It was after dinner a few nights ago and Eden started talking about her toes being skinny and asking if my toes were skinny.
After a little bit it appeared that she didn’t know what skinny was so I was trying to explain by using the opposite of skinny, fat.
Then Eden told me I was fat.
Thanks babe.
Monday the girls went over to Sam’s house to play with Britta. I was talking to Sam that morning and mentioned that I was going to be sewing all day. She said I should just bring the girls over for a couple of hours so I could sew and Britta could be occupied and have fun. I took her up on the offer and dropped them off that morning.
I got the pattern and fabric to make these dresses back in May, possibly April. With not being able to lift anything I couldn’t work on them in May.(I sew at my kitchen table so I’d have to pick up and put away the sewing machine.) Plus my shoulder seemed to be bothered easily so I didn’t sew.
Life has been busy so I still didn’t sew once I got the OK two weeks ago.
Sunday the home teachers were suppose to come over so I cleaned my house and tidied up, something that I would have normally left till Monday. The one who made the appointment must have forgotten because they never came.
So Monday morning my house looked pretty descent and I didn’t have much to do so I sewed. I sewed all day long with the normal breaks and was able to finish Eden’s dress that evening. (I did French seams and basically I sew the dress twice so the fabric is enclosed and doesn’t fray.)
Tuesday we went and saw Enchanted at a local theater that does free movies for kids on certain days. It was so cute and is on my to buy list. I also ran by the DI and found a VCR for $5. Ours had broken and though most of our movies are DVD’s we do have some videos that I have wanted to watch but haven’t been able to, plus when we check out from the library kids video’s always work, where as only 1 in 4 kids DVD’s work.
I also did some shopping at Target and Smith’s.
Wednesday was another sewing day. I was also potty training Eden in the very active way. (Setting the timer and putting her on the toilet every 45 minutes.) She went poop in the pull-up right after her nap, before I could get her to the toilet. She just doesn’t seem to be getting it.
Wednesday was a hard day at times. Lilah hates time out and will not stand in time out, thus not beginning her time out, for like 5 minutes and only when I force her to stand there does she. I don’t know what to do with her at times.
I finished Lilah’s dress late in the morning today since I was also watching a movie from Netflix. They had their first swimming lessons today, thus why I needed them done by today, at least in my mind. I’m using them as cover ups for their swimsuits. This way I can change them into dry clothes and underwear after we’re in the pool. Plus they’re cute and I needed to get them done since the summer is half over already.
They did well for their first swimming lessons. Eden only worked with the young woman for 15 minutes because she just wasn’t wanting to follow directions. Neither of them put their head completely under water and it was a bit of a bust at times, but they enjoyed just playing after the lesson was officially over.
We’re taking them from a former lifegaurd/ swim teacher that was referred to me by a friend. It’s $50 for four 1 hour sessions. (At one point she had said $25, but that was just for one child at 4 half hour lessons, we had gotten confused on the phone.)
It’s more expensive than the community pool, but those are larger classes, we’d have to pay for the lesson plus admission for the pool for each class and both of us would need to be there so one of us could take care of one girl. It is comparable to the community pool after the extra expenses. Plus they each get one on one time with the teacher and it’s at the time we want it, not the community pool time.
I think Lilah really enjoyed it, but Eden may not be quite ready. Hopefully she’ll get more comfortable with getting water on her face, as will Lialh, I hope. I think I’m going to buy some goggles for them to help encourage going under water.
And here they are in my creations.
In our house we have a specific bath routine. I watch and bathe the girls. Eden is the first one out and I give her to Jon to dry her and get her diaper, now pull-up on. Then Lilah is washed and has to get herself dried and dressed.
Lately when I’ve bathed them it’s been during the day so I’ve helped Eden. She was confused the first time and asked for Daddy, but he was at work.
Saturday night I bathed and got Eden out of the tub and walked her to Daddy.
Jon took her to the bedroom to dry off, and get the pull-ups on but Eden was being aware of her body and told Jon, “You can’t see my genitals.”
Jon saw that Eden wanted her privacy so he told her to put on her pull-up and come out when she needed more help getting dry or her pajamas on.
Eden came out just a few short seconds after Jon still wrapped in the towel, so Jon asked her if she had her pull-ups on, and she didn’t, so he told her to go get some on.
When she walked down the hallway her towel was low and her little bum was hanging out.
We thought it a little ironic.
I guess we all have similar bums, even if we look different up front.
On Sunday Lilah saw a flyer and asked what is was for. I told her it was for the Stake Fourth of July breakfast and she said she just had to go. I told her it started before she got up and that she’d have to wake up really early. She said I could wake her up. So we went, even though I wasn’t planning on going. (She even would ask me during the week what day it was. Then on Friday she woke up by herself and was so impressed with herself. )
Some old friends were in town from Texas so it was fun to see them at the breakfast. Other than that the line was pretty long for food and the girls only ate part of their plates of food. It was a beautiful morning and didn’t get too hot until we left.
We hung out at home for most of the day and then had a birthday party to attend for my niece Katy. Eden did not take a nap because she was too excited for the party.
There was swimming at the party, but the pool was pretty cold since the sun was low in the sky. Lilah had fun floating around and Eden had fun putting cold water on Mommy. Luckily there was a big step for Eden to play in so I didn’t have to go in.
After cake, ice cream, and hitting the pinata we headed over to my parents house to enjoy fireworks.
The girls did OK for the most part. They sat on laps with their ears covered for a period of time, then they sat in Carolyn’s car and Lilah went inside for the last 15 minutes or so, until sparklers. Lilah really enjoyed the sparklers since they didn’t make any noise. She was weary at first, but once she realized they wouldn’t hurt her she did well and could hardly wait for them to be lit for her once one was finished.
We saw a lot if aerial/ illegal fireworks on the way up to my parents and while we were there. We also had a good view of the Henderson City Hall, which launched fireworks off the top of the building.
It was a fun night and we got home around 11 pm. (Jon came home after the party to make sure our house didn’t burn down from aerial/illegal fireworks going off in the neighborhood. I’m happy to say our house did not catch fire.)
Saturday we went and saw WALL-E. We all enjoyed the movie thoroughly and Jon said that Pixar’s created a robot more lovable than R2 D2. It really has a great message and is wonderful. I almost cried at one part. Pixar is able to do that to me though. (Sometimes I cry during Cars too. )
Lilah had her hands over her ears for the first half hour or so of the movie until she realized it wasn’t too loud. Eden had her hands over her ears for the most part, though she would relax and remove them for short periods during the movie.
My children are very strange when it comes to loud noises. At least they don’t cover their ears with our own toilet anymore.
Britta and Lilah are best friends. Britta calls Lilah her special friend and they exchange gifts all the time. When we dropped off a thank you for Sam Lilah made a gift for Britta, which included a rainbow crayon that she had.
Earlier this week Lilah got an e-mail from her friend Britta. It had pictures that she had chosen for Lilah to see.
In return Lilah thought we should share pictures with Britta. So I took one of each girl and then went through what we had.
So here are the pictures for Britta and some that I needed to share anyways.
Lilah’s hand in a bandage.
Her little pinkie finger was hurting her all day, especially when the nail was touched. I thought she had just banged it sometime during the night since it wasn’t hurting till Monday morning. I finally took a look at her nail that night and noticed something under the nail. She had gotten a sliver under her nail and that’s what was causing the excruciating pain for her during the day. Once removed her finger felt fine.
 
Eden with Lilah’s Doodle Bear. (It has been colored on and washed so the marker doesn’t stain or become hard to remove. )
 
 Lilah with our 7 or 8 foot sunflower.
 
The girls with sunflower.
 
A close up of the Sunflower.
A close up of the tiny bee on the sunflower.
So I was lead to this blog from Tales from the Crib.
It’s a satirical blog that has made me laugh a lot.
I can’t say it won’t offend any of my readers, but none of my readers remind me of this blog.
So I don’t plan on Lilah having to be the smartest five year old, but I think she is.
The other day looking at a United States place mat she told us which direction was North, South, East and West by pointing at the compass with just the N, S, E, W. I’m just impressed she remembered since I’ve only told her once.
Then today I had four eggs in the pan for boiling and she said 4 is 2 squared! (Jon gave her a lesson in squares the other day with grapes.)
Kids learn the darnedest things at very strange times.
Yesterday was a fun filled day. A very fun filled day in very hot weather.
We dropped off cinnamon rolls, returned something to JoAnn’s, had lunch with Anna and met up with a local unschooling group.
It was so hot outside.
The unschooling group met up at a local park to have fun and do the mentos experiment.
I felt a little odd at first. There was a woman with dreadlocks, a vegan and what appeared to be another very health conscious organic mom.
Even though the yahoo group description said they accepted everyone, I was worried that I might be too normal and not eccentric enough to fit in.
Plus all the kids seemed to be mostly boys and at least seven years old and older.
They pointed me to another mom who had young kids later after I was there. Julia is her name, she has a five year old son and a 16 month old daughter. She also appeared to be more average, or not eccentric. We chatted a little and she lives on my side of town. She also had a homeschooling group that is dissolving so she was wanting to find another group for her son to hang out with.
We chatted a little then it was time for the mentos experiment. The girls liked it and the other kids had lots of fun too.
This is when I was really able to chat with all the moms. They were really nice and very open minded. They said I was the anomaly to have a husband supporting homeschooling, let alone the unschooling technique.
Side note: Unschooling is the least formal type of homeschooling. You basically live life and let your children learn all they want about a subject. It’s motivated by what the child wants to learn and not by what you want to teach them. You can find definitions for different homeschooling techniques here.
It seems that most of the fathers worried about whether their children were actually learning enough. So telling them about Jon and his support, really homeschooling is the only option in his mind, made them like him before they’ve ever met him.
We also discussed Montessori schools in the valley. One of the mom’s, Rachel was her name I believe, two children have decided they wanted to go to school so they researched and Montessori is they path they’ve decided. It was interesting because Darlene, another mom mentioned how unschooling is about letting your child make the decisions and letting them go to school if they desire is also apart of unschooling.
Our differences seemed less as I got to know them and discuss.
I met only a handful of the group, but it was still fun. I do worry that Lilah may never formally interact too much with kids since they’re all just at the park playing and doing their own thing, but hopefully over time she’ll recognize the families and get to know the children better.
When I joined the yahoo group I mentioned my concern for how to teach Lilah reading and writing. Reading is a part of life, but writing, that takes practice so it’s not something you can just learn through life, I guess you can try to write letters to people or something.
The facilitator of the group mentioned how I could discuss that at the activities and get input from other moms. She also mentioned once she let go of the idea of having her son be the smartest five year old homeschooling got a lot easier. (Compared to fighting one another on what to learn and not having fun. )
So, I’m going to try to let go and let Lilah learn. I will still have some more traditional techniques, but she doesn’t need to be the smartest five year old. I know she won’t be learning the same things as as her peers in school but I know she’ll be learning, growing and having fun along the way.
In a week I’ve won a car and a major prize, supposedly, and I never entered any contest.
The first call came last week on Wednesday. We screened it and the message said our phone number was chosen for some top major prize. I need to call them back to claim it.
Uh, no.
Then today there was a message on our phone after we got home from gymnastics that our phone number was chosen, different company, and we had won either a Ford explorer or Cadillac Escalade. We need to call some guy named Kuba to claim that one also.
Again, no thanks.
If I haven’t entered then how can I win? Granted I do sometimes enter things, but I don’t do things to win a car or a house, things I’d have to pay lots of taxes on that I can’t afford. I like cash and things that give me instant and guaranteed savings, like doing a survey to get a coupon.
Under the Do Not Call Law, we avoid telemarketers, but once I call and “initiate” any correspondence then they can call me all they want, or at least that company.
Plus, who knows if it’s not someone trying to get information to use my credit card or get bank information.
I’d much rather never claim the car I’ve “won” than take a chance at getting lots of unwanted calls, or lose my identity.