Is It Naptime Yet

I don’t have the girls do much.
They clear their dishes from the table after each meal.
They have to put their clothes away after I fold them.
They have to pick up whatever mess they make.
That’s pretty much it.

The other day Jon was doing dishes and the girls helped him empty the dishwasher and Lilah helped put dirty dishes in.
I use to have them help unload but often it’s easier to just do it on my own, or not interrupt them playing nicely together.

The other day I was talking to my sister Kristi and chores came up. I realized I don’t have the girls help out has much as has they could so today I decided to have them do stuff.

They loved it.

Lilah kept talking about helping and how nice it is to help others and Eden just did her own thing but had fun along the way.
I had them help wash their sheets and put new sheets on.
Then they both helped to unload the dishwasher and Lilah helped to load.
It was kinds fun having them help, though they fought over what dishes they got to put away.

So don’t have your kids do chores and then they’ll want to help later on. Though I’m sure about 5 is when this wears off.
I’m thinking I’ll do a family home evening about chores and maybe we’ll make some chart about what they can help do.

I like to do things my way so it’s a little hard for me to have them help, but I think they liked it because they like to help and because they got to spend time with me rather than just do their own thing while I did mine.

If you want the long story of what happened on Christmas see my long post.
It might help to know the whole story, but this is the abbreviated one with pictures and video.

Our Christmas tree after all the gifts had been laid out.

Me: Honey I need to fill the stockings. Him-Oh well I’m sleeping.

Later that night after we both woke up.

The next morning. We made Eden wait behind the gate with Lilah even though she’d already been up.

A video of the girls opening the gifts they got for one another.

Why do I have to wear this towel?

Lilah with her towel.

Lilah with her towel.

What Santa brought and Eden with a gift that is not hers.

I found a big bow to put on his pocket microscope and apparently I used a lot of tape.

My pans.

The girls waiting for their gifts to be opened so they could play.

Jon didn’t care about cleaning up.

Eden likes Lilah’s laptop-I think maybe a little more than Lilah does.

The girls and then me opening my last gift that was a surprise. (watch how I pick up wrapping paper right by it and didn’t see it under the tree.)

Wait we need to open the package from Conrad, Jon’s brother. It was the gift of packaging peanuts with a doll house.

Lilah loves to play in messes.

A day later but a better picture of the doll house.

Eden was playing with the doll house, until I got the camera then she started playing with her pig.

Lilah wanted me to take a picture with her and her pig because I took a picture of Eden with her pig, when I was just trying to get the inside of the doll house.

Back to Christmas- but at my parents now.

Derek opening his gift, which was our Beatles CD. (read my long post to understand.)

The girls wearing two of the shirts Aunt Carolyn bought them and my father in the background with his crazy Christmas hat, it also has lights on it that light up.

Lilah showing Kaitlyn her toy.

The End.

Pictures to come later. This is my long journal entry of what happened this Christmas.

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house.
It’s tradition to read the Christmas story from the book of Luke in the Bible and to open one gift with my family.
Since we only had my parents to visit on Christmas day, Jon’s family is having a celebration later this week, I talked Jon into driving out there for the 24th. We also only had about 4 gifts for each of the girls to open, so I thought it would work out better to go there and open a gift from Grandma and Grandpa Harvey.

We got there around 5:45 pm and I did some tidying up. I wasn’t aware my mom had to work till 6.
Carolyn and Derek showed up later and eventually we had dinner.
Lilah was super silly during dinner, it was chili which is not on her list of favorite foods, so she didn’t really eat until everyone was down from the table and I had set the timer. The timer being my way of saying dinner is done when the timer goes off and if you’ve played too much and haven’t finished you are done eating for the night, which means no dessert.
I was a little soft and since Lilah only had one bite left, and had been trying to devour her food after everyone had left the table, I let her have a brownie even though she wasn’t done eating when the timer went off.
My mom hadn’t wrapped any gifts due to being super busy with work and having my Aunt Roscena, who has cerebral palsy, in town so we opened gifts from Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Derek, the sibling who had us this year.
The girls got some needed clothing and they gave Jon and I DVDs that we had wanted.

We eventually got home to set up the stockings and got ready for bed.
Jon told a short story about St. Nicolas before we put the girls to bed.

I put out the gifts and Jon was asleep on the couch by the time I was going to fill the stockings.
I asked him to move and he replied “Don’t you just have to lay them out?’
As in, “Why do I have to move if I can just lay them out when I go to bed later.”
So I filled them and set them aside and also fell asleep on the couch.

When we went to bed later we put the child’s gate up in the hallway to ensure the girls would get us before opening any gifts. (Lilah could probably climb the gate if she wanted, but she’s pretty good at not doing things like that.)

Jon was the first awake, like always, and Eden woke up a little before 7 am.
Instead of staying in bed and keeping me awake I sent her with Jon while he cooked the orange rolls for breakfast.

Jon said Eden was excited to see the stockings but didn’t care about the presents and wanted to immediately play with play dough.

Lilah woke up sometime later, long enough that the orange rolls were now finished baking.
We had them wait at the gate together until we took pictures and then let them into the living room.

Eden was now excited and tried to open any gift she could get her hands on. She did usually ask if it was hers before opening it, but we had to take a couple away because she was already removing the bows.

Lilah opened her gift from Eden first because she recognized it and she had Eden do the same.

I did label one gift from Santa. It was the DVD Ratatouille. Lilah kept saying how nice Santa was for giving us the movie.
Jon asked why Santa got all the credit.

I opened my gift last. I only had one under the tree so I wanted to wait.
It was pots and pans, we needed a new set and it was above our budget for gifts for one another. (We don’t spend a lot on gifts for one another, usually less than one hundred dollars each.)
I asked if I got another gift since the pans were kinda for the family but Jon never answered me.

As I was cleaning up from the huge mess of wrapping paper and gifts Jon was taking a video.
He mentioned there was one more gift under the tree that mommy had missed. (I had actually picked up paper right by it and didn’t notice it. )
I saw it was the size of a DVD and I was excited.
I tore the paper off like a child and it was exactly the one DVD I really wanted. BBC’s North and South. (It’s such a good movie.)
Jon had hidden the gift far under the tree and later decided to make it visible so I could find it and open it.

Jon told me today how he intentionally ignored my question when I asked if I got something else, we were watching the video today. I knew the pans were expensive, at least for our Christmas budget, so I felt a little bad wanting something else, but it was just pans and it wasn’t like I had asked or begged for them, I just had them on my wish list for the day we were ready to buy new pans.
Jon said he got me the DVD so I didn’t just get pans because that seems a little well, not nice from a housewife perspective, though I would have been happy with just the pans, but I was very happy to get the DVD also.

After the morning we eventually headed over to my parents house to spend time with them and open presents.

I watched Derek, Carolyn’s husband, open his gift and I noticed it was a Beatles CD. This was odd to me because I told my mom to get a Beatles CD for us. It was ironically the one CD he doesn’t have of theirs, or Let it Be.
Later we found out mom had mixed the gifts. Derek was to get a Roy Orbison DVD, something from his wish list and we were to get the Beatles CD.
It’s becoming pretty normal for my mom to mix gifts up. Last year Eden got MASH the entire series on DVD. It was really for my brother and obviously not a gift for a one and a half year old. My mom mentioned how she wondered where that gift went when she realized Glenn hadn’t opened it that morning and yes, we gave it to my brother.

We also now have two of these pigs.
After I really looked at it on Amazon I thought it was more age appropriate for Eden so we gave Eden the pig and got Lilah a V-tech laptop for kids, though I knew Lilah would still be entertained by the pig.
My mom also saw it on my wish list, before I took it off since I bought it, and she got it for Lilah.
Jon couldn’t resist Lilah’s sad eyes and said we could have two when I mentioned we could return it. (That is the one bad thing about the wish list. I’ll put things I intend to get for the girls, but haven’t decided on, or I put it on to remind me what to get them and someone else gets the same thing. One year Lilah got two doodle-pros.)

So I now hear, “Mommy Eden’s stealing my coins”, because Eden wants all the coins and then we all have to count them out, Eden wouldn’t dare trust Lilah’s counting. I’m thinking of putting an E for Eden on the pig and coins and an L for Lilah’s, but that will ruin a toy that we will likely give away sometime because I’m sure we won’t need two forever.

We also got our block for my cutco knives, but my mom got a block that holds 8 knives and two different fork things, instead of 6 knives and just the one turning fork. (She mixed up the names.) So we now need 4 pieces instead of just one knife. So over the next year we’re looking at purchasing some knives and I will have empty slots in the block until we do so. I just really love the knives.

The girls most played with gift thus far is actually a doll house Jon’s brother Conrad made. Well, it looks homemade and he does different projects to help with his Parkinson’s disease, such as cross stitching, so we imagine he made it also.

Jon got books, a pocket microscope, and Monkey balls, which are two very powerful magnets that make interesting noises when played with.
With the pocket microscope we’ve found the security number that is engraved on my diamond in my engagement ring and we’ve looked at hairs and open cuts we have, such as paper cuts. Jon’s also had Lilah look at salt and different things like leaves, rocks and chalk. It’s provided hours of fun already.

For today, the 26th or the day after Christmas, I have purged myself of old pots and am trying to convince Jon to get rid of one of our knife sets. (He really only likes the chef’s knife and it won’t fit in the block we’re keeping chef’s knife slot, if that makes sense.)
We’ve also watched more movies and let Lilah freeze her hands while she was outside writing with sidewalk chalk she received and was digging in the dirt. She now has a jar full of dirt that would be a good home for pet worms, according to her anyways.

Lilah had a gymnastics program Tuesday night. She did very well and ran around like a crazy before it began.

I do have video of Lilah’s gymnastics program but I need to find a video editor so I don’t have to put up the five clips from it, and we took no pictures.

After the program we went to Opportunity’s Village the Magic forest. Carolyn’s co-worker was doing a little performance so she invited us along with her.
We rode the train, the carousel and Lilah and I went down the slide.
It was lots of fun even though we never went into the actual magic forest part. (It’s just lots of lights and decorations, which we caught a glimpse of while riding the train.)

This is Jon’s “are you taking a picture of me face?’- when I obviously have a camera in my hand aimed at him. (I love you honey. <3 )

Lilah on the carousel.

Carolyn has a cute expression, that’s why I’m using this picture. But Eden with Carolyn on the carousel.

(Carolyn and I were getting a little dizzy and sea sick while standing on the carousel.)

We got home so late because we stayed till 10′ o’clock, when it closed and the girls were well behaved during the night. ( I also kinda wanted to get my money’s worth in rides.)

Wednesday night we took the girls shopping for one another.
We just went to the dollar store and allowed them to each choose four things for one another.
It was rather cute.
Lilah went with Jon while I was at a different store with Eden. We saw them outside the store and Lilah hid the bag behind her so Eden couldn’t peek.
I took Eden and I kept reminding her that we were picking out gifts for Lilah. Some things were Eden’s taste, but overall she was saying she wanted to get such and such for Lilah, except a little dog at the end, which is still for Lilah.

Thursday was lunch with the Mother’s group. Every mother had gifts for each of the other kids from their own child except me. I didn’t feel bad, but I did feel a little lame. I’m not a big gift giving person when it comes to people outside the family. We often keep such a low budget for Christmas, even though we exceeded it because of a gift we got Lilah, and I just never know what to do and which people to give to.
Gift giving could also easily get out of control, Jon’s work is a good example. I did bring truffles and cookies the week before for the moms to enjoy so that also helps me to not feel too bad.

Friday I made truffles with the Jewitt’s, or showed them how and did some of the work because I’m a better shower than teacher though her eldest daughter and youngest did help a lot.
The girls loved being at their house all day.

Jon also checked his grade and he got an A in his class this past semester. All the hard work paid off.

Saturday we went to Jon’s parents house and I finished my Christmas shopping. (I just needed stocking stuffer stuff and a picture frame.)
Jon’s parent’s have a pecan tree in their front yard and the girls and Jon decided to pick up the pecans.

Lilah looking for nuts.

We were hunter gatherer’s looking for nuts. This is about a third of what we gathered.

His mom also insisted that we take all of them because some would be bad, though we’ve had almost all very tasty nuts. I think I’ll give some to my parents and anyone else who likes pecans, please comment. 😉

While gathering Jon decided to climb the tree to shake any pecans out of the tree, like he did as a kid.

The lowest branch is about 6 ft from the ground on the trunk.

Lilah trying to catch the nuts Jon shakes off.

Eden watching Daddy in the tree.

I think he’s 32, but he may just be a 12 year old in a 32 year old’s body sometimes.
We now have a ton of pecans which are delicious. I don’t like store bought pecans but these ones are very good.

Like last year, I did the shopping for my mother-in-law for gifts to give my sister and brother-in-law and we helped set up their tree while we were there on Saturday.

Saturday night I made white chocolate covered Ritz crackers with peanut butter with the little chocolate I had left from truffle making. They were given to us the previous year and even though it sounds funny, and they look a little funny they are so delicious and I’m trying so hard to not eat all five that are left, I was able to make about nine. (I add a little honey to regular peanut butter, put a nice amount in between two crackers like a sandwich. Dip in chocolate and place on wax paper then freeze for about five minutes to speed up the process. They are soo good. You can also use white almond bark in place of the white chocolate.)

Today was just a regular ole Sunday.

I wish Christmas was tomorrow.
I can’t wait till Christmas.
I’ve been very good and have no idea what I’m getting this year. (It’s not that I try to find out what Jon gets me, but I can often figure it out through accidental occurrences.)
We also got a large box from Jon’s brother Conrad in Missouri for Lilah and I haven’t peeked, though Jon looked at it to make sure it didn’t need to be wrapped.

I’m so excited.
Christmas is almost here.

We’ve decided to not tell our children Santa is real. We tell them he’s pretend. Yes we’re awful parents and someday your child’s bubble might be burst by one of my daughters, but not this year.
A while back Lilah saw Santa on Barney, and asked if he was real. I said he was pretend. She said that she decided that Santa was real. OK. That’s your choice girly.

Yesterday we went to a breakfast with Carolyn for her boss. It was the ward Christmas party and since Jon and the girls didn’t come to our ward party, and our ward didn’t even have Santa, I’d thought it be fun for the girls.
I told Lilah Santa would be there and she said “Mommy doesn’t believe in Santa but I do.”

We waited in line and Lilah was mostly OK until she saw a little girl, about 3, cry and scream “scared, I’m scared” to her mom who still put her on Santa’s lap.
(I told the girls the whole time that they did not have to sit on Santa’s lap if they didn’t want to. )
Once our turn came I wanted to get a picture of the girls together, but only Eden would sit on Santa’s lap.
So Eden got a sucker and Lilah did not.
Lilah wanted a sucker so she decided she would sit on his lap.
She did well the second time and even tried to have a smile and afterwards she said how brave she was.

Well this morning as we sat eating breakfast she said, “Mommy, you have to believe in Santa now that you’ve seen him.”

This weekend we kept out of Jon’s hair so he could study and write his term paper. (Something that is hard to do at a library and nicer to do from home, but as he said, he can’t study with kids around and admires those who can. Thanks honey.)
Lilah had a primary activity in the morning on Saturday so I just went and took Eden along.
We were in a group of mostly boys between the ages of 8-11. Some girls were added later on, also between 8 and 11, but I was glad that I stayed so Lilah didn’t get lost in all the traveling to room to room.
After the activity we came home and ate lunch.
Once Carolyn got off of work we went to her house to make some cookies. ( I invited myself and the girl’s on Friday knowing that Jon would need space.)
We made some carrot cake cookies, very yummy and some sugar cookies.
The girls were good at rolling the cake cookies.
We let the girls decorate their own sugar cookie and eat it. After watching them decorate their own cookie I decided Carolyn and I should do the rest.
(Lilah was piling all our white frosting on her snowman. We had to take some away to have any for the other snowmen and snowflakes.)
I do have a few pictures, but since my hands were mostly dirty I didn’t take any.
I mostly wanted to get the cookies made and clean up so we wouldn’t be there too late.

These pictures are by Carolyn.

A chair after Lilah was helping to make cookies.

Carolyn and the girls played while I got frosting made and the sugar cookies ready to cut out.

Where’s Lilah.

They loved what Carolyn’s couch did to their hair.

Today we’ve been home. Jon came home after Sacrament and had those two hours to himself.
I took a nap while Eden was taking hers and Lilah stayed up and watched a movie while Jon studied.

Tomorrow I’m making truffles. A lot of truffles so the girls will probably be glued to the TV, fighting, or possibly getting along with one another in their bedroom, but probably making a mess in the process.

It should be interesting.

So I just bought the girl’s gifts.
I am totally an amazon.com shopper.
Though some things will need to be bought in person or at the dollar store.
Wouldn’t that be funny if you could buy things from the dollar store on-line?
Anyways. I’m excited for Christmas and some of the things we’re getting for the girls.
Yay for the Holidays!
Now I just have to purchase for Jon and my brother and one close friend who does a lot for me without asking for anything in return.

Even though we both have amazon accounts, it still makes it hard to buy things for Jon because he only puts things like books and Cd’s up there and I want to get him something other than a book or a Cd because that’s what I always get him.
I like thinkgeek.com we’ve gotten t-shirts from there and there are a couple of gadgets Jon liked.
Though I may just buy books and more books for him.

This weekend we did a very short trip to Ely to visit Andrea and Brien and to see Zarina blessed.

We left late on Saturday around 1 o’clock. (Jon was topping off fluids and accidentally put the pink windshield wiper fluid in the pink coolant fluid. It might have been OK, but since we were going on a long trip with very few towns and a lot of nothing in between we thought it would be better to have the engine flushed to be on the safe side. He was there for 3 hours. Ugh.)

We got on the road and the girls and I got excited when we we saw that there was snow on the mountains outside of Alamo.

Just in the car having fun.

Snow on the mountains!

Pretty cloud on mountain.

Are you sure you want to go this way?

We went the long way, or scenic drive to Ely through Caliente.

The Union Pacific train station in Caliente. Jon said he rode though Caliente several times as a kid on the train. (His father worked for UP.)

We stopped and played in some snow on the roadside.

I will say I thought it was pretty until Jon decided to throw snowballs, which he did immediately after getting out of the car.

The girls weren’t in the snow clothes I brought and I didn’t want them getting wet from the snow sticking to them.
OK I also didn’t want them getting dirty.

They loved it and wanted to make a snow angel like Daddy had, but I was wanting to get back into the warm car and onto the road again.

Jon mentioned how driving in the snow made him feel like he was on a different planet.
I’d have to agree.
Neither of us grew up in snow, Jon did go on a mission to New York, but that has been over 10 years ago.
Snow is just foreign to us Las Vegans.

I just noticed this guys headlights weren’t on.

It was pretty. The scenic drive wasn’t very scenic with the snow storm, but it was still pretty.

Uh, where’s the scenery?

We’ll have to visit Mount Charleston for some snow. The girls just loved it and maybe next time I’ll let them get dirty and wet.

We got to Ely around dinner time and headed over to Andrea and Brien’s for a short visit.

Eden loved Zarina and wanted to hold her.

The next day while getting ready for church Eden began to smell. So I gave her a bath and Jon inspected her dress.
A poopy diaper that she had that morning had leaked on the dress, so it smelled. We decided we’d better dress her in her pants rather then have her be stinky and in a dress.

The sacrament meeting was nice and we headed over to Andrea and Brien’s for a delicious meal of pulled pork sandwiches.
It was all of Brien’s family and then us, and his one neighbor.
(My parents wanted to wait till the crowd died down since they had my aunt who has cerebral palsy with them.)

Zarina after church.

We got some pictures and then took off home.

The Parks.

The Parks with Lilah and Eden. (This is what Eden wore to church.)

Proud aunt with Zarina.

It was a very long drive and the girls started being roosters right as we got near the city and they continued for about the 20 minute drive in. And that is Eden at the end talking, for those who think she doesn’t talk, she does talk and a lot at times.

One thing my mom gives us married people every Christmas is one or two Cutco knives or other Cutco gadgets. ( I love Cutco.)
We’re so close this year to having a full knife set, or at least the basic knife set.
Heck, I don’t even care if we get the last knife, or spatula spreader,  I just want the block to put my knives in and use. (I’m strange and have wanted to get the whole set before we used any.)
Besides knives we’ve also receive a pizza cutter and vegetable peeler, seriously the best pizza cutter or veggie peeler you could ever have.
And then baking stuff, like spatulas and serving stuff. ( I forget I have a huge spatula that would be lovely for frosting large cakes but it’s tucked away with the knives for future use once I get the block.)
I really hope my mom got the hint in my e-mail and gets us the block to put the knives in because I would love to get rid of one of the knife sets on my counter. ( I won’t say which one. And yes we have two knife sets, soon to be three if I get my wish. We got two for wedding gifts. One is a new one, well five years old now and whatever cutlery brand you get a Target and the other is a Union Pacific set that I wanted more for sentimental value that is from Jon’s parents, but Jon didn’t like having only one butcher knife and he pulled them out a while back. Though we really only use the butcher knife out of that set and when I say we, I mean him.)

Anyways, as I’m typing this I have the knives in their boxes on my computer desk. Whenever I pull them out to survey what we have and let my mom know, it reminds me how sharp they are and how dull my current knives are.
A block to put them in would be the perfect Christmas gift.
I want sharp knives to use this new year.

Jon has been a doll. He has let me sleep in on the weekends and he takes care of the girls and gets them breakfast.
It’s been great.
Thanksgiving Day:
Jon made Thanksgiving breakfast. Yummy blueberry muffins that we’ve had in our cupboard for a while.
We hung out at home and I made pies for my parents house.
We got there at 12:45 thinking “dinner” was at one. Only the people who live there and were staying there were there and the turkey was an hour behind because my mom started a turkey dripping fire in the oven.
No one else showed up till around 2 so we only saw some people for about an hour. We ate at 3 or so and we jetted out of there around 3:45.
We got to Ann’s house late, 4:30 but they waited for us since I had the rolls.
Ann and Doug have a new little Yorkie and the girls just loved him.
Lilah held him at every chance and she thought it was funny that he liked to nibble on my belt.
We got home around 8:30, just a half hour past the girls bedtime, though they didn’t get to bed till 9.

Friday:
I went to my parents house with the girls because Andrea and Brien would be heading over there later and Jon needed time to work on a term paper.
I hung out with family and held the baby a little and I even cleaned out my car.
It was a nice day.

On a down note I’ve been getting sick since I went out on windy Wednesday. Today I feel my worst and since I’ve procrastinated writing my lesson I still need to prepare it.
I’m terrible I know it.
I’ve also slept or rested most of the morning since I’m feeling stuffy and just plain terrible.
I have gone over it, so that’s a plus.
I love the holidays, just not when I’m sick.