Is It Naptime Yet

I’m jumping head first into my first business type venture and I would be lying if I didn’t say I was scared.

I’ve had some things happen and have decided to start sewing for money and figure now is the season, and hopefully it works. My biggest worry is finding the people who will pay what I’m worth, since sewing does take time and I don’t work for just a dollar a day and mass produce products.

My main focus will be bags and then aprons and maybe other things, like nursing covers and custom orders for other things.

I’m not sure if this will work and Jon’s been so supportive of me. I’ve talked about making and selling things, but have never done anything, and now I’m doing something and I’m so happy and love that he’s so supportive and helping me and giving me ideas.

We just bought a domain name and once it’s up and running, at least minimally usable, I’ll let you know.

Also, I’m doing  a small craft fair on November 5-7th. It’s in a woman’s basement, but there will be different people also selling handmade products, including my friend Sam’s lotion. Mark your calendar and come by if you have the time. I’ll post more info later.

For now just send me good thoughts and extend the days to 34 hours!

It’s that time of year again when we get our family pictures! Here’s last years if you want to see how the girls have changed, though Eden has the same haircut practically.

This year was interesting. When the girl asked if we preferred light or dark for our backdrop I was saying light, but I though Jon said dark because of the girl’s cream shirts, and I was like “Dark, I’m going to fade into the backdrop.” So the girl checked both light and dark and said we would do both. Well, she didn’t do both, and then when we caught on that she wasn’t going to do both I asked Jon about it once more and he said that he was trying to say the light would go better, and I wanted the light backdrop, but she did dark the whole time and we had to ask her to do a white backdrop for one last picture, when she said she would do both. Ugh.

Also the girls weren’t the most smiley things, and I know it was hard getting pictures, but most of the time she would only take one picture per pose, so some poses are cute, but not all the participants are.

I kinda like the dark, but I also like the one white picture.

Here are the ones I will let you choose from. Leave a comment listing what ones you like and you will receive a lovely 4×6  after they are developed either the next time we see you or in your Christmas card. If you’re a parent you may request a larger size, say 5×7 or 8×10.

The names to list them by will appear under the photo. Some are close-ups of a picture, so you could have the farther image, or the close-up.

Family 01

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Family 01 B

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Family02

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Family 03

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Family 04

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Dad and girls

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Mom and girls

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Girls 01

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Girls 01 B

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Girls 02

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Girls 03

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Girls 04

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girls 05

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Eden 01

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Eden 02

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Eden 03

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Eden 04

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Eden 05

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Lilah 01

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Lilah 01 B

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Lilah 02

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Lilah 02 B

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Lilah 03

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Couple 01

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Couple 02

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This pose she called “prom”, but I think it’s more appropriately called “engagement” and I thought I’d share it’s cheesiness with you.

So there are our pictures. I can’t believe how beautiful our girls are.

When we went to Subway later that day, a gentleman who watched us come out of Subway asked if the girls were twins, they were still in the same shirt, and today a woman mentioned how similar they looked even though she knew they were different ages.

Also, you probably noticed the red mole on Lilah’s face. It appeared about a month ago and we’ll be seeing a doctor in November about it. I have them, but they slowly become bigger where this one was just there and has gotten a little bigger than what it was.

1. New ideas and self-motivation.  I’m just starting something, and it’s still in the works, but I’m feeling good and wanting more for my family and myself.
2. Fall in Las Vegas. So Fall in Las Vegas means: cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, finally cold. We’re not to the finally cold weather, but I do enjoy that we have warmer weather at times. I don’t like layers. I find them annoying.
3. Wonderful daughters who make me smile each day.
4.  A supportive husband. Jon always amazes me at how supportive he is. I shouldn’t be surprised by now, but sometimes I still am.
5. Sisters. I’m glad to have three wonderful sisters.

I’m just not good at doing things for myself. I take time away to relax, but it’s the easy relax, watch TV, go on Facebook, try to find blogs to read. I occasionally find time to go out with girlfriends, but most of the time it’s because they’ve planned it. I really like these things, but they’re not completely fulfilling. I want more. I think that’s the story of my life right now.

Wanting more but feeling to blah to do anything because of all the other things I have to do.

I’m not all self sacrificing. I feel that I’m a pretty selfish mom and wife in some ways.  For one I have the girls eat the heels to the bread because I don’t like them. I know I’m terrible. We always made my mom eat the heels of the bread, so I blame her. She allowed us to be picky. I do occasion eat the heels, and Jon dislikes me making the girls eat something I won’t. Sometimes if my brown sugar is really hard I use the bread heel to soften it, but I’m just too selfish and picky to eat heels of bread and now the girls don’t even whine when I give them a sandwich with a heel. I figure it’s only a matter of time before the get older  and start leaving the heel for me, like we did for our mother, once they start making their own sandwiches and realize they have a choice.

I know I’m a selfish wife in some ways. I can’t think of a particular habit right now, but I’m sure there’s something I do to benefit me in my relationship with Jon. I just feel like I’m doing a lot right now with him in school that I can’t think of something.

I’m sewing an apron today for a friend of mine. She has a sewing business on the side, and has passed some of her work my way. I find it funny that I’ll be sewing an apron for someone else, when the one I want to sew for me has been just waiting. I will say I’ve misplaced the instructions, and it’s a little different, so I need to find them before I can actually sew the pattern, but I find myself to be pretty silly when it comes to doing things for me. I love to shop and buy clothes, but make something for me even when I’m excited, doesn’t happen? Sometimes I wonder why I’m so strange.

On an up note, I’ve organized my food cupboards. I think it was for me, and it’s satisfying to know what I have and where it is. I’ve realized that I’ve become obsessed with canned beans. I have a few recipes that use them and have needed to buy them to make them, so in the last two months I’ve stocked up on them just because. So now I have 5 cans of garbanzo and kidney beans, each, and 6  cans of black beans. I think I need to make some hummus, black bean enchiladas and Tuscan Bean stew.

What do you do or not do for yourself and is there a food you don’t like so you pawn it onto your children or spouse?

1. Breezy days.
2. Days full of family time.
3. Morning kisses.
4. Kids who are easy to entertain.
5. Thoughtful and nice mail people.

Other thoughts:
Eden the other day was having trouble pulling up her pants and underwear so I was saying her bum was telling me to spank it, or in this case, also kick it gently once the pants were on. Being the literalist she is, she told me her bum doesn’t talk, it poops.

There are a ton of 6 years olds in the co-op with Lilah. Today one was sharing the lunch table with her and she asked if Lilah would be her friend and then she also said Lilah looked really smart. It’s really interesting watching how kids interact.

Yesterday I was busy from the moment I woke up till the moment I crashed on the couch. Well really just till we got home, but I was so tired I crashed on the couch at like 10:30 pm and Jon stayed up late watching a movie. Total role reversal.

My day went as following:

7:20- Get up and shower for hair appointment.
8:35- Show up at hair appointment.
10:00- Get home from hair appointment (My hair dresser is pretty far from me.)
10:15- Get girls into bath.
10:35-Get girls out of bath and ready for Science Saturday.
11:05- Show up in time for Critter Time. The girls got to pet some cool lizards, snakes, a lizard with no feet, Lilah petted the tarantula, Eden and Mommy passed, a hedgehog and a Chinchilla.
11:35- Science Saturday finally starts, 20 minutes late but it was short.
12:00- Get home, fix girls lunch and get ready for family pictures.
1:50- Show up ten minutes late for family pictures and have to wait.
2:15- Take family pictures and have extra hot hair since I had my hair cut and styled that morning. The girl was nice and we have some cute poses, but the girls were not responding and smiling as well as they have.
3:15ish– Leave and head to the Springs Preserve to get a 15% discount on the family pass, which in the end they just lowered the price and charged us the same as with the discount. I wanted to argue, but didn’t have the heart since we thought we’d be paying the price we paid anyways.
3:45ish to 5:45- Hang out at The Springs Preserve.
6:00- Convince Jon to have Subway for dinner. Go with the intent to just spend $10 on two $5 foot longs but spend $20 because he saw a drink he wanted to try, so we all got drinks. The nice clerk let us know that the cost of the combo was the same as just buying a drink with the sandwich so we actually bought 2 $5 foot long combos and two drinks.
7:10ish- Do a jellybean experiment where for eat color there were two flavors. Once being a gross flavor and the other being a normal flavor. ( It was what they did last week in Science Saturday and Monica gave us some beans to try at home since she likes our girls. It’s a take on Harry Potter and the jelly beans that have different flavors and you never know what you’re going to get.) Yeah, some were really gross and most of the jelly beans we had were the nasty flavor. I’d post pictures or part of the video, but I’m in Linux and have yet learned what to do.
9:00- Get the girls into bed.
10:30 Fall asleep  on the couch.

It was a fun filled day.

On Sunday while I was trying to watch conference our converter box did not want to pick up the channel it was on. So I sat on the couch and tried to listen  from my computer while Lilah talked to me about what I was doing, crocheting, and she chatted about other things and I had to keep reminding her I was listening to conference, even if it was on the computer and not the TV.

Then later in the day my friend called to see if she could come use my sewing machine to put a couple button holes in something, since hers does not sew button holes and my machine, really my mom’s machine but don’t remind her, does.

In the end we decided I’d come over and watch conference there and our girls could play. I know I should make my kids watch conference, but  they only like to listen to the choir sing and then they decide to just bother me and my friend and I have the same philosophy and letting our kids be around but they can still do their own thing as conference is on, until they’re eight.

So supposedly her house wasn’t very clean, but from what I could see it was a lot cleaner than mine and since I’m watching her baby today and tomorrow so she can go make wonderful all natural, and they smell good too, lotions for a craft fair, I feel like I really need to get cleaning. She used my bathroom not too long ago because it’s cleaner than the rec center she works at, and I’m ashamed to say that I think the rec center’s bathroom might have been cleaner, but mostly because grass from the girl’s dead grass heads is everywhere and our bar of soap has left a film and I only go in there to wash their hands and I avoid cleaning bathrooms at all costs.

So I’m cleaning today because it’s the right thing to do and I know I’ll be happier and feel less guilty if people have to use my bathroom.

Also if you’d like to buy some all natural lotions that my friend Sam makes and she has great scents like coconut mango, strawberry, vanilla, or orange, leave a comment and I can privately give you her info to buy some. She doesn’t have a website yet but hopefully we can get her hooked up in the future. It’s $6 for an 8 oz bottle.

Boo!– Our medical deductible is like $1300 for our family this year, it was $500 last year.
Yay!– I just got a letter saying some $900 in tests that my doctor ordered in February and were denied were approved after I appealed it with a doctor’s letter and then a review of medical records! Now we just have to pay 20% of whatever they say, but $180 is a lot nicer than $900.
Boo!– I have a $380 ticket to pay from my accident.
Yay!– The lawyer got them to drop it to a parking citation and thus I have no points.
Yay!– I saved $900 by not switching Gieko. Even though I was in an accident our insurance agent was able to have our company give us a better deal and we will be saving $900 a year. Boo!– The $900 were saving this year was spent on my accident.

Yay!– We have family pictures this Saturday!
Boo!– I have no idea what we’re wearing.
Yay!– I’m getting my hair cut and styled the same day as pictures.
Boo!– Lilah has road rash from falling off the scooter Friday afternoon and I might have to reschedule if it’s not looking better by Friday.
Yay!– Even though Jon didn’t want me to, I bought him new jeans and he’s keeping them. They’re a size 30, and fit him, and his old jeans are a size 34. Now we just need more work pants for him so it doesn’t look like he’s wearing his father’s clothes when he wears the old pants.
Boo!– I haven’t been able to find jeans I like.

Yay!– Lilah’s outside playing and having fun.
Boo!– Eden got hurt and has been crying for 10 minutes now, and it’s hasn’t been “real” crying for the last 8, at least.
Yay!– Eden making herself cry is kinda amusing and making me laugh. I’m a mean mom.

Yay!– My side yard is still clean from Saturday despite the wind.
Boo!– My leg muscles are sore from all the squatting I did when I cleaned my side yard.

My morning consisted of trying to stay awake during General Conference. I mostly stayed awake, but at times I was mostly sleeping. The girls had fun calling my name whenever they saw my eyes closed, then I’d get grumpy at them and tell them to settle down. I think I’m turning into my father.

In between conference we cleaned out the candy in our cabinet. Really condensed it since they were able to fit all the candy into these two coconuts containers that we had from Eden’s birthday party. At least it’s condensed and in a smaller area and not a big gallon ice cream bucket and several bags and other containers. I think once we start getting Halloween candy all the other candy will be thrown out. Maybe that’s how I should do it routinely since some of the candy they put in those coconuts was from Valentine’s day. Ewe.

I also did the dishes before the next session of conference started and to keep me awake for the second meeting I was crocheting a dish rag. I just learned how to crochet on Wednesday, so I thought I better practice before I forgot what I was doing, though I could ask Jon for help since he knows how to crochet. I took out what I started twice and I think I’m doing much more uniform stitches now on my third try. Crocheting did keep me awake for the second session of conference today, but my converter box kept losing it’s signal and I only got parts of the talks and songs. Each time it went off Lilah and Eden would say very loudly “Signal, hey signal!” because they were convinced that’s why the signal returned. It was kinda fun, but also kinda annoying. Well see how tomorrow goes.

After conference I went to work outside. The girls have been playing nearly every day with our neighbors or just outside by themselves, and they’ve asked on more than one occasion if they could go in our backyard. Our back yard isn’t too much of a mess, but it’s getting the neighbor girls there through the side yard that the dilemma lied. Our bushes hadn’t been trimmed  and they blocked the pathway along with all the pine needles and trash that liked to be blown around back there. So I took time to clean our driveway, trim back the bushes and clean the side yard. It was hard work, and I know my legs are going to be sore from all the squatting I did, but at least it’s passable and now I just need to sweep the back yard and make it slightly more presentable so they and their friends can be back there and I won’t have to worry about what they’re getting into. The neighbor girls have  talent for getting into things back there or making things dangerous. Like the time they took the giant, hard, dead, stock to our giant sunflower and were using it as a sword, or something equally scary to this momma since it was giant, and hard, and slightly pointy at the end.

Today I’ve also been dreaming of visiting some of our National Parks. PBS did a 6 day, 2 hours each day, special this week and it really makes me want to visit all these awesome parks. I never went to any growing up, but I really want to take my children and experience the beautiful scenery with them. My first goal is for us to visit the Tetons, Yellowstone and then onto Glacier National park. I think it would be so fun, we just have to budget and hope we can correspond our trip to my friends Anna’s yearly trip out to Glacier so we can stay with her and her husband at his parents cabin out there.  (And on the way to Yellowstone we’d probably travel through Utah so we could visit a certain niece.)

We need to go to many other parks out here in the West since so many are so close to us.

There are just so many beautiful places to visit and so little time.

What did you do or dream about today?