Is It Naptime Yet

It’s 1:15 in the afternoon. I’m still in my pajamas and so are both the girls. It’s actually been a very productive day so far.

Recyclables were sorted and taken out.
I tricked Eden into cuddling with me this morning.
I ate breakfast while the girls played with Sleepy, Lilah’s hamster.
We cleaned Sleepy’s cage.
I talked and planned this evening with my BIL.
I washed a load of the girl’s clothes.
I washed dishes.
We flushed Eden’s dead fish, Strawberry.
I cleaned out the fish tank. (Now what to do with two tanks when neither child wants to donate one.)
I had the girls fold their clothes.
I moved my sewing cupboard to make room for the Christmas tree.
I sorted through the pile of mail.
I swept.
I may have yelled a little at the girls when they were fighting instead of folding clothes.
Right now Lilah is emptying the dishwasher.
I’m finally having the girls get dressed.
Then we’ll put up our Nativity. (It’s a good thing the fish died because now I have somewhere to put it.)
I plan on mopping my floors, except the kitchen since I need to give Jon a haircut tonight.
I might pull the tree out of the shed and check for spiders, then we can put it up.
A shower is in my forecast.
So is going to Costco to pick up food for this evening.
Then I’ll help tidy Rawlin’s house for the visit.
We get to meet our newest nephew-in-law and see Jon’s niece.
They live in Arizona.

Making lists does make my life seem more productive. I should do this everyday. (Really a lack of productivity has not been my problem lately, it’s having too much to do.)

It’s December. Wow.

I’m happy to say the craft fair I participated in was successful for me. It got a little slow in the afternoon and it would have been nice had more people come, but for the first year I think it was a success. Since I sold 4 bags, (score!) I now have some money to buy a little more fabric and I’m finally getting to the stage that I have inventory, so I won’t be spending out of pocket. Hooray! Sew Lacey might actually get in the black. The popcorn and truffles sales really help and I am so thankful that Tim convinced me to sell truffles and popcorn to him last year.

The homeschooling co-op is on break right now. I’m so thankful for that, but that also means I’m needing to deal with registration and finances. Ugh. It’s a lot of work and I’m a little worried for all that entails, especially since I have very little time right now and it needs to get done so we can start looking at the schedule and putting teachers in classes.

I started my first voice lesson last week! I’m so excited! I think she’s already helping me break my shell and helping me not sing from my throat, so I can actually have a louder voice and more control. Sadly, I haven’t been able to practice a whole lot due to so many pressing things this past week. She mentioned that practice is the hardest for her adult students because we are so busy, and boy was she right! It’s a new week, and I have less pressing things, so I’m hoping to carve out a half hour every day around 4:30. These lessons are actually a part, as in the main part, of my Christmas gift from Jon. I love choir, but I was talking to him about how I would like some one on one attention to have someone actually tell me what I need to do and we decided to make it my Christmas gift. I’m happy because it really is to help me gain confidence in myself and not to go out a sing solos necessarily, but he is so supportive of me and allowing me to do things that help build my confidence. The first lesson was a blast, so I’m looking forward to the next one.

Christmas is coming a long slowly in our house. I cleaned our front yard with Lilah on Wednesday and we put up new Christmas lights. Eden was happy to help with the lights, but didn’t want to help clean the yard. I’m trying to get the inside of the house in order so we can get the Christmas tree up, but I fear that until I get the rest of the popcorn and truffles out of the house next week, there is no point. So hopefully we get the tree up on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

To close, I just want to post a couple funny things from this past week. I had them as updates on Facebook, but wanted them in a place that is controlled by me.

The set up: My girls had made a little fort and Lilah was telling me how the top blanket lets in air so it doesn’t get too hot.(It’s a lighter weight blanket.) I was peeking in, so I teasingly blew in a big breath of air and asked if that let in air and she said “Yeah, carbon dioxide.”

Eden: Stop tickling me!
Lilah: My fingers are exploring your armpits!

Lilah: I don’t feel like you love me.
Eden: I love you Lilah but sometimes you make me so fusterated!
Lilah: I just feel like it’s not fair for you to not give me that piece.
Eden: *sigh* Lilah I don’t think it’s fair for you to have more legos than me.
Lilah: It hurts my feelings when you say things like that.
Eden: I’m just so annoyed right now. *argh!*

And it continued in a similar like manner for about 5 minutes. Luckily Jon was home because it allowed me to sit back and laugh at the girls and the argument rather then storm in and take all the connects and legos away.

Eden also says fusterated, not frustrated. Lilah then repeated it as fusterated later in their argument. It was a good thing they were in their room and I was in the living room laughing to myself.

Yeah, it’s now time for Christmas, but since I never posted any pictures of the girls from Halloween I thought I would real quick. Now that I think about it I don’t think I even blogged about Halloween.

Sorry about that. I’m pretty sure I missed birthdays and I know I missed lots of fun trips because I just went through all our photos from last year and picked out what I wanted to put in our family calendar.

Yeah, I’m a pretty lame blogger.

Well, our Halloween was lots of fun. We went to Carolyn’s work party for part of our Halloween celebrations. The girls has a blast eating tons of junk food and participating in all the activities. Carolyn was in charge of the Cake Walk while the girls and their cousins were there and I’m pretty sure she rigged it since she was just spouting off numbers and looking at the numbers the kids were on.

We carved our pumpkins Halloween day, though we hollowed them out the night before. We did a little bit of Trick or Treating on Halloween night. I just love Halloween and trick or treating. Something I realized when I decided to limit it this year since it was on a Sunday. We came home a little early, though still late by Jon, and let the girls hand out candy. They had fun handing the candy out and we barely had enough this year since we had some large groups towards the end.

Really I was only going to post one picture, but I felt a little guilty since I haven’t been posting any pictures.

Enjoy, and I hope your family had a Happy Halloween!

Next to their pumpkins. I let the girls draw faces, then I carve them.

Story of the costumes:

I realized I couldn’t post this without telling the story behind the costumes.

I wanted them to be Alice and the Red Queen, but they wouldn’t even listen to my suggestion, even though Lilah wasn’t sure on what she wanted to be, but Eden only wanted to be a princess.

Lilah decided she wanted to be a witch once she saw some really cool fabric at the store, while we were window shopping and I was waiting for a sale. Unfortunately, they did not have the fabric she wanted when we went to go buy it at 50% off. She was still happy and choose this dark purple satin and a black lace that had bats in it. That’s why I posted the last one, so you could kinda see the lace and that’s it’s purple, not black. We found the purple hat, which also has bats on it, at Smith’s, and she just had to have this gigantic harry spider too, so I let her.

Eden wanted to be a princess, but I really wanted her to be Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. We tried to convince her, we being Carolyn and me, and she was kinda sold on it with Carolyn saying she loved Belle, but she did not like that it was just a yellow dress. Once we had chosen the pattern, though not the fabric, she started drawing pictures of her beautiful multicolored dress, and it was different in every picture and it looked like a rainbow in every picture. While at the store she was OK with the yellow fabric and she was going to be Belle, but while Lilah was deciding between purple and green satin, Eden found this beautiful purple and pink organza that had small rainbow colored stars in it. She was sold and decided she had to be a princess with this fabric. So I relented and she compromised on the pink fabric for the dress, because she wanted it to have the purple that Lilah had already picked out. She also thought the dress was a little too plain, so I made the flowers that are at her waist, and added those for her.

They both loved their costumes in the end, which is what mattered the most. I really enjoyed sewing the costumes for them also. I love that I can help them turn ideas into reality.

I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten more than my share of meals in the past week. With having both our families in town it means double the meals, and double for food, which means I eat a lot in one day, but this year we met for Thanksgiving on a different day for Jon’s family, so instead of one day where I eat an insane amount of food, we had two…so yeah, I don’t think I’ll be weighing myself on the Wii any time son.

It was kinda nice to be able to linger with both families this year. We were able to spend a lot of time with Jon’s family on Saturday. All the siblings were in town, and that hasn’t happened since Lilah was a tiny infant. Not all the nieces and nephews were gathered, but it was still nice to spend time with all the brothers and sisters. Sadly, Jon’s parents were sick and the missed the festivities.

I had all the siblings gather around for a picture.

(Conrad, Jonathan, Rawlin, Annie, Jason, Kumen. Then Dara and Elana are in front.)

It was at Annie’s house and Tommy and her fixed a wonderful meal, like always. I brought pies and rolls, and there was plenty of food. I told Annie I would bring 4-5 pies, and for some reason she was still amazed that I brought so many. Fortunately she could use the frozen pies she had bought for Doug’s family dinner the next week.

Of course there was lots of sitting and talking with some debating, but mostly we just enjoyed one another’s company. Jon’s niece Tasia was there with her family, which was so nice since she’s been stationed in Alaska and will be moving there before the end of the year. I can’t believe how his nieces and nephews have grown since we’ve been married. Many have gotten married and are now enjoying families of their own. There are still a lot who are not married yet, but it’s just so different from my family, where the oldest grandchild is only 10.

We celebrated with my family on Thanksgiving Day. I made several pies once more, something I haven’t been able to do since we always eat and then leave for Jon’s family dinner. I attempted to make a banana cream pie, but used cook and serve pudding. This wouldn’t have been a problem had I realized this before I added it to the dream whip. It did not turn out, but my cousin made a delicious peanut butter cream pie, so we still had a cream pie for the family.

My Aunt Robin and Uncle Mike came down this year for Thanksgiving and they brought two of their grandchildren. The girls had lots of fun playing with them, and I went over there again today, since we don’t see them often and Jon needed to get some studying done. Elana is 9 and Talon is 7, so the four of them actually got along really well.

Poor Carolyn was sick this year, and didn’t make it to the family dinner. We thought it was just an allergic reaction to some food with peanuts that she had accidentally eaten on Wednesday. We even had her over to our house on Wednesday evening, but with some of the other symptoms, it seems like she also has a cold or the flu. It wasn’t as much fun to not have her there with us.

I love this time of year and I am so excited for the holidays. I’m totally not prepared, but it’s been so much fun watching the girls enjoy this time of year and getting ready for Christmas. I could do without the long, long, looong wish lists, but it’s still fun. They love Christmas music, and singing songs. I even peeked in and found them making a manger scene where Eden was Mary and her stuffed animals were the animals peering into a basket with a baby doll in it. I don’t think they had turtles and lizards at the first Christmas, but it made for one cute moment.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

So if you live in Las Vegas I’d love for you to come by a craft boutique a few friends of mine are having, and me. I believe it is all hand made items, and some of which are really cool.

I’ll be selling burp cloths, nursing covers, hooded towels, delicious white chocolate covered popcorn, and truffles at the boutique this year, along with my large bags.

It’s Saturday, December 4th, from 11-4 pm. We’ll have refreshments and it’s sure to be fun, even if you just come by to say hi and eat the free food and samples.

It’s at 901 Christy Lane, Las Vegas, NV 89110.

I participated in a boutique the first weekend of November and didn’t do to shabby. I’m so thankful Carolyn’s boss convinced me I should sell him popcorn and truffles last year. It’s really what allows me to continue to buy things for sewing. The popcorn especially. My truffles are pricey, but people love them too.

I’m also proud to say my website has kinda been updated. I still need to do a little work, and it’s been giving me some error messages, but I’m happy to say nicer pictures have been added thanks to a photo session with my wonderful friend Anna and two of the cutest models ever.

I don’t have all my products up, but you can see the cute bags I sell at SewLacey.com.

Dear People Who Still Read my Blog,

I’m not sure you’re out there, but eh, I haven’t been either. This week my children have been sick, which has forced me to stay home, which has helped me clean and get my house back to order. There are still things to do, when is there not, but I’m happy to say if you came over right now, my bathrooms are clean. Yay!

I’ve also made peanut butter, ground wheat, and indulged in two episodes of a show I can’t watch because Nova is on at the same time. (All in the same day, as in today when I also cleaned my bathrooms.) I want to just say, I love my Vitamix.

I used a pumice stone on my toilet today. A friend mentioned it for those pesky rings that stay because you don’t clean your toilet often enough, or really I’m convinced there is something in little kid pee, because ours gets cleaned at the same time and they have never developed in our toilet. I’m happy to report it worked, so now my toilet looks clean, rather then continuing to look icky because of those pesky ring stains.

I’ve even showered today. So that’s telling you I’ve done a lot.

So I’m actually getting ready for this weekend in a way. I have a couple meetings about homeschooling to attend, a fund raiser, choir, and a hot date with Jon. Not to mention baking five pies and rolls for an early Thanksgiving meal with Jon’s family on Saturday.

I think I will now put our flannel sheets on the bed. I put the girl’s on last week, and Jon has been patient with me. I washed them and they’re just waiting in the dryer to be put on, but for some reason I haven’t found the time in two days, but neither has he. I think the day has come, but that might be because I’ll be doing some laundry tonight.

Man, it’s nice to get stuff done.

Sincerely,
Lacey- Who has been a really lame blogger, housekeeper, and homeschooling mother.

With all the things that had been going on in her life, the absence of her period didn’t hit until Sunday. It was that morning that she realized she was three days late, and when your body runs like clockwork, she was almost sure she was pregnant, but how could she be when she has an IUD? This was a little nerve racking to her. She sat through church wondering and calculating when this baby, if there was a baby, would be due. It would be the end of June, very beginning of July. It would be perfect to happen right before their medical plan changes took affect, and maybe, just maybe, she was suppose to become a parent at this time in her life. Maybe Heavenly Father had a plan for her, because he knows that there is a part of her that says she will never have another child, at least if it was left to her completely.

Lets back up a little bit. Earlier in the year they found out that their medical insurance would be changing to a Health Savings Account and the deductible would sky rocket beginning July of 2011, so having a baby would be something they would have to save for, and would become a huge expense, medically. She tried to convince her husband that they should get pregnant right away, but he wasn’t going for it. It’s not that he didn’t want another baby, though he kinda doesn’t, but he didn’t want one right now just because their health insurance would be changing, and would like to wait till they are in another house.

So her dream of having a baby anytime soon died.

She once again consoled herself with the thoughts of how much work a child is. How much time they take, and how she would have to change her lifestyle completely if they were to have a baby.

She decided waiting was for the better, but she also has days where a baby was something she decided she never wanted. Those days are the days she’s trying to organize and all the baby stuff gets in the way, or all the clothes her youngest can’t wear continue to pile up, or the days she just wants order and to get rid of every damn thing in her house.

So there are days she doesn’t want another baby.

This Sunday her baby hunger came back. As she sat through sacrament and they blessed a one week old little girl, she wanted to so badly be pregnant. She wanted so badly to have a baby, but the thoughts of it also scared her. How would she and her husband raise this baby religiously? How would they make room in their tiny house? How would they be able to save and buy a larger house? How would they move with a baby if they bought a house?

She worried and ached for the baby at the same time.

She talked to her husband after church. She was so anxious, and he could see how it was affecting her, so he told her to go buy a pregnancy test.

After buying the test, she took it at home while her husband was with their older daughter. The test quickly came back negative, but silently she wished for it to be positive. She waited for that second blue line to appear, but it never did. Her younger daughter came knocking on the door, she wanted to play Uno. The mother asked her to wait and go play a little longer.

The blue line never appeared and that physical confirmation came just 24 hours later.

She was just late.

We all have our little bit of craziness that we deal with, I’m right in the thick of it for me, the funny thing is I’m finally motivated and doing things, even though I have a looming deadline and not enough hours in the day.

Since life was so crazy over the summer, and during the play, I was really ready to not do anything, and I almost did not do the homeschooling co-op. I got my brain together and figured it was for the best, so I decided to sign up and continue to have it has a part of our homeschooling journey. Well, I asked if there was anything I could do to help, since I know the whole preparation part can be hard, and they asked me to help our treasurer, since she had a premature baby over the summer and though he was home, was quite overwhelmed with regular life and now constant doctors appointments. I pretty much organized all the information, and am acting as treasurer. I like it because now I only have to teach for one hour on Mondays, but it’s also settled me into a very permanent role, though I could leave if it became overwhelming. I’m now in the inner circle of the co-op and get to help with making decisions and knowing what’s going on. It’s been interesting and I really feel I’m learning and growing.

Besides co-op I’ve been taking a once a week choir class. It’s been lots of fun and I feel it’s helping me gain some confidence in my ability to find parts and sing. I have a lot to learn still, but I love the choral music we sing and being a part of something. The choir class is really so I can get more confidence for the plays, and soon we’ll be starting meetings for choosing the director and getting the ball rolling for the next play. It’s crazy to think we’ll soon be starting all over again!

My main focus right now is sewing though. I started Sew Lacey, which don’t bother going to the link since I haven’t touched it since January, last year and participated in a craft fair out of a woman’s house. That time of year has rolled around again, and I decided I wanted to participate once more, only I forgot about it till she called me and only have a week and a have to get ready, since I had to finish the girls costumes and help her with set up. I want to do it because I have tons of fabric for bags, and when people see and hold the bags, they’ve been inclined to buy them. I’ve also decided to add hooded towels and burp clothes to the mix, with a possibility of nursing covers too. We’ll see how much time I have next week, since that’s all I have before set up begins and then I’ll need to devote some time to making chocolate covered popcorn for it also, since that’s a big hit and I want to try selling that too. So I have lots of projects to do and very little time.

And Wednesday I decided to clean and organize my house because it was pretty crazy, but more importantly I needed to get all my material in one place and bring some order to my chaos. I hate to start creating in chaos, but don’t mind the mess along the way. Like I’ll clean my kitchen and do dishes so I can bake, though this is something I have to do with how small our kitchen is. I had to clean and get my room into a little more order so I could sew, but really have space for a drying rack for the fabric.

Yeah, I have tons to do. I need to prepare a lesson for Sunday, a lesson for Eden’s class on Monday, finish Lilah’s costume so we can go to the Haunted Harvest, cut out and sew 6-8 bags, make hooded towels, burp clothes, prepare another lesson, make chocolate covered popcorn and get ready for a craft fair, all in two weeks, plus have family time and regular house duties.

It makes perfect sense that I’m blogging. Yeah, this is me and my craziness.

I’m posting these now, even though I have tons I need to do, because I fear I will forget, since I’ve been a pretty bad blogger lately.

We had our family pictures taken on October 2. Jon let me buy him a new shirt because he was tired of blue and green being our main colors for family pictures, though last years were different, and I can’t believe how much older the girls look this year compared to last. I bought him this golf shirt, since it was the only one I could find in red, and it’s now his favorite shirt. Score! (The reason why Jon doesn’t like me buying him clothes for family pictures, is the worry that he won’t use it again, and it would basically be a waste of money.) I also added the flowers to the girls shirts so they would coordinate. I could not find anything black, red, or white for the girls, besides these t-shirts, so I went with black and white and embellished them. I really think they turned out nice, though we’ll see how they wear since they flowers now have to be ironed after each wash. Sigh.

I think our pictures turned out pretty dang cute. She wasn’t the best at posing us in natural looking positions, but for the most part I like them because we’re all smiling and looking cute. The photographer liked them so well that she asked if she could submit them to a panel to be used as advertising, since they use actual families and photo shots from their studios. Hundreds of photo’s are submitted, so we’ll see if anything comes of it, but I was flattered that she liked them so much too.

The final note, if you’re family and would a specific pictures for your own viewing pleasure, please leave a comment for which ones you want and you’ll get them with your Christmas cards!

Family 01
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Family 02
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Family 03
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Family 04- This is a favorite pose for JC Penny photographers, it’s the third year we’ve been posed this way, and each have been different photographers.
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Family05- I wish Jon’s smile was in the previous one, that’s why I posted both.
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Girls 01
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Girls 02
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Girls 03-
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Lilah 01

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Lilah 02
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Lilah 03
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Lilah 04
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Lilah 05
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Eden 01
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Eden 02

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Eden 03
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Eden 04
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Eden 05

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Couple
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Jon has puppy dog eyes, but that wasn’t on purpose.

As I look back at previous years of photos I’ve decided to order my children to stop growing. I do this daily, but they never listen.