Friday, November 26, 2010

What I'm grateful for:

1. A wonderful, kind husband.
2. An extrememly energetic and fun toddler.
3. That I'm 16 weeks pregnant with baby #2!

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Latin Dance Party

Our latin dance party was pretty much the best party ever. Really. It turned out even cuter than we imagined. Celebrating 5 people's birthday at the same party is really quite fun. My friend, Julie, who threw the party at her house did a great job decorating with our homemade birthday banners and hats. I loved the bright colors. My favorite part about the decorations were the brightly colored cakes. They took a long, long time to make due to the fact that I had one small cake pan and I was too cheap to buy another so I had to bake 10 cakes in order to make 5 double layer cakes. It was a lot of washing and regreasing that dang pan. Well, it wasn't even a cake pan, more like a casserole dish that happened to be just the right size. Each of the cakes had the initial of one of the birthday people on it. Really, how cute is that? We converted her upstairs into a dance floor with lights, a crystal ball and some ripped pieces of dyed sheets. Peter was a champ. For some one who hates latin dancing and latin music he was such a good sport. He danced with me and did a great job. Here are some action shots: And one of the best birthday presents was my friend Angela drove down from Iowa to be here at my birthday party. Angela was my latin dancing friend who went with me 3 times a week back in my single days. Sometimes 4 times a week. Here is a video of us dancing. (I just told Peter I was uploading this video and he told me he wants me to make it clear that this video does not represent the extent of his moves.)

Monday, November 1, 2010

Vacation, Vomit, a Very cute angel and a Very fun date

My sister-in-law, Cyndie, had a 5K run that she was participating in last weekend to earn money for ovarian cancer research. We wanted to be there and run as part of her team. So we decided to drive to North Carolina for the weekend and spend some time with them. We all participated in the race. Cyndie, Grandma Munk, and I jogged while the dads took up the rear (literally, I think they were the very last people) with a full double stroller and one walking child. About 5 minutes into the 5K, the walking child got injured and so Laura was taken out of the stroller and carried on Peter's shoulders the rest of the way. I was waiting at the finished line when they walked in at 59 minutes and I saw a very sad and very cold baby sitting on her daddy's shoulders. Peter said she cried the whole 59 minutes with out stopping. She spent the next hour cuddled up in a blanket on my chest. She seemed a little traumatized by the whole thing. I was glad that Daddy had the hard job so I could enjoy jogging the race. The park where we ran was so beautiful with misty lakes and trees with brightly colored fall leaves. If it weren't for the freezing cold weather, it would have been a perfect jog.

That night, the kids put on the costumes to go to the ward trunk-or-treat. Laura hated her costume and screamed every time I tried it on her. She hates when I sew things for her because I have to try in on her at various stages to make sure it is going to fit. So by the time I had finished this dress she already hated it and would run away every time she saw it. So we didn't get a whole lot of Halloween pictures with a smile.




She did, however, really enjoy the trick or treating part. She quickly caught on and would walk from trunk to trunk and hold out her little orange bucket and wait for a piece of candy to be placed in it.


That was the fun part of the trip. The not-so-fun part was the driving part. On the way there, about 2 hours into our trip, Laura threw up. A lot. Everywhere. We pulled over on the side of the road and spent 15 minutes trying our best to clean up our baby, the car seat and the back seat of Peter's car as best as we could with baby wipes. We spent the rest of the 7 hour trip in a very stinky car. When we got in our car Sunday morning to drive home, none of us where feeling very good and it didn't help that you could still vaguely smell the throw up from the previous car trip. A couple hours into the drive we had to pull over so I could throw up. An hour later, Laura threw up once again all over herself, the car seat, and the backseat. Once again we tried our best to clean the car, but the smell was horrible. A couple of hours later, we had to pull over so I could throw up again. Peter was strong until the end. About 35 minutes outside Nashville we pulled over to get gas and Peter threw up. The last 35 minutes were the worst because Peter was so sick and feverish he turned up the heat. I felt like I was in a vomit sauna. We were all feeling so sick and the car smelled horrible. Laura was the only one who seemed fine, except she was screaming because we wouldn't give her any crackers because we didn't want her throwing up again. When we got home, Peter dragged himself into the house, sat in a hot bath tub for 30 minutes and then went straight to bed. I had to haul in all the stuff from the car, clean up the throw up off the seat, start some loads of throw up laundry and clean up a very stinky car seat. It was a horrible day. The good news is we woke up the next morning feeling great. The bad news is Cyndie's family woke up the next morning feeling horrible and spent the whole day throwing up. Well, at least it wasn't in the back seat of their car. Peter and I went out on a date last night to celebrate our shared birthday. He lined up the babysitter and planned the whole thing. It was awesome. He took me to Red Robin where we both got free dinner for our birthday. (Peter made fun of me for this at the time, but I signed us up a couple of months ago when I heard that Red Robin gives you a free hamburger each year on your birthday. I thought awesome, we will have a totally free dinner each year on our birthday since we both eat free. I think our waitress thought we were trying to work the system, but we could have proved it if she looked at our drivers license.) So we splurged and got appetizer and dessert, mostly because we felt bad if our meal was totally free.
After our totally unhealthy but pretty delicious dinner, Peter then took me to Steinnmart to buy me something pretty. It was a perfect b-day celebration. And now I am looking forward to my latin dance birthday party my friend is hosting for us this Saturday. It's going to be awesome! And my friend, Angela is driving down for the weekend to be here for it. It's going to be a great birthday weekend!