March Madness

As many of you know the month of March is our "birthday" month. It starts with Kyle who turned 20 on March 2nd, then Tori turned 18 on the 4th. Next was Robin's 15th birthday on the 16th. Michael turned the big 4-0 on the 22nd and I lived to be 41 on the 28th.

First let me say that it is hard to believe that Kyle and Tori are 18 and 20! It doesn't seem that long ago when they were 8 and 5 and I fell in love with them the instant I met them.

As for my beloved husband, well I surprised him with a night on the town, including a free-night stay at the Albuquerque Marriott on the Saturday evening before his birthday. I had made arrangements for him to be out of the house on Sunday evening at 5 pm so that many of our friends and family could be here for a surprise happy birthday gathering. My partner in crime was Michael Crane, the Elder's Quorum Pres. He agreed to schedule a meeting with Michael at the church, but went a step farther and had the Ward Secretary called Michael and told him that the Bishop and the EQ Pres wanted to meet with him. Poor Michael! He worried and stewed over that phone call all weekend! It was all I could do not to tell him to ease his pain. McKenna is the one that almost ruined everything. On the way to church that day she rode with her dad separately and said, "I can't keep it in my head anymore! Uncle Wesley is making you a cake!" I guess she was in tears and Michael approached me at church about it. I covered by saying the kids and Keri, Jari and Wes were coming over to surprise him for his birthday. He asked if that was why he had the "meeting" with the Bishop that night and yes, I lied and told him no but it made it convenient for the family to make it more of a surprise. Well to make a long story short, the Bishop was leaving the parking lot as Michael pulled in and said, "Michael Crane is in there waiting for you". Poor Michael Crane! He did his darndest to keep my Michael there but to no avail. Michael called me at 5 after 5 to tell me that he was coming home. I told him "NO! You can't! The kids are decorating and it will ruin it for them. You can't come home for 20 min". He agreed which gave us time to get everyone in place (parking at the neighbors so Michael wouldn't see the cars) and it worked! We pulled it off! Thanks to everyone who came and made it a fun night for him (especially Michael Crane)!

An update on the "loose tooth" saga. The day after the last post, McKenna lost her tooth at the school. It fell in a pile of popcorn that we were selling for PTO. Of course we had to look for it which was tough since the tooth was so small and blended in nicely with the popcorn. Luckily I stopped someone from throwing away the pile she had just swept up and found it in there. Whoosh! It could have been a tragedy!

But all is well and McKenna decorated the envelope for the Tooth Fairy with her tooth in it. Which the Tooth Fairy paid her very well for (inflation is a killer on the Tooth Fairy)! Lucky for her there's not another loose tooth in sight so she has a while to save up.