Not to be a Negative Nellie, but I think that I hate Day Light Savings. It has pretty much ruined my daily routine, and therefore ruined my life right now. Well, maybe not ruined my life, but it has made it more difficult. And exhausting. Ever since the time change, Lilia has a hard time staying up until her bedtime, 7pm. Her little body insists that 6pm, the old 7pm, is really her bedtime. And naturally, she doesn't want to get up at a reasonable hour, at say 5am or 6am. No, she wants to get up at 3am and 4am. Added to that, she has decided that she's too old to take naps. And this is where I really get frustrated because I would really, really, in the worst way, love to be able to take a nap. Or at least get things done while she takes a nap. (My house is a wreck--what's new??--and I still have to finish Christmas shopping and get ready for Christmas, my mother-in-law's 2 1/2 week visit, and my new baby.) At 8 1/2 months pregnant, I'm just not sleeping very well at night anyway and it feels like these early morning are going to kill me. It seems like I'm always on edge, ready to snap. And I do snap, my friends. I snap often, I'm ashamed to say. You would think that she'd want to nap, just to get away from me. I know that I would want to get away from me sometimes. But no, she won't take a nap. The more tired she gets, the more wild and hyper she gets. And of course the more tired I get, the more ornery and lumbering I get. If she does take a nap, it will be in the car, and it will be just enough for her to get by without being tired enough to get a real nap, but so tired that she's a grouch. Or a Crablia, as we call her. Or she'll want to take a nap at inconvenient times, like right before we take Carolyn to pre-K or just as we're leaving to pick her up or perhaps just as we're dropping her off at nursery . The worst part is that before the time change, she would take a 2-3 hour nap at 9am and then go to bed at 7pm and sleep all night long. Every day. So I've savored the sweet, and now I'm tasting the bitter. Right now my eyes are burning and my head is heavy and aching. But she's so sweet and loving and just cute. "Mommy, you tired?" she'll sweetly ask as her tiny hand, soft as a feather, is gently petting my hair, her blue eyes are wide and shining with concern. And my heart melts.....But still, I hope we get this sleep thing down soon.

Meanwhile, Carolyn thinks I'm a tyrant. One of my non negotiable rules is that while I may not be able to dress my children in the latest and greatest fashions, they will always be clean, wear clean clothes and be neat and groomed. This is where I am sort of a hypocrite, because this rule doesn't always apply to me, but it always applies to my children, especially to Carolyn, when she goes to school, and of course, to both girls when we go to church. Truly this is something that I should lead by example, but a lot of times, it takes all my energy to get them ready. Anyway, today as I was blow drying Carolyn's hair, she was doing the usual grumbling and complaining that she didn't want her hair done. She has in fact requested that her hair be cut, multiple times, to lessen the time spent doing her hair. Each time she's wanted her hair cut, I've done my best to let her wear it the way she wants. It works, but not to the extent that she would like. I still do her hair, even when the length is shorter. Today, she asked me why I have to be so bossy. I replied that I wasn't being bossy. I was helping her because I'm her mother and I love her and so I was helping her get ready for school, now hold still. She muttered under her breath, "Well, I think it's bossing." And that didn't bother me at all. In fact, it made me smile. Maybe I am a tyrant.

By the way, JT has tried to show me how to put he pictures where I want them, but it doesn't seem to work for me. It sort of looks bad to have them piled, but I've decided that's my "style".

Lilia's Birthday

What a fun week we've had! On Monday the girls and I went on a field trip for Carolyn's school to a pumpkin patch, on Wednesday Carolyn had a Halloween party at school, on Friday we went to JT's office to trick or treat, on Saturday we did a trunk or treat at the church and we finished off our fun week with Lilia's birthday on Sunday. For her cake, I decided on a Candy Land cake. I got the idea from my friend's blog (AWESOME blog, you should totally check it out--and check me out, I remembered how to make a link!!) and thought to give it a try. The great thing about doing a Candy Land cake is that with as much candy as it takes to make it, you can't go wrong. The girls were sooo excited to eat it. Lilia got a couple pairs of shoes and a big Mickey Mouse Clubhouse coloring book from us and then was spoiled with clothes, a necklace we'll be keeping out of her reach, and Mickey Mouse toys from her grandparents. All throughout the day I kept catching Lilia digging into her cake with a spatula. I'd move it to the table, the counter, back to the table, to the stove...it didn't matter. All of a sudden we'd realize that we didn't know what Lilia was doing, and we'd find that she'd stealthily moved a chair over to where the cake was, and was eating it. Each time I got after her, she'd reply defensively that, "I like my cake!" and I couldn't get mad at her because I really, really wanted her to like her cake. Needless to say the cake didn't last very long. But that's okay too, because with my gestational diabetes, the last thing I needed was this cake, loaded with candy, frosting, and chocolate to be hanging around the house. Meanwhile, Carolyn is already making plans for the cake she wants me to make her for her 5th birthday. To be fair, she's actually been planning this since her 4th birthday.

Fire Bug

Let me start out by saying that while I see some humor in what happened this morning, it's only funny because Carolyn is funny and the house didn't burn down with my children inside of it! Okay, disclaimer made, here we go....

When Carolyn and Lilia came into our room this morning for a snuggle, they sort of smelled like a campfire. My first thought was that our neighbors must have been having a campfire outside, and because all of our windows are open, the scent got into the girls' room. JT suggested that it sort of smelled a bit like matches, but I dismissed that because of course Carolyn and Lilia are too small to know how to play with matches. And then later on this morning, I found Carolyn in her closet and saw this,

and obviously I was WRONG! when I assumed my sweet angels would never play with matches. One of my greatest fears is that the house will start on fire, and then how will I get the children out of the house and to safety? Will I be able to break their window and rescue them? Will they wander around in the dark and smoke and get lost and die? (This actually happened to a 6 year old in this county a couple of years ago.) I worry that the dryer lint might catch fire in the laundry room and cause a house fire. (This is a particular fear of mine because the laundry room is right beside the girls' room.) Many a night I think about this as I'm going to bed and the only thing that brings me peace is praying that the Heavenly Father will watch over us and protect us. I get that stressed about house fires. So you can imagine that I freaked when found out that Carolyn and possibly Lilia were playing with matches in their wooden closet, with flammable clothes above them and a thick card board toy chest beside them. I was so upset that I didn't think I could communicate in a way that Carolyn would listen to me, so I let JT handle this one. By the way, JT blames this all on my genetics just because when my mother was a child, she burned her basement doing pretend fire commercials (don't ask) and I used to lock myself in the bathroom and play with matches until the time I singed, parts of my very flammable bangs, orange. I am sooooo regretting telling JT any of this now. Anyway, after a while I felt like I had it all together. I came back into Carolyn's room to hear her say, "Because I'm good at matches," when JT asked her why she had done this. (I know. I can't believe she said that either.) I walked back out and got a drink of water. I think that JT handled this very well. He was calm, but firm when he explained to her the dangers of fire to our family and home. As she was sitting on the Naughty Chair after the talk, he pulled me aside to tell me a few things that he had learned from Carolyn. Apparently Lilia had already told Carolyn all about how matches could start a fire that would burn us all to death and that if that happened while Carolyn was playingwith matches, Lilia would be "very upset" with her, and then Carolyn had thanked and hugged Lilia and told her what a good sister she was. Uh huh. Apparently Lilia gives better safetly lectures at 21 months old than either JT or I. But that hadn't stopped them from playing with the matches, because although at first Carolyn wouldn't admit to playing with matches in front of Lilia, she later admitted that Lilia likes to blow them out. As I type this, it's only 9:45 in the morning, and I feel exhausted.

Anyway, onto happier memories of times gone by. Or at least times gone by a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures from our most recent trip to the zoo.

It's the first time that JT had ever gone with us. When I told the girls that he would be going with us, Carolyn was incredulous to the point of asking, "My daddy?" (He's not a big fan of the zoo.) But it was so much more fun to have him there with us :-) I didn't have a chance to do the girls' hair before we left because we wanted to get there early and beat the heat. Sorry that the pictures are a little blurry, I'm still getting used to my new camera. Carolyn and Lilia sort of look hot and raggedy, but that's because they were hot and raggedy, and we still had a good time. (But I'll be doing their hair next time.)

Oh, and here is Carolyn's tutu.

The daisies don't really go with it and the tutu's not in the colors that I would have picked, but it's everything that Carolyn wanted and she loves it, so that's all that matters. At least that's what I tell myself every time I see it.

Oh, and also? The matches are long gone. Much like all the spinning wheels were done away with for Sleeping Beauty, so are the matches for Carolyn and Lilia and hopefully we won't need any for a quite a while. I asked JT why they don't make child-proof matches and he said that if they did, we probably wouldn't be able to figure them out, but Carolyn and Lilia probably could.

Getting Crafty (sort of)

I would like to be crafty, but I'm just not. Every once in a while though, some type of craft will come along that I can do and that's a very happy day for me. About five years ago it was Swedish Weaving. I learned how to do it at a Super Saturday and in my mind I was giving everyone Swedish weaved table runners, Swedish weaved tree skirts, and Swedish weaved baby blankets for Christmas and birthdays. My first and only project is sitting in my top nightstand drawer and it's almost finished. Did I mention it's been five years? Yeah, I don't think anyone is going to be getting gifts with Swedish weaving from me. However, I struck gold in the craft department again this year when I discovered how to make tutus. I'm even more excited about the tutus than I was the Swedish Weaving, because I can make a tutu in about an hour, so I get a craftastic high from the satisfaction of project actually finished. Unfortunately, while there seemed to be an endless supply of people to give the weaves to, there are only so many people that I can gift with a tutu. I've made one for each of my nieces (the ones young enough to want a tutu) and for my girls. Soon I'll have to get a new craft. Sigh. I hope it doesn't take another 5 years. Meanwhile, this is Lilia's first tutu that I made for her last night. Carolyn wants a new tutu as well and she even picked out the colors for it. Are you familiar with the Red Hat Society? If you are not, you should totally take a moment and google it. If I were really good at this stuff, I would make a link for you to click and you could check it out that way, but I've forgotten how to to do that. So if you haven't heard of them, don't be lazy and look them up. But if you are lazy, I'll just tell you that they're a society of feisty older women who dress and accessorize in bright reds and purples, because they're fun and feisty. And they probably do other things too that you should look up. Wow, I'm really plugging the Red Hat Society. Always exciting times on this blog!! Anyway, the colors that Carolyn chose are red, purple, and a very light pink that's going to look like white. Basically, it's going to be a Red Hat Society tutu. I sort of tried to gently steer her towards other color groups that I liked better, but no dice. Oh well, as long as she likes it, I suppose....Oh, here are pictures of the latest tutu and Carolyn's 4 year picture.

Good Times

I'm really late publishing this post (such a slacker!), but last month we stayed at my sister's house for a week and watched her children while she and her husband went to a home show in Las Vegas. Watching her children was pretty much cake since her children are 18, 13, and 5, and they are a lot of fun to hang out with. Added to this, my sister (we'll call her Rachelle) had stocked up her pantry with all sorts of food and goodies and left us some fun money. With that fun money, we went to Chuck E. Cheese, bought a bunch of tokens and had a little Las Vagas-like experience of our own.


P.S By "last month" I mean January of 2009. I totally wasn't kidding when I said I was a slacker.

Why Target Sucks....(not really, I love Target)

First of all, these pictures have nothing whatsoever to do with Target or this post. My camera is broken and I feel bad posting something without any pictures (how boring!) so I just picked some random pictures that I like and put them up for your entertainment. The first picture is of Carolyn, wearing her tutu that was given to her by her cousin Cara, and the second picture is of JT and I on our wedding day (it's possible that you've put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured that for yourself) and the last is a picture of Carolyn (2 1/2 years) and Lilia (2 months). Enjoy.

Anyway, onto Target....We went there this morning to get some diapers. You may or may not know this, but Target diapers are some of the best cheapie diapers out there. Of course we offset those savings by always stopping by the Starbucks inside Target and getting hot chocolates, slurpies and even a pizza if we go there during lunch time. Even still, it's a good bargain and a great time. Too much of a great time in fact, which is why Target sucks. It was torture to stroll through the store and see all of the adorable new clothes for spring and even more torture to look through the racks of clothes 75% off. They also had a few racks of clothes 50% and 30% off, but I didn't bother with them. Not worth my time. Anyway they had so many cute clothes for Carolyn and Lilia and it was hard to just look and keep walking, but I did. We strolled on until we came to the CD sampler. This is another favorite thing of ours in Target. We'll take turns picking CDs to "sample" and spend anywhere from 5-10 minutes monopolizing the display. It's true, we are that fun. Anyway, today I heard at least 3 CDs that I really, really need to have for my massage practice. (I don't want my clients to get bored by listening to the same music again and again each session --wink, wink--it's all for them. It is NOT because I'm dying to spend money or anything) I tortured myself by trying to find a way of justifying buying at least one, but in the end, I couldn't do it. So we moved on to the check out lane and purchased our diapers. On the way out, we decided to look at their "bargain" aisles and found MORE TORTURE!!! They have heart shaped sets of measuring cups and spoons in shades of pink. Heart shapes! How cute is that? Yay, Valentine's Day!! They also had glass, heart shaped paper weights. Who doesn't need a good paper weight? Especially heart shaped?? Not only that, but they had silicone, heart shaped, muffin cups. Oh, and they had so much more. Because they're evil. I didn't get any of the adorable, heart shaped stuff (I'm waiting until later on today, after I pick up my paycheck!) but Carolyn did see a magic wand, priced at a dollar, and she had money from the Thanksgiving card grandmother sent her (their grandmother sends them a card with a dollar in it, and also puts $5 into a savings account for them, every holiday), so we bought the wand and then ran out of the store and didn't look back. I can only take so much torture.