Happy 15th Birthday, Elinor!

Elinor celebrated her 15th birthday this weekend!  She is a gem-- uniquely herself and a good friend to many.  She is smart, hard-working, funny, kind, and we feel so blessed to have her in our family.

Elinor with her "Frosh-Squad"-- what I called the freshmen girls on the high school swim team.  Such great girls!  The season has been over for about a month, so they were pretty happy to be together again.

Elinor and her beloved, most-favorite-of-all-time cousin, Gentri!

Elinor and cousin Everett-- almost 15 years later!  They were too funny.

Neighborhood friends, Savannah and Paige.

The Schramm sisters (and expert photo-bomber, Creeper Everett).

My favorite hairstyle of the evening-- Caleb!  

Swedish Twister.  It sounds kind of naughty (it's not) but it was pretty funny. 

And it produced this seriously awesome, completely non-posed picture.  Younger siblings were the photographers.

This moment of mirth was brought to you by a gift from a friend who knows Elinor very well-- pictures of Tom Holland.

I think for my next birthday I need to invite all of my friends over to play the kind of games they play at the teenager parties.  They have so much fun and I always want to play with them, but I know that would be lame, so I try to resist.  Sometimes I can't help myself and I have to join in.  Clearly, I just need to have my own party!

Sleepy Homeschoolers

One of the perks of homeschool is you can sleep when you need to sleep.  This one has early morning seminary every other morning at 6 am and teaches swim lessons every morning every other week.

This one started water polo practices daily at 5 am.
They both regularly fall asleep on the couches while reading.

Faith was thrilled beyond belief to learn how to snowboard on President's Day while on a family sledding outing.  Bethany's friend Connor supplied the lessons and the snowboard to use.  Now she wants one for her birthday next month.

Looks like we better start scoping out the DIs to find a gently used one.  And maybe we'll have to give it to her before her birthday while there may still be some snow.

I attempted to snowboard as well and it was mortifying.  I may try again someday, because seriously, I cannot really be that bad.  But maybe not.  Maybe that ship has sailed... or sunk... or... whatever.

 And since we had snow, we busted out the bins of snow clothes and boots.  Which you know is not my favorite thing.  But I think I may finally be making some organizational progress on that front.  I'm only 18 1/2 years into parenting and I'm finally making peace with the snow clothes.

Elinor will turn 15 this week and she got her Patriarchal blessing this past Sunday.  Abe and I went with her and it was a wonderful experience.

Beautiful flowers from Jesse and Amy (Abe's brother and sister-in-law).  They sent them to remember Tessa's birthday-- February 19th.  The lilies smell so good and it is such a comforting smell to me.  If a smell can smell like love, then lilies smell like love to me.

Cannon plead for mercy when I discovered his dance bag was packed with many pairs of dirty socks.
Speaking of Cannon pleading for mercy.  This.

This is the effects of the Olympics on our household.  We've been having a hard time getting school work done.

Because someday Abe and I will wake up without little people climbing into bed with us.  And maybe, just maybe, we'll miss their warm, snuggly little bodies.

We enjoyed a very simple, low-key Valentines exchange party on Valentine's last week.  And as opposed to the teenagers, who love nothing more than to integrate boys and girls, this age group is delightfully segregated.  Boys only for this game.

The girls decorated cookies together.

Look, it's a sweetheart with a sweetheart!

February 11, 2018

During the Olympics I am always caught up on folding laundry and blogging.  Two things I can easily do while watching Olympics.  In fact, in my "maturity", I have a very hard time just doing one thing at a time.  I prefer to be a little more productive and killing two birds with one stone.  Which may very well say something about my mental health and not living in the moment and blah, blah, blah.  But whatever.

On Saturday we celebrated Abe's sister Marjorie's birthday with an early lunch down on Provo.  Here are the five Utah siblings.  You may have noticed Abe is growing out a beard.  He will be "Dan", one of the brothers in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat in April and the director would like them to have facial hair.  Also, for work he is not face-to-face any longer, where it was preferrable for him to be clean shaven.  And, although I have been staunchly opposed to facial hair in the past, I admit, I think he looks great and I like it.

And with spouses.  We really do have a great time together... even if I did have to get into a heated "discussion" with Daniel about which was better... The Greatest Showman or La La Land.   And for the record, I adore them both and could no sooner choose one over the other than one of my children over another.  He disagreed.  It was all in good fun, though.

Oh yes, I did take a selfie of myself!  Guess what?  I've started running jogging shuffling down the street with purpose again.  It feels great and I suppose it's good therapy for dealing with Clark being gone and watching children grow up.  I decided the answer was probably to focus a little more on something I enjoy and want to do and a little less on things I have no control over.  No races on the horizon yet, but if I know me, that's probably coming.

The last two helicopter babies!

While the family seriously vegged out on Olympics today, Team Middle Kids made Beanie Boo Bob Sleds.

 We discovered Peter had packed himself a snack to take to church today... a used Tic Tac container filled with sugar.  It didn't even occur to us to take it away from him.

 I applaud the resourcefulness of the three year-old in a family of 10.  He has learned to take care of business himself and that forgiveness comes easier than permission.

I enjoyed and I still enjoy my little ones, but teenagers are the best.  The excitement for life, the energy, the humor, the talking and relationships.  I am thoroughly enjoying them and I am definitely missing those things with Clark these days.  Although, he does write great letters and I can still hear his enthusiasm for life.  The girls went with a group of friends to Airborne (a trampoline place) last night and had great fun.  They are both pretty sore today, but they said it was worth it.  

Opening Ceremonies Party!

Maybe you've heard me mention how much I love the Olympics.  We celebrated the start of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics with an Opening Ceremonies Party!  Food, friends, fun and most importantly, OLYMPICS!

Greta's first Olympics!

We had a great time making commentary on all the countries fashions.  And you know what a fashionista I am.  There were mixed reviews on the Americans cowboy gloves.  At first I didn't love them, until someone mentioned they were wearing jeans and belt buckles and boots and cowboy gloves and they looked like they were from Texas-- and THEN I LOVED IT ALL!

I think an Opening Ceremonies party may be a new tradition.

When the party was "over", things got a little silly with lip syncing.

The dudettes.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS2P3tgHk9Y

We got a good chuckle out of this lip sync.  Forgive my cackling in the background.

It was late.  And it was fun.

There may have been some regret this morning.

Welcome to Texas... er... Oklahoma

Monday  morning we got up early and anxiously awaited a phone call from our missionary from the Salt Lake airport.  Missionaries are encouraged to call home on Christmas and Mothers Day and that's it.  Except for the call home from the airport just before they fly to their assigned mission area. I was a little worried it would be difficult to say goodbye all over again, but my worries were completely unfounded--- It was wonderful to talk to him!  

One thing that was so interesting is how much he sounded like my brother Matt.  If we hadn't known it was going to be Clark calling at that time, both Abe and I would have sworn it was Matt.  So cool how family traits get passed through families.  He sounded happy and excited to get to Dallas and meet his mission president.

This picture doesn't look so good with me putting my hand over Peter's mouth, but in my defense, he has been so loud lately.  And we needed him to be quiet so we could understand Clark on the speaker phone.

Here he is with his mission president and mission mom!  Don't they all look great??!!! I'm so excited for him!!  But in his first assignment he has been sent about as far from the mission home as possible.  He is in a small town in far southeast Oklahoma called Idabel.  I get the feeling he is out  in the sticks and I think he will LOVE it.  Before he left he said he wanted some time out in the country, not just the city.  Well, Clark, I think you got your wish.  How soon before we get a picture of him with a creature he has caught?  Pray that it won't be a venemous one!

 Clark with his greenie group.  

 With his trainer, Elder Frampton.

When you're inadvertently twinning with your neighborhood friend.

When you're whole family is completely obsessed with The Greatest Showman.

When you're the littlest brother and will not be left out of The Greatest Showman action.

I drove Bethany to her violin lesson up at the U this week and we had ourselves a Mama Mia sing off on the way home.  After a failed attempt to video ourselves we settled for a selfie.  Bethany and I have spent a LOT of time talking lately as she navigates new life experiences.  She is a joy and I just try not to think about how close she is to growing up and leaving the nest. 

 Thankfully, this little one isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  I love her eyes and her lips and I love the dried boogies and peanut butter smudge on her mouth.  She is one of my greatest blessings.

And sometimes she looks like this and I still love her!  Best bad hair day ever.

It's all good.  Really good.