Life in the Fast Lane

Last weekend was quite eventful. I put up a link titled "April 2009" for pictures of the following:

We hosted our annual Easter Egg Hunt/party on Saturday and had over 30 kids participate. This year we held it at a church building, which was wise because there's NO WAY we could have accommodated all the families in our apartment. Sophie and Lucas had a great time with their friends doing crafts, eating candy (forget about all the yummy food everyone brought--candy and doritos for them), and playing games. Our little flirt Sophie was introduced to the joys of kissing tag and took to it like a fish to water. As we were driving home that evening I asked the kids what their favorite part of the party was. I expected them to say something about the egg hunt, however Sophie exclaimed without hesitation "Evan!" Evan is a cute little red-headed 6 yr old in our ward. She then confided that she was trying to kiss him, which led to a talk from Mom and Dad about only kissing your husband when you get married in the temple. She countered with "how about I'll start kissing when I'm a teenager?" to which Shaun emphatically answered "NO!" She has him worried already. . . .

Sunday we blessed Sadie in church. It was nice to reflect on our 3 major blessings from the Lord since moving to Asia--our little nuggets which require lots of love and care, but are totally worth it. I saw an article describing a study that "proved" marital happiness decreases when children are introduced into the family. Sure, you can barely say 2 sentences to your spouse at the end of the day because you're so exhausted, and you get stressed out with the major mess that spreads like wildfire in a hot wind, and you don't have that tanned gym body anymore, and you eat cold macaroni off the kids' plates instead of going out for a romantic dinner, but there's a whole new dimension of joy that comes from raising children. I remind myself that we pleaded and begged for this for several years, and now we are in the thick of it.

So, I turned 34 a few days ago. I'm grateful for friends who helped me celebrate during playgroup with beautiful flowers, Thai take-out and cake-- Shaun was admittedly nervous when he heard what they'd done because he knew they had one-upped him! That evening for my birthday dinner we ate separately, whenever we could grab a bite. Shaun threw the 2 older kids in bed and we held Sadie for hours until she finally stopped crying and passed out. And then, in the quiet late hours of the night, we celebrated with candle-laced ding-dongs that Mom sent. She knew there would be no time for cake! Shaun gave me a . . . .wait for it. . . . .toaster from the grocery store. I debated whether or not to send Shaun to the doghouse for giving a lame husband gift.



In his defense, he said he just thought I might like to "toast something" since we needed a toaster, and meant it as a joke (ha ha.) He's taking me out on Saturday for lunch and shopping at the Jade market (with Sadie strapped to me, of course, but I am still looking forward to it!)

All in all, life is good. Yes, we are tired, we are out of shape, the house is dirty, and the kids reign over us, but we wouldn't trade it for anything--snuggling a tiny 9 pound baby, laughing at the antics of our overly-imaginative 4 year old, taking advantage of the photo-ops our toddler presents to us as he potty-trains. Every day is meaningful!