It's a...

GIRL!... Probably.
Monday we went in for the standard sonogram to check out the baby and make sure everything is as it should be. The baby has two arms, two legs, a good brain, and all the other parts it's supposed to. But was a little stubborn about cooperating with the doctor to find out the gender. In the end the doctor's pretty sure it's a girl, but said, "Don't throw away any receipts for baby clothes." She'll check again at my next appointment just to confirm. But until then we'll go on the assumption that we're having another girl.
Rachel is very happy to be having a little sister. When I came home from the ultrasound I asked her if she wanted a little brother or a little sister. She responded, "A little sister, because I'm a sister, too." She likes telling everyone that she's a big sister, even though she's got several more months before that's technically true. So anyway, she was very happy to hear that the baby in mommy's tummy is a baby sister for her. She'll be a great big sis.

Girls Camp

I just wrote a big long thing, then tried to post and Picasa just gave me an error message and lost everything that I wrote. :P
So, in short, Girls Camp was great. I got to know lots of great girls and leaders from all throughout the stake and had a great time. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with the girls from my ward, too, since I've been missing that since getting released from my ward calling a few months ago. Here's most of our ward after the Battle of the Bishops:Some of the week's highlights include helping with the rappelling and zipline, though my growing belly kept me from doing anything but helping facilitate the fun. We also had some great night programs, including a great play about Esther, some really great skits put on by the girls. We were able to get together with all the ward YW presidents and the stake YW presidency to chat for a while on Friday and that was really great. These women are wonderful!

It was nice to get home and see my family and sleep for 13+ hours when the week was over, but I am so glad I got to go up for the week. Even if I did leave my poor, sick child at home for Jake and my parents to handle (thanks so much for all your help, by the way). Rachel was starting her 3rd day of an unexplained fever and had been up every half hour all night the night before I left to head up the mountain. I was a bit worried leaving her, but it turned out to be a 5 day virus that just had to run its course and she was fine in the end. I got to enjoy Girls Camp, and Jacob got to be Superdad and gain valuable experience in nursing. ;)

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Jacob! Rachel and I love you lots! Thanks for being such a great daddy.

Jake cooking dinner on Father's Day on his fancy shmancy new grill. Yum yum!

And for being such a good dad he now gets to get a week of solo parenting as I abandon him and Rachel for a fun week at Girls' Camp. Um, I mean as I go to fulfill my responsibilities in my calling, leaving Rachel in his capable hands (with the help of my mom and dad--thanks for helping out!). I'm looking forward to a fun week, but I'll miss my two favorite people LOTS while I'm gone. Love you guys!

Dress up

This week Rachel has been really into getting dressed. And getting dressed up. Using whatever clothing she finds, wherever it suits her fancy:

She saw one of my maternity shirts, and wanted to wear it as a dress. Who cares if it's too big for me, let alone for her.

I kind of think she looks like she's wearing a kimono here:

Some shirts Rachel has a really hard time getting on or off. The other day it was about every five minutes I heard cries of frustration coming from her room and she was either taking off an outfit, or trying to get a new one on. This screaming at 5 minute intervals went on for about an hour until dinner was ready.

With her newfound love of dressing up when we were at Walgreens a couple of days ago I decided to get her some cheap princess gear: a crown, earrings, necklace, ring, and dress up shoes (which have NO traction whatsoever). She LOVES them.
Here's our little princess all ready for swimming lessons yesterday:

Okay, maybe not ALL ready--she didn't have her sunscreen on yet. Thankfully she agreed to take the princess gear off for the pool.

And today when we went grocery shopping:

It was actually pretty nice that she insisted on wearing her "dancing flip flops" as she calls them. I told her if she wore them she had to stay in the cart the WHOLE time we were at the store because the floor was too slippery for those shoes. She did so without complaint. Woohoo! Hopefully she wears her dancing flip flops everytime we go grocery shopping from now on.

As I was cleaning today I remembered a bag of costume accesories a friend gave me for my birthday back in college. Rachel went to town with the leis and the feather boa and all the other great surprises she found.

In this picture she's also wearing long sleeved pjs that are too small for her, and bright blue high heels that are much too big for her. And butterfly/fairy wings along with her trusty fireman hat. This girl is nothing if not fashionable. :)

As a side note, this afternoon after watching Dora the Explorer's Shy Rainbow for the 5th time since we got it at the library Monday, Rachel held up her blue lei and told me, "This is a soo." I tried to figure out what she was saying, but she got frustrated with repeating it and gave up.
A little while later she grabbed her red lei and told me, "This one is rojo." Ah ha! I pointed to the blue one and asked, "what about that one?" "Azul." Not a soo. This kid knows her colors in Spanish now. At least some. I asked her how to say green: "verde." Right. I asked her about yellow. "I don't know." So I told her "amarillo" with an american accent, figuring she'd say it like that. She said, "No, that's not yellow." So I tried again with the correct accent. She immediately said, "Yeah! Amadillo." (amadeeyo) She doesn't quite have the spanish R down yet. :) But still, that's pretty good.

A few quick memories to record

At bedtime: Rachel requested that I sing Rock-a-bye baby to her.
Me: Rock a bye baby in the--
Rachel: I'm not a baby!
Me: Fine. Rock a bye Rachel in the treetops. When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
R: I don't sleep in a cradle! I sleep in a big girl bed!
Me: Well, maybe this song isn't a good song for you, then.
R: Yes it is.
So I sang the modified, Rachel version.

At breakfast:
Me: Okay, come get in your chair, kiddo.
R: I'm not a kiddo! I'm a sweetie!
(she now reminds me of this everytime I forget and accidentally call her kiddo)

A little while after Jake got home from cub scouts:
R: Well, I'll see you later. I'll miss you.
Me: Okay. See you later. Where are you going?
R: I'm off to cub scouts. Be good. See you when I get home.
Jake: Where're you goin'?
R: I'm just goin' to drive to cub scouts. I'll miss you. I'll miss you so much!
She made her way to the garage, which we hadn't closed yet, and I hit the button to close it before she made her getaway.
R: Oh no! I was going to drive to cub scouts! (dramatically) What ever am I going to do?
I don't know where she comes up with some of her phrases. They are so funny sometimes. She hears something once and it just sticks in her head. I really should try to remember them more often-some are way better than "what ever am I going to do?" and just sound so funny coming from a 2-year-0ld.
I grabbed her tricycle and suggested: Why don't you drive this to cub scouts?
R: But it's just a bike! You don't drive it, you ride it!
After correcting me, she was perfectly content to ride it to cub scouts, which apparently was taking place in the master bathroom.

Garden explosion

I returned from our Georgia/Provo trip to find our garden had exploded in the week I was gone. We have everything on a drip system, thankfully, otherwise everything would die quickly when I forgot to water them (much like our potted plants--I've pretty much given up on potted plants except geraniums, ferns, and pansies which are more forgiving when I miss a day or 4). It seemed like every plant grew at least a foot, some more, while we were gone.

We actually have cobs of corn growing-very exciting. This is my first time ever doing corn, so I don't know when to harvest, but we'll experiment. Another nice benefit of the corn is that the lettuce I planted directly east of the corn lasted a little longer before going to seed thanks to the shade provided from the afternoon sun.

I found about 6 or 8 yellow squash ready to go when I got home. Some way too big and overgrown to be good, but they're producing really fast, along with the zucchini that's planted next to it. I'm going to have to find some new squash recipes. There are flowers on most of the other squash (acorn, butternut, cucumber) and tomatoes, so I'm looking forward to some of those soon (at least the cucumbers and tomatoes). I also have about 15 red bell peppers waiting to be harvested. If anyone around here wants a few, come and get 'em!
I'm excited to see how much we get from our newly expanded garden this year. Yay for homegrown veggies!

Monday in Provo

Monday morning we headed over to my old roommate, Ellie's house. They just recently moved back to Orem and the last time I'd seen them Ellie was pregnant with Simon who turns 4 this month. We had some tasty french toast and got to meet their chickens and catch up a little bit. It was lots of fun.

Simon wasn't big on taking pictures, but I snapped one without his consent when he gave Rachel a good-bye high five. They had some fun playing legos and digging for worms to feed to the chickens. Phineus (Phin), their one-year-old was napping during picture-taking time.

After hanging out with Nate and Ellie we headed over to the Orem Cemetary and met up with the big Campbell clan to visit Jake's grandma's grave. I didn't recognize most of the people there, but it was fun.

Before joining Jake's family we never really did anything for Memorial Day-it was just another holiday like Labor Day. Since getting married we've spent most of our married Memorial Days up in Utah and the Campbells always go visit family graves. It actually gives meaning to the day. Rachel had a lot of fun chasing around 2nd cousins she'd never met, and playing with the pinwheels that were put around some of the graves.

We had some rousing games of Uno in the afternoon, then it was time to head home. It was kind of a whirlwind week of traveling across the country and living out of a suitcase, but it was worth it. And it was nice to be back home, too. Unfortunately, I think I ate a bad egg roll for dinner at the airport, and woke up several times in the night to get rid of what I think was food poisoning. At least I was healthy for all the traveling. If I had to get sick, I'm glad it waited until I got home. And recooperating from that fun night gave me time today to catch up on all these blog posts. :)

Sunday in Provo

Saturday night Rachel woke up with a fever. She had no other symptoms, but was burning up and shivering. It lasted the rest of the night and most of Sunday, so we kept her home from church. Luckily there were no other symptoms, and I'm guessing it was mostly due to her severe sleep depravation. She took 2 good naps that day, which she hasn't done for probably a year. In between naps and doses of Tylenol we did a lot of reading. Especially on her new favorite place at Grandma's house: the top of the bunk bed. She can climb up all by herself and get down mostly by herself.

By the afternoon Rachel had most of her energy back. We all enjoyed a nice Sunday dinner outside in some beautiful weather.

Lenalee posed for a nice little photo shoot. She's a cutie!

We even got our own family photo taken- not quite professional, but good enough for us. This was the first time everyone has been together since before Cari's mission.

And here's Rachel with Grandma and Grandpa Campbell:

Saturday in Provo

From Georgia we flew to Utah to visit Jake's family in Provo. Jake flew up from Tucson to meet us there. Friday night Rachel and I drove up to Atlanta to stay in a hotel so we wouldn't have to leave Warner Robins at 3 am to make our flight (which would be midnight Tucson time). Rachel was SOOOOO excited to be in a hotel room that she had a hard time falling asleep. Then we had to get up a little after 5 am to make our flight, so she got only 5 or 6 hours of sleep instead of her usual 10+ hours. She fell asleep right away on the plane, but only slept for less than an hour. She fell asleep again on the way home from the airport, but we had family pictures right away, so she couldn't continue her nap. She fell asleep again almost immediately when we got in the car to go to Walmart and visit my aunt and uncle later in the afternoon. All in all I think she got maybe 7 hours of sleep compared to her usual 12 hours with a nap. Luckily she was still pretty happy for most of the day.

After family pictures we went back to Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's house and had a BBQ. Yum!

Uncle Jesse was the chef and grilled some tasty chow. Rachel pretended to help for a few minutes.

Rachel's favorite thing was playing in the back yard with all the fun aunts and uncles and cool things to play with.

Aunt Cari gave her a ride in this toy box.

Sitting next to Aunt Lisa:

Lenalee is a cutie. She turns 1 in a couple of weeks and it was fun to enjoy her budding personality.

Aunt Heidi and Uncle Andrew are excited to have a baby on the way just a couple of months after our baby is due. It should be fun to have cousins so close in age.

Rachel is getting to be a decent ball player. If the pitcher aims the ball just right.

Rachel and Ylena had fun with the "train tracks" they built out of the waffle blocks.

We ended the day with an early bedtime for Rachel and games for the rest of us. It was a fun day all around.

Baby Mckenzie

On May 20th Mckenzie Reagan Knight was born. I got to go out to Georgia last week for about 5 days to help out with the new baby and visit Justin and Marie. Rachel came, too, and it was a lot of fun. Mckenzie is a cutie. I took lots and lots of pictures. But only got 2 of me with Mckenzie.

Rachel loves being a big cousin and is getting excited to be a big sister. She often asks, "Is the new baby here yet?" She was very attentive to Mckenzie and did pretty good with not getting all the attention she's used to. She's actually a lot better with little babies than with older babies--once they get mobile they become a threat and might steal her toys, so she fights back. Luckily she could tell that Mckenzie was no threat and even offered to share her beloved Little Ponies and other toys. Mckenzie wasn't really interested, though.

Here's the proud papa:

And the loving mama:

And the happy family:

We had a lovely walk to enjoy the beautiful Georgia scenery. Rachel got tired of walking, so Uncle Justin carried her for a while.

I'm glad we got to go out to visit. Hopefully we'll see them out Tucson to visit in the not-to-distant future (hint, hint! We don't want the next time we see her to be when she's 2!).