Is It Naptime Yet

On Saturday the girls and I headed over to my sister Carolyn’s house to make cookies. It was to give Jon time alone to study and Carolyn’s co-worker was supposed to come over because we weren’t able to make Christmas cookies with her and she wanted to see Carolyn’s house. Instead her husband made her go to some timeshare thing so they could get two free airline tickets since they need to fly to their niece’s wedding later this year.

I packed what I thought was everything I needed and headed over to Carolyn’s. She had ordered pizzas for lunch so we ate and then got started making cookies.

While I was pulling everything out I realized I had forgotten the shortening for the frosting but since Carolyn lives so far from civilization the nearest store is like 5 miles away and I figured we’d just make cookies and the girls and I would have to frost them at home.

Then as I looked through the  basket I realized I left the heart-shaped cookie cutter I borrowed from Sam at home on my counter. So now I had to go to the store.

We finished the dough, and the girls and Carolyn settled in watching some TV while I went to the store.

I got shortening, cookie cutters, and some chocolate chip cookie dough since that was the cookie Derek requested to be made since we were coming over. (I almost did not buy it because Derek is so spoiled by his parents but I like chocolate chip cookies too and figured I’d take some home also.)

I got back and we baked cookies and then decorated them like the sweetheart candies you buy, only I don’t buy them and could only think of a handful of phrases. Carolyn was funny and I love some of the phrases she came up with.

Here’s the pictures of what I left with Carolyn on Saturday, and what we have left this morning. I don’t think I’m suppose to eat five cookies a day, but that’s what happens when you love sugar cookies and they’re in the house. Jon has also been eating them, so I think my ‘eat all you can get’ mentality kicked in, yeah that’s why I eat five a day, to get them out of the house sooner so Jon won’t eat them. I’ll take the hit. (I have had none today, but will probably eat one after lunch and one tonight. I just love sugar cookies and you have to eat them before they get stale and the girls would rather have candy.)

Carolyn thought of: Heart U, Nice Bum, Hot Stuff, Hot Lips, Heart Breaker, (which was made with the last of the frosting and we didn’t have enough of either color so she did half and half). I made:  I heart you, Love, and Cutie Pie.

I also made a Babe, Hey Babe, Dad and a Sexy cookie, which Jon ate. Carolyn attempted to make a sexy cookie with sprinkles, but she only could fit  “sex” on the cookie and decided to make it all sprinkles. (It’s the yellow cookie with sprinkles in the previous picture.)

Eden only ate maybe half a piece of pizza but she had three cookies, I guess she takes after her mom.

Lilah had lots of fun decorating them for other people and then having us eat them, she did eventually eat one.

We had lots of fun at Carolyn’s house and left around 5:30pm. I was so sleepy on the way home because I get sleepy in the afternoons and it was a very relaxing drive home.

The girls had so much fun since they got to play and jump on all of Carolyn’s pillows. Lilah was sad that we don’t go to Carolyn’s more often and said we should go there whenever she needs to bake cookies. I probably would visit Carolyn if she lived closer and if she wasn’t so busy working all the time. I just hate taking up all her free time with my two silly girls.

On Tuesday Lilah’s beloved betta fish Blueberry died.

I went to feed him that morning and noticed he was curled over and though I tried to help him, he couldn’t swim and just stayed on the bottom of the tank, still alive, but not really doing anything. I told Lilah that it looked like Blueberry was dying and she questioned me why I thought it and then of course started  crying and talking about how much she loved Blueberry and how he was such a great fish.

I set out water to change his bowl, in case he was alive, since he was at the bottom of the tank where the food he doesn’t eat gets funky and he hadn’t been eating much lately so there was more than there should have been, though the water in his tank was still clear.

We came home after gymnastics and Blueberry had died.

Due to being busy Wednesday night was when we had Blueberry’s funeral. I said a little prayer since Lilah was too emotional and we each said something we loved about Blueberry.

Eden loved feeding Blueberry.
I loved Blueberry’s personality and how he would swim over to look at you when you talked to him.
Jon loved how Blueberry would look for his finger when he pointed to the food and then eat and his beautiful colors.
Lilah loved feeding and talking to Blueberry. She also loved how he puffed up the day we put a mirror by his tank because he thought there was another male betta fish.

It was nice and then we flushed him.

After flushing Blueberry we finished watching Finding Nemo. The girls had started it earlier that day before Eden’s nap. Lilah kept talking about Blueberry making it to the ocean, and why would someone flush Nemo down the toilet while he was alive?

Blueberry was our first pet and he was a really nice fish, well, as nice as any betta fish comes.

We’ll miss you Blueberry.

April 2, 2008- January 27, 2009

(April 2 is the birthday Lilah gave Blueberry. )

Jon took a sick day so he could take care of the girls or help me if I needed him to take me to my doctor’s appointment.
Since I was felling OK this morning on my applesauce, banana’s, and 7-up diet I tried some stew for lunch that Jon had made last night for dinner.

Bad, bad, really bad, idea.

Within an hour I was experiencing the all to familiar paralyzing, nauseating, abdominal pain that I’ve experienced all weekend after I ate anything but my favorite three foods. (Applesauce, banana’s, and 7- Up.)
I  ate part of our last banana in hopes that within the hour I would feel up to going to the doctor’s office on my own.

I wasn’t.

So we packed the girls up and all went. It took a lot of my energy to stand the there waiting while the receptionist typed in my information and then handed me the papers I needed to fill out. Thankfully Jon was there and he filled out most of the forms, leaving the past health problems to be checked by me.

I got in fairly quickly and Jon and the girls retired to the car so as not to bother the other patrons.

All my stats were normal or good according to the nurse, but that meant nothing to me as I sat trying to find the most comfortable position for my aching belly in the very uncomfortable chair that had no back support.

The doctor came in asked some questions and did a quick abdominal exam.

He said I have gastritis and recommended me to stay on my bland diet for three days, take an over the counter pill, and try to slowly introduce more foods after three days. If I’m not better in 7 to 10 days to call back.

I still have a hard time digesting my bland foods, but they don’t give me as much pain as normal meals and we couldn’t find the two recommended pills, and settled for the next best thing. (Prilosec OTC being the first recommend, but sold out at both stores, and only Pepcid AC was at the second store, not Pepcid Complete which he had also recommended.)

Oh, how I long to eat our ripened avocados or bake the orange rolls that have been sitting in our fridge waiting to be bake since New Years, but haven’t due to the girls being sick, and now me.

I wonder how much weight I’ll lose over the next few days and I hope I don’t have something worse, since he didn’t do any fancy test like Web MD suggests and really don’t want to be like this for another 2 plus weeks.

Time for some random pictures I’ve taken lately, though they each have their own reason, I just don’t want to make several posts about each subject and instead will roll them into one.

Here is Eden holding cutie pie Zarina when Andrea and Brien were down.

I just think they’re cute.

Next, while on vacation Jon decided to grow a beard. The only problem, I can’t stand kissing him when he has facial hair, and I have no idea how any woman can kiss a man with a beard or mustache.

To remedy this, Jon shaved around the mouth and left just a  beard along his jaw line.

I kept calling him Amish, which he didn’t mind, and I teased that he could have been in a Weird Al video.

It grew on me if his glasses weren’t on, it was a little rebellious, but once the glasses were on all I could think was Amish.

I dared him to go to work with the beard, but he shaved it off.

Giving me a silly look.

Hello Brother Jonathan, or whatever the Amish call each other.

Deep in thought. The funny thing is this and the eyebrow lift, are probably two of the most used poses of Jon’s. He’s so silly.

The next set of random pictures are of my necklace.
No one has asked to see it, but I love it so much, partially because I love my girl’s names so much, I had to post pictures of it.

Next we have the nursing cover I made for Sam. It has a piece of boning that bends and opens the top of the cover to help the mom see her child and what’s going on down there.

The blankets are made of lightweight flannel since she’s having Matilda in the winter, but I don’t think the weather has gotten the memo that it’s winter. It was like 70 degrees today. Very crazy weather this year. The week we had snow has probably been the longest and coldest and then everything else has been above average temperatures.

Lastly, here are my silly girls wearing every dress up necklace and items we have practically.

Today I made an impromptu lunch outing to McDonald’s on our way home from gymnastics. I didn’t want Lilah going in the play area in her socks or bare feet so I told her to keep her shoes on.

She had a very, very hard time with this.

She was about to go in and then she came  back to me.

“It says ‘No Shoes’. I can’t go in.”

“It’s not a big deal. Mommy says you can go in there with shoes.”

Then she whispers in my ear, “I don’t want you to go to jail.”

I chuckle a little and I reply, “I won’t go to jail. Only people who do really bad things go to jail.”

Luckily the play place police weren’t around, otherwise I may have gone to hamburger jail for having my girls break the no shoes allowed rule.

On a side note, the substitute who taught Lilah’s class just came by to drop something off and she just gave some wonderful compliments on how well behaved Lilah was, but also how impressed she was that Lilah read the word “trust” when she wrote it on the board and that Lilah was so smart and was answering a lot of questions. I love my good girl.  She surprises us with words she knows. Last night we got some Greek and Latin root flash cards and she read ‘friendship’ in the back of one.

1. Well behaved girls. People don’t mind watching them for hours on end because they’re so wonderful.
2. Patience for sewing. I was 12 when I first attempted sewing, but it was just a pillow, than 16 the second time and I swore off machines at that point. I’m grateful I started up again at 21 and had a mom who taught me/ still teaches me when I have a question. I’ve created many things since and have enjoyed most of the outcomes.
3. Naps. Today was a yoga day. I take a nap nearly every yoga day and I am thankful I can. It’s also fun to cuddle with Eden since we take our naps together.
4. A warm home. It might be a little drafty but I’m glad that we control the temperature and afford to keep it warm or cool during the hot summer months.
5. An education. Jon starts school today. I’m thankful he’s pursuing his higher education even farther for his Masters and I’m thankful that I was able to finish my Bachelors and I can’t  believe it’s been two years.

After Thanksgiving my husband starting doing a weekly post on 5 things he’s grateful for that day, or week I suppose. He started doing this to help him focus on the positive, rather than the negative, and to be a happier person in general. Lately I see myself easily getting down and comparing myself or my life to other’s and not measuring up. To help me stay focused and positive I too am going to start a list of 5 things I’m grateful for each week starting today.

1. A wonderful husband, who regardless of being an aethiest, got me and the girls Christmas presents and told me when Christmas programs were on that he thought I would like and watched them with me and the girls.
2. Two healthy beautiful girls.
3. The gospel of Jesus Christ.
4. A home.
5. A, realatively, healthy body. (Right now it’s not at it’s healthiest but I’m trying to remedy that.)

Since we had (still have) two sick girls and no life, Jon and I stayed home for News Years Eve.  Traditionally we have IBC root beer floats at midnight, but we were feeling frugal and had already bought some sparkling cider and neither of us wanted to go to the store so we enjoyed the sparkling cider after midnight.

We put the girls to bed around 8ish and tucked in for some movies. Jon had Netflixed Persepolis, which was rather interesting and intriguing. Then we popped in The Prestige about 20 minutes till midnight. We paused to see the worst fireworks show Las Vegas as ever given and kiss at midnight. (New regulations made the fireworks be fired off from ground level or the top of parking garages instead of the top of the hotels roofs. They had totally lame shots of the fireworks and I’m sure anyone who wasn’t totally plastered, and maybe some that were, thought that the fireworks weren’t that  good too.)

Jon had napped during the first movie so he was awake at he beginning of The Prestige, but he did not last long. I stayed up till 2:30am watching the movie and then some temping infomercials, though I think it was the sleep deprivation that made me want to buy a hair straightener and the pilates chair.   Eden also woke up for a short time after midnight due to being congested.

The girls woke up super early on News Years day, like 5 o’clock, and Jon stayed up with them while I slept in, with many interruptions mind you, till 10:30 am. I’m a little ashamed to admit I slept till 10:30, but I did.

We had a very lazy New Years. Eden loves lazy days where she’s able to keep her pajama’s on. I do not let them do that but Jon has and even today Eden was wearing her pajama’s till she decided she wanted to go outside at like 2:00 this afternoon.  Lilah was dressed today, but that’s only because she wore clothes to bed and has yet to change.

Chaos, utter chaos, when Jon is home.

That said with the very early morning on New Years day Eden took a super long nap, like she almost did not wake up from her nap, so we let her sleep longer but then she woke up at 8pm for a couple of hours and we sent her back to bed at 10pm.

Lilah feel asleep on the couch around 6:30pm and we put her to bed and she stayed there till 7:30 this morning.

It was a lazy New Years with two sick girls.

Today I finally did something productive outside the house, grocery shopping. We were completely out of milk and thus an expedition out of the house was necessary.

We still need to take down the tree so it can go in the trash for pick-up tomorrow, but as nap time approaches it may not happen unless we get motivated tonight. (funny note: Lilah saw a thing about taking your tree to the Springs Preserve to be recycled and she said we should do that, but I had to explain they wanted real trees not fake ones. So she then suggested that we grow our own tree and then cut it down next year to be recycled. )

Monday my yoga class begins and I’ve signed the girls up for a gymnastics class. If they’re over their coughs, and if Eden stops getting a fever every night, than they’re be able to go on Tuesday.

I just hope they’re better by Sunday so Eden can attend her first Sunday in Primary and so Lilah can be there to show her the  ropes.

My baby is going to be in Primary, I think I need to have another child but not for a couple years since life has taken some unexpected turns.

Happy News Years.

Also I am setting no goals this year. I never keep them or I only keep part of them, so this year my only goal is to continue going to Yoga and hope it doesn’t get cancelled due to the small class size.

Lilah has a terrible cough. Like she’s coughing up a lung cough.  She’s had it since Saturday and now, Wednesday, Eden is starting to sound like she might too have a lung she needs to cough up, though not nearly as bad as Lilah, but I’m betting it gets worse.

It seems that it takes us 5 days to get whatever Lilah has. Eden got Lilah’s runny nose about 5 days after Lilah had it. It was the fourth day that we went out figuring that Lilah wasn’t contagious, and then regrettably the fifth day Eden was showing the same symptoms.

Last night we went to my parents house to hang out and see Andrea and Brien. Lilah kept mostly away from Zarina and I was very insistent on washing her hands after every itch she had in her nose. (Yes in her nose not on her nose.)

Then this morning Eden started sounding like Lilah.

I really hope we don’t get anyone sick, though I should have known it might have happened.

On the up side we had a fun night playing Scrabble with Andrea, Derek, Carolyn, Howie and my mom. Brien played for a little bit, but then stopped to take care of Zarina and feed her.  We won the game, we were in teams by couples, or grandson and grandma in Howie’s case. It was actually my first Scrabble game and I know I did so well on part of Jon, though I had some good words too. 🙂

We wish we could have seen more of Andrea, Brien and adorable Zarina, but it was a short visit and we are sick.

We hope everyone has a happy new year. I’m sure I’ll be up at midnight because I haven’t gotten an uninterrupted nights sleep for the past few days and it looks like I’ll have coughing girls to attend to for a few more nights at least, and hopefully we don’t catch what they have.

With Jon being home for two full weeks we’ve gotten into some bad habits. Most of them are sleeping habits, though some have to deal with not doing the dishes or feeding the girls breakfast till late or lunch even later, though those are kinda because of the bad sleeping habits.

Bad habit #1: Going to bed late and sleeping in.
Now I usually have this bad habit, but Jon has adopted it in his own way and him being home has allowed me to sleep in even later.  I’ve been sleeping in till 9 on average and though I love it, I feel so unproductive during the day and lunch time comes to soon.

Bad habit #2: Our food schedule has gone to the pits.
Jon does feed the girls when he’s up and I’m not, but it’s still late and then we eat lunch even later and dinner is sometimes at our normal 6 o’clock time and other nights a little later.

Bad habit #3: The girls coming into bed with us in the morning.
We’re suckers for morning cuddles and Eden has definitely been coming into our bed regularly for morning cuddles. The main problem is she thinks anytime she wakes up after going to bed is time for cuddles and thus she wakes us up around once a night, and with Lilah being sick we’re woken up 2-4 times a night and when I say we I really mean me because usually, though not always, I am the one woken up and the one to deal with getting the girls to bed. Now I see why I’m sleeping in so late. (Last night Jon wasn’t feeling well and he was on the couch and he woke up with Eden lying on his chest and Lilah at his feet.)

Bad habit #4: Not doing dishes.
So our dishes do get done but when Jon’s home I don’t like to do them as often. I want him to pitch in, though if he’s really busy with something I do them. I want Jon to do dishes, but he doesn’t always know I want him to do them. He does today and has promised to do them by 4, so we can have the dishwasher cycle done by five when I start dinner and thus will need the pots and pans to cook with.

Bad Habit #5: Just sheer laziness.
For some reason we’ve had a lot of lazy days around her. Granted some are due to sickness but others are not and today I should be doing something productive, especially since I might be sick later this week, but I really don’t want to. Having Jon around sometimes does this because he too is being less productive, well I see it as less productive because he’s on his Mac a lot, though he is doing things that are important to him they’re just not things around the house that I deem as important. I have not been the nagging wife, I think, and I am to some degree letting him do whatever he wants on his staycation. (Staycation being a vacation where you stay home.) I want to organize my room and hem some pants, but for some reason I just can’t find the motivation. (Jon also does do a lot around the house and some days he’s working while I’m just watching a movie.)

Do you have bad habits when you’re spouse is home for long periods of time?

Is your spouse ever home for long periods of time and I should just be happy that I get this log period of time with mine?