A Birthday and My Husband's Winnings!

On Friday, I turned another year older. I am officially a quarter of a century old. James and I had a fun day. Unfortunately, he had to work, but we were able to meet for lunch at Egg Plantation, where you get a free meal on your birthday. I enjoyed my usual #74 - an omelet filled with Jack cheese, bacon, avocado, green onions, and tomato (minus the tomato for me). It was delicious, and if you ever make omelets at home, I highly recommend using these ingredients! For dinner, we headed to Benihana, where I had a coupon for a free meal on my birthday. That, too, was excellent and a very special treat, since places like Benihana aren't really in our food budget. :) It's always a fun experience to eat there, as they prepare your meal right in front of you. And James and I learned some very, um, interesting things as we had dinner, as there were five other ladies at our table, all of whom were either lawyers or currently in law school.

We were blessed to have one of the elders from church babysit Hannah while we were at dinner. His wife was sick, so it was just him and Hannah. Hannah likes just about everyone she meets (almost...), but there are some people with whom she has a natural attachment. This man is one of those people. There have been a couple times she has seen him at church (she didn't really know him very well at the time), where she walked right up to him and put her arms up for him to pick her up. :) From what we heard, they had a lot of fun, and we are so thankful for his servant's heart in giving up a Friday night to come play with our little girl!

Let me just say that my husband cracks me up. I had let him know all week that I could get the wrapping paper for him to wrap my presents (I knew he had gotten me presents, because he had been asking me to update my Amazon wish list and make sure everything was properly prioritized :) and I was there when he ordered it and when the package came). Anyway, he never asked for the wrapping paper, but still managed to "wrap" my present. If I tried to explain it to you, you might not believe me, so I'll let you see for yourself:

And what was inside, er, underneath the wrapping paper:Ok, so everyone knows that it's taboo to buy this sort of thing for your wife on her birthday, or any holiday for that matter. Well, I guess I'm not like most women, because these types of gifts absolutely THRILL me!! Seriously, I'm not joking! I've been wanting a cast iron skillet, and I can't wait to use it!!!

Now for the second part of the title: My Husband's Winnings. Last night, some friends of ours hosted a Tripoley tournament. There were 24 people in the tournament, and the buy-in for the tournament was a $5 gift card. Well, my amazing, card-playing husband ended up getting first place and got to take home 12 of those gift cards!! That was very exciting, and now we have some date "money" for a while! :) I think some sort of tournament of this nature might be necessary for the Parker family vacation this summer!

I'm so proud of him!!

And now for the part of the post that can be expected in just about any post I write: the Hannah part. She keeps us on our toes as to what she is going to do or say next. She now refers to her baby cousin, Linnea, as "Nay-nay" and it is absolutely adorable! Especially when she saw her at church this morning and ran up to her and said, "Nay-nay!!" unprompted. She's a polite little girl, saying "Teas" (please) when she wants something and "Tank you" (thank you) when you give her something. She is not polite on the phone when talking to Aunt Kristin, however. She definitely takes control of the conversation and doesn't let Aunt Kristin get a word in - at all! :) Hehe...

She has such an excitement for life that is contagious. Almost every morning is just as exciting as Christmas morning in her eyes. She gets so excited when she sees her toys in the morning and excitedly exclaims, "Oh wow! Wow!" It's as if she's never seen a toy in her life. Of course, her favorite toys are still not actually toys. For example:She's been carrying around this Benihana bag all weekend.

...and...The possibilities with a pack of diapers are endless: seat, platform on which to stand, a push toy, something on which to pile all your other toys, etc. There were a couple of times, I was about to go put it away, but then decided not to just yet, since she was having so much fun with it.

Here she is running to get the camera. That's one of her new favorite games: Let's see if I can get the camera from Mommy when she's trying to take my picture. Oh, and her awesome t-shirt is from her Pichura cousins - thank you!

Hannah just recently figured out how to crawl under the coffee table. You may think 18 months is a big late for that, but she actually avoided attempting this feat for a very good reason. Our coffee table is has wooden ledges that hang down, making it quite easy to bonk one's head. She knew that she had to army crawl in order to get from one side to another, and successfully made it without hitting her precious little head! And she's very proud of herself, too!

We apparently need to find her a little chair to sit on. In the meantime, however, she's found something that is the perfect height to sit on and read books.

Hannah's just a big ham. I don't know what the expression on her face is for, but you can see how she likes to eat her breakfast: pile it all on top of her cup. Why? I have no clue, you'll have to ask her.