New FHE Tradition

The past 3 weeks we've had FHE (which, granted have not been the past 3 consecutive weeks) we've gone up to the indoor track at BYU-I to time our miles. This is in part because of the training Tyson is doing with the four oldest kids--they are planning on doing a backpack trip from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney.

It's been fun to track and improve our times. Jeffrey had a new PR tonight and broke shattered his previous 7:13 mile and busted under 7 minutes--he did it in 6:50 tonight. Amri also had a PR of 10:26. She was pretty happy when she realized that she improved. Jacob had a slower time, largely because he "rescued" Zeke from going down some poorly-placed stairs near the track and dragged him kicking and screaming to Tyson who was doing the timing. Xi did an incredible almost 4-minute improvement last time and came in at 10 minutes even, but today slowed down to about 13 minutes. I am consistently in the 8 minute-mile range largely because I slow down to encourage kids (okay, they actually may be screaming "Wait for me, Mommy!" and I oblige them for a bit). All in all it's been a fun tradition Tyson has started.

In other news, major improvements were made on the bathroom today and we actually once again have a wall between our room and our bathroom! Hallelujah! It's amazing how much sound a small piece of sheetrock can muffle, particularly when your toilet likes to run every 10-15 minutes! One of the speakers is also now up and running in the bathroom and we enjoy hearing music as we spend time in there either getting ready in the morning or winding down at night. Tyson is a rockstar!

Life

I've never felt like this in my life before--I'm always excited about the future and what it's going to bring no matter how much I enjoy the stage I'm in--but if I could freeze time, I would do it right now.

I love our family. It feels perfect. I love the ages of all of our kids. I love that Jeffrey's nine and we can have fun conversations about books we've read or what we are learning about. I love teaching him more advanced things as his questions come up. I love that he can beat me in a race or cook dinner by himself or help with the kids if needed. He is such a generous big brother. He comes up with ways on his own to get treats or other special things for his younger brothers and sisters and is so great at including them in activities, watching them outside in the backyard as I cook dinner, or other little things. All of our kids love and trust Jeffrey, and it's comforting to know I can pair him with anyone else and they'll get along fine.

Amri is such a fun 8 year old. I feel like we've laughed together more during the last few weeks than we have the previous 8 years. She is learning to take responsibility for her actions better all the time and be someone I can count on. She is always creating something new and impressive. I'm always astounded at the things she comes up with--like creating her own pop-up book or inventing another recipe. She is also super generous and likes to serve others. A few months ago she asked me to take her to the dollar store to buy something and when we got there she asked what I thought an adult would like. She kept trying to get my opinion in sneaky ways and ended up buying a candle--which she "surprised" me with a few days later with a card she had made. Her big heart is something I look up to.

Jacob has the biggest heart. He's always been so sweet and kind with a touch of mischievousness as well. He always is the one who picks flowers for me constantly and trying to be the little gentleman. Last year when I would walk him to the corner and get him across the street and head back home, he'd always blow me about 20 kisses from across the street as he walked to the school. He's sandwiched between Jeffrey and Xi and sometimes it seems he feels like he needs to compete with them, but he is brave even when it comes to failure. I love that he loves to learn and do new things. He has a talent for the piano and I love to hear him play.

Xi is our ball of energy who definitely keeps things interesting. He has become super competitive with his older brothers and is constantly working on improving himself, particularly physically. A couple of weeks ago he shaved off almost 4 minutes of his mile time and can now run a mile in 10 minutes (which is almost a minute faster than 2 of his older siblings). He has perfected his pushups and was the first to learn how to do a handstand against the wall as all four older kids have been trying to do that lately. The other day he did over 600 sit-ups as Tyson held his feet and counted (and Xi held his shorts to pull himself up. . .but still!). He never gives up. I love that about Xi.

Miri is developing her own personality. Her language skills have improved a ton the last couple of years and it's fun to hear her little thoughts. She likes to make her own little jokes and has a contagious laugh. She is really sweet with Cora and loves having a little sister to play with.

Zeke is the typical, lovable but crazy two-year-old. I love his sweet little smile and his thick head of blond hair that pokes up from the breakfast table as we eat in the mornings. He is always excited for whatever is next. He makes the typical two-year-old messes and we love him anyways. I particularly love how he loves to show me things together as we read and play.

I love Corashemmah. She is the perfect baby. I seriously just wish she would stay our little baby forever and never grow up! She is so little and her nickname in our ward is "The Doll." She just looks like a dolly with her perfect features and curly little hair. She is such a cheerful, happy baby and the best sleeper I've had.  It's so fun to see her crawling around and discovering the world.

It's so awesome having a kid at every age like this. I think that's maybe why it feels so perfect--it feels like I have everything. Right now in my world, heaven is here.

A Harry Potter Party

Me: Amri, what kind of theme do you want for your birthday party?
Amri: Harry Potter!
Me: (thinking--really???)

I was surprised when Amri told me that she wanted a Harry Potter themed birthday party--she's never read the books, and seen the first two movies just a couple of times. I'm so glad she picked it though--it turned out to be the funnest party I've ever planned! 

We started out by downloading a Harry Potter font and making acceptance letters to Hogwarts for their invitations.

For the party everyone first had to pass through Platform 9 & 3/4 to get inside. 

When they came inside, "students" were greeted by the 

sorting hat, picking a wand, and our "class schedule"

For our Potions Class, we ordered these tiny cauldrons on amazon, and mixed dish soap, food coloring, vinegar, and baking soda together to make some awesome creations. The kids LOVED it!

Xi's crazy eyes!

We next had dinner in the "Great Hall." We just had pizza, soda, and cupcakes. I learned a couple of years ago that Pizza Pie Cafe sells their unbaked pizza dough for a large pizza for $1.75, all rolled out and folded up--which is an amazing life saver when I don't have time to make it myself. The rest was easy, and the kids put together the two pepperoni pizzas while I finished setting up the decorations. I put food coloring at the bottom of their cups before putting in ice, and they loved seeing what color their drinks would be, and each color represented a different fortune.

I'm not sure why exactly she wanted "Happy Hogwarts Birthday" on her cake, but she's the birthday girl so we went with it.

We had wizarding hat cupcakes made with sugar cones rolled in chocolate. 

Amri and I had a lot of fun making those alone early in the morning the day before the party.

The kids ended up eating them like ice cream cones.

Next came "divination" where Amri had to figure out if her friends' gifts were something to play with, eat, or wear, and if she got it wrong she got a bump on her head. The next part of divination was playing Pin the Glasses on Harry Potter. We used the sorting hat as our eye covers :)

Next we had our "spells" class. Everyone got a balloon and used their wands to keep it up while saying, "Wingardium Leviosa." We gave prizes to the kids who could keep their balloons up the longest.

We moved outside for our Broomstick Racing. Two teams each had a broom and raced each other to the end of the driveway and back.

Last was our "Defense Against the Dark Arts" Class. We made a Dementor pinata out of brown paper bags, a stick and a witch's robe I've had forever in our costume box. Best. Pinata. Ever.

Tyson had a blast swinging it over the kids. And no, Amri did not swing the bat facing the other kids. This was pre-swinging bat stage. 

 Honestly, my favorite part was watching Tyson's face as he would swing the pinata just out of reach as the kids tried to whack it. They finally broke it down and got the candy bars inside.

All in all it was a smashing success.

I really hope another kids picks to have a Harry Potter Party in the future so I can do this again!!!

Recent Recitals

With the end of May, it's been a full recital month. 

DANCE

Amri started it out with her dance recital. She performed to "Wanna be like you" from Jungle Book (hence the monkey costume below) and "Shake, Rattle, and Roll."

Amri is on the far left in this dance. Her best friend in class is on the far right. 

In this dance she is in the center, but in the back for the first half, so she is blocked from our angle by a lot by the girl in front of her.


You can't really tell from the following pictures, but Amri actually bawled at least 30-40 minutes after she did "Shake, Rattle, And Roll" because she messed up on the somersault part. Finally someone came and got me to help calm her down enough and to get her to go out and take a final bow at the end! She still was super upset and crying a ton but she pulled it together for a few seconds for the family and mother/daughter picture.


I drove her home separate from everyone else (after Tyson helped put back together the Previa minivan sliding door that broke off!) and we had a good talk about focusing on the 90% good and not the 10% bad, and the importance of practicing and such. She knew she had a hard time doing a somersault on the hard floor, but because it was hard she hardly practiced that part. I think we turned it into a good learning experience. Then we got a banana split, so of course that fixed everything :)

VIOLIN

Jeffrey and Amri performed in their violin recital. They did a group number performing Suzuki "Twinkles," switching off every other number (the problems of having 2 kids sharing 1 violin), and Amri did "May Song" and Jeffrey performed "Minuet I." We're proud of them for all their hard work. And we were excited at the end when Xi won a little drawing with a $20 gift card as a prize :)

Amri kind of blanked out at the beginning, but she recovered well and we didn't have a meltdown like at the dance recital.

With their violin teacher, Kyris Powell

GYMNASTICS

Xi just started taking gymnastics about a month ago, it was part of his birthday present to take gymnastics. He'd had four lessons before this "performance." We are not doing it doing the summer but we plan on signing him up again in the fall or the winter. He may not look like he's doing that great, but he was the smallest one there and actually did pretty well considering. I didn't post a couple of his videos, like the high bar (all he does is flip around the bar) and the pommel horse. I think the cutest part is when he does his "stick" "present" and "salute" before and after his tricks.






Obviously he needs the most work on his floor routine--which is actually really encouraging to me, because we can practice that at home all summer. The other stuff that he's much better at, not so much.


At the end he got a medal and a picture on top of the podium. He's super excited!

And just for fun, here is this awesome video of Zeke hanging from a bar that Tyson put him on. He actually held on for about 20 seconds, but Tyson kept just snapping pictures and then caught this video right at the end:

It totally made me laugh when I saw Zeke's expression! 

It's been fun to see all the kids progress so much this last year!

How many tomorrows until my birthday?

This kid has been asking since JANUARY, "How many tomorrows until by birthday?" Every time we'd give him an estimate, "One hundred and twenty-five," or whatever, his eyes would squint and his face would crumple as he made a moaning/whining noise in disappointment. Finally, a couple of weeks ago when he asked and I answered, "Eleven," his face lit up with complete excitement. 

I'm honestly sad to see him turn five years old. Four has been such a good age for Xi! For my first 3 kids, I was sad to see them turn 4 because 3 was such a fun age for the them. In general, I feel like 2.5 years to 3.5 years is the hardest age, and then 3.5-4.5 is my favorite, so when they turned 4 I was sad to know that they were getting big and changing. 

But Xi was different. For whatever reason, it was a lot harder for me to connect well with Xi as I did with my first three kids. I'm not sure what the reason--it could be because he hadn't been the girl I'd hoped for baby #4, or because he looked SO different to me from my first 3 (I remember thinking as I held him a couple hours after he was born, "Is he really mine?"), or because the first 2 years of his life (until we took out his adenoids) he spent 18 hours a day in his crib sleeping, or his INCREDIBLY stubborn personality--so when he turned 4, it was the first time I felt relief, and not nostalgia, when one of my kids hit that birthday. 

3 had been an incredibly hard age for me with Xi. But this last year our relationship has finally blossomed. He's so funny, such a good helper, and super energetic. I'm finally understanding the part in his baby blessing that says, "You will be a comfort to your mother,"--something I didn't see or understand the first few years of his life. 

I want to record a couple of fun memories of Xi from the last few months. Before Christmas, when we asked him what he wanted, he repeatedly told us, "Magic." So we got him a "Magic Science Kit" that came with a magicians hat, an empty tube to make a magic wand with, and a few other test tubes. 

He could. not. wait. to try out his kit after he opened it for Christmas. We told him we could help him with it later when all the chaos calmed down. I remember later I was helping Jeffrey put something together at the dining room table, and Tyson sat on the other end with Xi to start doing the Magic Kit. Tyson left for a minute and I overheard Xi saying to Amri, "I can't wait to make my magic wand, because then I can have anything I want!" I thought, "Oh, dear, we're in trouble!"

Tyson returned, and they made a bubbling, color changing potion that went into the magic wand tube. He was thrilled--could hardly contain his excitement. Suddenly, after a few moments his face fell with disappointment and confusion. He turned to Tyson, "Daddy, it doesn't work!"

"What do you mean, Xi?"

" I mean, I just wished for ice cream and waved the wand and nothing happened!!!"

Poor kid! He'd thought it all through--"I'll ask for magic and then I can have whatever I want after that, and not just for Christmas!" Too bad it didn't work out! After the initial disappointment, he and Tyson did have fun making some more bubbling and crazy mixtures in the test tubes. 

Another funny memory I have of Xi is from a few months ago. He came up to me and said, "Do you know what Mommy? I like Daddy more than you."
Me, smiling: Oh really? Why?
Xi: Because Daddy is CRAZY!!!! (long pause) Like a rat!

I laughed out loud at that! It totally cracked me up! He smiled back and me then added:

And you are crazy too! Like a crazy dog!

I don't know why it struck me so funny but it did! A few weeks later he came back to me and said, "Mommy, I like you better than I like Daddy.
Me: Really? Why?
Xi: Because you look better. (Long pause). And you are crazy like a dog! And Daddy is crazy like a rat!

He's so excited to be 5 and starting gymnastics this last month and to start kindergarten in the fall. And I'm wondering where my fat little 8 lb 10 oz baby boy that was born the other day disappeared to.

For the first time yesterday he had his OWN friends over (he has kind of gotten overshadowed by the older 3 kids' friends) and had a little camping birthday party in the back yard. They played on the trampoline, ran in and out of a tent we set up, roasted marshmallows and hot dogs, played pin the part on the bear, and had to get the food that had been strung up in the tree to keep away from bears (the piñata). Cake and ice cream were the cherry on top of all the celebrations.

You can see the mouth made it all the way to the top of the frame :)

 With one of his favorite uncles

We love you Xi Guy, you crazy kid!