I normally wouldn't waste all of your precious time with a post about my birthday, but I really had such a great day, that I wanted to share it with you!

My day started at 7:30 AM when I noticed a pink post it note on the bathroom mirror. James had left for work an hour earlier, so I knew it had to be his doing. The post it declared that I was now on a treasure hunt for my birthday present. There were 9 different stops along the hunt, each containing a clue and part of my present. I will admit that one of the clues had me stumped for a good 10 minutes. Anyway, my gift was a new airbrush that I (am scared to death of because I have no clue how to use it) get to learn how to use to decorate cakes with! I've been wanting one for some time but due to my nearly nonexistent cake decorating know-how, I have been hesitant to spend the money and buy one.

The next great part of my day was when James got home from work extraordinarily early; around noon. That was followed closely by my good friend, Mary, coming over to share some lunch with me. She also brought me a fun candy bar that she found from World Market. Speaking of candy, my friend Jocelyn also brought me a candy bar, one of her favorites, a Utah's Mint Truffle bar. I think that's what it's called. Doesn't matter, it was mmm mmmm good!

James did a good job of making sure I didn't take care of the kids too much during the day.

That night, my mom came over so that James could take me on a mysterious date. I had no idea what we were going to do. As we were driving to destination, "unknown", he handed me the phone and a phone number. He told me to call it and figure the rest out from there. I called and the person answered the phone in such a garbledy gook way that I panicked and hung up. James clarified for me that I had called The Golden Phoenix, my favorite Chinese food restaurant. I called them back and ordered some food for us. We picked up our food and then James found a random street to park on and ordered me into the back seat of our van. (Don't get any ideas!)
He had brought my favorite movie, Pride and Prejudice, to watch while we ate our dinner. It's the five hour version movie, so obviously we didn't watch the whole thing. After a while, we hopped back into the front seats and drove to the Clark Planetarium. We watched one of their light shows put to music.

As we were walking out of the show, I asked James if he had baked me a birthday cake. He sidestepped the question nicely and walked me to the car. He drove to the Olive Garden and I immediately knew what my "birthday cake" was. I love one of their desserts and James had planned to run in and buy me a piece. Unfortunately, they were ALL OUT! James came back to the car disheartened. I told him that I had always wanted to try the chocolate cake they have at P.F Changs, so we drove there. I ran in to order it. I waited and waited and waited some more for them to bring it out to me. After waiting a little bit longer I asked the girl what was up. She did some investigating before they came out with the cake. Because I waited for so long (really, it was only about 15 minutes) they gave it to me for FREE!

We drove home, put a candle in the cake and my mom and James sang happy birthday to me. My mom gave me a one pound box of See's chocolates before she left for the night. (Can you tell that people know I love chocolate/candy/cake/sugar?)

That piece of cake was massive!

All of that fun was coupled with phone calls from loved ones. I received my first birthday phone call at 12:08 AM from my sister Andrea. I may have sounded a bit put off when I spoke with her, but in my defence, I had been asleep for almost 2 hours. I really did appreciate her fun antics and desire to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday, but maybe next year she will wait until 8:00AM.

I know a lot of people are sad with each birthday that makes them a year older, but I really have nothing to be sad about. I've done a lot of fun and good things the last 26 years. I've probably had a fuller life than most 26 year olds. I may not be as cheerful about turning 30, but at this point I don't see what there is to be afraid of. I'm excited to see what all I can accomplish in the next 4 years.

Thank you to everybody who made my day special. I had a genuinely great day.

Cute Videos

Enjoy watching my cute kids, because I sure do!

Wide Awake

Thankfully it isn't 2 AM in the morning as I write this post. I'm sure all of you are the grateful ones. :) As I reread what I wrote in the last post, it became clear to me why I need my sleep.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. Nothing in particular has happened that I want to discuss, but I just want to say a few words about the thoughts that have been floating through my mind as of late.

First of all, I have a wonderful husband. I am often amazed that I want to see and talk to him EVERY day. I can't say that about any of my other friends or family members. It is very obvious to me how much of an effect your spouse can have on the type of person you are and become each day. I am not a perfect person, by any means, but I am a better person today than I was 7 years ago, and I know that James deserves a lot of those thanks.

Second, I love this country. I may be displeased with some of the decisions that have been made lately, but I am thrilled that they could happen. If I lived elsewhere I couldn't be this mad, the government just wouldn't allow it. (I kid of course.) There is no doubt in my mind that the founding fathers were led by the inspiration of our Heavenly Father. The wonderful freedom's that we enjoy by living in this country are all part of The Plan.

Lastly, I love my Heavenly Father, and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that I could not enjoy every ounce of happiness in my life if it weren't for the Atonement and the love that my father in heaven has for me. I don't think that this life is meant to be easy, nor is it meant to be easy to have and keep a testimony. But I am so grateful that I do have one and it is very precious to me. I will do all that I am capable of to keep it strong and thriving. Speaking of which, we'd better start doing our family home evenings more faithfully............got to go!

Can't Sleep

Ever since Lizzy was born I've had trouble falling asleep. I just can't seem to shut my brain off. Tonight (Friday night) is one of those nights but the problem is compounded with the fact that I took a nap earlier today. I knew better, but I was SO tired! I'm paying for it now and so are all of you who read this. I have nothing better to do at 12:10 AM than to write a blog post about how I can't sleep.

So....what random ramblings can I regale you all with? Lets see; an interesting observance is that Lizzy must be a light sleeper. She keeps making noise in her crib, but I'm usually asleep at this hour, so I'm not aware of it.

I need more material. I can't come up with anything to share. How about some random trivia about me? Ok.

In high school and the early years of our marriage, I would religiously paint my nails once a week. Now it's about once a month. But I do own a lot of nail polish. I counted over 20 bottles the other day. I would also like to point out that I go through it regularly and throw away bottles that I haven't used in the last year or so.

Nobody is happy with how their body looks, right? There is always something they would change about it. Well, I wouldn't change a thing about my feet. I've always felt that I got lucky in the feet looks department. I'm sure they're nothing great, but I've always thought about going into foot modeling if I needed the extra money.

I used to color my hair at least once a month. I would get so bored with how it looked, and that was the quickest way to change it. Now I can't remember the last time I had it colored. I would still love to have it colored on a regular basis, but our bank account just doesn't agree with me.

I like to bake. I know that this is common knowledge, but I want to point out that even though I like to bake, that does not mean that I make the best of anything. It's quite the contrary actually. I feel like everything I make is just mediocre, but I just enjoy the process. I'm still on the search for the perfect cake recipes. I haven't found them yet. In fact, I've had one lady order three different birthday cakes from me, all white cake. I used a different recipe every time! I should have asked her which one she liked the best.

I wish I was really good at just one thing. Something that nobody else that I knew was better than me at it. I like to sing, but my sister-in-law can out sing me. I like to play the piano, but almost all of my siblings can play better than me. I wish I was a good writer, but I just fail miserably at that and could name a million people that I know who are better than me at that. I wish I was a fantastic cake decorator. Unfortunately I just do the best job I can to copy a cake that I find a picture of.

Things on my wish list: lasik surgery, new living room furniture, all the cake decorating supplies I've ever needed/wanted, a second car, to go on a cruise (this is really number one on my wish list), a house that people didn't mistake for a town house or an apartment, more children, a bigger kitchen, ummm......maybe that's it.

I really should try and go to bed now. I just hate laying in bed and flopping around for two hours until I'm finally blessed with the sweet release of sleep. I'll just end with one more thought.

I've felt very blessed these last few weeks. There has been no particular reason for it. Mostly I think it has come from spending time with friends and feeling like I matter to someone. In my personal prayers last night I thanked my Heavenly Father for these good feelings I've been having. I know that they don't last forever, and in fact, they just come in waves. I asked Him to help me remember and keep these happy thoughts close to my heart when the inevitable happens, and I have a bad day or week or month. Thank you to everybody who makes my life the happy one that it is!

Books + Kiwi = Love

I stayed up until midnight last night reading a good book. To those of you who say you don't have time to read, just tell me the truth. You don't enjoy reading so you don't make the time for it. I'll bet you have time that I don't have to scrap book or some other talent that I don't have. It's all about what you enjoy to do. I enjoy reading, but I will say that I don't seem to find as much time for it as I would like. But, last night, I found the time. Unfortunately it was during my sleeping hours, but such is life. So, if you want a good book to read (because you have time for such things) I recommend The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan.

On another note; Lizzy loves kiwi. Logan won't try it. I cut the kiwi up last night knowing I shouldn't even bother trying to offer it to Logan. I started feeding it to Lizzy and told Logan right away that he couldn't have any of it because it was all for Lizzy. I kept saying things like that over and over to him until he was begging me for a bite of the kiwi. Yay! My plan worked! What Logan should have said next was, "JUST KIDDING"! As soon as I offered him a bite, he refused it. He's a punk. Oh well. Lizzy ate the whole kiwi. Despite the look on her face after she took a bite, let me assure you that I haven't seen her this excited to eat something in a long time. Enjoy the cute video!

After she took the fork out of my hand, she insisted on spearing the remaining pieces with the fork herself.

Regrets

But not my regrets! Oh no. I'm afraid it's our good friends, the Egberts, who may be having regrets. About being our friends.

James and Rob met each other while passing the sacrament. James then insisted that we have the Egbert's over for dinner. I wasn't thrilled with the idea because I didn't know Rob or Jocelyn. Turns out, Jocelyn didn't want to come over for dinner either because she didn't know me or James. But, we both sucked it up and we had dinner together. I can honestly say that that was a great night. We laughed and laughed and I think we both knew it was an instant friendship. Since then, we have been to Park City together, celebrated the fourth of July together, and spent countless Sunday evenings with one another playing games and eating brownies. They bring the games, I make the brownies.

Rob and Jocelyn have been our back up plan, our home remodel helpers, and our babysitters to go to the temple, the reason we have wills, our tax people, and who knows what else. When we need help, we call the Egbert's, and they ALWAYS answer! I'm afraid they now regret our friendship because I fear that the giving in this relationship is a little one sided. They have helped us out countless times and rarely ask for help in return! Here is one example.

Last night I had to do some last minute shopping. I decided to stop by Sonic first to get an, oh so delicious, cream pie shake. When I tried to start the car to leave, you guessed it, it wouldn't start. I knew what the problem was immediately, because it was something I had asked James to fix for me a few days earlier and he never got around to it. One of the posts on the battery was covered in corrosion. I did what I could do fix the problem myself, but with no luck. I called James to rescue me, but we only own one car and I was in it. Not to mention the problem of our kids being at home and in bed.

The Egbert's to the rescue!

James called Rob who was on his way home from work and school. Rob graciously agreed to come sit at our house with our kids while James took Rob's car. Keep in mind that it is 7:30 at night and Rob hasn't even been home yet for the day. James assured him that he wouldn't be long. James found the car at Sonic, (I had walked over to Wal-Mart to do my shopping) and got the post all cleaned off. Unfortunately, what he discovered was a crack in the battery, and as a result, a completely dead battery. We had to walk back over to Wal-Mart to buy a new (expensive) battery. James got it put in and went back home to relieve Rob of his duties. Meanwhile, at our house, Rob was sitting peacefully when he heard a loud thump and a resulting wail of pain coming from Lizzy in her crib. He went upstairs to see what was wrong and found blood pouring out of her mouth. No worries, she had only cut her lip with her teeth (some how) and was easily comforted and put back to bed. James got home and Rob went home. I was on my way home when James called me in a panic and said that he couldn't find his wallet. I turned back around to take on the worthless task of trying to find his wallet at either Sonic or Wal-Mart. I went to Sonic first with no luck and then on to Wal-Mart. I was standing in the customer service line when James called me back to say that Rob had found James' wallet in his car. The kind person that Rob is, ran it all the way back to our house to return it, AND he did it with a smile!

This wasn't the only time that Rob and Jocelyn have rescued us from Wal-Mart, and I'm guessing it won't be the last. I just hope that they stay our friends that long! Thank you so much, both of you, for all you do for us!

We're Baaaaaaaack!

And we had SO much fun! However, we're not big picture takers, so believe me when I tell you, this is every single picture we took. And, pretty much in this order.

This picture isn't so great, but I thought it would be good to share EVERY picture we took. I wanted to take this to show the castle in the back, but as you can see, it really only showcases how James has a hard time keeping his eyes open for pictures, and we should have turned off the flash.
You know how they always take your picture while on the rides? This is the picture we took of the picture they took of us on Space Mountain. That's why it's blurry.

Classic picture. How come Utah doesn't look like this in February?

Preparing to enter Indiana Jones ride. It rained on us that morning. Hence the slicker that I was wearing in the above picture. However, the slickers didn't prevent water soaking our pants. Check out our soaked pants in the next two pictures.

I'm either frightened to be going on Indiana Jones, or I'm shivering with cold from the wet pants.

Goof and Goofy. Goofy was much taller than James.

I had to squat really low because I was much taller than Mickey.

We really did have such a great time, mostly due to the fact that we knew our kids were being so well taken care of by my sister and her hubby. The kids didn't seemed too phased by our disappearance or our return. I guess they don't really love us. Actually, we woke Logan up when we got home and he seemed very hyper and excited to talk to me, but would get mad if James came near him. Odd.

Now we are planning our next trip to Disneyland, but this next time we will take our kids. :)