Hopefully Potty Trained

Today was a good day. Corey took a few kids skiing on the kiddie hill at Alta this afternoon (Abi, Sophi, Owen, and Daniel) that's always fun. I'll try to get some of his pics here. Or if you're some future historian doing research here, there should be some skiing pictures and videos on our family cloud drive. That's where most of Corey's pictures are videos are all ending up, unless I ask him to send me some on Whatsapp. We need to figure out what to do with his stuff so they aren't just lost in computer storage. Well, just know that he takes more pictures than I do. And the kids take lots of nonsense videos and hundreds of selfies on his phone too, so yeah, there's stuff there.

The thing I'm most excited about from today is that I think that Daniel is almost potty trained. I forgot to get diapers his size today at Walmart, and I'm almost out of diapers, so instead of running out again I figured let's do this - and I've been buckled down for the day watching him (except for just crossing my fingers while he went skiing). Tonight I could just tell by a look on his face that he was about to go hide and do #2 somewhere in privacy, but I grabbed him and wooshed him away to the toilet and there FINALLY did it! A month into this and he had his first successful #2 in the toilet. I had been trying to bribe him with ice cream for days and weeks: "If you go poop in potty, I will buy you ice cream!" And cookies, and candy, and whatever you want - it was reverse terrorism negotiation "I will meet your demands!" "Just poop in the potty and I will get you whatever you want!" Well, the son of a gun did it, so off we went to the store....

...and to the ice cream isle -

And he picked out drumsticks. (And I got some vegan soy bars for Hyrum and myself) 

And we brought them home and shared them. 

We have not had ice cream for a long time. We ate ice cream almost daily in Brazil in 2015, it helped us cope. I'm an anti-dairy flexitarian now, a flexible vegan, so I let cow cream slide as a birthday-day only treat. But we haven't had any birthdays since September! Well, we did have Mel's but she was at college so we didn't have cake and ice cream here (Natalie was a bit ticked off) and we didn't have cake and ice cream for Joseph's birthday either, cause he's gone, and we didn't have it for Peter either, cause P doesn't care. So yeah, this really is a special treat now cause it is a rare delicacy.

They did this little "cheers" thing, like they were making a toast "To Daniel!" "To clean underwear!"  "To ice cream!" 

I'll keep an eye on him for the next few days, but I'm glad we crossed this hurdle and he knows how it's supposed to be done. And we made such a big deal about it, I hope that it works. After him, I've just got one more kid in diapers! After 20+ years of this, that's crazy. I can hardly imagine not having to change a kid's diaper, but I bet it will be nice! Peter, you're next.

Freaky Face

Tonight Lily and I were in my room helping Peter practice walking.

He's getting a little better each day! Today he took 8 steps! So we were minding our own business and helping Peter practice when a freaky looking something came up to Lily and scared her.

And we were very surprised - "What in the world!?!? What are you wearing?" It was some hydration facial mask thing, I don't know where she got it.

Abi was laughing so hard, which made her look even more scary, which made her laugh more, which made us laugh more, and in the downward spiral we went....

Well, you do look very weird! And after scaring Lily she bent over to scare Peter.

We looked at her with some confusion and wonder. Peter wasn't having anything to do with it though. Abi felt in character cause she went to put on my China robe -

And then tried to reach out to hold Peter....

Nope, Abi, Peter doesn't want anything to do with you. Then she went for a red blanket -

Yes, Abi, you definitely still look very weird and strange!

It's fun to be creative! Go show your siblings Abi, that's a funny facial mask.

Grumpy Faces

Hi. Here is what Peter looked like this morning....

This is also what he looks like most every morning....

...and practically every time he wakes up from a nap.

I don't know if he has bad dreams, or if he wishes he could keep sleeping or what his deal is? I tell him he's free to go back to bed, but he just throws a little fit and curses me for a few minutes. He continues being mad as I change his diaper and he kicks my hands away from him. Oh, that little pouty lip, Peter! You're just a little sad guy. And with his tired puffy little eyes, it looked like a total newborn face when they are just delivered and wondering what happened to them and what all the bright ligths are for.

Mommy's monster... that's an appropriate shirt you're wearing Peter. He wasn't the only grumpy face. His older brother gets grumpy and pouty too - Those are pretty good sad eyes you have there Daniel.

He wants his bottle. He still drinks from a bottle. We're kinda trying to move on from it, and Daniel does know how to use a cup, but I keep the bottles around for Peter, but if Daniel sees one he claims it and cries for it and I usually give in to his pleas. They're not grumpy that much, but when they are, I'm glad that I usually find it cute and funny.

Birthday Cake and a Dance Party

Well Peter, I'm sorry we didn't feed you any cake on your birthday. We had it, but I was just waiting/hoping to have everyone at home to sing to you. But it didn't happen yesterday, and it didn't look like it would happen any other day of this week, so I figured since someone's always gonna be gone, we might as well just do it. So we sang to him after Abi and the girls got home from school

Happy birthday to you - happy birthday to you! (give me that cake candle!)

Happy birthday dear Peterrrrr (No you can't touch it...)

Happy birthday to you!

Make a wish!

He was cute putting his feet on the table... Studying the smoke from the blown out candle...

We love this little guy. One year done and gone - and once again, I marvel at how fast that went.  

Peter is a joy to have around. Except for when he wakes up grumpy. And Owen doesn't like it much when Peter bites him. Owen and Peter were in the car with me as we picked up the fiesta (which got fixed after Hyrum's snow curb accident) and took it out to the boys at Skyline (so that I don't have to spend hours of my day to take them to the Soundhouse). Owen was playing with Peter and put his finger in Peter's mouth.... which didn't end up well. 

Peter bit his finger. Owen was quite shocked, he didn't realize how dangerous and painful that would be.

He tried to be so brave and he endured the pain. You're a good boy Owen. Peter! Don't bite your brother again!

You probably shouldn't stand on the table either. Looking at his book that my mom brought over for his birthday. 

The kids threw an impromptu concert tonight - 

Daniel! I like that twist and shout!

Owen's finger is healed and he played some sick tunes on the piano for us to night, yeah!

They all make a good sounding band (not really, but we can pretend).

Peter's First Birthday

Hi! I'm Owen! And today is my little brother Peter's Birthday!! Say "happy birthday to me!" Peter! Here, I'll help you!

"'Happy birthday to me....'" (Peter bats away his hand... "Owen, don't touch me...")

Good job Peter. I showed Peter how to open presents...

We didn't have any cake or ice cream today for Peter's birthday, but my mom said we'll have a treat for Peter's birthday another day this week. Oh, and mom and dad didn't get Peter any presents either, but that's ok. They give us food, shelter, and love, and that's all we really need. Plus I'll let Peter have my hand me down toys, so he'll have plenty to play with. My Mom would just him used toys at Kid to Kid anyway, so it works.

So, yeah, I'm Owen, and I thought I'd also that that this is what I had for breakfast this morning.

Yeah, that's a cup of brown sugar that I dished out for myself. My mom makes oatmeal, but I like to sneak away with the bag of brown sugar and just eat that. She gets out the sugar for my dad, and then I wait until dad opens it and get sugar for his oatmeal, and then I swipe it when he's gone and I'm free to go eat it under the table. I don't eat it under there cause I'm trying to hide what I'm doing from my mother or anything like that, I just like it under there. One other thing that my mom wanted to share was this picture she took of her letting a kid help put the gas in the car.

It's probably not the first time she's ever done it, but she rarely invites any of us to help her, so she just wanted this put here as proof that she did let Lily help once. Maybe someday she'll let me help. Ok, I guess that's it for now, bye!

Power Out and Stuff

When I was a kid, I remember always being excited when something out of the usual happened - like snow days or the power going out. Today we had one of those cause the power went out. It was around 8pm and I was on my way home with Corey. (I was bring him home from work cause we are down to two cars since Corey's car's engine got ruined, so this month, I have been dropping him off at the Salt Mine then picking him up. He's also taken an Uber a few times) So on our way home we noticed a car on the side of the road close to our house that appeared to have hit a power pole. And as we drove into the neighborhood, all the lights were off, except for 2 homes which seem to have generators and seem to be prepared for the last days (one of which is Elder Christofferson's former home) Looks like we know where we'll all be doing our cooking when Armaggedon hits, haha. The kids were pretty excited about the power being out - nothing to do when we don't have internet and can't use computers or tv. (I should have charged my phone earlier!) 

Good thing the kids knew where the candles and flashlights were. We wondered how we were going to open the garage for school in the morning? Will we wake up without alarms? We were getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We took the time to do some nice old fashioned family reading! From a book!

The power wasn't out for long - just an hour and then phew, crisis averted. So that was a fun memory that I bet the kids will have fuzzy recollections of. Other than that it was a normal Monday full of the usual return to routine, school and homework. For naptime, the little boys slept on our bedroom couch -

I went to take Sophi and Natalie to violin. Peter came along and played with toys, and Natalie took 30+ pictures of him.

Sophi is ready for her lesson with a monkey friend named Banana on her music stand, ready to listen in.

Banana is Sophi's 2nd grade's class pet/stuffed animal. Miss Amy checking Sophi's form and position -

We are all enjoying violin, I'm probably enjoying it the most. The boys played legos tonight. 

I know Hyrum and Wes have school work to do, but they seem to try and avoid homework by coming in the basement and playing.

Wesley said they're not playing legos - they are building with architectural building blocks. He's got to make it not sound so juvenile. The girls have been playing with their barbies a lot - and cutting up socks as they play. Here's a dress made of a glasses cleaning cloth and lots of hair elastics

I kinda shake y head at them using for their doll's fashion wear all the hair elastics I just bought for their hair, but I can usually find one when/if I need one, so I shouldn't complain. One last thing - Abi is working on a "diamond painting" for Iveth. Before Christmas, when I was working on Mel's painting gift, and all the kids wanted to help. So I stocked up on a few paint kids and other craft kids, and this diamond painting was one of them I ordered.

She's making it for Iveth cause Iveth loves sunflowers. Abi has been working on it a lot in any free moment she finds. It's a good thing to spend her time doing and I'm glad she's enjoying it.