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!

Our First Contact

 We were contacted by a potential birth mother this week.  Unfortunately she lives out of the country and we aren't certified for international adoptions.  But, at least we know that people are seeing our information.  Hopefully the right person will see it soon!  If you're out there, I hope that you know we are praying for you and long to meet you.

We had a really fun week this week.  It snowed on Monday!  Woohoo!  I already posted about that but still ... it was so AWESOME! After the snow melted the ground steamed.  That is something I don't think I've ever seen before and it was gorgeous.  It's a little hard to see in these pictures but if you look closely you can see the steam coming up from the ground.

 We had family night with a family that we met through Allan's work.  They have three really cute kids.  For every trip they do they make a collage and frame it, and that is what they were doing that night.  So we brought some pictures and made our own collage - they provided everything but the pics which was so nice of them!  I wish I could show you the collage but we aren't finished with it yet.  Maybe next week.

Tuesday Allan took me up to the mountain so we could play in the snow.  We had a blast!  We wanted to have a snowball fight but the snow was pretty crunchy - more like ice.  Then I noticed that if I dug around the footprints I could find some buried powder, and so I made a snowball and threw it at Allan before he was aware of what was going on.  I actually got him too!  Usually I have horrible aim, so we were both surprised!  And, I actually won the snowball fight! 

He missed the camera and got me right in the shoulder!  Impressive!

I tried to make a snow angel but the snow was too hard.

It was so much fun to be out in the cold air and spend some quality time with Allan.

On Friday we had dinner and played games with some friends.  They have three little girls and I had a blast playing the Strawberry Shortcake game with them.  They giggled through the entire thing, especially when I hit the spinner wrong and sent it flying into my character, which then flew across the room.  They were bummed when it was time to go to bed and the youngest was very intent on staying on the couch with her blankie.  Allan thought her resistance was pretty cute, so he gave her a big smile.  She stared at him for about 5 seconds, and then promptly got up and went to her room!  We always get a big kick out of little girls.

We had an impromptu barbeque with some friends that were in town on Saturday and had a lot of fun catching up with them.  Allan is getting really good at cooking meat on the barbeque.  Saturday was the first time we tried vegetables ... the ones that we let cook long enough were really good...

I didn't do anything spectacular for primary this week but that doesn't mean it wasn't entertaining.  There was a new family that moved into the ward.  One of their little boys is a sunbeam (the three year old class).  As we were reviewing Choose the Right I suddenly felt a tug on my arm.  I looked down and saw this sunbeam's older brother (who is 5).  He said "He's stuck!" and pointed at his little brother.  I looked over and sure enough he was stuck.  He had poked his head through the hole in the back of the chair and couldn't get it out!  Poor little guy!  The other teachers noticed him point to his brother and they helped him get out and all was well.  Primary never fails to entertain!

SNOW!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!  I just got back from a short walk in the snow and it was BLISS!  I can't even tell you how much I have missed the snow.  It makes me so HAPPY!  It is even starting to stick a little bit.  I'm sure that as soon as it stops it will all melt away quickly and that's okay because it's snowing RIGHT NOW!  Woohoo!

I love walking in the snow and feeling the cold flakes on my face and watching them get stuck in my eyelashes.  The cold makes my whole body feel better!  When it started snowing this morning I just stood and watched it for a long time in amazement.  Then I called my mom, because who better to share your joy with then your mom!  Right?  Then I realized my folly and hurried to get dressed so I could go play in it.  In my hurry I dumped all my shoes on the floor to try and get to my boots and threw my pj's on the floor (gasp!).  I got back to my walk and tracked muddy footprints on the tile and my wet coat is laying in the middle of the floor drying.  So, my house is no longer perfect! 

Thanks for the changes SNOW!  I needed them!

(It did actually get cold enough to kill the petals.  Sorry petals, I didn't really have it in for you but I am sure grateful for the relief from bad allergies!)

"I hope it freezes and all the petals die."

That's what I said this afternoon; and of course I don't really want the petals to die - they're pretty - I just want a break from allergies, and it sure would help if things stopped blooming around here for a couple of weeks.  They've had an unusually warm and dry year, so a lot of things never really died this winter, and are blooming in full force. 

I had a lot of fun with M and L this week.  Poor M broke a tooth and had a really bad toothache so it was a more quiet day than we usually have.  We played in their tent, did some hide and seek, and watched some Care Bears.  L was really wound up from having his cousins over (they left right after I got there on Monday morning) and refused to take a nap, so he was pretty tired when his mom got there.  While we were watching Care Bears L found M's stash of Smarties and snuck as many as he could get whenever she wasn't looking.  He would look at her for a long time, then longingly look at the smarties, look back at her and then when he was sure she wasn't looking he would quietly grab one and stick it in his mouth.  He did it the entire movie and (like the naughty babysitter I am) I quietly watched and laughed as M's Smartie stash slowly got smaller and smaller.  She was too distraught over her tooth to notice though.

On Wednesday I went and helped out at the food bank.  The 2nd Wednesday of every month they hand out food at a ball park close to my house.  I had a lot of fun handing out the food.  When it was over they sent me home with as much food as I could carry.  I added it up later, and I ended up carrying a 35 lb box of food for 1/2 a mile!  Eeesh.  It was really heavy and I counted that as my work out for the day. 

We went and had dinner and played games with some friends on Friday.  We brought brownies for dessert, and during dinner their 3 year old little girl kept saying she wanted one.  At one point she crawled up on her dad's lap, grabbed his face between her hands, put her face to his and said in her cookie monster voice "I want a brownie!"  Apparently the waiting was getting to her.  In between dinner and dessert me and their little girl played chase.  She raced around the living room chanting "I'm gonna get you!" while I shuffled along.  She got the biggest kick out of chasing me but didn't quite understand the "getting" me part. 

 On Saturday we went to the birthday party of the little girl that I babysat a while ago.  She turned 3.  At the party it was a bunch of little kids, moms, me, and Allan.  She was very insistent that Allan and I both come so we did.  She was so happy.  Her mom told me that she insisted they have a pink balloon at the party because that is my favorite color.  We had a lot of fun playing with the kids. 

Today I did singing time for both Jr. and Sr. primaries.  We played golf, and they got a kick out of it.  At one point during Jr. primary sharing time I looked over and M was standing upside down on her chair looking at everyone through her legs!  Last week she cried most of the time because of her tooth so I'm glad she's feeling better.  During Sr. primary sharing time I looked over and saw a little girl that was quietly snoring.  I thought she was pretending to be asleep until she almost fell completely out of her chair and then looked around in confusion to find that everyone else was standing up!  I love working with kids!  They are so entertaining!

We finished our profile for parentprofiles.com and it should be up Tuesday night.  Feel free to go and take a look.  It's pretty similar to our LDS Family Services profile, but there are more pictures.  We're hoping that this website will help to get our information out more.  Here's hoping.

I'm the Winner!

We had our first barbeque last night.  It was so much fun, and the food turned out really good.

We took Allan to a physical therapist for his pelvic and elbow pain and actually had some good success.  The Physical Therapist put some kinesi tape on Allan's elbow and his pain there significantly decreased almost immediately!  It's amazing what a little tape can do.  He also gave Allan some stretches for his elbow and pelvis that he has been doing faithfully.  It seems to be helping his elbow quite a bit, but we're holding out judgement on the pelvis still.  Hopefully it will work well.  We do have hope though because this is the first time in a long time that we've actually seen any results.

I did a lot of baking this week.  I love to bake!  I made brownies (for a Relief Society activity), two different kinds of biscuits, bread, and applesauce/banana squash muffins.  It was so much fun, and now we have some yummy food to enjoy.

I had a lot of fun with M and L this week.  Poor L had an accident and wasn't feeling so well on Monday.  Usually he gets pretty mad at me when I put him down for a nap, but when I asked him this week he smiled at me and walked right over to his crib.  I've never seen a child so happy to take a nap!  When their mom came home M told her to go back to school!  I'm glad they were having so much fun.

I went to a Relief Society activity this week.  It was an auction  and I won a baby blanket and some pacifier leashes.  Woohoo!  Now we have pretty much everything we'll need to bring the baby home when we get one.  The blanket is pretty girly so if we end up with a boy I'll have to gift it to someone but it sure is cute.  This is all of the baby stuff we have now:

 

We want to wait to buy anything else until we have a better idea of what to expect.  We are hoping for a little time to have a baby shower, which would be really helpful, but we'll see what happens.  We are putting our profile on parentprofiles.com too.  It should be up by the end of the month.  A lot of people have had a lot of success through that site.  Hopefully we will too.

Allan got to substitute for Nursery today and he had a blast!  One of our friends daughters is in nursery right now.  She's usually pretty shy but today she was just thrilled to have Allan in there.  As soon as he came in she ran right over to him and talked up a storm.  She told him that she is a princess, and then went around explaining that all of the other little girls are princesses too.  When she got to the little boy she stopped in surprise, looked very confused, and went completely silent.  Allan asked her what the little boy was and she said in complete dismay "I don't know!"  After a little contemplation she determined that he must be a prince and all was well in nursery again.

Today has been a really hard day for us.  Sometimes the waiting just gets to us and we have to have a good cry.  I'm glad it happened on a Sunday this time so that Allan was home and we could cry together!