Is It Naptime Yet

So this year for Easter I was finally able to make the girl’s Easter dresses. No play is happening, which gives me much more free time to sew, and I just didn’t look too hard at the store’s. I wanted to make something different for the girl’s, but when we went to pick out fabric, they ended up choosing the material they wanted. They each had a different pink for the main dress, but I accidentally cut Eden’s dress out of Lilah’s fabric, and Lilah really wanted her fabric, so they had nearly matching dresses. I think they turned out really cute.

Easter Morning

We dyed eggs at my parents house Saturday night. It was actually their fortieth anniversary! I totally forgot till my mom mentioned my dad would be taking her out, and since he doesn’t do that often, I asked why. I have it on my wall calendar, but was a total airhead when it came to remembering.

Green hands. Grandpa washed Eden’s hands with Shout, and it removed most of the dye.

This year for Easter I also had a goal of buying no candy.
What usually happens in our house at Easter: The girls go to two or three Easter egg hunts, and get tons of candy. I buy three or more different candies to put in the baskets, and end up eating most of it because Jon has more self control than me, and the girls have tons of candy already. I gain a few pounds and indulge my candy addiction, while the children ask for candy every.single.day. for like 2 months.
I decided recently that I would not be purchasing candy or cookies once the goodies in our house were gone. So if we wanted something sweet we’d have to make it. (Ice cream is the exception and they do get candy at other places.)
So I let the girls know that the Easter Bunny would not be bringing candy to our house, and they seemed OK with it. I have my reasons, and we discussed why he would not be bringing it, and why I would no longer be buying it.
So the Easter Bunny put cute socks, a note pad with pencil, glow bracelets, a craft, play dough, and a few cookies in their basket. Eden was also given a game, and Lilah was given some sheets with horses on them.
The cookies were something I had in my freezer and needed to use, so that’s why we enjoyed them in our baskets.

For the Easter Bunny the girls left out some carrots and a bag of candy from candy they had collected at the one egg hunt they went to. This year really was a low candy year for us, but it’s better for us this way.

Easter morning the girls put on their new dresses and we headed to church. After church we had an Easter egg hunt. The Easter Bunny filled the eggs with quarters and small ink stamps. Lilah found 5 of the 6 stamps, so Eden traded one quarter for a stamp. ( I think filling the eggs with small change is actually a really good idea and honestly costs as much as candy, if not less, if you decided to put nickels or dimes in the eggs instead.)

Can you spot the two eggs the girls were not seeing?

The loot!

Lilah’s bangs were trimmed on Monday.

We then enjoyed a nice afternoon with Jon’s parents and an evening meal at my parents.
The cousins enjoyed a fun egg hunt together and ate nearly all their candy while at their grandparent’s house.

The cousin’s waiting to find some eggs. (Adrienne, Eden, Lilah, Howie, and Kaitlyn.)

Lilah was very excited to get some candy.

Enjoying their candy and counting eggs.

Since I’m finally at my computer and editing pictures, I thought I’d edit some from Christmastime.

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Jon and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary last month. Of course I posted something on Facebook, but neglected my blog.

So far we’ve had a little celebration each month. In January we went to The Brad Paisley concert and went out to eat with my sister Carolyn and her husband Derek. Derek got Carolyn Brad Paisley tickets for Christmas, and I decided that’s what I really wanted for Christmas. (Jon had planned on me getting a massage and having a spa day or morning.) Since we were buying tickets just a month before the concert, they were a little more pricey, so we decided that they would be a part Christmas and a part Anniversary present. So now I plan on doing something each month this year to celebrate our ten years together.

The Brad Paisley concert was wonderful. My favorite part was hearing “Whiskey Lullaby” with the lead singer from The Band Perry singing the female part. Whiskey Lullaby is one of my favorite songs, it’s sad, but I love the music. Brad put on an awesome show and it was worth every penny.

Carolyn and Derek.

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I received compliments on my hair by our waitress and by two women behind me as we were leaving the concert. The first started touching my hair and was amazed at how it wasn’t moving. (I admit I have to use a lot of hair spray to get it to stay this way.)

For our actual anniversary, Jon took the day off. This is the first time he’s taken our anniversary day off. He also had two dozen purple and lavender roses delivered. I wanted him to go to the park with the girls and I, but he said he had to stay home, and that’s when my gourmet caramels from Fran’s came. I think it was good that he was home, because I only expect roses on our anniversary, and wouldn’t have known to stay home. We enjoyed a fun meal at home and just had extra time together.

My roses and chocolate.

Saturday night was when we went out to celebrate our anniversary with time away from the girls. We decided to keep it costs moderate and ate dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We then had my rings inspected, it was that time of the year again, and figured out our current ring sizes. I told Jon I wanted to have him pick out a wedding ring, and he was very hesitant. Once at the store he liked looking at the rings there, but wasn’t sure. Once home, and armed with his size he went on-line and picked out a ring and ordered it. He was pretty happy with himself. The ring came on the 29th and I placed it on his ring finger as I jokingly asked him to marry me again. He really loves it, and it was nice to see him get so excited over it, especially since I first had to coerce him into getting one.

Us once more, but isn’t Jon so cute?

I’m so grateful for Jonathan and the happiness we’ve found. I’ve been in an especially lovey and silly mood lately, and he puts up with it with a smile. I feel like I really have so much joy in my life because of my wonderful husband and two wonderful daughters.

Thank you for ten wonderful years together Jon. I truly love you more today than the day we were married.

Th girls both had ideas of what they wanted to be earlier this year. Soon after Eden’s birthday she had been beading anklets and decided she would be an Indian and wear all these anklets and bracelets she was making. Unfortunately she couldn’t find them, but decided glow bracelets would work well. She color coordinated the glow bracelets to her outfit, and I got to wear purple and pink on Halloween night. Eden was often mistaken for Pocahontas, but the girls have never seen that movie. I think at one point we just started saying, yes, she’s Pocahontas.

Lilah went back and forth a little more. She was thinking of being a princess, if Eden changed her mind to also be a princess, she has wanted to be a bird since last year, but the fabric for bird costumes is pretty expensive, not to mention stuffing it, so she finally settled on being a mummy. A friend had posted his mummy costume on Facebook and told me what he did, so I was able to make Lilah an pretty cool mummy costume. It was time consuming, but it worked out well and lots of people liked it on Halloween night.

We brought Britta to Carolyn’s Annual Halloween work party, and had her spend the night since she didn’t have school and next day.

Britta as Rapunzel, Eden as an Indian, and Lilah as a mummy.
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The girls checking out their goods after the party.
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Lilah carved this pumpkin at achievement days all by herself, with a little help for scooping out the guts. Because she did it all on her own, she decided she would carve her pumpkin for Halloween also. She drew out the design and figured it all out on her own. I really did very little except give directions on what to do.

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We were carving our pumpkins in our pajamas, with an old shirt over them. Hence the marvelous fashion statements.
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Lilah is actually posing likes she’s carving her pumpkin, because I forgot to get any action shots of her carving the face.
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Eden choose the Bat Cat from our pumpkin carving book, and so I carved hers for her. I’m not ready for both of them to grow up just yet.
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Lilah wanted the traditional Jack O’ Lantern. She did an awesome job on her pumpkin.

I’ll admit it is fun to see them grow up and see them enjoy holiday traditions on a new level of involvement.

This is our front window. Lilah made the decorations on the left, and Eden made the ones on the right. I made the BOO! and the skeleton is from a Science Saturday project. It was headless and missing one foot, and cut out and put together by Eden. Eden colored her ghost light green, so it would look like it would glow in the dark.
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The cousins got to see one another after we trick or treated separately.

Kristi got to my parents before me, and I had told my mom to let her go on without us. We both went over to the popular streets that go all out, but with the crowd it was c.r.a.z.y. My parents never get a lot of trick or treaters, but this year it was dead on their street and area surrounding them. Usually you see a few groups, but this year it was nothing until we crossed over to the popular blocks. Lilah and Eden wanted to go over there, so we did, and they enjoyed themselves and loved seeing all the decorations. I did not let them in the haunted house, but that was mostly because it was a crazy long line and I didn’t want to be out too late.

My dad said Henderson had made rule that trick or treating was just from 6-8pm, because of it being a school night, and I thought that was totally lame. Parents should be able to decide how late to be out with their kids and teenagers will always be out late no matter what. We were in just after 8, and the couple doors we knocked on after 8 gave the girls a lot of candy because they were my parents neighbors and I’m sure wanted to get rid of some candy with the night coming to an end.

We came home and Jon had given out all our candy by 9 pm. We get a fair amount of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. It was also fun because our nice neighbors have moved back, and they decorated and dressed up, because they were having a party, and gave out candy too.

I just love Halloween.

We had our family pictures taken way back in September, and I posted most of them on Facebook, but have added a few for the viewing pleasure of my three readers. I had Eve cut off my hair the day of pictures. I was just so tired of long hair and not being able to do anything with it.

I always send the link out to family, so they can let me know which ones they like best. This might also influence our Christmas Card.
Let me know which pictures you like. You can click on them to see a slightly bigger size.

Family 1
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Family 2
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Family 3
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Family 4
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Girls 1
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Girls 2
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Girls 3
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Couple 1
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Couple 2
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Couple 3
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Lilah 1
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Lilah 2
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Lilah 3
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Lilah 4
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Eden 1
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Eden 2
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Eden 3
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Eden 4

Jon has this funny idea that we need centerpieces on our table around the holidays. When I was sick earlier in October he went to the store and bought some food supplies I was needing, and these gourds. Now I had purchased the two small sweet pumpkins, so I can make pumpkin pie with them later, and we had acorn squash from a produce basket, but he bought the other gourds.

After arranging them on our table, Lilah came over and thought they needed something more. So she added some Halloween rings they had gotten from cupcakes or something of the sort.

Then later in the month Jon wanted even more for our harvest centerpiece, so he bought Indian corn, and some of the other produce, such as apples, were just added because we had them.

Sadly, the little decorative pumpkin gourds are starting to wilt and decay. I guess that answers Jon’s question about them being saveable for next year. I’ll probably bake and puree the pumpkin this week, to make sure I have enough for pie, but maybe I’ll get something to have a nice Thanksgiving centerpiece, since we’ll be enjoying one with just us this year. (My parents are out of town and his family will be doing it on Saturday.)

Way back in October, well I think it was October, we visited Roo’s N More Zoo in Moapa, Nevada. We went there in April this year too, or somewhere around that time, but I never got around to posting pictures from that visit.

Jon had taken the originally scheduled day off of work so he could go, but then it rained all day and night, and even the morning of, so our group had to postpone our trip. Since we rescheduled it to the following week, he wasn’t able to go. For the day we were suppose to go, we decided to go bowling, and I got the lowest score. Apparently I should use the bumpers too. Jon did alright, but I bowled pitifully.

I was going to do a quick blog of what we did in October, but there were just too many cute pictures, so I decided I’d just get on the ball and overwhelm my reader(s) with a post a day while I play catch up. So here’s to hoping I can get the other needed posts out of the way over the next few days.

Lilah was willing to hold any animal she could get her hands on.
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While Eden mostly kept her distance but did pet a few of the animals.
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A fun and very slow sloth.
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Petting the sloth.
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The baby otter kissing and making noises in Lilah’s ear.
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The super cute baby African porcupine.
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Lilah took this picture of me holding the baby otter.
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A baby kangaroo in a mommy’s pouch. I think it had only been born a week or so before.
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Eden petting a 3 1/2 legged desert tortoise.
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The monkey eating Lilah’s hair.
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Gotta love that smile.
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Eden didn’t want to hold the monkey by herself, so I made her tag along while I played with the monkey.
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The monkey also liked my camera case.
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Why yes, that is a python wrapping itself around my daughter’s waist.
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See, it’s not that big of a snake, and no, I did not hold or touch it.
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The girls with the kangaroo sculpture.

So Eden had her birthday in July and her party in August, but uh, well due to wanting to post everything about our trip I didn’t post anything about her birthday, and then I got distracted and just forgot.

Mom Fail.

So before I start neglecting my blog once more, I thought I’d post some information and pictures of the events.

Eden’s birthday fell on the day Jon returned to work from our vacation. I don’t think we did much that day, but we did enjoy a meal of some of her favorite food, and then some I added because she just wanted salad, her favorite food. We had salmon patties, watermelon, salad, and some yummy huckleberry soda we brought back from Montana. We then enjoyed some cupcakes for her cake, but like my July Highlights said, Eden had decided to begin eating her birthday cupcake before we could sing to her. So she got two that night.

Lilah and I also purchased some flowers for Eden’s birthday, something that’s become a tradition.

We had Eden’s party later in August, and on a Wednesday night because our weekends filled up rather quickly. We did a simple swimming party at the Zurflue’s, who were in town, but not home for most of the night. They were nice enough to let us crash their place. We invited friends and family and enjoyed some yummy food and let the kids swim. There was a small threat of a storm, which stressed me out because I had planned no activities since it was in the evening and for a shorter time than our day ones, plus I had just returned from vacation and was too stressed out to think of anything to do. I made her a cake with a swan on it because she wanted a Swan Princess party, but with it not being a popular Disney film, there wasn’t much I could actually do. It was Eden’s idea that I just put a simple swan on her cake, which I was very happy to do.

It was a simple gathering, but it lots of fun to celebrate Eden as she turned one year older.

Eden with her birthday meal and flowers.
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Eden’s expression makes me laugh. Six candles on one small cupcake.
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Eden’s Swan cake.
Insert silly Lacey story: I had my friend, Sam, pick the cake up and bring it because I’d be traveling to the house alone and didn’t want to just have it on the seat or floor of my car. (Her husband came so she could hold it on her lap.) I took a picture of it at my house because I could see them getting in some accident and the cake being ruined. I always think of worse case scenario’s.
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Swimming!
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Cute Birthday Girl!

(Due to not having swim lessons, the play, and being out of town so much, we only went swimming twice this summer. Lilah’s birthday and Eden’s party.)
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More swimming!
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I love Lilah’s arm around Eden.
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Present time!
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Eden loves Zhu Zhus!

I can’t believe Eden is six years old. Of course I was calling her six months before her birthday, but that’s my silly brain for you.

I’m so happy to be your mom Eden, and I love watching you grow!

Here are the pictures that go with this post: Family Vacation 2011- Part 10.

A family of squirrels Lilah was enthralled with. She took tons of pictures of them playing. (At Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho.)
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Give a girl and camera and she will take a self portrait, even with the zoom on.
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View of Craters of the Moon National Monument, from Inferno Cone, a dead volcano.
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Another view from the top of Inferno Cone, you can see some of the other cones, which were also volcanoes. These cones are a series of volcanoes that erupted at different times, thousands of years a part, they were fed from the same super volcano that is under Yellowstone.
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On our way to the caves.
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Pretty flower bush growing in the lava field.
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In Dew Drop Cave.
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Part of the collapsed ceiling of Indian Tunnel. It had a series of these and we had to climb over at least one big rock pile. The ceiling was 40 feet high, at least.
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Me being odd for Jon.
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The lava field we hiked over once out of Indian Tunnel.
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Entering Beauty Cave.
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Junior Rangers of Craters of the Moon National Monument.
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This is my favorite picture with us by one of the signs, too bad I’m not in it, but they’re so dang cute anyways. Wheeler Peak, the tallest mountain in Nevada is behind them.
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A nice man stopped and took our picture for us.
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Leeman’s cave, Great Basin NP.
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I’ve lost my head, or my head lost me?

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Taking their final junior ranger oath for the trip.

If you’d like to read more about what this pictures are about, or whatever I decided to write about, you can visit Family Vacation 2011-Part 9. I’m also please to say I only have one more post to write, which makes me happy because then I can go back to my regularly non-blogging self, or post about things like the play and Eden’s birthday.

Enjoy.

Eden next to some Bear Grass, a flower Anna taught her how to identify, and she let us know each time she saw Bear Grass.
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I believe this is Lake Josephine, the lake we hiked too. It began to rain on us about 10 minutes later.
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I just keep thinking, “The ants go marching one by one,” every time I see this picture of us walking in our ponchos. This is before it began to pour.
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The view as we were leaving Many Glacier in Glacier NP.
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Our Junior Rangers saying the pledge, or taking the oath, or promising to be nice to the parks, at St. Mary’s visitor center in Glacier NP.
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Daddy being woken up from his nap.
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He had been sleeping until Lilah decided he needed some toys to sleep with. (Kevin took this picture for me.)
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I was able to actually look normal for one day, since we weren’t hiking. Lilah took this picture, and I’m not sure why Eden’s eyes are so wide.
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A spider on the tree outside of the cabin. We saw several that looked like this guy. Eden took this picture.
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Playing Uno and eating dessert.
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We regularly found the girls in positions similar to this in the morning, since they were sharing the bed. One time Eden had her leg over Lilah. They apparently are very heavy sleepers.