Is It Naptime Yet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Lilah’s a sensitive child. I’ve always known this. She’s also very brave too.

Today we had the lovely little red mole removed. Really, we could have left it, but it might have gotten bigger, I didn’t want hours of bleeding if it got scratched badly, and I know I would want something like that removed if I was a teenager, so I went with removing it while she was young, and while we were there and had insurance to pay for it, though technically we’ll be paying for it since it’s a new deductible year.

Anyways, Lilah was very nervous about this. She did not want it removed and the thought of it made her teary eyed. At the office the doctor talked to me and then I explained to her how he basically said we could leave it or remove it, Lilah replied in her very own words, that Lilah speaks and is somewhat technical, that she thought we should leave it. Then as the doctor and I tried to tell her that it was probably best to remove it now she started to get all red in the eyes and nervous. I couldn’t help but get teary eyed too as I knew my baby was nervous and just wanting to avoid the removal of the mole.

It hurt a little bit to have the anaesthetic injected. I know that it causes a pinch and burn from my own mole removals. Then the doctor took a little while to get back for some reason and then quickly removed it. I stood next to her, but did not watch. It was over rather quickly and hopefully in a couple weeks the scab will be gone and she’ll be like new, or like old.

I feel like a baby writing about how sad I was to see Lilah  when she got teary eyed today. She was so nervous, but I knew that it wouldn’t be too bad and once a teenager she’d probably be much happier without it. I just felt so bad for her once the news was delivered, and hurt that she would be hurt too. I know there are many other mothers who have had children go through much worst and I hope I never have to endure those moments myself, or watch them really.

Bottom line: Mothers hate to see their children hurt or afraid no matter how little the hurt or fear is.

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.

This weekend was Greenopolis at our local girl scout building. The whole family went and we registered Lilah to be a Daisy Scout.

There are no troops in our local area so Jon and I, gulp, are looking at becoming troop leaders, double gulp. A troop needs at least two female leaders so my friend Sam is looking at becoming a leader with me. Since she has a child that is still regularly attached to her breast, she may or may not  be able to be a leader due to time constraints, though we could just be independent girl scouts together and have our girls do things together on a more whenever we have time basis because being the leaders of a troop would be a lot, but we both want our girls in girl scouts. Jon wants to also be a leader, but has warned that I would be doing the majority of it, because he’s working 40 plus hours and going to school. (40 plus hours because they’re entering the testing and actual implementing stage of the computer system they’re switching over to. He may not be taking a class next semester due to the higher and more intense workload, which does not make me happy.)

A part of me really wants to be a leader for Lilah’s troop if it means helping her meet other girls, though I don’t really like teaching kids or think that I would be a good leader. I have a tendency to sit back and watch and not get messy. I’m not sure if I’m cut out to be a leader to a troop of possibly rowdy and messy girls.

One reason I want to be a troop leader is I’ll be helping other children and our community. I’ve had people tell me I should have the girls in public school so I can be really involved in the PTA and help other kids whose parents don’t care. Well, my responsibility is to my own child when it comes to her education, so that’s who I put first. Since this is an extracurricular and not education specific, I think it’s an excellent way to give back, without putting my child in a situation that I think is less than desirable so I can help other people’s kids.

We’re still exploring the possibility, but as Sam and I discussed it would be out of our comfort zone and a hopefully a good experience for us and our girls. I admit I wish I could screen kids to see if any are crazy, but that’s life and hopefully our girls can meet new friends and gain a different perspective on life and I can learn from them.

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.

Hello there, this is Lilah. Well, I’m just letting you know that I’m selling bookmarks.
They’re $.50 each or three for $1.25.

I’m selling the bookmarks to get a Nature Set and I’m also going to donate 1/3 of the money I make to a charity.
Please let me know if you want any of my bookmarks.
I’ll be calling you soon to see if you want any bookmarks.
Please tell any of your friends who might be interested.

Thanks,
Lilah Blake

Please leave a comment if you’re interested in purchasing some bookmarks from Lilah. She’s been wanting to make and sell these forever since she would like to earn money to purchase more things, and now to also help others.

So Lilah just took her fingerprint. It was an idea that she got out of Little National Geographic. You rub pencil on a paper, then you rub your finger around in the pencil, then take tape and remove the fingerprint and put it on a piece of paper.

It was cool and Lilah has a loop imprint, though I admit my first instinct was to tell her to go wash her dirty finger when she was asking for tape.

We then did Eden’s and Eden has a whorl. So cool, I’ve always wanted a whorl fingerprint, loop is soo common. Just think, half of her DNA that made that whorl came from me, so it almost makes me have a whorl fingerprint too, kinda, but not really.

I would totally post pictures but Jon recently changed us to Linux and I have no idea how to import pictures and then edit. Our scanner is also disconnected because we had to plug something more important in and so the scanner got unplugged, though I can’t use it in Linux either. To think of it I have no idea what we plugged in and why and I’m not sure why I’m using Linux besides that Jon is making me ’cause it’s faster and more secure, or something like that. I may have to reboot into windows just because I’m also unsure of how to open photo’s to edit. Sure he showed me but it’s hard to teach an old dog a new web program and I’m am totally slacking on posting a picture post a week.

I’m also a little worried that someone might try to still my children’s identity if I post their fingerprints, not really, but you never know what wacko’s are reading your blog, or if the wacko is really the one writing it. Don’t answer that.

Also, it was totally a random homeschooling moment. We went online to compare the prints to tell us what each one was. I think next time I’ll have Lilah type in what we’re looking for. I’ll just need an ounce or two more of patience for slow typing.

So I’ve been back on the home-schooling wagon for two days. I think it helps to have my car in the shop and not to be able to go anywhere. It’s like the old days when we had just one car and I had to plan ahead, and it had to really be worth it, and I’d take Jon to work if I wanted to go anywhere that day or I’d just stayed home and do things in the neighborhood or at the house.

I’ve decided that the afternoon, right after lunch, is the best time for me to home-school. I’ve done my chores and other things  that distract me in the morning while the girls play, then I have them clean up while I make lunch, then after lunch we clear the table off and bring the work there. I stay at the table writing down what we’ve done and what I want to do, partially in effort to show what we’ve done and partially to work on my penmanship, something I want to improve. I give the girls different tasks to do and modify when needed. At the end of our work day we read, do a fun activity, play a learning game, or all three. I don’t say I need to fill two or three hours with work, I just work with them a little and as time progresses I’ll add more where I see they need it.

Eden’s work ends much sooner than Lilah’s so she usually draws and does what she wants until we’re ready to do our group activity. Lilah works quickly and mostly happily. I’m hoping we can introduce things that she wants to know more about and have a library day where we go and check out books on the topic of her choice. This is something I’ll add as we get more into our routine and one of the reasons we homeschool, so they can learn about what they want to learn, when they want to.

My goals for them at this time are the following:

Eden (four years old): Teach to read with Bob books. She’s really very good at sounding out words and recognizes some. It’s sounding it out and then remembering it for the next time. I think she’s ready to learn to read because I’ve caught her trying to sound out words when she’s trying to read books. I don’t expect a lot from her but since it seems like she wants to read I figure I’ll teach her to read. I’ll also be working on simple math with her and working on her writing her name more clearly.

Lilah (six years old): Math, penmanship, spelling, geography, and history. I have a lot of things for Lilah this year. I’m not yet set on a curriculum, but we do have work books, flash cards, and other learning materials to learn with. Lilah reads very well so I’ll think I’ll be reading chapter books with her, where she reads them to me and I help her slow down and sound out words she reads incorrectly. She has a tendency to read quickly and thus read some words incorrectly.

We’re also in a co-op starting in September where the girls will be taking different classes and I’ll be helping and teaching some classes too. My sister Kristi is home-schooling her children but using K-12 where they provide the lessons and many cool things to teach with. We’ll be sitting in on some of their science lessons on Mondays or Fridays.

I’ve decided that Mondays are co-op and science days, Wednesdays are park, library, or errand running days and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are school days. Most things that I do are in the morning, so as long as I’m home by the afternoon we should be fine if something does happen to come up.

I’m hoping this works well for us as I try to be a little more concrete in my home-schooling schedule.

It’s been fun to sit down and see how much the girls know already. They’re amazingly smart and really want to learn. I’m hoping as we do work I can find interesting things to introduce, like sign language or Spanish, though I don’t know if I’d be the best Spanish teacher.