Archive for November, 2011


November Highlights

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

All:
Kissing at 11:11 am on 11-11-11. Eden did not want to kiss anyone, but we all kissed her.

Lilah:
Waiting till after breakfast to have your all day eating candy day, because you knew I wanted you to wait. (Same goes for Eden.)

Wearing your cowboy boots around the house to break them in, even when you were just sitting and reading. I need to add: Wearing your cowboy boots the moment you woke up in the morning, while still in your pajamas.

Being so excited to take horse-back riding lessons. Coming in around 10 am and saying you thought it was lunch time, because you could hardly wait to go.

Beaming after you had lead Boomer around the small corral. Loving your lessons.

Trying to wear your old jeans, now that Eden is also wearing the same brand as you. You’re used to only having to notice the name of the jeans, not just the size.

Wanting me to purchase you footsie pajamas.

Riding a horse!

Trying to convince me to let you carry in what I got at Old Navy, knowing there were presents.

Eden:
Being alright when two of the Girl Scout activities got canceled that we registered you for. ๐Ÿ™

Playing with the rocks in a candle holder that I have and making them animated.

Sitting in the car with me to stay warm. Making a little hideout under the fully reclined seat. I’m not sure it was very comfortable, but you sat and read quietly while I took a nap and waited for Lilah’s lesson to be over.

Lying on your bed in your blue shirt, with blue sheets on, seeing if you would be camouflaged.

Not wanting to be come out and be kissed at 11:11 on 11-11-11. I had to take you from your room and drag you to the living room. We all kissed you, but I’m not sure why you wouldn’t give us any kisses. You did give me a kiss at 1:11. ๐Ÿ™‚

Head-butting everyone, or really pushing your head into everyone. We call you Billy because of it.

Taking lots of core samples from the play-dough mountain I had used for science that day.

Jon:
Sending me monotonous reminders and signing them: Love Jonathan.

Not wanting to do anything that would make someone work on Vetrans Day, even though it would have been the perfect time to go to the Nevada State Museum.

Sending me old journal posts from when we were dating.

Telling me that to stay married you don’t have to love someone, you just have to tolerate them.

I suggested we get you all natural hair gel because I think you look cute with the wet hair look. You suggested a few all natural alternatives like olive oil and lard.

All About ME!!!

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

Recently I had called my sister Andrea to see if she would edit Jon’s gift for me. I had left a message asking for her help on a Christmas gift, but if she was too busy in the next 24 hours I understood. (I had to get it done so I could use a discount.) She called back wondering if I was needing pictures for the calendar I make for my parents. Uh, no but maybe it was a good idea to include other family pictures in there. It’s not like I don’t include pictures of other members of our family for the calendar. I have the other nieces and nephew in there for some of the holidays, and even a sibling or two, but most pictures are of my family because I take pictures of them the other 361 days of the year that are not holidays where we meet with the rest of my family. (Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and Christmas being the ones I take pictures at, though we do enjoy Thanksgiving together.) I did e-mail the other siblings and did get a few pictures from one. And the sister who said I should include others has actually not sent me any pictures of her kids. She has one day, so we’ll see if she sends them to me before I need to order them on Wednesday. (I do have a couple pictures of her kids already, but not any cute Halloween ones.)

Today I wrote the family letter that would be included in our Christmas cards. After I did a very short blurb about each of us, I almost began writing about our big family vacation to the different National Parks, but it just didn’t fell right. It was crossing that line from “here are some interesting things about our family” to, “look how great we have it we were able to take two weeks and visit all these cool places”. Its fine to mention them on my blog, because it is a journal, it’s even fine to mention it on Facebook because lets face it, FB is to indulge and be narcissistic, but it felt wrong putting it in the family letter. Really, if someone wants to know about our trip, they just have to read my blog, or interact with me. I’m sure I’ve brought it up, hopefully not annoyingly because it was a fun experience for us, but it’s hard to know what tone everyone will read the letter. I know I’ve mentioned past trips before to the beach and Disneyland, but those were such small inexpensive trips, at least compared to this one. Maybe I’m the hang-up. I know what it cost us and don’t want to come off as bragging. (We did camp and stay at a cabin for free so it could have cost a lot more.) I’m sure I have my moments when I’m not thinking and just talking, so I don’t need something in writing confirming my rude, uncoth behavior.

We’re in a world where everyone is wanting affirmation from everyone. Comment on my blog! Like my status! This can be good and bad. Good if we’re writing smart and thought provoking things, bad if we’re wanting to show off and brag. I admit, I love sharing good news, and I also love being witty and having someone like my status on Facebook, but I’m rarely thought provoking.

So here’s to a new level of narcissism in the world, and trying to participate in it a little less, at least when it comes to Christmas letters. (I’m totally posting good news about Jon’s job in a couple weeks.)

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Th girls both had ideas of what they wanted to be earlier this year. Soon after Eden’s birthday she had been beading anklets and decided she would be an Indian and wear all these anklets and bracelets she was making. Unfortunately she couldn’t find them, but decided glow bracelets would work well. She color coordinated the glow bracelets to her outfit, and I got to wear purple and pink on Halloween night. Eden was often mistaken for Pocahontas, but the girls have never seen that movie. I think at one point we just started saying, yes, she’s Pocahontas.

Lilah went back and forth a little more. She was thinking of being a princess, if Eden changed her mind to also be a princess, she has wanted to be a bird since last year, but the fabric for bird costumes is pretty expensive, not to mention stuffing it, so she finally settled on being a mummy. A friend had posted his mummy costume on Facebook and told me what he did, so I was able to make Lilah an pretty cool mummy costume. It was time consuming, but it worked out well and lots of people liked it on Halloween night.

We brought Britta to Carolyn’s Annual Halloween work party, and had her spend the night since she didn’t have school and next day.

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Britta as Rapunzel, Eden as an Indian, and Lilah as a mummy.
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The girls checking out their goods after the party.
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Lilah carved this pumpkin at achievement days all by herself, with a little help for scooping out the guts. Because she did it all on her own, she decided she would carve her pumpkin for Halloween also. She drew out the design and figured it all out on her own. I really did very little except give directions on what to do.

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We were carving our pumpkins in our pajamas, with an old shirt over them. Hence the marvelous fashion statements.
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Lilah is actually posing likes she’s carving her pumpkin, because I forgot to get any action shots of her carving the face.
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Eden choose the Bat Cat from our pumpkin carving book, and so I carved hers for her. I’m not ready for both of them to grow up just yet.
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Lilah wanted the traditional Jack O’ Lantern. She did an awesome job on her pumpkin.

I’ll admit it is fun to see them grow up and see them enjoy holiday traditions on a new level of involvement.

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This is our front window. Lilah made the decorations on the left, and Eden made the ones on the right. I made the BOO! and the skeleton is from a Science Saturday project. It was headless and missing one foot, and cut out and put together by Eden. Eden colored her ghost light green, so it would look like it would glow in the dark.
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The cousins got to see one another after we trick or treated separately.

Kristi got to my parents before me, and I had told my mom to let her go on without us. We both went over to the popular streets that go all out, but with the crowd it was c.r.a.z.y. My parents never get a lot of trick or treaters, but this year it was dead on their street and area surrounding them. Usually you see a few groups, but this year it was nothing until we crossed over to the popular blocks. Lilah and Eden wanted to go over there, so we did, and they enjoyed themselves and loved seeing all the decorations. I did not let them in the haunted house, but that was mostly because it was a crazy long line and I didn’t want to be out too late.

My dad said Henderson had made rule that trick or treating was just from 6-8pm, because of it being a school night, and I thought that was totally lame. Parents should be able to decide how late to be out with their kids and teenagers will always be out late no matter what. We were in just after 8, and the couple doors we knocked on after 8 gave the girls a lot of candy because they were my parents neighbors and I’m sure wanted to get rid of some candy with the night coming to an end.

We came home and Jon had given out all our candy by 9 pm. We get a fair amount of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. It was also fun because our nice neighbors have moved back, and they decorated and dressed up, because they were having a party, and gave out candy too.

I just love Halloween.

Family Pictures 2011

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

We had our family pictures taken way back in September, and I posted most of them on Facebook, but have added a few for the viewing pleasure of my three readers. I had Eve cut off my hair the day of pictures. I was just so tired of long hair and not being able to do anything with it.

I always send the link out to family, so they can let me know which ones they like best. This might also influence our Christmas Card.
Let me know which pictures you like. You can click on them to see a slightly bigger size.

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Family 1
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02family

Family 2
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16family

Family 3
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17family

Family 4
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03family

Girls 1
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11family

Girls 2
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04family

Girls 3
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18family

Couple 1
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05family

Couple 2
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06family

Couple 3
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12family

Lilah 1
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07family

Lilah 2
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08family

Lilah 3
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13family

Lilah 4
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14family

Eden 1
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09family

Eden 2
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15family

Eden 3
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10family

Eden 4

Gourds

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Jon has this funny idea that we need centerpieces on our table around the holidays. When I was sick earlier in October he went to the store and bought some food supplies I was needing, and these gourds. Now I had purchased the two small sweet pumpkins, so I can make pumpkin pie with them later, and we had acorn squash from a produce basket, but he bought the other gourds.

After arranging them on our table, Lilah came over and thought they needed something more. So she added some Halloween rings they had gotten from cupcakes or something of the sort.

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Then later in the month Jon wanted even more for our harvest centerpiece, so he bought Indian corn, and some of the other produce, such as apples, were just added because we had them.

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Sadly, the little decorative pumpkin gourds are starting to wilt and decay. I guess that answers Jon’s question about them being saveable for next year. I’ll probably bake and puree the pumpkin this week, to make sure I have enough for pie, but maybe I’ll get something to have a nice Thanksgiving centerpiece, since we’ll be enjoying one with just us this year. (My parents are out of town and his family will be doing it on Saturday.)

Roo’s N More

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Way back in October, well I think it was October, we visited Roo’s N More Zoo in Moapa, Nevada. We went there in April this year too, or somewhere around that time, but I never got around to posting pictures from that visit.

Jon had taken the originally scheduled day off of work so he could go, but then it rained all day and night, and even the morning of, so our group had to postpone our trip. Since we rescheduled it to the following week, he wasn’t able to go. For the day we were suppose to go, we decided to go bowling, and I got the lowest score. Apparently I should use the bumpers too. Jon did alright, but I bowled pitifully.

I was going to do a quick blog of what we did in October, but there were just too many cute pictures, so I decided I’d just get on the ball and overwhelm my reader(s) with a post a day while I play catch up. So here’s to hoping I can get the other needed posts out of the way over the next few days.

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Lilah was willing to hold any animal she could get her hands on.
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While Eden mostly kept her distance but did pet a few of the animals.
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A fun and very slow sloth.
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Petting the sloth.
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The baby otter kissing and making noises in Lilah’s ear.
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The super cute baby African porcupine.
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Lilah took this picture of me holding the baby otter.
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A baby kangaroo in a mommy’s pouch. I think it had only been born a week or so before.
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Eden petting a 3 1/2 legged desert tortoise.
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The monkey eating Lilah’s hair.
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Gotta love that smile.
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Eden didn’t want to hold the monkey by herself, so I made her tag along while I played with the monkey.
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The monkey also liked my camera case.
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Why yes, that is a python wrapping itself around my daughter’s waist.
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See, it’s not that big of a snake, and no, I did not hold or touch it.
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The girls with the kangaroo sculpture.

October Highlights

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Lilah:

Being so excited for the triops. I had to ban you from mentioning them while you were still saving money in September. You were so excited to hatch them and take care of them.

Enjoying Roo’s N More Zoo. You held every animal and loved it.

Going down a hill in a wagon and missing a tree by only 4 inches or so. Apparently I screamed a little and your friends thought it hilarious. (I had just gone over and told you guys to move so none of the kids would hit the tree.)

Being so excited for Halloween and your costume.

Helping with Alex at the park. Helping Sam with Matilda. You’re going to be a great babysitter some day.

Playing Eden’s recorder. I’m wondering if you really wanted to take recorder this term.

Being excited to be a mummy for Halloween.

Learning how to pronounce whoppers correctly. You used to say woo-pers.

Waving and saying bye to some of the people who gave you candy on Halloween night.

Eden:

Petting some of the animals at the zoo. You didn’t hold any but you still had fun.

Going down the hill in the wagon and tipping over. Just a minute before I had said that it would probably be my kid who tips over in the wagon, and it was. You were a little hurt and scared, but just fine overall.

Practicing your recorder. For some reason you love to practice when I want to take a nap.

Asking if I could make that broccoli casserole, just without the broccoli.

Eating a whole bowl of granola with yogurt and then telling me you didn’t like it.

Telling Lilah, “I just want to chill.” while in your bath relaxing.

Jon:

Letting the girls play Mario Cart right after they wake up.

Watching the new 30 Rock with me on Netflix and always falling asleep.

Going to the store for applesauce and bananas when I was sick and coming home with a lot more. Milk, eggs, two kinds of apples, applesauce, mango applesauce (ick), cookies, and decorative gourds. (Lilah wanted the gourds and I had actually been telling her no.)

Decorating the table with the gourds and other things we had, like squash and pomegranates, and then Lilah came and put Halloween rings on it.

Watching birth and cesarean videos on youtube.

Adding more and more stuff to your fall centerpiece. I think it might take over the table.

You buying candy from companies who have signed a fair trade declaration. Then me not remembering what companies to buy and you declaring, “Little slave children helped make this candy.” I’m sorry you had to give it away because we had so many trick or treaters. (I was going to return the candy.)