What a Week!

So the week starting on January 31st was crazy and an emotional roller coaster.

First off, Monday morning Aaron comes up stairs and wakes me up to tell me that my car was stolen.  I guess when he went out to go to work, the garage door was open and my car was gone.  So we spent the day talking to the police, the insurance, having the house rekeyed because my keys were in my car and my house keys were with my car keys, having the garage door code changed and trying not to freak the kids out too much.  I have to admit that losing the car wasn't that bad, not being able to sleep and having scared kids because someone broke into our house was bad.

Tuesday, we went and test drove minivans and I decided that maybe having your car stolen wasn't so bad.  The only thing is that our insurance makes you wait two weeks to get a check to buy a new car. They want to make sure your car isn't coming back.

Wednesday was Sterling's birthday.  He turned 5.  I can't believe my baby is 5.  For Sterling's birthday we went to the Arizona Museum of Natural History with Halee and her kids.  The museum had everything that Sterling is interested in right now.  They had dinosaurs, a mine tour, and even gold panning. 

 Playing on a dinosaur bone.

 They had this fun room where kids could color, do rubbings and dig for dinosaur bones.

 Digging for dinosaur bones.

 They had a build your own dinosaur.  All of the parts could be attached by velcro.  I thought it was cool.

 In a meteor.

 They had this green screen the kids could stand in front of and then they would appear in the movie that was playing.

 Avalon pole dancing in a cell from the old territorial jail.

 Gold panning in the courtyard behind the museum.

After an exciting morning at the museum, we took the kids to McDonalds.  It was pretty crazy.  Everyone wanted a different toy or they dropped their food on the floor or needed something else.  The kids had a great time playing together in the play area, though.

 Don't you love this little body.

 Sterling's birthday night, we had pizza and then Sterling opened presents.  He was nice enough to let Avalon help him open his presents.  He got a lot of fun stuff.

 After opening presents we had cake and ice cream.

Saturday we had a birthday party for Sterling.  It was a lot of fun.  We had 21 kids at the party.  They jumped on the trampoline with balloons.  They played pin the tail on the donkey and they played the game where you tie balloons on to the kids' legs and then they try to pop each others balloons.  The problem with this game is that the kids didn't weigh enough to pop the balloons.  For lunch we had pizza and cake and then the kids beat a pinata into submission. 

 The kids group stomped the turtle pinata after it was empty.  It was a little disturbing.

I had to take pictures of Truman to preserve this adorable physique. Aaron thinks he looks like the Michelin Man.

On Sunday the police found my car.  It was in pretty good shape.  The only things that were missing were the kids DVD player and TVs, our Garmin, Aaron's scriptures, Aaron's primary lesson manual and Truman's shot record.  Oh and of course the car keys and the kids car seats.  I have to admit that I was a little disappointed.  I was kind of looking forward to getting a mini-van after test driving them.  The insurance company is being very helpful and is taking car of all of the repairs, detailing the car and getting it re-keyed. 

The cops thought that the people who stole the car were probably going to come back for it, because they locked it up and left it in an apartment complex parking lot.  I have to admit that the other day there were some weird looking guys parked in front of our house when we got home from the store.  They watched us pull into the garage and then left and it really freaked me out.  I hope they catch these guys soon.

Aaron had already bought the kids new car seats and Sterling was complaining that he hated his car seat.  So, yesterday, I added Spiderman to Sterling's car seat and Princesses to Avalon's car seat.  I was sure my sewing machine was going to break, but it miraculously didn't.