Is It Naptime Yet

In January Las Vegas had some weird weather. We had a week where it rained nearly everyday and I’m talking rain, not just sprinkles, and it was heavy rain throughout the whole valley.

My sister Carolyn went hiking at Red Rock right after and during this weird weather with some friends. I think it snowed on them while there and they had to walk in the stream since the rocks were too icy and they’d slip. I’m happy I skipped that week.

We went the following Saturday. It had rained in the valley on Wednesday and snowed at Red Rock and with the cold temperatures the snow was still on the ground.

Our homeschooling group had gone to Mount Charleston on Friday, and even though it had been a weak since the major snow, it was still like it had just happened that morning with how high and powdery the snow was on the Mountain.

Two days with snow was lots of fun for the girls. Unlike the day before, the snow balls they made stayed in balls and they were able to throw a few. But their gloves had gotten all dirty the day before, and my washer was still waiting to be repaired, so they had to throw snow balls with their bare hands.

It didn’t last very long.

We enjoyed a short hike to the waterfall that is usually dry. The girls got into some mischief and Lilah drove me crazy by jumping down rocks and running.

At the Waterfall.
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Eden
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Lilah- Notice the snow in her hand.
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At the end we let the girls take a few pictures and here are some results.

Lilah’s view with the camera:

What are you doing?
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Self-portrait
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Jon and me with the snowy mountain behind us.
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Eden’s view with the camera:

Um..if I could see myself from this view all the time I might actually be motivated to lose weight.
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Let’s try to take a picture of mom and dad. She almost got all our heads.
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So we knelt down for her.
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Lilah’s pretty silly in this one. I’m posting it because if you look closely we have the same facial expression, only it’s not very flattering so I’m not making it any bigger.

Here are just a few pictures of the girls.

First day of Primary 2010.

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Eden in her new dance class outfit.

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Eden being sassy.

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Snow Day with the homeschooling co-op at Mount Charleston. The snow was 3-4 feet high, and then even higher where the snow plow had piled it up.

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Hannah on the cabin’s porch. (See how high that snow was! I would sink nearly to my knees as I walked around.)

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Lilah and all the girl scout cookies. (Boy am I glad to have them out of my house.)

So this post is mostly about Lilah.

She’s growing too fast.

And I’m getting old, well I’m not really that old, but she’s getting older and I feel old as she grows. Almost everyday I ask the girls to stop growing, but they don’t, and their reply is usually that they can’t stop growing.

Sigh….I guess I’ll just have to keep letting them grow and get bigger and become more independent.

Speaking of independence there are certain things I do for my children, even though they’re big enough to do it on their own, but I’m trying to let go and enjoy a little freedom, even if it does mean the girls might take longer doing it themselves. I also find, that if I wait long enough they catch on a lot more quickly, so it saves some frustration by waiting on both our parts.

Case one:

I still bath the girls and wash their hair and bodies for them…well I used to. I’m kinda strange when it comes to bath time. When I was a young I took baths all by myself by the age of 6. I also just washed myself and cleaned my hair by laying in the bath water and running my hands through it.

Now I think that is so gross.

I should mention baths in general are yucky to me now as an adult. I don’t ever dream of soaking in a nice long bubble bath reading a book or relaxing by candle light. It’s just too yucky for me. So I do have the girls wash their own bodies with the wash cloths, but I usually wash their hair and to rinse them clean by turning on the faucet and rinsing them that way. It works for us, but it takes time and I’ve never taught them how to do it themselves, because usually they take the cup and just dump the water behind them. They’ve also hated showers.

Until now.

Now they love showers, and do crazy shower dances. I still have to greatly help Eden, but I’m mostly just instructing Lilah now, just to make sure she gets all the soap rinsed.

I decided to teach Lilah how to shower so it could free up some of my own time. I don’t have time to bath her every other day, and with the summer coming she’s going to need to be bathed or showered every other to every day.

She’s loving it and I’m loving my free time.

I waited a long time to teach her to shower because it was just so much trouble to shower her before. She was scared of the shower, and still is, but she’s also old enough that her fear is quickly vanishing. Now they both want to take a shower everyday, even though they’ve only taken 3, but I’m happy to let go and let them get clean. I think our water bills are going to be a little higher from now on though.

Case two:

I have never bought Lilah shoes with shoe laces, not since she was a small toddler anyways. I’ve always bought shoes with velcro. Mostly it’s because the ones we liked had velcro, but also because I did not want to teach her to tie her shoes, or have to tie them for her if she wasn’t able to learn.

Yesterday I bought Lilah shoes with laces, and today I taught her how to tie them.

I think waiting was best for us and she’s just at that perfect age and fine motor skills to learn how to tie shoes quickly. I actually did not want to teach her because I feared that I might lose my patience, but how could I not teach her when she was wanting to learn and was trying it out this morning?

I taught her the round the rabbit hole method, or is it around the tree? Anyways, she got it and now is able to tie her shoes, though she still needs help getting them on and tightening the laces.

One thing at a time.

And will you please tell her to stop growing.