Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, I am officially 29 years old.  In my family, once we are 29 we "hold" and no longer get any older. ;)  So, I am also officially "29 and holding".  Hopefully my body will "hold" for a while too!  Haha!

When I woke up on my birthday I saw this:

My wonderful man had left me a treasure hunt!  Woohoo!  So, I wandered around our little apartment and found all of the treasures he left me.  In each place was a little love note with some candy.  Here are a few of my favorite places:

In the car seat

With some of my dolls

With Elva

In my Primary bag

It took me half of the day to find the last one and, of course, it was sitting right out in the open.  Here is all of the loot:

The treasure hunt led to this:

an aerobic step with a chocolate bunny!  So, now I have a lot of yummy candy and an aerobic step to work off all the  candy!  Hahaha!  I've used the step almost every day this week and I love it.  My legs are getting a much better work out!

Allan also got me a couple of baking pans that I've been needing.

Here I am with everything he got me:

We went out to eat at my favorite mexican place here, La Paloma, and then went to see "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" at the local college.   It was really good and we laughed through almost the entire thing.  That show always reminds me of my cousins!

I had a great birthday!  Thank you all for the birthday wishes, cards, and gifts!

Happy Easter!

This past week we went and visited some of our family.  We had a blast with them and really enjoyed being there to celebrate Easter as well.  We started off the trip by visiting our nephew B's kindergarten class.  We ate lunch with him and his classmates and then played with them at recess.  We found out that B gets chased by a girl for 1/2 of recess every day!  Ha Ha!  Things haven't changed since we went to kindergarten!  Here's B getting caught by the girl.  Love those leopard print leggings!

When they were through playing chase we went and played soccer with the other boys.  They loved having some adults to play with.

The next morning we went to the neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  If you look closely you can see B and his mom, K1, running out on the field.  He got a pretty good stash of eggs and had a lot of fun running to collect them.

Here is B and K1 running for more eggs.

Our nephew J hunted eggs on the tennis court.  He also got a pretty good stash but as soon as he saw some candy all of his interest in the eggs was gone.  Here is J, his mom K4, and his dad C.

Here are the boys with their loot.  They weren't so excited about taking pictures so this was the best one I got.

Allan and B decided to have a wrestling match that afternoon.  It was SO hilarious to watch!

Allan tried his best but B overtook him in the end.  Here he is pinning Allan.  B was so thrilled with his strength!

We went to the Aquarium later that day.  It was a very small aquarium but they had some pretty neat things.  The boys enjoyed putting their hands in the water to touch the fish.  Here I am with B trying to find the octopus.

Here's Allan with J watching some of the smaller fish.

The boys also enjoyed feeding the birds.  J eventually got scared but B had a lot of fun feeding them.  We also got to pet a tortoise.  It is 10 years old and 75 lbs, still a baby for a tortoise.  They can live to 150 years old.

The next morning we colored some Easter eggs with B. 

Later that day Allan took the boys to play at a park while me and their moms set up a treasure hunt for the them.  K1 had the idea and it turned out really cute.  We filled a bunch of plastic eggs with jellybeans and then put those and some Cadbury eggs out in a trail for them to follow.  The trail led them to their Easter baskets.  J was distracted as soon as he found some candy but B really had a lot of fun.  Here they are with their treasure maps ready to go on their hunt.

Here they are with their loot.

We also spent a lot of time coloring with the boys.

Allan and I color eggs together every year.  We did it the week before Easter this time since we would be out of town.  Here is Allan working on his eggs.

While we color the eggs we always play the matching game that comes in the egg kit.  That's what I'm doing in the picture below.  Poor Allan can never beat me! :)

While we were draining the eggs one of them fell out of the pot and cracked.  We decided to decorate it as Humpty Dumpty.  HaHa!  I think it turned out well!

Here are all of our eggs - aren't they so lovely. ;)

Each year Allan decorates one of his eggs saying "I Love Kami" and I do one that says "I love Allan".  Last year Allan decorated one that said, "Little One".  We kept up the tradition this year.  Below we are holding eggs that say "Little One" and "Great Life" - we really need a little one to share our great life with! ;) (Oh the cheese!)

When the eggs dry we hide them for one another around the house.  I don't know why but I LOVE doing that.  Can't wait to do it with a child!

We have been emailing back and forth with an expectant mother.  She is very nice, and we have really been enjoying getting to know her.  She's expecting a girl in October.  We hope this is the child that we have been waiting for.  Either way we know she will do what is best for her and her baby and it's been a lot of fun to talk with her and start a new friendship.

Overflowing with...

Today has been quite the eventful day.  I went to babysit M and L and their theme for the day seemed to be "get as many sticky things on Kami as possible".  Or, at least, that was L's theme.  The day started fine, L was more tired than usual so I put him down for an early nap and M and I played the My Little Pony Game and then some math games on the computer.  When L woke up he wanted to have a sucker just like M.  I got him one and we went and sat with M on the couch while she finished up her math games.  After a few minutes I looked down to discover a nice puddle of grape sucker saliva on my t-shirt.  That is when his mission began.  Suddenly he decided he wanted to get off of my lap and in doing so got sticky grape sucker hand prints on my pants.  I got up to go and clean his hands off when he suddenly lunged at my legs and got his sticky hands and face all over my pants again, apparently it wasn't enough the first time.  Then we sat down for lunch.  About half way through lunch he got a very distressed look on his face and stood up in his high chair.  When I told him to sit down again he shook his head no and lunged at me.  In trying to save him from crashing to the floor I encountered his peanut butter covered hands.  This resulted in two peanut butter hand prints on my t-shirt.  I held him for a second and realized that he felt quite soft and squishy - and a little wet  - on my arm.  So I sat him down to discover diarrhea on my arm and hand.  Discovering the diarrhea made me forget about washing his hands and I went to wash mine!  On the way to the sink L placed his peanut butter hands on my pants.  Now I was thoroughly covered in grape sucker and peanut butter.  I got him changed and cleaned up.  As I was trying to wash myself up I looked at L to see diarrhea literally flowing over his diaper and on to the floor!  It didn't come out of the sides at all, just over the top.  Weird.  As I ran to get the diaper and wipes he decided he wanted to run too.  In the process of trying to avoid the diarrhea on the floor and wrestle him down to change his diaper again (he felt better now and wanted to play) I ended up with diarrhea on my t-shirt.  Poor M had sat through most of this quietly eating her lunch but when the diarrhea started to bubble over the diaper she lost her appetite.  My allergies have been bad today so I can only imagine how it smelled.  Sometimes it's nice to not be able to smell.  So, M and L's mom came home to find L in a new outfit and me in her older daughters t-shirt (I hope she didn't want to wear it tomorrow).  After the diarrhea I just gave up and borrowed some clothes so I didn't have to walk through town covered in poo.  Today is laundry day though so I guess if it had to happen today was a good day!

I got to babysit another little boy on Wednesday  while his mom was at a doctor appointment.  He is the only child I have ever baby sat that did better if I completely ignored him.  If I didn't try to interact with him at all then he would play, laugh, run around, etc.  As soon as I looked at him or rolled a ball or something he would stop and stare at me until I ignored him again!  So funny! 

Our area does their own version of American Idol every year.  The winner gets $1,000.00 and the chance to perform at community events throughout the year.  Allan and I went to the final competition night.  It was a lot of fun, and they actually had some really great singers.  Some sang great but couldn't perform, some could perform but couldn't sing, and a few did great at both.  We enjoyed the night and rooted for the "token old guy" (which is actually what they called him) who had a great "old country" voice.  The twang and all.  He didn't win though.

We really enjoyed conference.  It is always so spiritually filling.  Although Allan and I both felt reprimanded on Saturday.  Elder Holland's talk about coveting really applied to us.  All you moms and dads out there, just so you know, we covet your children!  I don't think that was a big secret though.  We are committed to "stop it" just like Elder Uchtdorf advised.  We'll see how that goes.  We also received a lot of comfort.  It is nice to be reminded that God is aware of our trials and that even the trial of childlessness is temporary.

Conference time has always been family time for us, so this is one of those times we miss our family the most.  Hope you know that we love and miss you and hope to see you soon!