Is It Naptime Yet

Last week my eldest brother Glenn got remarried to a wonderful woman, AnnMarie.

They had the wedding in the chapel, so no picture taking was allowed. My battery started to die during the reception so I have some pictures, but we probably would have taken more had it not died.

The reception was held immediately after the wedding. Things went pretty quick so I wasn’t able to get a picture of them cutting the cake, since I was returning from taking Eden to the bathroom when I realized they were cutting the cake, and the camera was in my purse.

Here’s my view, with a few pictures that Jon took, of Glenn and AnnMarie’s wedding.

Bride and groom with parents. AnnMarie, Maggie Harvey, Larry Harvey, Glenn, and Norman Homer.

Shawn, the best man, with baby Zarina.

Dad and Glenn.

Part of our table: Katy, Eden, Lilah, and Jon.

Beautiful Carolyn.

Amusing story: I was eating right handed with Eden on my lap. It was quite awkward and we kept getting in each others way. Carolyn suggest I eat left handed, and I mentioned that I would probably drop my food since I was right handed. She said “Look it’s not that hard.” and attempted to eat with her left hand only to drop the grape on the floor. Point proven and very funny at the time.

Cute Zarina.

The cut cake.

Derek is so GQ. It makes me want to have his soda.

How much food can Lilah fit in her mouth?

Wait, Carolyn’s back. Let’s take a picture of the happy couple…Well, at least one of them is happy.

Having fun with Daddy.

Cute Eden.

The couple dancing.

Look over there so I can steal your food.

(Dad and Mom with neighbors Nancy and husband…I can’t remember his name.)

The crazy Parks, Andrea, Zarina, and Brien. One is definitely a little crazier than the others.

Glenn dancing with Mom.

Getting the car ready. This was just the beginning.

Eden was never in the confetti filled car helping to put toilet paper on the seat belts, I swear.

Having fun.

One sad thing. We decorated the car, only to have the couple slip away without anyone knowing.

Here are my new glasses. They have a green lining on the inside of the frame, which you can’t see very well.

Lilah took this picture for me.

Here are the five jars of applesauce  and the three jars of pie filling, or my half of what Sam and I canned on Thursday.

Today would have been Lilah’s class with Beth but we had a change of plans.

While I was at a family dinner Wednesday night Sam called. I got home late, at 9:15, but I called her anyways. I know her, she’s my friend and my curiosity was too strong to wait till morning.  She was up when I called her at 9:20 pm. She called because the children’s singer Jim Gill was going to be at the Clark County Library today. Jim is Sam’s favorite children’s artist and we have a CD that we got through Sam with a few of his songs. The girls love his songs.  He only comes to Vegas about once a year, and it was going to be a free performance so I decided to cancel with Beth and have fun with the girls.

We got there early so we could get good seats, but they let the school kids in before us anyways. We still had nice seats and the girls had fun. Lilah had a total ball dancing to every song. Britta thought it was a little loud and had her ears covered at first and then got into it more later. Eden was a bit of a hermit and only danced when I wasn’t trying to get her to dance or when she really felt the music.

It was very entertaining and fun for us all.

I bought a CD he signed for us and took a picture of the girls with Jim.

Since the Clark County Library is right by UNLV we stopped by Jon’s work. I barely got a parking spot because the man pulling out pulled out in a advantageous way and I slipped in before the other car. We got there at the same time so it wasn’t obvious who should have gotten the spot.  I forgot to get change before we left so I only had 70 cents, which afforded us 41 minutes of parking, 47 with the added 6 minutes that was still on the meter. Lilah really wanted to go to the small museum there but we only had enough time to see Jon’s work cubicle and eat lunch. It was a beautiful day. The weather was perfect in the shade and we had a slight breeze. I think I’ll try to visit him a little more often during the fall and we can have picnic lunches till it turns cold, because I am a baby about cold weather and even though I live in Vegas and it’s not that cold here, it’s cold enough for my liking.

After lunch we came home and hung out. I took a short nap, well I took about two short naps before making dinner.

After dinner we went to Cold Stone for free ice cream, which wasn’t completely free since it was for Make a Wish, so we donated what cash we had. After that we tried looking for a new store, Fresh and Easy, but we couldn’t find it. We didn’t see it on the way there, though on the map we checked once home we should have spotted it on the way. Oh well, I’ll just wait till the one right across from my local Smith’s opens up.

Now it’s bedtime and tomorrow I will have a new sister-in-law and all of my parents children will be married. It’s a miracle.

Tuesday turned out to be a very eventful day. I went to see my eye doctor to have my contacts checked out. (I’ve mentioned the problem in a post about not being able to pick up contacts.)

I had dropped the girls off at my mom’s house so she could watch them for me. I then came back to borrow a sewing machine, and I guess pick up my children. My free $100 sewing machine is starting to act up. I would love to get a new one, but that will wait until we save for it. In which I’d rather go to SLC for a friend’s wedding that’s in November, compared to saving for a new sewing machine, though neither is happening soon. I’ll just have to keep borrowing my moms. 😉

I’m mostly borrowing it because I’m making a period dress for Beth’s daughter and I want to have the best possible machine in hopes that it will instantly improve my sewing skills 100% and help me sew perfectly straight seams. Really I just need more seam options than straight or zig–zag. There’s like fourteen button holes, my machine does not do button holes, and they want me to hand sew the skirt that is like 5 yards of fabric long. Ha! Like that’ll happen. So instead I’ll just use the invisible seam setting on my mom’s machine and save lots of time.

My machine also has problems when facing thicker seams and hers does not. Mine has a mind of it’s own because it’s so low tech and I get too lazy to take out the stitches because I know it will just do the exact same thing. I’m hoping hers will actually obey me, but I’m also afraid that it might be smarter than me and take over as I sew.  I can just see the fabric flying through the air as the sewing machine sews everything in sight. I’ll have to keep the girls far, far away.

My dinky sewing machine

My mothers nice sewing machine, probably worth more than Jon’s car. ( It also embroiders.)

Hopefully it doesn’t spoil me too much because we can’t afford her sewing machine.

Monday was the first day of dance for the girls. When I was trying to get them going, because they were slow, hearing it was for dance perked them right up and they got ready quickly, at least for two easily distracted girls.

We got there and Eden immediately started acting shy. She was hiding behind me and not wanting to look Sam in the eye. I got her inside and we put her ballet slippers on and she was not wanting to be outgoing. She sat on her piece of blue tape and slumped her shoulders over and would not make eye contact with Sam. She basically stood or sat there the whole time.

At one point she did follow the leader. (I have a video of her participating.)

At another point she stood there while Sam held her arms and tried to dance with her.

It broke this mama’s heart to watch her daughter be so shy and non participative. I almost cried, but Eden wants to go back, so I guess it wasn’t all that bad for her.

Lilah’s class was after Eden’s and I spent a lot of the time in the hall with Eden, Britta, and my friend Emilie, who’s has a daughter Eden’s age and one 6 months younger than Lilah.
Lilah asked for me to be in her class longer so next week another mom, also named Emilie, will be taking Britta to the park during the class so I can sit with Eden and we can watch Lilah more.

I know Lilah really enjoyed herself. I hope Eden enjoys herself more as time goes on.

(I was trying to let Sam be the teacher and let her deal with Eden’s shyness rather then being intrusive. I also want Eden to gain some independence, and since their were no tears and she wasn’t trying to come to me, I figured I’d let her shyness run the course. )

Also Lilah and I were in the hallway during Eden’s class, in reality a foyer outside the class, a work out room, and a door to the gymnasium. Lilah was having fun running circles, taking up maybe a third of the foyer and not making much noise, while Britta ate her snack and we waited for Eden’s class. A woman came out of the gym and gave Lilah a ‘you need to stop that’ condescending look and Lilah immediately stopped running and came to my side.

I knew she was an employee of the rec center because of her badge, and later I found out she’s one of the managers/ supervisors of the rec center. I was really annoyed and if I was a confrontational person would have said something. I was just annoyed that someone would be so stern when a child was just having harmless fun and wasn’t bothering anyone, with the parent right there. It is a recreation center after all. Jon says if it happens again I should calmly respond that I’m watching her and allowing her get her energy out, or something a lot less confrontational than what comes to my mind.

As I think about it I get a little more upset. If she had said thank you once Lilah stopped running I may have forgiven the look . I wish she had approached me and asked me to have my daughter stop running for safety issues, that I could handle.  But to give ‘the look’ and and not even make eye contact with the parent, that really bothers me. I’m the only person who can give my daughter ‘the look’ and maybe family, but I have got to know you if you’re gonna use the look to have my child stop doing something.

After watching Eden be so shy and then to have Lilah’s feelings hurt by a complete stranger I almost cried again. I also didn’t know how I should respond and it just shocked me a little. Maybe it was getting up at 5:30 am, but I was an emotional person during dance class.

On a positive note here are some pictures I snapped and a short video. I mostly took it since Jon’s at work during their classes but Eden’s also really enjoyed watching it. I’m hoping it helps her be a little more herself at the next class.

Shy Eden.

Following the leader.

Hands “glued” to her hips.

Sam’s a good teacher. (Lilah’s the second from the front.)

I guess I’ll need to take more pictures of Lilah next time.

Here’s the video.

For the unschooling group last week, as in on Wednesday the 20th, there was a party to celebrate not going back to school. Everyone brought something for a potluck and there were bubbles for the kids. I brought some bubbles we had from home, but the big hit with Eden and Lilah was the home made bubble solution. Someone had brought fly swatters, which Lilah loved, and cookie cutters for blowing bubbles. The girls had tons of fun and Eden got covered in bubble solution. Luckily they weren’t scared of the water features at this park and I was able to rinse them off before getting in the car.

I forgot my camera, but one of the other moms, Tara, took the following pictures.

Additional thoughts: I knew there were water features at this park, but for the last two parks they had not gone into the water. The previous parks had water that would come from the ground and would squirt in different patterns and since the girls saw no predictability they did not want to play in them.  This water came from stationary statues of seals and once it was on they knew exactly where it would be, no surprises.

I didn’t go to this park prepared for water play since they had not played in the last two, but I did go with the mind set that if they got wet, oh well, I guess I’ll just be taking home wet girls. Lilah played in the water and was soaked, Eden played a little but mostly got soaked by the bubble solution. I rinsed them off, took them home and gave them a bath once in the door. I think going there with the mindset of “it’s okay if they get wet” helped me avoid any anger towards the girls getting wet. (I am a bit of a control freak about that sort of thing at times.) Also being around such laid back woman helped me to not be upset at Eden getting so soaked by the bubble solution. Of course it helped that there was water there to rinse her off with and that she wasn’t freaking out while I cleaned her off. I think I get a little tightly wound and this particular group of woman are not, so I’m able to relax and let the girls be kids. I think they have a calming influence over me as a mother.

Also, I’m getting a little more comfortable with some of the woman in the group. They all seem very nice, but it’s easier to talk a select few for me. I’m trying to open up a little more and find out what I have in common with them. The kids around 7-12 are more in their  own world and associate well with one another. There are kids around Lilah and Eden’s age so that makes me happy that as they get older hopefully they’ll have new peers to associate with because right now they mostly ignore kids their age since they have each other to play with.  I was really impressed with the teenagers in the group because the seem really nice and were very aware of the littler ones, i.e. they blew bubbles with my girls and tried to include Eden in a game of hide and seek.

Today, Monday, was my girls first visit to the dentist. Yeah, Lilah’s five and I just never worried about it. Luckily I had nothing to worry about and both their teeth are in great condition. Lilah’s baby teeth have nice gaps, so there should be room for the adult teeth. I’m so not looking forward to when teeth start falling out. Plus, since we don’t do Santa I’m pretty sure we’re not gonna do the Tooth Fairy, but I think I would like to do something special when her teeth start falling out, I’m just not sure what yet.

Eden said she wasn’t nervous at all and Lilah I think had a little nerves, but they both behaved wonderfully and did a great job. I had my appointment before them so they could watch the hygienist polish my teeth and prepare them for everything. I honestly think it was the moving chair that made them the most nervous, not the instruments in their mouths.

It also ended up being a family affair. I asked my MIL to help watch the girls while I was getting my teeth cleaned and while they weren’t able to be in the back with me so she was there and then so was Jon. I reminded him of the appointment  while talking to the girls Sunday night and he then voiced that he wanted to be there. He wasn’t feeling too well this morning so he went to work but decided to take a sick day and was at the dentist office for the visits. We usually try to give Jon a day to recover from trips, we returned from Ely yesterday, but with the new position we were hoping he wouldn’t need today, or Monday,  to recover since it’s a more time intensive position. I guess we’ve learned our lesson and know that he needs a day to recover and we just have to factor that in.

They were able to choose a prize from a treasure chest since they behaved so well, though I’m sure even kids who don’t behave get something.

Lilah chose a star shaped slinky, she had never seen a star shaped slinky, and Eden chose a teeth clip with a magnet on it.

Happy girls after a dentist appointment.

Lilah’s been obsessed with Jack, Andrea and Brien’s dog. We’re going to be camping with them later this month and since it’s on the horizon, still far away, but close enough that all she can think about is Andrea, Brien, Ely, camping, and Jack.

Case in point. She wrote this letter to Jack last week.

She wrote this letter to Andrea and Brien the same day. Well I wrote it but she dictated it to me.

She drew this picture for Andrea and Brien while at Grandma Blake’s on Friday.

That’s Andrea and Brien in the upper right corner.  She’s writing “It’s Lilah” on all of them.

She drew this picture during sacrament on Sunday.

She drew these Monday.

Before Lilah added the spots Eden told her “That’s a cute mouse Lilah.”

She also had me write a letter to her friend Britta about how Jack is so nice to kids and she should meet Jack. I didn’t get a copy of that one though.

I’m enjoying her art and her willingness to start writing letters and words. I’m happy she’s writing any letters and trying to write new words.

This is pencil.

Yeah, I guess we need to work with sounding out words, but I’m happy she tried, and I was sleeping so she wasn’t able to ask me.

It was a hint to Eden that she needed to find the pencil so she could find the pictures Lilah had drawn for her while she had taken her nap.

I’m loving her new love of drawing and writing.
(Did you notice the dog, even in a picture for her sister.)

Britta and Lilah are best friends. Britta calls Lilah her special friend and they exchange gifts all the time. When we dropped off a thank you for Sam Lilah made a gift for Britta, which included a rainbow crayon that she had.

Earlier this week Lilah got an e-mail from her friend Britta. It had pictures that she had chosen for Lilah to see.

In return  Lilah thought we should share pictures with Britta.  So I took  one of each girl and then went through what we had.

So here are the pictures for Britta and some that I needed to share anyways.

Lilah’s hand in a bandage.

Her little pinkie finger was hurting her all day, especially when the nail was touched. I thought she had just banged it sometime during the night since it wasn’t hurting till Monday morning. I finally took a look at her nail that night and noticed something under the nail. She had gotten a sliver under her nail and that’s what was causing the excruciating pain for her during the day. Once removed her finger felt fine.

 

Eden with Lilah’s Doodle Bear. (It has been colored on and washed so the marker doesn’t stain or become hard to remove. )

 

 Lilah with our 7 or 8 foot sunflower.

 

The girls with sunflower.

 

A close up of the Sunflower.

A close up of the tiny bee on the sunflower.

For Lilah’s birthday we all woke up and had a late start to the day. I showed Lilah the video I made for her, which I will have to add another time and she loved it and watched it twice.

We had a very late breakfast and then got ready to get Lilah’s present.

She thought she was getting swimming goggles because she’s been asking for some, but after much research we decided to get her a pet Betta fish. They’re relatively easy to take care of and can live for a few years.

Meet Blueberry, Lilah’s new pet.

Lilah thought of his name all on her own. She had asked for suggestions so I gave her many names along the Bob and Fred area and even told  her we could name him Blue or Bluey. Once at home she thought of Blueberry and it has turned out to be a perfect name for our new addition. He is also a similar color the the fruit. We made a little name sign and decorated it with some stickers she had gotten for her birthday.
He’s the perfect pet for our family and oddly enough I already feel attached to him. He will come and look at you if you go to his tank and he just seems aware of his surroundings. We really like Blueberry.

After we got Blueberry Lilah and I picked out flowers for her birthday. The night before she mentioned getting flowers in a box, like I had from Jon on our anniversary. I had completely forgotten she had wanted flowers delivered to her on her birthday. She still seemed happy to pick out her own and she choose the Crazy Daisy bouquet.

We then had lunch and tried to get Eden down for a nap. Eden was too excited because we were going to go to Applebee’s and she did not sleep.

We went to Applebee’s for dinner. Lilah had chosen it earlier this month. The girls ate very little of there food that night. They really don’t eat a lot when we’re out. Lilah was too cold and thus unable to eat very much according to her reasoning. It’s funny because our bill with tip was around the same amount we paid for the ten pizza’s we bought for Lilah’s party. I was also reminded that you should never buy a steak unless you’re at a steak house because there is no comparison to the expensive steak I had on my anniversary at Austin’s Steakhouse.

It was a fun family day. Lilah had invited Britta, unannounced to us, so she was sad the her friend could not be at Applebee’s with us, but I think she still had fun.