Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! Here's a great video of what Easter is all about:


I loved Elder Holland's talk at conference last week!

And here are some pictures of our Easter fun:

Decorating eggs
get ready...

get set...

GO!

ANGER! She didn't like it when I moved some of the really messy stuff out of her reach.

Happy again!

Here's her special egg. After splashing around and "stir stir stir"ing in the dye, we got her her own bowl of water (which soon turned blue from her egg and hands) and she happily dropped her egg in there again and again

Having dropped her egg enough times, it cracked plenty, and when we peeled it it turned out to have it's own cool pattern:

I think her hands got dyed more than the eggs did

And so did mine.

Here are some of the finished products:

Rachel's Easter egg hunt our back yard:

As soon as she got a few eggs in her basket she would turn it upside down and shake it until they had all fallen back out.

Rachel's Easter basket:

Grandparents' visit

Jacob's mom and dad came down for a few days this week and we had lots of fun. We got to go to the Titan Missile Museum and to the Pima Air and Space Museum with them which were both really cool. We also got to color Easter eggs and Jake and I went on a date while Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with Rachel (we found a new restaurant that has TASTY empanadas! Mmmmm!).
Here are some pictures from our adventures (egg pictures to follow in another post):

Rachel wearing Grandma's curlers

Tickle, tickle!

Reading with Grandma and Grandpa

Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall!

Titan Missile Museum
on the way there-whenever she's wearing her sunglasses she declares herself "coo" (cool).

The Titan missile (one of 3 during the cold war designed to carry a nuclear bomb as payback if the U.S. got hit by one)

Rachel enjoying her lollipop after the hour-long tour (which she only lasted maybe half that time).

Pima Air and Space Museum

Rachel and Grandma as pilot/co-pilot

The SR-71 (an invisible plane when it's on the move)

WWII barracks and lots of airplanes

Cool girl

So, our heads are not positioned the right way...oh well.

Our budding pilot

We had lots of fun! Thanks for coming to visit, Grandma and Grandpa!

homemade food

So this week has turned out to be a week of cooking. Yes, I actually did more than just dinners (though I skipped a few nights of cooking dinner). Here are my masterpieces:

Homemade pita bread-actually pretty easy and tasty

(the white spots are flour, not mold)

Homemade yogurt-First time ever making it and it actually was really fast to make and pretty easy. And not nearly as sour as store-bought plain yogurt.

And the yogurt tastes pretty darn good with....

homemade granola. Also a first. I learned how to make yogurt and granola at enrichment this week and decided to try them both out because they seemed so easy. And they are. And this granola is mmm mmm SO good.

And I fed my child occasionally during the week, too. :)

Wheels on the bus

Here's a quick video of Rachel. She usually does better with the songs, but of course whenever the video camera is out, she gets distracted by it.

Cheeseball

Okay, so this month I've been a slacker about posting updates. Sorry. Here are a few pictures from Sunday.
On Sunday I was sitting on the couch reading and Rachel came over to me and put her hand on my leg. When I looked up from my reading a half a minute later, she had climbed into this box that holds her toys. What fun for her! Rachel has taken to being quite the cheesy smiler.

She is such a silly kid. And lots of fun. She is saying so many words these days. If we ask her to say something, she usually tries and does a decent job. She can say some of her aunts and uncles names, now too: Nana (Savannah-or banana, depending on what she's talking about), Todd, Mark, Aa-ee (Ashley), and Doo (Andrew). We're working on the rest of you, so be patient. :)

March Madness

March Madness is here! In so many different ways. Here's a few things we've been doing lately to keep busy.

Last week I had the Beehives (12-13 year-old girls from church) over for a sleepover at my house. Only 2 made it, but we had lots of fun. We worked on Personal Progress for a little while, then played Boggle, then they stayed up watching Madagascar 2 and Mulan while I went to sleep. In the morning we got up and made animal pancakes. Of course I forgot to get any pictures of the girls, but here are some of our creations:

Rachel has been really in to "helping" with the cooking. Anytime I'm at the counter doing anything she wants to come "help." Here's one of her helpful days making a salad for dinner. Yes she is holding that green knife. At least I only let her play with plastic knives, right? And that scratch on her nose came from diving into the garage. She did it again yesterday, only landed on her forehead this time. One of these days she'll realize that step is twice as big as the step out the front door. I hope.

Yesterday I got out our 3 Easter decorations to make our house feel more spring-y. Rachel got a hold of this bunny bag that had Easter grass in it and dumped it out all over the floor. After bringing half a roll of toilet paper and some fake flowers into the front room to help decorate.

And now the real March Madness begins. Woohoo! Basketball overload here we come!
You are all invite to join my ESPN group if you want to post a bracket to see if you can beat me. The group name is Buddies and the password is Colette. I think this link will get you to the page to the group. Good luck.

Sunday fun

Here's our latest attempt at an impromptu family photo after church on Sunday:

We put the camera by the TV and turned on Baby Einstein to try to get Rachel looking in approximately the right direction. :)

Sunday afternoon after church we were hanging out and we finally remembered to get out the camcorder to try to get some of Rachel's talking on video. Here is a part of what we got. Jake turned the viewfinder around for Rachel to see herself right where this clip starts, and she, of course, liked that. She thinks she's the coolest person in the world to look at. :) And sorry if Rachel shows off a little too much at the end. :)

Oops. I fixed it so now the video should be viewable. Sorry about that.