text: ** * Our Life with ll Kids * **: April 2017
  Just a few more pictures from this month that I didn't share yet... During General Conference, Ethan fell asleep.
  I think it helped Mel stay awake, as she played a game of "Let's see how many things we can put on Ethan before it wakes him up"
  Lily left me a note to fix one of their Strawberry Shortcake dolls. She wanted me to make an arm, "atleast a paper arm or somethen like that" (made me smile)
  Natalie painting a beautiful picture!
  Owen woke up early and was downstairs with me as I exercised. He tried to help me write down my scores. Cut kid, up on his tippy toes.
  Hyrum, a master builder, has been helping his little sisters make really cool lego houses.
  Here's a video where he shows inside the houses.
  Owen loves Daniel. Here he is being affectionate as we waited to get their passports. Also, Owen has started to sleep on the floor sometimes with Natalie... the cycle continues.
  The weekend is over and the week begins anew on Sunday nights when it is time to gather together once again for family prayer. We don't have a consistent place where we gather, but many times it is at the top of the stairs between the bedrooms, like it was tonight. Come together people! The sooner we gather the sooner you can all head to bed. And when I wake you up on Monday morning you'll be wishing you had gone to bed earlier, so come on! Wes and Daniel waiting for people to gather...
  We had a special treat tonight: Wonder Woman joined us!
  There she is, Wonder Woman! with her magic lasso! Joseph using his phone while he waits, which is typical of the teens here.
  Nice headband Sophi, I was impressed once again with her creativity. Pretty good what they're able to come up with just by scrounging around in their closets and in the costume box. Sophi took the crown part off of a Sophia the first crown, leaving the headband part. Silver necklace makes a matching lasso, then red shirt and shoes and blue leggins and voilà: wonder woman. Cute little girl.
  We are trying to clear things up in the basement once again. As we shuffled through one of the many bins of clutter and junk, we came across these cards, which I thought I'd take a picture of so I won't feel horrible if I decide to throw them out in the trash.
  These are from a Clue board game that I made years ago for the kids to play with the Wride cousins at Park City. I'm guessing this was in 2010 before our trip to Costa Rica and Chile, cause Lily was about a year old in her photo. (I can't find hers but I remember). Our version was a little more kid friendly than the murder solving Clue version sold at stores. In ours, you need to find the room in Grandmas' house where the grandkid ate the dessert without permission.
  I painted a board of Corey's parent's house, took pictures of the rooms of their house, of each Wride grandchild, and also pics of the dessert erasers I was using for the game pieces. I also made a game pieces for each kid with a photo of their face on a painted dice. Covered it in Modge Podge. Then I had the cards laminated. I thought it was pretty cute. I'm not sure what happened to the board. I think little kids attempted to eat more than a few of the dessert erasers, thinking they'd taste good. Sorry to disappoint. I'll make another one someday, maybe of all my kids when they're grown, and then their children can come play Clue at our house and choose which dad/mom or aunt/uncle they want to be for the game. I'll update this with more pictures of the cards of the other kids if we find them.
  Just a few pictures of Mel a few weeks ago doing what she does best:
  Best thing #1 (which is also what she loves the most): Snuggling with her baby brother Daniel.
  She can always get him to sleep and he always looks so content as he lays on her chest. It's the sweetest.
  Best thing #2, which is kind of a hidden/unknown talent to the rest of the world: Making herself and all of us laugh with any random object she finds in the house that happens to spark her creative side. Object of the moment is a hat loom.
  The looms were out and about as Mel taught Cata and Gabby how to knit hats with it. Seeing a loose loom, Mel tried it on as a hat. Then over her head and around her neck as a necklace. Then putting it off it puffed up her hair so nicely that she thought she'd try out some hairstyles to see what it would look like to have such volume!
  Ya look good Mel! And you're a weirdo.
  Corey got back from Brazil on Monday. He's thinking he needs to be there full time again if possible. Thus we thought it best to get the passport/visa process started for these two new additions so that we can have the option to all go to Brazil with him. So we went down to the clerks office yesterday to get it done, but there was a big line waiting (the DMV ain't got nothing on the country clerk's office!). And then when we read they don't take passport photos for kids under 5, we decided to bail and try again another day. So I left and went straight to Costco to get their pics taken.
  Owen had stranger danger, but I kneeled down and held him up like I was going to toss him in the air, and we got that great mug shot of a happy little guy. For Daniel they laid him down on a white towel on the table, thus making his face looking particularly round and his eyes a little squinty-er than usual... all that chub weight pulling his skin down! Cute boys.