4th of July 2019

Happy Independence Day  Here is my favorite picture from today.

Natalie was holding Peter and he was trying to grab the flag but couldn't do it.

So Natalie helped him out and that one got a good wave of the stars and stripes. A good enough picture and appropriate enough to put on Instagram. I don't post there a lot, but there ya go, Happy 4th! We woke up early to go to the community fun run. Always a shame to wake a sleeping baby...

Hyrum hurt his back at Youth Conference, so he didn't want to run, so he carried Peter while I chased after and then encouraged the kids. I told Hyrum he didn't have to walk the whole thing holding Peter, he should take a short cut. He opted to take the sidelines after walking down the street, and then after a break he walked back to the start/finish line.

I helped Sophi this year, she did great. (We took a short cut though, so we didn't do the whole thing, shhh)

Abi ran with Diego and his kids. They wondered how Sophi and I had gotten ahead of them! But they quickly passed us up and hurried ahead.

Wesley pushed Daniel in the "not a jogging" stroller. He did the whole thing and got a good workout!

Lily nice and red in the face.

Iveth ran with Owen, so nice.

Group Pic at the finish line!

I can't remember why Mel and Natalie were so far behind, but Natalie was ticked cause she was tired so she didn't want to finish, so Mel made her, which Natalie didn't appreciate.

Peter is proud of Ethan and that he came this year... 

Giving him a big wet slobbery kiss to congratulate him on the good job he did.

Mel brought stuff for face painting again.

Lily helped.

Mel made a little card with different options for the children to choose.

Daniel got a flag on his face!

Enjoying the pancake breakfast.

Hyrum and I both passed again.

I don't know if Hyrum had already eaten or not, but I got my fill at home with some of the amazing July peaches at Costco - in July they are sooooooo juicy and delicious! So I was good and full and was able to keep an eye on kids running around. Lily and Wes got a little creative with the paint. Hyrum put a Batman and Robin thing on Wesley's calves, funny.

Wesley played To the Colors again, like last year. Lily and Wesley got a little creative with the paint - Lily is Avatar.

Then I made Wes stage a pose for the camera since I didn't get a good pic of him as he was playing.

There was a long line for breakfast. We killed time waiting for the parade to start.

Sophi's face painting

Abi brought patriotic fingernail polish and had her own little station for customers.

Daniel's siblings got a little too creative with him as their canvas.

He was having a good time until he tripped and fell and scraped his elbow.

Hyrum took Daniel home for me, Iveth and Diego agreed to keep and eye on the kids.

Have fun at the parade!

I saw a little bit as I left. I thought the Ghostbusters part was fun.

Daniel at home was mad at the world for the pain it had caused him.

I tripped on a bad part of the sidewalk during the fun run, so I showed him that I understood as I pointed out my scraped knee. He didn't care about my owie, all he knew was that he was in pain.

Later tonight, I took kids to the Holladay fireworks with Iveth and Diego. 

Natalie's pretty butterfly face -

They closed the playground an hour before the fireworks started, and that made Daniel mad. He kept trying to escape to run back there.

I agreed to follow him while Hyrum watched Peter (so nice to have big kids helping)

I just let Daniel wander and eventually he agreed to come to me and we went back to our blanket, where Maria comforted him.

Mel went and got grapes and food at Harmons, including a coconut Pie, which she fed to herself and Daniel by using her paintbrushes for chopsticks.

It rained earlier in the day today, and the clouds were looming and it looked like the fireworks everyone tonight could be rained out, but it was good. And the grass wasn't even that wet either. We made a master plan for our departure so that we wouldn't be stuck in the parking lot for 45 minutes trying to get out. Our plan worked perfectly!! We came in 3 cars - our van, Iveth and Diego's van, and Corey's car (he stayed home to work). Plan was: as soon as the fireworks finished... for Mel, Diego, and Me, to grab Owen, Daniel, and Peter and run to the cars. Iveth, the big kid helpers, (Hyrum, Wesley, Abi) and the other kids were to gather the stroller, the blankets, and everything else, and start to walk toward the cars, and we would be in the cars and on our way out of the traffic jammed parking lot and they'd be able to hurry and jump in and we'd go. It worked great! The only bad part was us being in the way of traffic briefly as we put the stroller in the back. But it was great, much better than our departures in years past.

We made a good team! It was a nice day

4th of July

I woke up early in the morn on July 4th stressed out for people who were in charge of our little community breakfast and fun run and other festivities.  It was pouring rain outside, hard, and there was thunder and lightening.  I thought the holiday fun was going to be ruined.  It still looked drizzly when we woke up at 6.  Corey and Mel had volunteered to help with breakfast, so they headed over.  The fun run was at 7:00.  Joseph had been training and his best time during his trial runs was 12:06, then with each subsequent run his time increased.  I thought the rain might improve his chances of winning if people who were going to run bailed out.  Well, I called Corey to see if the party was still on, and it was, so I dropped off the older kids for the fun run and went home to finish getting the little ones ready (Poor Lily was beside herself, she couldn't find her fun run t-shirt).  We got Sophi out of bed and headed out.  When we came over, the crowd of fun runners was just leaving the gate.  I walked it a little bit of the route with Abi, Lily and Sophi.  We walked down the street and were at the school when we saw Joseph come around the corner on his way to the finish line.  There were 3 guys in front of him (3 tall and bookin' it teenagers, it was going to be a close finish) and then Joseph was coming with another guy.  I turned around to head back to the finish line and when we saw Joseph I asked him what his time was.  With a big and proud smile he said "11:35".  My best time last year was 13:11, his best was 13:48, so major improvement for this little up and coming track star.  SO, next year, I am going to let Jospeh take the lead, I'll let him set the pace and if I can just keep up with him, I should be able to win the women's division.  Then I'll let him keep the trophy.  Great job, Joseph, he was so happy, he said that that was the best part of the whole day "I like improved my time by 40 seconds!!!"

After that we enjoyed breakfast, then I went home, cause I didn't have the mental or physical capacity or desire to keep track of 3 little girls in a big crowd of people.

We didn't do much during the day ~ Corey took Joseph and Melodie to a movie as a reward for them being such great helpers at the breakfast with cleaning up and serving, much to the other kid's disappointment, but he asked them to help, they didn't want to.  They didn't know a movie reward was on the line, and it probably wasn't at the time, but Corey was really thankful for their help.

That night we had a little bbq with family and then hung out over at the neighborhood "Circle of Fun" - no fireworks this year since they weren't allowed past 27th east.  But from our neighbor's backyard we could see them firing off all over the valley, so I thought that was really cool.  It made me think of how it might have really been for our country's revolutionary heros, different battles and skirmishes all over a city trying to win it for their country.  We had a panoramic view of the battle for Salt Lake last night.  The kids played basket ball, had popcorn and cotton candy, and ran around with their friends throwing glowsticks.  Ethan was disappointed he wasn't able to light any fireworks and wants us to step it up next year, maybe we'll go to a big show put on by the city.  We went to the Sugarhouse fireworks a lot when I was a kid, maybe we'll do that next year.

4th Of July

It was the 4th of July breakfast this morning, yay. But things are not the same... I went and did have a bite of pancake and then fed Daniel the rest of my pancakes. No eggs or ham or milk for me. The kids kinda eat whatever is put in front of them, so they ate stuff. Owen liked the chocolate milk.

Sophi's got a smile on her face, her stitches behind the pink bandaid aren't bothering her at all.

The only older kids that made it to the breakfast activities were Joseph and Melodie. Ethan, Hyrum and Wes were all home feeling sick, after spending the night outside at the pavilion guarding the breakfast set up. I ran the fun run with Lily. I took the little boys back home after breakfast and Corey stayed for the festivities. Abi, Lily, and Sophi were in a kazoo band float in the parade!

Then they went to the community carnival, which had a new twist this year: it was all free! Melodie brought her paints and did some face painting for all the little kids. When she got home, she continued her work on her little sisters: Natalie wanted an Ariel on her foot...

And a fairy on her hand...

And a Rapunzel on her other foot!

...and a fairy for Sophi's hand too.

Here was an experiment that Abi volunteered for: turn your nose into the Liberty Bell!

And a fairy for Sophi's hand too. :)

This was another experiment, Wesley's idea I think. The eyes aren't looking in the same direction, so they'll have to try again another time to make it look more realistic. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Owen to accept this new version of his big brother.

So a funny story... Joseph has been talking a bit of smack with his friends about which of them would get a faster time at the fun run race this morning. Joseph trained a little bit, but he's like me and thinks running hard is kind of a horrible and unnecessary experience. Still he can crank out a good sprint if he needs to. So he was ready to just kill himself for 12 minutes. Unfortunately, the night before the 7 am run, he had volunteered to stay over at the pavillion to keep watch over the breakfast set up and supplies. So he was up late with all his friends. And he was eating ice cream at 1 am. And then they went to bed. Then they woke up when the sprinklers went off where they were sleeping! So then they were awake until 3 and did another grocery store run for some Jarritos drinks, which I had never heard of before. Most of his friends went home sick when the sun came up. Ethan and Hyrum, who were amon the volunteers, came home and slept. Joseph got up and ran the race. He didn't win. He thinks he did great though, considering he was running on no sleep and no good nutrition in his body. Just think of what you could have done with a good night's sleep and a healthy breakfast. Kids...

So Joseph came home after the race and after breakfast and crashed. We had a pretty lazy day, and then went this evening to the Holladay Fireworks with Corey's sister and her girls. Corey went and bought some fries. Natalie had a meltdown at the restaurant's ordering counter cause she wanted cookies.

For how scared Owen is at things (like dogs and my mother) I thought he would probably be a bit startled by the fireworks. But he enjoyed them and was just chillin in Corey's arms.

I guess he just needs his daddy nearby.

Btw, it's hard with my phone camera to take a picture in the dark. I accidentally turned on the flash for a brief second and about blinded everyone around us. So then I had to wait for the fireworks to provide lighting. So I took a video and then did still shots from that. Captured the moment pretty well I guess.

Daniel did great too, not a peep of concern or boredom. See him sitting up and mesmerized by the show?

Cute baby, love my kids

After it was done we headed to the cars. There was a long wait in the parking lot to get home afterward, and these two cars in front of me were about to have road rage in the parking lot, pretty pathetic. Listen, neither of you is getting out of here quickly, just relax! Easy for me to say with Daniel screaming his head off in the back seat? Another car who could hear Daniel through our open window, called to me "Mother!" and I looked, and then he signaled for me to go first ahead of him. That is the right way to get out of a jammed parking lot. Be courteous, let others go first, accept when they let you go first. Don't keep inching your car ahead of the other and risk getting bumped and then honk and swear, that's just really dumb. Thank you to that nice man for letting us go first. Very kind. I like kind people.

ps. 3 Oct 2017: Hyrum would like to submit this correction:
CORRECTION: Ethan and I stayed home that day because of the junk we ate the night before. Wesley was guilty and probably bribed you into posting that the far left kid wasn't him. Well ha! I know that's him, because he told me the kazoo band was way worse than he anticipated, with a bunch of 5-9 yr old kids blowing into these kazoo's as hard as they can, sounding like a class with Ms. Taylor. Ha!
-Hyrum