Studio C

Corey has a new incentive for the kids.  If he ever needs to bribe them, he dangles out a "Studio C Clip" motive and they are quick to do his bidding.  I still use Kid History or Kid Snippets if I'm looking for a YouTube reward, but Corey didn't really get the humor in those, so I'm glad he found Studio C and that he likes it.  Fun activity for the kiddos and their dad as they all huddle around his smartphone like it's a warm fire on cold night of camping ~

Here are a few of our favorites:

My fav - definitely P90X (great Tony Horton impression!), Facebook Philanthropist is great too, and Naturally is cute.
Corey's favorites: ER Vet Division, Grocery Bag, Gandalf, Sidious & Cowboys
And for the kids, they've got a lot, but we narrowed it down to these six:
Inner City Spelling Bee, Phone Magician, Ugly Cop, and all of the Shoulder Angel clips, but especially that one with Shawn Bradley, oh, and all of the VISCIPAM spots, but especially Ping Pong and Man Cold.

And this one was before Studio C began when those people were all in Divine Comedy, but "Firebolt" is another classic that the kids love.  Don't let these suck away too much of your time!

Master of Moen

Well, I'm feeling pretty much like a champ right now.  I've had a small victory. And seeing as that this problem just took me only like 15 minutes to fix, it should be a small victory. But also seeing that this is something that's been bugging me since December makes it feel like more of a huge "I want to shout it to the world" victory, cause look at me, I FIGURED IT OUT!  Woo-hoo!!!

So what was this seemingly huge yet actually small problem?  Well, I'll tell you.  It all began in our master bathroom. Where we have two sinks. Sometime around the month of December, my cold water faucet handle popped off.  About a month later Corey's hot water handle popped off.  Then the next week his cold water handle did too.  We've been using one hot water handle for months.  And sharing my sink.  Which I don't mind so much, except for when my better half grabs my toothbrush instead of his.  I did do a small attempt once before as I googled "Moen 4570" which is the number on the faucet, but that short search didn't yeild anything.  It didn't look that complicated, but I guess I only gave half hearted attempts, as part of my thinking was "Aren't plumbing type things the man's job to fix?!?"  I know, sexist of me (sorry sweetie).

SO, this morning, as I was clearing off the counter and going through yesterday's junk mail, I was saving different coupons for plumbers and various other home repair issues, thinking I'd really like to get those handles fixed and "Maybe I'll just call my mom..." She's our family's go-to fix it lady, then I was wondering why I hadn't called her yet.  Probably cause eventhough it's something that bothers me, it's not urgent enough to be on my brain during conversations with her.  Shall I go call her?  But then I thought "Oh, come on, if Linda can do this, you can do this!  You can figure this out..."  And as I said, I've googled it before.  But I guess today the force was with me, cause I googled it again... "Moen 4570" but I searched for images this time to try and find our handles, which led me to this link, and there on step 4a was the key of knowledge I needed.

 Hey, that looks simple enough!  Hold the base and turn it counter clockwise - BINGO!

I didn't know the handle just unscrews from the sink like that, sweet.  So I went up and unscrewed it, and that was all I needed to be able to figure the rest of it out.  Of course, this would be the one day during the past 6 months that Corey takes the tool box to work!  Oh bother.  And there were like 4 phillips screwdrivers in there too, I should have grabbed one before he left.  I looked around the house though and did find a small flat headed screwdriver, and with that and my tweezers, I was able to fix the problem.  And seriously in around 15 minutes.

There's that little screw... I thought you were down there somewhere.

My previous attempt to fix the handles involved hot glue.  Worked for about a week, then it seemed to be wearing off the groves of the cartridge (?), which seemed like it would probably be a bad thing to do.  I just screwed the screw back to the handle and then screwed the whole handles back on to the sink.  I AM AWESOME!!!  And I've been singing "I fixed the sink handles" all morning.

SO, moral of the story and today's challenge: go pick an area or a think of something that's been bugging you everytime you walk past it or see it.  That area/thing is sapping your energy (that's along the lines of what Don Aslett would say in this profound book), so I bid you to GO! and take control of it and show that little annoyance who is Master!  And I'm sure I'm gonna be feeling so good about myself every time I use my sink, probably be gloating to myself everytime anyone uses those sink handles for the next month, oh yeah, "hear me roar!"  :)

Summer Chore Plan - Bonus Bucks

Mom's Idea #2 that I'm hoping to successfully implement is regarding chores.

The goal here is to get us all up and going in the morning so that we take full advatage of the day.  The kids have to have their chores done each day before playing with friends, and hopefully this way they will be motivated and up and going on their own and I won't have to nag and they will finish by lunch!

I plan for their chores to include:

• Bedroom / Bed / Closet
• Assigned Room & Kitchen Chore
• Help Mom
• Practice Music 1 hour
• Read 1 hour

If they do all these things successfully and complete them before noon, they will receive a "Bonus Buck" which is an idea we did 2 years ago that worked well.  The Bucks they earn can be saved and used at "Mom's Store" which is open on Fridays.  I found this image that I printed up on green cardstock and cut up for the money.

The toner was a little smudged on some of them after printing.  As I was cutting them up, some of them would rub off and smear.  So then I thought I should laminate it or something... tried to made do with what I had so I wouldn't have to run an errand so I got some clear spray paint and sprayed them all.  Next time I'm going to do that before cutting them, cause those bucks would blow around as I sprayed them.  But the clear paint worked well, so I finished cutting and now I think we're ready for summer!  

Mom's Store will inclue $1, $5 and $10 treats and toys.  $1 items will be fun sized candy bars or small knick toys of the Zurcher type that cost me about 10 cents in real money.  $5 toys will include full sized candy bars and things that cost me about $1 in real money from the dollar store.  The $10 bin will be filled with toys and things that cost me $5- $6 in real money or certificates for outings or I don't know, something.  I will also let them know that if there is anything that they are really wanting for school in the fall, they need to save their bonus bucks to buy or help pay for that.  And the kids can save their $10 if they want till they can buy even bigger rewards at the real store.  I was also thinking they could have their own kid store where they can take their old toys or things they make to their own kid market and see what they come up with.

Heard of any other good ideas for summer?  I'm open to suggestions, although I need something that I won't need to manage too much, as I will have a newborn.  I had my 34 week appointment today, next appointment is in 2 weeks, then we'll go week to week.  I've been induced for 5 of my pregnancies, and I'm planning to go that route again this time.  The hospital will let you be induced when you are 39 weeks, so I talked to the Dr. today and said I'd like that and I'll be 39 on July 8th, so July 8th will be the day, I can call the hosptial to schedule it when I'm 37 weeks, so things are winding up, and I'm glad.  I'm feeling ultra large this past week and am really starting to waddle instead of walk.  Ready to reclaim my body.  

Summer of Torture

Well, I'm gearing up the kids to be ready for summer.  Hahaha, because once school is out that means there's no rush to get out the door, thus I get to hold them all hostage until they comply with my demands.  I thought we'd start this week with introducing my first "Hey, guess what we're doing this summer!!" idea which is: Eating Vegetables.

The kids have heard me blabbing on the past month about all the enlightenment I've received from reading Jonathan Bailor's "The Smarter Science of Slim" ~ I'm just feeling super empowered with health knowledge!  And the poor kids have to live this new lifestyle with me, so sad.  And I'm even prepared for their "I'm hungry" requests by keeping a plate of celery and vegetables on the counter to which I direct any such inquiring kids.

So evil of me.  Thankfully they are able find comfort in knowing the Roberts had to endure similar suffering childhoods.  We'll be having green smoothies for breakfast even.  

Monday was day 1 with a fruit smoothie.

Mel and Ethan did good eating it, Wesley wasn't so sure...

Now, my sweet Sophia has always been a willing captive, which I so appreciate.  She even likes Dr. Oz's super healthy green drink.  The Chocolate spinach protein shake was breakfast today.

So yeah, simple enough - first idea for summer is smoothies for breakfast, salads for lunch, and lots of sides of veggies for dinner.  We're gonna learn that it is good to feast of vegetables.  You know the 6-11 servings of grains recommended by the Government food pyramid?  Yeah, well scratch that off completely and replace it with vegetables.  10 or more servings a day.  Check out Jon's grocery shopping list for just two people, just him and his wife.  When I first read that, it looked like more than our family of 10 could do in a month.  Probably mostly has to do with a change in how we think about food and meals.  So we started off with baby steps the first two weeks with one bag of spinach and 3 romaine lettuce to warm us up, and then I upped the intensity on my last Coscto shopping trip with, get this, FOUR thingys of Romaine Lettuce (that's 24 heads) and two big bags of spinach and one bag of Kale.  Also got frozen fruit and veggies, salmon, shrimp, etc and 10 dozen eggs.  We went through the 10 dozen eggs on our last 2 week experiment, so that will be easy enough.  The vegetables though, I doubled those, ready for the green salads and smoothies.  Yes kids, we are going to eat more healthy.  Food that a person would see growing on a tree or in a garden. Real food.  A full fridge full of fresh and healthy food = full tummies full of fresh and healthy food.  And how easy is it to prep fruit and veggies?  You just have to rise them and cut them up, easy.  Minus the milk which I'm not a huge fan of, we might start easing up on that.  

It took me a month to come to terms with the idea of not buying bread.  I think I will grind wheat and make flour though, and we'll have one grain thing a day.  The kids get that for free, but I have to earn my carbs with a minimum 10 minute workout.  Easy enough.  :)

Cereal Sunday

I'm on a health kick.  I've been trying to cut back on the junk we eat, the first thing to go was the Malt O Meal cereal - Honey Blenders and Honey Nut Cheerios.  Those have been gone since March.  Other than that I've been easy on them.  I've taken it up a notch in May and I've got a full plan of attack in the works once school is out on Friday.  More on that later.  So, for breakfast, the kids have been having eggs or protein shakes.  But I have let them have cereal once a week on Sunday.  Wesley went shopping with me on Saturday and I let him pick out the cereal.  He chose "Fruity Dino Bites."  Ok, it's just one day, and we got the small bag.  Then I remembered it was the first Sunday of the month, and thus Fast Sunday.  The older kids usually fast, the kids under 8 years old don't.  When Ethan saw the bowl of rainbow colored junk his little sisters were eating he protested at the injustice of it all.  I said he could have some later in the day.

Ethan wanted the cereal as soon as he ended his fast, but I had a healthy vegetable overloaded dinner planned - steamed zucchini squash, a big bowl of salad with pico de gallo salsa, a plate of carrots and celery, and salmon.  NO, not yet.  Pester pester.  You guys finish that plate of celery and carrots and then you can have the cereal.  Ethan moaned for the first hour, but when I didn't give in he relented and took the plate and ate and chewed (oh, all this fiber!!) and tracked down his siblings and made each of them eat too, all the while complaining at how hard it was to eat the vegetables.  When it was finally gone I poured them all a bowl of junk cereal.  Ethan had finally gotten what he wanted but continued to intentionally get on my health nerves by practically purring as he ate ~ he kept saying things like "Mmmmm, these are SO GOOD, these taste so good... I LOVE this cereal.  This is the best cereal..." and other garbage like that.  I was trying not to let the fact that sugar addiction was bugging me out show, but I was stewing inside.  "I'm glad you're enjoying that cereal, Ethan.  Be sure to chew it slowly, cause I'm not buying that again for a long long time"  I almost said "I'm never buying that junk EVER AGAIN!!!", but didn't want to make an empty threat incase I do buy it sometime again for some dumb reason.  I was calm but felt like dumping the left over cereal into the garbage and said so outloud.  That made Ethan stop his sugar basking for a moment, but then he went on again and, although I don't like to waste food or money, I figured this didn't really count at food, and in an act to show I'm serious that we're done with junk cereal, I took the bag and dumped it down the garbage disposal in front of the kids.  They were sobered but didn't freak out, which I appreciated. Then I sprayed it with water and made sure I got it all soggy, lest some pathetic sugar cereal addicted child tried to salvage any of it from the top of the pile.

So yeah, no more cereal EVER.  I'll say that here.  I'm done with it, done with the junk and sugar.  No more.  I'll post more about my master plan for summer health tomorrow.  Watch this video for what I'm thinking and the book and author behind my latest kick.  Good stuff.

Hang a Spoon

Joseph taught Sophia a trick, the old "hang a spoon on your nose" trick.  He was so proud of his little student.

When it would fall off she's pick it up and throw it at him.

She's like a little puppy that the kids are trying to teach and train, it's fun.  Cute kids.

Ice Cream Picnic

On Monday night, to celebrate the safe return of Melodie and Ethan from their weekend trip to southern Utah, we decided to go to the park for a picnic.  We ate dinner at home first, then had an ice cream picnic.  Rocky Road and Cookies and Cream ice cream cones.  Kid heaven.

Our crew was able to finish off two half gallons before they even had a chance to melt.  I was impressed at their ability to consume.  We've never let them have that much ice cream in one sitting.  Well, maybe sometimes at a buffet restaurant or something.  Usually it's one cone and then I start my "that's enough sugar" lecture.  They even came back for more after the two half gallons were gone.  Sheesh!  That, my friends, is a low-Satiety and highly Agressive food, which I've been learning about (really enjoying this book).  So yeah, not such a healthy dessert for everyone.  I was proud that I controlled myself and just picked out some of the chocolate covered nuts as I scooped up the cones for the kids and then promptly told them to "get this stuff away from me".  That is also why this was a one time celebratory picnic.

After the treats we let them run around the park and they were all playing so nicely, it was great.  Ethan and Mel were especially happy to see Sophi.

Mel ate her ice cream with Sophi, and Ethan played on the slide with her.

They'd go down together, or Ethan would wait for her to go and then ask for her to catch him, to which she obliged.  I loved seeing her little squat, precious!

The girls took a break from tag to go see some horses that stopped by for a visit.

 After they'd worn each other out enough, Corey decided to get in the game.

...which he dominated, of course.  He says that's one of the fun things about being a dad, you finally are the biggest and fastest kid!

 King of the playground right there, oh yeah.

I Heart the Miracle Ball

I'd like to give a product endorsement for the Miracle Ball.  I first came upon the Miracle Ball in the fall of 2006.  We'd moved to Virginia and hadn't gotten settled yet, and Corey's back was aching regularly and he hadn't found a chiropractor.  I saw the Miracle Ball at Costco and figured it was a good alternative until he found a more permanent solution.  And we both loved these little things.  I remember hiding in my dark closet and laying on the balls and just letting the stress of my muscles fly away, it was very very nice and relaxing.  Being un-stressed by these balls might be one of the reasons why Virginia was such a great experience and why I absolutely loved it there.  I highly recommend these little miracle balls. They come with a booklet that explains how to use them.  Good stuff.

The kids keep using them as their toys over the years, so they've gotten lost and thrown over the fences or something and are always disappearing and I'm having to buy new ones.  I've got the purple pregnancy pair now that I keep a close eye on and do my best to keep away from the kids.  I'm not able to lay down on the floor very comfortably right now, but Corey uses them still, and I recently had Joe use them ~ here's that story.

On May 8th, the Wednesday after we got home from California, Joseph came to me at night complaining of a painful and stiff hip.  He tried to remember when the pain first started, it was small at first.  We tried to think of what he might have done that caused it to get injured, thinking maybe he landed wrong when he was using the waterslide at the resort ~at the beginning of it you could kinda swing yourself and drop into it.  Also, that night for scouts, they had gone up Bell Canyon on a hike and he fell out of a tree he was climbing.  Then he also ran down the mountain on the hike down.  Two things not good for ones hips, especially if one does not stretch.  So I'm thinking his pain is from tight muscles and joints.  Joe was hurting so bad he could hardly walk, he was trying to be tough but still had tears streaming down in face.  Gave him some asprin, did some googling, and tried to think more of what it could be, but I thought it was stress.  This boy is on the go go go all the time.  For example, on this particular day, he'd left for school at 5:30 a.m. for volleyball practice, then band right after, school all day, stayed after school for track, when he got home at 6:30 he ran in and asked if there was any food-on-the-go cause he had scouts and they were going on a hike, and he grabbed something and ran out.  Came home around 8 and tried to practice music despite the pain, that's when he came to me and told me he was hurting and I took him up to my closet and read to him the first few chapters of the Miracle Ball Book about breathing (breath out slowly while making the "ssss" sound), relaxing, and learning to no hold your breath and your stress in your muscles.  I had him lay down on the miracle ball and told him to relax.  His feet were still totally flexed.  RELAX kid.  You're too young to start seeing a chiropractor already!  Come on, breath.  You're too busy, you gotta slow down your life a bit...  I'm going to intervene here, Mr. Ambitious.  Seriously, I wasn't this busy when I was in 7th grade, it's ridiculous.  Maybe when I was a Senior in high school, but in 7th grade, no, this has got to stop.  He agreed he's gonna skip out on the volleyball next time, but he likes track and band, and 2 things might be okay, I'll think about it.  So the next morning he was still hurting, but not as bad.  I had him stay in bed, use Ethan's crutches to get around, and he stayed home from school and just slept and breathed and relaxed (while I played "yoga relaxation" music on shuffle repeat for him).

He was better by evening and went to school the next day, and now stretching and breathing properly are a part of our daily conversation with each other.  Don't know if Joe or I will ever be as limber as Miss Melodie the Flexible Wonder, but hopefully we'll be able to get rid of some of the stressful "issues in our tissues" (see the video at this link, watch from the beginning to 1:25).  So if you're stuffering from tight hamstrings and lower back pain, start with the miracle ball like us, and the 4 stretches the yoga lady recommends in that video link, and we'll see where we are in a year or so.  :)

Moab

On Thursday we let two of our children fly from the nest.  Melodie and Ethan are in Moab for the weekend with Uncle Mark and his boys.  They are having a holiday weekend of fun camping and river rafting.  We scared them with a few tales of people dying in the rapids - enough so that we expected they will be sober and safe and not make the list of river rafting fatalities this year.  As I picked up Joseph from school on Friday, Aunt Nancy and her family of little girls passed by us on the freeway as they headed down to join in the Southern Utah fun.  Joe's gone on overnight campouts before and several-day-long scout trips, this is the first time Melodie and Ethan have left us.  It makes me a little sad having them get lives of their own, but I guess that's life and it's inevetiable, I shall try to be strong as these occurances become more frequent.  I just got an email from Nancy that warmed my heart though...

"You have some really great kids!  So nice to have them with us- the only kids on the trip that haven't whined and complained about most everything... They help out and are fabulous to have around!!!"

Melodie and Ethan get on each other's nerves quite a bit around here, although perhaps it's no more than that which happens in all sibling relationships.  Still, I did think it would be good for them to be together and that it would help their relationship improve.  Excited to have them back home on Monday and hear about their trip and give them hugs and kisses and tell them that I'm so happy that even when they are grown and gone they will still and always be my kids forever and ever.

Music Practice

The same thing happens every night...  they come home from school at 4, take two hours to play to help them decompress.  Dinner is at 6, then... the music begins.  Music from every corner of the house.  In the study at my computer:

Hyrum's doing the smart music there tonight.  Corey's in the front room at the cd player, trying to convince Ethan that the Soprano Sax is an instrument worthy to touch his lips.

Ethan's not convinced, but eventually (and reluctantly) conceeds some ground to his father.

Joseph is in Corey's office, which Corey rarely uses anymore as it's kinda become the music room, sorry 'bout that dear.

And Melodie is showing off her talent in the kitchen.  After watching some Lindsey Stirling videos, Corey teased Mel that she needs to take it up a notch, and tells her to go jump on the trampoline or something while she plays her tunes.  She came up with this to please him ~ presenting Melodie, the hula-hooping flutist!  

Ethan's gotta get in on the action.  Little trickier with the saxophone.  Although Ethan, aren't you glad you're doing the soprano?  I don't think you could hula hoop with the alto.

Yup, your typical night of music practicing around her.  I was out in the front yard working last night and a couple passed by walking their dog, the man said to me "We went for a walk, we end up with a concert!"  Yes, a concert everynight with music coming from every window and every room.  A great thing for the kids to be spending their time with, great job to their dad.

Little Hobbit

One of Sophi's nicknames is "Hobbit Child" which name I think was given to her by her father one day when her hair looked particularly wild and cause she's just such a little halfling.  In these pictures her hair's been brushed and tamed a little.  When she wakes up in the morning though, she's usually got a real crazy hairdo.

If I don't put it up, she'll just carry on thoughout her day looking like this with hair in her face.  Here Sophi, let me help you brush that hair out of your view.

There it is!  There's your pretty face!!!  A little easier to read that way, right?  What a cutie.

ABC Books

When Joseph was a baby, we had a little board book of "Baby's ABCs" that had pictures of babies holding things for each letter of the alphabet.  As we read through the book one day and I saw B was of a baby holding a ball, I thought "I have a picture of Joseph holding a ball... and I have a picture of Joseph eating an apple..." and that's how I got the idea of a personalized ABC book.  6 of 8 kids have one.  Lily's is almost done.  I have kept up with making one for each kid, ...barely.  My goal usually is to finish the ABC book for a baby before the next baby came along, and I did good through Abi.  I finished hers before Lily was born, and I almost had Lily's done before Sophia was born, but then didn't every wrap it up, not sure why.  Well, Mel's been bugging me a little bit about it, asking when I'm going to finish Lily's ABC book, so I hunkered down and made a goal to finish it this month.  And I made a goal to finish Sophi's book during June.  I finished all the pages for Lily's book over the weekend, I just need to take the trip to Kinkos to get it laminated.  (I know it's FedEx office now or whatever, but I still call it kinkos, and I can do that since I used to work there.)

Love the picture of Corey kissing Lily on K ~ 

there's just something about a man kissing a baby...

So, since I'll have to get Sophia's laminated too, I'm saving myself a trip and will get them both laminated next month after I finish Sophi's book.  Here's how I make the books:

1 - Go through photos from the first 2-3 years of the child's life and pick out cute pictures that you like, trying to find one for each letter.  I usually have like 60+ photos that I narrow down.  Q is usually Quiet, sometimes it's Queen.  For X and Z I've been okay with using a word that had X or Z in it, like Box, Six, or Buzz (Lightyear).  I'll write out the ABCs and then look at each picture and see what letters I could use it for, since I usually end up shuffling them around from one letter to another to get the pictures I want and covering each letter.  Just keep narrowing it down.

2 - Then I figure out the colors that I want for each letter that compliment the final photo that was chosen.

3 - I've always used this type of Sketch notebook for the paper, since it's acid free and the right size for what I want, and I usually have had one on hand.

4 - Then I choose the font to use and go through and draw each letter in the color with a little saying under each picture, and I write the date on the side of the picture.  Here's an example from Melodie's ABC book.

5 - With scissors I round the corners of the pictures and the paper.

6 - Get it laminated - Find a store that has 10 milimeter lamination, as it's the strongest and will make it most durable from when the toddler's handle the books and write on them and get their sweet sticky hands on them.

And that's how I make my kids' ABC books.  :)  As the kids grow and go to college and get married, my plan is to keep them here and then giving them to each kid when their first child has their first birthday.  Won't that be fun!