Last Day, CHRC, Tulip Festival

Today is Hyrum's LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! Hyrum was waiting to get picked up by his friend for his last day of school, and I was pulling out of the garage when it occurred to me that this was his last day of high school! I told him to come out so I could get a "last day of school" pic of our senior. "I don't want to come out!" "Come on! Today is a very big day! It's your last day of high school!" "I could tell he was coming outside for me, as he continued to say "No, I don't want to" and then he stood there for me. Such a good and obedient son. 

Just like the old elementary school pics... Wow - 10 years ago! And now they've all gone and flown the nest! 

Joseph was in 6th grade, Mel 5th, Ethan 4th, Hyrum 3rd... "Time flies on wings of lightening, we cannot call it back." So Hyrum continued to talk to me through my phone... "Just use the picture you took for my yearbook ad cause I'm literally wearing the exact same outfit..." he said (and he was!). I took a quick pic, he turned and walked back inside. "Thank you!" I said as I drove away. A closing picture of Hyrum's high school experience (except for a graduation pic) is in the books. 

I continued on my way out with the little boys. We were headed over to the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center with 4 racquets and lots of balls. We walked in and I bought a family membership. I just got the basic, but I might need to upgrade to Premium, because I didn't realize that the weight lifting room is not included, and that's a bummer, cause that's one of the reasons why I really wanted this. It's going to be my gym. For the kids, I really just wanted a walled in place where the kids could go be loud. And after they all had fun at our gym time at the church last week, I knew this would be a good thing.

They kicked and hit and threw the balls over and over again.

Peter always kept the little green soccer ball close by.

Owen went back and forth between racquets and kicking. 

Daniel stuck with the racquets the whole time. 

I only had tennis balls last week, but I got some racquetballs over the weekend. Now the blue balls and Daniel's favorite. They are so bouncy! We came home in time for Owen to catch the bus for kindergarten. Daniel went over to play with a new neighbor boy, Oliver. He was over there yesterday too. That just left me with one! Just me and Peter.... what will I do with my time? He didn't take a nap, but here is a picture of him this morning. 

Cute little crossed feet.

I think this rec center membership will be great for our family. It's another fun thing to do along with the Thanksgiving Point Membership that we also got last month. With these two memberships we should be set. We went to the Tulip Festival today at 5:15. Such a good Earth Day activity, huh! (...but we didn't plan it because of that, but we'll pretend we did!) We had plans to go with Joseph and a good "friend" of his named Emily. Well... they are a little more than friends right now. Joseph's sisters kept teasing him about all the TWO-LIPS and then they'd giggle. Joseph said "I expected nothing less!" 

Abi didn't tease much, it was mostly Lily, Sophi, and Natalie. There are more flowers here than just two-lips, you silly girls!

Abi did get annoyed by my wanting to stop and take so many pictures. 

Yes, I do have hundreds of pictures of flowers from the Tulip Festivals from years past, but still! I'm trying to enjoy the flowers of the present moment. Group picture! But Owen didn't want to sit for it. But he did walk in circles past them... This was the best "group" pic we could do for now with Owen in it.

Daniel was very friendly with Emily and was hogging her lap and arms. She carried him and he was hugging her. Looking at white blossoms - it looked like the Tree of Life!

Joseph there behind - Daniel's moving in on his girl! We came in two cars, because Corey came from work and also picked up Natalie on his way here. So Corey was a little later than us. When he did arrive, he intercepted Daniel who was still having her carry him and he was stroking her hair. New rule: Hop down, it's Joseph's turn. Daniel was not allowed to touch her anymore while we were there. Daniel obeyed very well. Corey also had to let Emily know that she's not the first girl that Daniel has professed his undying affection to, ha! and we shared the little funny story of Daniel and Aurora. 

The flowers were beautiful. I was very happy we came. 

Emily hadn't been there before. We all thought that Joseph and her make a lovely couple. 

We tried to give them a little bit of time together without all of the little siblings hanging on Joseph or harassing them, but they still got plenty of being hung on.

It was a very good day and we're looking forward to the weekend. I brought some boxes for Joseph to take down to Provo and he's packing up tonight, checking out of his dorm in the morning, bringing things up tomorrow with Emily's help (she had a car) and I think they are going to spend the day with us? And then he's going back down again tomorrow night and spending the night with friends and then coming up Saturday morning on his motorcycle to bring that home for storage while he's gone for the summer. Sounds like a plan. When we said goodbye to Joseph and Emily, she asked to give Daniel a hug. Daniel wanted to, but held himself in reserve until Corey approved: You can give her one hug! It was a good day: busy, fun and full. Life is good.

Dinosaur Museum Again

I had a really bad night of sleep last night. It seem like Peter woke me up every 30 minutes with his fussing. Then Daniel and Peter were both awake and following me into my room at 4 am when I tried to sneak away to go in and charge my phone. Blah. It rained in the valley last night and was snowing in the mountains up until 7 am this morning. Then it cleared up and now it's a beautiful sunny day with highs at Alta only getting to 34 by this afternoon, it would have been a perfect day to ski. Sigh. Corey said he can't go on Friday either. Maybe I can get Hyrum to come with me. We'll see. So I was already feeling a little cranky this morning, and wishing I was up in the mountains instead of here... and then I had Daniel pestering me to let him go to school. (I really wish he wasn't a September birthday...) Poor kid has to wait until next year! As in 2022! He's more anxious than Abi was, and he can get a little bossy and mean... I need to figure out how to handle his "mindless, inexhaustible, unstoppable, repetitive, and nagging demands!" (name that movie!). When fall 2022 comes around, I'm considering getting him tested to join the 1st graders, cause he is already ready, he'll be super ready in 2022 and kindergarten might just be boring. But we'll see when the time comes. 

So I was on the computer looking into preschools, and he was breathing down my neck cause he wanted to do something NOW and TODAY and coloring and painting wasn't going to cut it. So I thought hmm, it's almost time for the Tulip Festival. We've had a year pause of our membership, I think it's a good time to get our Membership again. So we did, and we scheduled an appointment to go down to the dinosaur museum at 6:30. Then Daniel said he wanted to go NOW and I let him push me around, so I called and changed it to 4:30, and we got our shoes on and went to go wait for Sophi and Natalie and Owen to get off the bus. We loaded in and off we went. Yay! The Dinosaur Museum!

The girls were having flashbacks - "I remember coming here when I was little!!" (as in two years ago) You girls still are little, but that is fun that they feel so grown up and feel like they've had so much life experience that they are able to look back and remember when they were little. (Ok, I guess you were pretty little 5 years ago). Natalie showing Peter the ways of the sand table. 

There were no aprons or costumes right now with covid.

It was fun. They were happy that they were able to do their little Lion King reenactment on Pride Rock again (see pic #16) although Peter is getting too heavy.

And I am also glad that we weren't able to just go visit every attraction that the kids felt drawn to. "We need an appointment, we'll go there next time." This will be good for us to plan before hand what we'll do. And here's another photo of today, Peter eating his steel cut oatmeal. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how Peter says "Day-doo Mommy" when I give him food or a cup of water or a kiss on the head. It is the cutest thing ever. He gives the best hugs and the best words of thanks. The older kids love it too, and I often point out to them "You know how when Peter hugs your or is sweet and your heart just melts and wants to scream at his cuteness at the same time? Well, that is JOY. That is what we want in life, and you find it in children." Sure, all the Captain Hook complaints are there too, but it's a good trade. You gotta have opposition. I'll take the endless demands he'll make as a 4 year old if it means I get a few more months of hugs and his "Day-doo Mommy"-s. 

Easter Saturday

I went on a walk this morning. It is a beautiful day-before-Easter Saturday. The only sad thing about all these lovely spring flowers is their short life. I wish tulips and daffodils lasted through summer.

I'm totally bummed that all the venues at Thanksgiving Point are temporarily closed cause of Coronavirus! That means no Tulip Festival this year, and I was really looking forward too it. So sad.

Flowers represent new life and also to bring lovely smells to the earth. I learned recently that in early times, fragrant funeral flowers were placed on and around the casket of the deceased to perfume the area and ward off the smell of the decaying body.

That seems also an appropriate thing for today as the Savior's body lay in the tomb. Tomorrow he we will celebrate his resurrection!

After my walk, I went inside and hollered to Natalie to let her know of the note that was on our front door -

Another Easter Egg Hunt delivered by the primary! This time it was her teachers, Sister Anne and Sister Holly.

Natalie found all 16 eggs.

She came right inside and shared an egg with all of her siblings, which is a lot when you've got 11 of them. She gave me a treat too (I'm saving it to give back to her later). And she shared with everyone before she even had enjoyed one yet.

She's still our sweet trick or treater. Our ministering sister Joanna came by today with an easter treat and some hand me down clothes from her husband which Joseph was very grateful for. He kept all the shirts except the U of U one, haha. I passed out the robin eggs to all the kids and gave Natalie an extra helping cause she shared her treats with everyone.

During my walk, I noticed a house with water turned on in their backyard and flooding out into the gutter. (I hope her basement was ok). When I came home, our sprinkler boxes were flooded too and the grass. The front yard is at a slant, so it was ok and it all was running into the gutter. I thought that this was probably because the irrigation water was turned on. While playing in the back yard, the kids came running in telling us with great alarm it was starting to flood by the swingset. Our neighbors, who we rent from, were getting flooded in their backyard which is over the fence from us, so we were all out and trying to fix the problem, and it was great to see people! We aren't alone in this world, we have friends! We stood in a circle a safe distance apart and talked about covid-19 and the effect on their business and Corey's employment (he was told Wednesday that Friday would be his last day, so he's looking for work, prayers appreciated) and talked about how our missionaries are adjusting to being home. The conversation location changed to the back fence and I came inside and called for Joseph to go out and say hi to their missionary Brox. He was only out for 7 months so he will be reassigned, hopefully soon, unlike Joseph who was released. After we were all done fixing the sprinklers and visiting, we went back inside to continue with our day, but Brox and Joseph stayed out talking for over an hour. It was cute to see them.

One good thing about all the missionaries coming home is that they have each other for support. Joseph's bff Talmage just finished his 2 week isolation yesterday. Joseph will be done tomorrow. That wasn't so bad. Maybe Joseph can go on a walk with me now! I think J has a job lined up. Corey already has already cast out a few lines and had a few interviews yesterday, so we still did our Costco run for date night. Corey was too busy for date night last night so we did it today. We went to the dry cleaner, UPS to ship Corey's work computer back to San Francisco, and then we went by my sister's house and picked up some scooters and bikes that she said her kids had outgrown. Then to Murray and by Summerhays first - I needed to buy an A string for Sophi, her's broke on Thursday. I got a new set of strings for her and Natalie and two for my two violins, cause I bet they are old strings. Then to Coscto in Murray, but they didn't have the computer Corey wanted, but they did have it in Sandy, so we left and went to that Costco to stand in line again. Just like standing in line at Disneyland. Thankfully we didn't spend $1200 this time, just $700. I know it looks like we're hording stuff, and with two carts again, we were hoarding a bit. But, we do have 12 children at home...

(We do our shopping on the weekend though) I guess if we were smart we should do Tuesday, it's probably less busy. And if a family of 6 gets that much each week, I guess it is okay that we had two carts full. We got lots of honey and strawberry jam, bread, clementines, ceasar salads, potatoes and other stuff. We rearranged the pantries today and have the locked one in the kitchen now just for food. And the big pantry that we put the broom in didn't latch closed well so it was kinda always left unlocked anyways. So Corey moved that keylock up to the hall closet that is closes to our room and we're going to put stuff in there that we don't want the kids to have free reign too - like scotch tape! I will finally be able to buy tape and always know where I can find some! So I'm excited for that. We are putting batteries and flashlights in there, and the Nerf guns (those were previously in the kitchen pantry but now we're using the locked kitchen pantry just for food.) Corey and I cleaned out the hall closet text heart ♥together♥! And it was lovely (my love language is quality time). We're going to clean in the basement together ...but not until the DI opens up (I'm also sad that they're closed). I've already got a big pile to give away and since I can't take donate it yet, my motivation is a little gone.

Dinosaur Museum

We renewed our membership to Thanksgiving Point in April when I took Iveth to see the Tulip Festival. After that, Corey used it once to take the kids and our friend Junior there for Mel's Lyceum concert, but I haven't been back yet. Seems like a good time to put that membership back to good use, so for now we're gonna say today is "Tiffanie Tuesday", which means that I get to choose the activity, so let's go! We left around 6 right as Corey was getting home (which was good cause he has a lot of work he needs to do). Peter cried the whole drive there. I think he was worried we were driving to California again! He was fine, but it's always sad to hear him crying uncontrollably. We started off in the dinosaur dig area where I could sit and nurse Peter while they played.

He was very animated as he talked some gibberish stuff with an excited "DINOSAUR" thrown in the sentence. I had no idea what he was saying, but looked interested and said "wow!" Daniel was really excited about the dinosaur bones!

I brought some toy cars for Owen to use and that was fun too.

Digging for bones with dish washing scrub brushes.  

Daniel again explaining the excavation project they are working on.

So after I fed Peter, we went back out to the beginning of the museum. They liked walking through the dark space/universe bridge thing. Then we were back in prehistoric times looking at trilobites and lots of ancient plants and creatures. Group pic -

And over to the dinosaur area, another group pic!

They had a new area called "Design a Dino" where the kids used random felt pieces on a wall to make creations. They loved that part. Abi's final creation was the "Cirlce of Life" (Dinosaurs eating a prehistoric person)

Sophi's Dino, beach, and boat creation.

Lily made lots of dinosaurs. Daniel didn't help, but wanted to be in the pic.

Natalie did a person on the grass by a river.

Ok, that's enough fun there. Over to the sand table!

Of course they loved that area.

Busy at work, cute in their little aprons.

I nursed Peter. Then looked around. Abi took a picture of me showing Natalie a display of some guy named Homer Behunin from Redmond Utah who in the 60s found all these petrified plants - like small seeds and pinecones.

How the heck he could tell a seed turned into rock from a real rock/pebble is a mystery to me, but some how he could tell!

It was a neat display. And his contribution was significant enough that he made it into a Time Magazine article in 1970. Kids still at the sand table...

Then the museum was close to closing.

Time to finish up.

Unfortunately, that was about the time that Daniel and Owen discovered a little dino costume area.

Daniel took off his jacket, and revealed that he had not worn a shirt, which I was already aware of. He put on the cape, and was a superhero dino. Owen was a stegasaurus

And then they ran around the museum saving the day. But the museum was closing. Of course they didn't care and wouldn't take off the capes. After some vain attempts to get them to take off the capes willingly, I knew I was going to have to force it. And it wasn't going to be pretty.

Thankfully most everyone else was already gone. So I handed Peter to Abi and was able to do the forced de-costume-ing on the boys. Owen came willingly after that, but Daniel was pretty ticked.

 

We got outside, yay. Group pic! But Daniel wouldn't participate.

Poor kid. He wants a dino cape. Too bad we didn't discover that part before it was closing. Sorry Daniel!! Poor tears...

We'll come back soon, sweetie! It wasn't dark yet, so we went to the school park for 30 minutes and then headed home. Peter didn't like the drive in the car again. He's just afraid he's in for another long road trip. He was glad when we parked and spent some quality time smiling at each other.

He is sooooo cute.