Is It Naptime Yet

It’s snowing in Las Vegas and actually sticking to the ground. We’re at a pretty low elevation, so I’m impressed it’s staying. (Where as Henderson and where my in-laws live get snow and we don’t.)

Here’s some video of the girls and some pictures I’ve taken. Now that it’s getting dark, and still snowing I won’t be getting any good pictures till the morning. It’s suppose to snow all night too.

Totally weird. It takes longer than normal to get cold this winter and now we’re getting snow!

Our garden.

Our pomegranate tree.

The ground 30 minutes after the girls made tracks in it.

A light.

We tried to build a snow man, but the snow was still pretty thin and I’m a wimp. I hate cold hands and boy does snow make your hands cold.

Saturday the 6th, was our ward’s Christmas dinner and program. Eden had a really hard time at practice that morning so that night I wasn’t too surprised when she just stood there while all the other kids were ‘dashing’, which you’ll kinda be able to see in the video, but our seats were on the wrong side of the stage since the seats on the correct side were all taken and the quality isn’t too good, but you’ll get the just of the cuteness.

Here’s a short video of the girls singing Jingle Bells.

The girls sat on Santa’s lap and they printed the photo’s out right there. Since we don’t do the Santa Claus thing, I’m not going to go out of my way to get a picture with a really nice Santa, and I’m just happy they were both so willing to take the picture.

It’s a pretty washed out picture. I tried to make it less bright, but that only gave them spotty skin.

Yesterday the girls and I made pictures to decorate our front window. I cut out some snowflakes, Christmas trees and stars and they colored them.

Then last night we finally got to decorate the tree.

Lilah had been dying to decorate the tree since Jon put it up on Sunday and we finally got to it last night.
(Monday night we fixed the tree and it  got a little late to decorate so we just watched Shrek the Halls on TV.)

We had fun and Lilah loved decorating. Eden loved playing in the stockings.

Believe me when I say we don’t have enough ornaments to have 8 this close together.

It was Eden’s turn to put on the angel. Her mouth is full of a marshmallow that was in her hot chocolate, and it was a large one, not the small ones.

Since we only set up 2/3rds of the tree we had extra lights and I put some in our front window today. Lilah said I was the best at making Christmas fun.

Also, here are some pictures from us making a gingerbread house with Carolyn on Saturday so Jon could study.  She graciously let us give her company all afternoon, and into the evening,  at the house she’s watching since we had to wait 1 hour for the walls to dry and then another 2 hours to let the roof set. The girls played and watched Dora while we talked and took naps  waiting to decorate the house.

Eden eating candy.

Giving a big smile after eating candy.

Lilah eating candy too.

The girls also want to eat it right away, but I’m making them wait till after Christmas.

So shortly after I blogged about Eden being sick I called my parents to find out my aunt and uncle weren’t coming down, so it would only be immediate family. I called my sister Kristi to see if she would be offended if we brought Eden and her reply was “It’s Thanksgiving and we’re family and family should be together on Thanksgiving even if they’re sick.”  Since Eden was able to keep a couple small bowls of applesauce down before we left and I think she was more sick because she hadn’t eaten since 10 o’clock the previous day. so I think her stomach was just sensitive in the morning. Eden had no fever and behaved liked her normal self for the rest of the day.

So we all headed over to my parents house for our first dinner.

Thanksgiving was a cloudy day with some showers. Wednesday we had steady rain on and off the whole day, so the weather was slightly cold, but not that cold, and wet.

The dinner party at my parents house encompassed Carolyn, Kristi and her family, Howard, Howie, Kaitlyn and Adrienne,  Glenn and his new wife Ann Marie, my parents and my family. It was kinda nice to have it be a small group, which made bringing Eden along easier. We ate around 2 pm and left shortly before 3 pm.

We picked up a pie and my rolls to bring to Ann’s house and got there around 4.

Annie was busy picking up my mother-in-law and brother-in-law Rawlin when we arrived. My father-in-law wasn’t up to leaving the house, and my MIL does not like driving in rain and Rawlin’s car battery was dead.

We hung out and people arrived and we ate around 5 pm.

We stayed till 7:30 and had fun seeing and talking with family.

While there Lilah had the camera at one point so the first few photos are ones I took, while the rest are from Lilah’s point of view.

The apple pie I made with the filling I canned with Sam.
I’ve never made pie crust so I cheated and bought some. I did not want my first pie crust to be something I brought to a dinner party.

Eden on Jon’s shoulder. She’s too cute and I guess I need to have her wear a belt with these pants.

Lilah before she got free range with the camera. She looks so old to me in this picture, or like an actual five year old and not the young girl/ child that I think of her as.

Lilah’s pictures:

This is the chair she was just sitting on in the previous picture I took of her.

The wall to the left of the chair.

One of her muses.

Another muse, Uncle Rawlin.

He held this pose for nearly a minute while Lilah tried to get the camera to take the picture, sometimes it just does not want to take pictures.

One of the cards we made for Jon’s family members on Wednesday.

We enjoyed our day and hope that everyone else had a Happy Thanksgiving also.

This year Halloween fell on Nevada Day observed, or the last Friday of the month, so Jon got the actual Nevada Day off and was able to spend the day with us. He worked on his paper throughout the day and was nice enough to take pictures of us taking our the seeds and guts of our pumpkin and handed out candy that night while I took the girls around.

Our tradition is to carve our pumpkin Halloween day. So the girls helped me gut the pumpkin. Eden really didn’t like getting so messy, while Lilah sat there and played with the seeds and guts.

The poor pumpkin had no idea what fate awaited him.

The only Picture Eden was smiling. All the others she has that look of disgust.

Lilah drew a face, which I transferred to the pumpkin.

Eden chose a picture from the carving kit I bought. (Her expression here just made me smile.)

I came up with my face on my own.  (Lilah took this picture.)

I got the girls ready a little before dark so we visited Beth’s house and Eden’s old nursery leader.

We then came back to our neighborhood and took the girls to the other four houses on our little block that were participating. Jon stayed home and handed out candy. We went through about 6 of the 8 bags and I will have Jon take some candy to work because we have plenty of candy from the girl’s adventures.

After going down our block I took the girls to my parents neighborhood. I took them down the cul-de-sac my parents live on and one more. We hit around 20 house but still came home with so much candy. I’m not sure why I took them down the second street. Lilah was just so into trick or treating and I guess the child in my wanted as much candy as we could get. Lilah started complaining about her bag being too heavy and I had to carry Eden’s bag for her towards the end. We have way too much candy for our house. I only let the girls choose one piece a day at lunch and I’m actually trying to not eat that much due to watching my weight, and Jon only eats a piece maybe once a week. I’m thinking I may put some in the freezer for Christmas. “I don’t know why you got gum with a jack o’ lantern on it or that gummy spider.”

Candy from our previous adventures.

Candy from Halloween night. (I don’t know if you can tell, but this bowl holds more than the 1 gallon bucket. )

I’ve noticed that even in my parents neighborhood, where there are a lot of families, there are not a ton of kids running door to door and only about 1/4 of their neighborhood participates in handing out candy. When I grew up there were kids everywhere swarming the streets and you rarely had a house that didn’t hand out candy. I feel like they miss out on some of the excitement I had has a kid.

Lilah still loved trick or treating and even though her bag was “getting so heavy” she persevered. Too bad she as a once piece of candy a day mom rather than a pig out on candy one night mom.

Wednesday night was our final Halloween event.

It was a carnival type affair at a local recreation center. Sam signed Britta up and I signed Lilah and Eden up. We met there in the chaos of Halloween fun.

They had lots of different activities for the children to wait in line for and attempt to try and all the children got candy whether or not they succeeded.
There was digging for treasure in a box full of shredded paper, throwing balls into a small blow up coffin with a skeleton, knock down the cans, and the like.

Eden was very weary of the evening. All the people and the high noise level had her clutching my hand all night, especially after we had the fire alarm go off for around 20 minutes. It was a false alarm, and mostly annoying, but not tremendously loud, though Eden covered her ears has much as she could since she only had one hand, like me.   I got so use to her holding my hand it began to feel strange if she wasn’t grasping it.

Lilah loved it and said it wasn’t too loud. I love that she loves Halloween this year. I think it’s adorable. She even wanted to go into the haunted house, but the line was too long and I was nervous about Eden. Instead they did the jumper obstacle course, which was Eden’s favorite. I think the night air and the lack of loud jarring music made it a lot of fun for her.

They had a cake walk and Lilah won our first time around! She was kind enough to share her cupcake with us. We played once more, but did not win.

It was a fun night, even though it was very busy and crowded. It wasn’t to the point that I felt like it was a waste of time and all the employees were very nice.

We’ve already filled up our gallon ice cream bucket with candy. I’m not sure if we can take much more candy.

Here are the girls doing the jumper obstacle course.

Add they’re off.

There was a mesh siding so I couldn’t take any pictures till the end.

Lilah having fun jumping while we waited for Eden.

Eden finishing. She had landed funny before this so she was a little hurt in this picture.

Tomorrow is Halloween and Nevada Day observed so Jon is at home with us. (Yay!)  I can’t wait to carve our pumpkin and maybe I’ll start cutting out the table runners. I’ve really been avoiding them for some reason, though I need to get over it no later than Monday.

I’ve finished Hannah’s pioneer/ frontier dress. I’m not sure what you want to call it.

Here it is lying on my couch before I put the buttons on, this is so you can see the skirt.

Here it is on Hannah with the apron and bonnet.

Here it is on Hannah next to their old time stove.

I forgot the pantaloons, they’re still in my closet, but I’ll see them on Thursday. I just wanted the dress at their house, in their hands, so it was no longer on the back of my couch since I don’t have any tall closet space for my own clothes, let alone this dress.

She seemed really happy with it and I’m happy to have rendered my services to them.

I don’t know how many hours I spent on it. It took me three hours to sew on twelve buttons, there were interruptions, like getting the girls to bed and watching Dancing With the Stars, but it took no less than  one and a half of the three hours. I think I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

My estimate is at least 20 hours of sewing time.  If I had a serger it would have been more around 12  since it still took a while to press in seams and put on buttons.  I like sewing french seams, I just don’t like the  time it takes to sew in french seams.

It’s done.

Now onto table runners for a wedding.

Last night we went to our first Halloween party of the season, we have four total. It was for my sister Carolyn’s work. The parties are for families, and since she has no kids, and even when she does I hope she continues to invite us, she invites us to be her family.

My girls love Carolyn’s work, though you wouldn’t know it by the expressions on their faces. Whenever we go, even on regular days, they’re so excited to see Carolyn. People at Carolyn’s work love my girls and sometimes I wish my girls were as excited as the people who see them are.  Lilah has become more outgoing, but Eden has become more reserved.

Anyways, as I was checking the time and trying to figure out when we needed to leave I realized I hadn’t called animal control on the cat we had caught the night before. I called, but they were not coming as quickly as I needed them too, so Jon had to come home, rather than stay on campus and study, so we could head out to the party. Since I wanted to be ready as soon as possible, in case animal control came quickly, the girls sat in their costumes and make-up for around an hour and a half. I had PBS kids on in hopes they wouldn’t touch their faces too much, and they did a pretty good job.  (I was going to go to JoAnn’s before the party, but we had to go after.)

Jon got home so we gave quick hugs and left. (Animal control came around 7, I think we were probably a last stop back to the office since we’re close by it, so it was a good thing Jon came home.)

We got to the party and ate. I had the girls on an empty desk which had a wall behind it, and many people commented on how cute they were, and some even said they thought they were apart of the decorations since they were siting so nice and still.

We went trick or treating to each office and the girls even went into a haunted office. Eden was holding my hand very tightly. A witch that had been going around, who scared and made almost every child cry who was under the age of 5 except my girls, was in the office. There were a lot of witch cackles, which made Eden nervous, but they did well and made it out OK. It was “just the right amount of scary” Lilah said,  according to my sister Carolyn’s blog.

Carolyn’s boss, Tim, was dressed up and sitting in one of their rooms to scare the kids. He gently got Lilah and mostly just hugged and gave her a few kisses, I think she was only slightly scared, but we told her it was Tim, so she seemed OK with it. When I took a picture of him with the girls, Eden was definitely not enjoying sitting on his lap, and even when he took the pantyhose off his head she was weary of him, though Eden’s pretty much weary of everyone lately.

It was lots of fun and the girls were pretty happy with their loot.

Lilah with her hair braided to crimp it.

My scary ghosts.

The girls with Tim. He was scarier with the lights out, which they were but I have a good flash.

The loot.

I did a few games with some words this afternoon with Lilah and then we did a small spelling test that used four of the eighteen words we were reading.

I think she did rather well, especially since she got all four correct.

The purpose is so they learn spelling in a fun way and it’s not as tedious as a normal spelling test that a child would have in school. It’s suppose to be short and if we do it two to three times a week she should be learning how to spell eight to twelve words, more if we decide to do six or eight words in one ‘test’. It’s also to instill confidence in her spelling abilities.

She checks the words herself and once a problem arises we discuss what she did wrong and how to correct it.

I think she’s doing pretty well for no formal schooling.

On Friday our home school meet up group made plans for the group to attend Bonnie Springs. We were able to attend on school prices. It was $2 per adult and $1 per child, compared to the normal rate of $20 a car.

I’ve never been to Bonnie Springs so the thought of wearing shoes, over sandals which I wear as much as possible, never crossed my mind. So here’s a warning if you go to the petting zoo at Bonnie Springs wear shoes. We were able to avoid any messes, but man are you aware of the free roaming animals which leave their poop around when you’re in sandals.

The girls loved the animals. At first I thought all the animals were in cages but as we ventured farther we saw a free roaming rooster, and then the donkey, a couple deer and then we saw a llama and some goats. I think the friendlier animals were free roaming, but their was a very feisty goat that was head butting and chasing the other goats. That was a little scary when you have a front row seat.

I forgot to call my friend Beth about canceling the dress fitting for her daughter. So she called me and while I was talking to her I looked over to see one of the deer eating Lilah’s shirt! I was unable to get a picture but she was so happy and just giggling away at this deer eating her shirt. I did get a picture of the deer while another little girl was feeding him.

While we were just beginning our exploration we walked into a small area but a llama apparently wanted out, so he kinda forced us to move out of the small walkway. Lilah thought it was hilarious, as you’ll see in the video, but Eden was freaked out by it and could not get away from the large llama fast enough. I think that made her very weary of all the animals and she only touched a ferret that a worker held for the girls to pet.

We saw lots of interesting animals and the girls loved seeing each of them.

After the petting zoo we wandered around the old town Bonnie Springs and then watched a melodrama that two ‘actors’, I use the term loosely, put on. They then had a very cheesy shooting and hanging skit.

We wandered around some more and then ate our lunch in the car off of Charleston, or a pull-off to some hike. It was a beautiful day and perfect for being outside. We watched two monarch butterflies go by our car. I think it’s migration time for them.

Here are the pictures of our adventure. The song is by Jim Gill and is called The Sound Effects Song. I only used the first half, since I’m only showing 20 pictures and the first half goes with where we were, kinda.