Is It Naptime Yet

I recently put this up on Facebook:

When people ask me about homeschooling and I haven’t done anything, I feel guilty. Then someone asks a question about dung beetles and my daughter knows the answer and I feel better because I know she’s learning, just in a less conventional way. Learning is a way of life and growth, not just something you go to school for.

So a couple things brought on this comment.

Yesterday my mother-in-law asked me about homeschooling and I didn’t have much to say because I haven’t been homeschooling the girls. We’ve been having fun at co-op, park days, running errands, them playing while I try to keep the house from falling apart, which isn’t going to well if you were to visit us, and doing laundry at my parent’s house on Wednesdays because my washer broke two weeks ago and we’re waiting on the parts.

So their formal homeschooling is pretty non-existent right now, and a lot has to do with how busy we are, and when I’ve mentioned it, the girls have not wanted to do it, so I don’t because I don’t want to fight over homeschooling. I figure they’re little, they know things, and when they get older so much more will be expected from them, why not let them be kids?

I know I’m busy and I know I need to be better about having our more formal sessions, but I really want school to be enjoyable for them, and at times when we were doing the formal schooling it was not enjoyable and that is one of the reasons I’m not forcing it at this time. Instead, we learn in ways that are more enjoyable for them. Watching Nova and Nature, letting them read all the books they want and reading to them, getting Eden a new set of Bob Books to conquer, going on hikes and reading the signs to them, going to museums and reading the signs to them there, and just discussing things in an informal matter while laying in bed. (Our geography discussions are usually done in my room after cuddling since the map is on our wall. )

The second part of my status came from an experience we had at Science Saturday, only it was Science Sunday, since it was a Daddy Sunday today and we went this afternoon after I was home from church.

They were learning about scarab beetles and the worker talked about scarab beetles being dung beetles and asked if anyone knew about dung beetles. Lilah raises her hand and tells what she knows about dung beetles.

“Dung beetles roll big balls of poop and then the lay their eggs in them and the eggs hatch and come out of the poop.”

It was exactly the answer the worker was looking for, since we were discussing why Ancient Egyptians somewhat worshiped the scarab beetles.

I know I worry about how others perceive me teaching my children. If they were going to public school, I could blame the school for not teaching them this or that, but I’m the teacher so the only one to blame is me and Jonathan, but mostly me.

People can easily interpret me as a lazy homeschooler.

I teach when it’s easy and don’t make the time I should and I know that and I feel a little guilty, but in the end I’m trying not to feel guilty about what I do or do not teach my children and how I do it. I am a lazy homeschooler, but I am not a lazy mother and I am not a lazy opportunity maker for my children to learn and grow on their own.

They’re smart little people. I’m told this all the time by those who are around them and how “good I’m doing”, but it’s them.

It’s all them.

….ring, ring, ring, you weren’t home.

So I have a song in my head, and it’s for kids and not something I can easily find, so you’ll just have to go with my craziness, but this post is about calling someone, only they were home.

So, auditions for Cinderella are less than a month away. I’m a little nervous, but mostly I’m OK. I think.

I’ve decided to sing George Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me. This is a song I love, plus it was our wedding song when I married Jon nearly 8 years ago. I sung Lullaby of Broadway last year, and wanted a change.

So I have the sheet music, but nothing to sing and rehearse to, except what’s in my head and what I can get on-line, and even though I would love to have Ella Fitzgerald accompany me as I sing my solo, I think I need to be able to sing the song alone since most people would rather just listen to Ella than me, but the point is to listen to me.

So I needed to find something to practise to.

The problem: there is only cheesy karaoke music on-line, and it’s just not something I can work with. So I thought I’d call up a woman in my ward who is very accomplished and ask if she would practise it a couple times and then allow me to record her playing it for me so I could rehearse to it.

I get my ward roster out and call her up. I get the “Do do do…I’m sorry but this number is no longer in service” lady and thought crap, how can I get her number. Then I thought, well she did call me about giving us books at the beginning of January, maybe I can recognize her number if I look through my caller id.

So I start flipping through my caller id. I knew her number was just the number, the problem was there were several numbers that were just the number, and I had no idea who they belonged to. I tried to use logic and deduce what number might be hers.

I choose and number and I called it.

It rang and rang.

Then a gentleman picks up.

“Hi Lacey.”

Oh crap! He knows my name and I realize I do not know who I’m calling. My mind races with what man might know who I am and I decide maybe I called Paul, a gentleman I bought some fabric from.

I tentatively say, “Hi, is this Paul?”

“No, this is Kevin.”

The light bulb goes on. Kevin is my friend Anna’s husband and the director for Cinderella and had called me a couple times.

“Oh, Kevin. I’m sorry I was trying to call a friend and only knew I had her number in my caller ID, but didn’t know which number. I’m sorry.”

I think he laughs and then says that’s alright and we have a short conversation about an e-mail he had recently sent. Before he hangs up he says, “I hope you find Paul.”

I didn’t need to find Paul, so I felt stupid for calling a number not knowing who would pick up, and I still needed to call the sister to see if she would play the song for me.

I think and remember I had a ward bulletin from Sunday and it had a list of all the important people on it, and she was important. I found it and called her. She said she would play the song for me. Yay!

I tell my friend Sam my silly story and she says I should have called her, she has to call this sister quite frequently for church related things.

Darn… I should have thought of that.

Also, I’ve realized my phone only stores 40 numbers, and her number wasn’t even on there.

I called you on the telephone. Ring, ring, ring, you were home.

I am a Gospel Principles teacher for my ward. In this calling I teach investigators, new members, and returning members of my church. This year we got a new manual, or really revised one, and the class right after mine is also teaching from it. It’s not too bad because they teach from it only twice a month, the second and third week, and we teach from it every week. The problem we encountered was I was sick the very first week and asked a brother in our ward to teach for me. He wanted to leave the lessons for me so he did a discussion on the Articles of Faith the first week.

So I taught lesson one in my class the second week of January, and my friend’s husband also taught lesson one the second week in his class, which is directly after mine. I taught lesson two the third week and lesson two was taught directly after my class once more. I knew this might happen, but it was interesting to see how the sister taught the same lesson as me, only different.

So the fourth week of January we were set to have lesson three taught. Our Sunday school presidency is offering other classes, one about marriage the other about teaching, along with the regular Gospel Doctrine and my class, Gospel Principles. The Sunday school president called me up and said he would teach lesson three for me and I could then go to the class about teaching, being taught by Brother M.  So I didn’t prepare my lesson and enjoyed the week off.

Fast foreward to this past Sunday, or the week I was suppose to have off.

The girls and I got to sacrament meeting a little late. Partially because my neighbor got pulled over by a police officer right in front of our house  and blocked my driveway and I had to ask the police officer if my neighbor could move his car so I could go to church. As I’m sitting in sacrament meeting I do not see the Sunday school president so I read the lesson, just in case I need to wing it. After the sacrament is passed and finished I see the the Sunday school president come in with his family. I’m relieved and I enjoy the rest of sacrament meeting.

Then after sacrament meeting I start talking to the Sunday school president.

SSP: So Brother M’s wife had her baby this week so I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: My class, as in the one I’m going to today?
SSP: No your class.
Me: My class? The one your teaching?
SSP: No, I’m showing a movie in your class.
Me: Which class? The one I’m going to or the one I teach?
SSP: The one you teach.

After this very fuzzy conversation I get a little nervous. He hadn’t prepared a lesson because Brother M was going to help him, since our own Sunday school president doesn’t teach. Bro. M’s wife had her baby last week and due to the chaos Bro. M hadn’t been able to help him prepare and thus gave him one of those  Living Scripture movies to show in my class.

I was slightly annoyed, but mostly just worried. I needed to stay on schedule so the lessons could start being farther a part between the two hours where we use the same manual. I also didn’t want to miss a lesson since we have exactly the number we need to teach for the year, minus one, but since we started on the second week we need to stay on track.

When explaining why I was there, yet we would be  watching a movie anyways, one of the elders jokingly mentioned how he would even teach the class because having the same lesson twice in a row on the same day was “boring”.

I decided to man up and teach the lesson.

Then the Stake President walks in.

My stomach starts to shake and I get as nervous as I get when I need to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Those symptoms include, but are not limited to: a rapidly beating heart, butterflies in my stomach, noodle legs, shortness of breath, unclear mind, and my whole body shaking so hard that those sitting behind me think I will literally shake out of my boots since my knees are knocking so loudly that I lose my balance while speaking.

I explain the situation,  apologize, try to hide my wildly shaking hands as I read from the book, and get on with the lesson.

At one point we read a scripture and I get the doctrine completely wrong. Well not completely wrong, just mixed up. The stake president then raises his hand and I call on him “I believe in that scripture our first estate is pre-mortal existence and our second estate is our earthly bodies. If I’m wrong someone can feel free to correct me doctrinely.” (I had said the first estate was our earthly bodies and the second was everlasting life. What a great teacher I am.)

The Stake President also called me Lacey throughout the lesson, which in turn my new teaching partner, who just got called and this was her first time in the class, started calling me Lacey, and our relief society president who also attends my class, and it happened last week when I was asked to give the prayer in relief society by one of the counselors. Why can’t I just be Sister Blake !?!

Jon says I should start calling myself Sister Lacey, then I said what happens when someone asks me my first name and I say it’s Lacey and then they ask “Your name is Lacey Lacey?”

Sorry, family joke. Your parents named you Harvey Harvey?

So class ended and I didn’t do too bad of a job teaching a lesson I hadn’t prepared. The elders said I did a great job and our Sunday school president said I bailed him out big time. (Can you imagine putting on some scripture movie because you hadn’t prepared your lesson and then the Stake President coming into your class? And the scripture movie isn’t approved church teaching material and you’re the Sunday School president so you should know this, and so should your counselor who gave you the movie because he was just in the bishopric?)

Anyways, I think the class went pretty well, despite not preparing the lesson a head of time and I saved myself and those in my class from watching a movie from a company whos business I think is run in a very annoying matter.

It’s all about the principles and the lesson.

I am very shy.

What?

You’re one of the people who don’t believe me, or maybe you are one of the people who does believe me and are nodding your head in agreement.

I tell Jon I’m shy and he doesn’t believe me. My own husband.

I told my friend Sam I’m shy and she says that is the one word that would never enter her mind if she had to describe me. She then told me how I’m friendly at church things and how I talk to people.

True, I have introduced myself to others at church things.

True, I do talk to people, but there are many times I hate talking to people, and thus don’t, but it’s because I’m being too bashful to try to start a conversation. So see, I’m shy.

Since two of my closest friends don’t think I’m shy, I think I’m faking it pretty well.

Honestly, I hate going up and talking to people. I introduce myself to individuals in my class on the Sundays I teach, but the other Sundays I usually sit back and watch.

Lately, I’ve hardly said hello to anyone I don’t know well at church or to the two co-ops I attend.

I was recently at a wedding for a friend from high school and was too shy to say hello to some people. I found those I was most comfortable with and talked latched onto them. I was in a bashful mood and I worried that people wouldn’t remember me, or worse, they did remember me and didn’t want to talk to me.

The wedding was probably worse for me because I think I was at my shyest in high school. I was very quiet. So quiet that on a trip to Disneyland, on more than one occasion, my friends were surprised that I hadn’t left the group because, I was hardly saying  a word and just walking with them. (Why I was so shy around my friends is another story, but we’ll leave it at the fact that I didn’t know if any were true friends at that time.)

I know I can be friendly, and deep down I want to be super friendly, as in I never worry about being outgoing and am automatically a friendly type of person, but for now I fake it.

Some days I fake it better than others and I now want to make it a goal to be outgoing to those I meet, so I can one day say to myself I am not shy.

I say fake it till you make others believe you and then maybe you’ll finally believe them.

So Lilah is selling Girl Scout Cookies.

We went to a meeting a week ago and as I sat there listening to what we needed to do as independent girl scouts, she sat there reading though the different things you get once you sell so many boxes. Well, she read that if a girl scout sells 500 boxes they get to go to Camp Foxtail, so she wants to sell 500 boxes.

She’s not doing too bad. She’s sold about 160 boxes thus far, and there are still some people we need to contact and we still have one week to try to get various orders.

I am somewhat of a realist so I tell Lilah to work for her goal, but I also tell her it might be pretty hard. We have already used many of our resources, and even though I plan to sign her up for booth sales, I have no idea how many they’ll be able to sell, since sells differ for booths from day to day and hour to hour and they then divide the sales between the number of girls there during that time.

So here’s my little plea to help Lilah achieve her goal.

If you’d like to order Girl Scout Cookies and you haven’t done so already, please leave a comment  and tell me if you’d like an e-mail message that you can directly order from, me to call you, or have Lilah and me come by your house. (I’d have Lilah call you, but I have a hard enough time getting her to talk to people for this in person.)

If you feel that you might have some friends or co-workers interested, and you’d like to ask for Lilah, I can e-mail you an order form to take orders for her, and she’ll deliver them to your work and to your co-workers on the day you select. (My hairdresser volunteered to do this for her so I thought there might be others willing to.)

We’re taking pre-orders till February 1st, though I can get a few more until the 18th. I then will be picking the cookies up on the 19th and Lilah and I will be delivering them the week of the 22nd, before booth sales start.

They’re $3.50 a box and you do not pay till you get your cookies. (I’m wanting to deliver them the week of the 22nd, but I can deliver them to you later if need be. We have till the 16th of March to collect money.)

Also, for every 6 boxes you buy you’ll be entered into a contest to win 52 boxes of assorted Girl Scout Cookies.

If you’d like to support her but live far away, you can also order a box for Troop to Troop, and the cookies are then sent to our military overseas and I will discount you $0.50, or the cost to mail the money to us.

Thanks for all the support so many of you have already shown.

It’s cookie time!

The girls and I had a girls New Years Eve with Sam and Britta. I gave some details previously, but here are some pictures.

The girls waiting in the tub to hold Squeaks, Britta’s new hamster. Since he had been with them only a week, we took this precaution in case he got out of tiny hands and tried to make a run for it.
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Lilah enjoyed holding him, Eden just watched.
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Britta thought he was pretty silly.
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Here we are with some hats we made for celebrating the New Year.
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Three little birds….
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…. Wait, they’re just three silly girls!
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Sam and me.

Hanging out with Sam and Britta was a fun way to ring on the New Year and the girls and I had lots of fun.

Most are self explanatory….. and I’m being a lazy narrator.

So, I just want to note that I love the Wii fit.

I am a bit obsessive checking my weight and Wii age every day, but it’s fun. I’ve been as old as 44 and as young as 20. I sometimes gain a little than the day before, but mostly I’m losing little by little. I think seeing that I’m continuing to lose, even if it’s just .2 of a pound, it’s fun and it keeps me motivated. They also have some really fun games and a way for me to do step while I watch TV, which is what I’m doing tonight. I have a show to watch but I haven’t put in my 20 minutes of walking/ bike riding on the Wii, so I’ll be stepping to the beat and hopefully it doesn’t get too annoying hearing it tick away to keep me in rhythm.

Here is a short little look into our Christmas Eve celebrations.

We were with my family for the reading of the Saviors birth in the scriptures. Lilah and Eden lead one of the songs  and then afterwards is was present time!

Waiting to get started.
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Andrea with a sleepy Z, though I think it was just that particular moment.

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Lilah and Eden leading the music for Silent Night. Eden would just sing that carol around the house and I absolutely loved it.

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Lilah got a cool puppy from Carolyn and Derek, she named him Jack.
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Eden and her dress-up from Carolyn and Derek.
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The girls and me in our pajamas. The girls picked mine out.
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Jon with the girls and Jack.
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Jon asleep in the couch. I think this makes for the third year he’s done this.

Luckily he fell asleep on one cushion so I was able to work around him.

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Our stockings.

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Our tree and presents.
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I have to take one with just the lights….it makes me think of my childhood.

To come….Christmas Day.

So, I need to post pictures, but I thought I’d blog real quick on two things, since I’m not posting any pictures tonight anyways.

First, the girls had their first sleepover. As in we left them with someone not related! Though, I think Lilah being left with my parents while I had Eden was the last time we left a child overnight without one of us there, so this was major.

Lilah and Eden slept over at Britta’s house for New Years Eve. It was perfect because I stayed and hung out with Sam and our girls that night and was able to tuck them into bed before I left. Since Jon was sick and Sam’s husband goes to bed early it seemed perfect for us to have a girls night for New Years Eve.

We had Chinese food, root beer floats, and other not so healthy snacks. We made party hats and the girls played games. Eden fell asleep at 11:40 pm or so and Lilah and Britta made it till midnight. So Lilah was my New Years kissee (kisser? kiss?).

It wasn’t too hard leaving them there since I got to spend so much time with them before I left, I trust Sam completely and I was super tired, but I still think it’s a fun milestone.

Second, Eden is taking dance once more and this time I’m not taking her.

Sam teaches an afternoon dance class, so I signed Eden up for it since she showed interest in it after getting a new Sigg bottle with a ballet dancer on it. I watch Matilda for just a little bit before Matt is able to get home, so Sam just takes Eden with her to class. When Matt comes to get Matilda he leaves Britta to play with Lilah and then we switch kids again once Sam brings Eden home.

I really feel that I’m a safety net for Eden. She seems to be much more shy and reserved when I’m around so I thought with me not being there she might actually participate, and apparently I was correct. Today was just the first class, but she did wonderfully and fully participated.

I’m one of Eden’s biggest cheer leaders, but for some reason I’m also her biggest hindrance. It’s hard knowing I have a somewhat negative affect on Eden. I really want to be there taking pictures and supporting her, but I think I need to support her from afar for a little time. Once she settles in I might go watch, but I want her to really be confident so she doesn’t feel she needs to act shy or be reserved just because I’m around and she thinks that’s how she needs to act when I’m there. It’s difficult because I want to be there so badly, but I know me not watching her is for the better.

I’m needing to let go a little more than before and even though it’s fun, I also hate that they’re growing so fast.