Is It Naptime Yet

Today in the mail I saw that we had received something from the 2010 Census and I was a little excited.

This would be the first year I’d be the one filling out the information and noting myself and my family on the Census and I thought it was exciting.

We would be a part of those White Caucasian statics, who are married, with children, have a college education, make x amount of money, own a home, are not veterans, are employed, and whatever other information the Census takes note of.

Then I opened the envelope and it was just a letter telling me to look for the upcoming packet.

What a buzz kill.

But we will be one of those White Caucasian statics, who are married, with children, have a college education, make x amount of money, own a home, are not veterans, are employed and whatever other information the Census takes note of.

I feel like I’m a full fledged adult, that is once I fill out my Census, I’ll be a full fledged adult.

I look forward to that packet and the dull uninteresting questions that count me as a person in my city, in my country.

Bring on the 2010 Census!

In January Las Vegas had some weird weather. We had a week where it rained nearly everyday and I’m talking rain, not just sprinkles, and it was heavy rain throughout the whole valley.

My sister Carolyn went hiking at Red Rock right after and during this weird weather with some friends. I think it snowed on them while there and they had to walk in the stream since the rocks were too icy and they’d slip. I’m happy I skipped that week.

We went the following Saturday. It had rained in the valley on Wednesday and snowed at Red Rock and with the cold temperatures the snow was still on the ground.

Our homeschooling group had gone to Mount Charleston on Friday, and even though it had been a weak since the major snow, it was still like it had just happened that morning with how high and powdery the snow was on the Mountain.

Two days with snow was lots of fun for the girls. Unlike the day before, the snow balls they made stayed in balls and they were able to throw a few. But their gloves had gotten all dirty the day before, and my washer was still waiting to be repaired, so they had to throw snow balls with their bare hands.

It didn’t last very long.

We enjoyed a short hike to the waterfall that is usually dry. The girls got into some mischief and Lilah drove me crazy by jumping down rocks and running.

At the Waterfall.
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Eden
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Lilah- Notice the snow in her hand.
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At the end we let the girls take a few pictures and here are some results.

Lilah’s view with the camera:

What are you doing?
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Self-portrait
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Jon and me with the snowy mountain behind us.
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Eden’s view with the camera:

Um..if I could see myself from this view all the time I might actually be motivated to lose weight.
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Let’s try to take a picture of mom and dad. She almost got all our heads.
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So we knelt down for her.
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Lilah’s pretty silly in this one. I’m posting it because if you look closely we have the same facial expression, only it’s not very flattering so I’m not making it any bigger.

Here are just a few pictures of the girls.

First day of Primary 2010.

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Eden in her new dance class outfit.

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Eden being sassy.

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Snow Day with the homeschooling co-op at Mount Charleston. The snow was 3-4 feet high, and then even higher where the snow plow had piled it up.

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Hannah on the cabin’s porch. (See how high that snow was! I would sink nearly to my knees as I walked around.)

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Lilah and all the girl scout cookies. (Boy am I glad to have them out of my house.)

So this post is mostly about Lilah.

She’s growing too fast.

And I’m getting old, well I’m not really that old, but she’s getting older and I feel old as she grows. Almost everyday I ask the girls to stop growing, but they don’t, and their reply is usually that they can’t stop growing.

Sigh….I guess I’ll just have to keep letting them grow and get bigger and become more independent.

Speaking of independence there are certain things I do for my children, even though they’re big enough to do it on their own, but I’m trying to let go and enjoy a little freedom, even if it does mean the girls might take longer doing it themselves. I also find, that if I wait long enough they catch on a lot more quickly, so it saves some frustration by waiting on both our parts.

Case one:

I still bath the girls and wash their hair and bodies for them…well I used to. I’m kinda strange when it comes to bath time. When I was a young I took baths all by myself by the age of 6. I also just washed myself and cleaned my hair by laying in the bath water and running my hands through it.

Now I think that is so gross.

I should mention baths in general are yucky to me now as an adult. I don’t ever dream of soaking in a nice long bubble bath reading a book or relaxing by candle light. It’s just too yucky for me. So I do have the girls wash their own bodies with the wash cloths, but I usually wash their hair and to rinse them clean by turning on the faucet and rinsing them that way. It works for us, but it takes time and I’ve never taught them how to do it themselves, because usually they take the cup and just dump the water behind them. They’ve also hated showers.

Until now.

Now they love showers, and do crazy shower dances. I still have to greatly help Eden, but I’m mostly just instructing Lilah now, just to make sure she gets all the soap rinsed.

I decided to teach Lilah how to shower so it could free up some of my own time. I don’t have time to bath her every other day, and with the summer coming she’s going to need to be bathed or showered every other to every day.

She’s loving it and I’m loving my free time.

I waited a long time to teach her to shower because it was just so much trouble to shower her before. She was scared of the shower, and still is, but she’s also old enough that her fear is quickly vanishing. Now they both want to take a shower everyday, even though they’ve only taken 3, but I’m happy to let go and let them get clean. I think our water bills are going to be a little higher from now on though.

Case two:

I have never bought Lilah shoes with shoe laces, not since she was a small toddler anyways. I’ve always bought shoes with velcro. Mostly it’s because the ones we liked had velcro, but also because I did not want to teach her to tie her shoes, or have to tie them for her if she wasn’t able to learn.

Yesterday I bought Lilah shoes with laces, and today I taught her how to tie them.

I think waiting was best for us and she’s just at that perfect age and fine motor skills to learn how to tie shoes quickly. I actually did not want to teach her because I feared that I might lose my patience, but how could I not teach her when she was wanting to learn and was trying it out this morning?

I taught her the round the rabbit hole method, or is it around the tree? Anyways, she got it and now is able to tie her shoes, though she still needs help getting them on and tightening the laces.

One thing at a time.

And will you please tell her to stop growing.

Note: I started writing this a week ago but didn’t want to start over, so I just added updates.

We’ve been up to a lot of different things here in the Blake house. Mostly we’ve been spending lots of time as a family hiking and enjoying Science Saturday at the Museum. We’ve also had a a park day with Carolyn and her husband, where they invited us to spend time with them on a rare day which both of them had off. I totally felt special that they invited us to come over since their day offs are never the same.

We’ve also been up to our elbows in cookies. Lilah did very well on her pre-orders and since I’m also able sell extras we’ve had 488 boxes of cookies in our house, though 72 are not spoken for just yet, I’m hoping to sell them as we travel to two more offices and if anyone needs more than what they bought. Update: We’ve sold 478 boxes of cookies. I only have ten not spoken for.

We’ve also had auditions for Cinderella. I’m super excited for the play this year. Unlike last year I was not nervous for the singing audition.

Until I stood on stage and the pianist starting playing.

Then the words almost left me and as I sung a sharp note and for the life of me I could not correct it. I just sang and hoped that whatever came out didn’t sound too bad.

The dance portion was the next day, and so was the children’s auditions. I was helping to teach the older kids dance, and as I had 15 or so pre-teens watching me I could not start on the right foot, and I got flustered and then went to teach the young kids, which included my two girls. We were trying to avoid me teaching the young ones since I had children in that group, but also because I worried that Eden actually would act shy. She didn’t act shy, and they both did really well. The song we used was short and fun. Update: I’m “third girl”, though I’m not sure what that means, and the girls are a part of the children’s ensemble, so no specific role, but I’m just happy we’re all in it.

This past week:
I’ve been delivering cookies everyday with Lilah and not working out and eating more than I should, so I’m sure I’ve gained whatever weight I’ve lost. Cookies are bad, very bad, but they taste so good.

Lilah did incredibly well on her sales. She sold about 400 with pre-orders and I ordered around 80 extra boxes to sell as we went to different delivery spots. At the beginning of the week we only sold a small amount of the extra boxes and it looked like I might have 70 extra boxes to return. On Friday we delivered to Jon’s co-workers, just two had ordered, and we brought all the extra boxes. We borrowed a red wagon from my friend Sam with a nice squeaky wheel, which was not squeaky the day before as we went around the block. Just on the way to Jon’s office, which wasn’t that far, four people stopped us, and we sold 10 boxes. Then we made a killing at Jon’s current office, and his old office, and lastly a building I worked at long ago as a student worker. Lilah loved how much people just wanted to buy girl scout cookies, and I loved that we had succeeded in selling nearly all of our extra boxes. I have learned to have tons of Caramel deLites if we ever go on campus again. We have just 10 boxes left, and I think that is a success.

Jon and I also celebrated our eighth anniversary this week. Eighth. We did a one night get-a-way at a local hotel and my sister Carolyn and her husband Derek watched the girls. We stayed at the Silverton, near Carolyn, and it also has a Bass Pro Shop, so we went shopping and saw why my Dad loves this store so much. Jon bought himself a nice hiking hat and compass and I got a cute baseball cap to wear…sometime…I’m not sure when other than hiking. We had enjoyed dinner earlier and had a wonderful time away from the worries of normal life and parenting.

So that’s our past few weeks of life in a nutshell.

This is the second time I’ve been able to listen to an Apostle speak at a Stake Conference. The last time I think we had Lilah, though I don’t remember, and I think it was Elder Neal A. Maxwell, which tells you how good I was at keeping a journal and how bad my memory is.

This time is different. (Only I started it a week ago and am now finishing it.)

On Sunday February 2, they released our current Stake President and called a new one, hence the wonderful visit from Elder Holland, though an apostle is not sent for each time a new Stake President is called, I think we lucked out because a grandson of his was passing the Sacrament for the first time on Sunday, so I think there was a mix of business with pleasure, either way, we had an apostle of the Lord speak to us.

I went by myself to Stake Conference. I was torn between having the girls go with me and then miss three weeks of Primary in a row because of how we do Daddy Sundays, or to have them be with Jon and only miss two weeks of church. I also debated on how much they would get out of it, and now I wish I had brought them, but only because they would have been able to shake an apostles hand, which this was the first time for me.

Elder Holland directed most of his talk to the youth between ages 12 and 22. He’s become a very animated speaker in the past few years and was very fervent in his plea that the youth prepare themselves now and make important decisions now to follow the Lord and decide to go on missions. He said how most of the choices we make in our youth shape us into who we are as adults, and are the most crucial ones of our lives. He made an interesting remark that he is not someone to go to if you’re wondering if you should serve a mission, because he’ll take you by your coattails and drag you to the MTC, then he said how it wasn’t a very apostolic remark, but that he sure wouldn’t sympathize for you if you were on the fence about going on a mission. Every young man should go on a mission and every young woman who feels the desire.

He also bore testimony of The Church and of Joseph Smith as a prophet. He spoke about how he is an intelligent man and if The Church was untrue he sure wouldn’t be wasting his time going around the world on church business. It is true and he is an Apostle of the Lord.

In closing he gave a wonderful Apostles blessing on the congregation.

I was in awe of this wonderful man. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go up and shake his hand, but in the end how could I pass up such a wonderful opportunity.

I believe Elder Holland to be an apostle of the Lord and I am so happy that I was able to hear him speak.

I recently put this up on Facebook:

When people ask me about homeschooling and I haven’t done anything, I feel guilty. Then someone asks a question about dung beetles and my daughter knows the answer and I feel better because I know she’s learning, just in a less conventional way. Learning is a way of life and growth, not just something you go to school for.

So a couple things brought on this comment.

Yesterday my mother-in-law asked me about homeschooling and I didn’t have much to say because I haven’t been homeschooling the girls. We’ve been having fun at co-op, park days, running errands, them playing while I try to keep the house from falling apart, which isn’t going to well if you were to visit us, and doing laundry at my parent’s house on Wednesdays because my washer broke two weeks ago and we’re waiting on the parts.

So their formal homeschooling is pretty non-existent right now, and a lot has to do with how busy we are, and when I’ve mentioned it, the girls have not wanted to do it, so I don’t because I don’t want to fight over homeschooling. I figure they’re little, they know things, and when they get older so much more will be expected from them, why not let them be kids?

I know I’m busy and I know I need to be better about having our more formal sessions, but I really want school to be enjoyable for them, and at times when we were doing the formal schooling it was not enjoyable and that is one of the reasons I’m not forcing it at this time. Instead, we learn in ways that are more enjoyable for them. Watching Nova and Nature, letting them read all the books they want and reading to them, getting Eden a new set of Bob Books to conquer, going on hikes and reading the signs to them, going to museums and reading the signs to them there, and just discussing things in an informal matter while laying in bed. (Our geography discussions are usually done in my room after cuddling since the map is on our wall. )

The second part of my status came from an experience we had at Science Saturday, only it was Science Sunday, since it was a Daddy Sunday today and we went this afternoon after I was home from church.

They were learning about scarab beetles and the worker talked about scarab beetles being dung beetles and asked if anyone knew about dung beetles. Lilah raises her hand and tells what she knows about dung beetles.

“Dung beetles roll big balls of poop and then the lay their eggs in them and the eggs hatch and come out of the poop.”

It was exactly the answer the worker was looking for, since we were discussing why Ancient Egyptians somewhat worshiped the scarab beetles.

I know I worry about how others perceive me teaching my children. If they were going to public school, I could blame the school for not teaching them this or that, but I’m the teacher so the only one to blame is me and Jonathan, but mostly me.

People can easily interpret me as a lazy homeschooler.

I teach when it’s easy and don’t make the time I should and I know that and I feel a little guilty, but in the end I’m trying not to feel guilty about what I do or do not teach my children and how I do it. I am a lazy homeschooler, but I am not a lazy mother and I am not a lazy opportunity maker for my children to learn and grow on their own.

They’re smart little people. I’m told this all the time by those who are around them and how “good I’m doing”, but it’s them.

It’s all them.

….ring, ring, ring, you weren’t home.

So I have a song in my head, and it’s for kids and not something I can easily find, so you’ll just have to go with my craziness, but this post is about calling someone, only they were home.

So, auditions for Cinderella are less than a month away. I’m a little nervous, but mostly I’m OK. I think.

I’ve decided to sing George Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me. This is a song I love, plus it was our wedding song when I married Jon nearly 8 years ago. I sung Lullaby of Broadway last year, and wanted a change.

So I have the sheet music, but nothing to sing and rehearse to, except what’s in my head and what I can get on-line, and even though I would love to have Ella Fitzgerald accompany me as I sing my solo, I think I need to be able to sing the song alone since most people would rather just listen to Ella than me, but the point is to listen to me.

So I needed to find something to practise to.

The problem: there is only cheesy karaoke music on-line, and it’s just not something I can work with. So I thought I’d call up a woman in my ward who is very accomplished and ask if she would practise it a couple times and then allow me to record her playing it for me so I could rehearse to it.

I get my ward roster out and call her up. I get the “Do do do…I’m sorry but this number is no longer in service” lady and thought crap, how can I get her number. Then I thought, well she did call me about giving us books at the beginning of January, maybe I can recognize her number if I look through my caller id.

So I start flipping through my caller id. I knew her number was just the number, the problem was there were several numbers that were just the number, and I had no idea who they belonged to. I tried to use logic and deduce what number might be hers.

I choose and number and I called it.

It rang and rang.

Then a gentleman picks up.

“Hi Lacey.”

Oh crap! He knows my name and I realize I do not know who I’m calling. My mind races with what man might know who I am and I decide maybe I called Paul, a gentleman I bought some fabric from.

I tentatively say, “Hi, is this Paul?”

“No, this is Kevin.”

The light bulb goes on. Kevin is my friend Anna’s husband and the director for Cinderella and had called me a couple times.

“Oh, Kevin. I’m sorry I was trying to call a friend and only knew I had her number in my caller ID, but didn’t know which number. I’m sorry.”

I think he laughs and then says that’s alright and we have a short conversation about an e-mail he had recently sent. Before he hangs up he says, “I hope you find Paul.”

I didn’t need to find Paul, so I felt stupid for calling a number not knowing who would pick up, and I still needed to call the sister to see if she would play the song for me.

I think and remember I had a ward bulletin from Sunday and it had a list of all the important people on it, and she was important. I found it and called her. She said she would play the song for me. Yay!

I tell my friend Sam my silly story and she says I should have called her, she has to call this sister quite frequently for church related things.

Darn… I should have thought of that.

Also, I’ve realized my phone only stores 40 numbers, and her number wasn’t even on there.

I called you on the telephone. Ring, ring, ring, you were home.

I am a Gospel Principles teacher for my ward. In this calling I teach investigators, new members, and returning members of my church. This year we got a new manual, or really revised one, and the class right after mine is also teaching from it. It’s not too bad because they teach from it only twice a month, the second and third week, and we teach from it every week. The problem we encountered was I was sick the very first week and asked a brother in our ward to teach for me. He wanted to leave the lessons for me so he did a discussion on the Articles of Faith the first week.

So I taught lesson one in my class the second week of January, and my friend’s husband also taught lesson one the second week in his class, which is directly after mine. I taught lesson two the third week and lesson two was taught directly after my class once more. I knew this might happen, but it was interesting to see how the sister taught the same lesson as me, only different.

So the fourth week of January we were set to have lesson three taught. Our Sunday school presidency is offering other classes, one about marriage the other about teaching, along with the regular Gospel Doctrine and my class, Gospel Principles. The Sunday school president called me up and said he would teach lesson three for me and I could then go to the class about teaching, being taught by Brother M.  So I didn’t prepare my lesson and enjoyed the week off.

Fast foreward to this past Sunday, or the week I was suppose to have off.

The girls and I got to sacrament meeting a little late. Partially because my neighbor got pulled over by a police officer right in front of our house  and blocked my driveway and I had to ask the police officer if my neighbor could move his car so I could go to church. As I’m sitting in sacrament meeting I do not see the Sunday school president so I read the lesson, just in case I need to wing it. After the sacrament is passed and finished I see the the Sunday school president come in with his family. I’m relieved and I enjoy the rest of sacrament meeting.

Then after sacrament meeting I start talking to the Sunday school president.

SSP: So Brother M’s wife had her baby this week so I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: My class, as in the one I’m going to today?
SSP: No your class.
Me: My class? The one your teaching?
SSP: No, I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: Which class? The one I’m going to or the one I teach?
SSP: The one you teach.

After this very fuzzy conversation I get a little nervous. He hadn’t prepared a lesson because Brother M was going to help him, since our own Sunday school president doesn’t teach. Bro. M’s wife had her baby last week and due to the chaos Bro. M hadn’t been able to help him prepare and thus gave him one of those  Living Scripture movies to show in my class.

I was slightly annoyed, but mostly just worried. I needed to stay on schedule so the lessons could start being farther a part between the two hours where we use the same manual. I also didn’t want to miss a lesson since we have exactly the number we need to teach for the year, minus one, but since we started on the second week we need to stay on track.

When explaining why I was there, yet we would be  watching a movie anyways, one of the elders jokingly mentioned how he would even teach the class because having the same lesson twice in a row on the same day was “boring”.

I decided to man up and teach the lesson.

Then the Stake President walks in.

My stomach starts to shake and I get as nervous as I get when I need to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Those symptoms include, but are not limited to: a rapidly beating heart, butterflies in my stomach, noodle legs, shortness of breath, unclear mind, and my whole body shaking so hard that those sitting behind me think I will literally shake out of my boots since my knees are knocking so loudly that I lose my balance while speaking.

I explain the situation,  apologize, try to hide my wildly shaking hands as I read from the book, and get on with the lesson.

At one point we read a scripture and I get the doctrine completely wrong. Well not completely wrong, just mixed up. The stake president then raises his hand and I call on him “I believe in that scripture our first estate is pre-mortal existence and our second estate is our earthly bodies. If I’m wrong someone can feel free to correct me doctrinely.” (I had said the first estate was our earthly bodies and the second was everlasting life. What a great teacher I am.)

The Stake President also called me Lacey throughout the lesson, which in turn my new teaching partner, who just got called and this was her first time in the class, started calling me Lacey, and our relief society president who also attends my class, and it happened last week when I was asked to give the prayer in relief society by one of the counselors. Why can’t I just be Sister Blake !?!

Jon says I should start calling myself Sister Lacey, then I said what happens when someone asks me my first name and I say it’s Lacey and then they ask “Your name is Lacey Lacey?”

Sorry, family joke. Your parents named you Harvey Harvey?

So class ended and I didn’t do too bad of a job teaching a lesson I hadn’t prepared. The elders said I did a great job and our Sunday school president said I bailed him out big time. (Can you imagine putting on some scripture movie because you hadn’t prepared your lesson and then the Stake President coming into your class? And the scripture movie isn’t approved church teaching material and you’re the Sunday School president so you should know this, and so should your counselor who gave you the movie because he was just in the bishopric?)

Anyways, I think the class went pretty well, despite not preparing the lesson a head of time and I saved myself and those in my class from watching a movie from a company whos business I think is run in a very annoying matter.

It’s all about the principles and the lesson.

I am very shy.

What?

You’re one of the people who don’t believe me, or maybe you are one of the people who does believe me and are nodding your head in agreement.

I tell Jon I’m shy and he doesn’t believe me. My own husband.

I told my friend Sam I’m shy and she says that is the one word that would never enter her mind if she had to describe me. She then told me how I’m friendly at church things and how I talk to people.

True, I have introduced myself to others at church things.

True, I do talk to people, but there are many times I hate talking to people, and thus don’t, but it’s because I’m being too bashful to try to start a conversation. So see, I’m shy.

Since two of my closest friends don’t think I’m shy, I think I’m faking it pretty well.

Honestly, I hate going up and talking to people. I introduce myself to individuals in my class on the Sundays I teach, but the other Sundays I usually sit back and watch.

Lately, I’ve hardly said hello to anyone I don’t know well at church or to the two co-ops I attend.

I was recently at a wedding for a friend from high school and was too shy to say hello to some people. I found those I was most comfortable with and talked latched onto them. I was in a bashful mood and I worried that people wouldn’t remember me, or worse, they did remember me and didn’t want to talk to me.

The wedding was probably worse for me because I think I was at my shyest in high school. I was very quiet. So quiet that on a trip to Disneyland, on more than one occasion, my friends were surprised that I hadn’t left the group because, I was hardly saying  a word and just walking with them. (Why I was so shy around my friends is another story, but we’ll leave it at the fact that I didn’t know if any were true friends at that time.)

I know I can be friendly, and deep down I want to be super friendly, as in I never worry about being outgoing and am automatically a friendly type of person, but for now I fake it.

Some days I fake it better than others and I now want to make it a goal to be outgoing to those I meet, so I can one day say to myself I am not shy.

I say fake it till you make others believe you and then maybe you’ll finally believe them.