Is It Naptime Yet

My sister Carolyn works at a real estate office. For an Easter gift she asked the women who does their house baskets to make each family, that was here for Easter, a basket. Here’s ours. It has tons of stuff in it. Peeps, cotton candy, chocolate bunnies, crayons, coloring books, Orange slices, m&m’s and candy kisses to name some of it. I almost don’t want to open it because it’s so pretty. It’s was from her and Derek.

Carolyn also bought the dresses that the girls wore for Easter. She just liked them and I just kept them for Easter.

She’s taken nicely to the position of “Aunt with no kids who spoils her nieces”. Andrea use to do this, along with Carolyn, but now we only have Carolyn. Andrea still spoils them when she has a chance, it’s just that she’s hundred of miles away.
On Sunday I joked with Carolyn that she didn’t need to have kids, we’d just share custody with her and Derek. We’d have the girls during the week and they could have them on the weekends, that way we could go on dates. 🙂
She wasn’t up for joint custody but she did say she’d babysit once a month since she’d be babysitting Nia, he friend Julie’s daughter, once a month. Derek would just have to have his boys night out on her babysitting night. 😉
Well see if it happens. Their house will be on the other side of the universe from us, but heck if it’s free $6 in gas ain’t bad for a babysitter. 😉

My sister moved this past weekend so Thursday I went over to her house to help watch her kids. Howard was suppose to be cleaning the other place while I was there but the night before he got a call from someone he does freelance work for and he went out instead that morning.
I hung out at her house from 8:30 till 1:30. While there I didn’t pack anything, mostly because I didn’t know what to pack but I did vacuum and clean the kitchen table and high chair. I can’t stand crumbs and they had tripled since we had muffins for breakfast.
I left at 1:30 to head over to my friend Anna’s house. I had a doctor’s appointment and had previously  arranged for her to watch the girls that day. She had tons of fun and took them to a near by park while I was gone. She took a gazillion pictures, in which I hope I get a copy of the good ones. 😉 I didn’t know exactly who would be watching my kids that night so we hung out at Anna’s house until we had to leave. Since we started Toy Story 2 while we were there Anna let us borrow it. (The girls have watched it once a day since we’ve had it.) I left Anna’s a 4 and went to my mom’s.  We stayed there until I had to get Jon from downtown Henderson, he had a conference this day. We came back to my parents and hung out until we had to go to dinner. For the conference they were having dinner at the Fiesta buffet and he was aloud to bring a guest, of course he had to pay for the guest, but it was soo much fun talking and meeting his coworkers. Since he changed his job in July he works with a new bunch of people, along with the old ones, but it was nice to met the ones I didn’t know since this was for the new job. We had a fabulous time at the buffet and stayed until 9 talking with his boss, boss’s wife and another coworker.

Friday was a little less busy driving wise.  I had volunteered to work in the temple cafeteria for that afternoon so I drove Jon to Community College in Henderson that morning. Even though that campus is twice as far it took ten minutes less than is does for us to go to UNLV, only because it’s completely on the highway to get there. The girls and I had a good morning at home and I dropped them off at the Lee’s house while I volunteered at the temple. They’re purposely understaffed so they could stay open and they need a lot of volunteers. It was me and another worker for the first part and then another volunteer who comes regularly for the majority of the time. (Really she’s the wife to the temple presidency counselor who oversees the cafeteria.) I was busy for the first three hours there. Running and serving and then trying to keep atop of the dishes. My feet became so sore because I was only wearing regular slippers on the hard tile floors there. It was crazy. Luckily we had a relaxing night at the house, though neither Jon or I were up to playing with the girls. He had a headache and I had/have a sinus infection. The girls were a bit neglected Friday night.

Saturday we dyed Easter eggs at my parents. Jon helped my sister Kristi moved and Carolyn came over to my parents to help dye eggs. It was crazy. We had three different kits because the first kits my mom bought was strange. You put the eggs in a bag and then put drops of the dye on it. We sent her to the store and she came back with a normal kit and one where you had glitter. It used dye in a cup but there was oil in it to make spots or swirl type patterns on the eggs. Again very weird. I like the good ole Pals egg dye with regular vinegar and water. I find that the eggs dye nicely and they don’t get a sticky feel to them later. It was chaos dying eggs. Lilah spilled dye a couple of times and I dropped about four eggs. The chaos was too much and so I took no pictures. I was busy doing damage control and being controlling
I’m glad we dye eggs only once a year.

This is my own experiment. Since I use my blog as my journal I want to write down memories that I have of my different family members. I also want you, or my readers, to participate. Maybe you could do a similar thing on your own blog, or if they’re stories or memories about me you could do a comment.
I guess I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately. I’ve actually had a story about one of my sisters on my mind, but I figure I’ll start with the head of my family and then progress down the line.

My dad.
We lived on Nellis Air Force Base for the first 8 years of my life. My father kept a wonderful front yard in which we won yard of the month several times while on base. They present you with a flag and I remember early mornings standing on our lawn as my father or brothers raised the American Flag on our flag pole. We had tons of rose bushes and when I entered school I loved picking which flowers I would bring to my teacher that day.
I spent a lot of time with my Father during my kindergarten year of school. I had afternoon kindergarten and on days that my father wasn’t working I would run errands with him in his jeep. I loved this jeep. It had no real doors on it and he would buckle me in tightly so as to make sure I didn’t fall out. I could never unbuckle or buckle myself because of the difficult and confusing seat belts. We would often get lunch at different burger places, my favorite being McDonald’s and Sonic. I enjoyed these times with my father because this is when he was the most even tempered and caring towards me.
My birthday is at the end of May. For my kindergarten year I desperately wanted to bring cupcakes to celebrate with my classmates. For some reason we weren’t able to make any, or my parents had already planned on buying some, so I remember being sad the night before my sixth birthday. I awoke early and my father told me to go look out in the car. On the front seat was a large rectangular pink box. I’m sure someone helped me bring it inside, but I remember my excitement overflowing as I looked inside the box. Inside the box were the most beautiful cupcakes I had ever seen. You see being the youngest of six we didn’t buy baked goods from the store, we always made them at home. I was soo proud of those cupcakes. They were made of white cake with mounds of white frosting that had been sprayed pink and had different colored confetti dots on them. My father was the one who bought them for me.
Other memories I have of him is seeing him return home from deer hunting. He would never let me watch as he carved up the deer, even though I always tried. He would let me watch has he sawed off the antlers from the dried skull. He also did a lot of wood work and made me a blue bed with a blue dresser. It had white ducks and red hearts on it.
We had a station wagon growing up and on road trips I always had to sit up front in between my parents. My dad often told me I was in charge of keeping him awake and holding his Dr. Pepper. He loved singing the nursery rhyme “Nobody likes me Everybody hates me I guess I’ll eat some worms. ” It was a game between us and I would always cover my ears and tell him to stop singing the gross song.
Once we began buying live Christmas trees I always went along with my dad. One year Andrea came or another year Carolyn and her friends came, but I was always the final decision maker. He always called me his Christmas tree expert.
As I got older I know I grew some what distant from my father. I was still daddy’s girl and my Aunt Robin always teased me about being spoiled by my dad.
I know expression of love doesn’t come as easily between us but I do love my dad and I like being his little girl.

My mom.
I know I spent a lot of time with my mom. In some ways I remember her being sick often. She’s always had problems with headaches. I also remember her being so patient with us when we didn’t have dinner on at a descent time because us kids were in charge of cooking.
I know my mom sacrificed a lot for us. She worked part time and often was exhausted.
She sewed a dress for me my freshmen year of high school for my choir banquet. I insisted it was formal a banquet because many of the older girls wore dresses they had worn to other formal dances that year, but others wore church dresses. My mom made my dream dress for the banquet. It was a dark purple empire wait satin dress with purple chiffon covering the skirt. I received many complements on it that night. She also sewed Halloween costumes for me and picked up any slack on my ironing chores.
Mom was always the one you went to first if you were in trouble and she never complained about our friends.
She’d take one of us kids to the commissary each week or every other week and often let us get something special. I inherited my sweet tooth from her.
I loved Saturday mornings. She often made a large breakfast. I loved the homemade coca she would make from hershey’s cocoa powder and the sticky buns. Neither were regular occurrences so when we had them it made it that more special and difficult to get seconds or thirds.
She’s an avid reader of church related topics and romance novels. I have memories of her sitting in the gray chair in the living room reading and snacking on brail mix. (I think that’s what it’s called.)
In the early mornings as a child I would often slip into bed next to my mom. Really I did this into my teen years. There was no where better to be than my parents bed. I remember lying next to her and having her drift back to sleep. She snored a little and I always tried to adjust her so she would stop. On sick days she would let me lay in her bed and she’d bring me orange juice or toast.
She’s also very affectionate. Not many of our friends got away without giving her a hug goodbye and she’ll even chase you down if you try to escape without one.
She’d wake us up by putting her cold hands on you during the winter time, or lay on you as she tickled you during the summer.

My eldest brother Glenn.
I don’t have many memories of Glenn. He moved away when I was just over eight. I do remember us kids gaining up on him a lot. We once locked him out side of the house and he punched a hole through the front window.
I do remember going on some walks with him. I remember thinking it was cool to hang out with my older brother.

My next brother Scott.
As a kid I liked to think that I was Scott’s favorite sister. Really I just liked thinking I was the favorite period. He and Andrea hung out a lot, but I was the favorite of the youngest sisters. 🙂
We walked a many a time down the street to Smith’s to rent movies together. Often he would pick out things that didn’t interest me but as a little sister I’d watch anything with him. I did like many of the movies though, or at least they grew on me. When he worked as a stock boy he’d bring home different treats and share them with just me and maybe Andrea. Before he went into to the Navy we’d go to movies together and play at the arcade while we waited for our mom to pick us up. He would always pick on the other sisters but always was gentler with me.
I’m so happy that Scott is now active in the church thanks to his wonderful wife Fallon. I’m really just happy that he doesn’t smoke anymore, that is the grossest habit ever, though the eternal blessings are definitely a perk. 😉
I know he’ll make a great dad when they are blessed with a baby.

My eldest sister Andrea.
I loved playing with Andrea’s hair. She had such nice long hair that was never tangled like mine. I’m sure she enjoyed it, but I remember having her lay on the couch while I played with her hair as a young girl, only 6 or so.
I learned how to apply makeup by watching Andrea.
I was teased often by Andrea and another sibling. Things that live in my past is I’m a test tube baby, I’m 12, though I think that was our friend Scott, but he was Andrea’s friend. I was hogtied by Andrea and Carolyn when I was like 13.
Andrea always let me hang out with her and her friends. In high school it was Tina and in college it was Amber, Babara, Scott, Renee, Sariah…..I loved sitting in on her grownup conversations.
She’s always been the equalizer in the house. She’d break up Carolyn and Kristi’s fights and let each of us hang out in her tiny room when she let Kristi have the larger one.
Andrea’s always been very supportive of me and I remember talking to her as to which Jon I should chose to date and then marry. I shared her bed the night before I was married because mine was at the apartment. (Luckily it was a queen size bed.)
She married a great guy who gets along wonderfully with my husband and girls. Of course he gets along with everyone, like Andrea gets along with everyone. Of course I also like Brien because he thinks my girls are the cutest. In a way I hope they have a boy first so he can still think that.

Kristi.
Kristi was the crazy sister, or I should say boy crazy. For as long as I can remember she’s liked boys, well until she got married of course, then she liked Howard.
I remember having some late night talks with Kristi when we were older. As kids on base we shared a room. (her and Carolyn could never share a room because one of them would probably kill the other while they slept if they didn’t kill each while they were awake.)
My favorite memory of Kristi deals with Andrea and cordial cherries. One day in Kristi’s room Andrea asked if she could have a cordial cherry from the box that was next to her bed and Kristi said yes, go ahead. Andrea tried to take a bite but it was rock hard. Kristi then busted up laughing and said that the cherries were really old and she didn’t even realized she had any there until Andrea asked. Andrea got revenge by smashing the cordial cherry into Kristi’s mouth. By the time it was all done we each were laughing so hard we were crying. Man, it still makes me laugh today.
I also have memories of talking to Kristi about the many boys she dated. One was Nick Larkin, another Howard and another was a guy we were very happy she didn’t marry. Howard’s nick name was geek boy, and this other guys was wiener boy because we like him so much….not.
We now enjoy long talks on the phone about our kids and different frustrations.

Carolyn.
Carolyn and I shared a room once we moved to the Edison house, when I was 8 and she was 10.  Since Carolyn was a big fifth grader and I a lonely peon in the third grade this is where we became more of typical sisters that didn’t get along. Carolyn was often very nice to me when her friends weren’t around and even at times when they were, but we also had our moments when we didn’t get a long. She was neat I was messy. She was creative I was jealous. She had lots of friends I had one good friend. We shared clothes once she entered high school and I was still in middle school. This helped because we didn’t have a lot of money for extensive wardrobes and this way we had more shirts to chose from. Because we pretty much just had jeans and t shirts. Only those who we were good friends saw that were wore many of the same clothes and they knew our situation and liked us so they were never too judgmental.
I tagged along as a little sister many times. Sometimes knowing I was annoying her, but I just longed to fit in with her and her friends.
My favorite memory of Carolyn is from girls camp one year, she was a fourth year and I a second year, or she was 15 and I was 13.
It was a terrible week to camp that year. It rained or hailed each day and was terribly muddy and unusually cold that July. One day I was hanging out under the tarp that covered our dining area. Their was a group of us and we were talking. I was cold because I only had a short sleeve shirt on but I was too lazy to go in the rain to my tent about 100 feet away. Carolyn noticed I was cold and gave me the sweater she was wearing. I was so touched because at that point in our lives we weren’t getting along well and it showed me that she did love me. I also remember her sharing her poncho later that week. She’s a very quiet person in some ways and loud in others. I enjoyed sharing our room because she was creative and decorated her walls. We had milk adds all over the place and her fish Sexy. She was/is great with hair and she did my hair for my first formal dance.
I love inheriting clothes from Carolyn now and I cherish the times that she opens up to me.

Well this is a very long post.
I hope each family member knows I love them and I cherish the relationship I have with them
I hated being the youngest and watching everyone leave. First it was Glenn then Scott, Kristi, Andrea and Carolyn. Sure I got more perks since I was the last child at home, but I was sad to become an only child for the different periods of my life. I miss my siblings who live far away and I hope, though I also wish to move far away from Vegas, that I can always be close to them whether over the phone or through our blogs. I love you family!

After being outside on Thursday I got killer allergies. I’m still suffering, which is normal, but Friday was a blur.

Friday started early. I awoke at 6:30 am to get showered and ready to take Jon to work. A friend from high school was getting married and I wanted to attend the sealing.
We took Jon to work and then had breakfast once at home. I got the girls dressed and put on my Sunday best then drove and dropped the girls off at Sam’s house.
I got to the temple just after 9:30 for the 10 am sealing. It was a beautiful sealing. Hearing the promises that I may no longer have hope for saddened me but it made me happy to know that if I’m faithful everything will work out. I find that I’m more cynical when I hear certain promises, I have more of a ‘yeah right’ approach to everything than optimistic and hopeful, though I am usually able to overcome the negative thoughts.
Anyways.
I went to my house to change before I got the girls. The plan was to go straight to my parents house but instead we decided to stay and have a picnic with Britta and Sam. Sam made sandwiches while I went home and grabbed juice boxes and some apples to share with them. Then we met at the park and ate and played for about an hour and a half. I then went back home to get the boxes I forgot for my sister before I headed off to Henderson to met my mom at JoAnn’s. She got there late. 1:50. I left my girls with her and went a hop skip and a jump to our jewelers to drop off my engagement ring. (One of the prongs had been knocked and moved.) I then returned to JoAnn’s at 2:10, or 10 minutes into my mom’s shift. Luckily she mostly just sits there at the viking center part of the store and the other woman she works with/for thought my kids were cute.
I then shopped for a few things and packed up everyone to go. I was so tired at this point. I kept calling Jon to see if I could pick him up early, at 3:30 instead of 5 On account that his wife was exhausted and didn’t want to pick him up later or drive anymore. He was in some training so he didn’t call me until later.

I was close to home, which took my about 30 minutes longer than normal thanks to traffic, and my friend Anna called. She asked me how everything went that morning and I could honestly not remember. I was so tired and allergies were bothering me so much that I forgot all about the sealing. I regained my memory and Jon called on the other line. I changed over to talk to him and even though I was only five minutes from my house I decided to drive and get Jon early rather than go home take the girls out for a 40 minute nap to get them back in the car to get Jon at 5. I wanted to just get him and be done with the car for a couple of hours.
Thankfully he agreed to get off early for me. We picked him up at 4 and drove to Baja Fresh for some dinner. (I’ve been craving Baja.) We got home around 5 because of traffic and ate. I saw an old friend of Jon’s at the sealing and she insisted that I bring him to the reception. ( I was thinking of going alone, just so I wouldn’t have to deal with silly girls.) So after dinner we all went to the reception. Luckily we did see the friend and had a pretty good time except the fact the Eden swallowed a glass stone.
It was a horribly long day. I spent about 4 hours in the car and ended at the exact place I started!

My allergies are still bothering me, though I’m mostly over them. I’ve tried to enjoy a wonderful General Conference weekend, but I found that I wished Jon would take the girls away or that I could lock them in their room so I could pay attention to the speakers.
I’ve been stressed and Lilah seems to push all my buttons all the time lately.
Luckily I did get a little out of today’s sessions.
I’ve also started making our bedroom drapes, well yesterday I started. I hope to have them done by the end of the week. Yay!

I think Jon and I are real parents now. We’ve both been neglectful in different ways the last week or so and finally we’ve had to go through our child’s poop and check for an object she swallowed. I think that is one test of true parenthood, stool checking.

Friday we attended a wedding reception for a friend I went to school with. They had vases filled with decorative glass rocks and flowers. Eden was being very difficult. They only thing she wanted to do was lay in the middle of the floor. We’d pick her up persuade her to eat and then down she would wriggle out of our arms to lay on her belly wherever she landed. Late in the night I got a glass stone from a vase for her to look at. She tried to eat it a couple of times and then I persuaded her to just hold it. We put it on the table and later Jon got her. I guess he also let her play with the stone only he didn’t realize she liked putting it into her mouth. Well at one point she started pointing to her mouth and Jon asked to look in it and to spit whatever it was out. Nothing. He then realized he had been letting her hold the stone. He asked where the stone went and Eden just pointed to her mouth. We asked several people there what we should do. One was a vet and another was an aspiring doctor. OK he was my friends younger brother and he is going to be a doctor, just after he gets his bachelors and then goes to medical school. Anyways. We came to the conclusion it would be alright. After all the stone had no rough edges, though it was about the size of a dime.
On the way home we listened intently to Eden’s breathing making sure she didn’t quietly stop breathing and us never notice. She started coughing and choking a little bit on the way home but after a drink of water she was fine. Our hearts worried. We hoped the stone was not lodged anywhere problematic. We got home and put her into bed. We both worried about her sleeping laying down. What if the stone got caught or changed position and choked her?
We looked up some websites and Jon called a nurses line. Her surety that Eden would be OK helped put us somewhat at ease. After all it was a round object with no jagged edges, she had swallowed it with ease, though it was on the big size for a little girl, but the nurse said it would probably just pass.
Jon was very nervous and slept in the girls room Friday night.
Eden’s been fine and today I was the lucky one to find the stone in one of her stool diapers. Yes I got it out and washed it so we could keep it. After all it was just a little poop, and I’ve gotten that on myself before and I’ve never thrown out body parts.
When Lilah showed the stone to Eden today and she called it ice, so she thought it was suppose to be eaten. 🙂

It has been a hard week for Eden. She’s a little more of a handful than Lilah was at this age, or we were more cautious. In the last week she’s had peanut butter and chocolate. She had a reaction to the chocolate, but luckily it was just small, mostly extra rosy cheeks, and she had no reaction to the peanut butter. She’s also been locked out front on our porch one night. We were just grateful she wandered back to the front door to cry and not onto the sidewalk or street. Now she swallowed a stone. Kids keep you on your toes and really our kids are pretty mild compared to others. I hate to think all the things that wild kids would do under our supervision.