Is It Naptime Yet

This morning I was thinking about my sisters. I have three and for the most part have always gotten along with them. It’s funny to be adults and notice what things are different and what are the same. It’s funny because we all came from the same two parents, but are each so unique.

I was thinking about my older sister Carolyn. She’s always been motherly and is always so good with kids, yet she has none and wouldn’t mind if it stayed that way. I was always jealous because babies loved her and she would do silly things to make the kids laugh, things that I would be self conscious about. Lilah was one of the first babies who was not drawn to Carolyn. My children are just weary of people, but as they’ve gotten older the one person they are now never weary of is Carolyn. They love her so much and she loves them. I love to watch her play with my children. I love to watch her help my children. I think Eden takes after Carolyn. Eden’s shy, but oh so funny. Carolyn can be reserved but is hilarious once her guard is down. My girls don’t accept people easily, but their Aunt Carolyn does. I hope we always live close to Carolyn, or that she lives close to us. I love having a wonderful sister who is such a wonderful Aunt.

My next thoughts turned to my sister Andrea. Andrea is the oldest girl and has always been the mediator in the family. She would break up arguments, but was rarely ever in one. I remember watching her put her make-up on and thinking how beautiful she was. I played with her long hair and we tickled each others backs in church. I would often hang out with her and her friends and she never minded me tagging along, though she might have secretly she always allowed me to go with her if possible.  She too has been a wonderful aunt to my girls.  They always have some special treat when we visit and she treats them wonderfully when she sees them. My girls love their niece Zarina and Lilah talks and laughs about Zarina often. Lilah also cries because they live far away. Andrea lives a few hours away and we visit them each summer. This summer we won’t be going all the way to Ely, but halfway to go camping with Andrea, Brien, and Zarina. I look forward to this time when it’s just our families and not the whole family. I love just sitting and talking with my sister and when one of us calls they rarely last less than two hours long. Since my girls are older we find ourselves to be in different stages of motherhood, not that I won’t ever have a toddler again, I just don’t at this time, I find myself to be the counselor to her. It’s difficult being a mom, something we both know, but I know she’s a great mother to Zarina, and I’m thankful to have her as a sister.

My sister Kristi is four years older than me. She was the wild child in our home and the sister to leave the house first. I remember the day she had my nephew. I was a senior in high school and she had him that morning. Since I was a good student my teachers let me miss class so I could go visit Kristi at the hospital. My nephew, the only boy on my side, was suppose to be named Matthew, but when I got to the hospital he was named Howard and we call him Howie to distinguish him from his father. She was the first of us to be a mother and Howie was a spoiled baby. With her first daughter being just a year older than Lilah we she gave me advice and let me use her baby clothes so we didn’t have to spend so much money. She helped Jonathan get his first job after he graduated and is always very giving of her time. She now has three children and so many responsibilities, since life gives us so much. She’s tries to be the best she can and works through difficult times. My girls love to play at her house, no doubt because of all the toys, but also because they love their cousins.

I’m grateful to have these three women in my life, but we wouldn’t be here without our mom. I remember being sick in her bed. My parent’s bed was always the best place to be when you were sick, except it was less fun once the TV was moved out of their room. I was the baby and I often crawled into my parents bed, right next to my mom, because my sisters were making too much noise while getting ready for school. My mom was so accepting of my friends and was a mom to anyone she met. I remember thinking, “Please don’t hug him.” whenever I brought boys home or was leaving for a date, but it always happened. My mom has always been supportive of me in my choices of going to school, dating, and getting married young.  My mom was the first person at the hospital after I gave birth to Lilah and the nurse had to lock the door since I wasn’t quite presentable and my mom did not want to wait. My mother helped me those first weeks of my journey into motherhood. She listened to me at 4 in the morning with my worries and was there for me whenever I needed her. My mother taught me to tickle my children often, since she tickled us a lot, which I’m sure my girls don’t always appreciate, but Eden has given me the title of “The Silliest Mommy Ever” and I love it.   My parents are willing to watch my kids whenever I need it and they’ve taken us on trips. I’m thankful for my mom. I wish I had inherited her patience and I’m thankful that I live close to them so they can spoil my children.

I wish these three woman a Be-Lated Happy Mother’s Day and I’m so happy to have them as examples in my life.

I feel like I should write something very sentimental, but I’m just not in the mood. So I’ll just let you know how my mother’s day has gone.

My alarm went off at 7:10 am, only because I forgot to switch it off from the previous day. Then Eden came and wished me Happy Mother’s Day and Jon came in at 7:30 am to tell me breakfast was ready. I was very happy that he had made be breakfast and it was french toast, my favorite, I just wasn’t too hot that it was 7:30 am. Since he worked hard I did wake up and eat breakfast.

During breakfast Eden was particularly quiet and wasn’t eating. We asked Eden what was wrong, but she didn’t reply. Then she started to get down, so we asked were she was going and she started to reply she wasn’t feeling well, but was not able to finish because she threw up the water she had drunk that morning. I cleaned up the water and got the couch ready for her, IE a towel over the couch and a bowl to catch anymore non cooperative food. She continued to have problems with water, juice and applesauce this morning. I had to teach a lesson so Jon took care of Eden while I got Lilah and myself ready for church. We got there early and just in time for Lilah to sing a prelude song with the Primary before the sacrament meeting started. I love hearing the primary kids sing a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day song. Last year they did neither, so I was very happy to hear that they were singing this year.

Before the administered of the sacrament I was looking forward to hearing who would be my teaching companion, but whomever they asked on Sunday must have said no. I wanted to cry and did a little. Lilah asked me why I was sad and I told her I was just frustrated. I wished that person new how much I needed someone’s support in the class, especially at this hectic time for me.  Since they didn’t call anyone I decided to ask the ward mission leader if could help me, but he was unsure which weekend he would be out of town so two members of our class volunteered. (Most of my gospel essentials class are long time, active members who just like gospel essentials, but don’t need to be there.) I just needed the next two weeks covered to keep my sanity since I’m making costumes and if I had a teaching partner they would have been able to help me at this burdensome time. I figure the lesson is the easiest thing I’m able to delegate and mentally it helps a lot to have one less thing to do.

I enjoyed the rest of sacrament meeting though we had some very unconventional things happen. Before we had our speakers there were four “competitions” for who was the oldest mother, the mother with the most children, the mother with the most grandchildren and the one who was the newest mother, or had the youngest baby. We stood up and then were eliminated. It was quite the show and even though it was done in fun, I hope it never happens again since it wasn’t very appropriate for Sacrament meeting.

Eden was feeling better by the time we came home from church. In fact she’s been wanting to eat almost nonstop. We think she became sick because she hadn’t eaten much on Friday or Saturday and the last time she went on a hunger strike she also got sick and was throwing up. I’m not sure if she’s sick so she doesn’t eat, or if she doesn’t eat and becomes sick. I think it’s the later because she wants food, but she just won’t eat what’s in front of her.

Jon did dishes for me today and Lilah repeatedly told me Happy Mother’s day all afternoon long. I received a picture from each girl and made a cheesecake to celebrate.

I’ve enjoyed my day and I was reminded that I was mother to two wonderful girls when I had one on my lap and another cuddled up to my on my left while we watched Nature. It was hot, but it was worth it.

Monday watched Matilda. Did housework watched Dancing with the Stars.

Tuesday ran some errands. Found fabric for the Winkie vest very cheap, thanks Anna. Had lunch with Anna. Ran more errands came home. Did some more dishes. Had practice for the play and watched Dancing with the Stars, the results.

Wednesday. Sewed panels for the Winkie costume and ignored children. Anna and I are recreating a costume from on-line, but it’s gonna be slightly different and a lot cheaper, but only because our time is free.  My mom’s sewing machine started going a little crazy on me after I wound a bobbin. I got very frustrated when something that should only take eight minutes took thirty-five. I figured out the problem and for the most part fixed it. It still sometimes goes wonky and it still kills me.

Thursday. Sewed a little. Ignored children. Went to Home on the Range so I could have some down time.  Bought milk and elastic. Sewed and let children watch PBS. Made my skirt to show director. I didn’t like it but she was OK with it. (I just think I made the panels a little too narrow but they still work.) Had practice and learned that I can’t march and move my arms in a specific way at the same time. I’m so uncoordinated.

Friday dropped children off at Sam’s. Sewed from 10:30 to 1:45 with a few breaks to play scramble on facebook and eat lunch. Ran out of thread for gray panels. Figured out that I needed 3 times the amount of thread than what I bought. (Panels use a lot of thread.) Sewed on black panels till 1:45. Went to JoAnn’s for thread, picked up children. Read to children then let them watch PBS. Sewed more panels and then made dinner and relaxed for the night, even though I should have sewn. (It’s just hard when you sew at the table and have to clean off your sewing area every time. It makes the 30 minutes of sewing not worth it.

Today I had practice. I need to prepare my lesson and then take a shower. Jon and I have a hot date to see the new X-Men movie.

Tomorrow I will sew. I know it’s Sunday but this is service so I think it counts as a worthy Sunday activity.  My goal is to finish the skirts by Saturday. We’ll see if it happens. There are also now 15 Winkie’s, not just 14.

I think the hardest thing is the panels. I’m devoting so much time but it feels like I’m getting nothing done since I don’t have any skirts to show for it, except mine, which was the sample skirt. I actually have made two sample skirts but the first one didn’t work out and thus I needed to re due some things and I just wasn’t able to start again till this week.

I think once the panels are sewn things will come together quickly. I hope anyways.

So life is busy. I’m mostly very overwhelmed with all the things I’m suppose to do, have committed to do, and want to do.

I do dishes every day, maybe I skipped one last week, but my sink has not been empty in over a week. There are always more to do.

I try to be a good mom by feeding my children, cuddling with them, and trying to get them to be nice to one another. Home schooling is on the back burner since I have so much I have to do, but I do a little each week. My friend Beth is still helping me and I feel guilty that sometimes the only school time they get is when they’re there. We do other things, but not many sit down things . I just have so much to do.

My teaching partner for Gospel Principles moved to Utah recently. I’ve taught five out of the last six lessons. She did have one lesson covered by the Elders since I had taught three in a row and we did have General Conference in there but it’s been a lot for me since I’m stressing about costumes. Hopefully someone will be called next week and I can have a week or two without worrying about teaching. The Bishop said he was extending the call to someone on Sunday and I hope they accept. I really wish it had been done sooner, but I’ll be happy once I have someone to share the responsibility with.

I’m working on the Winkie Costumes and my Ozian costume, when I get tired of the Winkie’s I do things on mine. My friend Anna said she’ll help me, but she’s in school till the 16th and so she’ll be helping me design the top and hat, but I’m on my own till then when it comes to the bulk of the sewing. It’s OK and I’m grateful for her help, but it’s daunting trying to design and sew costumes for 14 people. That’s the majority of my stress right now. We’re shopping for fabric tomorrow and hopefully some of my stress will go down once we have a plan for the top. It’s not knowing that’s stressing me.

I’m excited for the play. I’ve enjoyed learning the Jitterbug dance sequence and I think I’m finally getting it, at least in my no dance experience way. We’ll be conditioning so we can dance and sing and I’m needing to get into gear at home. I know some people exercise to relieve stress, I have never been one of those people. I’m more a ‘sit on the couch and watch pointless TV and avoid what you need to do’ kind of person. At least I do it late at night so my girls aren’t sitting around with me just watching TV.

I want to do post about us releasing the ladybugs. One problem is Google stopped doing videos and YouTube is still a little too public for me. I liked Google because they had a no search thing. I also need to edit pictures and write about Jon’s birthday.

I really want to write about the fun stuff but I don’t have a lot of time right now, except to write about how little time I have. 😉

I suppose it’s because the stuff I’m stressing over is on my mind, not the fun stuff.

The girls and I did a few events for Earth Day. My friend Emilie called me that morning to tell me how the Disney store was giving away reusable bottles if you brought in three regular plastic bottles. I thought this was great, but I didn’t have any regular bottles due to already using reusable, so Emilie gave us nine bottles, enough to get three reusable.

We picked up the plastic bottles and followed the unknowing Emilie to the mall. We were both heading there, but she didn’t realized I followed her  there. The girls were amazed with the Disney store and would have loved to stayed, but we had to head to UNLV for their Earth Day stuff. They’re happy with their plastic reusable bottles, and so am I since I can freeze these and have ice cold water on hot days.

We got to UNLV later than planned, around 11:10. I saw that they were having a little closing ceremony with the elementary kids there as I headed to Jon’s office but thought nothing of it since it was scheduled to go from 10 am-2pm. We sat and ate lunch and then while I was inside with Eden Jon realized that vender’s were leaving. We were on the far end so it was hard to tell. We decided to pack up lunch and eat at the park and got to two vender’s that were packing up, but still had stuff out to take. I was really disappointed that it went so short and that we missed going around. I still need to write an e-mail to complain about the shortness of the event and how what they advertised to the general public was misleading as to the actual length of the event. Last year we got there early and left before it finished, so I don’t know if they did the same thing.

After kissing Jon goodbye and leaving lots of time on the meter since I thought I’d be there longer, we headed to the park to meet the unschooling group. There we made slushy with a cool ice cream ball and the girls made bird feeders with pine cones and the adults talked. It was a fun afternoon and not too hot and we left around 2:30.

I gave Eden a quick bath once home to get sand out of her hair. It has a tendency to stick to children’s sweaty heads and I didn’t want sand coming off on my couch or floor as she cooled off. I then took a nap with Eden and woke up hearing Lilah say “Daddy you’re home.” I was hoping Jon was home early, but no, it was 6:16 and I had slept heavily since 3:45 when we laid down.

We ate pizza to finish Earth Day and Lilah and Eden both spoke on keeping the Earth clean at dinnertime, though I heard it all day long so I may be just making it up about dinnertime.

We hope the Earth has a long healthy life and we’re trying to be the best caretakers we can be.

Here are a few pictures I snapped since I was the one helping with the slushy and busy while the girls had their fun.

Lilah walking with her bird feeder. She wanted to hang it at the park for the birds.

Eden with her bird feeder.

Lilah and Eden with bird seed pouches. These might look familiar if you came to our wedding. They’re from our wedding and I finally found a use for the birdseed. (I need to  be more creative if I’m gonna do this home school thing. )

I should blog about Earth Day and what we did yesterday, but then I’d have to edit some photos and maybe try to be cute in my writing, though I really feel my blog writing has been in the minimal mode. I write what I have to because I have so many other things to think about and they’re mostly play or kid related.

Our house has been a slight disaster area lately. Things have just been piling up and I haven’t been very good at unpiling anything. ( I like to make up words.)

As a peace offering to Jon I’ve cleaned part of the house. It needed to be done, but I really did it for him, and slightly for me since the chaos does not help this stressful time. I hope he knows I love him and appreciate all the daddysitting time he’s been doing so Lilah and I can be apart of the play. It’s been difficult for him to find study time and finals and presentations are upon him.

I really appreciate all you do Babe and am so grateful that you don’t mind digging for your socks because I’ve been to busy to match them, when you did have some matched but hadn’t realized I put them away, and it’s so normal for you to have to find your socks that even I was surprised there were some in your drawer.

I also know that I’m going to be neck deep in sewing so I figure it’s nice to have a small memory of what our clean floors and bathrooms look like. Since our floors and house will be full of Winkie costumes for the next few weeks, or however long it takes to make them.

There’s still plenty to clean and do, but there always is, and at least the floors are presentable and our bathrooms are free from hair on the toilet.

While I was washing dishes I asked Jon to have the girls help him get the towels in the wash. So they did help him get the towels in the wash. They hunted for treasure (towels) and then buried it (put it in the washing machine). It was very cute and even though it took at least twice as long as it would have taken me, I didn’t mind since everyone was having fun and my job at the time was washing dishes and not supervising the girls doing laundry, though I did remind them that there were more towels in the bathroom than what they originally found.

It reminds me that I need to have the girls help me more often. I know they can handle more responsibility, it’s the time it takes to do things with them or to have them do things that makes me forget to have them help me. I do make them clean up after themselves in some ways, but they don’t help with the dishes or laundry regularly, besides putting their dishes in the sink and putting their clothes away.

Yesterday Carolyn’s co-worker mentioned how the Post Office was giving free tickets to the Shark Reef if you mailed your taxes at Mandalay Bay. She remembered that the Shark Reef field trip was canceled on us last month and thought maybe I’d want to mail her taxes for her and get the free tickets. Even though it was a crazy day both weather wise and I had lots I needed to do, I wanted to seize the opportunity to get free tickets, or ticket really, so I could take the girls there. ( The person who organized the Shark Reef trip has since left the group and I’m pretty sure we’re not going in the foreseeable future and the girls desperately wanted to go.)

Luckily it was so easy to get the ticket. I expected it to be harder. I just parked and then went up to the mobile post office and had them weigh the mail to make sure it had the correct postage, it was 33 cents short so Carolyn should be thankful I did have them weigh it, though it was more that I didn’t know if they were giving the tickets at the drop boxes so I went to the main truck. Then they gave me a ticket per return. I wish I had taken my dad’s return with me too so I could have gotten two and then we could have gone as a family. At least now it will only cost me $10.95 to go to the Shark Reef instead of $27.90 to take the girls there.

It sounds like they did this last year too, so if you owe money next year this might be a fun reason to hold off mailing your taxes till April 15th.

I hope you had a happy tax day, because I did.

We had Easter dinner at my parent’s house. My mom was out of town so my sister Kristi did most of the work. My dad cooked the ham, I brought dessert and Glenn and AnneMarie brought salad.

We had the Easter egg hunt first so Carolyn could be there before she went off to her in-laws house.

Adrienne’s pretty cute when she’s awake.

The kids looking for eggs.

Eden didn’t want to pick up the real egg, she only wanted the candy filled ones.

A few minutes later of Lilah and the real egg is still in it’s spot (upper right hand of the picture). It wasn’t till towards the end of the hunt that we convinced Eden to take it.  (I also just thought this was a fun shot. )

More eggs.

The kids after the egg hunt. (Kaitlyn, Howie, Adrienne, Eden, and Lilah.)

I just wanted to zoom in and show you how cute Eden’s smile was.

At one point before dinner I found Eden up on the balcony eating candy. I’m not sure how much she ate before dinner. We had a fun egg hunt and relaxing dinner with my family before we headed home later that night.

Our Easter Baskets and my mom’s sewing machine.

The girls woke up before their mom on Easter morn, so they had to come get me before they inspected their baskets.

I don’t really give the girls candy because they get so much elsewhere. I did put some peanut butter M&M’s in the baskets though.

I’m still sleepy, but I’m ready to eat candy!

Before we left for church I asked Jon to take a few pictures of the girls. Here are a couple of them. They are so loving at times.

After church and a late lunch we had our Easter egg hunt!

The girls waiting outside my room. (Our room has the back door in it.)

Going for the same egg.

The kill.

Lilah couldn’t wait to see what was inside. (money, raisins and craisins.)

Here’s the video of the egg hunt.