Family Pictures 2016

This year's family pictures were brought to you by Camera Shy.  I'd prefer to have family pictures outside, but this has worked so well for our family's schedule and ages.  They have two rooms with multiple backgrounds and props.  We are able to get a few family pictures and individual shots (including a wardrobe change, if they want) all in 45 minutes.  Then an hour later we can view our pictures and pick up the thumb drive to take home.  Boom!  

We headed over to a burger place to wait for the pictures when I snapped this picture.  Life is crazy and complicated at times and pretty exhausting, but we love it.  We love each one of those kids (including Amy, who had to leave after the photo shoot for volleyball practice).  Funny how that works.  

Ty and Oliver hung out.  That's what brothers do.

Em and Daniel having a staring contest.  It was close - Daniel held it together for a good 2-3 seconds before he lost it.  Emily is always finding ways to help and keep the Littles entertained.

Tyler Jared (17) 

Emily Rebecca (19)

Daniel Oden (3)

Amy Elizabeth (15)

Kathryn Elaine (4)

Oliver Macdonald (1)

  

Vicki & Matt

The Cornish Clan 2016

Waving to Daddy

What a pleasant morning! Matt and I went for a walk early, came home and got ready, had breakfast together, and got to come up and see the Littles before he left for work. They all ran to the window so they could wave at him as he left. I sat on the couch watching them, thankful for my husband and our family.

I love Matt

MGB update - August 13

The MGB... it looks like a whole-lotta-nothin' has been going one, but that isn't true.  When they first pulled the car into the garage they spent hours taking things off.  Between Tyler's schedule and the learning curve (remember how neither of these two has ever done anything like this before) the progress seems kinda slow.  Matt and Tyler, however, always seem to be excited about whatever they are working on.  Today I got a kick out of this view...

How cute is this kid?!  He's painting the inside of the car with a rust resistant paint that not only prevents deterioration but also looks better than the yellows/reds/rusts that were there before.  The paint is messy to use and made a mess of our laundry room sink.  And... the legs sticking out of the bottom look fake and much too long to be Tyler's.  He said he it was much easier and more comfortable to just climb into the little space than it was to lean over the edge. 

MGB update - July 26

The left side is welded on.  So is the left floorboard.  They've been using John's welder and plasma gun.  It's been great to have friends (and make friends) who have helped with different parts of the project so far.

 

Tyler cleaning off the clutch plate in his new onesie.  Initially I thought it would be fun to get them both these working overalls so that they looked official.  Turns out they are way more practical than just cute.  Tyler had been mentioning that he'd really like one so we didn't get burned by the sparks from welding.  And Matt had his pile of work clothes that would not be salvageable because of the grease and grime.  He wanted a onsie too, to spare more clothes.  Done.

MGB update - July 9 Welding

There is some serious stuff going on in the garage these days!  I will frequently walk into the garage and have either Matt or Tyler or both will look up to see what I need.  Today, both heads were down as they were working.  Focused.  That's what they are, focused!  Tyler has had some experience welding from a class he took last year in school.  He's steadily improving, but how cool to be able to be actually welding (as long as it holds)!  This is the left rail and floorboard that they were working on.

 

It's fun to watch this guy watch Tyler.  He's done a little of the welding but Tyler has done the majority.  It still is fun to try, as you can see on his face.

 

Both were quick to make sure I wasn't looking at the plasma cutting/welding as I watched them for a little bit.  I turned away when I took the pictures.   Matt is working with the plasma cutter.

 

  

Tyler doing some welding.  It's pretty cool.  I gotta admit.

Matt the electrician

July 1

It was a few years ago that we started talking about getting some shelves and a desk for this wall space.  It's a lot of wall space to fill, but I envisioned it as a very usable space for the kids to do homework or projects.  I looked at pictures and tried to figure out what I thought would work.  Matt looked at the ideas and felt like he might be able to do the project.  So we sat down and drew out this picture of what we wanted. 

We came up with the idea of having a table in the center, in stead of a built in desk, so that we could move it out and sit behind it to watch TV while working on a project.  Eventually we realized that Matt's schedule and responsibilities were not going to allow this project to happen.  We contacted a guy named Monte, showed him our drawing, got an estimate, and then waited until it was something we could do. 

We thought it would be cool to have some lights at the top, but Monte didn't do electrical work, but I happen to know a cool guy who taught himself how to do it when we were finishing the basement.  So This is Matt a few days before the install getting the electrical work done.  He's pretty awesome!  This also works as our "before" picture.


 Ta da!!  It's in!!  I was more nervous about this because I'm not so sure of my decorating skills and this was a big, non-removable, expensive project.  But I love how it turned out.  We found the table and chairs on KSL classifieds and Monte painted it to match the set.  It's fun to see it go from paper to reality. 

Dominican Republic (part 2)

Here we are in the Dominican Republic!  I think the DR looks good on us!!

Reid was long since in bed when we arrived but he welcomed us with this darling sign.  Reid has a talent for making signs and making others feel welcome.  We were given a quick tour (it is such a nice apartment and it was super fun to see it after having Emily take us on a virtual tour when she was here last summer).  We all crashed pretty quick but planned on going to sacrament meeting a few hours later.

It felt like we blinked and it was time to get up and get ready for church.  I love going to church with family and friends.  It's fun to be introduced to people in the ward because they always have nice things to say about whoever we're visiting.  Reid seemed especially excited for us to be there (and a bit disappointed when we left after sacrament meeting) and introduced us to several ward members and couple missionaries.  We headed home and had some early naps, well, we tried to have early naps.  Kate and Daniel were either wired from exhaustion or excited to be in a new place because they would not settle down.  On the other had, everyone taller than 3 feet was more than willing to settle down and take a nap.  We did our best. 

One unexpected change to this trip was that Mom left for Georgia before we got there.  Because she was gone Pres. Nelson felt that it was important for Dad to leave earlier than planned to join her.  When Dad explained that we were coming into town he was encouraged to take extra time off to spend it with us (which made for a delightful time for us) but then to plan on leaving shortly after we came home.  One of the other consequences of leaving before planned was there was a lot of food that Dad wanted to try and go through.  Matt was so up to the challenge of cooking meals low in sodium and using what was on hand.  Besides that, he had said he was hoping to make this an actual vacation for me.  Having him cook basically every dinner was about as good as it could get.  He's pretty awesome, pretty amazingly awesome!

We planned to go to the beach on Monday.  Amy was super excited.  Ok, ok, we were ALL excited.  We decided to go to a beach called  Bayahibe that was aboug 2 1/2 hours away.  We were hoping to also stop at a place called the Cave of Wonder, but it was closed.  So we continued on to the beach.  It was not disappointing.  It took us a while to get everyone changed and sunblocked, but then we were in the water.  Oliver mostly hung out with Grandpa initially.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of him when we first put him in the sand.  He would literally lay down in it on his belly and move his arms like he was swimming.  He just loved it.  Later when we had the little pink boat inflated he had a great time in the water, just splashing and growling (a.k.a. laughing) at everything.

Look at that water and sky.  Beautiful!  (pretty cute Little Guy as well!)

Amy taking the Littles out for some wave-jumping.

Sure love these people.  Love them!

I wonder if our sandbox at home is going to loose some of it's luster after playing here.  Matt helped Kate and Daniel dig a hole.  What is it about holes?  You just can't not dig one.  They put their feet in it and as the water would lap onto the beach and fill it with water, their feet got covered/stuck in sand.   They had so much fun.

     

Kate, Daniel, and Mama lovin' the aqua agua.

Are we cute, or what?!

 

 Matt was excited to try out his new scuba mask.  He went out twice and was surprised at how much he saw.  The water wasn't very deep so he was able to go out pretty far.  The water was cloudy because there are so many people and because of the shallowness, but he saw tons of fish.  I went out as well.  It was fun to be out in "real" water (as opposed to the swimming pool or the Crater) even if it was just snorkeling.

   

I'm not sucking in.  Nope, not at all.  I naturally sit like this ;)

Sisters.  Amy seemed to have a fun time.  She was super helpful with the Littles, went out with Matt to snorkel for a bit, did a little shopping, took lots of pictures and videos.

This is the closest we got to a group shot.  We weren't quite ready, but oh well. we were there and we loved it.

Not surprisingly, all three of the Littles conked out on the way home.  They had played and played and played and were out cold within a few minutes of leaving the beach.  

Oliver Mac, almost 11 months old.

Kathryn Elaine, almost 4 years old.

Daniel O., 2 1/2 years old.

Off we go (Dominican Republic part 1)

On my mission we used to say the days felt like weeks and the weeks felt like days.  Time has felt like that the last few years.  Each day can be exhausting, but then months fly by.  This trip really seemed to sneak up on me.  I guess it is really the entire month of  June that was sneaky!  And I suspect July (with the 4th, the Cornish Family Reunion, Oliver and Kate's birthdays all coming up) will fly by as well. Anyway, let's move on, because time is a tickin'.

The week before we left was super busy.  I was trying to get things done for the trip, get all the stuff for Mom and Dad's video to the videographer, getting some last minute planting in, and keeping the Littles from going crazy.  Pretty much everything worked out.  Pretty much.  Anyway, on Friday Amy showed up ready to go (bless her heart!) and we were packing between visits from Robyn and Brett's families.  I got most things packed and was down to the nubbins (which is my least favorite part).  At one point Amy and I were sitting in our shower with a bunch of little activities for Kate and Daniel to do on the plane, organizing them into little bags to be taken out throughout the flights/layover (Caroline gave me the idea).  I was also creating bags of activities we would do on the way home.  My goal was to be in bed by 10:30pm.  By 11pm I thought I was pretty close.  By midnight the lights were out and all was quiet.  

Matt and I woke up at 4:20am and got ready, woke Amy up, packed the last few things in the bags, put everything in the car, turned off all the lights except the bathroom light by the kitchen.  The three of us (Matt, Amy, me) slipped into the Little's room and each took one in our arms and made our way to the garage.  As we put them in their car seats, Daniel says in full voice, "Are we going on the plane?!"  Kate and Daniel didn't sleep the whole way to the airport (Oliver did).  We had a prayer and pulled out of the garage at 5:03am.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!  We picked up Brett on the way (he was out watering his trees when we pulled up :)).  We changed the Littles into their clothes when we arrived at the airport.  Kate and Daniel had been asking for several days about flying in a plane so they were especially wide-eyed at the sight of all the people and eventually the planes (and trucks and forklifts and moving walkways and extended golf carts and luggage trailers and every other cool machine that can be found at the airport).

Off we go!

When we were checking in the Delta employee said that all the passports had to be signed, even the Littles' passports.  She said we could sign for them and then write "parent," which is what we did for Daniel and Oliver.  But we had Kate sign her own :) I was proud of her for doing it all on her own.  Our flight didn't leave until 8:30am, but we were on four different rows and were really hoping to get new seat assignments.  That worked out well (thank goodness), so after we got through security it was wait time.  We found a corner next to the gate, got some breakfast, and let the Littles run/crawl around a bit before we had to get onto the flight.  

(Kate and Daniel waiting while we got the luggage checked and Oliver waiting to get changed in our little corner spot.)

 

The flights actually went really well.  We went from Salt Lake to New York first.  Matt sat with Kate and Daniel and across the aisle were Amy, me and Oliver on my lap.  Oliver made friends with the women behind us and the folks around were entertained by D and K's comments such as, "THIS PLANE IS MOVING!!" and "It goes up in the sky??"  Brett loaned us one of his Kindle Fires and Matt had downloaded several shows on it for K and D to watch.  I'd looked up ways to keep toddlers/kids entertained on planes and one of the things I saw was putting a phone or iPad or Kindle in a ziplock back and hanging it from the tray table clip.  It work great!  The one problem we had was when descending the change in cabin pressure really bothered Daniel and Kate.  They both cried, Daniel was especially uncomfortable.  The people around us were so kind.  Two offered us gum (we accepted some) and the flight attendant heated up some wet napkins and put them in the bottom of two cups to put over their ears (she said her mom always did that to her and she did it for her kids).  It didn't seem to help at all, but the gesture was very kind.  Once we were down they K and D settled down and seemed ok.  One flight down, one 4 hour layover and another 4 hour flight to go...

Auntie Robyn stopped by to drop off a care package for a friend of theirs who will be at the MTC in the Dominican Republic.  She also brought by little backpacks for the Littles with a little dress up outfit in each one.  We pulled them out during our NY layober.  A fairy and a superhero - cute kiddos.  I also got some little cookie sheets at the Dollar Store for some magnet activities like these geometric shapes.  They were also fun to play with 

     

On our way to the last leg of the trip!  Daniel had a wheely backpack for his carry-on.  He was a champ at taking care of it the whole time.  There were several employees that complimented him on taking his own luggage.

Oliver had napped for about 30 minutes on the first flight, but other than that no one had napped at all.  We were arriving in the DR at about midnight (10pm Utah time).  I wasn't sure how the sleeping would go on the trip but hoped they would sleep rather than exhaustion-induced-screaming on the last flight.  I didn't need to worry.  Before we even started down the runway we lost Kate...

And Daniel...

We admired these beautiful sunbeams as we waited for take-off.

Oliver snuggled into his Daddy's arms and was out a few minutes after take-off.

They didn't sleep the whole flight, but they still did well, all things considered.  On the flight Oliver made friends with an older gentleman across the aisle.  Matt later told me that the man most likely had had a stroke sometime.  Oliver would reach out to him and smile and laugh.  The man was delighted.  Babies can do magical things.  Once we arrived in the DR we were almost last off the plane and therefore last in the tourist tax line.  As we stood waiting Daniel pinched his arm in the pullup handle of the carry-on.  He really cried (pain and exhaustion collided).  I tried to comfort him but he still wailed.  After a few minutes an employee motioned for us to go to the front of the line.  I felt awkward, but everyone around us said, "Go! Don't question the man, just go."  They all seemed to know that it was because Daniel was crying and were ok with us moving up.

Getting our passports stamped was next and took a while.  It was still fun to stand there with Amy as she got hers stamped :)  Hopefully it won't be the last stamp in her passport.  We were met by our cheerful Dad/Grandpa Cornish.  Dominican Republic, here we come!!