Is It Naptime Yet

A lot of people are happy about fall and winter coming. I’m just a little sad that the summer passed so quickly.
I had planned on taking the girls swimming weekly.
It happened three times.I would have taken them this week but Lilah’s had a fever for three days straight and now we’re getting to just 100, instead of 110 degrees, which seems cool right now, or at least not hot enough to swim in. Anyone need the swimmer diapers next summer? I have about 20 left and Eden better be potty trained by then.

I had planned on finishing my drapes.
I still have one bare window.

I had planned on reading some books and maybe organizing more.
I haven’t even completely read the book I chose for book club and we’ve had like 3 months to read it. And my house is no more organized than when I did this months ago.

Summer passes to quickly.

The girls like hot chocolate as a treat after dinner and tonight I made them and myself some.
As I sipped my hot chocolate in my 81 degreed house I thought about how I love to drink hot chocolate on a cold winters night, and how much I want to splurge and buy Stephen’s hot chocolate in like every flavor. I was sweating a little as I drank my Kroger brand hot chocolate, but the winter will be coming fast.
How I wished we had fall colors in Vegas, but we don’t unless you go to UNLV’s campus for the two days a few trees turn red across from the LDS institute of religion.
We just get cold and then leaves fall off and it gets colder and when you think it’s just gonna keep getting colder we start warming up.

Ahh Winter, it’s like Fall all Winter long in Vegas.

Today I took Lilah to the doctor.
Ever since the wedding Lilah’s had symptoms that have made me think she has a urinary tract infection and then they went away and then she got a fever Monday night and has been using the bathroom a lot. So I bit the bullet and took her to see the doctor, well the nurse practitioner, to have things checked out.
According to the in office test she doesn’t have a UTI but she does have a lot of protein in her urine, which is bad if it turns out to be something because that means something is going on with her kidneys.
It might have been a fluke. But they’re going to have some test run to make sure she doesn’t have a UTI and to see if the protein is a sign of something worse. I should know the results by Friday but I may have to bring in a sample from the first urination Lilah does Friday morning, guess where it’ll have to be stored, and then bring it in. If the protein is still high they’ll do blood test.
The nurse didn’t seem too worried, but at the same time right now there is no reason to really worry, though I kinda do anyways.

The reasons why I brought Lilah in are the following: one, she either really does have something wrong with her and I want to know, in which I feel like something is going on, or two she’s fine and I don’t have to feel guilty when I don’t want to take her to the bathroom 2 minutes have she’s gone just to have her sit there and do nothing. It’s not a problem at home because she’s on her own but when we’re out it’s kinda annoying. I missed different speeches at the wedding because it started right then that night.
I’m mostly worried that something is wrong and what it could be. She did say that it’s possible to have protein in the urine if the child’s been playing and what not, but she also said it was bad to have protein in the urine because of what it might mean.

I almost didn’t blog about this because it may be nothing, but it’s what’s on my mind today.

(I did some research and it looks like their is a benign kind of proteinuria, in which this information brings a little bit of ease to my day to know their can be a reason for protein in the urine without it being serious. )

After the doctor’s appointment I dropped off tupperware to Carolyn and then went to Kristi’s house to let Lilah and Kaitlynn play, only to have my mom take Katy after we’d been there an hour to get her hair cut. Though Lilah’s fever had begun again and she just wanted to be cuddled on the couch in a blanket.

The excitement of the day was this though:
I went to get Eden and she’d climbed onto the changing table and was taking the wipes out, something she loves to do.
Kristi was putting Adrianne down for a nap so I just took Eden and got a bag to put the wipes in. I hear Kristi say she stepped into something wet and then she picked it up to discover it was poop! So gross! but I just laughed and kept laughing to myself. She asked if Eden was poopy and she didn’t look poopy from the top of the diaper near her waist, but then at the leg you could tell she was poopy and a little had leaked out. So I kept laughing because Kristi stepped in Eden’s poop! Oh so gross.

I often play teasing games with my girls. Like I’ll ask what should we have for lunch and suggest we eat Eden and then they say “Nooo, we don’t eat Eden!” and then I’ll suggest Lilah and they say “Noo, we don’t eat Lilah!” and so forth.
I think I’ve also mentioned how I like to substitute the girls names in songs. Like in Ba Ba black sheep I’ll say one for the little Lilah/Eden who lives down the lane and they always reply “No, that’s not how it goes! One for the little boy!”
I really love it.
Lately I’ve been playing a game with Eden to ask her what she did at nursery or in her class.
Did you go swimming? No! Did you color?  Yes!
But I’ve realized now that I can ask her an open ended question and know that she probably is giving me the correct answer which means I’m having meaningful conversations with my two year old and she’s expressing to me her day when I ask questions.
Which means she’s growing up.  🙁
Yesterday I asked her what she watched at Carolyn’s house and she was able to tell me Fox and the Hound.
Then this morning I asked what she had for breakfast and she told me oatmeal.
Communication is great, but it makes me a little sad to see her growing up.
I really love the age Eden is at. She’s still little but she’s talking and responding and knows what she wants, though knowing what she wants can be a pain.

My baby is growing up.
Of course if Eden heard me call her a baby she’d say “Noo, I’m not a baby! Naia a baby!”

Today was Andrea’s baby shower. Not many people RSVPed and there was another girl from UNLV who had a shower today also, plus it was a holiday weekend. So we had about 5 guest to start out, then us 4 Harvey girls and my mom, then after I did games and Andrea began opening presents 1 guest came with her daughter and grand baby and then 2 more also showed up.
So it was small and got off to a slow start but I think they had fun. I hope anyways.

We played a game where I had 20 questions about Andrea and her pregnancy, we measured the belly and then we did a price is right game. Instead of doing the memory game we had the products and they had to match them to one of the prices listed. Most of what I bought I got on clearance, so in total I paid about 65-70% of what all the prices came to. People were surprised to actually look at the normal retail prices of things, it was kinda funny.
I didn’t do the pin game, though I think it might have added a little fire to the group had Julie been on the look out for those who had their legs crossed or said baby, depending on the twist we gave it.

I think it went well overall and once the presents were done with there was a lot of conversing.

I was a little sad that it was a small turn out. I tried to get good gifts for the games, also things that were on clearance but nice, and have fun food, we had chocolate fondue. We also had chocolate covered popcorn for the guests to take home. I guess all that matters is that Andrea had a good time and that those who were there did too.
Since we had it on the other side of town, Carolyn’s new house is at Mountain’s Edge near Blue Diamond and Rainbow, I think some people may have been deterred to come. Part of me feels bad if that was a reason, but the valley is so big now that no where is going to be convenient for all and so I guess if you wanted to be there you were.
I think once everyone was there, a total of 14 adults, 3 toddlers and 2 babies, it was just the right size for Carolyn’s house.
I had Jon come with me so he could keep an eye on the girls and so those who know the girls, but don’t see them, could see them. Such as Veronica from UNLV, who brought her granddaughter so Andrea could meet her, and Deniece, whom Andrea use to work with and knows me too. I also think they’re cute and like to show them off.:) So kids were not not aloud but we did want to keep it to where they would be supervised by their parent since Carolyn and Derek’s home isn’t exactly child friendly.

Over all I think it went well. We actually had one person show up after all the guest had left, but that’s when she was able to come.
I’m happy Carolyn let us use her house, and I had fun going over there the night before and putting together furniture and rearranging furniture so it would be ready for Saturday. I tried to put the couch chair back to where it was but I’m sure Derek will have to fix it.

Eden feel asleep on the way home, in which she had to sleep on our bed because her bed is covered in toys from before we left.
Lilah feel asleep and then Jon and I feel asleep on the couch. We woke up about 7 and got dinner, which was cereal, around 7:30.
I actually haven’t eaten yet.

I now need to go over my lesson a little for church and write a talk for Lilah.
Even though we killed Derek’s printer my sister Kristi has an extra one that they’re willing to give us. Hopefully we don’t somehow kill this one too! (knock on wood), but it is a really nice one and fairly new.

Here is a video from Lilah’s dance recital. I found Carolyn’s copy of it, which came out better than ours. Just don’t pay attention to how wide I look next to 3 year olds and Sam, who is like so tiny. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s cute, I’d be tempted not to post it because of my womanly curves and unflattering pants.

Also Lilah is the one in the middle of the three girls. Britta is the one on the far left all by herself.

My girls don’t have a lot of toys. But they’ve slowly been disappearing and some of their books have too.
Why, you ask.
Well they haven’t been cleaning up after they decide to pile as many toys and books as they can get past me onto Eden’s bed.
Then after they have piled so many toys or books we make them clean them up and sometimes they don’t want too. I know shock little kids not wanting to pick up after themselves. The problem comes because 8 time out of 10 Eden has to be put into timeout just so she will begin cleaning up. Then once you mention clean up Lilah decides she’s tired, her arms are tired, her legs are tired, some thing is always tired. So we fight with them and hover over them to clean up the mess they’ve made. We’ve just started setting the timer and then taking away whatever they don’t put away.

It started about a week ago when Lilah did this to our couch.

Literally every child book we had was on the couch and nearly every toy. Jon had let her do this because when we try to limit what they take they complain, so he wanted Lilah to understand the consequences of piling everything together. Jon gave her a half hour to clean it up but mostly she just whined. We got a box and put all the toys and books that didn’t get put away in it and and put it in our closet. The box is big, something I got from Costco and is bigger than a laundry basket.

Today it was toys on Eden’s bed. They hadn’t heeded to Jon’s first attempts to ask them to clean up so Jon set the timer. Lilah had to go to the bathroom and you could hear her saying loudly how she didn’t care for the toys and didn’t want her stuff animals. Then when I went in there to wash hands it was all about how much she loved them and wanted to take care of them.
Eden did a lot of the cleaning up, so thanks to little sister Lilah has more toys and books to look at.
After the 15 minutes was up we put the few things left into another box to go into our closet.
I was going to give the big box of toys back this week, after a week of being taken away, but one, the girls have seemed to forget about them and two, they make big enough messes without those toys.
I’ll probably sort the toys out later this week, maybe Sunday after I have the baby shower and my lesson taught. I hope to organize them and clean off some toys that could use a good washing or disinfectant and then purge ones that either annoy me or find little use.
My kids don’t even have that many toys, but it sure feels like a lot when it takes 20 minutes to just clean up one little bed and lots of whining

We had lunar eclipse the other night. Jon set the alarm to be up at like 2:30am or when it when it would transition from a partial to full eclipse. I awoke at some time, but was afraid to get up and then shortly after Jon jumped out of bed. It was like 4:30am and we had missed the full lunar eclipse but we went and saw the moon as a partial lunar eclipse.
Jon was then too awake to sleep so he went to the living room to study and I was pretty awake but I lied in bed trying to sleep but instead I stayed up thinking about the baby shower for Andrea this weekend.
We finally made it to sleep later, but I’m sure Jon didn’t get much sleep before he had to be up for work and school.

I did lots of shopping yesterday with some girls. One in particular whined a lot while at the first store so I threatened that once we got to the library she wouldn’t be able to pick out any books unless she was good at the next two stores. I gave her three strikes and she only took two. Once at the library both girls just played with some toys and I actually picked out all the books but one or two which Eden wanted.
At least the threat kept Lilah from whining so much while at the store.

Last night Janice Kapp Perry and her husband Douglas spoke at a fireside for the women of three stakes in our area.
It was really fun and I learned that her and her husband have quite a sense of humor.
She told the story of the first thing he ever said to her. They had many classes together but he hadn’t seemed to notice her, then right before she was to do some clarinet solo thing for her class she was nervous and while she tried to focus he said to her “I bet those lips are made for something better than playing the clarinet,” or something to that liking. After she said this he came up to defend himself and she just held onto the mic so he couldn’t respond so then he gave her a big kiss. She replied that she wouldn’t ever tell that story again…..or maybe she would.
Basically they talked about the influence of good music in the home and one point she made was if you’re satisfied with you life, or even bored and thinking now what, take little steps to accomplish some secret dream or goal. Each step accomplished should be a victory so even if you don’t get to the actual goal you should celebrate what you’ve actually done.
Also you’re never too old to try something new and develop a new talent.
She actually didn’t begin her major song writing career until she was 40 or so. She broke her ankle playing basketball with the kids, which was her life, and her husband asked if she could find something a little less dangerous for her age. She had studied music in college, but hadn’t done any song writing or composing since then.
While her ankle healed she wrote the original songs for a rode show for church and continued from there basically.

It was a fun fireside.

Lately the girls have only been happy with one another if their’s a movie or the tv on. Today we watched a movie and then they went on their way to play. They started fighting over the strap on the changing table, we don’t use it so it’s just buckled underneath. I heard “I had it first” and once I was in the room I saw them pushing on one another. I told them to work it out but it didn’t help. I try not to intervene because one of them will start crying because I didn’t choose what they wanted. After I told them again to work it out Lilah started crying, while they’re both still holding onto the strap, Eden stops her whining and asks Lilah what’s wrong. She often does this when Lilah lets out a full on cry.
They continue to fight and I remove them both for the exciting strap that’s attached to our changing table.
Then they almost immediately started fighting over the toy shopping cart. All Lilah knows how to do is push, and Eden pushes back and so Lilah cries, and Eden cries back. It is so lovely. I take the shopping cart and decide to separate them. Eden went on the couch with nothing but her blanket an Lilah stayed in the room with nothing but a blanket, she didn’t like this because she was playing with a towel that I had to take away.
I’ve decided they’re watching too much and not working things out so until they can start working things out their will be no tv and once I feel that they’re civil they can have 1 hour a day. If they’re not being civil or communicating the toy or whatever gets taken away. If they start in on another toy they’re then separated until they decide to be nice.
Eden’s really starting to assert her self and throw tantrums and I think Lilah is just following in suit.
I’m going to try to spend more time with them and encourage for them to communicate. I feel as Eden is still young for this, but I know Lilah can talk, though she often just cries instead of using her words, which really annoys me. I also hate that Lilah’s crying actually kinda helps her get her way, or at least sympathy from Eden, by Eden then asking what’s wrong. I like and hate it at the same time.

I’m also going to go through their toys and take some away and put some in a box to be rotated out. Our stuffed animals are overthrowing our two baskets and the small toys drive me nuts. I want to toss it all, but in reality they don’t have that much so I’m going to just put some away.
I’d have them help but I know they wouldn’t get rid of anything.

Their fighting is just driving me a little bonkers.

After the whole separation on the couch it was lunch time and since Eden woke up at 6:15am I put her down early for a nap. So once Lilah was done with her lunch we sat and did some activities in this preschool book I got her. I see that I’ll be tested when it comes to teaching her. After we were both done with the book I let Lilah practice with some small scissors I got her. Since this was relatively her first time with kid scissors she was very awkward with them and can only cut out small things, forget lines for now. I hope she gains the hang of it and it becomes easier soon.

Lilah’s class wet really well. I actually had two actives left over today in which it’s always better to be over prepared than under.
The kids loved bowling- where we had tall yogurt containers and they hurled a big green ball, thanks Anna, at them.
I think they could have done it the whole last half hour, but we had spots to count on a cow I made which is so cute for my lack of artistic ability. I think I’ll name her Darling.
We made butter for an activity and one of the girls did not want to pass along the jar and let me shake it to help. It was kinda funny to be getting the evil eye from a 3 year old.

Today I have a few things to do. One is dishes not only because my kitchen is overflowing but my cupboards are getting bare and we have fewer and fewer clean ones left.
I also have to hand sew a little on the girls dresses so the seams don’t scratch them. Lilah called it pokey and I’m hoping by covering it she’ll be okay. I’d hate to make them wear undershirts and the dress in 100 + degree weather at 4:00 in the afternoon for the wedding. I’m afraid of melting and I feel for Carolyn. It’s also been humid which makes it even worse.

Anna did a great job on my dress. It’s a pull over the head dress with no zipper and I have large arms and small boobs so I need a helper to take it off. I’m sure Jon won’t mind. Next time we’ve decided that we’d put a zipper somewhere. I’m not sure where, but one of the sides near the sleeve seems like a good place.

Two days to go. Lilah’s exciting for the wedding and I can’t wait to get everything over with. I bought the girls new shoes and Jon was like why do they need new shoes? and I was like because sandals do not go with their dresses, and even though they’re white shoes I got them with growing room for this winter, so I just bought the winter Sunday shoes now.
He seemed to accept that explanation. 🙂

It’s strange how you think next month won’t be a big spending month and then it is. I’ve spent a lot on the baby shower so far, but I’m not counting it until everything has been bought, especially since I’ll be getting some money from Carolyn and my mom for it. I can’t afford to pay for it by myself and Carolyn can’t afford to put much time into it. Wedding and a honeymoon- whatever.
I hope she makes it to the honeymoon destination though. They’re going to Maui and it’s been getting hit with tropical storms and a hurricane, though I’m sure they won’t mind being caught inside if they even make it there.

Also Eden just put bread up her nose and a little bit is stuck up there. Last time snot got it out, but I worry that it will be inhaled, but how can a doctor scoop it out?

I’m kinda  a stickler for not letting the girls just play with game pieces. Lilah likes to play with the sequence “money” and I don’t usually let her.
One because if I’m not careful they girls get out other toys out and it’s hard to keep them separated. Two I’ll find the pieces around the house.
I just don’t like it.
Well Jon played Candyland with the girls some time last week and they wanted to play with the sequence “money”. So he let them and they’ve played with them every day since.
He was unaware of my rule, and even if I had told him he’d probably just say I have too many rules. I think most of them are common sense from my mom point of view but he does not see it that way always.
Like not letting Lilah flush with her bare feet. Just so gross and then you have the old germs getting on her feet and walking around our house. Just yucky.
I have other rules. Like no getting dirty outside, but that never sticks with Jon and I’ve gotten to the point that I don’t care.
I also set a timer when they’re fighting over something. When the timer goes off they switch, an idea I got my my niece Shauntae. Jon doesn’t like this because he wants them to work it out, I just don’t see Eden doing that until she’s older.
It’s hard being two parents to the same kids. We’re  mostly on the same page but if I mention a rule, Jon will not defy it at that time purposely even if he thinks it’s crazy. We discuss later.

Also Eden has just started throwing more temper tantrums, or kinda like them. There’s no kicking or screaming but she likes to put her head down and cry. It’s kinda cute but annoying because she’s easily upset lately to a point where it’s hard to calm her down.  She’s also more sensitive to not getting her way and  neither of the girls are good at listening to each other.
I noticed Lilah is the dominating one at home and then when at my parents Eden was dominating over Adrianne. But it’s usually the older one is minding there own business and the little one comes along wanting what the older one has. Eden wants what Lilah has and Adrianne wanted what Eden had. Eden got quite good at saying “Adrienne no” when I was there on Friday with them.
Oh well, that’s the circle of life.