The Fairest of Them All... Sort of...

I babysat some cute kids on Monday.  While we were playing a game one of the boys looked up at me and said "You're like Snow White.  Hair as black as ebony...well sort of...on that side"  (Which was the side the sun wasn't shining on. HAHA)  He got interrupted but I imagine he was going to say "skin white as snow and lips red as blood".  I guess I need to work on my tan.  But, if he wants to compare me with the woman known as "the fairest of them all" I am definitely okay with that. ;)

This weekend our city celebrated Pioneer Day.  They go all out here.  The Pioneer Day celebration is bigger than the Independence Day celebration!  This year there was a rodeo, a dance, a parade, a lot of food,  a pageant, and fireworks.  It was a really fun weekend. 

We started by going to the rodeo and happened to see one of our friends children in the barrel racing competition.  She was VERY good!  She turned sharper than any of the other competitors, but she wasn't quite as fast as a couple of them. We left right after her because it started pouring down rain.  We went to the dance and learned a new line dance.  We both love to dance and really enjoyed practicing the steps we learned in the class we took last summer.  Thank goodness Allan has such a good memory.  I had forgotten almost all of them!

We went to the rest of the festivities with some friends of ours and enjoyed watching their sweet little girls.  Things are always so much more fun when kids are involved because they find magic in so many little things.
Here are a couple of our favorite floats.

I think this guy was my favorite though.  I didn't get the best picture but he was laying down on his horse with arrows sticking out of his back.  He rode his horse backward quite well!

 

The pageant was great.  They all had great singing voices.  They square danced and performed one of the youth dances from the Temple celebration a few years ago.  They reenacted several stories like the Sweetwater Rescue, and told other stories that we hadn't heard before.  I actually cried twice.  If you know me well you know I don't cry easily.  

We enjoyed the fireworks too, especially when our friend handed us some earplugs.  The fireworks were really close to where we were sitting so it was pretty loud.  There was a slight breeze so after the fireworks exploded we could see their ashes slowly floating away - it was very pretty.  We were also grateful for the breeze because it saved us from the ash falling onto our heads.

Allan's custom earplugs came in and are working great!  He no longer comes home from church with a huge headache!  Hooray for modern technology!

I did bubble wrap again in primary this week.  The kids were so excited they literally couldn't stay in their seats.  As we sang some of them would slowly creep up, hoping that I wouldn't see them, and then try to stomp on the bubble wrap.  I also introduced a singing ear - one of the teachers would walk down the hall while we were singing, listening to see how far they could be heard, then tape the ear to the wall to mark the spot.  I told the kids to walk around the church after class to see how loud they were.  They were very excited about seeing it.  It failed though because someone stole the ear before church got out!  Who would want to steal a big blue ear?  I'm going to try again next week, hopefully it won't get stolen again.

A Mom and A Dad

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to babysit for a woman who recently went through a divorce.  She has great kids and I had a lot of fun with them.  While we were playing a game one of her boys asked me if I was having a baby.  I told him that we hoped we would be receiving one in November.  Then he said, "So your pregnant."  I said I wasn't pregnant and he looked at me like "How is that possible!?"

Trying to explain adoption to young children can be really hard and very confusing.

I told him that there was another girl that was pregnant and that she was thinking about placing her child with Allan and I.

He asked, "Why would someone do that? Doesn't she want her baby?"

I told him that she absolutely wants her baby.  She loves her baby very much and wants it to have the best and happiest life possible.  She wants her baby to have a mom and dad to take care of it, so she's thinking about placing it with us.

Then he smiled his understanding and said, "That's what we want, a mom AND a dad."

We then had good talk about divorce, I told them that my parents are divorced but my parents married again and now I have four loving parents instead of just two!  They seemed to receive some comfort from that and they told me how they hoped their mom would get married again.  I told them I hoped so too.

Having a mom and a dad is one of the biggest reasons women place their babies for adoption.  Often times they have the ability, through their own means or help from family, to parent their children.  It's not that they don't want their child - they do.  It's not that they don't think they could do a good job as a parent - they can.  It's not that they aren't enough - they are.

But they want their child to have a mom and a dad.

Two parents who love each other and have a good relationship with one another. This is what we hope to give to a child.

"Does my Mom know?"

Allan and I had a lot of fun this week.  We started the week off with a game of croquet for Family Night.  Allan beat me soundly the first game.  The sun had started to go down so for the second game we raced each other instead of taking turns.  I beat Allan on that one - but just barely.  We went and got some ice cream that night too, to celebrate our freedom from school loans!  Hooray!

We made some chocolate chip cookies on Tuesday for Allan to bring to work and they were delicious!  I was so relieved because I ALWAYS mess up on chocolate chip cookies.  When I make them they are always flat and hard.  Thankfully Allan was there to help me this time and everything went well.  They were a big success at work!

I made Grandma's sugar cookies on Wednesday - they turned out great too!  I had good luck in the cookie making area this week.  Thank goodness for the Lord's tender mercies!  The little girl I used to babysit broke her leg so I took the cookies over to her on Thursday and we frosted them together along with her brothers and sister.  I really enjoyed being with them and they really enjoyed the cookies!  Unfortunately I left them with a messy house and bellyaches!  They just couldn't stop eating those cookies.  I left to their dad saying "Wow, these are reeeally gooood!!" Grandma's cookies never fail to please! Allan wants to say - Especially when Kami makes them! 

I got to do some volunteer work this week as well and that was a lot of fun.  They do a food drive here on the second Wednesday of every month.  A semi full of food from a food pantry in Tucson comes down to one of the ball parks.  We help unload the truck and then hand it out to the people as they drive by in their cars.  It is me, a couple of elderly women, a couple of men, and all of the missionaries in the area.  I have gone once before and planned on helping every month but we have been out of town the second week of every month since I last went!  They were surprised to see me again!  Hopefully I'll be able to go more often in the future.

On Saturday we had lunch with a man that Allan works with who is from Sierra Leone.  He made us a delicious African meal and sent us home with leftovers!  It was so yummy!  He also showed us some pictures of where he lives - which is gorgeous - and of his beautiful family.  He is here working on a Ph.D.  He and his wife have 4 children the youngest of whom was born after he left and he has never met.  He will be here for at least 3 more years and they don't have the money for visits with in that time.  Hearing his story made me very grateful for the opportunities our country provides us.  I am so amazed at the sacrifices that some people make for the betterment of themselves, their family, and their countries.  It makes the sacrifices we have made seem so very small.

At church today one of the little boys rushed up to me to show me that he had remembered to bring his scriptures.  I told him how proud I was of him and then told him I would be babysitting him tomorrow.  He got very excited about it and started talking about how much fun we were going to have together and then he stopped and said "Does my Mom know?"  I love kids so much!  They are hilarious!  I assured him that his mom definitely knew!

Allan surprised me with some beautiful flowers this week!  They are so cheerful and really brightened up our home!

IT'S A GIRL!

On Tuesday we went and visited K and her mom, M, again for K's ultrasound.  We are so thrilled to be inviting a little girl into our family!  Here's to frills and lace and all things girly!  Hooray!

The first thing she did was give us a big wave!  Then she yawned - which of course was adorable!  She looks like such a beautiful healthy baby girl and we can't wait to meet her!

We had so much fun with K and M and got to meet one of K's cousins too!  We loved meeting another member of their family!  Allan's parents got to come with us and meet K, M, and K's cousin also.  We went out for ice cream after the ultrasound and got to talk for a little while.  It never seems long enough.  We can't wait to see them again!

I tried Bountiful Baskets for the first time last week.  We got a lot of really good produce and I am excited to continue doing it!  It is a lot of food though for just the two of us so I will probably only do it every other week instead of every week.

Allan's parents came down to visit us for the week.  We had some banana squash in the freezer that we needed to use up so Allan made banana squash pie - which is a tradition at Thanksgiving for his family.  We decided that we would make 3 pies and started to get everything out that we would need.  Then we realized that we only had one pie tin.  So we went to the store and bought two more.  Allan continued making the pie while I started on the pie crust.  I got about half way through the pie crust when I realized that I needed an egg for it and we didn't have any!  So, off I went to the store again.  When I got back Allan was done with the pie filling and was waiting on me to finish the crust.  I got the crust finished and was rolling it out when I realized that I forgot to double the recipe and I put in too much salt.  Sheesh!  By that time it was 10:00pm and the pies take a while to bake so we decided we should just go to bed and finish the next day. 

The next day I made another pie crust and everything seemed to be going smoothly.  My pie crust recipe said that you should put pans under the pies so that they don't boil over and drip on the oven.  So I did.  We cooked the pie for the specified time and pulled them out of the oven only to find that the top was well done but the bottom was still raw.

To end a long story the pies ended up being a little on the over-cooked side.  His parents were still thrilled to eat them though!

Allan took us on a tour of the mine and the mine's processing plant which was a lot of fun, as always.

We also went to the Temple and did sealings.  We wanted to get a picture of all of us together so I went up to this elderly couple that had just come out of the Temple.  While I was walking up to her she got this huge smile on her face, opened her arms wide, gave me a great big hug and said "How are you?!  I haven't seen you in so long!"

I have never seen this sweet lady in my life.

There is a girl who lives in a town near ours that looks a lot like me.  I have been mistaken for her several times since we moved here.  People say "hi" to me wherever I go!  I thought that this place was just extra friendly until I realized that they thought they had grown up with me!  That's not the first hug I've gotten either!  I'm sure it won't be the last!  Good thing I like hugs!

I said I was fine, asked her how she was, and then asked if she would mind taking a picture for us.  When she left she looked very confused - probably because Allan was not who she was expecting to be my husband!  I'm so grateful that she took the picture though!

For Independence Day we barbequed and played games and Allan and his dad worked on our car a little bit.  We had so much fun with Allan's parents and were so sad to see them go.  Hopefully we'll see them again soon!