Is It Naptime Yet

Note: I started writing this a week ago but didn’t want to start over, so I just added updates.

We’ve been up to a lot of different things here in the Blake house. Mostly we’ve been spending lots of time as a family hiking and enjoying Science Saturday at the Museum. We’ve also had a a park day with Carolyn and her husband, where they invited us to spend time with them on a rare day which both of them had off. I totally felt special that they invited us to come over since their day offs are never the same.

We’ve also been up to our elbows in cookies. Lilah did very well on her pre-orders and since I’m also able sell extras we’ve had 488 boxes of cookies in our house, though 72 are not spoken for just yet, I’m hoping to sell them as we travel to two more offices and if anyone needs more than what they bought. Update: We’ve sold 478 boxes of cookies. I only have ten not spoken for.

We’ve also had auditions for Cinderella. I’m super excited for the play this year. Unlike last year I was not nervous for the singing audition.

Until I stood on stage and the pianist starting playing.

Then the words almost left me and as I sung a sharp note and for the life of me I could not correct it. I just sang and hoped that whatever came out didn’t sound too bad.

The dance portion was the next day, and so was the children’s auditions. I was helping to teach the older kids dance, and as I had 15 or so pre-teens watching me I could not start on the right foot, and I got flustered and then went to teach the young kids, which included my two girls. We were trying to avoid me teaching the young ones since I had children in that group, but also because I worried that Eden actually would act shy. She didn’t act shy, and they both did really well. The song we used was short and fun. Update: I’m “third girl”, though I’m not sure what that means, and the girls are a part of the children’s ensemble, so no specific role, but I’m just happy we’re all in it.

This past week:
I’ve been delivering cookies everyday with Lilah and not working out and eating more than I should, so I’m sure I’ve gained whatever weight I’ve lost. Cookies are bad, very bad, but they taste so good.

Lilah did incredibly well on her sales. She sold about 400 with pre-orders and I ordered around 80 extra boxes to sell as we went to different delivery spots. At the beginning of the week we only sold a small amount of the extra boxes and it looked like I might have 70 extra boxes to return. On Friday we delivered to Jon’s co-workers, just two had ordered, and we brought all the extra boxes. We borrowed a red wagon from my friend Sam with a nice squeaky wheel, which was not squeaky the day before as we went around the block. Just on the way to Jon’s office, which wasn’t that far, four people stopped us, and we sold 10 boxes. Then we made a killing at Jon’s current office, and his old office, and lastly a building I worked at long ago as a student worker. Lilah loved how much people just wanted to buy girl scout cookies, and I loved that we had succeeded in selling nearly all of our extra boxes. I have learned to have tons of Caramel deLites if we ever go on campus again. We have just 10 boxes left, and I think that is a success.

Jon and I also celebrated our eighth anniversary this week. Eighth. We did a one night get-a-way at a local hotel and my sister Carolyn and her husband Derek watched the girls. We stayed at the Silverton, near Carolyn, and it also has a Bass Pro Shop, so we went shopping and saw why my Dad loves this store so much. Jon bought himself a nice hiking hat and compass and I got a cute baseball cap to wear…sometime…I’m not sure when other than hiking. We had enjoyed dinner earlier and had a wonderful time away from the worries of normal life and parenting.

So that’s our past few weeks of life in a nutshell.

….ring, ring, ring, you weren’t home.

So I have a song in my head, and it’s for kids and not something I can easily find, so you’ll just have to go with my craziness, but this post is about calling someone, only they were home.

So, auditions for Cinderella are less than a month away. I’m a little nervous, but mostly I’m OK. I think.

I’ve decided to sing George Gershwin’s Someone to Watch Over Me. This is a song I love, plus it was our wedding song when I married Jon nearly 8 years ago. I sung Lullaby of Broadway last year, and wanted a change.

So I have the sheet music, but nothing to sing and rehearse to, except what’s in my head and what I can get on-line, and even though I would love to have Ella Fitzgerald accompany me as I sing my solo, I think I need to be able to sing the song alone since most people would rather just listen to Ella than me, but the point is to listen to me.

So I needed to find something to practise to.

The problem: there is only cheesy karaoke music on-line, and it’s just not something I can work with. So I thought I’d call up a woman in my ward who is very accomplished and ask if she would practise it a couple times and then allow me to record her playing it for me so I could rehearse to it.

I get my ward roster out and call her up. I get the “Do do do…I’m sorry but this number is no longer in service” lady and thought crap, how can I get her number. Then I thought, well she did call me about giving us books at the beginning of January, maybe I can recognize her number if I look through my caller id.

So I start flipping through my caller id. I knew her number was just the number, the problem was there were several numbers that were just the number, and I had no idea who they belonged to. I tried to use logic and deduce what number might be hers.

I choose and number and I called it.

It rang and rang.

Then a gentleman picks up.

“Hi Lacey.”

Oh crap! He knows my name and I realize I do not know who I’m calling. My mind races with what man might know who I am and I decide maybe I called Paul, a gentleman I bought some fabric from.

I tentatively say, “Hi, is this Paul?”

“No, this is Kevin.”

The light bulb goes on. Kevin is my friend Anna’s husband and the director for Cinderella and had called me a couple times.

“Oh, Kevin. I’m sorry I was trying to call a friend and only knew I had her number in my caller ID, but didn’t know which number. I’m sorry.”

I think he laughs and then says that’s alright and we have a short conversation about an e-mail he had recently sent. Before he hangs up he says, “I hope you find Paul.”

I didn’t need to find Paul, so I felt stupid for calling a number not knowing who would pick up, and I still needed to call the sister to see if she would play the song for me.

I think and remember I had a ward bulletin from Sunday and it had a list of all the important people on it, and she was important. I found it and called her. She said she would play the song for me. Yay!

I tell my friend Sam my silly story and she says I should have called her, she has to call this sister quite frequently for church related things.

Darn… I should have thought of that.

Also, I’ve realized my phone only stores 40 numbers, and her number wasn’t even on there.

I called you on the telephone. Ring, ring, ring, you were home.

So, I just want to note that I love the Wii fit.

I am a bit obsessive checking my weight and Wii age every day, but it’s fun. I’ve been as old as 44 and as young as 20. I sometimes gain a little than the day before, but mostly I’m losing little by little. I think seeing that I’m continuing to lose, even if it’s just .2 of a pound, it’s fun and it keeps me motivated. They also have some really fun games and a way for me to do step while I watch TV, which is what I’m doing tonight. I have a show to watch but I haven’t put in my 20 minutes of walking/ bike riding on the Wii, so I’ll be stepping to the beat and hopefully it doesn’t get too annoying hearing it tick away to keep me in rhythm.

Forgive the length of the post, this is my detailed version of Christmas and pictures should be up soon.

Jonathan took two weeks off this year, so we had not only the week between Christmas and the New Year off, but the week before Christmas off. For his first day of vacation, or Monday the 21st, We spent part of the day at Valley of Fire. He wanted to visit the book section at the Moapa Tribal place, or where you buy fireworks, and figured we could go on some hikes out there too. We hiked to Mouses Tank and saw Atlatl rock. We also stopped by the Visitors Center and bought a few things. We showed the girls these cheese dusted larva and salt and vinegar crickets and Lilah now wants to have chocolate covered crickets. I’m sure if she ever has any it will not be because of me.  We came home in time to relax a little and get ready to go feed the homeless with Carolyn’s work that night.

Tuesday the girls and I had a party with some of the mom’s and kids from the old mommy group and with a few new ones. The girls had tons of fun decorating gingerbread men and seeing old friends that are now in a different ward due to the split two years ago. Then that afternoon we went to Carolyn’s work party and they were able to see Santa. Lilah told him she wanted this cuddle cat and Eden told him she wanted dress-up.

Wednesday, I’m not sure what we did this day. It seems to me that we saw people, but my tired mind is not letting me remember anything. I think we went shopping this day. We had the girls go pick out gifts for each other and I had Jon help the girls pick out pajamas for me. He was mostly there to help them pick the right size, I think they may have wanted to buy me an XXL, but the pajamas I received were all them.

Thursday, Christmas Eve, Lilah and I went to Jon’s parents house to help decorate their tree. Eden had a slight fever the night before and got sick on the morning of the 24th. Luckily, it didn’t last and her stomach was feeling better by that evening when we went to my parents for Christmas Eve. Andrea, Brien, and Zarina we were in town so we were thrilled to see them. This was also the night to see Derek, Carolyn’s husband, because he works late he could only visit one family a night for the holidays. The girls got to open two gifts because they had to open their pajamas, but they also had to open the present Carolyn and Derek bought them since Derek would not be there the next night.

Christmas Day the girls got up earlier than normal, around 7:30 am, and we had them wait behind a curtain we had put up the night before. This tradition came from Jon’s family. His mother told us they started putting the curtain up to divide the dinning room from the living room, when they lived in a one room apartment in LA and the children’s sleeping area was in the dinning room. Incidentally it carried over that they put a curtain in a doorway to separate the children from whatever room the tree was in and they had to wait for their parents to let them go past.

We enjoyed a wonderful morning opening presents and eating yummy cinnamon rolls. Since we purchased the Wii and Wii Fit board, the girls got just a few small things. Piggy banks they got to decorate, UNO, Bob Books, dresses, a gift from Santa, and what they got each other. Jon surprised me with Batman The Dark Knight, which was a surprise because we had agreed not to get it, so I told Andrea to get it for us since they had our family this year.  We then visited Jon’s parents and family for lunch and later we headed over to my parents house for dinner with the family.

I don’t remember what we did Friday, probably played the Wii a lot, but on Saturday we saw The Princess and the Frog with Andrea, Brien, Zarina, and Carolyn. We had tried to go all week long, but car repairs, sick children and actual holidays got in the way so Saturday we finally were able to see it together. I think all the children and adults thoroughly enjoyed it and we will definitely be purchasing it once on DVD.

Well I’ve figured out how to use GIMP, or the image editor in Linux. I can’t make videos, but I can actually edit and post pictures finally! I might be playing catch-up over the next little while as I find time avoiding dishes, which is what I’m doing right now.

Here’s the link to my written overview of Halloween and here are just a few photos of the fun we had. I’m really disappointed because I did not get a  picture of Lilah’s side of the pumpkin. I really loved how it turned out, but in the craziness of getting out the door I must have forgotten. 🙁

Eating doughnuts off a string at Carolyn’s work party.

~

Gutting the pumpkin.

~

Lilah loved the feel of the goo.

~

The girls in their costumes (Glinda and a fairy) and Eden’s side of the pumpkin.

~

With their cousin Zarina, the cutest ghost ever. ( Mine were going for scary last year.)

Christmas is almost here….Are you ready?

I’m mostly ready. I just have gifts to wrap, in which I’m not completely happy with what I got Lilah, but I think she’ll still enjoy it. I’m very excited for this Christmas.

I love Christmas music and so do my girls. They’ll replay whatever CD is in the player, which is Faith Hill, and then they sing to it and create “plays” to each song. It’s a good thing I really like the Faith Hill CD, or I think I would have gone crazy. They always hit play when my hands were messy with truffle making.

Speaking of truffles,  I mostly sold large bags of popcorn for $5 a bag, but I did sell some truffles, though my mom put in the largest order and I will say I’m giving her a large discount because if I wasn’t selling them and she had asked me to make them, I would have done it for free.  I’m happy I was able to make a nice dent and repay some of the money I’ve spent for Sew Lacey. I have a lot of material and after the Holidays I hope to get some motivation back and begin sewing some more. I made a really cute nursing cover and matching burp clothes for a friend recently and am thinking of adding that to my list of items.

I’m so happy for Christmas and can hardly wait for the new year!

Also, the committee met and interviewed a friend’s husband for the play next year and loved him. I’m so excited to work with him and hopefully be in the play.  Once it’s official, as in the board meets and approves him and the play, I’ll give more information. For now I just can’t wait till 2010.

Sorry this post was so scattered. I just wanted to jot down some thoughts while the truffle center warmed up so I could make them. I had it in the fridge too long and now it’s too hard to shape.

A few years ago I decided to surprise Jon with an afternoon date at the end of a pretty hard semester. Since then we’ve made it a tradition to go for our monthly date as a lunch date at the end of the Fall Semester. We also go to a yummy Mexican restaurant that I can only pronounce the first name, Lindo’s, and almost anyone I talk to knows exactly what I’m talking about and can pronounce the last part, Michogcachanigans. OK that last part I made up, but it’s something that starts with a M. It’s near my old stompin grounds and even as I  felt so close to home when I was driving Jon back to work I was so far from our current home.

My good friend Beth watched the girls for me and Jon and I were able to enjoy a nice lunch together. We haven’t been on a date since… well I don’t know when, but that’s because this semester was pretty hectic for the both of us, and it seemed that watching a movie together counted as our dates because that’s all we could afford both time and money wise.

I’ve realized I’m a very set in my ways person and I love traditions, or doing the same thing over and over again. I know Jon likes to try new things, but I’m thankful that he lets me enjoy my rituals and set in my way, ways.

I love you Hunny Bunny and here’s to a couple more end of the semester lunches.

So I’m a slacker mom. I blame it on a few things. First Linux, second Facebook, third trying to earn money by sewing, and fourth my procrastinating self.

I’m just a lame blogger lately, but I will record Halloween this year, finally, like three weeks later. Pictures to come once I reboot into Windows or figure out Linux.

Our Halloween this year was pretty low key. We had only one party to go to, though there were a couple others we could have gone to, and the girls used costumes that had been previously made, so I had no sewing whatsoever to do. Since I had no sewing to do I took on a job for a friend and made this cape for her business. I know, impressive, especially since I had to draft a pattern for the hood. It was a pain and but it gave me some money to put into my Sew Lacey account.

Our only Halloween party was for my sister’s work. We go ever year, or at least the past three years, and have a ball. Lilah was a fairy and Eden was Glinda, she decided not to be Jasmine, and I know this post isn’t nearly as cute without pictures. So I’ll try hard to get some up before the end of this week, maybe month…OK year. (I do have to order the Costco calendars and our holiday cards and I have all the pictures in Windows, so I may get them up within the month.)

The girls had a blast at the work party. I think it was because they were able to eat a doughnut before they ate their super healthy dinner consisting of a hot dog and bun, with ketchup. Luckily Lilah had gone bobbing for apples, so she had that wonderful germ covered apple to eat with her hot dog dinner. Eden later also bobbed for apples and ate half of her apple two, even more willingly than she ate the hot dog.

The girls also participated in the cake walk. Eden won after four or so dances, then when they wanted to end it Lilah simply won by being on a number! She was still really happy, though I’m sure it’s because she was able to eat a cupcake and a doughnut all in the same night.

After the trick or treating we headed home and the girls had fun sorting their stash of candy.

Saturday, on Halloween Day, we carved our pumpkin. I had the girls draw pictures, then I transferred them onto the pumpkin. I had to modify Eden’s a little because I don’t know how to carve a pupil in the middle of the pumpkin’s eyes or illustrate pink cheeks on an orange pumpkin, but I think they were both pretty pleased once all was done. After carving we got ready and visited the Blake’s so they could see the girls in their costumes.

Once dark we headed out on our street and hit up the four houses on our block. Then we visited my friend Beth and then onto the parents to trick or treat with Zarina! The girls were so happy to go with her, and she was adorable, even if she stole a little of my girls thunder since she was so. dang. cute. Right after we headed out Howard showed up with his three and we all trick or treated together. (Jon stayed home and handed out candy. He ran out a little early, at 8, and said next year we need to buy 12 bags, because the 7 I bought this year was not enough and we want those who trick or treat in our candy barren neighborhood to get some good candy, or at least two pieces from us.)

There was a street that goes all out in my parents neighborhood so we decided to go visit it. We took a wrong turn to visit a cool house, but we were able to see a fire truck and the firemen handled out candy to the kids. Eden by this time had decided to stop trick or treating, but I had her go get candy from the firemen anyways.

After being pointed in the right direction, or the direction I thought we needed to go, we saw hoards of people on the street where the decked out cul-de-sac was. I was also spotted by a high school friend, and we later figured out her mother happens to visit teach my mom. Small world since we both lived in a different area of town when we went to school.

On the crazy Halloween street there was a haunted house, but we opted to just walk the street and visit the houses handing out candy. They had barricaded it off so no cars were driving down it, and there were plenty of spooky costumes and houses. Lilah liked one where it looked like a head was on a table, but it was really a guy who was alive and just coming out of the table, or had his body under the table. (I’m trying to describe it like she did.)

After the major street Brien still had a lot of energy and he and Andrea finished trick or treating with Zarina and the older cousins, Howie, Kaitlyn, and Lilah and I took Adrienne and Eden home. As we passed one house some candy givers asked if we had been there, but I declined and said  we were headed home ’cause they were tired. I figure Eden wasn’t going to take it anyways and Adrienne was to little to care, and I wanted to just get home.

The kids went through the candy and I let the girls choose two things they wanted to eat. (They had already enjoyed candy throughout the day a little.) Before Eden had a chance to eat her Milk Duds she had to go to the bathroom. We used the upstairs one and I ended up staying upstairs to talk to Andrea. Around fifteen minutes later Eden comes up and asks if she can eat her Milk Duds. Since I wasn’t there to ask, she had patiently waited even though the other kids were enjoying their candies.

That night I decided that my kids are going to be highly successful because they can delay gratification. (There was a famous marshmallow study on delayed gratification and it predicting which kids would be more successful in life in the 1960’s.) Both Lilah and Eden are really good at delaying gratification, though not always. Like this week when we let them choose seven pieces of candy and we tossed the rest, and told them they could eat them whenever they wanted or just one a day to have them last, but they wouldn’t get any special treats again till at least neat Wednesday, or a week later. Both have only one or two pieces left and once I had to tell them they could not eat candy before breakfast, even if they were told they could have it whenever they wanted.

So that in a long nutshell was our Halloween. Candy, cousins, family fun and the possibility of highly successful adults, unless you give them no boundaries, which makes sense to me. They’re not getting more candy after seven days, they just can’t have other sweets until seven days, which may or may not happen anyways since I’d have to buy something sweet or make something sweet.

Now I’m slightly more prepared for Thanksgiving, but only because I don’t have to make anything except rolls.

Yesterday I was busy from the moment I woke up till the moment I crashed on the couch. Well really just till we got home, but I was so tired I crashed on the couch at like 10:30 pm and Jon stayed up late watching a movie. Total role reversal.

My day went as following:

7:20- Get up and shower for hair appointment.
8:35- Show up at hair appointment.
10:00- Get home from hair appointment (My hair dresser is pretty far from me.)
10:15- Get girls into bath.
10:35-Get girls out of bath and ready for Science Saturday.
11:05- Show up in time for Critter Time. The girls got to pet some cool lizards, snakes, a lizard with no feet, Lilah petted the tarantula, Eden and Mommy passed, a hedgehog and a Chinchilla.
11:35- Science Saturday finally starts, 20 minutes late but it was short.
12:00- Get home, fix girls lunch and get ready for family pictures.
1:50- Show up ten minutes late for family pictures and have to wait.
2:15- Take family pictures and have extra hot hair since I had my hair cut and styled that morning. The girl was nice and we have some cute poses, but the girls were not responding and smiling as well as they have.
3:15ish– Leave and head to the Springs Preserve to get a 15% discount on the family pass, which in the end they just lowered the price and charged us the same as with the discount. I wanted to argue, but didn’t have the heart since we thought we’d be paying the price we paid anyways.
3:45ish to 5:45- Hang out at The Springs Preserve.
6:00- Convince Jon to have Subway for dinner. Go with the intent to just spend $10 on two $5 foot longs but spend $20 because he saw a drink he wanted to try, so we all got drinks. The nice clerk let us know that the cost of the combo was the same as just buying a drink with the sandwich so we actually bought 2 $5 foot long combos and two drinks.
7:10ish- Do a jellybean experiment where for eat color there were two flavors. Once being a gross flavor and the other being a normal flavor. ( It was what they did last week in Science Saturday and Monica gave us some beans to try at home since she likes our girls. It’s a take on Harry Potter and the jelly beans that have different flavors and you never know what you’re going to get.) Yeah, some were really gross and most of the jelly beans we had were the nasty flavor. I’d post pictures or part of the video, but I’m in Linux and have yet learned what to do.
9:00- Get the girls into bed.
10:30 Fall asleep  on the couch.

It was a fun filled day.

So lately my punctuation has been lacking. Not so much in my blog, though I do wonder how often I should use comma’s for my wonderful run on sentences.

I’ve not been capitalizing or adding periods when I chat or write on some one’s wall in Facebook, unless I notice it and go back to correct it.

I think  when I chat I am wanting to maximize my speed, so hitting the shift key while I type or punctuating seems to take too much time away from my rapid fire brain. I think it’s also that I still type incorrectly and am to busy trying to go back and correct what I’ve mistyped and there are many a times I still mistype, just ask Hunny Bunny. a.k.a. Jon.
(Lilah loves that his nickname is Hunny Bunny and while we chat she is known to come read his nickname and them cover her mouth and giggle as she says. “Hunny Bunny, that’s so cute.” It use to be Sexy Husband and for the previous reason of Lilah reading I changed it.)

I also am a terrible speller so besides having to correct what I mistype due to wrong key strokes I have to go back and do a spell check, which is easy since it’s automatically installed in Firefox.

I think I’m mostly lazy, buy I’m only lazy at choice times. Right now I have no problem with capital letters, but five minutes ago I was forgetting to capitalize or use periods as I chatted late night with a friend, and it wasn’t because I’m tired and hungry, though I am both.

I just have mental laziness in certain web programs.

With Facebook I think it’s when I write what I’m thinking I’m doing it in third person and they begin the sentence for me. Such as: Lacey J is tired and hungry. I only have to add the “is tired and hungry.” part so I don’t need to capitalize but then I find it running over into wall posts or comments.

Is there such a thing as unconscious- choice- lazy- punctuation?

And did you know Lacey is misspelled according to Firefox so I have to ignore the red dots below my name any time I type it, which isn’t often since Facebook does the hard work of writing it for me.