Is It Naptime Yet

Saturday our ward did an Easter egg hunt.

Lilah had been dying to go since we’ve heard about it and was so excited.

They had the kids 2 and under go first, but their eggs were just tossed on the floor in the middle of a room. They did turn off the lights so they had to use the flashlights. Eden enjoyed it, but I kept thinking she was three, and not still two.

Then they had the 3-7 or so age go out into the building. Lilah actually was just hitting up the eggs that were left from the little kids in the middle of the floor, but I convinced her to go into the hall way. They each had a maximum number of eggs and I had to keep taking eggs out of Eden’s basket as she found more than her share during Lilah’s egg hunt.

They had ostrich eggs, that had been drained, hidden around the building and Britta’s dad found her one. At the end those who found the ostrich eggs got to choose a prize.

Their was also a pinata, but that was for the older kids to hit that may not have found a lot of eggs.

Waiting for the fun to begin.

Britta, Lilah, and Eden. Lilah totally reminds me of her cousin Katy because that is totally a stance and smile Katy gives.

Eden.

Showing off their baskets.

It was a crazy, but fun, night. I have too much Easter candy already, and we have one more egg hunt to go. I think I’ll reuse the candy.

The eggs we hide will probably contain some raisins and coins, like last years. The girls love raisins and coins.

When does the candy stop? I don’t have to ever buy candy because it seems like we always have some form the previous holiday.

Second part to our Easter fun.

Yesterday, or Tuesday, we had Sam and Britta over for lunch and making cookies. The girls had a blast and Eden was obsessed with the flour.

Cutting out cookies.

Eden loved playing in the flour container.

Britta was being bashful.

She called the egg cut out a rotten egg.

Frosting the cookies.

Britta liked a lot of frosting on her cookies.

Reaping their reward.

Yesterday was President’s Day so Jon was at home with us.

He made pancakes for breakfast and after doing the dishes he reached under the sink for the detergent and realized we had a leak.

I called my dad for some advice. I also e-mailed him this picture.

In the end we changed the on/ off valve but it is still leaking, just at a slower pace. It appears to be part of the pipe, or that back bolt which is very rusted.

For now we have a bucket catching the falling drops of water until we figure out what plumber we want to call.

Plumbers are so expensive, so I’m not really wanting to call. But I hope it is something that can easily be fix, and not something like the pipe needing to be ripped out of the wall and redone.

Ugh.

So after Jon fixed the pipe the girls were hanging out outside.
I went to check on them and realized a glass jar that Lilah had filled weeks ago with water and dirt had been broken.

We cleaned up the glass and since our sidewalk on the side of the house was horrendous I trimmed the bushes picked up the shingles, trash, and pine needles that had blown into that area and swept it so it’s now easily passable.

I then needed a shower but since I needed to clean the tub I did and then took my shower.
Jon was taking care of the girls, folding clothes and reading. I think he also may have unloaded the dishwasher.

In taking care of the girls I mean:
– Putting Eden down for a nap in only a diaper. (Her clothes were dirty so he took them off, he just didn’t replace them with anything. He did change her diaper though. )
– Letting Eden get up from her non-existent nap even though she’d been awake since 6:30 am. To his credit she was laying down for about 45 minutes. ( He is such a softy when it comes to letting the girls stay awake.)
– Letting the girls watch Mulan, which is why Eden came out from her nap. And yes, Eden was still naked when I finished cleaning and taking my shower.

Later in the evening I made a delicious dinner of salmon burgers, garlic potatoes, and fresh steamed green beans that were cooked to perfection according to Jon. (I also made the dinner because we had cereal for dinner two nights in a row. Partially because we didn’t have something easy like pizza to bake and he let me take late naps until it was dinner time and Jon really just makes breakfast and bread.)

And after dinner Jon did the dishes once more.

He’s such a sweetheart.

Tuesday we made truffles at the Jewitt’s.
Wednesday we made muddy buddies to give to the girl’s classmates and printed off Valentines for the girls to give away.

Yesterday was Valentine’s day.
I had to teach Lilah’s class. I wanted to send her away with all her whining. (She is so needy when I’m around. Later she said she didn’t like that the other kids needed me too.)
So my morning was pretty stressful. Lilah did become her normal none whiny self for the second half of class and was able to enjoy handing out Valentine’s to her classmates.

So after class we came home and ate lunch.
Then we baked a red velvet cake.
Then I put Eden down for her nap and I was tired and Lilah has been extra whiny lately, for the past week, so I tried to have her take a nap. Instead she lied there stroking my arm, keeping me a little awake, which was kinda good because I was too asleep to hear the timer on the cake and she was the one who told me it went off.

My sister called and since Lilah wasn’t falling asleep, I let her stay up and help make frosting and watch me frost the cake.
I talked for a while with my sister so my floors didn’t get mopped, oh well, and I just made a wonderful dinner of black bean enchiladas and we had some hummus on that side that I had bought last week.

Jon got some candles out so we had dinner by candlelight.

The red velvet cake was fun, since it’s red, but it’s not our favorite.
The girls loved making it though.

Then I found a note from Jon.

We played a little and put the girls to bed.

More on accident than on purpose we had Hitch from Netflix and Jon fell asleep while I watched it. He did wake up for the ending though.

Valentine’s day usually turns into my day to do stuff for Jon and the girls and we keep it pretty low key.
Our anniversary ends up being his day to do things for me.  (I can’t wait, especially since it’s on a Saturday this year so we’ll have the whole day together.)

For New Year’s Eve  we went to my friend Anna’s house and played a game with her, her husband and another couple they socialize with.
It was fun. The girls had fun playing with her doll house which had lots of accessories to it.
We left a little bit after 10pm, came home and put the girls into bed.
We started our movie at 11. (Catch Me If You Can, which I just love and got for Christmas from Carolyn.)We paused briefly to watch a local channel ring in the New year.
We argued over who should get out of our warm blanket and get the glasses and sparkling cider.
We kissed at midnight and the girls blissfully slept the night and new year away, at least until Eden had a bad dream early in the morning.

This is probably the first year in about three that we were actually awake at midnight instead of falling asleep and waking up after the fact.

We all slept in late.
We ate breakfast at 10:30, even though the girls had been up since about 8:45 but Jon and I were just too tired.

I was getting annoyed by the large tree so I also undecorated the tree today and Jon took it down this evening.
Our house feels so big now and we can all fit at the table again instead of banishing Eden and her high chair to the outer circle of the dining room.

We have tons of trash because we forgot to take it out the Wednesday after Christmas and that same Saturday. (This is what happens when Jon doesn’t leave the house regularly.)
So we still have Christmas trash and what piles up over 2 weeks.
Happy New Year to our trash guys!

I’m happy to have the new year.
Things I want to improve upon:
Taking vitamins daily.
This is a strange goal, but I was on vitamin strike for a period of time because I had to take prenatal for so long or about 4 years straight. (pregnant then nursing, pregnant then nursing. I was just not wanting to take vitamins anymore. ) Jon takes vitamins like fish oil and lechitin and I need to take calcium because I think my teeth are weakening not to mention my bones. So fun.

Another goal I have is to exercise my mind and I want to work through one of my college math books to do that.
We’ll see how it goes but I partially just want to do things like memorize the times table and gain my grasp of simple math once more and I want to do more complex math so I know I still have some intelligence.
I feel like my mind has gone down hill since I haven’t had to exercise it in the academic way and I use to be pretty good at doing things in my mind when now I feel like I pull out the calculator for any little thing, though sometimes it’s just to make sure I did the math correctly in my mind.

Those are my only two improvements that I want to write down.
We’ll see how they go.

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.

I took a video of the girls singing Jingle bells.
Lilah says she learned the words in her class from Sis. Jewitt.

I was going to fix their hair and make them look pretty, but in reality they looked this way at noon on Christmas Eve.

Enjoy the silliness and we wish all who watch this a very Merry Christmas.

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

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

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

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

Lilah on the carousel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lilah looking for nuts.

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

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

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

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

Lilah trying to catch the nuts Jon shakes off.

Eden watching Daddy in the tree.

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

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

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

Today was just a regular ole Sunday.

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

I’m so excited.
Christmas is almost here.

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

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

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

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

My dad gave me a couple cards for Mervyn’s that gave me $10 off every $20 I spent and they expired today so I thought I’d go and get some good use out of them.
I bought a couple things for myself, clothes to give for the ward’s angel tree child I chose, a shirt for my SIL Dara and a gift card for my nieces in Utah. I also found a jumper in size 5 for Lilah next year at $5, down from $22.
I spent $45 or so and saved around $90.
It was nice.
I then went to Payless because it looked like they were having a sale and they were so I bought some cute shoes for Eden, since I couldn’t find any in her size at Mervyn’s. They are adorable. In the picture they’re not as cute as they are on her foot.

We then went to Mc Donald’s for some good ole fun and food that’s bad for you.
My girls drank all their chocolate milk, ate about three fries each and some of their chicken nuggets before they went off to play.
While I watched them play this couple came and sat in the booth next to the table I was at.
He was very friendly and when I was getting Eden’s jacket on to leave he asked what color my eyes were and to see them.
I said hazel green and he complemented me on the color and then said how beautiful Eden’s eyes were.
He was African American, though I admit I just say black cause I’m not politically correct, and he said how he always wanted a blue eyed child. We debated whether that’s possible since he’s black, even with a blue eyed partner. Though my parents have brown and green eyes and two of my sisters have blue. I said how I want a green eyed girl like myself but I so far I’ve gotten two blue eyed girls.
He tried to get the girls to smile and kinda succeeded with Eden and I had the girls wave goodbye as we left.

I got home to my loot and realized that somehow I didn’t purchase the two pairs of pants I intended to for Eden. I must have carried them around, but somehow they didn’t make it into my basket or I set them down. I’m not sure. Maybe I just looked at them as I was debating which size to buy.
I thought maybe I was charged for them and they never made it into the bag, but according to the receipt I just didn’t buy them.

Knowing my mother had two more coupons for the spend $20 get $10 off I called her to see if she had used them, since they expired today. She said no so I figured I could go pick them up and use them to buy a few things and get us out of the house so Jon could study this evening.
Have I mentioned tomorrow is his final and I will be so happy to be over with this class? It’s taken more concentration for him and thus made it harder on me because I either have to keep the girls from bothering him, or myself, while he’s studying at home or go somewhere. I think we’ll save some money on gas once he’s done.
Anyways I went and truely spent about $13 for the two pants, but I bought Christmas gifts for the grand kids from my mom. Like Pajama’s and dresses for my two girls. She reimbursed me to where I spent $15, I guess tax factors in. So in reality had I just waited until tomorrow I would have saved money in gas and even spent less because everything is suppose to be 50% of tomorrow, where as the pants were 40% off today. But I think my time in shopping for my mom helped and it’s sometimes a hit and miss with what dresses she gets the girls. Most have been very cute, but some have been my mom’s taste and not mine. 😉

I got the girls home around 9, their bedtime is 8. We got them into bed about 9:45 pm because we were all fascinated with the PBS show. It was a self made documentary made in the 70’s of a man in Alaska building his log cabin by himself with hand tools. Totally cool. Totally time and labor intensive, though if you know what you’re doing things go smoothly I’m sure.

It’s now very late and I still have one more post to write.

Maybe I’ll get some cleaning done tomorrow.