Is It Naptime Yet

Jon has the week between Christmas and New Years off. UNLV does this shutdown of the campus and you can work, but it’s recommended to take the time off. Since we had the week off Jon studied for the G.R.E. which he took on Friday. So even though my husband didn’t work he was still at his office two days last week and then he took the G.R.E. on Friday. The time flew by and it seemed I didn’t have time for much of anything. So here is my week in review.

Monday: Christmas….why would I blog on Christmas.
Tuesday: Relaxed in the morning and watched movies. Andrea and Brien came to town so I took the girls with me to see them while Jon stayed behind and studied. We saw them for about an hour in the afternoon before they left to do some shopping. Then I went to my sister Carolyn’s house in Boulder City. The girls caused mischief and I sorted through some clothes she hasn’t worn. I found one sweater, two long sleeve shirts and a couple short sleeve ones that I could add to my wardrobe.
Wednesday: Jon went to study for the G.R.E. at his office. I’m not sure what I did this day. Probably the normal dishes and cleaning. This week was hard though because Lilah started saying the phrase “I just can’t do anything right.” in which she would not try to do anything. She seemed very whiny and it drove me nuts all this week until today, Tuesday, where she’s been her normal self and not overly whiny.
Thursday: Jon went to campus to study in the morning and I stayed home with the girls. Around 2:30 Jon’s mom called about the plans of seeing Kumen and his family. At 3:30 or so it was confirmed that we would have the gathering at our house the next day at 4. Andrea and Brien came by on their way home to Ely. Probably because I was sad that I hadn’t seen them more and because we had some things of theirs. I gave them their pick of family pictures to compensate for them stopping by to see my little family. After Andrea and Brien left, about 3:45 and I started cleaning the house. Well not so much cleaning but organizing the chaos that had taken over. I got my room organized and the Christmas tree taken down so there would be more room for everyone. My room was quite a feet because we’ve had lots of little things floating around there and it has never looked as nice as it did Friday, when I completely finished, since we’ve moved in. I should take a picture so I can remember this moment. ( I hope to make it look nicer once I get drapes and get even more organized.)
Friday: Jon took the G.R.E. I ignored my two little girls and organized the front room. ( My house is normally okay but we just have so much stuff. Books or filing overtakes our living room and computer desk regularly.) We ate lunch and Jon got a few things from the store. I cleaned my bathroom and took a shower. After getting dressed and presentable I loaded up the things we’d decided to take to DI and made a big trip. I went to DI, then to my parents house in Henderson for chairs. Then I stopped off at Costco for food and came home. I left at 2:40 and got home at 4:15. Then we had a family gathering.
Saturday: I’m not sure what we did. I think I tried writing a draft for stuff but I just relaxed because of all the hard work the previous two days.
Sunday: Went to church and celebrated New Years Eve. Jon fell asleep around 10. I didn’t want to watch anything that was on TV so I watched Star Wars III because I fell asleep the day before when Jon was watching it. Jon woke up at 11:55 pm and we paused the movie at 11:59. We enjoyed a New Years kiss, the fireworks on TV, and ice cream floats. I had a the regular root beer float Jon had a Kiwi Lime Soda float. We stayed up until 2 or so.
Monday: I slept in. Enjoyed the morning. Jon tried putting up the dry wall in the girls bathroom. It turned out to be just a little to thick for the patch job so we need to buy more. I went shopping with my sister Carolyn at 2. It was so fruitless until we reached the Target Greatland. The stores either didn’t have what I was looking for (a black dress or a least a cute but simple black skirt.) , or they were to expensive. (I just can’t spend $50 on a skirt even if it is Ann Taylor and on sale/ clearance.) We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings where Carolyn’s boyfriend was watching a game with some friends. I got home around 7:30 pm. It was a fun day out and I’m glad that Target at least had what I was looking for. ( I got a black skirt, black yoga pants, and then two t-shirts on clearance at $1.98 and a v-neck at $3.98. I’m totally going to visit ours to see if they have the same clearance because they’re cute and I can wear them at home without worrying about ruining a $2 shirt.)

I’m trying to keep my house organized now that my life is back to normal.Today I feel yucky, I’m not sure why, so I’ve slept and played all day with a little blogging.

So Vegas got snow last night. It’s funny because we’ve had an unusually warm winter thus far and then it got cold and it snowed!! Jon took pictures of our car at 7:30 am before he left for work and he got a picture of Frenchman’s mountain that is right behind the temple.

It’s funny because we were talking about snow on Sunday and saying how Frenchman’s never gets snow unless the valley also gets snow. My sister who lives in Henderson right off of Black mountain got 7 1/2 inches and it stayed until around noon. So her kids were able to build snowmen and what not.

Yesterday I was a great wife and made chocolate treats for Jon to take to his coworkers. I was a bad mom because I was so immersed in the projects that PBS was on all day and Eden often came over wanting to be held but having to be turned down by her chocolate fingered momma. Even on days I had tons of studying to do I would have time for them. Yesterday I just had to get things done so the house could hopefully get back to order ASAP. Lilah was mostly okay. She just tried to “help” by licking any spoon with chocolate that she could get her hands on. Only when I told her no she could not have any more chocolate did she get upset. Lilah would just come and see what I was doing and them go on her merry way of watching whatever was on. By the time Jon got home Eden was a mess, even after a nap, because she needed some love and attention. Also I had put her in Lilah’s chair at one point and she wanted to stay in it, but if I was out of the room I took her down because she couldn’t be trusted to sit still and I was afraid she’d fall off of the chair, so whenever I took her out of the chair she got upset. It was a crazy.

These are the chocolates I made.

I made different truffles and then chocolate covered popcorn. The recipes came from my friend Amber. I cut off the extra chocolate that you see on so many of the truffles. I figured I did okay considering this was the first time I’d done anything besides the chocolate molds you can buy. Wilton has special dipping spoons that might help avoid the huge amount of chocolate around the base of the truffles, so I may try those next time. So here are things I learned about chocolate.
In the truffle recipe it says to refrigerate the center for the truffle until firm. (Please refer to the recipe so you know what I’m talking about.)
Well I thought to save time on Monday morning I’d make the center the night before. I didn’t save any time because the center had completely harden by being in the refrigerator overnight! (So tip: it only takes about an hour in the fridge for the center to be firm enough to shape it. Or you can do it the night before but plan on letting it thaw the next morning.)
The second thing I needed to improve on was the outer coating. On some of my truffles the outer layer of chocolate cracked. What I think happened is the center was too cold…it had been in the freezer more like an hour, plus it was still fairly cold and hard from being in the fridge the night before…and the chocolate that I melted to coat it was a little too warm. So when I let the truffle centers sit for just a little while after being in the freezer and the melted chocolate for the outer layer to sit, then they were less likely to crack if they cracked at all.
I made a lot of popcorn and I think I made around 130 truffles. I still have truffles to give away even after Jon took some for his coworkers today. I packaged everything in cute bags, but I was too lazy to take a picture last night when all was said and done.
I think I’m good on making chocolate for a little while. I made these with the Wilton wafers, so I didn’t have to worry about tempering the chocolate. I hope as I become more experienced that I can use the real thing.

So, I know people are probably tired of me writing about school. Oh well.( You’ll get one more post after this because my final grades need to come in and possibly one when my diploma comes in the mail months from now.) I took my last final last night. It went well. I don’t feel like a college graduate. (Maybe I should have planned on going to commencement, but how would sitting on my butt for two hours listening to people I don’t know and then shaking the hand of someone I don’t know change this feeling?)
It’s strange how chapters of our lives close so suddenly. I was engaged for five months then suddenly after a half hour ceremony I was married. I was pregnant for nine months then after six hours of labor and ten minutes of pushing I had a baby girl. It seems like in a blink of an eye our lives change drastically and their is no going back. I’ve gone to college for five and half years and last night after a 20 minute final I was done. I had completed all I needed to do and that was my ending to this chapter of my life. I may go back to school. In some ways I look forward to attending again. Maybe I’ll get a second degree. Maybe I’ll get a masters. Maybe I’ll just never go back but will be at home homeschooling my own children while I discovery the world through their young eyes and remember things I’ve forgotten.
For now I say goodbye to the overpriced textbooks, the skanky dressed girls on campus and the terrible parking at UNLV. Goodbye to paying for a student union I never wanted or ever will use. Goodbye to the Political Correctness on a liberal campus in which conservativeness is not accepted. Goodbye to the teachers I hated and those I learned from. Goodbye to the business students who smoked right outside of the entrance to Beam Hall. Goodbye to running into old friends. I’ll miss school. It defined me as more than just a mom, or a housewife. I enjoyed saying I was a student and a stay at home mom. Now I’ll have to find other hobbies.

So the second child as the advantage of watching the first child and learning from them. This is usually good. Eden loves books and will sit through long ones, like Bernstein Bears, because she watches and learns from Lilah sitting through them. She follows Lilah’s example when we fold our arms for prayer and she behaves pretty well. One thing that I never worried about with Lilah was climbing. I know some first children are climbers, so it may not be that Eden is my second child, but Eden is now a little climber. She climbs onto the rocker, she climbs onto Lilah’s bed and once she climbs onto Lilah’s bed she then climbs onto Lilah’s dresser that is next to the bed. She did this yesterday. I was in the living room doing school work at the computer and the girls were in the bedroom playing. I knew Eden was on the bed. I figured at least there’s carpet in the room if she falls off, and it’s only a foot and a half from the floor to the bed. Well I don’t remember if I just decided to check in on them, or if I had already heard Lilah tell Eden to get off the dresser. I walked down the hall and my heart skipped a beat as I saw Eden on the dresser trying to look out the girls window. Lilah was telling her to get off the dresser, but Eden was not listening.

Their are a few reasons this scared me. 1: the dresser is about 6-9 inches from the wall/window because the curtains are longer than the dresser height. This is just the amount of space a little one year old could fall in between and probably get beat up a little on the way down since it is a small area. 2: The dresser is about 3 feet tall and it would be a much harder landing if she fell. 3: Eden doesn’t always comprehend edges. She’s almost fallen off my bed and the couch a few times because she likes to lean her head forward and doesn’t know where her center of gravity is, in which it is very close to her big head.

I really hate this. I loved being able to have the girls in there room while I did school work. They would play and I would check in making sure Eden wasn’t being suffocated by Lilah covering her in blankets and toys, and once I saw everything was okay I could go back and do more work. This would give me anywhere between a half hour to nearly two hours depending on when they started playing and when Eden needed to go down for a nap. It just is not fun because for the next six weeks, until school ends, I will have to supervise their play more and that will take away my study time. I’ll need to be in there with them to make sure Eden doesn’t try to climb onto the dresser or to condition her by putting her in time out every time she does. I really hate the time toddlers learn to climb, but don’t completely understand heights and consequences. I just hope she learns them soon, and before she falls and does any major damage.

On a funny note about having two kids. My friend Anna came over for lunch on Thursday. She was holding Eden and Lilah said in a very serious voice that Eden was not hers and that she needed to put her down. Well something like that. It cracked us up that she was so protective of her sister. She knows Anna quite well and Anna likes to hold both of them, but this is the first time Anna got into trouble by Lilah for holding Eden. Strange people… uh, I mean… Strangers beware, Lilah has her sister’s back.

This weekend was crazy.
Friday (Jon had this day off because it is Nevada Day Observed. The real Nevada day is Halloween):

1.I was behind on my classes and I still am.
2. I took one test, I still have one more to take and a paper to do..both by tomorrow night (Monday).
3. I got my haircut
4. I made a stop off at Costco
5. Picked up Lilah’s costume from my friend Anna who was darling enough to make it.
6. I did lots of dishes and cleaned my sink out. The stank is now finally gone.
7. Baked cupcakes for the trunk or treat ward party.
8. Carved the pumpkin
It seems like I did other things…but it was I probably relaxed.

Saturday:
My morning went pretty well. Just got things together.
1. Got milano bars ready for cupcakes. ( I copied Amber’s from last year…will post picture later.)
1. Sent Lilah and Jon to the store.
2. Gave Eden a bath.
3. Ate lunch and then put Eden down.
4. Made frosting for the cupcakes with Lilah’s help.
5. Frosting dye was old so I added milk to what I wanted to use to dissolve it…this added so much time
6. Finally frosted cupcakes.
7. Took shower and tried to do my hair quickly.
8. Went to wedding reception
9. Came home..Lilah fell asleep so we missed the dinner part of the ward party
10. woke Lilah up for the trunk or treat and got her ready..Jon got Eden ready.
11. Went to the trunk or treat
12. Went to subway to pick up dinner…8:00 pm
13. Relaxed as we watched Harry Potter.

I’d post pictures, but I’m too lazy to go to my purse and get the camera. I only have them of the cupcakes and my haircut anyways because I didn’t take any at the trunk or treat. At least we still have Halloween. It was just crazy. I’m totally exhausted. Last night while we watched the Harry Potter that was on and then some random shows, Jon fell asleep and then woke up during SNL. We talked a little. I told him I was soo tired, like ten time more tired then other times, my eyelids were soo heavy. I won’t go into more of the conversation, but I have been reminded at how tired I can get. We went to bed late, but I got an extra hour of sleep, not because of daylight savings, but because the girls slept into 8 (which at the old time would be 9!! A whole hour later then they normally wake.) I think the big day of going to a wedding and then the trunk or treat exhausted them. Eden only took one morning nap, and Lilah only got an hour long one. Saturday was just exhausting.

(The title of this blog is suppose to be read in a seance sort of way, or singing type way. Smelly ghost, Smelly ghost…I think there might be a nursery rhyme about a ghost that I got this from, or I might just be strange.)

I don’t know about other people…but every once in a while dishes pile up, or our compost, and we get weird smells. One time a cooked yam skin got water on it and well, our house smelled dirty, and I mean in a gynecologist office dirty way…if you don’t understand, then well, I don’t want to get into details. Earlier in the day while doing dishes water had spilled and the food for the compost on the counter got wet. I didn’t think much of it until we got home.When we came home it just smelled. We looked and sniffed around and figured out it was the compost and more specifically a yam skin. I think we just threw that compost away…the smell had tainted it for us. We orange cleaned the counter and burned the salt city candle I had just bought. Boy am I glad I bought it, within minutes our house was filled with the lovely aroma of orchard peach and not well…the gynecologist office.

Anyways. I find that we get weird smells every once in a while. Like after Jon makes coleslaw. If left over cabbage pieces hang around too long, or dishes get soaked that have cabbage on them, it can get a little funky in the kitchen. Well, he made some this Sunday for our extended family FHE, but had cleaned up pretty well. Monday our kitchen smelled weird…just a subtle weird. We had dishes to do but Jon did them Monday night for me since my finger was still sensitive and healing. Still Tuesday I would walk past this certain area and it had a scent to it. Well I did dishes again on Wednesday and I found the culprit, our soaking bread pan. It wasn’t like a blow you away bad smell, just yucky and it made me a little nauseous. I cleaned it with steaming hot water and yet I still smelled that faint funk on it. Jon says it smells fine…I think I know the stronger, unappetizing scent so I recognize it lingering on the pan. Jon also mentioned how he doesn’t smell certain things too closely, or foods. Like eggs. He doesn’t enjoy the close up smell of cooked eggs.
Well today I still have funky smells around my kitchen. There is definitely something rotten in my trash can, and then when I was switching the clothes from the washer to the dryer that area smelled weird. I thing since we have the drain right there for the washer,and the hole to clean the sewer that every once in a while it gets a little funky, though I’m not sure why. I also seem to have something strange in my kitchen still. At one point I thought it was the fridge, but I smelled it open and closed and it was fine, and that’s when I suspected the washer. It just seems to be this traveling smell….and no I don’t smell it right now while I’m typing…only in my kitchen. So that’s my haunting this Halloween….a smelly ghost that lives in my kitchen.

My sister Kristi does pampered chef and she had a stop and shop to attend Friday. It’s where they have several of the home businesses, like pampered chef, or candles or tastefully simple, so a person could come and buy and do Christmas shopping type things. I was babysitting for her, Howie is 6, Katy is 4, and Adrienne is 7 months..I think. Well Adrienne had been kinda fussy starting around 5:30. I tried feeding her a bottle and she wasn’t liking it so I I tried feeding her peaches and she didn’t like those. I gave her some cheerios and those seems to occupy her. While she was occupied I was fixing dinner. I had a pizza in the oven and I was going to saute some summer squash and zucchini to supplement Jon’s and my dinner. Adrienne started getting fussy while I was cutting up the onion and was getting the veggies washed. I was using my pampered chef slice and grate, essentially a slicer, and I was trying to get Adrienne’s attention because she was crying and fussing when I cut my right ring finger. It was pretty bloody and it was around 6:00. I was extra annoyed because Jon wasn’t home. He had ended up working late and forgot to call and didn’t have the cell. So here I was with a bleeding finger, an upset baby and no husband. Since I had no husband I had no car so that left me with no way to get to a doctors or quick care. I was annoyed, worried, and frustrated that I wasn’t paying attention to the dang summer squash. I called Kristi and she came to get her kids, she got here right after Jon. Jon got home at 6:23 and I gave him Adrienne, she fell asleep on him in about three minutes. Jon didn’t want me driving because our car is a stick, so I need two hands to drive. I think I could have pulled it off, but while I went to the bathroom Jon got Eden packed up and Lilah ready and we all went. Luckily, I think, the quick care was open and in total it took about an hour. They didn’t give me stitches, or even put the dermabond on, according to the doctor my wound needs to be dry and not bleeding. After he clean it out I started bleeding again, so he couldn’t put it on. I think he just didn’t want to use it because it was superficial, but I really wanted it so I could get on with life and not worry about the wound breaking open as easily. He put a huge gauze wrap on it and used band aids to keep it on. I tried to keep pressure on it, but it bleed a good little bit still. I also got my tetanus booster because I didn’t know when my last one was. The doctor made the comment that most people who cut themselves know when their last tetanus shot was. I’m guessing those people cut themselves regularly, or maybe I’m just one of the few who don’t have my immunization record memorized. Well, even if I didn’t get stitches or the fancy superglue, at least I got a tetanus shot and we know I won’t get lock jaw.

As I wiped down my stove this morning, which needs a much needed deep cleaning of the trays, I fantasized about having a day without my girls for cleaning. Then I thought it would be wonderful to have Jon home so he could do all the things that I have no clue what to do with. Like his memorabilia and the bills…I hate filing…I thought how wonderful it would be to get rid of things that we’re keeping for “just in case”.( like some lamps…and some baby clothes that I really didn’t have Eden wear…so I should probably just get rid of them. I just bought some space bags online…I’m now excited because I hope it will help with our space problem.)
My first day fantasy cleaning would be Jon and I organizing and down sizing. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of clothes since we’ve been in this house, but it’s not enough and I need to get rid of more shoes 🙁 Then as Lilah grows we have even more clothes to store. It’s just chaos. I want a day with my honey cleaning and organizing and then I can have the next day all to myself for the major cleaning and scrubbing down of the house. Jon hates it because I’m a mass cleaner. I get bothered or I just get an urge and I clean the whole bathroom along with the whole kitchen…I don’t do small things, like the sinks one day and the toilets the next. I figure if I’m gonna get gross then I might as well do it all. I also need to be better about upkeep and I always hope with a clean slate, as in when everything’s clean, then maybe I can stick to a schedule and do little things each day, and once a week do a big chore, like the tubs or mopping the floors. Anyways. That’s my fantasy…to have a day alone with my husband cleaning. Now I just need someone to pawn my children onto. 🙂

Maybe if I feel the house is organized and we find a place for everything…then I’ll be able to see that we have space for another child…even a boy…even if it brings a whole new area of storage into my life.

Together we have never been successful in getting everything organized, at least since we’ve been here…We get parts done and then life gets busy and things pile up again….I think the hardest problem is letting go…Jon has things he wants to keep and I have things I want to keep and then there are the things only one of us want to keep. I just want to find a back to my closet and a floor to my room. (It’s no that bad…but I want things to be better.) We’re not complete slobs…most of the time anyways. I like to think that on most days friends would feel comfortable in my home…but I want to be comfortable in my room…and that’s where much of the space problem is…in our room.
Sorry…I’m sure cleaning is boring…but this is one area of stress in my life. I feel a little powerless also because there are times I organize but feel I get no where…or I don’t know what to do with stuff, such as Jon’s things, or we need more dresser space…(have I said how we went from two to one dresser when we moved last year.) It’s just crazy and I don’t like feeling powerless to things…I mean they’re just things…I should be able to take control. I know the space bags aren’t a godsend…but I’m hoping it downsizes our clothing storage a little and blanket storage. I think that could help tons.

This weekend we had much needed rain. It was wonderful. We had the windows open and our back door open to bring in the clean air and cool breeze. The one problem was our back door doesn’t have a screen. Later that night Lilah brought it to our attention about a fly flying around, but then as we looked closer in our bedroom we saw what seemed to be dozens on our ceiling (our back door is in our bedroom). Jon killed a total of 24 and we still had about 4-5 flying around. His stealth reflexes is was saved us from a horrible infestation, he was killing them with his bare hands, oh my hero… Anyways my definition of a infestation is more than 15 flies…and we had about 30. My new rule is to not have any door or window open that does not have a screen…no matter how nice the weather is.  It was a good down poor though and we even got hail. I love fall storms.