Is It Naptime Yet

Today Jon is working from home. UNLV is hosting a Democratic debate and they asked that any staff who can work from home to do so.
It’s also a test run to see how it would work out if he was able to work from home. Something his manager is trying to do for him and her.
It would be Thursday. Lilah’s class day which means a guaranteed 2 hour time block of no kids and then the regular nap, which sometimes works out.
I’ll tell you the one thing that kills me is not having access to my computer when I want access and only having limited time.
I would love him home, though it would take getting use to. Not bothering Daddy can be pretty hard for our girls and even me.
Also how lazy would I feel if he was working and I didn’t want to do chores so I just sat on the couch or took my regular nap while he worked.
He said I should save the chores for Thursday so I can keep busy while he’s around and not need the computer as much.

It would be fun to have him work form home. Heck if it saves us just a little in gas money and gives us more time, theoretically, with him it makes it worth it.
But oh to have another person on my computer all day and infringing on my space, and not being able to lend a hand whenever I want. That’s a little tough.
I dream for the day where we have at least 4 bedrooms or an area for an office so he could be away from it all, but for now he’s the middle of everything while working.
I love him, but it’ll take some adjusting if he is able to work from home regularly on Thursdays.

My time is up. Lilah is lying on Daddy as he rest on the couch and Eden is yelling for candy.

We went on a date Friday night.
I love the ward we’re in. We have great people with great daughters who are willing to watch our girls for free and what parent doesn’t like free babysitting, unless the person is a total weirdo? (The Jewitt’s daughter, Shelby, is 14 and is the ‘technical’ babysitter when they have the girls, but my girls also love Hannah, who is 10, and is their playmate. I love the Jewitt’s. They are an awesome family, and not just because they give us free babysitting. 😉 )
Anyways, we traveled the 16 miles and saw the Elizabeth movie. I used a free pass and one we bought from Costco. The theater we went to charges $10.25 per person for a movie. Yeah, that’s why we’re picky and I buy discount tickets at Costco. ( It’s just hard to pay $20 for 2 hours of entertainment unless it’s really good.)
It was a good movie and we headed over to Coldstone afterwards for some yummy ice cream dessert since it’s only like 60 something degrees in the evenings still.
We got the girls to bed late, but we had a fun night.

Saturday we did various things round the house. I inside and Jon outside.
He found a lizard while cleaning outside and the girls had fun looking at it and touching it.

Our side-yard bug eater.

Don’t hurt the lizard.

Later that night we bit the bullet and cut Eden’s hair yet again.
She loves to play with her hair and lately she wakes with big honking knots in her hair. And she complains about me taking them out.
So Jon cut her hair and I helped towards the end.
It’s very short.
It gives me confidence that we can cut our boys hair, if we ever have one.

An example of the knot I face after she sleeps. I mean both nighttime and nap time I’ve had to deal with taking one of these out.

Her hair is pretty ruined at the tips where her knots have been.

The last picture with her having longer hair.

The first cut.

After…She might be destined for short hair throughout childhood.

Even though it’s so short it kinda fits her personality.
She’s still so cute but I’m gonna miss putting her hair in pigtails.

She didn’t enjoy the haircut. She was crying a little by the end when we were trying to make sure everything was okay. She has crooked bangs, but I think that’s standard on little kids.

We also visited Jon’s parents today after church and the girl’s naps. It’s been forever because someones been sick or we’ve had other engagements with my family.
We finally made it today. Jon also set up a machine that helps send information to Dad’s doctor from his pacemaker each night.
Dad was very slow getting around tonight and it was a slight reality check to see how bad he’s gotten, though it might also be that we just haven’t seen him for so long and have forgotten how slow he was before.

We also had a family from our old ward, as in the ward we were in for the first three years of marriage until we moved two years ago, move into our ward boundaries.
It’s ironic because Jon has a lot of respect for the father and he is probably the one person he didn’t want to know, or have to tell, about his change of heart. (His wife knows because we share a close mutual friend, so I’m sure he knows also.)
It’s still nice to have a family move into our ward because it seems like everyone is moving out.

So I received North and South today in the mail. I confused it with some civil war era movie with Patrick Swayze, it does have the same title and I’ve heard the 80’s one is good, or something, I’m not sure why I wanted to watch it.

Anyways after the girls had gone to bed I began watching the movie. I knew it was a mini series, it did have 2 disc and since we only get one movie from netflix at a time, I only get the first part, so Jon mentioned how I could watch it on-line but I was like whatever because I hadn’t started watching it and was not involved with Patrick Swayze. Good thing it was the BBC mini series and not the 80’s one.

I started it and since I loved it so much and did not want to wait to see how it ended and I started watching the second half on-line. ( I love that we have high speed internet now, dial-up so would not have worked.)

I just finished it and I loved this movie/ mini series.

It was just wonderful.

It was very much like Pride and Prejudice, but still great, in the mean guy and nice girl, both being too prideful then he professes love and she rejects him. You totally see it coming, but it was still so sweet and a great watch.

If you liked Pride and Prejudice you should totally see this movie or read the book. I’m sure it would be a great read too.

I loved North and South. I’m totally putting it on my wish list to buy. Sometimes four or five hour miniseries are the best.

Yeah it’s almost 2 in the morning and I want to go to my parents house to give Jon time to study tomorrow. I’m gonna be so tired.

P.S. Mr. Thornton is kinda cute in this passionate way, even though I would not normally be attracted to him and he reminds me of the guy from “The Office”, or Steve Carrell.
(There was an ad for a Steve Carrell movie and I thought “Wow, Mr. Thornton looks a little like him but cuter.”)

Let me just remind you it is 2 o’clock in the morning so I don’t always make sense.

 I gave the girls an early bath and put Lilah’s hair in curlers to start off our Halloween.
Then in the morning we carved our pumpkin.

  (I bought it for it’s cute stem and beautiful orange color, never mind it was lopsided and had a scar on it. )

 

Lilah enjoyed taking out the “guts” of the pumpkin.

Lilah sketched a face for  me to carve.

 

 Eden just scribbled so I carved an E for her.

 

I did my own pumpkin face also. ( I love Eden’s “smile” I think that’s what it’s suppose to be.)

Jon came home early, a very nice surprise,  so I left early to go to my parents house. I met my sister Kristi there with her kids and my sister Carolyn. (Jon was left with candy duty. I love to take the girls out trick out treating.)

We started trick or treating shortly after dark and the girls looked beautiful.

Glinda and Dorothy.

 

Dorothy

 

Glinda

We just went up and down my parents short block, then we stopped by “Grandma’s store”, aka JoAnn’s, to see my mom as she had to work last night.

We got to our neighborhood and went up and  down our little block. There was actually 8 houses including ours this year giving out candy opposed to the 5 or 6 from the previous 2 years.

Then we visited one of Eden’s nursery leaders, because they love her so much and I love to show the girls off. Then the Jewitt’s since they’re in the same neighborhood and the girls were more excited to go see the Jewitts than the nursery leader. (They love the Jewitt’s cats, toys and daughters who watch/play with them.)

Funny story: When we pulled up to the Jewitt’s, Sis. Jewitt, or Beth, was walking her oldest daughter and her boyfriend to the daughter’s car. As we walked up I said they couldn’t leave without seeing their cutest trick or treaters. So they said how cute the girls were and then Beth said to the other two that they needed to go into the house so the girls could knock and say trick or treat. So she ran the other two into the house with her.

After a short visit at the Jewitt’s we stopped by the store for milk and cereal. I heard a  a lot of how cutes. (Have I said how much I love to show my kids off, though we went to the store because we were completely out of milk and it’s on the way home from the Jewitt’s.)
We came home and had a little fun with the glow sticks Britta gave the girls.

 Then the girls had fun in their candy.

Mmmm, candy.

 MMMM, candy!

 

MMMMM, CANDY!!

They got to bed about 10 pm. Only an hour past their bedtime, though it’s been more like 9:30 lately anyways.

We had a great Halloween and Lilah has decided to be Dorothy, a mean witch, and Tinkerbell for Halloween next year.
Our pumkins with the candle. (I forgot to take any pictures before the girls went to bed so you get just the pumpkin.)

 

 Lilah’s pumpkin face.

The holes from my carving’s eyes give an interesting affect, in which Lilah actually had a circle within her larger circles, so this is more true to her drawing.

Now I know why you only carve one side of the pumpkin.

My carving illuminated.

Eden coughed and Lilah said “Say excuse me Eden.”
So Eden said:
“Excuse you!”

It’s Nevada Day observed. Nevada Day is the 31st, but a couple years a go they passed a law to make the last Friday of the month Nevada Day observed instead of giving us Nevada Day or Halloween off, totally bites. I loved having Halloween off as a kid. So Jon has today off and we’ve been busy.

Jon’s going through all his books. Yes we’re actually getting rid of some books! If you’ve never seen our house we have two six foot tall book cases, then four three foot tall book cases. All full. With books. Overflowing.
We have duplicate books, like two of each Teachings of the Presidents, and lots of doctrine gospel study manuals.
We have about 5 sets of Scriptures that we’re keeping. (our first sets, our seminary sets etc.)
Our books haven’t been organized since we moved here 2 years ago, so even though it’s not a immediate ‘wow, look I organized the books’, like ‘wow I cleaned the kitchen’, I’m still very happy it’s getting done. Especially the getting rid of some books. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.

I’ve also done slightly needless things today but it makes me feel good to get things done. Like I organized my sewing stuff so I could neatly pack it away. Though I still need to make drapes. 🙂
We’re also doing tons of laundry and two loads of dishes, and I’m planning on cleaning our bathrooms today.

I wish I could take a picture of the book chaos, but our camera broke. We do get to ship it free to Cannon and they’ll fix the sensor, but it won’t be fixed for about 2 weeks. So you only get this picture of the girls in their costumes from yesterdays party. It broke when I went to take a second one.

Lilah as Glinda the Good Witch and Eden as Dorothy.

Yes, I made both costumes. I did Lilah’s Monday and Tuesday, with hand sewing Wednesday. I hate costume satin. It frays like nothing. Despite difficult fabric I think Lilah’s dress turned out nice and shiny.

Anyways, if anyone has a digital camera I can borrow for Halloween, give me a holler, otherwise we’ll be recreating the event. 🙂

So I’m not much of a floor cleaning lady. In fact I wish I had all carpets, except the kitchen and dining room. But most of my house is fake hard flooring.
I hate mopping and I rarely do it because of how labor intensive I can make it..
It always takes me forever to mop and the floors stay wet far too long when you have little girls.
Not anymore.
I wanted to buy a swifer mop, but it was just too expensive. $30 at Target and no guarantee that I would “mop” my floors regularly. Plus it only comes with anti-bacterial stuff and we’re not for creating super bacterias or having such a spotless house that your immune system actually weakens because it’s not getting the needed germs to stay healthy.
Anyways, that’s why I keep my house dirty so my girls immune system is strengthen.

Go ahead eat off the floor it’ll make you healthy if it doesn’t make you sick.

OK I don’t really tell them to eat off the floor and I don’t keep my house too dirty, though to clean freaks it might be dirty.
If my girls do drop something on the floor I do let them eat it if it’s a dry food or if it can be washed off. If its’ wet and not washable I don’t let them eat it merely because I think it might have dirt or dust or strings now stuck to it if I haven’t swept within the last day.

Anyways. I bought a new mop earlier this month, just $10 at Target, I figured it was cheap enough that if I didn’t use it regularly it wouldn’t be has much of a loss as $30.
Well I used it this morning and I love it.
Unlike my old sponge mop I can wash the mop head. The first reason I bought the Libman mop.
When I used it this morning I was able to have my floors mopped and dried in ten minutes. Ten minutes instead of half an hour! Now I only did about half my floors, but it was the important ones. The dining and kitchen.
Since I can wring so much water out of it, unlike my sponge mop, the floors didn’t get too wet so they dried super fast, at least compared to my old mop.

Anyways the reasons I love fast drying floors are as follow:
Fast drying = less worry about the girls getting footprints on the floor = less getting upset at them for coming near the wet clean floor = I can mop when they’re awake and when I have the energy in the morning rather than waiting for nap time or nighttime when I don’t want to mop anymore.

I also like it because it doesn’t leave streaks on my floor since it uses less water. No streaks = nicer looking floors with less work.
I mostly like it for those three reasons. I like it. I think I might mop more often with this mop which I know Jon would appreciate and probably our visitors.

When Lilah was 2 1/2 she used the word probably. It was funny, because she used it often and in the correct manner and most 2 years old don’t use words like that very often.
Last night at dinner Eden started using the word probably, like three time in a row. It was too cute. (She is around the same age as Lilah was.)

Then Jon said how Lilah mimic something I said. I had used “like she really wants to be eaten” while Jon was playfully pretending to eat Lilah. Then later Lilah said something with “like” in the sentence and it reminded Jon of me.
At least she wasn’t being the mommy. I have to remind both girls they’re not the mommy.

Another fun thing. The girls were being babysat while I was at the temple and Lilah started telling them about gravity. “Gravity holds us to the earth otherwise we’d be floating around and it would be silly.” My summary of what the family told me an what I sometimes hear from Lilah myself.
Kids are funny. I like mine.

Friday was a wonderful day. The girls played all day with very little fighting. It was dreamy.

We called Andrea that night and the girls sang happy birthday to her. Her birthday was Monday but I kept remembering  when one girl was asleep or it was in the day while she was at work or her phone line was busy. I found out that she was pretty far dilated, to a 4,  and the doctor thought she might have the baby this weekend. I told her I was at a 5-6 with both girls and had to be induced for both, so I think it’s normal in our family to get far along all on our own. Brien got woozy at the thought of having a baby this weekend and Andrea had to drive home from the appointment. I thought that was funny. I wonder how he’ll be the day of the delivery.

Eden’s costume is mostly done. I just have to put the zipper, collar and the buttons on.
I have to teach Lilah’s preschool type class the next two Thursdays and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. We are having a costume parade the second week so I have two weeks to do Lilah’s costume. I will be working with the costume satin and chiffon and I am totally nervous. Both are soo slippery and the time I’ll spend hunch over my machine is going to make my back ache again.

We had fish an butternut squash tonight, yum.
Lilah’s first primary presentation will be next Sunday. (She’s getting too big!)
I went to her practice yesterday and they had me sit on the stand because they were short like all their teachers but the one who showed up, luckily it was Lilah’s teacher, but I think I hindered Lilah. Lilah puts on a needy persona when I’m around her in new situations, or she acts tired. It totally bugs me, and she was needy and tired while I was on the stand.
When I sat on the congregation’s benches the second time through she did much better, though she did pretend to be tired through one song.
It totally bugs me because I don’t know how to discourage her behavior without wanting to just get upset at her.
I try to be patient but it runs out fast when I know she’s really just fine. Like she was totally fine until I was on the stand to help, and sitting behind her with Eden didn’t help.
I think I would decline a calling in  Primary just because Lilah gets needy around me.
Anyways. Life is pretty normal.

Have a baby Andrea!

Today we went on a field trip to a local fire station.
The girls had tons of fun and Lilah had her ears plugged most of the time, in which Eden also decided she should plug her ears. It’s becoming my children’s signature.

Plug your ears, everything is loud.
So here goes.

Most of the group.

Jon said at least she puts her fingers in her ears and not her nose and Eden just does what Lilah does.

Our tour guide fire fighter put on his gear for us.

He crawled towards the kids, telling them this is what they would see if they were ever trapped and a fire man needed to get them out.
Most were not hot on the idea of seeing him crawl towards them in his gear.

They turned the trucks lights on.

They showed the kids some of the tools they use .

Sitting in the fire engine.

We went through the whole station.

The tv room was a hit. The kids were fascinated with all the recliners.

The other fire truck came back so went to look at the hoses.

The fireman asked if I wanted to try on the gear, but I’m not too hot on putting on sweaty things. I also didn’t have socks and would have had to put my bare feet in the boots.
One mom had long pants and socks so she was volunteered by her SIL.

Our group.

Are we done taking pictures yet?

The kids had tons of fun and when we came home Lilah played a fire fighter game on the computer.

It was lots of fun and the fire fighters were very nice and spent lots of time with us.

Fun fact: Eden says fighter fighter instead of fire fighter. It’s just cute.