Is It Naptime Yet

Jon introduced me to this password lock safe program. Basically I remember one password and input the info for all my other accounts and it remembers them.
I liked it because I could randomly generate passwords and not have to worry about memorizing them, which made things more secure.
The one problem, and it was really because of me, was I didn’t keep the passwords current on my thumb drive. I just had them on the hard drive with a copy on the thumb drive.
Well we got a new computer and I forgot to get them updated to my thumb drive. The password safe on my thumb drive no longer opens so I don’t even have those, and we’ve had a heck of a time getting things organized and onto this new hard drive. Jon was up till 3 am, with some naps in between, last night trying to get info on here. He didn’t load the old desktop, instead he did profiles because in Windows XP that included desktops I guess, so still no passwords for me. I have been able to have the important ones emailed to me. Bloglines being my lifeline to other people and now my blog. I don’t have my passwords for other really important things like our online banking or direct loan info, though I could recover those I suppose, but I don’t need them immediately.
The other problem this new computer has created is we now need a new printer. Shesh! We only have a very old lazer jet one since I killed ours not too long ago.  The  new computer doesn’t have the input for this older printer and an adapter cable is not worth buying. Luckily Carolyn is getting married and her and Derek have their own printers, so once they decide which one they don’t want they’re going to give us one.
It’s a nice setup and Jon likes the look of Windows Vista. He keeps saying it’s so pretty.
I think I’m getting  a headache from everything and I’m not even the one doing all the hard work.

I had a few things that I wanted to get done today. The day started out late but we still got to my mom’s house around 11:30. I left the girls there so I could run some errands.
I had to get my rings checked out at the jewelers. They’re so nice and shiny now.
I had to buy some bras. Wahoo for new bras!
While at that store I bought a cute purse. It’ll go well with the dress I’m wearing for Carolyn’s wedding.
I looked at earrings and necklaces to go with my dress, but I just can’t seem to find what I want.
I did find a cute sterling silver dangle set of earrings. Not too much dangle since I don’t wear earrings often.
I put them on in the car and almost didn’t get them in since it’s been forever since I wore earrings.
I went to Target to get sheets. Were getting a bed this Saturday and I need queen sheets, opposed to our full sized sheets for our small full sized bed.
I couldn’t find any jewelry there to go with my dress either.
Baby stuff was on clearance so I got some good deals on baby stuff since we’re having Andrea’s baby shower Labor day weekend.
I wanted to buy some organic cotton sheets that are oh so pretty, but it would have been $60 for sheets and pillow cases. *cough *cough. Jon said I should get the cheaper ones, still 250 thread count, but not as soft and not shiny. 🙁 maybe some day I’ll have very luxurious sheets. 🙂

I got to my moms around 1:45 and ate some lunch and then started working on putting Lilah’s zipper on her dress. Since I sew about once a year I forget how to do this and my sewing machine doesn’t have a zipper foot.
I ran into a lot of problems. It was soo frustrating. I was about to go home with an unfinished zipper when I heard my mom tell the kids to start getting their cloths off since they were muddy. (It had rained that morning and where they’d normally play in the dirt it was a wonderful mud pond.)
I got mad.
I wanted to go home and they were now muddy!
Eden started walking in the house with muddy feet and I said in the ‘pay attention to mommy immediately’ voice to “GO OUTSIDE NOW.”
Lilah then decided to proceed in with muddy feet once Eden was outside so I had to use the ‘pay attention to mommy immediately‘ voice on her also. They both started crying, no doubt because it was way past nap time. I lifted Eden and got her in the shower in the down stairs bathroom. It’s a shower so of course she was scared of it and trying to get herself out of the water since this was her first experience with a shower, and lately she’s even been scared of our sprinkler! I of course was just fighting her back and telling her we had to clean up. Lilah came in and I got her in the shower also. I was upset and I threatened that we could never come back since they had gotten muddy. Lilah then said that she was done getting muddy and wouldn’t get muddy again. I felt bad but I was so stressed and I had only a onsie for Eden and not even a change of underwear for Lilah in the diaper bag.
They got cleaned up and while we waited for Lilah’s underwear to dry I took out my mistake in the zipper and had a conversation with Lilah about mommy’s getting mad when their kids get dirty. I apologized and asked if she was having fun and she said yes. Of course she had fun she had played in the mud all day Saturday too, but that was in a swimsuit.
I got the zipper in finally and have decided to put the bow on the back of the dress as to cover my mistakes.
I have a temper similar to my fathers and I know I was treating my mother like he does when he gets upset.
“How you could you let them get muddy and play outside?”
(Really she didn’t realize it was muddy and just thought they’d have more fun outside. Katy and Howie were there at this time and they all got muddy together.)
“I knew I should have gone home sooner, then they would have stayed cleaned!”
(It was good that they got muddy because now I have a complete zipper and not a still needs to be fixed zipper on Lilah’s dress.)
I felt really bad. I was a bad mommy and daughter. I called and apologized just now, but I still feel bad. My anger gets the better of me at times and I’d rather get mad then suck it up and go with the flow.
Sorry Mom for getting so upset, but you gave me my fathers temper instead of your patience while I was still in the womb. 🙂

This Sunday was my week to teach Gospel Doctrine. (I teach every 1st Sunday and then we have the fifth Sundays divided between mostly me and one other teacher. With teaching first Sunday’s I don’t teach on General Conference weekend and even one of our stake conferences fell on the first Sunday. So when I made out the schedule I compensated for those weeks and each of the four teachers teach 12 times in the year. )
This Sunday was a hard lesson for me. They seem to give you so much information and all the information is tied together that I often have a hard time figuring out what I can skip, what I can summarize and what I should teach. Then you have some speakers that go over in Sacrament, like this Sunday, and that takes away precious time for me as a teacher.
I tried to be prepared but I was just a jumble of thoughts.
I also blame it on the fact that I teach only once a month, not that I want to teach more and have this stress every week, but this month I taught and then I wasn’t in an adult class for the three weeks between teaching. (out of town one week and then substituting the next two weeks in Primary. )
Gospel Doctrine is also just hard for me to teach overall.  If a long discussion is started,  it often isn’t in the direction I want to go,  or people don’t say much of anything. Yesterday it went ok, but I was rushed.  There are a lot of scriptures to read and sometimes the questions are hard to tie in.  I guess I’m suppose to be magnifying myself and this is one area I feel I need a lot of work in when it comes to teaching.

Our house has a lot of static electricity at certain times of the year, Fall and Spring. I would often shock the computer when I went to turn it on. Well a while back I guess I gave it quite a shock because it wouldn’t turn on. I unplugged it and plugged it back in and it turned on like a charm. Ever since that day it has become increasingly harder to turn on. We finally decided to just keep it on 24/7 because sitting on the floor unplugging and plugging it back in for 15 minutes wasn’t worth it. Since that time we’ve had a couple instances where we’ve had to turn it off or there was a power outage. It took Jon at least half an hour to turn it on the last time and it took me all morning today. I would sit and try to turn it on for about 30 minutes and then give up since I had to do dishes, laundry and feed my girls breakfast.
Each time I pushed the button it was like gambling. “Please turn on baby, please give me what I want.” It even teased me to the point where it gave the monitor power and beeped as though it would start but it just shut down after that. I was very frustrated. I work on it a little after lunch today and it finally came on. Now I just hope we have very few storms because I am not turning this sucker off. My thumb started to hurt from griping the plug.
We’re not sure what’s wrong with it. Howard had some gadget that told us if it was the power supply and we hoped it was something that simple. Turns out it wasn’t. They think it might be the motherboard. She must have gotten ornery from all my shocks and now likes to make us suffer.
All I know is the computer is a pain in the butt to turn on if it gets turned off. I turned it off due to lighting storms last night, but I’m almost willing to take a bet that we won’t be hit by lightening as long as I don’t have to go through this morning again, because I have a feeling the next time it may take all day to turn it on, or may not turn on ever again.
We’re afraid it would be expensive to fix or that we’d just have to buy a new computer. Not that we spent a lot on this one. We had windows 98 so we just loaded that up, in which the software is the bulk of any new computer. I think we spent $400 and it’s lasted about 3 years. I guess you get what you pay for. I just don’t want to lose my connection to the outside world for more than a few days. Please continue to live computer please live!!

Naia had a fever all week long. She had no other symptoms besides being a little grumpy so we thought it was just teething. She’s 4 1/2 months, in which some children do teethe this early, and it was just a fever. Eden had a fever off and on the whole weekend. Now she could have caught it from Naia, but she also could have gotten sick from being in the nursery class on Thursday. Neither would surprise me. Yesterday she had to stay home from church and the big family home evening we have with my family once a month. She was sad, but she had a Daddy day.
Now her birthday is coming up this week. We’re probably going to just stay home. We do have swimming planned, but it was more coincidental than on purpose (I don’t have Naia on Wednesday and so we planned swimming and then I realized it was her birthday.), but we’ve gotten clouds in this week and it’s monsoon season so I’m afraid we may not be able to go swimming. According to the weatherman it should still be cloudy and thunderstorms are likely. We’re mostly planning her favorite meal for dinner that night, which seems to be potpies with rice, and a cake. It won’t be as crazy as Lilah day, no party, but I don’t think she’ll care. She doesn’t eat pizza lately so Chuck E’ Cheese is a little unappealing. Though she did love the slide. We’d go to a park but if it wasn’t raining it would be hot and humid so that’s out of the question. Maybe we’ll play some inside games and chase her around. She loves being chased.

In a way I already think of her as being two. She gets 2 minutes for time out and has for a couple months now. She also is stubborn and hasn’t eaten her lunches lately. (She doesn’t eat the crust so I give it to her first the next day and she either doesn’t eat it or she plays with it, which gives her a time out and it put away for dinner.) I guess I feel as though she acts two so she seems to be two and has for a while. She also talked sooner than Lilah did so I think that aged her in my mind. Lilah didn’t really talk until about a week before she turned two where Eden has been saying a lot for a while.
My baby is getting big. I find myself holding her more lately and trying to enjoy these moments.

Side thought: There’s this boy in our ward that is 3 weeks older than Eden but really small. So small that I often think of him as being just one. When we were at a Relief Society activity the mom had him and he was getting in trouble. I heard her discipline him and my first thought was he wouldn’t understand her since he was so little but then I remembered he was Eden’s age and I often talk like that to Eden too. I think as a parent you know what your kids understand but forget what other kids might understand. People often underestimate what kids can comprehend if they don’t know them.

Lilah thought:
Lilah hurt her arm when I was at my parents on Wednesday. She did a belly flop on their linoleum floor and her left arm caught a lot of the weight. She’s been hurting since then. I had her arm in a scarf brace for a couple of days and my friend Sam also gave me some homeopathic medicine for bumps and bruises. She likes it and asks for it often and even though I can give it to her a lot I only like to twice a day. I don’t know if she hurt her arm seriously since some times she really babies it and other times she acts like nothing is wrong with it. Also, she hurt it on Wednesday and then Thursday she fell off my bed onto her hurt arm, so I think she hurt it again. I thought she was faking it mostly but then at my parents house yesterday my father accidentally hurt it while tickling her since I forgot to warn anyone about it. So I worry a little that’s it’s serious but at the same time I have a hard time since it appears that she plays it up for sympathy. Anyways the arm thing has made her very whinny lately. I guess the whining thing is a big circle. It gets better and then worse and right now it’s driving me nuts.
So I have a disabled daughter. I want to take her to the doctor but at the same time I think it’s fine, but like I said she still babies it and it appears to hurt easily if you do something to it. I just don’t know what to do.

Now, I should get sewing. I got out of my groove and didn’t sew this whole weekend. Instead I cleaned my bathrooms, a worthy cause but they’re not getting married in less than four weeks.

Jon was away for a conference this weekend for work. (That’s why I went swimming on Saturday with Carolyn. Before the whole swimming fun I had to drop Jon off at the very bust airport, but I don’t like to mention that I’m home alone until the day my hubby returns, which is today!)
I was lonely this weekend and the hardest part was getting me and the girls ready for church on Sunday. Our church starts at 9 am and I’m not much of a morning person. I did get us all ready which included me showered and the girls bathed within an hour and a half. So we were ready at 9 but a little late for church. We made it before the opening hymn was over so I consider the job well done. I want to write down my crazy morning just because I’m proud of my multi-tasking
Eden woke me up at 6:45 am, I planned on getting up at 7 so I wasn’t very happy about this. We laid in my bed for a short time and then she decided it was enough and got out. I was still tired so I hung out with her on the couch while she looked at books. Well I rested my eyes anyways. After the books no longer occupied her time I started a movie and got in my shower at 7:30. Of course I took a super quick shower and before I did my face stuff, i.e. tweezing my eyebrows and putting on face lotion, I got the bath ready for the girls. Lilah was still asleep so I got her up and she eventually joined Eden in the tub. While they played I did my face stuff and what not then I washed Eden and got her breakfast so Lilah could play for just a couple of minutes in the bath. After Eden was set I got Lilah out, dressed and then breakfast. I blow dried my hair then got my cereal so I could eat while I curled my hair. Eden had finished eating so I think I got her down and dressed at this time.
Lilah finished while I was brushing teeth and putting on makeup. I got dressed and the girls hair done, packed snacks and books and paper for church and we left right at 9. This is a large accomplishment because I take about an hour to get ready with showering. To get us all cleaned in this time was very crazy.

Monday- I took the girls to the library and then we went swimming at the Jewitt’s. I got home around 1:30 and the girls read books while I read blogs and IMed Anna.
Eden went down for a nap and then Lilah about 20 minutes later. I also took a nap so I didn’t finish cutting out Lilah’s dress. No sewing today. 🙁
Anna came over for pizza and us girls had a blast. We ate and then Anna chased the girls around the house. We had sherbet and then blew bubbles outside. I had her over to distract the girls and give me some sanity since Jon was gone. When I told Lilah that Anna would be over for dinner she said she wanted Daddy home for dinner. 🙁
After we ate Jon called and Lilah had quite the conversation with him. My favorite thing she said was “to drive safely on the plane home daddy”
Eden even talked a little to daddy and I was happy to know that he’d be home the next day.

Tuesday- I have Naia and it’s going to be a little tricky if Jon’s plane comes in late. So I hope it’s right on time or a very late, but only by a half hour late, so Julie’s able to pick her up when she needs too.

I finished cutting things out last night. I was too lazy Sunday night and I had to figure out this netting thing with the pattern for a ruffle. Cutting out the fabric always takes longer than I think it will and white netting is hard to see on a white board with blue measurement lines. I was going a little nuts.
I hope the sewing goes smoothly. There are hems that I will need to do by hand or I’ll travel to my mom’s house and use her very expensive sewing/ embroidery/ quilting machine. I will probably travel to her house since I my hands get sore very quickly when I do sewing by hand. It almost seems like arthritis but I only get it with sewing and decorating cakes….hmm maybe I do have some form of arthritis.
Life is crazy. I think the girls will look beautiful in their dresses so I’m excited for this project and the wedding.

Well, we went to Utah this weekend for a family reunion. We were also going to visit Jon’s niece Shauntae but she was sick and then her boys got sick and we’ve been kinda having digestion problems, so instead of going up to see them today we came home. (This way we have a day to recoup since Jon only has Monday off.) It’s nearly 11pm. We left Provo 12:30ish and didn’t get home until 10pm. There is a huge forest fire around the Beaver and Filmore area near I-15, will right on I-15, so we had a huge detour that took forever. It’s still nice to be home. We shared a hotel room with my parents last night and I realized how much they both snore. Of course my mother blames my father and my father blames my mother. All I know is if I wake up and they’re snoring it’s hard to get back to sleep. It was still very nice of them to let us crash with them since Shauntae was sick. 🙁
I’m really bummed that we weren’t able to see Shauntae’s family, but I am happy to be home. Details will come later with a few pictures.  Jon took pictures at the reunion and the ones I took were of the forest fire.

I teach Gospel Doctrine once a month in my ward.  I use to teach Relief Society once a month also, but they’ve recently released me from that calling.
I like teaching  for a couple of reasons. 1. I always get more out of the lesson and it fills my participation quota for the month. 2. It keeps me from doing certain frustrating sub jobs, even though I’m willing to help out, I know how misbehaved a class can be if they have a revolving teacher, especially in youth.

With teaching you also share a lot of personal experiences, especially in Relief Society. There were many times when I wanted to shout out that my husband was a disbeliever, but I knew that would have be an inappropriate time. “What was the lesson about today honey?” “Oh, I don’t remember, but Sis. Blake let us know that her husband is no longer a participating member of the church.”
I feel this way about Testimony meeting sometimes also. People often use it as an announcement session rather than a testament of Christ and his influence in their lives. Sometimes they air out dirty laundry and other times they just glorify their spouses. I admit I have done the later on occasion, but my testimony was not solely about my husband.
There are times that I rather have people not know about my husband because I still go to him to help me explain a topic and he graciously and willingly gives me understanding or a thought on something he read that applies to what I’m teaching. I feel as if the masses knew about him they’d tune out once I said my husband gave me this perspective or they’d immediately start thinking about my husband being an unbeliever and wonder why I was going to him in the first place.
Anyways. I am at odds at letting everyone know about my husband, but then again how do I tell people about husband, and once more I don’t want the attention it might give.
I’m mostly over the impulse to shout it from testimony meeting or in class while I’m teaching. I think I went through it mostly because I was still angry or hurt. Also I felt deceptive teaching and talking about full member families or even part member and to have the majority in the room not know why I was getting emotional.
Now I just want to be over wondering who knows and is being nice and who doesn’t know. I wish I had a list of people that have been told. I don’t see those I’ve told to be gossips, so I’m pretty sure they’ve kept the information to themselves, but I often wonder what has been said in leadership meetings and who was there. When I was in the Primary presidency in my old ward, I sometimes had to fill in for the president at these meetings. It fascinated me to hear about different people and what we were doing for the less active or newly baptized members.
So I really don’t know who’s heard and who hasn’t. I don’t know if the persons reaction is just because they’re an airhead or because they’re rude.
Maybe I’ll bear my testimony next month. 🙂

The girls have been acting up. Well, really whining up. It’s been gradual, but ever since the Ely trip it seems to have multiplied. I’m not sure if Lilah is imitating Eden or if Eden is imitating Lilah, or if they’re both attention deprived.
Lilah has temper tantrums and gets upset at any answer that she finds to be bad. Eden cries at the drop of a hat sometimes.
It’s driving me a little nuts. Lilah I can try to reason with and talk to her about what she’s doing and helping her to recognize her negative behavior and temper tantrums. Eden it’s not so easy. She cries and it’s hard to explain to a 2 year old there are other methods of expressing herself. She doesn’t really talk that much so what other method does she have?
I’m just at odds. I made a rule today that when Lilah started throwing temper tantrums and getting upset she has to go to her room or go to time out. Whichever one just long as she understands her behavior is not acceptable. I told her and began implementing the rule after she got upset that she couldn’t eat her oatmeal. (I had tested it to see if it was still hot, and as I put it back in the freezer to cool she started shouting about being hungry and wanting to eat her oatmeal right now.) I sent her to her room but it seems that her bladder always kicks in when she gets a temper tantrum. I allowed her to go to the bathroom since I knew that she hadn’t gone, but I calmly explained the rule clearly to her about tantrums and the the consequence. I’ve mostly just been sending her and saying it’s because she’s having a tantrum, but if she calms down she didn’t always have to go to her room, especially with a bathroom break in between.
I just don’t know what to do with them. Their behaving badly with people around and I find that terrible. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because I want and would like for them to have a respect for other people. I would also like for them to behave well in general around me anytime.
Anyways, Lilah only had to go to her room once today. Partially because we weren’t home a lot and also because when she has had a negative reaction it’s less tantrum like, just a little rude, so I still need to work on it. With her less tantrum attitude I feel I can answer her calmly and then she responds calmly, where as with tantrums there’s no reasoning until you threaten with a consequence.
I know they feel as though they don’t have a lot of control over their lives. I’m sure Lilah feels controlled by me and I’m sure Eden feels controlled by Lilah and me. It’s hard work teaching your children how to communicate without resorting to just crying and being upset.

It’s going to be a semi busy week, so hopefully we can fix the tantrums.

This really is the worse they’ve ever been. My MIL even commented on how she’s never seen the girls disagree or fight over something as they had today while there. Of course they didn’t have a full on tantrum and she’s not always around because of making dinner or whatever, but the girls just feel it’s okay anywhere, any time to fight over things. Lilah is better in public, but if Eden starts it she’ll also fight over whatever it is.

It is kinda two problems, they fight over something and one or both throw a tantrum, or you give an answer they don’t like and they throw a tantrum. Eden is more of the fighting tantrum, while Lilah is more of the  wrong answer tantrum.

I’m not sure what to do right now. Well I have plenty of things I should be doing, but I don’t wanna.

I recently read a short article on memory journals. Instead of just writing down and listing what you did that day make it a memory, or more of the experience. My example for the day would be:

I looked out the back door watching my two daughters exploring the insects. They stood on the concrete and jumped to keep the ants from getting them. Lilah was instructing Eden that “we should be nice to ants so they don’t bite us, and we don’t want to step on them because then they’ll bite you.” I pressed my face against the glass door and watched their youth. Then the duties of the laundry called and I left to fold clothes.
Later in the night Lilah trickled in. She needed new pants for hers had gotten dirty. Then even later Jon and Eden came in. Eden sat next to me and I could smell the outside scent of dirt and sweat on her head. I would like to say it was enjoyable, but little children don’t always smell nice. Cough, cough, and that’s literally what I did for a short period because of her smell of exploration and sweat.

Now this was not as nice of an example as the woman’s, but I don’t know if I can be as mushy as she was all the time.
Eden really did smell and for the sake of Carolyn I think I’ll give her a bath tomorrow morning.

Also just two months until Carolyn gets married. Which means I have two months to make two dresses and figure out what I’m going to wear. Ugh.