Is It Naptime Yet

Last Saturday we got family pictures done. Can I say I never realized how hard it is to get my two girls to smile at the same time, especially by a stranger. Lilah just stared at him until he started bonking his head with a toy and would say oh. Then she was so excited, or nervous, that her tongue would stick out. Here are the pictures we decided to get and I put some of the others because it shows our adventures in getting smiles. I don’t know why I want more kids…it just adds to the number of people and the length of time it will take to get a descent picture of all of us.

Jon wanted this one because Eden was playing with her hair and it looks like bunny ears. It’s so Eden becasue she constantly plays with her hair.

Here are the one we didn’t get copies of. If you want one of these…let us know and well send you a bill with the picture. 🙂

As I look at this one it makes me want it instead of the second one we ordered of Eden.

I wanted this one taken because we have one of Lilah like this, but Eden’s pants are so long that it just looks bad.

We didn’t know how much Marie, an old family friend, spoiled us. She would give us free sittings, free smiles by wire, how we have these on-line copies, each sheet for $3.99 and then she would order more and give us the ones that they show you when you pick up your order, in hopes that you’d buy more. This time we had to get the portrait club card because it gives us free sittings for two years, a savings of $50-70 if we have a third child. Then we only get what we order, but we had the coupon for $3.99 a sheet, instead of $9.99. We did order enough to give to some to immediate family…I am terrible about giving pictures though. I have all of ours from last year when Eden is two months old. In part because they change so fast…now Eden will mostly look like what she does now so I feel more comfortable giving them out.

My family does a FHE once a month with all the siblings who are here and some adopted family members. This year we’re doing it on The Family: A Proclamation to the World. My mom separated the paragraphs and we got the following one to do.

“We warn that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”

What a heavy paragraph. Well, since it mentioned the word warn I went with warnings and how things around us have warnings Jon brought in instructions…so we decided to right some instructions for parts of the paragraph. We separated it in to powers of procreation, marriage, parental discipline, and family roles. I think some of them turned out funny.

Powers of Procreation

SUGGESTED USE: Apply liberally within the bonds of marriage.

COMMON SIDE EFFECTS: Stronger relationships, trust, smiling couples, and children.

WARNING: Avoid premature exposure and uses outside of marriage. Broken homes may result.

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, (Gen 1:28, Moses 2:28)

And Adam knew his wife, and she bare unto him sons and daughters, and they began to multiply and to replenish the earth. (Moses 5:2)

Parental Discipline

SUGGESTED USE: Use as directed by the Spirit, sparingly with large doses of persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned.

COMMON SIDE EFFECTS: Happy, orderly homes.

OVERDOSE WARNING: Do not exceed recommended doses or use contrary to the Spirit’s direction—can result in hurt feelings, broken relationships, rebellious children, and crippled lives.

UNDERDOSE WARNING: Too little discipline may lead to chaotic, uncooperative homes, and spoiled brats.

D&C 121:41

Marriage

DIRECTIONS: Mix man and woman equally, include generous doses of communication, humor, respect, trust, love, friendship, and divine guidance. For best results, maintain strong physical attraction.

WARNING: If proportions of man and woman are not mixed equally, negative side effects include unrighteous dominion, diminishing affection, and eventually disintegration of marriage.

D&C 121:39

Family Roles

DIRECTIONS: Where possible fathers should provide righteous priesthood leadership, the necessities of life, and protection for their families. Mothers should nurture their children. Both parents should provide love, guidance, and gospel instruction.

Children under the age of 18 should support parents by respecting them, avoiding contention, setting good examples to other siblings, and fulfilling family responsibilities such as chores.

Extended families should lend support when needed.

WARNING: Failure to follow directions will lead to broken homes. Severe cases may be contagious and lead to the eventual collapse of society and calamities of biblical proportion. (Did we mention the vultures, the dogs, the maggots, etc.?)

All children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age. (D&C 83:4)

And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents. (D&C 68:25)

And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, (Mosiah 4:14)

Overall I think it went well. There was loudness because of children, but it was short and simple on a heavy topic.

I’m the tough parent. Jon’s the soft one. Not that it’s bad or good. It just stinks.  Lilah didn’t want to go to nursery this Sunday. No particular reason. She just wanted to go home and take a nap. (she’s never had this problem until we went to Ely and her and Jon only stayed for sacrament.) Jon went to class with Eden. I took Lilah to the bathroom and then she was upset and not wanting to go to nursery. I tried having her sit on some steps with me but I felt that she was getting to much attention, because I’m a control freak and I wanted her to sit forward, fold her arms etc. Really I was just trying to make her miserable so she would want to go to nursery and play. Well I tried to take her in and she just threw a fit and cried and followed me to the door so then it was time out. I just wanted her to go to nursery. I know I pull away from her. She seems so demanding and I feel that I give her attention so I wonder what it is that makes her so demanding or so upset. I just don’t know. Well I heard the bell and I figured Jon would probably be wondering where I was…since we were outside and not easily seen. So I took Lilah to him. I told him not to be soft. Sure he got results but he was soft and gave her attention…right. I just hate it sometimes when he has more patience to deal with her. I blame it on that he’s not around her 24 hours a day.  Well she was in timeout… on his lap and eventually they went in….and she was allowed her to bring her blanket…and I think he may have left her, but it may have been close to leaving time so he may have stayed.  He’s just soft.  I withdrawal. It’s how I deal with her. I just feel so pulled and I don’t want to spoil her. I feel like she’s being spoiled rather than independent. Since it’s General conference next week this will probably make the week after just as hard. He says it’s better not to make it a battle if wills. Then she can get over it and move on rather then remember the traumatic moments of her mother making her stand in time out. (I added the mother making her stand in timeout…he doesn’t point fingers.) I see his point. I’m just stubborn…as you all know.

Oh…I am separating Lilah and Eden at nap time now. Lilah goes in my bed. Sometimes I take a nap with her. It mostly works..except the days that Lilah doesn’t sleep…but she has slept better. The only thing now is Lilah tries to climb into bed at night time. She got in Saturday night on Jon’s side. He’s usually too tired to put her back in her bed. Last night it was 6…I took her back. She came back at 7:10 or so..it was light out so she can sleep in the bed..at least that’s what she said..and it sounded okay to me. Jon was in the shower so she just took his spot. She’s nice and warm to cuddle up to.

So with visiting graves after the reunion we tried to explain to Lilah that dead people are buried under the ground, and that’s where their bodies are. Well what stuck was, we visit dead people. (I will mention that for the rest of the trip any grassy area we passed Lilah would say that dead people are buried there, but of course we had to correct her many times.)
Today she decided to pack up her little grocery cart and take her friends to visit dead people.
Lilah: “Come on Mommy lets visit the dead people.”
Me: “Okay.”
We walk down the hall to the living room.
Lilah: “Here are the dead people.”
She points her foot to different spots on the carpet as she says
“Here’s my cousin Shauntae and here’s daddy.”
Me: “They aren’t dead we visited grandpa’s daddy.”
Lilah: “Here’s grandpa, here’s daddy.”

I just thought it was funny. We try to be plain with her. No frills, but as simple as possible.
At least we know that Shautae and her boys left an impression on her. 😉

So we went to Idaho Falls this weekend. My Father’s side had a family reunion. Our first stop was in Logan Utah. It took us ten hours to get there, instead of nine, because we missed exits and had to backtrack to fill up gas tanks. We got there at 10:00 pm Utah time. We stayed at Jon’s niece’s house, Shauntae. We didn’t get any pictures of us or her family, but here is one with Matthew, her youngest.

Lilah sliding, she didn’t want to leave, and Matthew.

He’s the baby and he kept saying how he didn’t like babies. He was cute though…it’s hard when you’re two to have a family invade your house.
It snowed the night we were there, at least in the mountains around us

The mountains outside Shauntae’s house.

It was a nice sunny 85 degrees on Wednesday then Thursday the temperature dropped and a cold front moved in. Utah and Idaho were freezing…well really cold. We also had a lot of rain driving up. All through Provo until we got out of Salt Lake it rained.

We drove by the Logan temple.

It was stormy on our way out of Logan to Idaho Falls.

We had the reunion at my Uncle Don’s motel. Luckily one of my cousins brought cars for her boys to play with. Lilah had fun, and so did Eden…we just don’t have a picture of her.

Dakota is the boy, my cousin Don Jr’s step son.

Here is my father with four of his five siblings.

(Larry-my dad, Marsha- half sister, Don-brother, Mary- half sister, Mike- half brother.)

Here is a picture of my father’s mother.

After the reunion we visited the graves of family. My great grandparents and my father’s father.
I learned that Dad hung out a lot at his grandparents, the Harvey’s, house.

This is my grandfather’s grave. I also learned that he was a Marine in WWII.

Eden helping us pack.

On Sunday we visited several sites. The first stop was at the trailer park my father was raised in.

The neighbor man brought out his trash and my father recognized him. So even though he hasn’t seen this person in at least 30 years, he went over and introduced himself. (This is just like my dad…he talks to everyone, and anyone he remembers.)

Jon and Lilah in front of the trailer park my father was raised in.

Next we visited the school that my Father went to.

Dad, Uncle Mike, Uncle Don.

Lilah and Alona and a stray dog.

(Alona is my uncle Mike’s granddaughter.)

Alona and the dog.

Lilah on a bench in front of the school.

Our little family visited the Idaho Falls temple next.

Idaho Falls, Idaho Temple

I took the following picture…I’m very proud of it. 🙂

Angel Moroni through the trees.

The falls of the Snake river. These are on the other side of the temple.

We went from Idaho falls to Twin Falls, to Ely. We passed many farm fields. They were so beatiful. We’re just not use to seeing so much farm land.

A field.

Some dairy cows.

Eden being silly in the back seat.

Brien and Andrea told us about Snake River. Andrea was driving so she couldn’t look, but Brien mentioned how amazing the cliffs were and rubbed it in that Andrea couldn’t get a good look. Jon was driving so I teased him as we went over, so he decided to pull over and take pictures.
Pictures do not give it justice.

Snake River, outside of Twin Falls, or Kimberly Idaho, maybe both?

The Hansen Bridge over Snake River

It was beautiful driving through the desert at Sunset. The mountains had a purple hue and you could see so far in the distance. I truly love the desert. I love trees and mountains of other climates, but I love seeing so far onto the horizon and layers upon layers of rolling hills. Jon took this picture at the very end of the sunset.

Sunset outside of Ely Nevada.

We drove through Northern Nevada to Ely on Sunday. Stayed with Andrea and Brien, and on Monday we came home. We had to pick our car from the shop and drop my parents car off at their house. We got home just in time for me to do my assignments for my music class. It was a hectic schedule. It was a fun trip. I think we spent around 27 hours in the car. The girls were quite well behaved. We had one of us in the back seat for the end of certain stretches.

I hope I don’t have to go on a car trip for a while. We’ve done three in the last three months. We haven’t gone on one in two years. I’m glad summer travels are over.

My girls have been in their room for two hours. I’m going crazy!!! It’s nap time and they have not slept a wink. They were doing sooo well and then the week school started they decided to not take naps until 4 of 5 o’clock. I’m just so tired of it. Eden gets overly tired and then I have to be right next to her and lull her to sleep. Lilah falls asleep at 5 and then doesn’t wake up until 7 or 8, so she goes to bed at 9:30 or 10. I know daylight savings is coming in which we’ll be falling forward an hour and that will throw there no sleep charade even further out of whack.
I need them to take afternoon naps.
I like to take my showers in the afternoon so I’m freshly showered for my evening classes. I have side swept bangs that drive me crazy when I’m just at home dealing with the girls, so if I were to get up and do my shower before they awoke, or even when Eden takes her morning nap, I would end up pulling my bangs back, but I want to avoid that. It just drives me nuts when they go through these phases and won’t sleep. I’ve just let Lilah up. (It’s just after five) She is getting older and possible doesn’t need a nap. I try to run them around and get them tired out, it just doesn’t seem to work. There are days where Lilah gets soo moody and I can’t stand to have her around because she’s not sharing, she  bosses Eden around, or doesn’t listen to anything I say. She has a melt down whenever you ask her to do something, and so I figure she needs a nap…and then she’s awake for three hours before she falls asleep. ARG! Eden is still making plenty of noise. I’m debating getting her up. maybe a 7 o’clock bedtime, but I’m afraid how early she’ll wake up. it’s just frustrating. I try to spend time with them but I have so much work I have to get done for school, or just around the house. I feel like they want my attention all day long, unless they’re watching TV. I hate letting them watch so much TV. I try to limit it to 1 hour during the day. But lately it’s been whole movies or 2- 2 1/2 hours of PBS. I do break up the PBS, but I still feel terrible. I just feel stretched. I feel like they’re not being self sufficient. The afternoon is my time. I usually try to do more school, or house work. I also feel like I deserve to relax a little while I eat my afternoon snack, but I also feel guilty that I’m not doing work. I have a trip we’re taking this weekend, so since I won’t be home I have tons to do. ( two test this Friday before we leave, which means I have lectures to watch plus I have to study, and two short papers to write for my music class, and those will need reading.) I also have to get laundry done and pack, get my parents car and drop ours off in the shop. There’s just so much. I wish I had a second me to entertain the girls or at least regulate them. Some days are great. Lilah plays with Eden and they’re both happy, but those days or moments are few lately. I just need relief. I can’t wait for the weekend, because I know I’ll be able to relax most of the time(except the reading I’ll need to do for my sex offenders class because I won’t have time to do it this week). But to prepare for it is going to be crazy. Sorry I just had to vent.
(I’m also kinda beginning to ween Eden. Jon doesn’t want to keep her up at night just so I can feed her, so he thinks I should ween her. I’m not ready yet. Or should I say my breast don’t feel ready yet. I went one night without the night time feeding, she only eats twice now, and my breast wanted to explode at 3 am. Then my mammary glands were sore the whole day. I just hate weening. I believe going from two to one feeding a day is the hardest. After you get rid of the second one, the last feeding, I think, just gets smaller to where they lose interest and then I just have to pump a little for a few days and be in a little discomfort. I just fear mastitis like the plague, and I always worry that I’ll get it while weening. So I think that piles on more emotions to my already unorganized, an chaotic life.)

I teach Relief Society once a month. This week our lesson was on Temple Work: Turning Our Hearts to Our Families and the Lord.
Now it went well relatively speaking. It was only a little frustrating. I only had 20 minutes. Which is somewhat normal after we have announcements and song practice. (I usually have 25-30) I wish they would have chosen a shorter song though. It was four verses. Why not a two verse song for song practice?
Well I pretty much just got my introduction in, and parts about family history. Mostly I would make a short comments and people would have something to say or contribute. or they would have something to say in response to another comment. I wish on days like this I was a mind reader, or psychic. Then I could chose the comments that would be relevant and short, and maybe move-on in a polite way past the comments that would be off topic, or less relevant, and edit those which are long to that which is really needed to be said. It was such a good lesson that I wish I could have gotten more in. Just telling the women to read it doesn’t do it, because I know those who have not already read it, probably will not read it. Granted most of what was said was very uplifting, and they were wonderful experiences. Just what I look for. I just wish I would have had more time. 20 minutes is never enough.

So I have 11 blogs that I read. I had most of them bookmarked, but for some I would just go from other pages to get to the ones I wanted. Jon told me use bloglines, then you don’t have to visit ones that haven’t been updated. I said I liked the suspense of waiting and then seeing if they had been updated. He laughed at me. Well I eventually decided to do  a blogline account. It’s so much easier. I just go there and it shows me whose been updated and then I can just click on them and see the  posts I haven’t read. It usually doesn’t show pictures, but it’s easy to access the post on the original site. Anyways. I highly recommend bloglines if you have several blogs you like to read. it makes the disappointment easier when sites haven’t been updated.

www.bloglines.com

They call it a three day weekend so you can relax right?
We did so much house stuff, and granted it has paid off because I have hardly anything I have to do today besides the little stuff, but man housework is never done.
Miraculously we were able to keep our sink pretty empty. We did at least a load of dishes a day, some days two. We got errands run, such as one trip to Target, and two small trips to the grocery store.  One gospel Doctrine Lesson was planned. Some laundry got washed…three loads washed, two loads folded. Jon made tons of  food this weekend. Including one large batch of coleslaw, he loves coleslaw. On Saturday he made fish sticks for lunch and pasta. More pasta on Sunday. (He saw a recipe on the bag he wanted to try.) I made three batches of granola. One on Friday, which reminded us all how much we love granola, and then I did a double batch yesterday. I also made brownies for FHE. We had lots of family time. Including running through the sprinklers and chasing the girls around on Monday.
I’ve done lots of sweeping and wiping down counters. Things get dirty so fast. I have become a sweep-oholic. I sweep at least once a day. I also wipe down the counters throughout the day. They are just nicer that way, especially when your cooking, doing dishes then cooking some more. I also scrubbed out our kitchen sink this weekend. It was gross. Since it was finally completely empty and staying that way I decided to get out the orange clean and spray it down. It’s nice to have a clean sink.
There’s just so much constant cleaning and laundering. I just did a load of clothes for the girls this morning and they need to be folded. I really hate folding. Things get put in the laundry basket and set for days waiting to be folded, or we just get what we need out of the dryer.  It’s horrible, but at least we have clean clothes. I feel good that we did so much and just kept the house up this weekend. (Usually we relax and get caught up in everything else, and the house goes to pot, or part of it gets done, like laundry, but the dishes stay in the sink the whole weekend.) Jon did outside stuff and I relaxed, watched the girls, or did school stuff. He helped so much, and even did dishes, though he derserves..say…three weeks off….if not more since he did so much while I was recovering. It helps to have his support. It feels good to have a clean kitchen.  We have too many dishes so it was hard at times to empty the dishwasher and put away all the clean ones. Oh well. We found room for them all.
It was a good weekend. Productive and fun. Thanks honey

Lilah got ready for church yesterday while sitting on the couch watching The Incredibles. I noticed that she hadn’t taken off her pajama bottoms, blue bottoms with sharks in them, but I figured once Jon has her go potty she’ll put her pull-ups on and it won’t matter. We got to church and she’s upset because we won’t let her sit in between us. I get her on my lap and I realized…hey it doesn’t feel like she has a pull-up on. I lift her dress a little and what do I see… the blue shark bottoms to her pajamas. Jon had gotten Lilah to get her shoes on, but forgot to have her go potty before church. My next thought…she’s wearing panties,

‘please just don’t go pee in your panties during sacrament.’

My other worry was her getting emotional.

‘Please don’t get emotional and lose control of your bladder.’

Sacrament went well. I got pull-ups on her for Nursery and had her go to the bathroom. She’s doing pretty well in panties. She even left the table during lunch one day to go to the bathroom, and she only went pee. Which was a big leap because just having to go pee doesn’t mean Lilah goes to the toilet. Usually she has to go poop before she’ll rush to the bathroom, or we have ro remind her. She actually hasn’t had a wet pull-up for a while, but every once in a while she does go in her panties while at home. Which makes the pull-up in public a must for me.

The other funny thing happened after church. Jon and I were in the bedroom talking and changing or something. Lilah comes in all excited. “Mommy come here, I have to show you something.” She takes me by the hand and starts dragging me down the hall. I’m thinking what has she done, and Jon follows because of the bubbling excitement Lilah has. We get to the kitchen and she stops and points.
“What’s that Mommy?”
I reply “It’s Ovaltine”
“Is that to make chocolate milk?”
“Why yes it is.”
“Can we have chocolate milk?”

It was just funny. I suppose to had to be there, but she was dang cute. Her excitement was almost too much.
I suppose we should have chocolate milk more often. But hey I figure if you have things sparingly then they will think it’s such a treat to have it. So ovaltine once a month it is. J/K