Sleepytime stories and more

Last week, after we had put the girls to bed, I heard Amber "Mom, Emma's in my bed!" I was so tired and I didn't want to referee that night. So I left them alone. After a while, all was quiet in the girls' room. I was pretty sure they had worked it out themselves and fallen asleep. Before I went to bed, I peeked in on the girls. This is what I found. Both girls were asleep on Amber's bed! Amber was snuggled right up to Emma. It was such a sweet sight. I'm sure that had I not taken a picture, or had John go check it out, the girls would have slept like this all night long. But, shortly after I took pictures Amber woke up complaining that Emma was in her bed. At that point we felt the situation should be remedied. So we put Emma in her own bed.

Just a few nights ago we had once again put the girls to bed and gone downstairs to watch a movie. During the movie I heard a loud thud and thought, that sure sounded like Emma getting out of bed. But she never came to find us and I just chalked it up to Trixie (the dog) being loud. After all, John had just told me that both girls were sound asleep and so was Timothy! Yay, a miracle! So, I was getting ready to go to bed and went to check on the girls first. My heart stopped, Emma was nowhere to be found. Of course, the first place I checked was Amber's bed. But no Emma. Where could she be? I then thought that it was likely she had crawled into my bed. So, I looked there. Lo and behold, Emma fast asleep on my bed. I took pictures, then put her into her bed where she promptly started whining. I told her she could sleep on the floor next to my bed. So that is where she fell asleep. Sometime during the night she went back to her own bed as she was nowhere to be found near my bed in the morning. I was even careful to not step on her. If only I had known she wasn't there.

Face view of Emma sleeping amongst the pillows on my bed!

Then yesterday, while Amber was in school, Emma played out in the front yard. She found a hard hat in the garage and decided to add that to her daily attire. Her adventures began with digging in the front yard where we took a tree out last year. We still haven't replaced the grass, so it is a big pile of dirt. There were construction workers at the neighbors house watching Emma and laughing at her digging in the dirt with her hard hat on! I thought it was quite amusing myself. By the time I got outside to take pictures, she was using this little turtle (a sandbox toy) as a bike. Her imagination keeps her entertained, especially during the times Amber isn't around to entertain her.

It seems as if when life gets comfortable, God steps in and says, HA HA, fooled ya. You need more trials. I feel as if this is how it has been the past couple of weeks. We were getting comfortable with the hand that had been dealt to us in life. John had a good job, I was getting a few clients here and there, and the kids were relatively happy.
Yet, when we

Jam, jelly, and fire

Okay, I have to tell a funny story. Yesterday I was making strawberry jam and apple jelly. Okay, that wasn't the funny part! Well, we were on the last batch of apple jelly. The apple jelly had boiled and I was trying to take it off the burner so it wouldn't burn while I was putting it in jars. I know, you think you know what's coming next. Yep, you guessed it. The jelly spilled over the side of the pan. Well, because the burner was still on the jelly landed on the very hot burner. I didn't think anything of it and started quickly gathering the remaining jars. All of a sudden there were flames. At this point, I have to give Kudos to John for being so level headed at that point. I started freaking out and he grabbed a lid, threw it on the flames, and turned the burner off. This was all before I could even get a sound out! Fear coursed through my veins as I thought about what a fire could do! I calmly finished bottling the jelly, even as the jelly continued to smolder on that burner. The whole house was full of smoke. But I guess it wasn't enough to set off our fire alarm. I guess it is time to check the batteries once again!
Whew! We finished, and then it was cleanup time. I was looking for something to use for stove clean up, but John kindly offered to clean the stove. What a godsend. I was not looking forward to cleaning the burnt mess off. Luckily it just scraped off as we have a flat top stove. Scary. But looking back at it, I am finding humor in my canning mishaps. After all, how fun would it be to talk about canning jam if I didn't have a horror story to tell and to laugh about.
So, now that it is all done, here are some pictures of the lovely jam and jelly! Doesn't it look yummy? It was so wonderful to sample the jam on homemade bread. Thanks to Leslie for bringing homemade bread over. She didn't even know we were making jam. It was so perfect.

Isn't it beautiful? We are excited to have this homemade jam and jelly!

Night time adventures

Last night I had Young Women board meeting at my house. So John was doing his best at keeping himself and the kids out of the way. After all, it was bedtime for the girls! After board meeting I heard noises coming from my bedroom and saw the lights on. So, thinking John was back there with Timothy, I headed to my room. Surprise, surprise, but who was in my room? Emma. She was sitting there quietly going through stuff on my headboard. She had a necklace that she was taking out of the box and watching it fall back in in. I reacted very calmly and told her to get into her own bed! Not ten minutes later she was asleep.
Short entry today, sorry. Just looked at the time. Time to get Emma from Preschool. The fun begins!

Epiphany

As I was waiting for Amber to get out of school I was watching Emma play on the playground. I sat under a tree and just let her play. I love watching her going down the slide. Then she decided to climb up the slide. At one point I watched her try to get onto what I call the fire pole. That's what it looks like. I didn't think she would do it by herself. All of a sudden she was hanging in midair. One hand on the pole and one hand on the bar next to the platform. I was about to jump up and rescue her when she figured out how to get her feet around the fire pole and slide down. Then all proud of herself she comes over to me, "Mom, did you see that?" So I had to will my heartbeat to slow down. A few moments later I saw her climbing over the edge of the slide. There was a little ledge that didn't connect to anything else except one of the main poles of the entire playset. Yikes. She grabbed onto that and just hung there. Once again I debated going to rescue her! And once again she climbed down the pole with no visible harm!
So, here's my epiphany. My kids don't need me to step in and save them from everything I perceive to be harmful. They are capable of taking care of themselves (to an extent). I realized that I have told them No a lot of times just because I didn't think they knew how, or that they were too little, or just plain couldn't do something. I guess I shouldn't do that. I have probably squashed a lot of their zest for life just because I was fearful of them branching out and doing something without me! So, maybe if I am reminded of this epiphany I will be able to enable my kids to accomplish great things, and I don' t have to be the one that dictates what or how they do it!
And now that my epiphany is complete, here are a few pictures to enjoy!





Emma putting grass on Emma's head!
The end result. Emma ended up looking like a chia pet!

Time Out

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Deseret Book's Time Out for Women on Friday night and Saturday in Logan. I left John home with the kids and picked up LeAnn downtown on Friday afternoon. We headed up to Logan. Of course at 4:00 it is already pretty busy on I-15 so we were stuck in traffic for a while. But, we still made it to Logan by 6:00. We checked into our hotel and booked it to USU. We had tons of fun. I'm not sure we got much sleep. We stayed up late and then had to be back at USU by about 8:30 in the morning. We had an unbelievably amazing experience!
The kids survived the night without me, yay! John even survived. It is so good that he is willing to take the kids so I can have time for me. The kids really enjoy having time with Daddy. Unfortunately, when I got home John told me Timothy had not been feeling well. Makes me feel bad sometimes knowing I left and then Timothy gets sick. But everything was under control and I didn't have anything to worry about.
This morning was difficult as I am still exhausted. No sleep over the weekend really does me in! But we got Amber off to school, and on time! An accomplishment for us this morning. We even had time for Amber to look through her things as she was supposed to take something green to school today. Thanks to Julie for letting us know. I rarely call people early, but I knew she would be up and getting her kids ready. It helps to have somebody who knows what is going on. Most days I certainly feel like I don't.
Now we get to enjoy some time without the kids fighting. Emma is trying to play the piano and Timothy is intent on making a mess. He gets into everything. So much for trying to childproof. He can get around anything.
Timothy is a bottomless pit. I made pancakes for breakfast with apple pie filling in them. Timothy ate 5! But where does he put it? With metabolism like his, wow. I can't imagine what it would be like.

Pictures!

I just had to share a few pictures of the kids from yesterday. Timothy was just way too cute and the girls were actually looking cute. I took these pictures of them all dressed up with somewhere to go!


Emma, Amber, Timothy

This is Timothy, mad at me for putting him down long enough for a picture. He was tired and hungry!

Cute knees, don't ya' think?