Is It Naptime Yet

Each year we try to have Thanksgiving with both of our families. It’s nice because we don’t have to prepare a huge feast, but we also get to see both our families.

This year we headed over to my parents first and helped to set up. It was a rather small bunch this year, with only 8 of us total. My parents, Glenn, Carolyn and my family of four. Since we only had two children and we could all fit at one table, the girls got to sit with the adults and eat off of my parents china, though they didn’t get the glass steam ware. I’ll have to take a picture of my parents China, but it’s from Germany and about 35 years old. Since I grew up on this china, it’s exactly what I envision my China to look like, but the problem being it’s from Germany and it’s 35 years old.

My mom fixed a wonderful meal and it was fun to sit and be with family.

We left about 3:30 to head over to Annie’s house for the Blake family dinner. I had baked two pies that morning so we stopped and picked them up on our way there. I made the pumpkin from scratch, as in a baked and mashed the pumpkin I used in the pie, though it was a store bought crust since pie crust intimidates me still. Then I baked an apple pie just like the one I made last year from the apple pie filling Sam and I canned last year. Both were pretty good, though I’m not a big pumpkin pie fan I’ve decided. I like banana cream.

My mother-in-law’s sister and husband were in town for the Blake Thanksgiving and needed somewhere to stay for the night so we offered our small home. We stayed up and talked with them for a bit. I think they thought our girls were a little odd since they both wanted some vegetable before they went to bed. Eden had grabbed some mushrooms and Lilah some carrots and you just can’t say no it’s too late to eat vegetables, so I let them eat ’em.

They had asked what time the sun came up so they could be off and running early, but we thought we’d still be able to make them a nice breakfast before the left. When Jon woke up at 6:40 am they had already packed up and left! I don’t know if we were terrible host or if they were the best house guests, but we were a little sad to see they had left so early and we hadn’t even noticed. ( We now know we can fit a queen size air mattress in our living room if anyone wants to stay here, though  it’s very “cozy”.)

I then enjoyed the weekend with Carolyn, so as to stay out of Jon’s hair so he could study.

Last year Carolyn and I hit some stores on Black Friday together. This year Jon’s aunt and uncle were staying with us just for the night, so I was unable to go out with her.

The only thing I really wanted to buy was coats for the girls and Old Navy was having a killer deal, $15 for any coat, adults included, too bad I didn’t need one. Since I couldn’t go and I didn’t know when I’d be able to leave the house since we had guest, Carolyn went for me and for herself. She was at Old Navy at 3 am and waited two hours before she even got into the store. She was able to get exactly what I wanted for Lilah, but they didn’t have the coat I wanted in Eden’s size, in any color even, so she grabbed a couple other options. She did do shopping for herself, and I’m not sure if her plan was to be there so early before I asked her to look for coats for me, but I think it’s so super sweet that she did.

I went to a different Old Navy later and found a coat for Eden, though I could not find one for Lilah, so it was totally worth her hard work, or at least perseverance.

I also bought tons of chocolate to make truffles and popcorn, which I’m looking at taking orders on if you would like to buy some, and nearly bought a Cricket just because it was so. dang. cheap. The Michael’s on Russel is not well traveled and even though it was $69.99 and you could use a 25% off coupon, they had like 10 left at 8 am, and I know they’re a hot item. I just didn’t need one, though I was tempted to buy one and see if I could make money on E-bay.

So if you want something from Michael’s on Black Friday, visit the one on Russel and Pecos. It is never busy and they always have what I’m looking for.

Also, isn’t my sister so sweet?
I don’t even know if I’d have been willing to go at 3 am. Though I stay up till 2 am lately and what’s another few hours. The young lady who checked me out at Old Navy had been awake for 33 hours. Crazy.

The Holidays are upon us and this year is no different.

I have no idea what to get my family for Christmas.

Well, I do have a couple ideas. We always get the Pixar film for the girls, but that always comes from Santa and is the only thing they get from Santa.

I always give the girls bubble bath. Lilah’s caught onto this and I think I have to follow this tradition for the sake of it just being fun and a tradition, plus it’s pretty cheap.

I do have my parents present and the sibling present. (We trade names in my family. Though now we just rotate, so you don’t get the same person over and over, and since there is an even number of children, this year who you have, also has you. )

I just don’t know what to get Jon and I have no idea what I want.

We both want the Batman movie, but have decided that neither of us will get it for one another because we both want it. I know it seems odd, but whoever buys it for the other, then that person gets a little short changed on their gifts, and what if we both buy it for one another? Then we have to return it and that’s  pain since we’d have bought it from Amazon and have to deal with shipping it back.

So if anyone wants to buy us a gift, Batman The Dark Knight would be perfect. Otherwise I guess we know what we’re getting for our anniversary in February.

Or maybe we’ll just buy a Wii, and call Christmas good. (We try not to spend a lot on Christmas, so a Wii would take our budget, not to mention games to go with it.)

So what do you want for Christmas? Maybe it’ll give me some idea’s to tell Jon what I want for Christmas.

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.

Here are the pictures to go with my detailed posted of what we did in Pine Valley.

Saturday, September 5, 2009.

Getting ready to feed the Koi.

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Watching Gary so they can pick blackberries.

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Lilah showing off a blackberry and Britta trying to put it back in the bowl.

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The pond.

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This is the first picture of many of the girls on the swings.

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Eden swinging an singing by herself later in the day.

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Closeup.

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They were on the swings a lot.

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Silly Eden.

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Sunday, September 6, 2009.

The girls outside the church. It’s really hard to take a nice picture of three girls when they’re being silly.

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Eden was the most cooperative.

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The girls were pushing the four-wheeler.

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The view from Gary’s nephew’s cabin.

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Hanging out by the pond.

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pretty peaches

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wild turkeys

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Monday, September 7, 2009

crate on a pulley

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The girls liked “helping” to pull one another up in the crate.

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Pretty flowers that were in the yard.

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Britta twisting Eden up in the swing. Eden was the only one who enjoyed this because Lilah got hurt at one point and Britta was just too scared.

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There she goes!

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And she’s done, and so our are my pictures of the girls on the swings.

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The redneck trampoline, AKA an old box spring. It was fun to jump on it. Sam tried it out and then made me.

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They had fun jumping on it.

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Eden in the pup tent.

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Britta and Lilah in the pup tent.

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All the girls.

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Lilah being silly.

This concludes the picture portion of our Pine Valley trip. I just wish I had one taken with Sam, or had been fast enough to catch her jumping on the redneck trampoline.

We spent the Fourth of July at my parents house. I guess it’s just tradition since we celebrate my nieces birthday, have a BBQ, and enjoy fireworks that my dad buys, though this year I actually bought fireworks for the first time since the young woman in our church had a fireworks booth.

After we ate, I’m sure something delicious that my father barbecued, we entertained ourselves by having the kids practice baseball, only with a wiffle ball. Jon and I have a t-ball bat his parents gave us and wiffle balls, so we supplied the materials while we made Carolyn’s husband Derek do the work of pitching. It was for quality bonding time since the kids mostly play with one another and the adults just chat when we get together. We also brought the bat because the last time we were at my parents house Derek was playing “baseball” with Lilah but they were using a hand rake as a bat and I was worried that she might swing it too hard and impale herself. That would have been a terrible memory for all.  The hand rake looked like this, and lets face it, any way you hold it is dangerous if you’re swinging it around.

The kids had lots of fun and the wiffle ball only went over the back fence twice, and luckily the neighbors were swimming and pretty good sports about getting it for us, and telling us when Eden was climbing on a chair and nearly about to climb over the balcony railing, or was it Lilah that almost went over?

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Lilah was able to hit the ball about half the time.

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Carolyn helping Addrienne. Notice Carolyn’s blue shirt? She was also wearing khaki pants like me and Jon joked that when looking at the camera screen if our heads weren’t in the picture he wasn’t sure which sister he was looking at.  For a while there we were constantly wearing the same colored shirts whenever we saw one another.  In fact we both wore green the day we drove up to Ely and I could have worn the same colored shirt another day we were there.

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Kaitlyn up to bat.

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Howie waiting for the pitch.

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Lilah on the balcony.

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After some time playing we went inside and celebrated both Kaitlyn’s and Lilah’s birthday, since we had yet to celebrate it with my family.

Kristi made the birthday cake while I just brought cupcakes.

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We forgot candles so we did what we could with what my mom had. 5+2= 7 and Lilah still likes Dora.

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Lilah likes to read the cards. Also, that’s a picture of her as a baby on the far left.

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Then it was time for fireworks. Lilah and Howie were the only kids outside, Eden was OK, but a really loud one was set off at the beginning and ruined her for the night. Lilah held out but only by plugging her ears the whole time.

A little unsure of the sparkler, but she wanted to try it.

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Liking it a little more.

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Having fun with the sparkler, though this might have been the second one.

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Jon and Lilah enjoying the fireworks, though enjoying is relative term in this case.

So I’m getting around to picture posts again. I guess not being able to talk from a sore throat and having two sick girls who are just watching TV helps.

Lilah’s birthday fell on family night, or our first performance with an audience, during the play. With all the craziness we opted not to give her a birthday party, plus we like to give only one big birthday party a year and it was Eden’s turn this year.

For her birthday we went to Chuck E’ Cheese, something we do every year for each girl. Lilah wore her curlers while there and I think she was pretty dang cute. (Funny thing: This night we were not being feed, so we stopped by McDonald’s on our way to the theater and the attendant who gave us our food smiled when she saw Lilah in her curlers.)

Lilah’s friend Britta and her mom Sam joined us, as well as Auntie Carolyn.

We had a fun morning just playing games and eating.

That night the women of the play sang Happy Birthday to her while we were getting ready. (I still think she was the cutest munchkin, though I  am highly bias.)

I forgot our camera, but Carolyn brought one from work and we snapped just a few pictures.

Lilah and Britta playing air hockey.
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Lilah with her cupcakes.
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Lilah decorating her cupcake.

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Lilah also opened her presents earlier that morning. Jon didn’t use the flash so they’re slightly fuzzy.

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It’s so weird to look back and see her with long hair, or is that just me?

Also Lilah has wanted a certain kind of bug catcher from Target for like two years. She’s received around three or four other kinds, but not this one, so she was so happy to finally get it.

I just want to note that it’s best to blog right after an event and not 3 months later. A mind becomes very foggy.

Jon had his birthday at the beginning of May. We celebrated by making homemade pizza and eating watermelon for dessert, though I think the girls and I enjoyed some ice cream after the watermelon. He is always striving to be healthy and isn’t the biggest fan of cake so that’s why we had no cake.

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My birthday was pretty regular. Jon had to work since we had just gone camping with Andrea and Brien and it was a three day weekend. I had a little meeting with someone on my birthday so I dropped the girls off with Jon at  his work then he picked up a frozen pizza, but it was a California Kitchen BBQ chicken pizza which we had never had and it was tasty, and frosting for the cake he had baked the day before. Lilah had play practice that night and I was going to go home and sew on the costumes, but decided to just hang out with Jon and Eden while we watched Lilah. Eden fell asleep on the way home so I was sung to the day after my birthday, but before Jon went to work.

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Also, I just wanted to include this picture of Lilah churning ice cream on Memorial Day. My dad has a cool ice cream maker that can be hand cranked, or cranked by a motor. It brought back lots of memories of watching my dad and brothers crank our old ice cream maker, which was very hard to crank. I tried but was always too weak.

Since it was so long ago that I posted the details of Day One and Day Two of our trip to Cathedral Gorge and the pictures for Day one, you can go back to the links I just provided to refresh your memory or  just enjoy Day two of our Memorial Weekend Trip.

Friday Morning: Our hike to the caves.

Zarina hand in hand with Lilah, which was very common the whole trip.

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Eden stayed back with us, though I think she’s running a little bit to catch up with the Parks and Lilah.

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The girls, Lilah, Zarina, and Eden.

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The Blake’s. (We were hiking, I’m not trying to look fashionable.)

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Entrance to one of the “caves”.

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The girls with Jon. The “caves” were really passage ways that had been created from the silt being worn down by water and wind after the prehistoric lake dried up. So they were open on the top and at least ten degrees cooler than outside in the open desert.

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There were a lot of narrow winding spaces.

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Eden had fun fitting in one…

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…so did Jon.

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This is the view from higher up. We went climbing after we hiked in the caves.

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Eden looking up at Mommy.

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I took a rest and Jon took the girls climbing. He had a lot of patience and was the perfect teacher.

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Lilah holding her Daddy’s hand after a hard climb down. Eden was just chilling at the bottom waiting for them, she had climbed down earlier.

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Jon offering his hand to a worried Eden. (I just loved the previous two pictures. I love seeing Jon helping his children, something he is always willing to do. )

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Friday Evening: On our way to dinner.

The sky in one direction. It was very ominous.

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180 degrees the other way it looked like this. (This was at a gazebo that had been built when it became a park in the 1930’s.)

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Lilah and Jon discovered the gazebo on their hike.

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Some antelope we encountered between Caliente and Lund on our drive home Saturday.

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We thought they were cool.

This concludes our camping trip with Andrea, Brien, and Zarina. It only took me over a month to post the pictures of our second half.  We plan on seeing them once more this summer and we can’t wait!

Jon got jealous that I did a five things centered around Lilah for her birthday but did not do that for his. Since it was Father’s Day yesterday, and since Jon is so low key and doesn’t expect anything too much from me, even though I like to be treated on Mother’s Day, I am centering today’s five things around Jon.

1. Jon is so patient with our children and I appreciate it, even though I’m not always patient with his patience. (As in I want him to be as impatient as I am.)
2. Jon wants to show and teach the girls everything he knows, and since he acts on this he gives them much of his time and the girls love this.
3. He takes each of his girls on a date every month. I know they will always appreciate this alone time with him and I appreciate the time I have with him too.
4. Since he’s been a home alone parent more often with the play practices Jon sympathizes with me and my role, and I finally feel he understands me and how I feel a little more because it’s been somewhat tough on him to be the only parent for the girls to turn to when I’m gone and even though he’ll be so happy when the play is over he is still happy to watch them because I’m enjoying the play so much.
5. Jon makes us his priority and tries to spend quality time with me and the girls. He has every Friday in June off to use some leave and he also has something planned for every Friday in June so we can do things as a family.

I love you Babe and I’m happy to have you as the father to my children.