Paper Planes and Crayons

Well, last night Cameron actually got home earlier than we'd expected him. At about 11, he called to say he was on his way home. The guy he was patrolling with said it was pretty quiet and that he could handle the patrol and for Cameron to go home. So he did and he and I got to spend a couple of hours with each other, watching TV and snuggling.

This morning we went to Church.

The Primary Program was today and it went really well. You could feel the Spirit as the Primary Children bore witness and shared their testimonies through song and scriptures and talks. It was beautiful and I got teary quite a few times.

Once home, Alegria went right to bed and then I took a nap after Cameron and I had lunch.

After our naps, we hung out in the living room. I made Alegria a paper airplane, but it didn't fly very well, so Daddy stepped in and made Alegria a better one:

Then I got out the crayons for Alegria to color with, though when we're not looking, she likes to take a bite out of them (though she denies it!)!

Alegria: "Me? Take a bite out of the crayon? Never!"

Also, I'm trying to teach her to take out only one crayon at a time and put it back when she wants a different one...

But nooooo, she prefes to take them ALL out at once!

Anyway. :) It was a nice, restful day, and because Cameron had guard duty last night, he doesn't have guard duty again until tomorrow night, so Daddy will be home when Alegria gets up in the morning tomorrow! What fun!

Well, that's all folks!

Good night!!!

Guard Duty

I can't believe I didn't take pictures at the Primary Program Practice! Oh well. Sufficeth to say that it went really well!

When we had lunch, Alegria even ate some carrots and pizza! Up to now she's not eaten pizza, so it's nice to know that she actually will eat it now. And I've been trying to feed her cooked carrots, but I guess she prefers the cold, crunchy variety, because she was eating them up today! :) She's expanding her food repertoire, thank goodness! I was afraid it would be shells and cheese and bologna forever!

When we got home, Alegria went straight to bed. Cameron was already awake...had been since 10:30, which surprised me. He didn't get home until 5:30 in the morning, so I thought he would have still been sleeping when Alegria and I got back. He told me that he'd gotten a phone call from one of his men and that had woken him up. But he was still tired and I was tired, too, so we ended up napping til about 3:30 when Alegria woke up!!! WOW! It was nice that Alegria took a long nap so we could take a long nap, too! We needed that!

The rest of the day, we just hung out. Cameron wanted to be in his own house and I didn't blame him...I would, too, if I'd been at work as long as he'd been the last couple of days!

Well...at about 4:30, Cameron got a call from one of the guys, asking if he wouldn't mind taking tonight's shift on Post. Cameron wasn't supposed to do guard duty again until tomorrow night, but being the nice guy he is, he agreed to switch.

Here's Alegria in our bathroom while Daddy's getting ready:

Alegria hands Daddy his keys:

Then she hands him his chapstick:

Now a hug for Daddy...

...and a kiss:

See you tomorrow, Daddy! We love you very much!!!

Once Cameron left, Alegria and I played some more before her bed time. Here she is rolling on her soccer ball:



She's so silly sometimes!!!

Well, now that Alegria's in bed, I've got dishes to wash and then I'm off to bed!

Sleep tight!!! :)

Scrappy Farewell Cake

When Cameron came home last night for the two minutes to pick up his gear and then kiss me goodbye again, he suggested I take a short nap and then get up and work on the cake...I had told him how exhausted I was. I was going to do just that...sleep for a couple of hours then wake up at about midnight or 1 am and work on my cake, but after seeing him, for even just those two minutes, it gave me added strength, knowing that he would be up all night as well, so I decided to join him on his all-nighter and just go until I was done. THEN I could nap. Well, I'm glad I didn't sleep first...

At about 2:30 am, I realized that I had mistakenly colored all of the fondant I had orange. I thought there was more fondant left in the box, but I was wrong! And I still needed three more colors of fondant!!! So, knowing that Abilehi had today off from work, I decided that I could text her and ask her for help. I figured she could just sleep in or nap after taking Maverick to the vet. I texted her multiple times and she finally called me back! Boy, was I grateful! She graciously went to WalMart for me and bought me some more findant and icing color and even sat with me and chatted with me for a little while when she dropped off the stuff.

Abilehi, you are a real, honest-to-goodness LIFESAVER!!! Had Cameron been home, I could have gone to WalMart myself, but since he wasn't, I was so lucky that Abilehi lives here so she could bail me out!!! :)

Well, I ended up not sleeping AT ALL last night, but I'm quite happy with the results. The cake came out pretty good, if I do say so myself! In fact, when Abilehi saw it, she thought those were REAL Sharpie markers on the cake!

Later on at about noon, Abilehi came back to help me bake cookies and brownies for the Primary Program Practice tomorrow. I taught her how to make flowers and leaves with icing and she did a pretty good job! :)

Abilehi even went and bought some eggs when we ran out as we were baking. WHAT would I do without you, Abilehi?! ;)

When Abilehi's co-worker showed up to pick up the cake, she was very impressed! She loved the cake and couldn't wait to show up with it to their dinner farewell party. I couldn't wait to hear how the girl who it's for reacted to it! :)

At about 7 pm, Cameron got home and we were able to have dinner together as a family. Then we lay on the couch while Alegria played with some toys in the living room. Both Cameron and I were super exhausted and we dozed off a few times. Then he had to leave to go on guard duty at Fort Hood again. At least we got to see him for an hour today instead of just two minutes!!! :)

Abilehi texted me later to say that her co-worker who's leaving LOVED LOVED LOVED the cake!!! She said everyone there raved about the cake and that another co-worker was also confused about the Sharpie markers on the cake, thinking they were real! Another successful cake story! YAY!!! :)

Well, that's about it. I'm so tired, I need to go to bed. Cameron gets off guard duty at about 4 or 5 in the morning, so it will be nice to wake up next to him again.

Good night!!!

Fort Hood Tragedy

Today was a pretty normal day...at first.

Alegria and I went and played with Isis.

Here's Alegria telling Isis to stay down:

She climbed in the gray camping chair, as usual:

Alegria got her face licked by Isis quite a few times:

Alegria stopped to smell the flowers:

She also stopped to pick up small rocks:

It was pretty warm today, so Isis decided to stay in the shade as much as possible:

Alegria didn't care about the sun beating down on her and even brought the chair out to the lawn:

Alegria: "Oh no! Not the dog drool! Not the dog drool, please!"

Here she is looking for Isis's squeaky toys to play with:

Then we went inside and had some lunch and then Alegria went down for a nap. It was then that I began baking the cake that I'm making for tomorrow.

Wow. What an experience. I'd never baked a sheet cake before, but the customer had requested a cake to feed 20 people, so I bought a quarter sheet cake pan. Well, when it was ready to tort and level, I had a mishap...and KERSPLAT went the cake!

It's a good thing I wasn't baking the cake tonight or else I would have cried. At this point I thought to myself...no biggie, once Alegria wakes up, we'll just go to the store, pick up another cake mix, and voila, good to go!

Little did I know what was about to transpire...

Alegria woke up from her nap, I gave her a snack, and I was getting her ready for us to go. Well, then I got a phone call from Cameron informing me of a shooting that had taken place on Fort Hood. So I turned the local news on and listened the rest of the day as updates on the situation were given.

Needless to say, my shopping trip was off. Thank goodness I still had half of the batter from the cake left (I had used three cake mixes and had halved the batter for two layers) and one more cake mix. I was hoping to use two cake mixes for the new layer I was going to have to make, but I decided that with all of the frosting and fondant that would go on the cake, the second layer could be slightly thinner than the first layer, allowing me to use just the one cake mix that I had left.

Alegria and I stayed home and continued on with our day, hoping that things would settle down and be resolved so that Daddy could come home.

Once the lockdown was lifted on Fort Hood and everyone there was allowed to go home, we found out that Daddy had to stay on guard duty through the night.

So I played with Alegria the rest of the day.





Then I put her to bed and began working on my cake. Cameron was finally allowed to come home, but it was only for literally, two minutes while he got his gear, gave me a kiss, and went right back to Fort Hood.

*sigh*

Someone has to post guard...

At least I still have him, though he'll be away tonight. I'm grateful that Cameron is safe and sound and I mourn for those families who this morning, like me, also thought that it was just another normal day... God keep the families who lost loved ones and help those who are injured. May they find peace and comfort in knowing that He loves them, as He loves us all.

It's times like these that I'm ever grateful for the blessings of Cameron's and my Temple marriage and the sealing power that will keep us bound for all Eternity. Having that knowledge in my life makes it easier to handle the "what ifs" and makes it easier to bear the uncertainties of our mortality for we will see each other again after this life.

I love you, Cameron, forever and ever!!!

Cracker Dipper

At breakfast, Alegria likes to dip her crackers in milk:



In the evening, Cameron, Alegria and I went to the Church building. Cameron had Young Men's to go to and took Alegria with him, and I went to Young Women's, where they were having their Young Women's in Excellence program and I had been asked to sing. I sang "I Walk By Faith." It was a neat program and the decorations and everything was wonderful! They did a great job.

Once home, it was time for Alegria to go to bed and then Cameron and I spent the rest of the evening together.

And that was that!

'Night! :)

Quiet Day

Today was a quiet day.

Melissa and her daughter, Sariah came to play in the morning.

When Daddy got home in the evening, we just played some more.

Here's Daddy giving Alegria kisses:

Here's Alegria showing me her bouncy ball:

Alegria found that there's a space behind one of the shelves on the entertainment center and every time she'd bounce the ball into that shelf, it would fall to the shelf underneath! That kept her entertained for a little while:

Then Alegria brought me a ribbon that she likes to play with. I had gotten it at a baby shower...it was wrapped around the prize I'd won during one of the games. Anyway. I tied it on her head and at first she was ok with it being on...

...but not long after, she just HAD to take it off!

Here are some more videos from today:

Daddy chases Alegria:



Alegria knows where her nose is!



Alegria loves her bath so much, she doesn't want to get out!

Daddy squirts water on Alegria with one of her bath toys:



Though we love Alegria to death, it's always nice to find ourselves as a couple once again at the end of the day and to spend time with just the two of us, renewing the friendship and love that brought us together. :)

Have a good night!!!

The Great Pumpkin Cake

Since Cameron had been gone all week last week, we wanted to spend every waking moment with each other...so I opted to spend all evening last night with him and then wake up at 3 am this morning to finish this pumpkin birthday cake. I call it "The Great Pumpkin in its Patch." I'm pretty proud of my "basket"...it was the first time I'd used the basket weave tecnhique and I think it came out pretty good!

The stem is made out of Airheads. :)

Abilehi's co-worker LOVED the cake when she came to pick it up. YAY! :)

Later on today, Alegria was being silly as she played on the couch...she would just let herself fall on her bottom and she just thought that was the funnest thing!!!



It sure made us laugh!!! :)

Other than that, there was nothing much else that happened today.

G'night!

Kiss Attack!

Today was a pretty laid-back Sunday. We went to Church and in Primary we practiced the Primary Program. Back home, we took naps.

In the evening, we just spent some time together. Daddy popped some popcorn and here's Alegria being silly in the way she eats it:

Then Daddy asked for a kiss from Alegria...

...and he got attacked!!!

There...that's better! :)

A few videos from our evening hanging out as a family:





We've been working on Alegria signing "please." She's gotten quite good at it!



And that takes us to the end of today. :)

Good night!