Is It Naptime Yet

On Friday night we we dyed eggs over at my parents house. My mom was out of town and we felt that my dad needed company and dinner since I brought over pizza. (Really their house is the biggest and just the easiest to fit in and we wanted to give my dad some company and make sure he didn’t have too quiet of a weekend without my mom. )

Lilah was so excited to dye eggs.

Lilah like coloring the eggs and then dying them.

Carolyn and Eden were making an egg for Zarina just to say they were thinking of her.

Some of the dyed eggs.

Howie and Kaitlyn, Eden had already dyed all her eggs and was watching longingly.

My niece Addrienne slept through the whole thing.

As a child getting dressed each Sunday for church, I knew three specific rules to Sabbath day apparel. My mother taught me these three rules and I knew that they were very important.

The first rule was you must always wear a slip under any dress or skirt.

I’ve never deviated from this rule. I wore slips when I was five and I’ll wear them till I die. I have vivid memories of seeing woman in lovely flowing dresses standing directly in front of the glass chapel doors as the afternoon light came in and I could outline every curve of their body. I thought why didn’t this smart woman wear a slip with an obviously see through fabric? It seemed so obvious that she needed one. I didn’t want that happening to me and so slips are a required piece of clothing if I’m wearing a dress, no matter how heavy the fabric is I wear a slip, and if it’s a light  fabric I may even wear two. My girls have never worn slips, but that’s more because I can’t find them for them and I make sure they wear shorts under their dresses, which at this age I think is much more necessary than a slip.

The second rule was you must always wear tights, nylons, or socks. Bare feet were not allowed.

One thing you must understand is my mother wears nylons everyday of her life.
Everyday.
Even if she’s wearing pants, even if she’s wearing jeans with tennis shoes, she wears nylons. As the youngest of four girls I saw nylons as a right of passage into my teenage years. I was no longer a child once I began wearing nylons so I embraced adolescence whole heart with the skin toned nylons that in my mind made me a young lady. As a twelve year old I felt so grown up wearing nylons and I wore them each Sunday until I got a little older and then had the desire to wear shoes that went in between my toes to church, not flip flops but they might has well have been, in which not wearing flip flips to church could also be added to my list, but I’ll just fit it in here because the mere requirement of something covering your feet or legs does not allow you to wear shoes that go between your toes. I’m not sure what age I abandoned this rule of always wearing nylons to church, but I was around 15 or 16. I do not wear nylons with shoes that show my toes but I must wear nylons with closed toed heels. So in one way it has stuck with me, in another way fashion won out since I rarely wear closed toed shoes except in the winter.

The last rule my mother enforced was one that I have never broken, at least until yesterday.

You must never wear denim to church.

Denim was seen as too casual of a clothing. Denim skirts or jumpers were not allowed and my mother would never buy us a jean skirt and never let us wear one to church. I know Andrea had/has a jean skirt, but I don’t remember if she ever wore it to church and she was in her 20’s when she bought it, so my mom couldn’t say much anyways. Denim is an everyday fabric, it’s not for the Sabbath day. That’s what’s been ingrained in me for many years and yesterday I broke that rule and I think I’m OK with it.

In an effort to change up my wardrobe a little I bought a denim looking skirt and wore it to church yesterday. I have never felt so casually dressed for church. After I put it on Jon made the comment that I was wearing denim to church, since he knows my mother’s rule and how I have followed it these 25 years, and I felt somewhat ashamed, but more because I have never approved of wearing denim to church, though I have let Lilah but it’s a dark, nice looking denim, and different for some reason. My skirt is more a regular skirt with denim printed fabric, so it’s not as casual as some denim skirts, but it’s still denim and while I like the skirt I felt very under dressed as a teacher yesterday. I will probably continue to wear the skirt to church just because it brings variety to my Sunday wardrobe and I’m not much of a skirt wearing kind of girl during the week.

I did wear my slip and closed toe shoes, but without any nylons, in which these are the first set of closed toe shoes that I do not wear nylons with also and I still have a hard time with it.

Old habits are just hard to break sometimes.

I must admit I want to do a poll on how many of you wear slips. I see it as a must, but I think the idea of wearing slips is fading.
When I was a senior in high school I went to Conference with the other youth and youth leaders in our ward and I had to buy a slip once I realized that I had forgotten it and the others girls thought I was silly for needing one so badly, but I just couldn’t wear my dress without one.

Yesterday there was Earth Hour. Cities all over the world turned out lights and encouraged the regular people to do so also from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. My husband being the supportive green person he is, at least in our small way we try to be more green, thought Earth Hour would be fun and educational for our girls. Jon took down a few candles and lit them and made me turn off the movie I was watching on TV. The girls were fascinated with the candles and Lilah nearly burned her eyebrows off looking at one. (I light candles we just don’t have them lit very often at nighttime.)

We spent some time helping the girls clean their room by candle light, outside looking at the stars, in which having the  lights to the Strip turned off made no difference since it’s the actual city lights that cause most of our light pollution. Then the girls and Jon huddled around the candles at the table to read a chapter from The Mouse and the Motorcycle, the current book Jon’s reading to them at bedtime. Then we sat on the couch telling stories. Eden likes to tell stories to herself while on the toilet about Aladdin, the ones she tells herself seem a lot longer than what she told us last night. (My children are a little strange, they like to talk to themselves while in the bathroom.)

It was fun to be with my family in quiet. We’ll need to turn the lights off and light candles more often.

Last week Andrea and Brien came to town to see Scot and Fallon. Since they live in Ely and Ely has no large restaurant chains, besides McDonald’s and Subway, which are fast food, they like to go out to eat to at least one of their favorite restaurants. We choose Olive Garden and it was basically those who were at my parents house that came. Carolyn called me while I was driving there so she she came along after work.

I got some cute pictures of the little girls there and some adults and a video of Zarina. I warn you that my finger was over the mic at first so don’t turn the volume up too loud because I uncover it later.

Cute Zarina, even with a mouth full of bread. She was on an all carbs diet.

Eden was all smiles for the camera.

Lilah was bashful for some reason.

I guess she wanted to take the pictures rather than be in them. She took this one of Brien.

Scott and Fallon talking to my parents.

Grumpy grandpa getting a bite of Lilah’s sundae.

This is my catch up blog of all the mundane things. I will do some interesting picture posts later but this is my last week and a half in a nutshell.

Last week was a little crazy. My brother Scott and his wife Fallon came to town. Since they were here I was in Henderson a lot last week.

Monday I went over to visit. I don’t remember when or how long but I was there. I think I went shopping with Kristi at Target and then to Costco with my mom and Fallon. That seems familiar.

Tuesday I had Relief Society stuff to do so I stayed on my end of town and had a fun night with the sisters in my ward.

Wednesday we had a Whole Foods grocery store tour in Henderson with the homeschool group. It got canceled half an hour before, but we and two other families did not know that and were there. They gave us a “tour” where the walked us around the store and gave the kids free samples. Lilah was in heaven because they got fruit, pizza, cheese, brownie bites, and kettle corn popcorn, which meant two sweet things in one day, all before lunch. We also bought some expensive cheese and a cinnamon bun that we left at my parents and didn’t eat till Thursday.

We hung out with the family afterwords and then went out that night to the Olive Garden. Jon didn’t go with us because it got to be too late and he was to hungry to wait at a restaurant.

Thursday I went shopping with Fallon, though I did not find the specific items I was looking for. (A casual jean or khaki skirt and cute capri’s. I hate when I’m looking for something specific it makes shopping so hard.)

I then hung out till later that day and went home that afternoon.

Friday the girls and I went to the Lied Children’s Discovery Museum. We went with some friends and then had a picnic with some other friends right afterwords.

Then Friday night we had family pictures. I don’t remember when all six of the kids were in the same state so we seized the day and took pictures to remember that there are six Harvey kids.

Saturday Lilah and I had play practice. We then dropped Jon’s car off at the mechanic and then onto my parents house for a BBQ that started 3 hours behind schedule. Oh well. I got to see family and eat good fruit while we waited.

Sunday Jonathan went out of town for a business trip. I had to teach the lesson for my class and I forgot that Eden was to give the scripture and prayer in closing exercises for Primary until I went to pick her up and everyone told me what I nice prayer she gave. I was so upset that I forgot since this was her first prayer or anything in Primary. I’m a lame mom. With everything else it just slipped my mind.

The girls and I then had a lonely Sunday and took a nap together. I was too bummed to cook so I broke the sabbath and bought some Subway for us.

Monday we stayed home and cleaned a little. Our house had gone to the pits since I was gone most of last week.

Tuesday we had lunch with Anna and picked Jon’s car up from the mechanic with my mom’s help. I can’t wait till my car is paid off and we can get him a nice one.  I also had practice that night so the Lee’s watched the girls for me.

Wednesday, or today we went to the Dolphin Habitat with the homeschooling group. Hannah came along and then hung out at our house till Beth and her sisters got home. Lilah was so enchanted with having Hannah around that she asked if I would like Hannah to be apart of our family. I said Hannah was our friend, but friends can be like family. Lilah then replied that she wished Hannah was apart of our family.

I also picked Jon up from the airport and the girls have hardly left his side since we’ve been home. Of course they’re having fun looking at the Big Picture blog and other things, but I think it’s too cute to see the two of them on either side of their daddy sitting on the couch looking at his laptop.

There, now I can start posting about other things that are on my mind, but that will have to wait till at least tomorrow.

So Sunday was Daylight savings and stake conference. Since it was a satellite broadcast I was not very inclined to go, so I stayed home, slept till 10, and didn’t go. (Remember 10 am was really 9 am since it was daylight savings.)

Anyways even though I’ve lost an hour of time, this week has been the longest week of my life, especially yesterday.

I’ve been trying to get up early and exercise, which means I’m waking up at 6:50 am which translates to my body thinking I’m waking up at 5:50 am. Yesterday I did my workout and the girls woke up right as I finished and as Jon was leaving. They laughed at me while I did the ten minute ab work out. I told Lilah it wasn’t polite to laugh at people, something she’s been doing lately that has been rather annoying/ rude to those in her family.

We had breakfast and got dressed. I accomplished the first school task I wanted to with Lilah and then we worked on a 300 piece puzzle. It was only 11:00, but boy did it feel a lot later.

The girls played I did nothing of importance and I started making lunch at 11:30. We ate, did more of nothing,  I let the girls finish watching Monster’s Inc. and read or something.

The day just dragged on.

I got Lilah’s math stuff together and Eden and I took a nap, then I woke up at 5 to make dinner.

We ate, or I ate since the girls both had to go to the bathroom at the same time, dinnertime, and they both entertained themselves by singing or telling stories to themselves, so I was finished with dinner before they even began.

Jon came home around 6:47pm and I wanted to end the night right there. I had such a long day, but only accomplished the school things I needed to and dinner.

No laundry was folded, no floors were swept and the house was in a slight chaotic state that just annoyed me.

I could have done so much, but I didn’t want to.

He motivated me to do a 15 minute tidy around our living room which improved it and my mood a little more. I mostly felt bad that I had so much time but hadn’t accomplished much, besides school stuff.

Do you have days where you do nothing but have so much time to do something?

We have some family coming into town next week and they’ll be staying at my parents house. It wouldn’t be a problem except we have two families coming and both guest rooms will be needed and the downstairs guest room had been overtaken with bow making and Christmas stuff.

My sister Carolyn wanted to help my parents get ready for our siblings arrival, so we went over there Saturday night to help out. I also wanted to give Jon alone time for studying.

We cleaned and got Subway out of it since my parents were going to a dinner and were not there to make dinner for us while we sat around and talked, I mean cleaned.

We got the upstairs great room cleaned up and ready for my one year old niece to play in and the downstairs bed cleaned off and ready to sleep in. We also hung a mirror that my father doesn’t like, but how often does he go in the guest room? Not often, and if it weren’t for the fact that we were hanging it while he was there it probably would have been months, if not years before he noticed.

Since the kitchen counters were still filled with papers and other things and I needed to go back to Henderson to pick up things I went over there today to clean up some more. I admit that I keep my kitchen counters relatively cleared off, but mostly because my kitchen is so small. I have to worry about our desk and end table piling up. I definitely inherited the ‘cover every horizontal service with papers’ gene and Jon inherited the ‘cover every vertical service with books’ gene.

I mostly just help organize and then clean a few areas. I then made some cookies for us since they had the just tear apart and bake cookies.  I ate way too many because cookies are a weakness of mine and I just love them.

After cleaning I picked up my wedding ring from the jewelers and came home.

I’m making pizza tonight.

I don’t think I’d be a very effective cleaning lady. It makes me too tired to cook dinner or clean my own house.

I like to post pictures of the roses Jon gives me for our anniversary. Even though they’re the same kind each year, I love to receive them and have them on our table.

We celebrated our anniversary by going out, but our actual anniversary was spent at home.

On Sunday Jon made a cute love note scavenger hunt while he was home supposedly studying. It was fun to find each thoughtful note and then try to figure out where the next one was.

I gave him books. The typical gift and later wrote him a love note to find in the morning.

I made us a special dinner on our anniversary night and we didn’t do anything particularly special or out of the ordinary.

Sometimes it’s just nice to be with your family and enjoy your happy life together.

My niece Shauntae is having a girls weekend in Vegas with some friends. She flew down Thursday so she could visit with family. I had the pleasure of picking her up at the airport, which I got there at 10 am, just like she had predicted, even though her flight came in at 8:30 am. She brought reading material and people watched while she waited.

We tried to surprise my MIL since Shauntae hadn’t told her that she was coming to town, but Rawlin, Shauntae’s father, had told Grandma so our devious plan to just show up and surprise the grandparents was short lived. (We called ahead to make sure they were going to be home and me just dropping by wasn’t working since she knew I was suppose to pick Shauntae up.)

So we first swung by my in-laws and then I took Shauntae to her dad’s. After that I went home to clean, so my house was in a more acceptable form of organized chaos. We just have so much stuff that it always feel somewhat chaotic to me even after I’ve cleaned or organized.

Friday Jon and I had a lunch date with Shauntae. She wanted to see her favorite uncle, though I don’t know if Jon is her favorite, but he sure is my favorite out of the Blake boys.

My MIL brought Shauntae by Friday morning and she got ready here. When I gave her the tour of our small, humble, abode the girls ran around like crazy people. I really don’t know what gets into them when people come over, but they act very silly.

I dropped the girls off at Beth’s, then we picked up Jon and treated Shauntae to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Lindo’s.  We stuffed ourselves and then it was time to return Jon to work. There was a motorcycle cop hanging out where we dropped him off and I’m sure it must have looked odd to have Jon receive a kiss from me and then get out and hug Shauntae.

We then got the girls and took Shauntae to the house that she and the other women were renting for the weekend.

I’m happy I got to chat and talk with her in all our driving together. It’s fun to see her since our relationship has mostly grown because of us both blogging. I wish they lived closer, as does Lilah who was so sad that we don’t see her more often and wanted to go to lunch with us, even after she learned she was going to the Jewitt’s, which shows you how much she loves you if she’ll skip her favorite babysitter.

Before I took Shauntae to her house I had Lilah take a picture of us and took one of them with their oldest cousin.

Aunt Lacey with Niece Shauntae. I can’t help but laugh when she calls me her aunt.

The oldest grandchild with the youngest grandchildren.

Jon planned for a package to be delivered today, so I had to stay home till it arrived. I knew it would be lavender roses, since those are my favorite and it has become the tradition.

I waited not so patiently and teased him around noon that he’d have to come home early if they weren’t here soon so I’d be able to shower for our date.

They arrived shortly after lunch and I opened them.

They were beautiful but not what I expected.

I was instant messaging Jon at the time and I teased or asked him if he had changed the order to have them match the roses we already had. (The girls and I got red roses on Sunday for Valentine’s day from our ward.) He played along like he had and I mostly wondered why he would get me a red, pink, and white rose bouquet, with baby’s breath. It just didn’t seem his style or mine.

He came home and looked at the roses and told me those weren’t what he ordered and now he fully understood what I meant by the roses matching because red would not have matched lavender.

He promptly checked his order and called costumer service and I should be receiving my intended bouquet of lavender roses on Tuesday, which will make our table very crowded.

I still love them  and I’ll love having two dozen roses on Tuesday.

To celebrate our 7 year anniversary we went to a restaurant called Fuduka, a Japanese sushi bar and grill. Carolyn mentioned how good it was while we were passing it on our Black Friday shopping trip and I made a mental note of it. Jon thought it was funny that I’d wait three months to go to a restaurant, but it’s a little more pricey that what we would normally spend on a date especially when we get appetizers and desert, which is a must on our Anniversary. The food was delicious and the chef superb. We sat around a grill where they cook the food right in front of you. The chef did fun tricks and it was nice to have piping hot food.

We enjoyed a lovely meal and free babysitting, since the girls had a birthday party to attend and the parents planned for the other parents to go have date time.

It was a wonderful night and I’ve really enjoyed celebrating our 7 year anniversary.

I love you Babe!