Is It Naptime Yet

So my very giving friend Anna generously hooked us up with two tall dressers. They are all wood, none of that particle board stuff, and very nice, plus they match the girl’s beds in that light wood way, though not exactly.  We like to be eclectic, which is what happens when you don’t buy bedroom sets.

Why would someone give us hundreds of dollars of furniture, because I’m sure each one is worth over $100 dollars, and deliver it to our door, and help Jonathan put it in our living room till we figured out where to put them in our rooms?

Well, she got them for free and it was so generous of her to give them to us for free also. ( Anna didn’t even let me give her gas money, though I am taking her out to eat next month as a show of gratitude.)

Anna works in the legal building for a home builder and whenever the furniture in the model homes becomes 3 years old, they have to get rid of it.
The way this particular builder gets rid of the used and damaged furniture is through letting employees chose furniture, up to five tickets worth and the two dressers were three total, and then they sell whatever is left to the public.

Anna told me about it when we were out to lunch on Wednesday and that Friday she would be able to claim furniture for herself and I mentioned, mostly jokingly, that we needed a tall dresser for the girl’s bedroom. Eden’s dresser was breaking, and I wanted to replace it with a tall dresser so I could fit both of the girls clothes in it and hopefully get rid of the changing table, which holds the girls shoes and Lilah’s clothes.

Anna took  me seriously and offered to be on the lookout for a tall dresser if they did not have the large item she was looking for and not only did she get us one tall dresser, but two, but that was because the referee in the whole furniture give away earmarked both of them for her, and she gave us both of them since she did not need a dresser and eventually I figure the girls will each need their own dresser and  we thought they matched, why split the two up? It turns out they are not the same dresser, which we figured out once we unwrapped them, just similar and one is definitely a slightly higher quality but, both are very nice.

It really has lifted a small weight off my shoulders.

Eden’s dresser has been breaking for a while but, it still worked. I knew I wanted to replace it with a tall dresser and I didn’t want to get a cheap dresser, I wanted a nice one, but those costs money and furniture is not something we readily spend large amounts on.

With getting this new dresser Jon has agreed to move, or get rid of, the changing table and I’m really looking forward to getting it out of the girls room.  We may need it when we have another child, but it’s old, it wasn’t the most expensive changing table, and it was free and I just feel that it’s a luxury not a necessity with a baby. The car seat I will store, it’s a necessity, a changing table is nice, but it’s a luxury and I feel we need that space for other things.  I hope to now have a designated area for school things, where as there are a few school things here and there and other things the girls do here and there, but  there isn’t a designated spot due to a lack of space in our house. Since the dresser brings things upwards, we’ll have more space.

Making sure whatever shelves or storage units we buy are tall is a big thing now since we’ve covered virtually every horizontal space we can find, now we need to work up and use our vertical space more efficiently. I may be able to use the drawers in the changing table for school stuff, but like I said, I want to work our storage area upwards and the changing table keeps things more horizontal. I really want a cupboard similar, or like, what we have in our dining area for food storage for our home school stuff. That way I can put things I don’t want the girls to get on a top shelf and things they can use on the lower ones.

Anna, I really am grateful for the dressers and your generosity. I know it wasn’t a big thing for you, it’s just part of your perks, but they really are going to be a big service to us. ( I now have my own dresser once more and will probably store some sewing stuff. Jon just replied that he now saw my ulterior motive in taking both of them. 😉 )

Thanks again.

I’ve been a little preoccupied. I made truffles this week and have been mostly ignoring my children all morning. We’re down to 6 pieces of bread. Luckily we only need 5 for our lunch.

I need to go grocery shopping, as told by our bread situation.

I’ll post pictures of my worst truffle making experience later.

As of right now I’m gonna shower and have lunch with Anna and then bake cookies at my mom’s house for Anna. She’s unprepared for her kids class tonight and I’m exploiting her for food and a reason to leave my house. Never mind I need to do dishes. I’m breaking out of this place!

My friend Amber did an interesting post over at her blog today

It’s titled10 reasons why I voted for Barack Obama.

I am a registered republican, but I’m finding it to be too conservative.

Amber wrote:

#2-  Religion. The stranglehold that the Christian Conservative vote has on the Republican party is frightening to me.  You know- those same people who wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney because he was a Mormon and not a Christian?  The ones who preach against my religion during their religious services and make movies detailing why we are horrible people who belong to a cult? Those people.  I think that in a country as diverse as ours we can’t cater everything to the furthest right.  I want the freedom to practice my religion as I see fit- and allow others that same privilege (or the privilege not to practice religion as well).  Others that are Muslim, Jewish, Evangelicals, Christians, Catholics, Hindu, Buddhist, Wickens, atheists, agnostics etc. Separation of church and state is an important issue and my fear of not being able to practice my religion comes from people who don’t believe that I’m a Christian because I don’t believe like them more then people who don’t believe in Jesus Christ at all.

I hadn’t thought of the religious point of view, but what she said really resonated with me.

I also agreed with a lot of what she said in her post.

Wednesday night was our final Halloween event.

It was a carnival type affair at a local recreation center. Sam signed Britta up and I signed Lilah and Eden up. We met there in the chaos of Halloween fun.

They had lots of different activities for the children to wait in line for and attempt to try and all the children got candy whether or not they succeeded.
There was digging for treasure in a box full of shredded paper, throwing balls into a small blow up coffin with a skeleton, knock down the cans, and the like.

Eden was very weary of the evening. All the people and the high noise level had her clutching my hand all night, especially after we had the fire alarm go off for around 20 minutes. It was a false alarm, and mostly annoying, but not tremendously loud, though Eden covered her ears has much as she could since she only had one hand, like me.   I got so use to her holding my hand it began to feel strange if she wasn’t grasping it.

Lilah loved it and said it wasn’t too loud. I love that she loves Halloween this year. I think it’s adorable. She even wanted to go into the haunted house, but the line was too long and I was nervous about Eden. Instead they did the jumper obstacle course, which was Eden’s favorite. I think the night air and the lack of loud jarring music made it a lot of fun for her.

They had a cake walk and Lilah won our first time around! She was kind enough to share her cupcake with us. We played once more, but did not win.

It was a fun night, even though it was very busy and crowded. It wasn’t to the point that I felt like it was a waste of time and all the employees were very nice.

We’ve already filled up our gallon ice cream bucket with candy. I’m not sure if we can take much more candy.

Here are the girls doing the jumper obstacle course.

Add they’re off.

There was a mesh siding so I couldn’t take any pictures till the end.

Lilah having fun jumping while we waited for Eden.

Eden finishing. She had landed funny before this so she was a little hurt in this picture.

Tomorrow is Halloween and Nevada Day observed so Jon is at home with us. (Yay!)  I can’t wait to carve our pumpkin and maybe I’ll start cutting out the table runners. I’ve really been avoiding them for some reason, though I need to get over it no later than Monday.

Saturday we had a few events.

I had a bridal shower to attend, which I brought Eden with me. Lilah had her primary program practice, which Jon took her too since I was at a bridal shower.

After the bridal shower I headed over to the chapel to watch the end of the practice. This was to be Jon’s study time so I was trying to stay out of the house. After the practice we headed over to Sam’s to decorate the playhouse and get the backyard presentable for the party on Monday. Sam’s husband mowed the lawn and tidied out the play house. He killed three black widows that were living under the few pieces of wood he had in there. We didn’t see any after that.  I cleaned off some bikes and outside toys. I killed 5 spiders in the process. It makes me wonder what spiders we might have on the girl’s, not played with very often, outside toys.

We returned home around 5:30 and had dinner that night.

Sunday was Lilah’s primary program. We tried to get to the church early, but ended up there right on time. Luckily, Jon’s mom and sister Dara were there early and were able to save a pew for us. My mom, Carolyn, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law Dara came to watch Lilah in the program.

Lilah was one of the more enunciated children in her age bracket. Her line was “The scriptures teach me about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and how to return to them.” Lilah was on the left side of the podium and consequently could not see the conductor when they sang songs. Her and her other two classmates seemed to focus on whatever suited them. They still did pretty well on singing and were very well behaved.

During one song Lilah started playing with her curly hair. She was fluffing it and bringing pieces over her head and then did a classic hair toss. Jon said she was practicing for her shampoo commercial days.
She was really cute and we had lots of fun watching her.

I gave the closing prayer, or benediction, and had to teach Gospel Principles so we headed right to class.

Story about the closing prayer.
Last week Jon was asked by the executive secretary if he and I would give the prayers for sacrament. Jon declined for himself but said he would give the message to his wife. He gave me the message and we left it at that.
Sunday we showed up right on time, but I wasn’t positive I would be giving the benediction.  We got there and I looked in our bulletin, but it said: Benediction- By invitation.
So I listened intently to see if they would announce who was giving the closing prayer.
They didn’t.
We sang the closing song and I had my eye out to see if anyone else would stand to give the prayer, particularly the wife of the brother who had said the invocation. She didn’t move so I quickly got up to say the closing prayer. Luckily we were close to the front and I had the isle seat.
It frazzled me for the rest of the day since I get really nervous speaking from the pulpit and because of my confusion.

Jon ushered the girls to their classes and I ushered Carolyn and my in-laws to my class. The class did not go as smoothly as I would have liked, but I guess that’s just the way it is some days. ( I was teaching and with our busy schedule had not gone over it has much as I should have, plus it wasn’t really a big discussion lesson and I had family, which do make me a little more nervous.)
We then went to Relief Society and then to our house.

My MIL made the stop by our house to see my painted bedroom and finished curtains. I think it’s been nearly two years since she’s been to our house and she was interested in seeing our few, and minor, improvements. She and Dara only stayed for a short time since she needed to get back to my FIL.

Carolyn spent the day with us because we had family home evening that night, and it was at the Lee’s house, who live just a couple miles up the street from us, and she lives on the other side of town, like 20 miles one way.

She entertained my children while I did some much needed house work. We also made the sugar cookies that were for decorating at the party the next day.

At family home evening we saw our first cousin’s once removed little girl, who was not yet three weeks old.

All these babies make me want to have a baby, but that will have to wait.

After a night of family we came home and I slept through the make-up yoga class on  Monday morning.

Yesterday we had the Halloween party with Lilah’s preschool friends.  I helped Sam put the party together and we invited all of the moms that we use to have the preschool with.

We had:
bobbing for apples- video at the bottom.
Fishing for their prize.
bean bag toss (Toss bean bags through holes on a cardboard cut- out)
Make a jack o’ lantern place mat.
decorating sugar cookies
pumpkin toss (Toss plastic pumpkins into a bucket.)
clothespin drop (Try to drop clothespins by holding them to your nose and then trying to get them into a jar.)
spooky haunted playhouse

It was a like a carnival setup. We had each station and the kids could go and do what they wanted. Some stations had specific times but for the most part it was a free for all. We had everyone bring sack lunches and Sam provided a witches brew for drink. (Apple juice with dry ice to make it smoke.)

The kids seems to have lots of fun and they all enjoyed seeing one another.

Fun moments- Lilah being silly as she bobbed for her apple. Eden bending over as she did the clothespin drop and practically having the clothespin in the jar since her nose was so close. Seeing my friend Emilie B.’s new baby boy and just hanging out with the other moms that were in our old ward.

I forgot my camera, but Emilie S. brought hers and loaded this video onto google for us to view.

Last night we went to our first Halloween party of the season, we have four total. It was for my sister Carolyn’s work. The parties are for families, and since she has no kids, and even when she does I hope she continues to invite us, she invites us to be her family.

My girls love Carolyn’s work, though you wouldn’t know it by the expressions on their faces. Whenever we go, even on regular days, they’re so excited to see Carolyn. People at Carolyn’s work love my girls and sometimes I wish my girls were as excited as the people who see them are.  Lilah has become more outgoing, but Eden has become more reserved.

Anyways, as I was checking the time and trying to figure out when we needed to leave I realized I hadn’t called animal control on the cat we had caught the night before. I called, but they were not coming as quickly as I needed them too, so Jon had to come home, rather than stay on campus and study, so we could head out to the party. Since I wanted to be ready as soon as possible, in case animal control came quickly, the girls sat in their costumes and make-up for around an hour and a half. I had PBS kids on in hopes they wouldn’t touch their faces too much, and they did a pretty good job.  (I was going to go to JoAnn’s before the party, but we had to go after.)

Jon got home so we gave quick hugs and left. (Animal control came around 7, I think we were probably a last stop back to the office since we’re close by it, so it was a good thing Jon came home.)

We got to the party and ate. I had the girls on an empty desk which had a wall behind it, and many people commented on how cute they were, and some even said they thought they were apart of the decorations since they were siting so nice and still.

We went trick or treating to each office and the girls even went into a haunted office. Eden was holding my hand very tightly. A witch that had been going around, who scared and made almost every child cry who was under the age of 5 except my girls, was in the office. There were a lot of witch cackles, which made Eden nervous, but they did well and made it out OK. It was “just the right amount of scary” Lilah said,  according to my sister Carolyn’s blog.

Carolyn’s boss, Tim, was dressed up and sitting in one of their rooms to scare the kids. He gently got Lilah and mostly just hugged and gave her a few kisses, I think she was only slightly scared, but we told her it was Tim, so she seemed OK with it. When I took a picture of him with the girls, Eden was definitely not enjoying sitting on his lap, and even when he took the pantyhose off his head she was weary of him, though Eden’s pretty much weary of everyone lately.

It was lots of fun and the girls were pretty happy with their loot.

Lilah with her hair braided to crimp it.

My scary ghosts.

The girls with Tim. He was scarier with the lights out, which they were but I have a good flash.

The loot.

Friday was a good day. I knew it would be since we had planned on going to the Springs Preserve with Sam, Britta, and they brought Izaak along, a young boy from the mommy class we use to do.

Before heading to the Springs Preserve we went to Trader Joe’s and my in-laws house.

At noon we meet Sam and the gang. The kids ate lunch and played. Britta split her lip open, but other than that it was a mostly smooth afternoon.

The kiddos had lots of fun and Sam and I were able to chat  and get adult conversation in. We actually talked about more than kid stuff, like politics, which luckily we agree so it was a pleasant conversation. Fortunately, our conversations are pretty broad and I am able to talk to Sam about a lot of different things.

We did the usual activities and then the girls and I headed out before leaving Sam, Britta, and Izaak there.

We stopped by a local gas station to use our gas cards. They’re only $10 each and you have to do a complete transaction for each one. As in pump gas, return nozzle, wait for a receipt and repeat. I had to figure this out, so it was rather annoying.

Then we headed over to a local store I rarely visit, one, because It’s on the way to places I go, but not really on the way home and two, it’s not a very tidy store. They had the fun sized candy bar bags on sale for $1.50, which are usually $2-$2.50, on sale.  I bought eight bags for Halloween and I guess  to gain a lot of weight with. Usually we have to buy candy for Halloween and the trunk or treat, so eight is about right, but this year, once again, our ward is having the ward party on Halloween, which I’m so against, so I’m not supporting the activity in any way, where as last year I think I still donated candy. I just don’t like ward activities on Halloween night.

We bought lots of candy and the cashier was nice enough to ring it up twice for us, because there was a limit of four bags per transaction. I didn’t know, so I would have stuck to the limit, but it was very nice of here.

Friday night was normal.

Saturday I was busy cleaning and trying to create order in our house of chaos. I then sewed the skirt on finally. I’ve actually finish everything on the dress, except the buttons, because we don’t have enough and we’re waiting for them to be transferred to a closer store.

Saturday night the girls and I gave Jon some study time by going to JoAnn’s and then to Carolyn’s work to help her office decorate for the Halloween party. It was fun, the girls had tons of fun and Lilah now prays for a very scary Halloween.

Sunday was a normal day.

Monday I made the apron.

Today I’m working on the pantaloons, which I didn’t buy enough lace for so they won’t get done till Thursday or Friday, or after I go to JoAnn’s again.

Now I just need to cut out the bonnet and sew it together.

I’m almost done with the costume.

Then next week I’ll begin table runners for my friends wedding, which have to be done by the 15th of November.

I’ve never made table runners, so I’m a little nervous. I’m mostly nervous about cutting the fabric completely straight so the seams turn out straight and so they’re retanglular table runners and not trapezoidal or some other parallelogram.
I think I’m a little crazy.

My apron and robe will probably be Christmas presents to myself.

Yesterday was a day of errands. I picked up the correct prescription of contacts and my glasses. Though I feel like one of the lenses is not quite at the right angle so things just look a little off.  I’m happy with my new frames and Jon calls them ‘geek chic’.
My errands went as ordered:

Picked up contacts.
Waited at Carolyn’s office while she took forever to run a “ten minute” errand and then we saw her for like ten minutes.
Went to Target.
Ate lunch with Anna.
Went to Jo Ann’s and spent money on the most perfect apron fabric.
Lastly, stopped by Costco to get glasses and buy food.

It was a fun day and the girls were relatively well behaved. Since Lilah will be in girls sizes I bought a few things on clearance and hopefully she’ll be able to wear them in the appropriate season and they won’t be too big next year.

Today we ran to Smith’s to pick up mason jars. Then onto Beth’s for class and then to Sam’s. We wanted to prepare and get the jars into the dishwasher to sterilize them for canning. While they ran through the dishwasher we went to ‘home on the range’ where Sis. Burns taught us a little about canning. They made some fabulous apple pie filling so we decided to make a batch with our apples, rather than making just applesauce.

After home on the Range Sam and I went to her house to start the canning process. We both worked on the apple sauce and then the pie filling doing different jobs and keeping one another company. I left her house a little before 6. She had all the dishes done, we had canned everything, and we had just one batch of jars to put into the steamer. I did a lot of prep work and she did a lot of cleaning.

My jars of homemade applesauce and apple pie filling are still at Sam’s house so the jars can cool, but from the taste test of left over applesauce the girls loved the final product.

It was fun canning, but is is definitely time intensive and not any cheaper than buying it at the store.
With being at Sam’s house the girls had lots of toys to play with and they acted and behaved wonderfully. We hardly noticed they were there. Britta was coming home from California with her grandparents, so sadly it was just my girls.

I picked up a pizza for dinner and now the girls are playing Go Fish with Jon and he’s trying to teach them not to show one another their cards.

Last night we played Domino’s, the Blake way, and Eden won two games, Lilah won one, and Jon won one of the four. I think it ironic, the youngest person, who had no game strategy, won the most games. Eden was doing a pretty good job matching the numbers on her own and saying pass when she couldn’t make a move. I don’t know if she was counting or just going by the colors, though I think it was a little of both.

Later this night… Eden fell asleep on the couch with me while I chatted with my sister, Jon fell asleep on our bed, and Lilah fell asleep on him.

I guess it was a long day for us all.

I was giving the girls a bath this morning. I must not do this often enough because they were asking, “Where are we going?”. My reply nowhere, which is only partially true.

They need a bath ’cause it’s that time of the week, they get baths twice a week unless something makes them unusually stinky. I just don’t see the need to bath my children every day when they’re little and don’t produce body odor and it can be a big chore. Just see it as one way I’m conserving water for our drought ridden valley. They also need a bath because we’re running errands tomorrow and we’ll be spending lots of money since it’s the start of a new month, which means a new budget, which means I can spend a lot.  Well, I won’t be spending that much, but  we will be going to a few places and it will add up.  (Picking up contacts, buying fabric, going to lunch with Anna, going to Costco, buying gas…maybe even Target.) I have a lot of errands I’ve needed to run but have been putting off because of a couple of reasons, the first being the budget, the second being they’re all in Henderson and until I can spend money I should wait to go run errands. I could have picked up my glasses and contacts, buy why do that and waste the gas when I need to buy fabric and food out there too?

Anyways, I get sidetracked easily, if this was a phone conversation you’d probably have tuned me out by now, or in this case maybe you’ve stopped reading, but this post is for two particular people so all that really matters is they read this.

Eden was waiting to get her hands washed and wondering why they took a bath and said she wanted to go see Carolyn. I said we weren’t going to see Carolyn today but we might tomorrow while we run errands and have lunch with Anna.

Eden replies: “Anna and Carolyn are my best friends.”

So there you go, Eden loves Anna and Carolyn  a lot, I’m not even a best friend, I’m just the mom. 😉

I also love it because they’re a couple of my best friends too.

Update:
Just now Eden was wanting to talk and play with Lilah, but Lilah did not want to play. Eden was next to our fridge and I’m making lunch. Eden says she doesn’t have a friend to talk to, so I say she can talk to me. She says she’ll just talk to herself. I really am just the mom.