Here is a video from Lilah’s dance recital. I found Carolyn’s copy of it, which came out better than ours. Just don’t pay attention to how wide I look next to 3 year olds and Sam, who is like so tiny. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s cute, I’d be tempted not to post it because of my womanly curves and unflattering pants.
Also Lilah is the one in the middle of the three girls. Britta is the one on the far left all by herself.
My girls don’t have a lot of toys. But they’ve slowly been disappearing and some of their books have too.
Why, you ask.
Well they haven’t been cleaning up after they decide to pile as many toys and books as they can get past me onto Eden’s bed.
Then after they have piled so many toys or books we make them clean them up and sometimes they don’t want too. I know shock little kids not wanting to pick up after themselves. The problem comes because 8 time out of 10 Eden has to be put into timeout just so she will begin cleaning up. Then once you mention clean up Lilah decides she’s tired, her arms are tired, her legs are tired, some thing is always tired. So we fight with them and hover over them to clean up the mess they’ve made. We’ve just started setting the timer and then taking away whatever they don’t put away.
It started about a week ago when Lilah did this to our couch.
Literally every child book we had was on the couch and nearly every toy. Jon had let her do this because when we try to limit what they take they complain, so he wanted Lilah to understand the consequences of piling everything together. Jon gave her a half hour to clean it up but mostly she just whined. We got a box and put all the toys and books that didn’t get put away in it and and put it in our closet. The box is big, something I got from Costco and is bigger than a laundry basket.
Today it was toys on Eden’s bed. They hadn’t heeded to Jon’s first attempts to ask them to clean up so Jon set the timer. Lilah had to go to the bathroom and you could hear her saying loudly how she didn’t care for the toys and didn’t want her stuff animals. Then when I went in there to wash hands it was all about how much she loved them and wanted to take care of them.
Eden did a lot of the cleaning up, so thanks to little sister Lilah has more toys and books to look at.
After the 15 minutes was up we put the few things left into another box to go into our closet.
I was going to give the big box of toys back this week, after a week of being taken away, but one, the girls have seemed to forget about them and two, they make big enough messes without those toys.
I’ll probably sort the toys out later this week, maybe Sunday after I have the baby shower and my lesson taught. I hope to organize them and clean off some toys that could use a good washing or disinfectant and then purge ones that either annoy me or find little use.
My kids don’t even have that many toys, but it sure feels like a lot when it takes 20 minutes to just clean up one little bed and lots of whining
We had lunar eclipse the other night. Jon set the alarm to be up at like 2:30am or when it when it would transition from a partial to full eclipse. I awoke at some time, but was afraid to get up and then shortly after Jon jumped out of bed. It was like 4:30am and we had missed the full lunar eclipse but we went and saw the moon as a partial lunar eclipse.
Jon was then too awake to sleep so he went to the living room to study and I was pretty awake but I lied in bed trying to sleep but instead I stayed up thinking about the baby shower for Andrea this weekend.
We finally made it to sleep later, but I’m sure Jon didn’t get much sleep before he had to be up for work and school.
I did lots of shopping yesterday with some girls. One in particular whined a lot while at the first store so I threatened that once we got to the library she wouldn’t be able to pick out any books unless she was good at the next two stores. I gave her three strikes and she only took two. Once at the library both girls just played with some toys and I actually picked out all the books but one or two which Eden wanted.
At least the threat kept Lilah from whining so much while at the store.
Last night Janice Kapp Perry and her husband Douglas spoke at a fireside for the women of three stakes in our area.
It was really fun and I learned that her and her husband have quite a sense of humor.
She told the story of the first thing he ever said to her. They had many classes together but he hadn’t seemed to notice her, then right before she was to do some clarinet solo thing for her class she was nervous and while she tried to focus he said to her “I bet those lips are made for something better than playing the clarinet,” or something to that liking. After she said this he came up to defend himself and she just held onto the mic so he couldn’t respond so then he gave her a big kiss. She replied that she wouldn’t ever tell that story again…..or maybe she would.
Basically they talked about the influence of good music in the home and one point she made was if you’re satisfied with you life, or even bored and thinking now what, take little steps to accomplish some secret dream or goal. Each step accomplished should be a victory so even if you don’t get to the actual goal you should celebrate what you’ve actually done.
Also you’re never too old to try something new and develop a new talent.
She actually didn’t begin her major song writing career until she was 40 or so. She broke her ankle playing basketball with the kids, which was her life, and her husband asked if she could find something a little less dangerous for her age. She had studied music in college, but hadn’t done any song writing or composing since then.
While her ankle healed she wrote the original songs for a rode show for church and continued from there basically.
It was a fun fireside.
Lately the girls have only been happy with one another if their’s a movie or the tv on. Today we watched a movie and then they went on their way to play. They started fighting over the strap on the changing table, we don’t use it so it’s just buckled underneath. I heard “I had it first” and once I was in the room I saw them pushing on one another. I told them to work it out but it didn’t help. I try not to intervene because one of them will start crying because I didn’t choose what they wanted. After I told them again to work it out Lilah started crying, while they’re both still holding onto the strap, Eden stops her whining and asks Lilah what’s wrong. She often does this when Lilah lets out a full on cry.
They continue to fight and I remove them both for the exciting strap that’s attached to our changing table.
Then they almost immediately started fighting over the toy shopping cart. All Lilah knows how to do is push, and Eden pushes back and so Lilah cries, and Eden cries back. It is so lovely. I take the shopping cart and decide to separate them. Eden went on the couch with nothing but her blanket an Lilah stayed in the room with nothing but a blanket, she didn’t like this because she was playing with a towel that I had to take away.
I’ve decided they’re watching too much and not working things out so until they can start working things out their will be no tv and once I feel that they’re civil they can have 1 hour a day. If they’re not being civil or communicating the toy or whatever gets taken away. If they start in on another toy they’re then separated until they decide to be nice.
Eden’s really starting to assert her self and throw tantrums and I think Lilah is just following in suit.
I’m going to try to spend more time with them and encourage for them to communicate. I feel as Eden is still young for this, but I know Lilah can talk, though she often just cries instead of using her words, which really annoys me. I also hate that Lilah’s crying actually kinda helps her get her way, or at least sympathy from Eden, by Eden then asking what’s wrong. I like and hate it at the same time.
I’m also going to go through their toys and take some away and put some in a box to be rotated out. Our stuffed animals are overthrowing our two baskets and the small toys drive me nuts. I want to toss it all, but in reality they don’t have that much so I’m going to just put some away.
I’d have them help but I know they wouldn’t get rid of anything.
Their fighting is just driving me a little bonkers.
After the whole separation on the couch it was lunch time and since Eden woke up at 6:15am I put her down early for a nap. So once Lilah was done with her lunch we sat and did some activities in this preschool book I got her. I see that I’ll be tested when it comes to teaching her. After we were both done with the book I let Lilah practice with some small scissors I got her. Since this was relatively her first time with kid scissors she was very awkward with them and can only cut out small things, forget lines for now. I hope she gains the hang of it and it becomes easier soon.
Today I gave a talk in sacrament. Being the procrastinator I am I wrote most of the talk Saturday, I did do my research on Friday, and I did a little revising last night and then a little more revising this morning. This morning we were running a little behind when I finally went to print out the talk and I asked Jon to watch the printer and make sure everything went OK.
It didn’t.
My printer jammed and it would not work…it still isn’t working.
I was freaking out and it was 8:52 am. Our church starts at 9.
I had the thought to call Beth Jewitt, a women I’m friends with in the ward, we also go swimming at her house,รย and she sometimes shows up late to church. She was home. I e-mailed my talk to her and she said she would print it out.
We got to church late. I told the bishopric my little mishap during the opening song and if my talk wasn’t there by my time to speak I’d go last.
It was the shortest and longest sacrament ever.
I was about to cry thinking about going to the podium without my notes, quotes and scriptures that I had marked, or copy and pasted into my talk. To keep me from crying I began jotting down the scriptures I had looked up for the talk and tried to remember the different major points and my transitions including what quotes I had planned. I was also praying that the pdf I sent Beth would print up and that she’d be there after the sacrament was done. (I’ve sent her a document before for church stuff and it wasn’t pdf so there was a little bit of trouble with it. I was hoping that she would have no trouble printing my talk.)
After the sacrament was passed and the young men sat down they opened the doors to the foyer and Beth walked in with her daughter and with my talk in hand.
I was saved!
The bishopric member conducting announced that I would be speaking after the youth speaker since I had told him Beth would be bringing me my talk.รย รย I wanted to read it over but I was just too nervous and happy that it worked out.
I started my talk saying how I learned that you should not wait until the last minute to print your talk because your printer may not work, and to remember which friend comes late to church so you can call them for help.รย My talk was on education.
I thanked her later before relief society and she joked that this could have been the day for her to come on time to church. Truthfully it’s a 50/50 chance that they’re late, but I was soo happy that today she was still at home and able to print out my talk.
She truly is a life saver.
Yesterday I missed a phone call form my dermatologist office. I was taking a nap with Lilah.
I worried about what it might mean. They have a policy where if you don’t hear from them in a week you’re fine, so I was a little perplexed.
I thought maybe it was insurance, though I hadn’t been billed , or possibly I did need another surgery to remove more precancerous cells from the mole they took off in June. I didn’t want that to happen because I now watch Naia and not picking up a 6 month old would be hard while I’m taking care of her and since Eden is in a toddler bed I would have no other need for help besides when I had Naia. I also remember how hard it was to not do anything and to depend on Jon to do chores or whoever was here when I had my surgery last time. So I worried and called early this morning. They had gotten behind on their biopsy reports and my mole had been precancerous, but the doctor removed it all and I just needed to go in for a check up in about 6-8 months, instead of a year basically.
This is my third mole that has been precancerous. I’ve had four removed thus far and one of them needed sutures. None of my other moles look as though they need to be removed, though a couple are suspicious to me.
It’s frustrating to have all these precancerous or abnormal moles. It makes me happy that we’ve caught them but it brings a burden of worrying about skin cancer for the rest of my life. It also makes me worry about my girls and knowing that they will be susceptible to skin cancer and my family.
So I urge everyone to get checked now so it’s easily fixed instead of later when it might leave a larger scar or be more damaging.
I was visiting a site and found this humorous antidote.
Jon was looking somewhere and he found that boiling vinegar and water will remove bad scents in the air. I came home one night and he asked if I could tell what he had for dinner. I said no. He was happy to tell me he had had some canned fish which of course canned fish always leaves a yucky scent in the air.
While boiling the vinegar and water it smells like vinegar and water in the house, but once it settles you don’t notice any scent.
Yesterday he had canned fish again for dinner, it kinda made eating french toast a little strange,รย and when I came home the fish scent was still overwhelmingly in the house. I made him boil vinegar and water. He had taken the diaper trash out and decided to see if the vinegar and water wouldn’t help with the scent of poop in the pail. So he boiled it and then placed it in a cup inside the diaper pail. It actually worked pretty well. The diaper pail does smell like vinegar but I’d much rather have that scent then the poop. I usually spray it with Lysol and air it out outside to get the scent out, but this was a more natural solution.
We also wrap poopy diapers in grocery bags to help cut done on the scent of the diaper pail. It works pretty well and we don’t have to pay for diaper genie refills.
Vinegar and water a natural neutralizer of odors, who knew.
Lilah wanted to dance but she wouldn’t go out on the floor without me at first.
After a while Lilah was fine with dancing without her mom and even Eden was dancing and having a blast.
Here’s a little clip of them jamming, but a song they knew came on so they actually were just happy for most of it.
So the wedding was beautiful! It was very hot since we had it outside in August in about 100 degree weather. Luckily it was short and you quickly forgot how hot it was once inside in the cool air.
Here’s my take on the night.
I warn that most of the pictures are of my little family. Early on the battery light came on so I was being careful with what pictures I took but as the night progressed it just kept working and of course I was mostly around my little family so that’s who’s pictures I took.
Us waiting inside for the wedding to begin.
Derek waiting for the wedding to begin outside.
The bestman and Julie, the maid of honor.
Carolyn and Dad at the door.
Them walking by.
During the ceremony.
The first kiss I’ve scene between them.
Mr. and Mrs. Derek Svilar.
Part of our table.
Jenny, Chris, Max (all co-workers), Jamie (old friend from Greenbriar ward) and Lilah.
Adrianne
During the first dance.
Mom and Dad dancing.
Carolyn and me.
Carolyn and Lilah.
The cake.
Cutting the cake.
They were very nice to one another.
Dad walking by.
Sunset pose.
Second kiss I’ve witnessed between them. The photographer had them hold it forever.
Lilah running to me.
Julie, Naia and Carolyn. One was looking at me the other at the photographer.
Lilah with bouquet.
Eden “smiling” with the flowers.
Both sniffing.
They smell so good.
Smile Eden!
Leaving.
Close up- I was holding Carolyn’s door.
Off into the night with the invisiable husband in this picture.
So happy it’s over.
She had only a 20 minute nap today.
Fun things that happened.
Carolyn waved to Lilah when she was walking down the isle with Derek.
I almost cried during the wedding but was able to control myself. I did start crying during the father daughter dance when both Carolyn and my dad were crying.
No one decorated their car. We were all so unprepared.
We went to their house Sunday to watch them open gifts and they got like four kitchen aid gadgets or attachments but no kitchen aid!
I did make the girl’s dresses and my friend Anna made mine.