Wes is 17!

Happy Birthday (yesterday) WESLEY!! 

I know the cake there says "LILY" but it said "WES" on the side that had the candles lit. They are used to sharing birthdays and parties. My parents came over to wish him a happy birthday, and the wished Lily a happy birthday too - 

It was a cake half for Lily and half for Wes. 

Opening a few presents - 

We had a neighborhood "walkabout" tonight, and we were all over at that until my mom texted that they were on their way, and then WL and I hurried home. (and Katharine). The house that the walkabout was at has a pretty amazing back yard!

Corey and most of the kids biked down, Wes drove, and Lily and I walked. It was nice, and other than leaving the house for that, it was a relatively slow paced stay at home Sunday. Joseph and two of his friends, Junior and Mario, coming up for dinner.  Corey and Mel got that ready, and I didn't help, but I did do the dishes afterwards and let Corey take a nap. I stayed out on family duty and nursed Katharine downstairs with the kids all around me. I had my quiet time over the weekend, now it's back to reality. Today for church, the girls dressed up Katharine in this 80s dress that my mom brought by for her - such a DOLL!

I helped out in Natalie's class at church, which she was thrilled about, cause that meant she got to be with Katharine!

It's a pretty stiff competition, but Natalie might be the most obsessed with Katharine. It is her very first little sister. Lily is in a tie with her, or is at a close second. They like changing her outfits. 

It was nice of Wes to make a little feast for Lily. It might have been a sign that he wanted someone to do something thoughtful for him, even if it was a busy traveling day. Sorry we didn't come through for you yesterday Wes! Wes is almost an adult though, so we'll just tease that it's time to start getting used to not very celebratory/lame adult birthdays, ha. Blowing out candles - 

and then we did Lily -

And THEN we did both of them again after Corey and the kids got back from the walkabout. 

I haven't given a present to either of them yet, and might just do ca$h, but I also am thinking I could take Lily shopping for shoes, cause she's needed a new pair for months. We'll see. Sorry I'm lame, I'm going to blame it on having a baby. It's your fault Katharine!

I can tell she feels guilty.

Back from Bear Lake

Corey was so nice to take the kids to Bear Lake. They got home around 4 today. I know that he was super spent, but I really really appreciated it and had a nice quiet time here at home with Katharine, I am very grateful! Thank you Corey! A few more photos that he sent of their fun - cute Daniel

Peter wearing someone else's shirt (I guess I didn't send him with enough clean clothes?"

Owen looking super hammered and like someone needs to get rid of that loose tooth as soon as possible...

I've been eyeing that tooth for a few weeks... 

It's been holding on for dear life though, but after I saw these pics I was determined to get it out even if O was telling me to stop. And I did get it out tonight, hallelujah and hello to a toothless and better looking smile on Owen. Playing cards with their cousins -

As soon as they got home, we unloaded the car, put away the sleeping bags, pads and tent, and I started a lot of sandy laundry. It's Wesley's birthday, but we didn't do anything to celebrate it today cause of Bear Lake and cause Corey and I had to go to our Ryan Hamilton performance at Kingsbury Hall. I got these tickets when he show was going to be in January and I didn't have a nursing baby, but got rescheduled because he got hit by a bus. I wasn't sure what I'd do with Katharine, but we ended up having Mel come with us, and she hung out close by with K and was going to text me if she woke up. It worked out great. We got to see the show - 

and Mel got some Costa Vida on us. 

Mel had quite a few people tell her congrats on her little one. :) I would have been pretty envious if I saw Mel TOTALLY not looking like she had any weight to lose for a woman who had a one month old. I hope no one is too hard on themselves when they saw them together.

Ryan Hamilton's first 20 min of jokes were about his accident, it was funny "It was a shuttle bus..." How people would say "you're going to get a lot of good material from this!" and his reply "Not worth it..." and "You're so lucky... it could have been so much worse!" "...I'm not feeling lucky..." "I'm on a hot streak now!" He did all the jokes in this clip, and at the end did the cat eye joke (I did think, after watching "What is a Woman", that that joke might not be politically correct in a few years!)

Bear Lake

Corey and the kids have had a fun day at Bear Lake. 

Wes asked last night about if he could drive up to Bear Lake after work. He worked at 7:30 this morning, and I texted Corey, he said that Chalane and Seth were headed up, so I texted them and we met up with them and they took Wes with them, so he's a lucky boy that he got to go cause I wasn't sure I wanted him to drive. I'm not there to give detailed description of their fun, but I'm sure it's like the past years (2020, 2019) only this year the water has receded a lot. Utah and the whole western United States are in a drought. It made for a long beach front and some good mud puddles, which Peter loved. 

and the bigger kids loved too!

Corey's brother Mark was so nice to host this outing again. He made the reservations, he brings the paddle boats and all the food, and we just have to bring the crowd!

And of course we venmo him a "thanks for letting us tag along again" tip.

Kids in the paddle boats this evening ~

I've had a quiet day here at home, which has been very nice. I have cleaned and organized a bit, and fed Katharine a lot. She's a cutie patootie.

Lily is 13!

Happy Birthday to Lily! As part of her birthday privileges, she was given a slight priority to hold Katharine.

We are very glad and happy that you were born, Lily!! Today was our last morning up in Park City, even though we had the room until tomorrow. We headed out a day early because we were going camping with Corey's brother and cousins up in Bear Lake this evening. I was not sure if I was going to go or not, but Corey was ok with me staying home to give Katharine (and myself) a break. The kids just want to hold her so much, it's a bit exasperating. Our bedroom door up in Park City didn't lock, so I'd just barely get her to sleep and some kid would go pick her up and start cooing and playing with her and wake her up. It's cute, and I get it, she's beautiful and you can't help but adore her, but the poor baby needs some rest. Her priority right now is to grow, and for that she needs milk and sleep. So yeah, I'm grateful to have a day off from protecting her from all her siblings!

So we stayed up late last night watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, then woke up late, and the kids watched more Avatar, then around 11:30 we started to pack up and headed home around 1. Corey stayed behind with Lily and Sophi, cause he bought a season bike haul pass for both of them, and he wants to try and get his money's worth from it, so they had to stay and go on another ride down the mountain with him. 

They had fun. I think they took Mojave, which he thought was a great kid path. 

When we got home, it was cute to see that Wes had made a special birthday breakfast of crepes for Lily. Corey, Lily, and Sophi weren't home until 5:30 so we had to keep the rest of the kids away from the food until Lily got back.

I ran to the store for a cake and strawberry ice cream, and I got home right before Corey and L&S. Lily enjoyed her crepes...

...and we unloaded the bikes, loaded up the tent and sleeping bags, kids switched out some of their luggage, and then we sang to Lily and had cake and ice cream - we put 1 and 3 candles on her cake for 13 years old - 

we were singing to Lily but we were all staring at cute Katharine - and then they left at 6:45 in the middle of a heavy rain storm. Mel drove the van with most of the kids, Corey took his car with S&L. Wes stayed behind again cause he has to work tomorrow morning, so it is a quiet house and I'm going to try and savor it. They will all be back Saturday afternoon. I think they'll head home after lunch on Saturday, cause Corey and I have Ryan Hamilton tickets for Saturday night. We didn't put up the birthday banner or have any gifts, and grandmas didn't stop by cause we were gone most of the day, but gmas will come by on Sunday I think, and I'm going to take Lily out to get shoes for her birthday, and I'm sure Corey will do something for her too. I hope it was an ok birthday for Lily, although I'm sure it was not as magical as younger birthdays were, which seems to be something that comes with age. It's all good though! Not being as spoiled as you'd like on your birthday is definitely a 1st world problem, so we're not going to complain. Our homes are not being bombed and we are safe and healthy, so we're going to count our many blessings and be grateful (right?!?) Yes. Happy birthday Lily! 

Swim and Puzzles

Today was the end of Joseph's summer break, so I took him back home so he could get his car and he had to be back in Provo at 10:30 for work and school. We left Park City at 8:40 to be home by 9:30 so he could leave and get to Provo on time. Wes went home with us, cause he has work today. So he gets to hang out in a quiet house, lucky boy. I'm sure he'll enjoy it. Then I took out the trash (it's garbage day) and took a picture of one of our lovely summer roses that is in glorious bloom - so lovely!

And then I turned around and headed back up to Park City. Up at the room, I did the usual of feed and change Katharine - 

And Corey took kids swimming,

Peter is cute in goggles.

Mel and Abi went shopping at the outlets, and Natalie and I worked on a puzzle - This is the bouncy ball puzzle that I did in 2018. Natalie was once again my most dedicated puzzle helper -

The kids came back from swimming for lunch, and Lily and Sophi joined in a little bit. Peter helped too. I would find out where a piece went and put it close to it and have Peter push it in. If I didn't wait for him to put it in place, he'd scold me for not letting him have a turn. It was cute. I kept saying "You're SO good at doing puzzles, Peter!" "Yeah, I good at puzzle!" 

I vaguely remember this puzzle being very hard and taking me a long time to do, but we were able to get this puzzle done in one day! I was impressed. I finished it with Peter, but we were missing two pieces that I guessed were lost, but then Natalie found them both on the floor - wow, I was not expecting that but was happy we still had all the pieces! 

We also started another 500 piece puzzle of the Nueschwanstein Castle in Germany, but it's a little harder and I don't think we'll be able to finish this one before we leave tomorrow, but we'll see how far we get. So that's been fun. After Mel and Abi got back from shopping at the outlets, Corey and Abi went on a bike ride. I drove them up to the MidMountain Trail by the Montage. They were back pretty quickly, like just over an hour, and since it was still 90 minutes until sunset, I thought maybe someone could drop me off and I could do it too, but I didn't ask anyone and couldn't find Corey, so I decided to just go on a short ride on the paved city trail instead. I told Mel to call me if Katharine woke up. So I just kept going and ended up at Round Top but then deciding to keep going and exploring a little more, and over an hour later I had taken a 18+ mile ride around the whole Park City area, like along I-80 and to Kimball Junction. So that was fun. When I was about as far as I could get, and I knew it would take me 30 minutes to get back if I turned around to backtrack or if I kept going forward, I called Corey to check in on everyone and aplogize for being gone so long, but they were all good - just watching Avatar, and Katharine was safe in Melodie's motherly arms. So it was all good and yay for me, I got my longest ride yet on Strava. :) I'm safe back now, the kids are still watching Avatar and we should probably stop them and all go to bed, but I guess it's summer, so we'll let them do "one" more episode (again and again...)

Swim and Smores

Today's family fun highlight was probably when everyone roasted smores this evening. 

The kids had been waiting patiently to be able to have smores, and tonight was the perfect moment, cause Corey was back from his short trip to Idaho, and it was good cause it was Joseph's last night of summer break. I'll give a few details of the day and then get back to the smores. So Peter has been our early riser this week. It seems to be brighter earlier in the morning up here on top of the mountains. Back at home we're in the shadow of the mountains for an hour after sunrise, but not up here. So Peter will come in and let me know "Mom! It's morning! It's not time to sleep!" This morning he came in and lay on the bed next to me and let me know "I lost my dad..." Corey went back home Sunday night cause he was going up to Idaho Falls Monday with a neighbor that he is working on the NARX project with. Corey got back to Salt Lake late and went home rather than drive up here so late. He got here at 3:30 this afternoon, but Peter was missing him this morning. But I thought that was a cute that he said he lost Corey. 

Don't worry Peter! He's not lost, and he'll always come back. Katharine was just cute today. She holds her little thumbs when she nurses and it's so cute. 

She also seems to really like the dark headboard here at Summit Watch, and the black frame of the picture above it. She will stare at it quite contently...

Until the kids come and get her or I get in the way of her view...

"Mom, you're in the way... I'm trying to train my eyes to learn how to focus and see, so if you'll excuse yourself I have work to do..." She's pretty sweet.

Katharine and I went to watch kids at the pool. 

I wasn't much help with Katharine in my arms, and Hyrum on the phone (he called for his p-day) so I was grateful when a nice dad in the pool helped Peter put on these goggles. 

Peter got hit when he and his brothers were wrestling and has a little bruise on his cheek. Getting a closer look to see his eyes a little squished. Cute kid

So we went swimming a few times. Dinner was shrimp fried rice and then the moment everyone had been waiting for - SMORE TIME! 

Corey and I both filming the fun - 

Joseph brought up some smore supplies and mentioned to Corey and I that: "I bought all this a month ago for a date, but then it got cancelled..." but Corey said "Don't tell them that!" We gave him our blessing to take advantage of the chance and pretend he was just a very thoughtful big brother and did this just for them! The kids had seen the bag of marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers and had asked us everyday "When are we doing smores?" "I don't know, those are Joseph's, ask him."

Joseph's smores gave me an idea for future family vacations and reunions that we might try out this year. Melodie had brought some craft supplies for the kids to make boats to float in the city creek, and it made me think that, for Park City with Corey's family at the end of July, each kid should come up with an activity to share with everyone. We might help with a budget, but maybe we'll just encourage them to be creative and see what they come up with without our financial help. That way they'll each hopefully take some ownership in the family activities and make fun things happen on their own initiative and without them sitting around waiting for us to entertain them or make things happen. It was fun doing smores and seeing the kids all help each other. Peter getting help from Joseph to blow out the flame on his marshmallow!

We usually don't do smores at the Mountainside, cause we never come prepared with our own supplies and the smores kits that the mountainside sells are too pricey for me. 

But this was good. 

Let's do it again! So after that, we came in and watched a little bit more Avatar... 

and then, since it was Joseph's last night of summer break, he got to choose the last activity and so we watched the Fugitive, which Corey had suggested. That was fun to watch with them. It's fun to hear all their reactions to everything (esp when we know the movie and what's going to happen and how it ends...) They were freaking out after the bus crashed and then when the train was coming. We learned a visual of why some big mistakes might be called "train wrecks" - it means it's a huge mess. So it's late and were finishing up the movie and it's going to be past midnight when we're done, but that's ok. I'm taking Joseph back home tomorrow so he can get his car and head back to Provo for work and school. He only got two days of summer break, we're glad he chose to spend it with us. :)