a few times. Then it was done and time to go home. When I walked, I discovered something that put me in a "I give up" mode for the rest of the day. I had survived the emergency diaper mess from K and two soccer games and watching P at the park, and  that must have used all my reserves, cause after I saw this I was sad and didn't have anything left and I've been in a bit of a funk the rest of the day. Katharine had emptied the entire (it was quite full) bottle of my 100% pure maple syrup, that I left out on the counter, into the bowls of "pink oatmeal" that was also left on the counter for the kids to eat. Pink oatmeal is when I mix frozen berries and bananas into the oatmeal. Owen Daniel Peter and Katharine all like it. Now it was brown oatmeal though and I felt bad that it looked like this would all be wasted...

No, I don't waste! This was the serving bowl, and maybe K had contaminated it a little bit, but I decided to save all the sugar by putting them into three ice cube trays and I shall be using the "sugar cubes" for the kids oatmeal for next little bit until they are used. As I was emptying it, I discovered quite a bit of gritty sugar at the bottom of the trays, so K must have dumped brown sugar in there too, ugh, that means I will not be using these, cause I try to only use the pure syrup. I'll work to have Peter and K use them. Might take us a few weeks. 

So I was in a funk the rest of the afternoon until C and I went on a bike ride. We went to Corner Canyon with our friend Rob. We started at the bike park and went up the main trail there, up canyon hollow all the way to peakview, then Rush and Limelight the rest of the way down. Rob also showed us the jump track - I did the beginner jump line a few times, it was pretty good! I got a little bit of air twice and felt out of control but was able to manage to not wipe out, so yay. Then we came home, I took a quick bath, washed my hair, then went to Nancy's b-day party with K, who was dressed up like a princess, thanks to Sophi. K enjoyed petting their dog Luna.

It was a bit tricky figuring out logistics for this evening cause there was a lot going on - A neighbor called Corey to offer us 6 tickets to Hale Center theater, we took them up on it and HSNODP went to that while Abi was at Lyceum concert, Lily was with her BFF Liesel, Corey was chillin' at home, J went to the Lyceum concert with Wayne. Joseph was such a help today - he mowed and worked hard in the yard all day. He was very helpful. I've kinda given up on the yard. I like it looking nice, but I don't find joy in making it nice, it feels pointless since it doesn't stay that way. I guess washing dishes is the same - but I understand having to do everyday cause we use dishes to eat, but the yard... I just don't care anymore. I give up. I'd love to hire someone to do it, once we have money for that. But with long grass the kids can all still jump on the trampoline ok, so yeah, not a big deal and there's no deadline, and the mess is always there and always continues. The pine needles are never ending, and I'd rather stay inside and read than rake, so yeah, I don't care anymore. Prob haven't for the past 3 years really. 

When HSNODP came back at 10:30, it was time for bed but Corey got a dinner ready for them, then JMA showed up too, and there wasn't enough for them, but kids were well enough fed. And tomorrow most of them will all be home and we get to feed them all again!

Hooray that it's the sabbath though, so no running around or anything yay! Oh wait, it's Mother's Day... nevermind! I'll be going over to my mother's house at 3 and then to Wride's after that.