Is It Naptime Yet

As described in Eden’s dance class post, today was the day to bring family to the girl’s dance class and my parents were there for support.

Two off things happened this morning. First I only brought one of Lilah’s dance shoes, so she performed barefoot, with tights that showed the dirt on the floor. Second our battery started to die and died about 10 seconds before Lilah’s song was over, but we got the majority of it. (I should remember to charge the battery before important events. It also died the night of my brothers reception.)

Since our battery was dying we didn’t video all of the warm-ups, which is what Jon did for Eden’s class.

So we just have one video.

For your viewing pleasure Here’s Lilah and her class performing Here comes Susie Snowflake and one of the warm-ups they do in class.

Today was a day to invite family to the girl’s dance class. My parents showed up, but my MIL was unable to make it due to the wet weather.

I have two video’s from Eden’s class. Both are very characteristic of how dance class goes every week for Eden, though the second one where the class performs the song is a little less characteristic in that she’s usually standing there, not sitting on the ground. It just happens she never got up from the ground exercises.

One of these things is not like the other. Part I

One of these things is not like the other. Part II

I will say it broke my heart to see her just sit there during the whole performance. I’m not sure if she’s painfully shy or painfully stubborn, but the one thing I do know is she is not searching for the spotlight like her sister.

With Sam’s break we’re going to try gymnastics again, which only Lilah has had a chance to do. Eden seems enthusiastic, but then again she was enthusiastic every week before we went to dance.

Also, I kept her in dance because she did like it and want to go each week and she’s never said she wanted to stop, even though she only regularly participated 60-75% of the time.

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.

I’m trying to stay politically neutral on my site, but when Jon showed me this I just had to laugh.

Palin scares me.  It scares me that she may run for president in 2012. It scares me that people like her because “she’s just like me.” Really I don’t want ‘someone just like me’ as president. I haven’t the foggiest clue how to be president and I don’t think she does either.  I don’t think the next four years will change my opinion. She’s so far to the right that I want to run left.

That said I am not endorsing Obama on my site, I’m just not endorsing Palin as president.

Yesterday we had the Halloween party with Lilah’s preschool friends.  I helped Sam put the party together and we invited all of the moms that we use to have the preschool with.

We had:
bobbing for apples- video at the bottom.
Fishing for their prize.
bean bag toss (Toss bean bags through holes on a cardboard cut- out)
Make a jack o’ lantern place mat.
decorating sugar cookies
pumpkin toss (Toss plastic pumpkins into a bucket.)
clothespin drop (Try to drop clothespins by holding them to your nose and then trying to get them into a jar.)
spooky haunted playhouse

It was a like a carnival setup. We had each station and the kids could go and do what they wanted. Some stations had specific times but for the most part it was a free for all. We had everyone bring sack lunches and Sam provided a witches brew for drink. (Apple juice with dry ice to make it smoke.)

The kids seems to have lots of fun and they all enjoyed seeing one another.

Fun moments- Lilah being silly as she bobbed for her apple. Eden bending over as she did the clothespin drop and practically having the clothespin in the jar since her nose was so close. Seeing my friend Emilie B.’s new baby boy and just hanging out with the other moms that were in our old ward.

I forgot my camera, but Emilie S. brought hers and loaded this video onto google for us to view.

Last week was my niece Zarina’s first birthday.

She was asleep when we called to have the girls sing happy birthday, so we made a little video of them instead and e-mailed it to my sister.

Just for fun, and because I don’t have much more to blog about, here’s them singing.

Enjoy, and happy belated birthday Zarina!

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.

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.

I finally went through the pictures from our trip to Idaho.
I took over 100, but I put only around 50 in the video. 🙂

Forgive any misspellings, there always seems to be one I gloss over until I’ve already published and posted it.

The song is Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s Country home. It has a Hawaiian twist, in which I wish I lived by the beach, but I think it was kinda fitting for family reunion pictures. (I was just going to choose any random song I liked and it’s really the random song I liked and chose.)

If you want to read about our trip to Idaho and Ely you can go to these two different posts.

Luckily we’ve been able to visit my sister Andrea and her husband Brien once a year since they’ve moved there.
It’s always fun to just visit them and enjoy the delicious food they feed us.

This year we went camping with them at Great Basin National Park at the Wheeler Peak campsite. We were about 10,000 feet above sea level. It was beautiful but the night was very cold. I’m not sure how low is got, but Ely is around 45 degrees at night and they’re only 6,200 feet above sea level so I would say 35 degrees is a safe estimate, if not modest.

We got to the campsite a little before 5 on Friday night. Andrea and Brien had camped there the night before so they had done some hiking that day. We went on the short nature trail to see how the girls might fare the next day. It was fun and we decided later that night that we would attempt to do the 3 mile, round trip,  Bristlecone Pine trail that Andrea and Brien had done that day on Saturday.

While on our nature hike Brien made dinner. A delicious roast with veggies. We then roasted “smarshmallows“, according to Eden, for smores. Lilah had about 3 smores and 3 marshmallows. Eden had less because she was too busy going done the hill next to our camp with her little lantern. Brien said she was brave and that as a kid he would have never attempted to go that far in the dark.  It was only about 30 feet, but he would be scared because his father would hide in the bushes and then scare them as kids. I’m not sure if we are nice or not cruel parents for not scaring them and letting them be brave or if we’re boring for not having more fun and scaring the wits out of them in a dark campsite. (We do play games where we scare them at home, but I think we try to not scare them in new situations that might scar them for life.)

We extinguished the fire and went to bed around 9, I think. We had a lot of marshmallows and the girls kept saying how tired they were. I think they just wanted to get in the tent since we had banished them once the sleeping stuff was laid out so it wouldn’t get too dirty.

It was a very cold night. Jon and the girls appeared to sleep fine but I woke up pretty regularly due to my cold face. My eyelids were so cold that it had the affect like I was sleeping with my eyes open and they felt miserably dry. I had to go completely into my sleeping bag or cover my eyes with a shirt to keep from waking up from the cold.

That morning while getting dressed Lilah said it was too cold of a campsite. I totally agreed. Eden awoke around 6 am so, so did everyone else in our tent. It was fun.

We had some granola and Andrea heated up water for our apple cider. It was a cold but beautiful morning. We, in which I really mean Jon, started to pack up after breakfast so we could go on the hike later that morning. Andrea and Brien had a church activity that evening, which Brien had been put in charge of, so they had to go home to Ely while we went hiking.

The Bristlecone trail was beautiful and we saw a couple does as we started the hike. We also saw a doe on the way back. The girls did the hike fairly well. Lilah and I were wearing new shoes so our feet hurt. (I know we should have worn them before the trip to break them in, but who likes to wear shoes in 100 degree weather. She had to get new shoes because her feet had grown, and I needed new shoes because my current shoes hurt my feet because I have weird feet and thus mostly wear flip flops.)

Jon completed the hike but the girls and I rested while he finished the last 10 minutes, which would have been 20 minutes with the girls. (We had no idea how much longer the hike was, we just knew we we’re close to the end. It turned out to be pretty rough right before he got to the Bristlecone Pine grove so it was better that we had waited.) While waiting we ate trail mix and talked to passing hikers.

Jon carried Eden for most of the return on the trial. She was really tired so he carried her and then would have her walk and then carried her etc. I stayed with Lilah and we talked and sang a few songs, and made up some songs. Eden also made up songs which she sang to Jon. She loves making up songs when she’s by herself.
The weather was perfect for the hike. Since we were in the mountains there was always a cool breeze. It was perfect for long sleeves.

It took us 3 hours to hike the 3 mile hike. After the hike we packed back into the car for the drive down the mountain. We ate at the cafe connected to the Lehman Caves visiting center. We haven’t taken the tour yet, and hopefully we can next time we pass through Ely.

After eating we headed to Andrea and Brien’s. Showers and the comfort of electricity awaited us.  I stopped by the Church activity for food that evening and took Zarina back home so Andrea could help clean up. I enjoyed the Olympics while we waited for them to return home.

The girls shared a room with Zarina and Jon and I were in the living room. We didn’t have the air mattress pumped up enough so whenever he moved I woke up and whenever I moved he woke up. It was a warmer, but still restless night like the night before.

Zarina started making noises a little after 7 am so I checked in on the girls. Eden was awake and Z had seen me so I had no choice but to pick her up. I watched her until she got a little more fussy and then gave her to Andrea around 7:30.

We had breakfast and since church wasn’t till 1 pm for them we were able to visit that morning. Lilah and Eden loved Zarina’s toys, I guess I only need baby toys to keep them entertained, and Eden said she didn’t want to leave Ely. Too bad for her because we left there around 11:30 am.

It was a nice visit and I always just enjoy being with family.

I slept like a rock Sunday night. I don’t remember waking up or turning over till that morning. I was so tired that the bathroom light hadn’t awoken me when Eden went in there sometime that night. Jon found her asleep on the bathroom rug with the light on. (We sleep with our door open for better air circulation and normally the bathroom light is too bright for my eyes.)

Thanks for having us and bringing extra camping gear Andrea and Brien. We all enjoyed it and the girls are telling everyone about their adventure to Ely.

Here’s a video of our trip.  (The song is by They Might Be Giants and is called ‘C is for Conifer’.)