Is It Naptime Yet

Friday December 29th we had a small family gathering. Kumen, Jonathan’s brother, his wife Becky and four of their children came to town. (Their oldest son just got married this past October (David) and the next son is on a mission (Jared).) Well they visited Becky’s parents in Pahrump and stayed there, but they came to Vegas to try to see the different siblings. They live in AZ, so we see them about twice a year. It was an unplanned trip, or a trip were they didn’t know if they’d be able to come to Nevada until last minute, so Thursday is when we found out they were in state. The Blake clan needed a gathering spot, since the two sisters, where we normally have our gatherings were busy or sick, Jon volunteered our small abode. His parents house is pretty cramped plus there’s no where to send the younger kids to play except outside. We figured that we could clear out some of the clutter to have it more inviting and since we have the girls room the younger kids could have something to do away from the adults. It worked out perfectly. We had Kumen, Becky, Audriana (sorry I know I misspelled it, 17), Aaron (13), Ben (6) and Zach (5). Then Jon’s parents showed up with Dara and Jason and later in the evening Rawlin showed up. Everyone was at our house around 4:30 and we talked and had a little something to eat. I believe Jon’s parents left around 6 or 6:30, maybe even 7 pm. Rawlin showed up only a half hour before they left.
When it was time for the grandparents to leave Zach thought they were leaving also and told Becky he didn’t want to go he wanted to stay and play. So I guess we had a least a semi entertaining home because his grandpa in Pahrump has a small train that they ride around the estate there and he wanted to stay and play here, though I’m sure he was just distracted by all the different toys we had that he doesn’t.
It was a fun evening. Rawlin and Kuman kept each other occupied. Becky and I talked then Aaron told riddles and the younger boys came out and we pretended to talk on the phone to one another. Jon mostly sat and watched and Lilah was in the living room the whole time because she didn’t know who these boys were that took over her room. Eden was just curious and watched as they played with blocks and got her other toys out. Later Eden befriended Audriana at the end of the night. The two younger boys also seemed to like the chime set and the accordion we just got for Christmas.They left around 9 pm. The pictures were all taken at the end. More of a second thought so those who weren’t able to see them could. I was also busy talking most of the night so I should have delegated Jon to take some. Also our flash either wasn’t on or it didn’t work very well across the room and neither did the red eye apparently.

At one point in the night I tried to tell Lilah everyones names. Obviously it was too much for a little girl to remember. She was funny later that night or even another night we had her say the family prayer and she asked to have the cousins whose names we don’t know be safe. She’s done that twice so far sense we’ve seen them.

Zach, 4. He goes to preschool two days a week now.

Jon, Rawlin, Kumen.

Ben, Becky, Zach, Audriana, Aaron’s legs. (sorry I never got a better shot of Becky.)
Becky stays home and does paid sewing projects and what not.

Audriana and Aaron. Audraina is planing on becoming an American Sign Language interpreter. Aaron is 13 and plays the clarinet in band.

Ben is 6 and I believe in kindergarten, or possibly the first grade.

Brighter shot of Audraina hugging Zach and Aaron on the couch.

Jon has the week between Christmas and New Years off. UNLV does this shutdown of the campus and you can work, but it’s recommended to take the time off. Since we had the week off Jon studied for the G.R.E. which he took on Friday. So even though my husband didn’t work he was still at his office two days last week and then he took the G.R.E. on Friday. The time flew by and it seemed I didn’t have time for much of anything. So here is my week in review.

Monday: Christmas….why would I blog on Christmas.
Tuesday: Relaxed in the morning and watched movies. Andrea and Brien came to town so I took the girls with me to see them while Jon stayed behind and studied. We saw them for about an hour in the afternoon before they left to do some shopping. Then I went to my sister Carolyn’s house in Boulder City. The girls caused mischief and I sorted through some clothes she hasn’t worn. I found one sweater, two long sleeve shirts and a couple short sleeve ones that I could add to my wardrobe.
Wednesday: Jon went to study for the G.R.E. at his office. I’m not sure what I did this day. Probably the normal dishes and cleaning. This week was hard though because Lilah started saying the phrase “I just can’t do anything right.” in which she would not try to do anything. She seemed very whiny and it drove me nuts all this week until today, Tuesday, where she’s been her normal self and not overly whiny.
Thursday: Jon went to campus to study in the morning and I stayed home with the girls. Around 2:30 Jon’s mom called about the plans of seeing Kumen and his family. At 3:30 or so it was confirmed that we would have the gathering at our house the next day at 4. Andrea and Brien came by on their way home to Ely. Probably because I was sad that I hadn’t seen them more and because we had some things of theirs. I gave them their pick of family pictures to compensate for them stopping by to see my little family. After Andrea and Brien left, about 3:45 and I started cleaning the house. Well not so much cleaning but organizing the chaos that had taken over. I got my room organized and the Christmas tree taken down so there would be more room for everyone. My room was quite a feet because we’ve had lots of little things floating around there and it has never looked as nice as it did Friday, when I completely finished, since we’ve moved in. I should take a picture so I can remember this moment. ( I hope to make it look nicer once I get drapes and get even more organized.)
Friday: Jon took the G.R.E. I ignored my two little girls and organized the front room. ( My house is normally okay but we just have so much stuff. Books or filing overtakes our living room and computer desk regularly.) We ate lunch and Jon got a few things from the store. I cleaned my bathroom and took a shower. After getting dressed and presentable I loaded up the things we’d decided to take to DI and made a big trip. I went to DI, then to my parents house in Henderson for chairs. Then I stopped off at Costco for food and came home. I left at 2:40 and got home at 4:15. Then we had a family gathering.
Saturday: I’m not sure what we did. I think I tried writing a draft for stuff but I just relaxed because of all the hard work the previous two days.
Sunday: Went to church and celebrated New Years Eve. Jon fell asleep around 10. I didn’t want to watch anything that was on TV so I watched Star Wars III because I fell asleep the day before when Jon was watching it. Jon woke up at 11:55 pm and we paused the movie at 11:59. We enjoyed a New Years kiss, the fireworks on TV, and ice cream floats. I had a the regular root beer float Jon had a Kiwi Lime Soda float. We stayed up until 2 or so.
Monday: I slept in. Enjoyed the morning. Jon tried putting up the dry wall in the girls bathroom. It turned out to be just a little to thick for the patch job so we need to buy more. I went shopping with my sister Carolyn at 2. It was so fruitless until we reached the Target Greatland. The stores either didn’t have what I was looking for (a black dress or a least a cute but simple black skirt.) , or they were to expensive. (I just can’t spend $50 on a skirt even if it is Ann Taylor and on sale/ clearance.) We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings where Carolyn’s boyfriend was watching a game with some friends. I got home around 7:30 pm. It was a fun day out and I’m glad that Target at least had what I was looking for. ( I got a black skirt, black yoga pants, and then two t-shirts on clearance at $1.98 and a v-neck at $3.98. I’m totally going to visit ours to see if they have the same clearance because they’re cute and I can wear them at home without worrying about ruining a $2 shirt.)

I’m trying to keep my house organized now that my life is back to normal.Today I feel yucky, I’m not sure why, so I’ve slept and played all day with a little blogging.

Our little tree on Christmas Eve.

The stockings. ( Filled with some homemade truffles and other goodies.)

Lilah finding what she wants in the stocking.
Chocolate covered pretzels before breakfast!

The first gift Lilah opened. (We don’t have Eden’s because our memory card got full.)
Lilah’s accordion that Eden liked.

One of Jon’s gifts. (A book on Escher.)

Mommy’s gift…..The pearls around her neck and on her ears.

Eden enjoying watching Tarzan on the couch. See collected all these bows and then sat in the middle of them.

Lilah with a bow on her head. She never noticed I put it there.

A little bit of our Christmas 2006.

So it’s been a little nutty at the Blake house. But this is a written recap of Christmas.
Lilah was so excited for Christmas. All day long on Monday she was asking “Is it Christmas?” She had tons of fun opening gifts. Eden on the other hand opened two gifts and just wanted to play once they were opened. One was a xylophone type chime toy, but she also liked playing with her sisters accordion. Jon got it out right away to play with it and Eden wanted to only play with that until we finally got her to open another toy, a little bath toy with soap crayons. Since Eden LOVES crayons she just played with them the rest of the morning. Lilah didn’t mind opening the rest, though I think Eden had decided to help her open the blocks once we got them out.
Jon received books and a cd. That’s all he ever gets because clothing is one thing we don’t buy for one another. Our tastes are just different enough that we’re okay with what the other person buys but we don’t always understand each others tastes. I received “one gift”. This made me sad Christmas Eve. I suppose I didn’t expect a lot but when Jon mentioned that he was sorry that I had only one gift I did get a little sad. All I get to open on Christmas is one gift when our girls have nine and he has like five! I will admit I am a little spoiled but I really love surprises so one gift just wasn’t cutting it on Christmas Eve. I also had asked Lilah what she wrapped for me with daddy and she said it was a DVD. So if I was getting one gift I didn’t want it to be a DVD set of some show I liked. I would just like to say also that we set a limit on what to spend for one another. We try to keep it small so we don’t use our savings for Christmas, except what we saved for Christmas, or go into debt. So it was only one gift because that was what our limit was set at. Jon blamed it on my expensive taste. Anyways my one gift ended up being two gifts in one package. He said he wanted to shake things up a bit and surprise me because I always know whats coming. In the one package was a cd I wanted and a fresh water pearl necklace with matching earrings. It was a bit of a surprise though not completely.
You see Jon had hidden the pearl necklace box in his drawer under this shoebox he keeps his pocket stuff in. I had removed it a week or so before Christmas to get receipts from it to file and when I put it back I noticed the blue box. It was just like the blue box a necklace I received  at a previous Christmas came in so I figured he had gotten me some jewelry off of amazon. I had will power and I did not look in the box and I even told him that I had accidentally found the box. So I started thinking about what would be in this blue box and I figured it was probably a pearl necklace and earrings. Mostly because  the jewelry I have on amazon is silver stuff and then I have a few diamonds just to give an idea and then pearls. So he was right that I end up figuring things out. ( I felt my one present Christmas morning and figured out it was the blue box I saw and not a DVD set.)
Back to the story. The twist of one present and me asking Lilah what it was made me a little disappointed only to be pleasantly surprised when I finally opened it Christmas day. Now I need to go find a cute Church outfit to go with the pearls. Sure I have one that will work and I can wear them with jeans and a nice shirts, but what’s the fun in that.

Things we got the girls:  cd player for their bedroom (really a clock radio with cd player), more blocks (hopefully they won’t fight over them as much), Tarzan (my favorite Disney movie), Monster’s Inc., Accordion (why I’m not sure. Jon bought this), toy chimes (another Jon), bubble bath, Candyland. Lilah got Eden a bath time Pablo, form the Backyardagains and it came with soap crayons. Eden got Lilah a Sequence game.
(remember this is for posterity and for the sake of recording it.)

We hung out all morning and then went to my parents around 1. The girls got lots and we got some things.  We had the traditional ham dinner with my family and just talked for the evening and came home around 6.