Is It Naptime Yet

We made popcorn a week ago to eat while we watched Nature. This is what the girls were doing for the entire three minutes it was popping. I only got the last minute of it.

Today the girls had a dentist appointment. It’s their second one and it went just fine and dandy.

The hygienist let me know that Lilah’s two front bottom teeth are loose, and she thinks she’ll lose at least one of them before the next visit. Her top are a little loose too, but she thinks those are still a year away.

I don’t know if Lilah was happy or nervous about this news because she knows once she loses her teeth thumb sucking will be a no. Lilah has already stopped sucking her thumb for the most part but she forgets on some days and we have to remind her to stop. We are taking a logical approach with her by letting her know it’s not good to thumb suck when you have adult teeth coming in  and she should stop now so it’s easier once she starts loosing teeth and this seems to be working just fine. The hygienists says that Lilah’s jaw is normal and that as long as she stops thumb sucking before she looses teeth it should be fine.

As Lilah’s appointment went on I could see her physically shaking in the chair as the hygienist worked on her.  She totally gets that from me and I felt so bad for her, but  Lilah was brave and just mostly annoyed that she couldn’t stop the shaking.

Eden’s appointment was directly afterwards  and she did just fine also. Neither have cavities and all is well, except my baby is growing up and will be loosing teeth soon, which is totally gross to me. I’m gonna have to learn to hide my disgust of loose teeth and the gums right afterwards. Yuck.

On a cute note Lilah is now wanting to avoid hard food that hurt her tooth or might make it loose. I think she’s just nervous about loosing the tooth and not knowing if it’ll hurt or what to expect since it’s a first.

On Saturday the girls and I headed over to my sister Carolyn’s house to make cookies. It was to give Jon time alone to study and Carolyn’s co-worker was supposed to come over because we weren’t able to make Christmas cookies with her and she wanted to see Carolyn’s house. Instead her husband made her go to some timeshare thing so they could get two free airline tickets since they need to fly to their niece’s wedding later this year.

I packed what I thought was everything I needed and headed over to Carolyn’s. She had ordered pizzas for lunch so we ate and then got started making cookies.

While I was pulling everything out I realized I had forgotten the shortening for the frosting but since Carolyn lives so far from civilization the nearest store is like 5 miles away and I figured we’d just make cookies and the girls and I would have to frost them at home.

Then as I looked through the  basket I realized I left the heart-shaped cookie cutter I borrowed from Sam at home on my counter. So now I had to go to the store.

We finished the dough, and the girls and Carolyn settled in watching some TV while I went to the store.

I got shortening, cookie cutters, and some chocolate chip cookie dough since that was the cookie Derek requested to be made since we were coming over. (I almost did not buy it because Derek is so spoiled by his parents but I like chocolate chip cookies too and figured I’d take some home also.)

I got back and we baked cookies and then decorated them like the sweetheart candies you buy, only I don’t buy them and could only think of a handful of phrases. Carolyn was funny and I love some of the phrases she came up with.

Here’s the pictures of what I left with Carolyn on Saturday, and what we have left this morning. I don’t think I’m suppose to eat five cookies a day, but that’s what happens when you love sugar cookies and they’re in the house. Jon has also been eating them, so I think my ‘eat all you can get’ mentality kicked in, yeah that’s why I eat five a day, to get them out of the house sooner so Jon won’t eat them. I’ll take the hit. (I have had none today, but will probably eat one after lunch and one tonight. I just love sugar cookies and you have to eat them before they get stale and the girls would rather have candy.)

Carolyn thought of: Heart U, Nice Bum, Hot Stuff, Hot Lips, Heart Breaker, (which was made with the last of the frosting and we didn’t have enough of either color so she did half and half). I made:  I heart you, Love, and Cutie Pie.

I also made a Babe, Hey Babe, Dad and a Sexy cookie, which Jon ate. Carolyn attempted to make a sexy cookie with sprinkles, but she only could fit  “sex” on the cookie and decided to make it all sprinkles. (It’s the yellow cookie with sprinkles in the previous picture.)

Eden only ate maybe half a piece of pizza but she had three cookies, I guess she takes after her mom.

Lilah had lots of fun decorating them for other people and then having us eat them, she did eventually eat one.

We had lots of fun at Carolyn’s house and left around 5:30pm. I was so sleepy on the way home because I get sleepy in the afternoons and it was a very relaxing drive home.

The girls had so much fun since they got to play and jump on all of Carolyn’s pillows. Lilah was sad that we don’t go to Carolyn’s more often and said we should go there whenever she needs to bake cookies. I probably would visit Carolyn if she lived closer and if she wasn’t so busy working all the time. I just hate taking up all her free time with my two silly girls.

I was talking with Eden this morning and I asked her where she got her blue eyes from. Her reply.

DNA.

We talk about DNA in our house and how it tells our body what color our hair is suppose to be and what not. I just never knew Eden was listening so closely.

I was wearing my robe yesterday and Lilah was spanking my rear end. You want to know why?

She said it was and “jiggly and fun.”

Yeah. I hope she gets my jiggly rear end when she gets older and her children let her know. 😉

I’ve haven’t posted a lot on homeschooling. Lately it’s been kinda crazy. We had Jon home for two weeks in December, then I had one week to get in a groove, which I didn’t, and then I made the costumes the next week. Then I got sick.

So this is the first week, in six weeks, where I was consistently doing something homeschool related for three out of the five days. (My goal is school three days of the week.)

I’ve been feeling kinda in a rut, we do the same things over and over, and I’m wanting to help Lilah more with her spelling, and incorporate math and history or some kind of subject learning, I also wanted Beth to kinda tell me where Lilah is with her reading and what she thinks I need to work on.

So we hopped over to Beth’s house after a strange lunch time at the park. (Lilah was avoiding Eden and I kept losing sight of her or Eden because of it, so I forced her to play with Eden but she decided they should play hide and seek and, in essence, avoid Eden still.)

Beth did a reading evaluation on Lilah and Lilah read, and comprehended most of what she read, up to the fourth grade level and Beth felt she could have pushed her to the fifth.

So we’re doing something right.

Reading was a big hurdle so I feel relieved that Lilah is doing so well, and I feel like I was guiding her not teaching her.

Lilah does read at a fourth grade level, but she does have a problems with figuring words out on her own. She reads so fast that she doesn’t like to slow down and figure out what words are if she doesn’t know them or she glosses over and makes an educated guess, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, something I’ve noticed when we read together.

So our next goal is to look at word structure and talk about them, even on words she knows and stick to lower level reading book until she gets a little more patience and stops to figure words out. She’s not in some rush to move up in books so I think this will be just fine for her.

I’m also needing to work on writing and spelling with her a little more, but this shows me that kids can learn and they can teach themselves. I really feel like I just was helping Lilah learn and she was the one progressing ‘behind my back’ when she would decide to sit down and read books to herself or even to Eden.

She’s one smart cookie and I’m happy to be her mom and mentor.

I woke up when I heard the doorbell and knock on the screen door then Jon came to ask me if the cousin could come play along with the neighbor girl, but he was studying and didn’t want to be in charge of the cousin had he stayed.

The cousin is a toddler, maybe 2 years old.

I hated telling the older boy, around 9, that the little cousin could not stay, he’s just too little. (And at that particular moment Lilah was playing with some home school cards that I did not want to be bent or played with by the little cousin.)

After telling them no a few different ways the older cousin yelled to get his uncle’s attention, not the father at this point, and eventually drug the young, crying,  toddler away. I hear them yell, “Stop it!” at the toddler a few times and then “Nobody wants to play with you!” and notice by now who I think the father is has joined them in the street to take the young cousin into the  house.

I felt bad for the young toddler,  and the neighbor girl who decided to not stay, but I ain’t no babysitter and that kid would have needed a babysitter.

(Note: I’m not sure who’s idea it was to bring over the toddler, the neighbor girl might have just wanted to bring him over and play with him here because he’s fun, but some adult should have known that he was too young to “play” at the neighbor’s house and should have said no.)

So I’ve stuck to a bland diet for a a day and a half. I’m feeling better but, I think the tapioca pudding my mom said I could eat didn’t do me too well yesterday. I can have hard boiled eggs with my applesauce and banana’s so that adds so much to the mix. (Please note the sarcasm.) I should have asked my doctor for more suggestions, but I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I saw him on Tuesday.

I’ve been able to do house work and errands in the mornings. Yesterday afternoon and evening was a hard one, so I’m hoping to avoid that tonight and maybe tomorrow night I’ll be able to take the girls to the Aladdin play that Hannah is in.

I’m not attending yoga while I’m eating so few calories. I would get light-headed if I didn’t have a night-time snack the night before, so I’m afraid I’d pass out and I don’t want to use up any unnecessary calories since I’m know my intake is down greatly.

I guess this does show me I can survive on less food, which was an obstacle in my eating less and being a little more healthy, but I’m also doing less, so I’m not using up as much energy, and need less. I also constantly feel hungry which isn’t fun either.

Hopefully things can be a little more normal beginning next week and I can get over this by the end of next week.

The girls are doing fine, even with a slightly grumpy mommy and school has been on vacation, except reading, I have patience for reading since they’re so good at sitting and listening and since Lilah is doing so well it’s not hard to sit and listen to her. She really is so smart.  The other day she came and told me she had read an article in The Friend. “It was about a boy who needed a blessing to get better, and I read it all, though some of the words I can’t read. ” That’s what she told me and I was so happy to see her so excited.

Time for some random pictures I’ve taken lately, though they each have their own reason, I just don’t want to make several posts about each subject and instead will roll them into one.

Here is Eden holding cutie pie Zarina when Andrea and Brien were down.

I just think they’re cute.

Next, while on vacation Jon decided to grow a beard. The only problem, I can’t stand kissing him when he has facial hair, and I have no idea how any woman can kiss a man with a beard or mustache.

To remedy this, Jon shaved around the mouth and left just a  beard along his jaw line.

I kept calling him Amish, which he didn’t mind, and I teased that he could have been in a Weird Al video.

It grew on me if his glasses weren’t on, it was a little rebellious, but once the glasses were on all I could think was Amish.

I dared him to go to work with the beard, but he shaved it off.

Giving me a silly look.

Hello Brother Jonathan, or whatever the Amish call each other.

Deep in thought. The funny thing is this and the eyebrow lift, are probably two of the most used poses of Jon’s. He’s so silly.

The next set of random pictures are of my necklace.
No one has asked to see it, but I love it so much, partially because I love my girl’s names so much, I had to post pictures of it.

Next we have the nursing cover I made for Sam. It has a piece of boning that bends and opens the top of the cover to help the mom see her child and what’s going on down there.

The blankets are made of lightweight flannel since she’s having Matilda in the winter, but I don’t think the weather has gotten the memo that it’s winter. It was like 70 degrees today. Very crazy weather this year. The week we had snow has probably been the longest and coldest and then everything else has been above average temperatures.

Lastly, here are my silly girls wearing every dress up necklace and items we have practically.

The girls were sick the very first Sunday of this year, so the second Sunday, or the eleventh, was their first Sunday of Primary, more specifically Eden’s very first Sunday of Primary and Lilah’s first Sunday with a new teacher, but it was a substitute and she’ll have her regular teacher next week.

They wore the dresses I picked out with Carolyn at Old Navy on Black Friday, and I later picked up the tights at Target.

I think they’re adorable and I can’t believe that Eden is now in Primary.

I asked Jon to get pictures, and these are the three he took. Lilah as been such a ham in pictures lately so these are true to her current silliness.

Not sure what Lilah is doing here.

I guess we are going to church and Lilah is assuming the correct position, just not the most reverent of faces.

Again, not sure what exactly is going through her mind.

Eden seemed to have a fun first day and when Jon and I separately checked in on her she seemed to be doing just fine.

Lilah’s teacher was a substitute, but we knew the sister, so her first Sunday in a new class went smoothly also. She talked, knew how to read trust when it was written on the board, and was very well behaved.

I don’t want them to grow up, but they sure are cute.

Today was the first class of gymnastics, or tiny tot tumblers, or whatever the class is called, for the girls. With Sam not teaching dance class, and Eden obviously not completely enjoying all the elements of dance class, we thought we’d try something else.

This gymnastics class is not at the same school Lilah previously took gymnastics at. I’m not sure if Lilah’s old teacher Miss Brooks is still there and she was the one teacher I really had any confidence in at that community center.  I also like that the class is during the day. Jon can’t be there but at least we won’t be waking Eden up from her naps to get to class, or having to rush through dinner before class.

Eden seemed to really enjoy herself and took direction from the teacher well. I was not really in sight, since the bleachers are on the other side, so I was a little out of sight out of mind, and I think that really helped, along with having a big sister to show the way. The class is for 3 years to 5 years 11 months, so Lilah just barely qualifies.  Lilah of course loved the class and did not want to leave, neither did Eden.

I think Eden had fun tumbling and doing different things. She seemed to wait her turn most of the time and had no problems with the teacher.

The class is a little unorganized in that the teacher was trying to show them how to do back tumbles when only half the kids could do forward tumblers and she wasn’t demanding, or needing, a very organized line, they also have less mat area.  The other gymnastics class also taught about start and finishing poses, but I think I’ll just be happy as long as they have fun and the teacher seems to have patience, the other teachers didn’t always have the most patience so that’s what really bothered me.

I didn’t have my camera due to rushing out the house, but I’ll try to take some pictures next week.