Is It Naptime Yet

To ease the transition of going to a new ward I set up a meeting with Lilah’s teacher.
It was suppose to have been Thursday night, but she got busy at work and we rescheduled for Saturday. I baked cookies with the girls for us to bring, so Lilah would have a reason to go and feel excited. It somewhat worked.
She’s a single  sister who is just a few years younger than me. We talked for a long time but it was mostly her mom and I who did the talking. Lilah complained that we talked for too long. She did enjoy her cats and told Jon how many pets she had. ( “Two cats and a dog which makes three pets.” Lilah’s learning simple addition, kinda, she knows 2 +1= 3.  Though they must have talked about the pets at church because Lilah informed us today that she has three cats, but one doesn’t like people.)

So today we got up and went to church. They had the new people stand for a brief moment in sacrament. That was fun, Jon stayed seated with Lilah.
We took Lilah to Primary and she was definitely uncomfortable. She teared up a little and I desperately wanted to stay, but I knew that I would cry if she continued to cry and that she would just continue to cry rather then just get over it. I’m not sure if it’s the best way to go about it, but I figure the sooner she gains her independence the better.
Her teacher said she did really well and one of the leaders said she sang all the songs. Lilah is getting use to the idea of change and mentioned that she was there to help Britta.
I’m hoping next week is better for her.

Eden had no problem with going into the new nursery. Even though there were a couple crying kids when we got there she just went in and looked for something to play with. I would have left but there were some twins that were crying and the two nursery leaders looked like they needed help. Since I sat behind them in sacrament one twin wanted cuddles from me and the other still cried but allowed me to hold her. I worried about being able to go to Relief Society, but the parents came in and got them after Sunday school. The mom said she had some problem and could never stay for the whole block. I felt for the girls because they were just starting to play and get use to nursery and then they had to leave.
On an up note Jon said the older woman in nursery said Eden was delightful when he picked her up.

So I went to Relief Society. I sat behind another sister from the old ward and settled in.
For whatever reason I got sad during the opening song and cried a little. I was able to pull myself mostly together while they had every sister introduce themselves and give one or two facts.
Mine was: I’m a crybaby (since I started to well up right as I stood up.) and I received my degree in Psychology about a year ago and I just use to it mess with my children’s heads  since I stay home with my 4 and 2 year old.
The women got a chuckle and one woman said she also had a degree in Psychology and liked my use, or reason for it.

The rest of the class went fine.
We have a ward party this Saturday and I’m debating whether to go or not. It will somewhat depend on how I feel and if I feel like cooking more food than normal since it’s a potluck.
We also have family home evening this Sunday so that makes two potlucks in a row.

So I find it odd that not to long ago I had an Abba song in my head and then I’m invited to see the Broadway show that features their songs, Mama Mia. (It was on Broadway, but brought to Vegas with some actors that came from Broadway.)
It was a fun show. Very different than the Phantom, which I think set a very high bar.
Most of the songs I recognized because Jon brought many Cd’s with him into our marriage and one of them was Abba’s greatest hits.

I had fun hanging out with Carolyn, who got the tickets via Derek who works at Mandalay Bay where the show is playing.

I think they incorporated the songs very well and that it was a pretty good show overall.
I think the hardest part was knowing who was talking, since we were far back, in which I’m not complaining because it was a free show, but you get the hang of who’s voice goes with who even though you don’t see them talking very easily.

I got home late, it was Tuesday night that we went, and Jon has decided he needs to get some him time in, somewhere in between my time, his time with the girls and our dates.
I dunno, isn’t work him time? At least it’s with adults.
😉

We have some nick names in our house.
Lilah is Lilah Bean
Eden is Eden Beeden or Miss Eden  
I call Jon Hunny Bunny.
But I don’t have a nick name. Well I use to not have a nickname…

Our conversation earlier today

Lilah: Why do you call Daddy Hunny Bunny?
Me: Well, Hunny Bunny is a nick name for Daddy.
Lilah: What’s a nick name?
Me: Well a nick name is kinda a fun name. You’re name is Lilah but we call you Lilah Bean. Daddy’s name is Jonathan but I call him Hunny Bunny. What do you think Eden’s nick name is?
Lilah: Eden Beeden. What’s you’re nickname Mommy?
Me: I don’t really have a nickname.
Lilah: Your nickname should be Mommy Bean.

Pass the Beano, apparently we’re a gassy family.

So Yesterday Jon told me about this site that he had heard about somewhere else.
It’s a site where you choose the correct definition of the given word and then it donates 20 grains of rice for world hunger for each correct answer. It does it through the sponsors which you ignore at the bottom of each page.
I got hooked.
I donated 2,300 grains of rice yesterday.
I won’t say how many I got wrong though.
It’s kinda fun to see what words you’re able to guess the meaning to and then what words you get wrong because you chose your second guess rather then going with your gut. (It happened to me almost every time I got one wrong. I think it’s between these two words and I’d go with one but it was the other word I was looking at!)

Granted there are 7,200 grains of rice to a cup. (I’m not sure if it’s cooked or uncooked.)

As an adult it’s probably easier to just donate money, but as a teenager this could be a good way to help or as a bored adult wanting to improve your vocabulary skills.

I still thought it was fun.
Go donate rice.
www.freerice.com

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.

Wednesday was Jon’s final. As a surprise I made his lunch with just a few snacks and a note explaining that I’d be there at 11 o’clock to take him to lunch and celebrate the end of a hard semester.

Event’s that happened before Wednesday:
I had to get his managers e-mail and see if I could steal Jon for lunch, but she had two to her name, so I had to ask specifically for it and tell Jon that I just wanted it for no reason.
I also avoided setting a date for our monthly date. I kept telling him to wait until after the finals since we were already busy this weekend.
It was fun. It was also hard to keep myself from telling him that the Justice’s would be watching the girls on Wednesday and it was hard to not tell the girls. (This was the first time they’d be watched by Sis. Justice, one of Eden’s nursery leaders, and I know Lilah would have spilled the beans at some point if I told her before Wednesday.)
So I did just a little bit of scheming for our lunch date.

Well, I got Jon and we decided that we’d head to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. He had been there for a couple of working lunches, and we don’t usually go to that end of town to eat, so lunch seemed perfect to have me try the restaurant since Jon had liked it so much.

The problem.
Jon wasn’t sure what street the restaurant was on. He’d never driven there and was usually in the back seat when driven there. (I will also say that he’s not bad with remembering where places are, he’s just not very good.)
So we drove down Flamingo thinking it was there. But it wasn’t.
Then I was positive that he had told me about it and it was on Tropicana near Pecos. He was thinking DI, but since I was so sure we tried Trop.
Uh, no luck.
So we drove to DI and right before he pulled into the restaurant I immediately recognized it because it was in a neighborhood that I grew-up near and across the street from the Sav-on my brother had worked at. Also my sister rear-ended a women in front of this restaurant because she was looking in her rear view mirror making sure her friend was still following her to wherever they were going and the car ahead of her made a sudden stop because of another reckless car.
So I knew about this restaurant, but had never been.
It only took us 25 minutes to find it.

We ate a wonderful lunch. In fact neither of us ate dinner that night because we were still full.
Their lunch menu is basically in short Spanish titles so Jon was my translator and he found the English description in the regular dinner menu. I ate the good chicken or something.
It was good and not spicy, which I was very thankful for.

We enjoyed our meal and I returned Jon to work and picked the girls up.
( Luckily Jon is salary not hourly, so it wasn’t a big deal that we took an hour and forty minute lunch. They also like him since they just received truffles the day before. 🙂 )
Sis. Justice loved watching the girls and she was amazed at how well they got along with each other.
I mentioned that they don’t fight when with sitters usually and Lilah, from observing my comment, mentioned on the way home how she likes to be good at people’s house because she doesn’t like being in trouble or going to time-out.
I told her it helps mommy when her and Eden get along and don’t fight because then people like to watch them because they’re so nice.
(Lately she’s been showing pride for the days she doesn’t have to go to time-out and becoming more aware of moods. Today she asked me why I yell at her sometimes. In which I don’t yell, but I use a loud, yet stern, voice. )

It was a wonderful afternoon and I was just so happy to surprise Jon.
(Well kinda surprise him. He got the note at 10 o’clock when he went to eat his morning snack.)

I’m happy the semester is over and I think Jon will beable to apply for the Master’s program come January. We just had a couple hurdles and I think he can now move forward. I hope, though it’s all up to him.

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.”

My niece Shauntae tagged me and I’m procrastinating my lesson.

1. Five Jobs I’ve Had:
– Busser at a restaurant
– File clerk at an insurance office
– File clerk at a law office
– Student worker
– Care giver for Naia

2. Five Vehicles I’ve Owned (or driven as my own):
-’81 Honda Prelude
-‘?? Nissan Altima– I drove it while Andrea was in France and after I blew up my prelude.
-’94 Subaru Impreza
-’04 Toyota Camry
-that’s it

3. Five Places I’ve Volunteered:
– Church
-  I volunteer to give blood often- does that count?
-  Um, I guess I need to work on volunteering
–
–

4. Five Musical Artists I love:
– The Dixie Chicks
– Brad Paisley
– The Beatles
– Faith Hill
– Journey

5. Five Things I want to see happen in the next Five Years:
– Jon graduate with a Masters…
– … then a big raise…
– … so we can buy a bigger house.
– Me succeed at homeschooling the girls, or at least them progressing academically.
– Me pregnant with another baby, maybe twice within the next five years if we get a bigger house.

If you read this, you’re tagged: Andrea, Elizabeth, Sarah, Molly and Jon (haha, he won’t do it but maybe now he will since I said he won’t.)