Birthday and Easter

Yesterday I turned 27. I am now in my "late twenties." And that is depressing. Despite the onset of aches and pains I felt thanks to my old age, I had a great day.

Dan and Sam went out early to get donuts and flowers. My favorite at the local spud shop is white frosting with colored sprinkles. And the flowers are pretty Easter lilies. Just so you can picture the majesty in your head since I don't have pictures.

In the morning I finished up a shirt for Afton (Thanks, Amanda, for sharing that tutorial.) while Dan worked outside. Later I got to go out shopping ALONE for a few hours. I got three shirts and some shorts.

In the evening we had Kirk and Gretchen and Jeff and Dionne over for calzones and cake. Dan made me an amazing cake. His goal was to embarass me, but it didn't work. I loved it! He's better at cake decorating than I am, and he only does it once a year.

 And I like these pictures because of Afton. Don't worry. I didn't drop her. Even though she looks like she thinks I'm about to.

I got majorly spoiled. A new small camera to keep in my purse for everyday outings, a book of poetry, a remote, bag, and UV filter for my SLR, a CD from Kirk, a movie gift card and skittles. I really had a great day! It's too bad my birthday can't be on a Saturday every year.

On to Easter! This morning Sam found the fifteen eggs that the Easter bunny left for him.

 Do you think his PJs are a little small?

I fed Afton her bottle of formula during Sacrament meeting and when I lifted her up to burp her, she let out a huge gaseous belch and drenched the face of the missionary behind us in its vapors. It was funny. Here are the kids in their Easter outfits. That's the best face I could get out of Sam. He calls it his "funny smile."

I am really grateful for Easter. It helped that I teach Primary so that I could really focus on Christ's resurrection today. One of my favorite talks on the resurrection is called "Sunday Will Come" by Elder Wirthlin. You can listen to it here.

Hope you all had a great weekend, too!

Easter festival

Saturday our community had its Easter event. Sam was in the 0-3 age group for the egg hunt. Good thing, too, because those bigger kids were totally crazy! Next year Sam will probably be the biggest kid in the 0-3 since he'll be three and eleven months or something. We'll have to train him beforehand so that he can dominate.

Sam shared one of his eggs with Afton.

If you recall last year, Sam HATED the Easter bunny. This year, he tolerated him. Mostly because he kept the bunny at arm's length. You can even kind of detect a slight smile. Progress!

Now we've got to work on Afton.

Sam also rode a train, saw some animals, fished for prizes, and jumped in a moon bounce. He loved it!

The Cheneys come to town

This week my parents finished making the rounds amongst the children with their visit to Houston. They got here Tuesday night and the party continued until this morning.

Tuesday we had Gretchen and kids over and then Kirk and Dan joined us all later for dinner and visiting.

Wednesday we went to the arboretum and had a picnic at the park.

Who's that creepin' behind the bush?

Thursday we went to the toy store and hardware store in the morning. Then Mom and I went out during the kids' nap time. That night we went over to K&Gs for dinner and socializing. We watched quite a few "Just for Laughs" clips on YouTube as well.

Friday Dan took the day off and 9 of us headed over to Kemah. We thought the rides didn't open until 12, so we planned on just walking around for a while, but we got there at 10:30, saw a man catch a huge fish, and then the rides were open. There weren't any lines at the beginning so Sam and Carter got them all done in no time.

 Sam and Carter rode the airplane ride twice, the mini ferris wheel twice, and the carousel. I think I'm forgetting one. We also all rode a train around the boardwalk. Dan, Gretchen and I also rode a wooden roller coaster that was pretty awesome. I had tears streaming down my cheeks because it went so fast and my hair was a giant rat's nest afterwards. That's how I can tell if a rollercoaster was fun.

 They also had a fountain area for the kids to play in.

And they made friends with a shark.

Saturday we celebrated Carter's third birthday. Gretchen and Kirk threw a great party. Gretchen made an amazing train cake. Do you remember my terrible train cake from Sam's second birthday? No? That's because I didn't put a picture of it online because it was a train wreck. Get it? (But if you look in the archives for last May, you'd see part of it. It looks more like a tug boat.)

Back to the party.

Carter kept saying something to himself that sounds like "That's match" and then cracking up. It wasn't long before everyone else was cracking up, too.

 Pinata time.

Thankfully Kirk put Lightning McQueen out of his misery after like 10 minutes of us watching C & S softly hitting him. I think Carter had a great birthday!

We miss my parents already and wish they were still here. Thanks for a great time!

Seeing the family and Seaworld

So like I mentioned before, last weekend we met up with Dan's brother's family and Dan's parents at Seaworld San Antonio. We'd never been before and it was so fun! Dan took Friday off and we headed out early.

We got to Seaworld at noon and headed straight for the two roller coasters. Dan and I took turns going on them. It's kind of weird to ride a roller coaster by yourself. You keep looking around for someone to share the experience with. But in my case, I was the only one in the row and there was no one in the row behind me. So you kind of just have to smile to yourself and I felt pretty goofy. But it was fun.

After the roller coasters, we went to the penguin house where you stand on a moving sidewalk and it takes you in front of the glass. Sam loved it. We called it a "ride" and he did it three times. (All pictures were taken w/ the video camera. Hence the bad quality. Plus I was holding Afton so they're blurry.)

After the penguins, we went to the Shamu show and then met up with the rest of the group. We spent the rest of the time going back to the rollercoasters and then watching a dolphin show. That night we had dinner at Red Robin and headed to the hotel. Our kids were totally pooped.

Saturday we went back to Seaworld and spent the majority of the time in the waterpark. It was a lot of fun! It was cloudy that morning, so the waterpark was really empty and Dan and I did all the slides while Dan's parents watched the kids. It was awesome! It was really nice to visit with Dan's family and also visit Seaworld because if they hadn't suggested it, I don't know when we would have gone.

We drove over to Austin Saturday night and visited until Sunday afternoon. It was so nice to see Dan's family and spend time with them. And now we've got season tickets that are good until January. So if anyone wants to go with us, just say the word!